As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello, he stopped.  He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket.  His letter-case was gone.  He had been robbed.  It was as if lightning ran through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving him standing there almost unconscious.  For a moment unconscious and superconscious he stood there.  He had been robbed.  They had put their hand in his breast and robbed him.  If they had stabbed him, it could hardly have had a greater effect on him.

And he had known it.  He had known it.  When the soldiers jostled him so evilly they robbed him.  And he knew it.  He had known it as if it were fate.  Even as if it were fated beforehand.

Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some evil electric fluid, he walked on.  And as soon as he began to walk, he began to reason.  Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat.  Perhaps he had not had it with him at all.  Perhaps he was feeling all this, just for nothing.  Perhaps it was all folly.

He hurried forward.  He wanted to make sure.  He wanted relief.  It was as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it up.  He did not want to admit the power of evil—­particularly at that moment.  For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst of that gang of Italian soldiers.  He knew it—­it had pierced him.  It had got him.

But he wanted to say it was not so.  Reaching the house, he hastened upwards to his far-off, lonely room, through the dark corridors.  Once in his own apartment, he shut the door and switched on the light, a sensation like fear at his heart.  Then he searched his other pockets.  He looked everywhere.  In vain.

In vain, truly enough.  For he knew the thing was stolen.  He had known it all along.  The soldiers had deliberately plotted, had deliberately rushed him and taken his purse.  They must have watched him previously.  They must have grinned, and jeered at him.

He sat down in a chair, to recover from the shock.  The pocket-book contained four hundred francs, three one-pound notes, and various letters and private effects.  Well, these were lost.  But it was not so much the loss as the assault on his person that caused him to feel so stricken.  He felt the jeering, gibing blows they had given as they jostled him.

And now he sat, weak in every limb, and said to himself:  “Yes—­and if I hadn’t rushed along so full of feeling:  if I hadn’t exposed myself:  if I hadn’t got worked up with the Marchesa, and then rushed all kindled through the streets, without reserve, it would never have happened.  I gave myself away:  and there was someone ready to snatch what I gave.  I gave myself away.  It is my own fault.  I should have been on my guard.  I should be always on my guard:  always, always.  With God and the devil both, I should be on my guard.  Godly or devilish, I should hold fast to my reserve and keep on the watch.  And if I don’t, I deserve what I get.”