CHAPTER XII.
Albert scarcely noticed his removal from home to the seclusion of the
prison. Snatched away from his painful thoughts by the harsh voice of
the commissary, saying. "In the name of the law I arrest you," his
mind, completely upset, was a long time in recovering its equilibrium,
Everything that followed appeared to him to float indistinctly in a
thick mist, like those dream-scenes represented on the stage behind a
quadruple curtain of gauze.
To the questions put to him he replied, without knowing what he said.
Two police agents took hold of his arms, and helped him down the stairs.
He could not have walked down alone. His limbs, which bent beneath him,
refused their support. The only thing he understood of all that was said
around him was that the count had been struck with apoplexy; but even
that he soon forgot.
They lifted him into the cab, which was waiting in the court-yard at the
foot of the steps, rather ashamed at finding itself in such a place; and
they placed him on the back seat. Two police agents installed themselves
in front of him while a third mounted the box by the side of the driver.
During the drive, he did not at all realize his situation.
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