my plan. He was frightened by my boldness.
Then, one evening, while all the family were in the drawing room, I stole into Mme. Dufour’s bedroom, and got hold (I hope the ladies will excuse me) of a round receptacle which is generally kept not far from the head of the bed. I made sure that it was perfectly dry and I put at the bottom a handful, a big handful, of phosphide of lime.
Then I went to hide in the garret till the time came. Soon the sound of voices and footsteps told me that people were going to bed; then came silence. I came down barefoot, holding my breath, and I went and put my eye to the keyhole of my enemy’s door.
She was carefully putting away her odds and ends. Then one by one she took off her clothes, putting on a great white dressing-gown that seemed stuck to her bones. She took a glass, filled it with water, and, putting her hand in her mouth as if she was going to pull out her tongue, brought out something red and white that she put in the water. I was as frightened as if I had taken part in some shameful and terrible mystery. It was only her false teeth.
Then she took off her black wig and appeared with a small skull powdered with a few white hairs, so comic that this time I almost laughed behind the door. Then she said her prayers, rose, approached my instrument of vengeance, put it on the floor in the middle of the room, and, stooping down, covered it entirely with her dressing-gown.
I was waiting with a beating heart. She was tranquil, content, happy. I was waiting … happy, too, as we are when we are taking vengeance.
I heard at last a very gentle noise, a lapping sound, and then suddenly a series of muffled detonations like distant firing.
An expression of unutterable fright and surprise passed in a flash over Mme. Dufour’s face. Her eyes opened, closed, reopened, then she leaped up with a suppleness of which I would never have believed her capable, and she looked.
The white object was crackling, exploding, full of rapid floating flames like the Greek fire of the ancients. And a thick cloud was rising, mounting towards the ceiling, a mysterious cloud, full of fearsome witchcraft.
What must the poor woman have thought? Did she believe it was a trick of the devil? Or some fearful malady? Did she think that this fire came out of her body, was going to ravage her entrails, overflow like the crater of a volcano, or make her burst like an overloaded cannon?
She remained standing rigid, stupefied with fear, her look fixed on what was happening. Then suddenly she uttered a cry such as I had never heard, and fell on her back.
I ran away and buried myself in my bed, and closed my eyes firmly, trying to prove to myself that I had done nothing, seen nothing, and had never left my bedroom.
I kept on saying to myself: “She is dead! I have killed her!” and I listened anxiously for the noises of the house.
There was much coming and going and talking; then I heard them laughing; then I suffered a sound thrashing from the paternal hand.
Next morning, Mme. Dufour was very pale, and drank water all the time. Perhaps, in spite of what her doctor said, she was trying to extinguish the fire that she believed was enclosed in her inside.
Ever afterwards, when anyone talks of illness before her, she heaves a deep sigh, and murmurs:
“Oh, madame, if you knew! There are diseases so curious …”
She never says any more.
The Hand
A circle had been formed round Monsieur Bermutier, examining magistrate, who was giving his opinion on the mysterious Saint Cloud affair. For the past month all Paris had been wildly excited over this inexplicable crime. No one could make head or tail of it.
Monsieur Bermutier was standing with his back to the fireplace and was talking, threading the evidence together, discussing the various theories, but drawing no conclusions.
A number of women had risen to draw near to him, and were still standing up, their eyes fixed on the magistrate’s clean-shaven lips, whence his grave observations issued. They shivered and trembled, their nerves on edge with inquisitive terror, with that greedy and insatiate desire to be terrified which haunts their souls and tortures them like a physical hunger.
One of them, paler than the rest, remarked during an interval of silence:
“It’s horrible. It verges upon the ‘supernatural.’ No one will ever get to the bottom of it.”
The magistrate turned to her.
“Yes, madame,” he said, “probably no one ever will. As for the word ‘supernatural’ which you have just used, it has nothing to do with the case. We are dealing with a crime planned with the greatest skill and executed skilfully, so well entangled in mystery that we cannot unravel it from its attendant circumstances. But once upon a time I myself had to deal with an affair in which an element of fantasy did really appear to be involved. We had to let that one go too, owing to lack of the power to clear it up.”
Several women cried at the same time, so rapidly that their voices sounded as one:
“Oh, do tell us the story!”
Monsieur Bermutier smiled gravely, as an examining magistrate ought to smile.
“But please do not believe,” he resumed, “that I could for one moment imagine that there was anything supernatural about this adventure. I only believe in normal causes. But if, instead of employing the word ‘supernatural’ to express that which we do not understand, we use merely the word ‘inexplicable,’ it will be much more useful. At any rate, in the affair which I am going to relate to you, it is more especially the attendant circumstances, the preliminary circumstances, which appealed to me. Here are the facts of the case:
“In those days I was examining magistrate at Ajaccio, a little white
