"'Once there I would fall a-laughing, and would be ashamed of my crazy
fears. The only comfort I had was that nobody knew anything about it. Then
I would dispassionately remind myself that I did not believe in goblins,
witches, or ghosts, and that I had no reason whatever to be afraid of that
wretched woman driven from her home at such an hour by poverty, or some
crime, or accident, to whom I might better have offered help, if she
needed it, or given alms. Nevertheless, the pitiable scene would be gone
over again as often as a similar thing occurred--and remember that I was
twenty-four years old, that I had experienced a great many adventures by
night, and yet that I had never had the slightest difficulty of any sort
with such solitary women in the streets after midnight! But nothing of
what I have so far told you ever came to have any importance, since that
irrational fear always left me as soon as I reached home, or saw any one
else in the street, and I would scarcely recall it a few minutes
afterwards, any more than one would recall a stupid mistake which had no
result of any consequence.

"'Things were going on so, when, nearly three years ago (unhappily, I have
good reason for knowing the date, it was the night of November 15-16,
1857), I was coming home at three in the morning. As you remember, I was
living then in that little house in Jardines Street, near Montera Street.
I had just come, at that late hour, a bitter, cold wind blowing at the
time, out of a sort of a gambling-house--I tell you this, although I know
it will surprise you. You know that I am not a gambler. I went into the
place, deceived by an alleged friend. But the fact was, that as people
began to drop in about midnight, coming from receptions or the theatre,
the play began to be very heavy, and one saw the gleam of gold in plenty.
Then came bank-bills and notes of hand. Little by little I was carried
away by the feverish and seductive passion, and lost all the money I had.
I even went away missing a second sum, for which I had left my note behind