damage I had done,
to close up the hole through which I had crept, so as to conceal all
traces of my resurrection. I do not believe that I had any positive
motive in doing so. I only deemed it useless to proclaim my adventure
aloud, feeling ashamed to find myself alive when the whole world thought
me dead. In half an hour every trace of my escape was obliterated, and
then I climbed out of the hole.

The night was splendid, and deep silence reigned in the cemetery;
the black trees threw motionless shadows over the white tombs. When I
endeavored to ascertain my bearings I noticed that one half of the
sky was ruddy, as if lit by a huge conflagration; Paris lay in that
direction, and I moved toward it, following a long avenue amid the
darkness of the branches.

However, after I had gone some fifty yards I was compelled to stop,
feeling faint and weary. I then sat down on a stone bench and for the
first time looked at myself. I was fully attired with the exception
that I had no hat. I blessed my beloved Marguerite for the pious thought
which had prompted her to dress me in my best clothes--those which I had
worn at our wedding. That remembrance of my wife brought me to my feet
again. I longed to see her without delay.

At the farther end of the avenue I had taken a wall arrested my
progress. However, I climbed to the top of a monument, reached the
summit of the wall and then dropped over the other side. Although
roughly shaken by the fall, I managed to walk for a few minutes along a
broad deserted street skirting the cemetery. I had no notion as to
where I might be, but with the reiteration of monomania I kept saying
to myself that I was going toward Paris and that I should find the Rue
Dauphine somehow or other. Several people passed me but, seized with
sudden distrust, I would not stop them and ask my way. I have since
realized that I was then in a burning fever and already nearly
delirious. Finally, just as I reached a large thoroughfare, I became
giddy and fell heavily upon the pavement.

Here there is a blank in my life. For three whole weeks I remained
unconscious. When I awoke at last I found myself in a strange room.
A man who was nursing me told me quietly that he had picked me up one
morning on the Boulevard Montparnasse and had brought me to his house.
He was an old doctor who had given up practicing.

When I attempted to thank him he sharply answered that my case had
seemed a curious one and that he had wis