TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

when I felt the cobbled street give way to a dirt road, I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come, you can’t feel calm in darkness like that, I felt awkward, but what choice did I have, I had to do the work I accepted, whatever the cost, you have toput upwith things, that’s what I thought, and he remained silent, he didn’t say anythingmore tomeuntil wearrived at theentrance to thevillage, then he opened the shutters again and the sun really hit me, it must have beennoon, thecoach stopped all of a sudden, hewaited for the right moment and indicated with his arm for me to open the door, I opened it, and he indicated with his arm again, so I got out, and him after me, and when I moved away a little he turned to the coachman, who stooped down, he whispered something to him, I couldn’t hear what he said, and after that took a tiny box out of his pocket, I don’t know what could fit in it at all, and the coachman laughed loudlyand, I’d say, rudely, before setting off back, I assume to Paris, while we started to walk to that country house, later the ladies, my benefactresses, told me it was in Rue de l’Lardenay, and when we arrived in front of that two-story house he told me to go round and wait for him on the other side while he entered through the front door, I waited for him there, it took a little while, but then he opened the scratched green door for the domestics and let me in, and I asked myself again if there was going to be much work for me, if I’d be able to straighten up the whole house before nightfall, because I wanted to return to Paris as soon as possible, that’s what I thought as we walked across the courtyard, when we entered the house he showed mewe’d be going up the stairs, and I noticed straightaway they weren’t exactly the cleanest, he then led me into a rather large room on the upper floor that had two beds and a beautiful canopy, but here too the windows were covered with a dark curtain, the room lay in a strange semidarkness, so I imagined 104 Aleksandar Bečanović