waltz, so German, and with a movement so
slow, was attacked with wild arms by the musicians,--ah! it was
no longer a waltz, but an insensate whirlwind, a giddy rotation,
a gyration worthy of being led by some Mephistopheles, beating
the measure with a firebrand! Then a galop, an infernal galop,
which lasted an hour without any one being able to stop it,
whirled off, in its windings, across the halls, the drawing-rooms,
the antechambers, by the staircases, from the cellar to the garret of
the opulent mansion, the young men and young girls, the fathers and
mothers, people of every age, of every weight, of both sexes;
Collaert, the fat banker, and Madame Collaert, and the counsellors,
and the magistrates, and the chief justice, and Niklausse, and Madame
Van Tricasse, and the Burgomaster Van Tricasse, and the Commissary
Passauf himself, who never could recall afterwards who had been his
partner on that terrible evening.

[Illustration: it was no longer a waltz]

But she did not forget! And ever since that day she has seen in
her dreams the fiery commissary, enfolding her in an impassioned
embrace! And "she"--was the amiable Tatanemance!

CHAPTER IX.

IN WHICH DOCTOR OX AND YGENE, HIS ASSISTANT, SAY A FEW WORDS.

"Well, Ygene?"

"Well, master, all is ready. The laying of the pipes is
finished."

"At last! Now, then, we are going to operate on a large scale, on
the masses!"

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT THE EPIDEMIC INVADES THE ENTIRE TOWN,
AND WHAT EFFECT IT PRODUCES.

During the following months the evil, in place of subsiding,
became more extended. From private houses the epidemic spread
into the streets. The town of Quiquendone was no longer to be
recognized.

A phenomenon yet stranger than those which had already happened,
now appeared; not only the animal kingdom, but the vegetable
kingdom itself, became subject to the mysterious influence.

According to the ordinary course of things, epidemics are special
in their operation. Those which attack humanity spare the
animals, and those which attack the animals spare the vegetables.
A horse was never inflicted with smallpox, nor a man with the
cattle-plague, nor do sheep suffer from the potato-rot. But here
all the laws of nature seemed to be overturned. Not only were the
character, temperament, and ideas of the townsfolk changed, but
the domestic animals--dogs and cats, horses and cows, asses and
goats--suffered from this epide