Very good!’ (And he falls into a dialogue.) ‘When?—At once. No putting off till to-morrow!—What crimes?—One only! But a great one, an extravagant, atrocious crime! One to bring all the Furies forth from Hell!—Which shall it be?—The most startling, by heaven! Bravo! I’ve got it! A fire! Then I’ll just have time to start my fire—pack my trunks—come back, duly cowering behind the window of a cab—enjoy my triumph amid the horrified crowds—overhear the maledictions of the dying—and catch my westward train with remorse at my heels for the rest of my days! And then I shall be off to hide myself in my lighthouse! Up there in the light! Away out at sea! And consequently the police will never contrive to find me—my crime being disinterested! And I shall breathe my last there, alone.’ Here Chaudval drew himself up, improvising a line of Corneille-like splendour:

‘Safe from suspicion by the crime’s huge gleam!

‘’Tis said.—And now,’ concluded the great artist, picking up a cobblestone, and looking round to assure himself that he was alone, ‘and now, you shall never reflect any other person!’

And he hurled the stone against the glass, which shivered into a thousand glittering fragments.

This first duty accomplished, Chaudval made off hurriedly—as if satisfied with this preliminary but energetic deed of daring. He hastened towards the boulevards. There, a few minutes later, a carriage stopped at his hail. He jumped into it, and disappeared.

A couple of hours later the leaping flames of an immense conflagration, bursting from great storehouses of petroleum, oils, and matches, were reflected from all the windows of the Temple quarter. Soon the detachments of firemen, rolling and pushing their apparatus, were rushing together from all directions, and the doleful blasts of their trumpets roused with a start all the inhabitants of this populous quarter. Countless hurrying footsteps were clattering on the pavements; the crowd was blocking the great square of the Château-d’Eau and the adjoining streets. In less than a quarter of an hour a body of troops was forming a cordon round the scene of the conflagration. By the blood-red glow of torches, policemen were controlling the floods of humanity in the neighbourhood.

Carriages were caught up, and could move no farther. Every one was shouting. In amongst the terrible crackling of the fire, distant cries could be distinguished. The victims caught in this inferno were screaming, and the roofs of the houses were crashing in upon them. A hundred families, those of workmen belonging to the blazing factories, were made, alas! penniless and homeless.

But over there, a solitary cab, laden with two large trunks, was standing stationary behind the crowd halted in the square. Inside it was Esprit Chaudval, originally Lepeinteur, styled Monanteuil. And from time to time he drew aside the blind and contemplated his handiwork.

‘Oh!’ he whispered to himself, ‘I feel myself a horror to God and to men!—Yes, that’s it, that really is the touch of a reprobate!’

The good old actor’s face was glowing.

‘Wretch that I am!’ he grumbled. ‘What vengeful nights of waking shall I know, beset by the phantoms of my victims! I can feel rising within me the soul of a Nero, burning Rome in an artist’s frenzy! Of a Herostratus, burning the temple of Ephesus for love of fame! Of a Rostopchin, burning Moscow for love of country! Of an Alexander, burning Persepolis for the pleasing of his deathless Thaïs!—And I, I am burning for the sake of Duty, having no other means of existence!—I start a fire because I owe myself to myself! I acquit myself! What a Man I shall be! How I shall taste life! Yes, at last I am going to know what one feels when one is put to the torture!—And those nights I shall pass, nights of delight, of magnificent horror!—Ah!—I breathe again! I am born anew! I exist! And to think I have been an actor! Now, we must make off, with the speed of the lightning: in the gross eyes of mankind, I am no more than food for the gallows! Come, we must lock ourselves into our lighthouse, and enjoy remorse in peace!’