Commune he was nearly killed in the Rue Saint-Antoine by the explosion of
a shell, thrown by the insurgents from the heights of Pere-Lachaise.
He thought that had he died then, Micheline would have wept for him.
Then, as in a nightmare, it seemed to him that this hypothesis was
realized. He saw the church hung with black, he heard the funeral
chants. A catafalque contained his coffin, and slowly his betrothed
came, with a trembling hand, to throw holy water on the cloth which
covered the bier. And a voice said within him:

"You are dead, since Micheline is about to marry another."

He made an effort to banish this importunate idea. He could not succeed.
Thoughts flew through his brain with fearful rapidity. He thought he was
beginning to be seized with brain fever. And this dismal ceremony kept
coming before him with the same chants, the same words repeated, and the
same faces appearing. The houses seemed to fly before his vacant eyes.
To stop this nightmare he tried to count the gas-lamps: one, two, three,
four, five--but the same thought interrupted his calculation:

"You are dead, since your betrothed is about to marry another."

He was afraid he was going mad. A sharp pain shot across his forehead
just above the right eyebrow. In the old days he had felt the same pain
when he had overworked himself in preparing for his examinations at the
Polytechnic School. With a bitter smile he asked himself if one of the
aching vessels in his brain was about to burst?

The sudden stoppage of the cab freed him from this torture. The hotel
porter opened the door. Pierre stepped out mechanically. Without
speaking a word he followed a waiter, who showed him to a room on the