believed. I was quite happy now, thinking that man was in the

hands of the police.
Two hours later I returned to the office of the police

functionary, who was waiting for me.
"Well, Monsieur," said he, on perceiving me, "we have not been

able to find your man. My agents cannot put their hands on him."
Ah! I felt my heart sinking.

"But you have at least found his house?" I asked.
"Yes, certainly; and what is more, it is now being watched and

guarded until his return. As for him, he has disappeared."
"Disappeared?"

"Yes, disappeared. He ordinarily passes his evenings at the house
of a female neighbor, who is also a furniture broker, a queer

sort of sorceress, the widow Bidoin. She has not seen him this
evening and cannot give any information in regard to him. We must

wait until to-morrow."
I went away. Ah! how sinister the streets of Rouen seemed to me,

now troubled and haunted!
I slept so badly that I had a fit of nightmare every time I went

off to sleep.
As I did not wish to appear too restless or eager, I waited till

ten o'clock the next day before reporting myself to the police.
The merchant had not reappeared. His shop remained closed.

The commissary said to me:
"I have taken all the necessary steps. The court has been made

acquainted with the affair. We shall go together to that shop and
have it opened, and you shall point out to me all that belongs to

you."
We drove there in a cab. Police agents were stationed round the

building; there was a locksmith, too, and the door of the shop
was soon opened.

On entering, I could not discover my wardrobes, my chairs, my
tables; I saw nothing, nothing of that which had furnished my

house, no, nothing, although on the previous evening, I could not
take a step without encountering something that belonged to me.

The chief commissary, much astonished, regarded me at first with
suspicion.

"My God, Monsieur," said I to him, "the disappearance of these
articles of furniture coincides strangely with that of the

merchant."
He laughed.

"That is true. You did wrong in buying and paying for the
articles which were your own property, yesterday. It was that

which gave him the cue."
"What seems to me incomprehensible," I replied, "is that all the

places that were occupied by my furniture are now filled by other
furniture."

"Oh!" responded the commissary, "he has had all night, and has no
doubt been assisted by accomplices. This house must communicate

with its neighbors. But have no fear, Monsieur; I will have the
affair promptly and thoroughly investigated. The brigand shall

not escape us for long, seeing that we are in charge of the den."
* * * * * * *

Ah! My heart, my heart, my poor heart, how it beats!
I remained a fortnight at Rouen. The man did not return. Heavens!

good heavens! That man, what was it that could have frightened
and surprised him!

But, on the sixteenth day, early in the morning, I received from
my gardener, now the keeper of my empty and pillaged house, the

following strange letter:
"MONSIEUR:

"I have the honor to inform Monsieur that something happened, the
evening before last, which nobody can understand, and the police

no more than the rest of us. The whole of the furniture has been
returned, not one piece is missing--everything is in its place,

up to the very smallest article. The house is now the same in
every respect as it was before the robbery took place. It is

enough to make one lose one's head. The thing took place during
the night Friday--Saturday. The roads are dug up as though the

whole fence had been dragged from its place up to the door. The
same thing was observed the day after the disappearance of the

furniture.
"We are anxiously expecting Monsieur, whose very humble and

obedient servant, I am,
PHILLIPE RAUDIN."

"Ah! no, no, ah! never, never, ah! no. I shall never return
there!"

I took the letter to the commissary of police.
"It is a very clever restitution," said he. "Let us bury the

hatchet. We shall nip the man one of these days."
* * * * * * *

But he has never been nipped. No. They have not nipped him, and I
am afraid of him now, as of some ferocious animal that has been

let loose behind me.
Inexplicable! It is inexplicable, this chimera of a moon-struck

skull! We shall never solve or comprehend it. I shall not return
to my former residence. What does it matter to me? I am afraid of

encountering that man again, and I shall not run the risk.
And even if he returns, if he takes possession of his shop, who

is to prove that my furniture was on his premises? There is only
my testimony against him; and I feel that that is not above

suspicion.
Ah! no! This kind of existence has become unendurable. I have not

been able to guard the secret of what I have seen. I could not
continue to live like the rest of the world, with the fear upon

me that those scenes might be re-enacted.
So I have come to consult the doctor who directs this lunatic

asylum, and I have told him everything.
After questioning me for a long time, he said to me:

"Will you consent, Monsieur, to remain here for some time?"
"Most willingly, Monsieur."

