“Now was the world a desert to me.  I cared little, in the way of love, which way I turned.  But in the way of hatred I cared everything.  I transferred myself to the Russian service, with the view of gaining some appointment on the Polish frontier, which might put it in my power to execute my vow of destroying all the magistrates of your city.  War, however, raged, and carried me into far other regions.  It ceased, and there was little prospect that another generation would see it relighted; for the disturber of peace was a prisoner forever, and all nations were exhausted.  Now, then, it became necessary that I should adopt some new mode for executing my vengeance; and the more so, because annually some were dying of those whom it was my mission to punish.  A voice ascended to me, day and night, from the graves of my father and mother, calling for vengeance before it should be too late.

I took my measures thus:  Many Jews were present at Waterloo.  From among these, all irritated against Napoleon for the expectations he had raised, only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews at Paris, I selected eight, whom I knew familiarly as men hardened by military experience against the movements of pity.  With these as my beagles, I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my regular campaign; and I am surprised that you did not hear of the death which met the executioner—­him I mean who dared to lift his hand against my mother.  This man I met by accident in the forest; and I slew him.  I talked with the wretch, as a stranger at first, upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady.  Had he relented, had he expressed compunction, I might have relented.  But far otherwise:  the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke, exulted; he—­ But why repeat the villain’s words?  I cut him to pieces.  Next I did this:  My agents I caused to matriculate separately at the college.  They assumed the college dress.  And now mark the solution of that mystery which caused such perplexity.  Simply as students we all had an unsuspected admission at any house.  Just then there was a common practice, as you will remember, among the younger students, of going out a masking—­that is, of entering houses in the academic dress, and with the face masked.  This practice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring protection along with it.  But, even after suspicion had connected itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I should appear unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly reception.  Hence the facility with which death was inflicted, and that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm.  I took hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security.  Our weapons were hid under our academic robes; and even when we drew them out, and at the moment of applying them to the threat, they still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we