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They were strictly forbidden to rouse him earlier, except in case of fire. They wished to see the officer, but that also was impossible, although he lodged in the inn. Monsieur Follenvie alone was authorized to interview him on civil matters. So they waited. The women returned to their rooms, and occupied themselves with trivial matters.
He was immediately surrounded and questioned, but could only repeat, three or four times in succession, and without variation, the words: "The officer said to me, just like this: 'Monsieur Follenvie, you will forbid them to harness up the coach for those travellers to-morrow. They are not to start without an order from me. You hear? That is sufficient." Then they asked to see the officer.
Cornudet, listening to them, smiled like a man who holds the keys of destiny in his hands. His pipe perfumed the whole kitchen. As the clock struck ten, Monsieur Follenvie appeared.
They dined, however, as soon as the first indignant outburst had subsided; but they spoke little and thought much. The ladies went to bed early; and the men, having lighted their pipes, proposed a game of ecarte, in which Monsieur Follenvie was invited to join, the travellers hoping to question him skillfully as to the best means of vanquishing the officer's obduracy.
They were just about to take their seats at table when the innkeeper appeared in person. He was a former horse dealer a large, asthmatic individual, always wheezing, coughing, and clearing his throat. Follenvie was his patronymic. He called: "Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset?" Boule de Suif started, and turned round. "That is my name."
They were about to sit down to dinner when Monsieur Follenvie appeared, and in his grating voice announced: "The Prussian officer sends to ask Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset if she has changed her mind yet." Boule de Suif stood still, pale as death.
Loiseau had an inspiration: he suggested that they should propose to the officer to keep Boule de Suif only and let the others go. Mr. Follenvie undertook again to convey the message, but he came down almost immediately. The German, who knew human nature, had kicked him out of his room. He meant to keep everybody as long as his wishes had not been complied with.
But soon there arose from some remote part it might easily have been either cellar or attic a stertorous, monotonous, regular snoring, a dull, prolonged rumbling, varied by tremors like those of a boiler under pressure of steam. Monsieur Follenvie had gone to sleep.
But soon there arose from somewhere, from some indeterminate direction, which might have been the cellar as well as the attic, a powerful monotonous snore, a deep and prolonged noise, like the throbbing of a boiler under pressure Mr. Follenvie was sleeping.
These were all together down each side of a long passage ending in a door with ground glass panels. At last, just as they were sitting down to table, the innkeeper himself appeared. He was a former horse-dealer, a stout asthmatic man with perpetual wheezings and blowings and rattlings of phlegm in his throat. His father had transmitted to him the name of Follenvie.
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