It dazzled him like a flash of lightning.

He took it, and, going to the window, he examined it by the pale light of
early morning. It was a strong instrument that, in a firm hand, would be
a terrible arm; newly sharpened, it had the edge of a razor.

Then the idea, the vision that had come to him two hours before, came
back to him, clear and complete at nightfall, that is, at the moment when
the concierge was in the second wing of the building, he mounted to
Caffie's apartment without being seen, and with this knife he cut his
throat. It was as simple as it was easy, and this knife left beside the
corpse, and the nature of the wound, would lead the police to look for
a butcher, or at least a man who was in thehabit of using a knife of this
kind.

The evening before, when he had discussed Caffie's death, the how and the
when still remained vague and uncertain. But now the day and the means
were definitely settled: it should be with this knife, and this evening.

This shook him out of his torpor and made him shudder.

He was angry with himself for this weakness. Did he know or did he not
know what he wished? Was he irresolute or cowardly?

Then, going from one idea to another, he thought of an observation that
he had made, which appeared to prove that with many subjects there is
less firmness in the morning than in the evening. Was this the result of
dualism of the nervous centres, and was the human personality double like
the brain? Were there hours when the right hemisphere is master of our
will, and were there other hours when the left is master? Did one of