They were scarcely out of sight before firing was heard.
The sound made my mother tremble; but powder had its usual effect on me; I slipped out of her hands, I escaped from her and ran off to the beginning of the rue de Soissons in spite of her cries. The Cossacks had entirely disappeared.
A woman stood on the threshold of an open door wringing her hands.
She was the wife of a retail hosier named Ducoudray.
The neighbours gradually undid their doors at the sound of her cries, and at her gestures of despair ran up and collected round the door.
I was one of the first to arrive, and I learnt the reason for her cries and her despair.
At the approach of the Cossacks, the hosier had closed his door in fear and trembling, having opened it out of curiosity after their first passage. As they passed, one of the riders discharged his pistol at the shut door, just as though it had been a target. The bullet pierced the door and hit M. Ducoudray in the throat, breaking his spine.
He was lying on the ground, with his head resting on his daughter's knees, torrents of blood flowing from his wound, which had severed an artery.
Death had been instantaneous; he had already ceased to breathe.