"You have some means?"
"Yes, Monsieur."

"Will you have isolated apartments?"
"Yes, Monsieur."

"Would you care to receive any friends?"
"No, Monsieur, no, nobody. The man from Rouen might take it into

his head to pursue me here, to be revenged on me."
* * * * * * *

I have been alone, alone, all, all alone, for three months. I am
growing tranquil by degrees. I have no longer any fears. If the

antiquary should become mad . . . and if he should be brought
into this asylum! Even prisons themselves are not places of

security.
THE DEVIL

The peasant was standing opposite the doctor, by the bedside of
the dying old woman, and she, calmly resigned and quite lucid,

looked at them and listened to their talking. She was going to
die, and she did not rebel at it, for her life was over--she was

ninety-two.
The July sun streamed in at the window and through the open door

and cast its hot flames on to the uneven brown clay floor, which
had been stamped down by four generations of clodhoppers. The

smell of the fields came in also, driven by the brisk wind, and
parched by the noontide heat. The grasshoppers chirped themselves

hoarse, filling the air with their shrill noise, like that of the
wooden crickets which are sold to children at fair time.

The doctor raised his voice and said: "Honore, you cannot leave
your mother in this state; she may die at any moment." And the

peasant, in great distress, replied: "But I must get in my wheat,
for it has been lying on the ground a long time, and the weather

is just right for it; what do you say about it, mother?" And the
dying woman, still possessed by her Norman avariciousness,

replied YES with her eyes and her forehead, and so urged her son
to get in his wheat, and to leave her to die alone. But the

doctor got angry, and stamping his foot he said: "You are no
better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you to do

it. Do you understand? And if you must get in your wheat to-day,
go and fetch Rapet's wife and make her look after your mother. I

WILL have it. And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like
a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear me?"

The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was
tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his keen

love of saving, hesitated, calculated, and stammered out: "How
much does La Rapet charge for attending sick people?"

"How should I know?" the doctor cried. "That depends upon how
long she is wanted for. Settle it with her, by Jove! But I want

her to be here within an hour, do you hear."
So the man made up his mind. "I will go for her," he replied;

"don't get angry, doctor." And the latter left, calling out as he
went: "Take care, you know, for I do not joke when I am angry!"

And as soon as they were alone, the peasant turned to his mother,
and said in a resigned voice: "I will go and fetch La Rapet, as

the man will have it. Don't go off while I am away."
And he went out in his turn.

La Rapet, who was an old washerwoman, watched the dead and the
dying of the neighborhood, and then, as soon as she had sewn her

customers into that linen cloth from which they would emerge no
more, she went and took up her irons to smooth the linen of the

living. Wrinkled like a last year's apple, spiteful, envious,
avaricious with a phenomenal avarice, bent double, as if she had

been broken in half across the loins, by the constantmovement of
the iron over the linen, one might have said that she had a kind

of monstrous and cynicalaffection for a death struggle. She
never spoke of anything but of the people she had seen die, of

the various kinds of deaths at which she had been present, and
she related, with the greatest minuteness, details which were

always the same, just like a sportsman talks of his shots.
When Honore Bontemps entered her cottage, he found her preparing

the starch for the collars of the village women, and he said:
"Good evening; I hope you are pretty well, Mother Rapet."

She turned her head round to look at him and said: "Fairly well,
fairly well, and you?"

"Oh I as for me, I am as well as I could wish, but my mother is
very sick."

"Your mother?"
"Yes, my mother!"

"What's the matter with her?"
"She is going to turn up her toes, that's what's the matter with

her!"
The old woman took her hands out of the water and asked with

sudden sympathy: "Is she as bad as all that?"
"The doctor says she will not last till morning."

