airs, and made a threatening
backward gesture, as if I were talking to a dog up there, and boldly
addressed the first butcher I met.

"Ah, will you be kind enough to give me a bone for my dog?" I said;
"only a bone. There needn't be anything on it; it's just to give him
something to carry in his mouth."

I got the bone, a capital little bone, on which there still remained a
morsel of meat, and hid it under my coat. I thanked the man so heartily
that he looked at me in amazement.

"Oh, no need of thanks," said he.

"Oh yes; don't say that," I mumbled; "it is kindly done of you," and I
ascended the steps again.

My heart was throbbing violently in my breast. I sneaked into one of
the passages, where the forges are, as far in as I could go, and
stopped outside a dilapidated door leading to a back-yard. There was no
light to be seen anywhere, only blessed darkness all around me; and I
began to gnaw at the bone.

It had no taste; a rank smell of blood oozed from it, and I was forced
to vomit almost immediately. I tried anew. If I could only keep it
down, it would, in spite of all, have some effect. It was simply a
matter of forcing it to remain down there. But I vomited again. I grew
wild, bit angrily into the meat, tore off a morsel, and gulped it down
by sheer strength of will; and yet it was of no use. Just as soon as
the little fragments of meat became warm in my stomach up they came
again, worse luck. I clenched my hands in frenzy, burst into tears from
sheer helplessness, and gnawed away as one possessed. I cried, so that
the bone got wet and dirty with my tears, vomited, cursed and groaned
again, cried as if my heart would break, and vomited anew. I consigned
all the powers that be to the lowermost torture in the loudest voice.

Quiet--not a soul about--no light, no noise; I am in a state of the
most fearful excitement; I breathe hardly and audibly, and I cry with
gnashing teeth, each time that the morsel of meat, which might satisfy
me a little, comes up. As I find that, in spite of all my efforts, it
avails me naught, I cast the bone at the door. I am filled with the
most impotent hate; shriek, and menace with my fists towards Heaven;
yell God's name hoarsely, and bend my fingers like claws, with
ill-suppressed fury....

I tell you, you Heaven's Holy Baal, you don't exist; but that, if you
did, I would curse you so that your Heaven would quiver with the fire
of hell! I tell you, I have offered you my servi