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+Project Gutenberg's An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete, by Emile Souvestre
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete
+
+Author: Emile Souvestre
+
+Last Updated: March 4, 2009
+Release Date: October 30, 2004 [EBook #3999]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER
+
+(Un Philosophe sous les Toits)
+
+By EMILE SOUVESTRE
+
+
+
+With a Preface by JOSEPH BERTRAND, of the French Academy
+
+
+
+
+EMILE SOUVESTRE
+
+No one succeeds in obtaining a prominent place in literature, or in
+surrounding himself with a faithful and steady circle of admirers drawn
+from the fickle masses of the public, unless he possesses originality,
+constant variety, and a distinct personality. It is quite possible to
+gain for a moment a few readers by imitating some original feature
+in another; but these soon vanish and the writer remains alone and
+forgotten. Others, again, without belonging to any distinct group
+of authors, having found their standard in themselves, moralists and
+educators at the same time, have obtained undying recognition.
+
+Of the latter class, though little known outside of France, is Emile
+Souvestre, who was born in Morlaix, April 15, 1806, and died at Paris
+July 5, 1854. He was the son of a civil engineer, was educated at
+the college of Pontivy, and intended to follow his father's career by
+entering the Polytechnic School. His father, however, died in 1823, and
+Souvestre matriculated as a law-student at Rennes. But the young student
+soon devoted himself entirely to literature. His first essay, a tragedy,
+'Le Siege de Missolonghi' (1828), was a pronounced failure. Disheartened
+and disgusted he left Paris and established himself first as a lawyer
+in Morlaix. Then he became proprietor of a newspaper, and was afterward
+appointed a professor in Brest and in Mulhouse. In 1836 he contributed
+to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' some sketches of life in Brittany, which
+obtained a brilliant success. Souvestre was soon made editor of La
+Revue de Paris, and in consequence early found a publisher for his first
+novel, 'L'Echelle de Femmes', which, as was the case with his second
+work, Riche et Pauvre', met with a very favorable reception. His
+reputation was now made, and between this period and his death he gave
+to France about sixty volumes--tales, novels, essays, history, and
+drama.
+
+A double purpose was always very conspicuous in his books: he aspired to
+the role of a moralist and educator, and was likewise a most impressive
+painter of the life, character, and morals of the inhabitants of
+Brittany.
+
+The most significant of his books are perhaps 'Les Derniers Bretons
+(1835-1837, 4 vols.), Pierre Landais (1843, 2 vols.), Le Foyer Breton
+(1844, 2 vols.), Un Philosophe sons les Toits, crowned by the Academy
+(1850), Confessions d'un Ouvrier (1851), Recits et Souvenirs (1853),
+Souvenirs d'un Vieillard (1854); also La Bretagne Pittoresque (1845),
+and, finally, Causeries Historiques et Litteraires (1854, 2 vols.)'.
+His comedies deserve honorable mention: 'Henri Hamelin, L'Oncle Baptiste
+(1842), La Parisienne, Le Mousse, etc'. In 1848, Souvestre was appointed
+professor of the newly created school of administration, mostly devoted
+to popular lectures. He held this post till 1853, lecturing partly in
+Paris, partly in Switzerland.
+
+His death, when comparatively young, left a distinct gap in the literary
+world. A life like his could not be extinguished without general sorrow.
+Although he was unduly modest, and never aspired to the role of a
+beacon-light in literature, always seeking to remain in obscurity,
+the works of Emile Souvestre must be placed in the first rank by their
+morality and by their instructive character. They will always command
+the entire respect and applause of mankind. And thus it happens that,
+like many others, he was only fully appreciated after his death.
+
+Even those of his 'confreres' who did not seem to esteem him, when
+alive, suddenly found out that they had experienced a great loss in
+his demise. They expressed it in emotional panegyrcs; contemporaneous
+literature discovered that virtue had flown from its bosom, and the
+French Academy, which had at its proper time crowned his 'Philosophe
+sons les Toits' as a work contributing supremely to morals, kept his
+memory green by bestowing on his widow the "Prix Lambert," designed for
+the "families of authors who by their integrity, and by the probity
+of their efforts have well deserved this token from the Republique des
+Lettres."
+
+                    JOSEPH BERTRAND
+                  de 'Academie Francaise.
+
+
+
+
+AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS
+
+January 1st
+
+The day of the month came into my mind as soon as I awoke. Another year
+is separated from the chain of ages, and drops into the gulf of the
+past! The crowd hasten to welcome her young sister. But while all looks
+are turned toward the future, mine revert to the past. Everyone smiles
+upon the new queen; but, in spite of myself, I think of her whom time
+has just wrapped in her winding-sheet. The past year!--at least I know
+what she was, and what she has given me; while this one comes surrounded
+by all the forebodings of the unknown. What does she hide in the clouds
+that mantle her? Is it the storm or the sunshine? Just now it rains, and
+I feel my mind as gloomy as the sky. I have a holiday today; but what
+can one do on a rainy day? I walk up and down my attic out of temper,
+and I determine to light my fire.
+
+Unfortunately the matches are bad, the chimney smokes, the wood goes
+out! I throw down my bellows in disgust, and sink into my old armchair.
+
+In truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth of a new year? All those
+who are already in the streets, with holiday looks and smiling faces--do
+they understand what makes them so gay? Do they even know what is the
+meaning of this holiday, or whence comes the custom of New-Year's gifts?
+
+Here my mind pauses to prove to itself its superiority over that of the
+vulgar. I make a parenthesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, and
+I bring together all the evidence which my knowledge can produce.
