, as he stood gazing stupidly at the spot
where the paper bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he began to
shudder from terror. "Good heavens!" murmured he in despair, "what is
the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide anything?"

Indeed, he had not reckoned on such spoil, he had only thought of
taking the old woman's money; so he was not prepared with a hiding
place for the jewels. "I have no cause to rejoice now," thought he.
"Is that the way to hide anything? I must really be losing my senses!"
He sunk on the couch again exhausted; another fit of intolerable
shivering seized him, and he mechanically pulled his old student's
cloak over him for warmth, as he fell into a delirious sleep. He lost
all consciousness of himself. Not more than five minutes had elapsed
before he woke up in intense excitement, and bent over his clothes in
the deepest anguish. "How could I go to sleep again when nothing is
done! For I have done nothing, the loop is still where I sewed it. I
forgot all about that! What a convincing proof it would have been." He
ripped it off and tore it into shreds which he placed among his
underlinen under the pillow. "These rags cannot awaken any suspicions,
I fancy; at least, so it seems to me," repeated he, standing up in the
middle of the room, and, with an attempt rendered all the more painful
by the effort it cost him, he looked all round, trying to make sure he
had forgotten nothing. He suffered cruelly from this conviction, that
everything, even memory, even the most elementary prudence, was
abandoning him.

"Can this be the punishment already beginning? Indeed! indeed! it is!"

And indeed the frayed edges he had cut from the bottom of his trousers
were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, exposed to the
view of the first comer. "But what can I be thinking of?" exclaimed he
in utter bewilderment. Then a strange idea came into his head; he
thought that perhaps all his clothes were saturated in blood, and that
he could not see this because his senses were gone and his perception
of things lost. Then he recollected that there would be traces on the
purse, and his pockets would be wet with blood. It was so. "I am
bereft of my reason, I know not what I am doing. Bah! not at all!--it
is only weakness, delirium. I shall soon be better." He tore at the
lining. At this moment the rays of the morning streamed in and shone
on his left boot. There were plain traces, and all the point wa