"Caeser passed the Rubicon, but he could not have passed the Beresina." All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its snowy fur.

He had an idea! Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable mass of papers, among which were a dozen huge manuscripts of his famous drama, "The Avenger." This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen pounds.

He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others towards the fireplace.
"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he exclaimed.

"What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more fuel tonight.

But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands.