There was an hour yet before dinner and she wandered out into the corridors to explore the _citadelle_. A soldier stood upon a ladder changing the bulb of an electric light.
Catching sight of her he hurried from his ladder, and passing her with a stiff face, saluted, and disappeared.
Soon she began to think that this was the busy hour in the fortress: the corridors rustled gently, the unformed whispering of voices echoed behind her. The walls seemed to open at a dozen spots as she walked on, and little men with bright, grave faces hurried past her about their duties.
"Perhaps they are changing the guard...."
Yet a face which had already passed her three times began to impress its features upon her, and she realised suddenly that it was curiosity, not duty, that called the soldiers from their burrows. The news was spreading, for out of the gloom ahead fresh parties of onlookers appeared, paused disconcerted as she wished them "good evening," nodded or saluted her in haste, then hurried by.
An officer with grizzled hair stepped into the passage from a doorway. As she neared him she saw he wore the badges of a commandant.
"Who is this?" he asked in a low voice of the soldier who followed at his heels.
"J'n'en sais rien, mon commandant," The soldier stiffened as a watch-dog who sees a cat.
Fanny hastened nearer. "I drive a Russian officer," she explained. "I hope I have your permission to stay here."
"Ah!" exclaimed the officer, looking at her in surprise. "Colonel Dellahousse told me 'a driver'; he did not add that the driver was a lady. Where have they put you? Not in the cubicles of the _officiers de passage?_ No, no, that must be changed, that won't do. Come, you shall sleep in the room next to the bishop's room, as he is absent. It is in my corridor."
Fanny followed him, and noticed that the corridor was now clear of soldiers. The commandant paused before a door decorated with flags and led her into another corridor lined with cubicles much larger than those she had seen at first.
The soldier took his bunch of keys and opened the door.
"Now fetch mademoiselle's effects from the other corridor. Which number was your room, mademoiselle?"
"Twenty-two. But I can fetch them ... I have really nothing."