“‘No,’ he continued, ‘even _he_ could not be so utterly base.’ “‘Oh, do not kill me!’ cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. ‘I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.’ “‘Laugh!’ echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. ‘Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man’s passion--you?’ “‘Oh, mercy!’ cried Zambinella. “‘I ought to kill you!’ shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. ‘But,’ he continued, with cold disdain, ‘if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--’ “Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. “‘And that is a delusion!’ he cried. “Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: “‘A woman’s heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.’ “He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. “‘I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.’ “Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. “‘An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!’ “As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. “‘From Cardinal Cicognara,’ said one of the men. “‘A benefaction worthy of a Christian,’ retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. “These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty.” “But,” said Madame de Rochefide, “what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys’?”