his hatred
waning within him. He wanted to save so many innocents, he thought
of notifying the police, but a carriage drove up to set down Padre
Salvi and Padre Irene, both beaming with content, and like a passing
cloud his good intentions vanished. "What does it matter to me?" he
asked himself. "Let the righteous suffer with the sinners."

Then he added, to silence his scruples: "I'm not an informer, I mustn't
abuse the confidence he has placed in me. I owe him, _him_ more than
I do _them_: he dug my mother's grave, they killed her! What have
I to do with them? I did everything possible to be good and useful,
I tried to forgive and forget, I suffered every imposition, and only
asked that they leave me in peace. I got in no one's way. What have
they done to me? Let their mangled limbs fly through the air! We've
suffered enough."

Then he saw Simoun alight with the terrible lamp in his hands, saw him
cross the entrance with bowed head, as though deep in thought. Basilio
felt his heart beat fainter, his feet and hands turn cold, while the
black silhouette of the jeweler assumed fantastic shapes enveloped in
flames. There at the foot of the stairway Simoun checked his steps,
as if in doubt, and Basilio held his breath. But the hesitation was
transient--Simoun raised his head, resolutely ascended the stairway,
and disappeared.

It then seemed to the student that the house was going to blow up at
any moment, and that walls, lamps, guests, roof, windows, orchestra,
would be hurtling through the air like a handful of coals in the midst
of an infernal explosion. He gazed about him and fancied that he saw
corpses in place of idle spectators, he saw them torn to shreds, it
seemed to him that the air was filled with flames, but his calmer self
triumphed over this transient hallucination, which was due somewhat
to his hunger.

"Until he comes out, there's no danger," he said to himself. "The
Captain-General hasn't arrived yet."

He tried to appear calm and control the convulsive trembling in his
limbs, endeavoring to divert his thoughts to other things. Something
within was ridiculing him, saying, "If you tremble now, before the
supreme moment, how will you conduct yourself when you see blood
flowing, houses burning, and bullets whistling?"

His Excellency arrived, but the young man paid no attention to
him. He was watching the face of Simoun, who was among those that
descended to receive him, and he read in that implacable