Suddenly—­I no longer had any fear—­I threw myself on it, seized it as one would seize a thief, as one would seize a wife about to run away; but it pursued its irresistible course, and despite my efforts and despite my anger, I could not even retard its pace.  As I was resisting in desperation that insuperable force, I was thrown to the ground in my struggle with it.  It then rolled me over, trailed me along the gravel, and the rest of my furniture which followed it, began to march over me, tramping on my legs and injuring them.  When I loosed my hold, other articles passed over my body, just as a charge of cavalry does over the body of a dismounted soldier.

Seized at last with terror, I succeeded in dragging myself out of the main avenue, and in concealing myself again among the shrubbery, so as to watch the disappearance of the most cherished objects, the smallest, the least striking, the least unknown which had once belonged to me.

I then heard, in the distance, noises which came from my apartments, which sounded now as if the house were empty, a loud noise of shutting of doors.  They were being slammed from top to bottom of my dwelling, even the door which I had just opened myself unconsciously, and which had closed of itself, when the last thing had taken its departure.  I took flight also, running towards the city, and I only regained my self-composure on reaching the boulevards, where I met belated people.  I rang the bell of a hotel where I was known.  I had knocked the dust off my clothes with my hands, and I told the porter how that I had lost my bunch of keys, which included also that of the kitchen garden, where my servants slept in a house standing by itself, on the other side of the wall of the enclosure, which protected my fruits and vegetables from the raids of marauders.

I covered myself up to the eyes in the bed which was assigned to me; but I could not sleep, and I waited for the dawn in listening to the throbbing of my heart.  I had given orders that my servants were to be summoned to the hotel at daybreak, and my valet de chambre knocked at my door at seven o’clock in the morning.

His countenance bore a woeful look.

“A great misfortune has happened during the night, monsieur,” said he.

“What is it?”

“Somebody has stolen the whole of monsieur’s furniture, all, everything, even to the smallest articles.”

This news pleased me.  Why?  Who knows?  I was complete master of myself, bent on dissimulating, on telling no one of anything I had seen; determined on concealing and in burying in my heart of hearts, a terrible secret.  I responded: 

“They must then be the same people who have stolen my keys.  The police must be informed immediately.  I am going to get up, and I will rejoin you in a few moments.”

The investigation into the circumstances under which the robbery might have been committed lasted for five months.  Nothing was found, not even the smallest of my knick-knacks, nor the least trace of the thieves.  Good gracious!  If I had only told them what I knew....  If I had said ...  I had been locked up—­I, not the thieves—­and that I was the only person who had seen everything from the first.