he lay meditating.
How many medical men had become wealthy in quite a short time! All
that was needed was a little knowledge of the world; for in the course
of his studies he had learnt to estimate the most famous physicians,
and he judged them all to be asses. He was certainly as good as they,
if not better. If by any means he could secure a practice among the
wealth and fashion of Havre, he could easily make a hundred thousand
francs a year. And he calculated with great exactitude what his
certain profits must be. He would go out in the mornings to visit his
patients; at the very moderate average of ten a day, at twenty francs
each, that would mount up to seventy-two thousand francs a year at
least, or even seventy-five thousand; for ten patients was certainly
below the mark. In the afternoon he would be at home to, say, another
ten patients, at ten francs each--thirty-six thousand francs. Here,
then, in round numbers, was an income of twenty thousand francs. Old
patients, or friends whom he would charge only ten francs for a visit,
or see at home for five, would perhaps make a slight reduction on
this sum total, but consultations with other physicians and various
incidental fees would make up for that.

Nothing would be easier than to achieve this by skillful advertising
remarks in the _Figaro_ to the effect that the scientific faculty of
Paris had their eye on him, and were interested in the cures effected
by the modest young practitioner of Havre! And he would be richer than
his brother, richer and more famous; and satisfied with himself, for
he would owe his fortune solely to his own exertions; and liberal to
his old parents, who would be justly proud of his fame. He would not
marry, would not burden his life with a wife who would be in his way,
but then he might make love. He felt so sure of success that he sprang
out of bed as though to grasp it on the spot, and he dressed to go and
search through the town for rooms to suit him.

Then, as he wandered about the streets, he reflected how slight are
the causes which determine our actions. Any time these three weeks he
might and ought to have come to this decision, which, beyond a doubt,
the news of his brother's inheritance had abruptly given rise to.

He stopped before every door where a placard proclaimed that "fine
apartments" or "handsome rooms" were to be let; announcements without
an adjective he turned from with scorn. Then he inspected them with a
lofty