"Then she certainly is very bad!" Honore hesitated, for he wanted
to make a few preliminary remarks before coming to his proposal,

but as he could hit upon nothing, he made up his mind suddenly.
"How much are you going to ask to stop with her till the end? You

know that I am not rich, and I cannot even afford to keep a
servant-girl. It is just that which has brought my poor mother to

this state, too much work and fatigue! She used to work for ten,
in spite of her ninety-two years. You don't find any made of that

stuff nowadays!"
La Rapet answered gravely: "There are two prices. Forty sous by

day and three francs by night for the rich, and twenty sous by
day, and forty by night for the others. You shall pay me the

twenty and forty." But the peasant reflected, for he knew his
mother well. He knew how tenacious of life, how vigorous and

unyielding she was. He knew, too, that she might last another
week, in spite of the doctor's opinion, and so he said

resolutely: "No, I would rather you would fix a price until the
end. I will take my chance, one way or the other. The doctor says

• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• female [´fi:meil] a.女(性)的 n.女人 (初中英语单词)
• restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
• previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
• strangely [´streindʒli] ad.奇怪地；陌生地 (初中英语单词)
• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• monsieur [mə´sjə:] n.先生 (初中英语单词)
• promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
• thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
• charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
• keeper [´ki:pə] n.管理人；看守；保管人 (初中英语单词)
• humble [´hʌmbəl] a.谦卑的 vt.贬抑 (初中英语单词)
• residence [´rezidəns] n.居住(期间)；住宅 (初中英语单词)
• existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
• consult [kən´sʌlt] v.商量；磋商；请教 (初中英语单词)
• pursue [pə´sju:] v.追赶；追踪；从事 (初中英语单词)
• peasant [´pezənt] n.农民；庄稼人 (初中英语单词)
• standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
• calmly [´kɑ:mli] ad.平静地；无风浪地 (初中英语单词)
• driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• distress [di´stres] n.痛苦 vt.使苦恼 (初中英语单词)
• forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
• neighborhood [´neibəhud] n.邻居；邻近；附近 (初中英语单词)
• emerge [i´mə:dʒ] vi.出现；显露；暴露 (初中英语单词)
• constant [´kɔnstənt] a.坚定的；坚贞的 (初中英语单词)
• movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
• affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)
• sportsman [´spɔ:tsmən] n.运动员；好运动的人 (初中英语单词)
• cottage [´kɔtidʒ] n.村舍；小屋；小别墅 (初中英语单词)
• sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
• gravely [´greivli] ad.庄重地，严肃地 (初中英语单词)
• ordinarily [´ɔ:dinərili] ad.平常地；普通地 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
• gardener [´gɑ:dnə] n.园艺家；园林工人 (高中英语单词)
• anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
• comprehend [,kɔmpri´hend] vt.了解；领会；包含 (高中英语单词)
• testimony [´testiməni] n.证明；证据；表明 (高中英语单词)
• shrill [ʃril] a.(声音)尖锐的 (高中英语单词)
• monstrous [´mɔnstrəs] a.怪异的；庞大的 (高中英语单词)
• related [ri´leitid] a.叙述的；有联系的 (高中英语单词)
• starch [stɑ:tʃ] n.淀粉 vt.给...上浆 (高中英语单词)
• preliminary [pri´liminəri] a.初步的 n.预赛 (高中英语单词)
• vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
• broker [´brəukə] n.经纪人，掮客 (英语四级单词)
• sinister [´sinistə] a.阴险的；不吉的 (英语四级单词)
• nightmare [´naitmeə] n.梦魇；恶梦 (英语四级单词)
• robbery [´rɔbəri] n.抢劫(案)；盗取 (英语四级单词)
• willingly [´wiliŋli] ad.情愿地，乐意地 (英语四级单词)
• bedside [´bedsaid] n.床边 a.护理的 (英语四级单词)
• uneven [ʌn´i:vən] a.崎岖的；不匀的 (英语四级单词)
• disappearance [,disə´piərəns] n.消失；失踪 (英语六级单词)
• ferocious [fə´rəuʃəs] a.凶猛的；残忍的 (英语六级单词)
• inexplicable [,inik´splikəbəl] a.难以理解的 (英语六级单词)
• tranquil [´træŋkwil] a.平静的，稳定的 (英语六级单词)
• noontide [´nu:ntaid] n.正午 (英语六级单词)
• calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
• avarice [´ævəris] n.贪婪，贪心 (英语六级单词)
• cynical [´sinikəl] a.讥诮的；冷嘲的 (英语六级单词)