“Yes, Criminal, yes,--happiness! fortune!” whispered he; “all this can come to me through you. Listen here, I am a poor gendarme; the service is heavy, the pay is light; my horse is my own, and ruins me. So I put into the lottery as a counterbalance. Hitherto I have only missed by not having the right numbers. I am always very near them. If I buy seventy-six, number seventy-seven comes up a prize. Have a little patience, if you please; I have almost done. Well, here is a lucky opportunity for me. It appears, Criminal, begging your pardon, that you are to be executed to-day. It is a certain fact that the dead who are destroyed that way see the lottery before it is drawn on earth. Promise that your spirit shall appear to me to-morrow evening, to give me three numbers,--three good ones, eh? What trouble will it be to you? and I am not afraid of ghosts. Be easy on that point. Here’s my address: Popincourt Barracks, staircase A, No. 26, at the end of the corridor. You will know me again, won’t you? Come even to-night, if it suits you better.” I would have disdained to reply to such an imbecile, if a mad hope had not crossed my mind. In my desperate position there are moments when one fancies that a chain may be broken by a hair. “Listen,” said I to him, acting my part as well as a dying wretch could. “I can indeed render thee richer than the King. I can make thee gain millions, on one condition.” He opened his stupid eyes. “What, what? I will do anything to please you, Criminal.” “Then instead of three numbers I promise to tell you four. Change coats with me.” “Oh, is that all?” cried he, undoing the first hooks of his uniform cheerfully. I rose from my chair; I watched all his movements with a beating heart. I already fancied the doors opening before the uniform of a gendarme; and then the prison--the street--the town--left far behind me! But suddenly he turned round with indecision, and asked,-- “I say,--it is not to go out of this?” I saw that all was lost; nevertheless, I tried one last effort, useless as it was foolish. “Yes, it is,” said I to him; “but as thy fortune will be made--” He interrupted me. “Oh, law, no! on account of my numbers! To make them good, you must be dead, you know!” I sat down again, silent, and more desponding, from all the hope that I had conceived. THIRTY-SECOND PAPER. I shut my eyes, covered them with my hands, and sought to forget the present in the past. In a rapid reverie, the recollections of childhood and youth came back one by one, soft, calm, smiling, like islands of flowers on the black gulf of confused thoughts which whirled through my brain. I was again a child,--a laughing, healthy schoolboy, playing, running, shouting with my brothers, in the broad green walks of the old garden where my first years were passed.