imself wildly against the impossible: he
should have had a dream, a bad dream, and that would be all.

He stopped, and, after a moment of hesitation, turning on his heel, he
retraced his steps. Of what use was it to go farther? He had no need
to reflect nor to weigh the pro and con; he must give up this plan;
decidedly it was too dangerous.

He had gone but a short distance when he asked himself whether these
dangers were such as he saw them, and whether he were face to face with
a radically demonstrated impossibility.

Without doubt, the concierge might observe him when he passed her lodge,
either on going up-stairs or coming down; and, also, she might not
observe him. This, in reality, depended much upon himself, and on his
method of proceeding.

Every evening this lame old concierge lighted the gas in the two wings
of the building, one on the street and one on the court. She began by
lighting that on the street, and, with the difficulty that she found in
walking, it should take her some time to climb the five stories and
to descend. If one watched from the street when, at dusk, she left her
lodge with a wax taper in her hand, and mounted the stairs behind her,
at a little distance, in such a way as to be on the landing of the first
story when she should reach the second, there would be time, the deed
done, to regain the street before she returned to her lodge, after
having lighted the gas on the two staircases. It was important to
proceed methodically, without hurry, but, also, without loitering.

Was this impossible?

Here, exactly, was the delicate point which he must examine with
composure, without permitting himself to be influenced by any other
consideration than that which sprang from the deed itself.

He was wrong, then, not to continue his route, and it was better,
assuredly, to get out of Paris. In the country, in the fields or woods,
he could find the calm that was indispensable to his over-excited brain,
in which ideas clashed like the waves of a disturbed sea.

He was at this moment in the middle of the Faubourg Saint Honore; he
followed a street that would bring him to the Champs Elysees, a desert
at this early hour.

It took him some time to examine all the hypotheses that might present
themselves, and he reached the conclusion that what had appeared
impossible to him was not so. If he preserved his calmness, and did
not lose perception of the passing time, he could very well escape the
conci