thing with the
hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a
fortnight before.

When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening
between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out
the _pledge_, which he had got ready long before and hidden there. This
pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and
thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood
in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of
a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece
of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street.
Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood,
he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round
them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and
tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This
was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while
she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip
was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first
minute that the "thing" was made of wood. All this had been stored by
him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when
he heard someone suddenly about in the yard.

"It struck six long ago."

"Long ago! My God!"

He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend
his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the
most important thing to do--to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the
deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a
pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less
on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in
passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by
him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the more final
they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in
his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for
a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his
plans.

And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point
could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of
any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all
as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a who