rms that the nephew is guilty.
Everybody in town believes it. Ah! ah!
27th October. The nephew makes a very poor witness. He had gone to the
village to buy bread and cheese, he declared. He swore that his uncle had
been killed in his absence! Who would believe him?
28th October. The nephew has all but confessed, they have badgered him
so. Ah! ah! justice!
15th November. There are overwhelming proofs against the nephew, who was
his uncle's heir. I shall preside at the sessions.
25th January. To death! to death! to death! I have had him condemned to
death! Ah! ah! The advocate-general spoke like an angel! Ah! ah! Yet
another! I shall go to see him executed!
10th March. It is done. They guillotined him this morning. He died very
well! very well! That gave me pleasure! How fine it is to see a man's
head cut off!
Now, I shall wait, I can wait. It would take such a little thing to let
myself be caught.
The manuscript contained yet other pages, but without relating any new
crime.
Alienist physicians to whom the awful story has been submitted declare
that there are in the world many undiscovered madmen as adroit and as
much to be feared as this monstrous lunatic.
THE MASK
There was a masquerade ball at the Elysee-Montmartre that evening. It was
the 'Mi-Careme', and the crowds were pouring into the brightly lighted
passage which leads to the dance ball, like water flowing through the
open lock of a canal. The loud call of the orchestra, bursting like a
storm of sound, shook the rafters, swelled through the whole neighborhood
and awoke, in the streets and in the depths of the houses, an
irresistible desire to jump, to get warm, to have fun, which slumbers
within each human animal.
The patrons came from every quarter of Paris; there were people of all
classes who love noisy pleasures, a little low and tinged with debauch.
There were clerks and girls--girls of every description, some
wearing common cotton, some the finest batiste; rich girls, old and
covered with diamonds, and poor girls of sixteen, full of the desire to
revel, to belong to men, to spend money. Elegant black evening suits, in
search of fresh or faded but appetizing novelty, wandering through the
excited crowds, looking, searching, while the masqueraders seemed moved
above all by the desire for amusement. Already the far-famed quadrilles
had attracted around them a curious crowd. The moving hedge which
encircled the four dancers swaye
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