How would it, then, have fared with the poor, simple peasant, if he had been surprised unawares?  He would have been utterly cast down.  Despairing, he would have lost all power of self-control, and the spirit of imitation would have done the rest.

Scarcely had I moved the curtain, when I saw Fledermausse on the watch behind her window.  She could not see me.  I opened my window softly; the window opposite was opened!  Then her manikin appeared to rise slowly and advance before me.  I, also, advanced my manikin, and seizing my torch with one hand, with the other I quickly opened the shutters.  And now the old woman and myself were face to face.  Struck with sudden terror, she had let her manikin fall!

We gazed at each other with almost equal horror. She extended her finger—­I advanced mine. She moved her lips—­I agitated mine.  She breathed a profound sigh, and leaned upon her elbow.  I imitated her.

To describe all the terrors of this scene would be impossible.  It bordered upon confusion, madness, delirium.  It was a death struggle between two wills; between two intelligences; between two souls—­each one wishing to destroy the other; and, in this struggle, I had the advantage—­her victims struggled with me.

After having imitated for some seconds every movement of Fledermausse, I pulled a rope from under my skirt, and attached it to the crossbeam.

The old woman gazed at me with gaping mouth.  I passed the rope around my neck; her pupils expanded, lightened; her face was convulsed.

“No, no!” said she, in a whistling voice.

I pursued her with the impassability of an executioner.

Then rage seemed to take possession of her.

“Old fool!” she exclaimed, straightening herself up, and her hands contracted on the crossbeam.  “Old fool!” I gave her no time to go on blowing out my lamp.  I stooped, like a man going to make a vigorous spring, and, seizing my manikin, I passed the rope around its neck, and precipitated it below.

A terrible cry resounded through the street, and then silence, which I seemed to feel.  Perspiration bathed my forehead.  I listened a long time.  At the end of a quarter of an hour I heard, far away, very far away, the voice of the watchman, crying, “Inhabitants of Nuremberg, midnight, midnight sounds!”

“Now justice is satisfied!” I cried, “and three victims are avenged.  Pardon me, O Lord!”

About five minutes after the cry of the watchman, I saw Fledermausse attracted, allured by my manikin (her exact image), spring from the window, with a rope around her neck, and rest suspended from the crossbeam.

I saw the shadow of death undulating through her body, while the moon, calm, silent, majestic, inundated the summit of the roof, and her cold, pale rays reposed upon the old, disheveled, hideous head.

Just as I had seen the poor young student of Heidelberg, just so did I now see Fledermausse.