CHAPTER XXXV.
The Hotel de Ville is a sinister-looking edifice with its pointed roof, and its strange-looking clock with a white face, its staircases worn by the feet of many passers-by. There are two arches on the left and right. There it stands facing the Place de Grêve, sombre and melancholy, its front worn away by age, and so dark that even in the sunshine it looks black.
On the day of an execution gendarmes issue in crowds from all the doors, and its hundreds of windows gaze sternly upon the condemned man. In the evening the face of the illuminated clock shows brilliant against its gloomy walls.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
It is a quarter past one.
This is how I feel. A violent headache and cold in the extremities, and a burning forehead. Each time that I rise or bend it seems to me as if some liquid which floats in my skull drives my brain against the top of my head.
I have nervous tremblings, and every now and then the pen falls from my hands as though I had sustained a galvanic shock.
My eyes water as if I were in a smoky room.
I have a pain in my elbows.
But in two hours and forty-five minutes I shall be cured.