I touched myself to make sure that I was awake; then I walked toward the sack with my arms extended before me, but stark and staring with horror. I thrust my hand into it. Then it seemed to me as if two lips, still warm, pressed a kiss upon my fingers!
I had reached that stage of boundless terror where the excess of fear turns into the audacity of despair. I seized the head and collapsing in my chair, placed it in front of me.
Then I gave vent to a fearful scream. This head, with its lips still warm, with the eyes half closed, was the head of Solange!
I thought I should go mad.
Three times I called:
“Solange! Solange! Solange!”
At the third time she opened her eyes and looked at me. Tears trickled down her cheeks; then a moist glow darted from her eyes, as if the soul were passing, and the eyes closed, never to open again.
I sprang to my feet a raving maniac, I wanted to fly; I knocked against the table; it fell. The candle was extinguished; the head rolled upon the floor, and I fell prostrate, as if a terrible fever had stricken me down—an icy-shudder convulsed me, and, with a deep sigh, I swooned.
The following morning at six the grave-diggers found me, cold as the flagstones on which I lay.
Solange, betrayed by her father’s letter, had been arrested the same day, condemned, and executed.