floor. 'Master Cardillac, what are you doing?' I shouted.
'Cursed fool!' growled Cardillac, running past me with lightning-like
speed and disappearing from sight.

"Quite upset and hardly able to take a step, I approached the man who
had been stabbed. I knelt down beside him. 'Perhaps,' thought I, 'he
still may be saved;' but there was not the least sign of life. In my
fearful agitation I had hardly noticed that the _Marechausee_ had
surrounded me. 'What? already another assassinated by these demons!
Hi! hi! Young man, what are you about here?--Are you one of the
band?--Away with him!' Thus they cried one after another, and they
laid hold of me. I was scarcely able to stammer out that I should never
be capable of such an abominable deed, and that they might therefore
let me go my way in peace. Then one of them turned his lamp upon my
face and said laughing, 'Why, it's Olivier Brusson, the journeyman
goldsmith, who works for our worthy honest Master Rene Cardillac. Ay, I
should think so!--_he_ murder people in the street--he looks like it
indeed! It's just like murderous assassins to stoop lamenting over
their victim's corpse till somebody comes and takes them into custody.
Well, how was it, youngster? Speak out boldly?' 'A man sprang out
immediately in front of me,' I said, 'and threw himself upon this man
and stabbed him, and then ran away as quick as lightning when I shouted
out. I only wanted to see if the stabbed man might still be saved.'
'No, my son,' cried one of those who had taken up the corpse; 'he's
dead enough; the dagger has gone right through the heart as usual.'
'The Devil!' said another; 'we have come too late again, as we did
yesterday.' Thereupon they went their way, taking the corpse with them.

"What my feelings were I cannot attempt to describe. I felt myself to
make sure whether I were not being mocked by some hideous dream; I
fancied I must soon wake up and wonder at the preposterous delusion.
Cardillac, the father of my Madelon, an atrocious murderer! My strength
failed me; I sank down upon the stone steps leading up to a house. The
morning light began to glimmer and was stronger and stronger; an
officer's hat decorated with feathers lay before me on the pavement. I
saw again vividly Cardillac's bloody deed, which had been perpetrated
on the spot where I sat. I ran off horrified.

"I was sitting in my garret, my thoughts in a perfect whirl, nay, I was
almost bereft of my senses, when the door o