Pagina 8 van 1294

He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from

the gate of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty.

He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the

time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising

himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month

later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and, in spite

of the monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence and

indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard this "hideous"

dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not

realise this himself. He was positively going now for a

"rehearsal" of his project, and at every step his excitement grew

more and more violent.