He was amazed at the delights
the future unfolded to him, everything seemed gilded, everything
seemed ready to turn into gold. His brain dwelt with an enthusiasm
wholly new to him upon the dreams it conjured up. He felt twenty
years younger. His fears had gone, and with them his humility. He
saw himself no longer the poor librarian in his slippers and
shabby clothes, cringing to his employer, spending his days in
studying the forgeries he afterwards executed during the night,
hoarding his ill-gotten gains with jealous secrecy, afraid to show
to his few associates that he had accumulated a little wealth,
timid by force of long habit and by the remembrance of the shame
in his early life. All that had disappeared under the potent spell
of his new-found courage. He fancied himself living in some
distant capital, rich and respected, married, perhaps, having
servants of his own, astonishing the learned men of some great
centre by the extent of his knowledge and erudition. All the
vanity of his nature was roused from its long sleep by a new set
of emotions, till he could scarcely contain his inexplicable
happiness. And how had all this come to him so suddenly in the
midst of his obscure life? Simply by squeezing the breath out of
an old man's throat.
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