At this moment he saw Antoinette as he had left her the evening previous, her face animated, her cheeks flushed, her countenance full of reproach, her eyes tearful.  She never had appeared to him so charming.  He believed himself so madly in love that he was inclined to mock a little at himself.  He teased in anticipation the joys that were in reserve for him; he revelled in thought of the day and the hour when this superb creature would be his, when he could view her as his own undisputed possession, and devour page after page, chapter after chapter, of this elegantly printed, richly bound book.

However, he was not the man to wholly absorb himself in such a reverie.  His thoughts travelled farther; in idea he embraced his entire future, which he fashioned out at pleasure.  He took leave of his sorrowful past as a blind man who by some miracle recovers his sight, parts from his dog and his staff—­troublesome witnesses of evil days.  He had done with petty employments, with ungrateful toil, with humiliating servitude, with anxiety about the morrow, with the necessity for counting every sou, with meagre repasts, with sordid expedients, with sorrow, distress, and usuries; to all these he said farewell.  Henceforth he would pick up silver and gold by the shovelful; he would have a share in abundance of festivals—­the joy of doing nothing—­the pleasure of commanding—­all the sweetness and all the calm satisfaction of delightful egotism—­reposing in a bed of eider-down—­fed upon delicate birds—­owning two or three houses, a carriage, horses, and a box at the opera.  What a future!  At intervals Samuel Brohl passed his tongue over his lips; they were parched with thirst.

Alnaschar the Lazy received one hundred drachms of silver as his entire patrimony, and he promised himself that he would one day marry the daughter of the grand-vizier.  He meant to clothe himself like a prince, to mount upon a horse with a saddle of fine gold and housings of gold, richly embroidered with diamonds and pearls.  He proposed to see that his wife formed good habits, to train her to obedience, to teach her to stand before him and be always ready to wait upon him; he resolved to discipline her with his looks, his hand, and his foot.  Samuel Brohl possessed a calmer spirit than the Athenian Hippoclide; he was less brutal than Alnaschar of Bagdad:  was he much less ferocious?  He proposed, he also, to educate his wife; he intended that the daughter of the grand-vizier should consecrate herself wholly to his happiness, to his service.  To possess a beautiful slave, with velvety eyes, chestnut hair, tinged with gold, who would make of Samuel Brohl her padishah and her god, who would pass her life at his knees on the alert for his wishes, reading his good pleasure in his face, attentive to his fancies and to his eye-brows, belonging to him body and soul, uplifting to him the gaze of a timid gazelle or a faithful spaniel—­such was his dream of conjugal felicity.  And little need would he have