along like crocodiles on their short paws; then all my chairs,
bounding like goats, and the little foot-stools, hopping like

rabbits.
Oh! what a sensation! I slunk back into a clump of bushes where I

remained crouched up, watching, meanwhile, my furniture defile
past--for everything walked away, the one behind the other,

briskly or slowly, according to its weight or size. My piano, my
grand piano, bounded past with the gallop of a horse and a murmur

of music in its sides; the smaller articles slid along the gravel
like snails, my brushes, crystal, cups and saucers, which

glistened in the moonlight. I saw my writing desk appear, a rare
curiosity of the last century, which contained all the letters I

had ever received, all the history of my heart, an old history
from which I have suffered so much! Besides, there were inside of

it a great many cherished photographs.
Suddenly--I no longer had any fear--I threw myself on it, seized

it as one would seize a thief, as one would seize a wife about to
run away; but it pursued its irresistible course, and despite my

efforts and despite my anger, I could not even retard its pace.
As I was resisting in desperation that insuperable force, I was

thrown to the ground. It then rolled me over, trailed me along
the gravel, and the rest of my furniture, which followed it,

began to march over me, tramping on my legs and injuring them.
When I loosed my hold, other articles had passed over my body,

just as a charge of cavalry does over the body of a dismounted
soldier.

Seized at last with terror, I succeeded in dragging myself out of
the main avenue, and in concealing myself again among the

shrubbery, so as to watch the disappearance of the most cherished
objects, the smallest, the least striking, the least unknown

which had once belonged to me.
I then heard, in the distance, noises which came from my

apartments, which sounded now as if the house were empty, a loud
noise of shutting of doors. They were being slammed from top to

bottom of my dwelling, even the door which I had just opened
myself unconsciously, and which had closed of itself, when the

last thing had taken its departure. I took flight also, running
toward the city, and only regained my self-composure, on reaching

the boulevards, where I met belated people. I rang the bell of a
hotel were I was known. I had knocked the dust off my clothes

with my hands, and I told the porter that I had lost my bunch of
keys, which included also that to the kitchen garden, where my

servants slept in a house standing by itself, on the other side
of the wall of the inclosure which protected my fruits and

vegetables from the raids of marauders.
I covered myself up to the eyes in the bed which was assigned to

me, but could not sleep; and I waited for the dawn listening to
the throbbing of my heart. I had given orders that my servants

were to be summoned to the hotel at daybreak, and my valet de
chambre knocked at my door at seven o'clock in the morning.

His countenance bore a woeful look.
"A great misfortune has happened during the night, Monsieur,"

said he.
"What is it?"

"Somebody has stolen the whole of Monsieur's furniture, all,
everything, even to the smallest articles."

This news pleased me. Why? Who knows? I was complete master of
myself, bent on dissimulating, on telling no one of anything I

had seen; determined on concealing and in burying in my heart of
hearts a terrible secret. I responded:

"They must then be the same people who have stolen my keys. The
police must be informed immediately. I am going to get up, and I

will join you in a few moments."
The investigation into the circumstances under which the robbery

might have been committed lasted for five months. Nothing was
found, not even the smallest of my knickknacks, nor the least

trace of the thieves. Good gracious! If I had only told them what
I knew--If I had said--I should have been locked up--I, not the

thieves--for I was the only person who had seen everything from
the first.

Yes! but I knew how to keep silence. I shall never refurnish my
house. That were indeed useless. The same thing would happen

again. I had no desire even to re-enter the house, and I did not
re-enter it; I never visited it again. I moved to Paris, to the

hotel, and consulted doctors in regard to the condition of my
nerves, which had disquieted me a good deal ever since that awful

night.
They advised me to travel, and I followed their counsel.

II.
I began by making an excursion into Italy. The sunshine did me

much good. For six months I wandered about from Genoa to Venice,
from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Rome, from Rome to

Naples. Then I traveled over Sicily, a country celebrated for its
scenery and its monuments, relics left by the Greeks and the

Normans. Passing over into Africa, I traversed at my ease that
immense desert, yellow and tranquil, in which camels, gazelles,

and Arab vagabonds roam about--where, in the rare and transparent
atmosphere, there hover no vague hauntings, where there is never

any night, but always day.
I returned to France by Marseilles, and in spite of all its

Provencal gaiety, the diminished clearness of the sky made me
sad. I experienced, in returning to the Continent, the peculiar

sensation of an illness which I believed had been cured, and a
dull pain which predicted that the seeds of the disease had not

been eradicated.
I then returned to Paris. At the end of a month I was very

dejected. It was in the autumn, and I determined to make, before
winter came, an excursion through Normandy, a country with which

I was unacquainted.
I began my journey, in the best of spirits, at Rouen, and for

eight days I wandered about, passive, ravished, and enthusiastic,
in that ancient city, that astonishing museum of extraordinary

Gothic monuments.
But one afternoon, about four o'clock, as I was sauntering slowly

through a seemingly unattractive street, by which there ran a
stream as black as the ink called "Eau de Robec," my attention,

fixed for the moment on the quaint, antique appearance of some of
the houses, was suddenly attracted by the view of a series of

second-hand furniture shops, which followed one another, door
after door.

Ah! they had carefully chosen their locality, these sordid
traffickers in antiquities, in that quaint little street,

overlooking the sinisterstream of water, under those tile and
slate-pointed roofs on which still grinned the vanes of bygone

days.
At the end of these grim storehouses you saw piled up sculptured

chests, Rouen, Sevres, and Moustier's pottery, painted statues,
others of oak, Christs, Virgins, Saints, church ornaments,

chasubles, capes, even sacred vases, and an old gilded wooden
tabernacle, where a god had hidden himself away. What singular

caverns there are in those lofty houses, crowded with objects of
every description, where the existence of things seems to be

ended, things which have survived their original possessors,
their century, their times, their fashions, in order to be bought

as curiosities by new generations.
My affection for antiques was awakened in that city of

antiquaries. I went from shop to shop, crossing in two strides
the rotten four plank bridges thrown over the nauseous current

of the "Eau de Robec."
Heaven protect me! What a shock! At the end of a vault, which was

crowded with articles of every description and which seemed to be