He would give up his hard handicraft, and in his turn become an employer of labour, in that America of which he heard his comrades talk as of a country where engine-men shovelled in the gold. His new existence, over there, would unfold like a dream: a wife who passionately loved him, millions to be earned at once, a grand style of living, unlimited scope for ambition; in fact, anything he pleased. And to realise this dream he had only to make a movement, only to suppress a man, the insect, the plant in your way on the path, and which you trample on. He was not even interesting, this man who had now grown fat and heavy, who was plunged in that stupid passion for cards, which had destroyed his former energy. Why spare him? There was nothing, absolutely nothing to plead in his favour. Everything condemned him, because in response to each question, came the answer that it was to the interest of others he should die. To hesitate would be idiotic and cowardly. Jacques bounded in his bed, starting at a thought, at first vague, and then abruptly so piercing that he felt it like a prick in his skull. He, who from childhood desired to kill, who was ravaged to the point of torture by the horror of that fixed idea, why did he not kill Roubaud? Perhaps, on this selected victim, he would for ever assuage his thirst for murder; and, in that way, he would not only do a good stroke of business, but he would be cured as well. Cured, great God! He became bathed in perspiration. He saw himself with the knife in his hand, striking at the throat of Roubaud as the latter had struck the President, and become satisfied and appeased in proportion as the wound bled upon his hands. He would kill him. He was resolved to do so, for that would give him his cure, as well as the woman he adored, and fortune. As he had to kill somebody, since he must kill, he would kill this man, with the knowledge at all events that what he did was done rationally, by interest and logic. Three o'clock in the morning had just struck, when this decision was arrived at, and Jacques endeavoured to sleep. He was already dozing off when a violent start brought him up in his bed in a sitting posture, choking. Kill this man! Great God! had he the right? When a fly pestered him he crushed it with a smack. One day when a cat got between his legs he broke its spine by a kick, without wishing to do so, it is true. But this man, his fellow creature! He had to resume all his reasoning to prove to himself that he had a right to commit murder--the right of the strong who find the weak in their way and devour them. It was he whom the wife of the other one loved at this hour, and she wanted to be free to marry him and bring him what she possessed.