And that evening, then, like many other criminal evenings, he led his damned soul over the roofs of Paris. He wept. He cursed that mysterious, irresistible force, which from the depths of centuries commanded him to kill. He cursed the influence which made him kill. He thought of his wife—of Adolphe. He bitterly regretted the hours of passed happiness between those two beings so dear to him. He excused them for running away. He pardoned them for their terror. He resolved never again to trouble their peaceful days with his bloody incoherencies. “Let me disappear,” he said to himself. “Let me hide my shame and my original defect in the midst of the desert. They will forget me. I shall forget myself. Let me profit by these logical moments, when my brain, released momentarily from the Other, discusses, weighs, deduces, and concludes and sees in the present.” It was not Cartouche who spoke, it was Théophraste, who cried to Cartouche: “Let us fly! Since I love Marceline, let us fly! Since I love Adolphe, let us fly! One day they will be happy without me! There is no longer happiness with me! Adieu! adieu! Marceline, adored woman, faithful wife! Farewell, Adolphe, precious, consoling friend! Farewell! Théophraste tells you farewell!” He wept. Then he said aloud: “I come, Cartouche!” Then he plunged into the darkness, going from gutter to gutter, from roof to roof, sliding from high walls with safety, protected, like a somnambulist, by Providence. And now who is that man who, with his head lowered, his back curved, his hands in his pockets, swayed like a poor wretch in the wind and rain which fell profusely all the tedious way? He followed the road which skirts the railroad. It is a straight road, bordered by small, weak trees, plain common broom-straw—sad ornaments for a departmental road—running along the side of the railroad. Whence comes this man, with his hands in his pockets, or, rather, this shade of a man? The plain extends to the right and the left without an undulation, without the rising of a hillock, without the hollow of a riser. All this can be seen, for this is not a night scene; it is broad daylight, on the track, straight on by the side of the road. Trains pass each other from time to time, local trains, fast trains, freight trains, rattling along with an occasional ceasing when one hears in the wind the ting, ting, ting of the bell of the disks at the station. There is one station before, and one behind. They are small stations, and are five kilometers apart. Between the two stations there is a straight double track, but no viaduct, no tunnel, no bridge, not even a culvert. As I said before, from whence came the sad shade of a man? It is Théophraste. He has resolved to fly—no matter where—far from his wife. After a night passed from gutter to gutter, not knowing where to direct his steps, and not caring at all, he goes into a railway station. He gets into a train without a ticket, gets out of the train at another station.