With the crash that followed he came suddenly to his senses, standing before the empty pedestal, the hammer still in his hand, and the fragments of the broken image scattered on the floor about his feet. He threw down the hammer. “So easy!” he said, and turned away. “And what an idiot I am!” He sat down by the table, panting heavily for breath, and rested his forehead on both hands. Presently he rose, and, going to the wash-stand, poured a jugful of cold water over his head and face. He came back quite composed, and sat down to think. And it was for such things as these--for these false and slavish people, these dumb and soulless gods--that he had suffered all these tortures of shame and passion and despair; had made a rope to hang himself, forsooth, because one priest was a liar. As if they were not all liars! Well, all that was done with; he was wiser now. He need only shake off these vermin and begin life afresh. There were plenty of goods vessels in the docks; it would be an easy matter to stow himself away in one of them, and get across to Canada, Australia, Cape Colony--anywhere. It was no matter for the country, if only it was far enough; and, as for the life out there, he could see, and if it did not suit him he could try some other place. He took out his purse. Only thirty-three paoli; but his watch was a good one. That would help him along a bit; and in any case it was of no consequence--he should pull through somehow. But they would search for him, all these people; they would be sure to make inquiries at the docks. No; he must put them on a false scent--make them believe him dead; then he should be quite free--quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the thought of the Burtons searching for his corpse. What a farce the whole thing was! Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words that occurred to him: “I believed in you as I believed in God. God is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie.” He folded up the paper, directed it to Montanelli, and, taking another sheet, wrote across it: “Look for my body in Darsena.” Then he put on his hat and went out of the room. Passing his mother's portrait, he looked up with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied to him. He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping back the door-bolts, went out on to the great, dark, echoing marble staircase. It seemed to yawn beneath him like a black pit as he descended. He crossed the courtyard, treading cautiously for fear of waking Gian Battista, who slept on the ground floor. In the wood-cellar at the back was a little grated window, opening on the canal and not more than four feet from the ground. He remembered that the rusty grating had broken away on one side; by pushing a little he could make an aperture wide enough to climb out by.