In the first place, I had the amusement
of destroying the vermin I had caught in the felucca. As soon as I had
got clear of these, by means of changing my clothes and linen, I
proceeded to furnish the chamber I had chosen. I made a good
mattress with my waistcoats and shirts; my napkins I converted, by
sewing them together, into sheets; my robe de chamber into a
counterpane; and my cloak into a pillow. I made myself a seat with one
of my trunks laid flat, and a table with the other. I took out some
writing paper and an inkstand, and distributed, in the manner of a
library, a dozen books which I had with me. In a word, I so well
arranged my few movables, that, except curtains and windows, I was
almost as commodiously lodged in this Lazaretto, absolutely empty as
it was, as I had been at the Tennis Court in the Rue Verdelet. My
dinners were served with no small degree of pomp; they were escorted
by two grenadiers with bayonets fixed; the staircase was my
dining-room, the landing-place my table, and the step served me for
a seat; and as soon as my dinner was served up a little bell was
rung to inform me I might sit down to table.
Between my repasts, when I did not either read or write or work at
the furnishing of my apartment, I went to walk in the burying-ground
of the Protestants, which served me as a courtyard. From this place
I ascended to a lanthorn which looked into the harbor, and from
which I could see the ships come in and go out. In this manner I
passed fourteen days, and should have thus passed the whole time of
the quarantine without the least weariness had not M.
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