I got my appointment through an aunt, for a place had fallen vacant: the previous captain, Fresleven, the gentlest creature that ever walked on two legs, had been killed in a quarrel over two black hens. In the city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre I found the Company's offices behind an archway. In the outer room two women knitted black wool. The old one sat on a chair, flat-footed, with a cat on her lap, and glanced up at me over her spectacles with an unconcerned wisdom. The young one scurried about, introducing. I thought of them afterwards, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting wool as for a warm pall. A doctor measured my skull and asked whether there had ever been any madness in my family. "Du calme, du calme," he said. "Adieu."