“You see?” cried Prilukoff triumphantly, “I am not quite a fool yet, am I? Hush now, don't cry. Remember that it is not for ourselves, but to make an honorable act of restitution.”
“But a hundred thousand francs would have been enough for that,” I sobbed.
“The other four hundred thousand we shall give to the poor,” said Prilukoff. “It will be a meritorious deed.”
XL
I remember that when I was a child I was taken to a fair and given a ride on a switchback railway. I was scarcely seated in the car, with the straps round my waist and the giddy track before me, than I cried to get out again. But the car was already moving forward, slowly gliding down the first incline.
I screamed, writhing against the straps, “Stop! stop! I want to get out. I want to go back!” But now the car was rushing giddily, in leaps and bounds, down one slope and up another, whirling over bridges and gulfs, dashing down the precipitous declivity with ever-increasing speed.
Even thus had I embarked, almost without realizing it, upon the rapid slope of crime. Impelled by my own madness, I had started on the vertiginous course to perdition, and now I plunged downwards, rolling, leaping, rushing into the darkness, without possibility of pause or return.