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 could be easier than to achieve this by skilful 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 he would choose his mistress from the most beautiful of his patients.  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 air, measuring the height of the rooms, sketching the plan in his note-book, with the passages, the arrangement of the exits, explaining that he was a medical man and had many visitors.  He must have a broad and well-kept stair-case; nor could he be any higher up than the first floor.

After having written down seven or eight addresses and scribbled two hundred notes, he got home to breakfast a quarter of an hour too late.

In the hall he heard the clatter of plates.  Then they had begun without him!  Why?  They were never wont to be so punctual.  He was nettled and put out, for he was somewhat thin-skinned.  As he went in Roland said to him: 

“Come, Pierre, make haste, devil take you!  You know we have to be at the lawyer’s at two o’clock.  This is not the day to be dawdling.”

Pierre sat down without replying, after kissing his mother and shaking hands with his father and brother; and he helped himself from the deep dish in the middle of the table to the cutlet which had been kept for him.  It was cold and dry, probably the least tempting of them all.  He thought that they might have left it on the hot plate till he came in, and not lose their heads so completely as to have forgotten their other son, their eldest.