For a few seconds I was stupefied.
The memory of all the indignities that this individual had inflicted upon me, his covetous look, and his impudent smile exasperated me. With a single bound, I caught hold of him, and pushed him out of the room, slamming the door in his face.
This was done with the crack and rapidity of a spring snuff-box.
But from outside the old usurer screamed like an eagle:
"My money, you thief, my money!"
The lodgers came out of their rooms, asking:
"What is the matter? What has happened?"
I opened the door suddenly and quickly gave Mister Rap a kick in the spine that sent him rolling down more than twenty steps.
"That"s what"s the matter!" I cried, quite beside myself. Then I shut the door and bolted it, while bursts of laughter from the neighbours greeted Mister Rap in the pa.s.sage.
I was satisfied with myself; I rubbed my hands together. This adventure had put new life into me; I resumed my work, and was about to finish the sketch when I heard an unusual noise.
b.u.t.ts of muskets were grounded on the pavement. I looked out of my window and saw three soldiers in full uniform with grounded arms in front of my door.
I said to myself in my terror: "Can it be that that scoundrel of a Rap has had any bones broken?"
And here is the strange peculiarity of the human mind: I, who the night before had wanted to cut my own throat, shook from head to foot, thinking that I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.
The stairway was filled with confused noises. It was an ascending flood of heavy footsteps, clanking arms, and short syllables.
Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was shut.
Then there was a general clamour.
"In the name of the law--open!"
I arose, trembling and weak in the knees.
"Open!" the same voice repeated.
I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had hardly put my head out of the little snuff-box window, when I drew back, seized with vertigo. I saw in a flash all the windows below with their shining panes, their flower-pots, their bird-cages, and their gratings. Lower, the balcony; still lower, the street-lamp; still lower again, the sign of the "Red Cask" framed in iron-work; and, finally, three glittering bayonets, only awaiting my fall to run me through the body from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head. On the roof of the opposite house a tortoise-sh.e.l.l cat was crouching behind a chimney, watching a band of sparrows fighting and scolding in the gutter.
One cannot imagine to what clearness, intensity, and rapidity the human eye acquires when stimulated by fear.
At the third summons I heard:
"Open, or we shall force it!"
Seeing that flight was impossible, I staggered to the door and drew the bolt.
Two hands immediately fell upon my collar. A dumpy, little man, smelling of wine, said:
"I arrest you!"
He wore a bottle-green redingote, b.u.t.toned to the chin, and a stovepipe hat. He had large brown whiskers, rings on every finger, and was named Pa.s.sauf.
He was the chief of police.
Five bull-dogs with flat caps, noses like pistols, and lower jaws turning upward, observed me from outside.
"What do you want?" I asked Pa.s.sauf.
"Come downstairs," he cried roughly, as he gave a sign to one of his men to seize me.
This man took hold of me, more dead than alive, while several other men turned my room upside down.
I went downstairs supported by the arms like a person in the last stages of consumption--with hair dishevelled and stumbling at every step.
They thrust me into a cab between two strong fellows, who charitably let me see the ends of their clubs, held to their wrists by a leather string--and then the carriage started off.
I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of the town.
"What have I done?" I asked one of my keepers.
He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:
"Hans--he asks what he has done!"
That smile froze my blood.
Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses" hoofs resounded under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one might say:
"Dans cet antre, Je vois fort bien comme l"on entre, Et ne vois point comme on en sort."
All is not rose-coloured in this world; from the claws of Rap I fell into a dungeon, from which very few poor devils have a chance to escape.
Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like a hospital, and furnished with gratings; not a sprig of verdure, not a festoon of ivy, not even a weatherc.o.c.k in perspective--such was my new lodging. It was enough to make one tear his hair out by the roots.
The police officers, accompanied by the jailer, took me temporarily to a lock-up.
The jailer, if I remember rightly, was named Kasper Schlussel; with his grey woollen cap, his pipe between his teeth, and his bunch of keys at his belt, he reminded me of the Owl-G.o.d of the Caribs. He had the same golden yellow eyes, that see in the dark, a nose like a comma, and a neck that was sunk between the shoulders.
Schlussel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a cupboard, while thinking of something else. As for me, I stood for more than ten minutes with my hands behind my back and my head bowed. At the end of that time I made the following reflection: "When falling, Rap cried out, "I am a.s.sa.s.sinated," but he did not say by whom. I will say it was my neighbour, the old merchant with the spectacles: he will be hanged in my place."
This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long breath. Then I looked about my prison. It seemed to have been newly whitewashed, and the walls were bare of designs, except in one corner, where a gallows had been crudely sketched by my predecessor. The light was admitted through a bull"s-eye about nine or ten feet from the floor; the furniture consisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.
I sat down upon the straw with my hands around my knees in deep despondency. It was with great difficulty that I could think clearly; but suddenly imagining that Rap, before dying, had denounced me, my legs began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing, as if the hempen cord were already tightening around my neck.
At the same moment, I heard Schlussel walking down the corridor; he opened the lock-up, and told me to follow him. He was still accompanied by the two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.
We walked down long galleries, lighted at intervals by small windows from within. Behind a grating I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was going to be executed on the morrow. He had on a strait-jacket and sang out in a raucous voice: