Abel Larinski was overcome by a mysterious emotion; he felt a voluptuous languor steal through his veins.

He watched the smoke over Paris, and he saw floating in it an ethereal form whose face was partly concealed by a red hood.

It smiled on him, and he read in this smile a promise of all the joys of the land of Canaan.
He turned away his eyes, partially closing them, and there appeared another form to him--in truth, very different from the first.

It was that of a man whom he had known intimately, of a man whom he had deeply loved.

In vain the lark sang aloud, in vain the peacock wailed--Abel Larinski no longer heard them.