Little by little, grey dawn designed the trellis of the windows, then the sun suddenly appeared above the horizon and darted its rays across the rents in the paper.
Favour-of-heaven felt his heart stand still; on the floor inundated with blood, the bodies lying there had human forms, forms that he knew: this one looked like his second wife, and this one, this little head that had rolled against the foot of the table, he would have sworn that it was his last son.
With a mad cry he threw away his weapon and ran to open the door, through which the sun poured in.
An armed crowd was moving in the yard.
"My family! my family! where is my family?"
"They are all with you in the pavilion!"
But as they were speaking they saw with stupor the hair of the young man becoming white, and the wrinkles of age cover his face, while he remained motionless as well as insensible.
They drew near; he rolled fainting on the ground. "And thus," ended the sub-prefect in the silence of the dark hall, where only the little light of the opium-lamp was shining, "I remained several days without knowledge of anything. When I came to myself, I had to bear the sorrow of having killed my whole family in these atrocious circumstances. I resigned my post: I had magnificent tombs built for all those who were killed this fatal night, and, since then, I smoke without ceasing the agreeable drug, in order to fly away from the remembrance, which will haunt me until my last day."