This man took hold of me, more dead than alive, while several other men turned my room upside down.
I went downstairs supported by the arms like a person in the last stages of consumption—with hair disheveled and stumbling at every step.
They thrust me into a cab between two strong fellows, who charitably let me see the ends of their clubs, held to their wrists by a leather string—and then the carriage started off.
I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of the town.
"What have I done?" I asked one of my keepers.
He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:
"Hans—he asks what he has done!"
That smile froze my blood.
Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses' hoofs resounded under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one might say:
"Dans cet antre,
Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,
Et ne vois point comme on en sort."