and cowardly. What a
contradiction!

He walked with his eyes lowered, and at this moment, before him on the
pavement, he saw an object that glittered in the glare of the gas. He
approached it, and found that it was a butcher's knife, that must have
been lost, either on going to the market or the slaughterhouse.

He hesitated a moment whether he should pick it up or leave it there;
then looking all about him, and seeing no one in the deserted street,
and hearing no sound of footsteps in the silence, he bent quickly and
took it.

Caffie's fate was decided.

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XI. THE INSTRUMENT OF DEATH

When, after two hours' sleep, Saniel woke, he did not at first think of
this knife; he was tired and dull. Mechanically he walked about his room
without paying attention to what he was doing, as if he were in a state
of somnambulism, and it astonished him, because he never felt weariness
of mind any more than of body, no matter how little he had slept, nor
how hard he had worked.

But suddenly, catching a glimpse of the knife that he had placed on the
mantel, he received a shock that annihilated his torpor and his fatigue.
It dazzled him like a flash of lightning.

He took it, and, going to the window, he examined it by the pale light
of early morning. It was a strong instrument that, in a firm hand, would
be a terrible arm; newly sharpened, it had the edge of a razor.

Then the idea, the vision that had come to him two hours before, came
back to him, clear and complete at nightfall, that is, at the moment
when the concierge was in the second wing of the building, he mounted
to Caffie's apartment without being seen, and with this knife he cut his
throat. It was as simple as it was easy, and this knife left beside the
corpse, and the nature of the wound, would lead the police to look for a
butcher, or at least a man who was in the habit of using a knife of this
kind.

The evening before, when he had discussed Caffie's death, the how and
the when still remained vague and uncertain. But now the day and the
means were definitely settled: it should be with this knife, and this
evening.

This shook him out of his torpor and made him shudder.

He was angry with himself for this weakness. Did he know or did he not
know what he wished? Was he irresolute or cowardly?

Then, going from one idea to another, he thought of an observation that
he had made, which appeared to prove that with many subjects there