To Prosper Magnan one
hundred thousand francs was a vast and ready-made fortune. He began to
employ it in a hundred different ways; he made castles in the air, such
as we all make with eager delight during the moments preceding sleep, an
hour when images rise in our minds confusedly, and often, in the silence
of the night, thought acquires some magical power. He gratified his
mother's wishes; he bought the thirty acres of meadow land; he married
a young lady of Beauvais to whom his present want of fortune forbade
him to aspire. With a hundred thousand francs he planned a lifetime
of happiness; he saw himself prosperous, the father of a family, rich,
respected in his province, and, possibly, mayor of Beauvais. His brain
heated; he searched for means to turn his fictions to realities. He
began with extraordinary ardor to plan a crime theoretically. While
fancying the death of the merchant he saw distinctly the gold and
the diamonds. His eyes were dazzled by them. His heart throbbed.
Deliberation was, undoubtedly, already crime. Fascinated by that mass
of gold he intoxicated himself morally by murderous arguments. He asked
himself if that poor German had any need to live; he supposed the case
of his never having existed. In short, he planned the crime in a manner
to secure himself impunity. The other bank of the river was occupied by
the Austrian army; below the windows lay a boat and boatman; he would
cut the throat of that man, throw the body into the Rhine, and escape
with the valise; gold would buy the boatman and he could reach the
Austrians. He went so far as to calculate the professional ability he
had reached in the use of instruments, so as to cut through his victim's
throat without leaving him the chance for a single cry.

[Here Monsieur Taillefer wiped his forehead and drank a little water.]

Prosper rose slowly, making no noise. Certain of having waked no one,
he dressed himself and went into the public room. There, with that fatal
intelligence a man suddenly finds on some occasions within him, with
that power of tact and will which is never lacking to prisoners or
to criminals in whatever they undertake, he unscrewed the iron bars,
slipped them from their places without the slightest noise, placed them
against the wall, and opened the shutters, leaning heavily upon their
hinges to keep them from creaking. The moon was shedding its pale pure
light upon the scene, and he was thus enabled to faintly see into the