Gaston Leroux

“ Here are two young people, the victims of the most frightful adventure that ever crossed what lovers call a honeymoon; and it is all forgotten in a kiss! Patrice fears nothing now: he loves! . . . He is mightier than the racial mysteries! . . . The placid little solicitor's clerk from the Rue de l'Écu feels within himself the pride and courage of an archangel wherewith to fight the monster. ”

“ Madeleine fell back on the seat, gasping for air, swooning. He did not even see her, and finished saying what he had in mind:
"We shall all have to stand our trial. . . . Your father is a murd. . ."
Something rolled between his legs like a bag that might have fallen from the rack. It was Madeleine's white body, tossed about by the jolting Auvergne express.
"Dinner is served," said the restaurant-car attendant, fortunately without looking into the compartment! ”

“ Kill you! . . . Go! Go! . . . you have just time! . . . Kill you!" screamed Zoé, clamouring for the others to assist her.
And Zoé's hands, Patrice' hands, Gertrude's hands, Coriolis' hands all pushed Madeleine out of the old house. . .
The newly-married couple fled, fled through the sullen night, through the storm bursting over Paris. Leaning back in the taxi, Patrice seemed to hold a dead woman in his arms, while, through the hum of the motor, the throbbing engine seemed to repeat, everlastingly:
"Balaoo! . . . Balaoo! . . . Balaoo! . . . ”

“ Balaoo once committed manslaughter, through carelessness: that's a thing that can happen to anybody. Now, since he has been in Paris, he knows that he must not touch men's necks with his terrible hand: he knows what it costs. . . . Papa took him to see an execution and he came back quite impressed, I assure you. . . . Patrice, my own, what are you thinking of now? . . . You look quite pensive!"
"I'm thinking that I've let myself in for a nice thing!" said Patrice, brutally.
Madeleine's tears began to flow once more. Patrice made an attempt to console her, but she pushed him away. ”

“ Whatever happened with Noël, Patrice had made up his mind that Coriolis was responsible for the catastrophe.
The observations which he was able to make during the swift taxi-drive only increased his grave and overwhelming anxiety. Coriolis held Madeleine's drooping head on his breast. The young woman opened her eyes from time to time, gazed silently at her father and then shut them again, retaining the picture of the old man's face under her closed lids. ”

“ Madeleine was stifling. But Patrice began to breathe. Alas, how often do we not find, at the moment when we think ourselves safe, at last, from the pursuit of fate, that it turns against us with the most deadly cruelty! Even so with Patrice Saint-Aubin. Seeing his dear little Madeleine for the third time nearly expiring on that wretched wedding-day, he resolved to shorten this first part of the journey. They left the train at Moulins and drove to the old Hôtel de la Gare. ”

“ They had to walk through the whole length of the train; and the jolting knocked them about and set them giggling afresh: they were a little unnerved since the morning. Right at the end of the car was a little table for two, where they would be very comfortable and able to laugh, by themselves, at all around them and at themselves and at everything, I tell you, at everything, at Balaoo himself, yes, and at the veal and spinach and the chicken and mushrooms: we all know what de-li-cious cooking we find in railway dining-cars! ”

“ Oh, the anarchists need not think that reversible bombs alone are delicate and dangerous to handle; there are other receptacles; such as brain-pans, which, when manipulated a little too roughly by old professors or a little too heedlessly by young ladies, also have a way of going off at a moment when you think them quite safe, brain-pans of pithecanthropes and the like, which reverse of their own accord upon the shoulders of thoughtless young persons! . . .
Patrice and Madeleine cast haggard eyes above, below and around them. ”

“ But my strength. . . my strength failed me at the top of the stairs. . . and I fell on the stair. . . . I thought I was going to die. . . but I don't want to! . . . I want him to kill me . . . himself; with his tremendous fist, because he will never, never love me! ”