me with anger and contempt in his face. 'I don't
want any more of your work,' he said. 'Get out of this house, and don't
let my eyes ever rest on you again. I have no need to tell you the
reason. The dainty fruit you are trying to gather is beyond the reach
of a beggar like you!' I tried to speak, but he seized me and pitched
me out of the door with such violence that I fell, and hurt my head and
my arm. Furious, and smarting with the pain, I went off, and at last
found a kind-hearted acquaintance in the Faubourg St. Germain, who gave
me quarters in his garret. I had no peace nor rest. At night I wandered
round Cardillac's house, hoping that Madelon would hear my sighs and
lamentings, and perhaps manage to speak to me at the window
undiscovered. All sorts of desperate plans, to which I thought I might
persuade her, jostled each other in my brain. Cardillac's house in the
Rue Nicaise abuts on to a high wall with niches, containing old,
partly-broken statues. One night I was standing close to one of those
figures, looking up at the windows of the house which open on the
courtyard which the wall encloses. Suddenly I saw light in Cardillac's
workshop. It was midnight, and he never was awake at that time, as he
always went to bed exactly at nine. My heart beat anxiously: I thought
something might be going on which would let me get into the Louse. But
the light disappeared again immediately. I pressed myself closely into
the niche, and against the statue; but I started back in alarm, feeling
a return of my pressure, as if the statue had come to life. In the
faint moonlight I saw that the stone was slowly turning, and behind it
appeared a dark form, which crept softly out, and went down the street
with stealthy tread. I sprang to the statue: it was standing close to
the wall again, as before. Involuntarily, as if impelled by some power
within me, I followed the receding dark figure. In passing an image of
the Virgin, this figure looked round, the light of the lamp before the
image falling upon his face. It was Cardillac! an indescribable alarm
fell upon me; an eery shudder came over me. As if driven by some spell,
I felt I must follow this spectre-like sleep-walker--for that was what
I thought my master was, though it was not full-moon, the time when
that kind of impulse falls upon sleepers. At length Cardillac
disappeared in a deep shadow; but, by a certain easily distinguishable
sound, I knew that he had gone into the entry of