+
+(The old Romans divided the year into ten months only; it was Numa
+Pompilius who added January and February. The former took its name
+from Janus, to whom it was dedicated. As it opened the new year, they
+surrounded its beginning with good omens, and thence came the custom of
+visits between neighbors, of wishing happiness, and of New-Year's gifts.
+The presents given by the Romans were symbolic. They consisted of dry
+figs, dates, honeycomb, as emblems of "the sweetness of the auspices
+under which the year should begin its course," and a small piece of
+money called stips, which foreboded riches.)
+
+Here I close the parenthesis, and return to my ill-humor. The
+little speech I have just addressed to myself has restored me my
+self-satisfaction, but made me more dissatisfied with others. I could
+now enjoy my breakfast; but the portress has forgotten my morning's
+milk, and the pot of preserves is empty! Anyone else would have been
+vexed: as for me, I affect the most supreme indifference. There remains
+a hard crust, which I break by main strength, and which I carelessly
+nibble, as a man far above the vanities of the world and of fresh rolls.
+
+However, I do not know why my thoughts should grow more gloomy by
+reason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of
+an Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea
+without sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross
+takes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which
+makes the object small or great according to the end you look through.
+
+Usually, the prospect that opens out before my window delights me. It is
+a mountain-range of roofs, with ridges crossing, interlacing, and piled
+on one another, and upon which tall chimneys raise their peaks. It was
+but yesterday that they had an Alpine aspect to me, and I waited for the
+first snowstorm to see glaciers among them; to-day, I only see tiles
+and stone flues. The pigeons, which assisted my rural illusions, seem
+no more than miserable birds which have mistaken the roof for the back
+yard; the smoke, which rises in light clouds, instead of making me
+dream of the panting of Vesuvius, reminds me of kitchen preparations
+and dishwater; and lastly, the telegraph, that I see far off on the old
+tower of Montmartre, has the effect of a vile gallows stretching its
+arms over the city.
+
+My eyes, thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon the great man's house
+which faces my attic.
+
+The influence of New-Year's Day is visible there. The servants have an
+air of eagerness proportioned to the value of their New-Year's gifts,
+received or expected. I see the master of the house crossing the court
+with the morose look of a man who is forced to be generous; and
+the visitors increase, followed by shop porters who carry flowers,
+bandboxes, or toys. Suddenly the great gates are opened, and a new
+carriage, drawn by thoroughbred horses, draws up before the doorsteps.
+They are, without doubt, the New-Year's gift presented to the mistress
+of the house by her husband; for she comes herself to look at the new
+equipage. Very soon she gets into it with a little girl, all streaming
+with laces, feathers and velvets, and loaded with parcels which she goes
+to distribute as New-Year's gifts. The door is shut, the windows are
+drawn up, the carriage sets off.
+
+Thus all the world are exchanging good wishes and presents to-day. I
+alone have nothing to give or to receive. Poor Solitary! I do not even
+know one chosen being for whom I might offer a prayer.
+
+Then let my wishes for a happy New Year go and seek out all my unknown
+friends--lost in the multitude which murmurs like the ocean at my feet!
+
+To you first, hermits in cities, for whom death and poverty have
+created a solitude in the midst of the crowd! unhappy laborers, who are
+condemned to toil in melancholy, and eat your daily bread in silence
+and desertion, and whom God has withdrawn from the intoxicating pangs of
+love and friendship!
+
+To you, fond dreamers, who pass through life with your eyes turned
+toward some polar star, while you tread with indifference over the rich
+harvests of reality!
+
+To you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the evening to maintain your
+families! to you, poor widows, weeping and working by a cradle! to you,
+young men, resolutely set to open for yourselves a path in life, large
+enough to lead through it the wife of your choice! to you, all brave
+soldiers of work and of self-sacrifice!
+
+To you, lastly, whatever your title and your name, who love good, who
+pity the suffering; who walk through the world like the symbolical
+Virgin of Byzantium, with both arms open to the human race!
+
+Here I am suddenly interrupted by loud and increasing chirpings. I look
+about me: my window is surrounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of
+bread which in my brown study I had just scattered on the roof. At this
+sight a flash of light broke upon my saddened heart. I deceived myself
+just now, when I complained that I had nothing to give: thanks to me,
+the sparrows of this part of the town will have their New-Year's gifts!
+
+Twelve o'clock.--A knock at my door; a poor girl comes in, and greets
+me by name. At first I do not recollect her; but she looks at me, and
+smiles. Ah! it is Paulette! But it is almost a year since I have seen
+her, and Paulette is no longer the same: the other day she was a child,
+now she is almost a young woman.
+
+Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad; but she has always the same
+open and straightforward look--the same mouth, smiling at every word,
+as if to court your sympathy--the same voice, somewhat timid, yet
+expressing fondness. Paulette is not pretty--she is even thought plain;
+as for me, I think her charming. Perhaps that is not on her account, but
+on my own. Paulette appears to me as one of my happiest recollections.
+
+It was the evening of a public holiday. Our principal buildings were
+illuminated with festoons of fire, a thousand flags waved in the night
+winds, and the fireworks had just shot forth their spouts of flame into
+the midst of the Champ de Mars. Suddenly, one of those unaccountable
+alarms which strike a multitude with panic fell upon the dense crowd:
+they cry out, they rush on headlong; the weaker ones fall, and the
+frightened crowd tramples them down in its convulsive struggles. I
+escaped from the confusion by a miracle, and was hastening away, when
+the cries of a perishing child arrested me: I reentered that human
+chaos, and, after unheard-of exertions, I brought Paulette out of it at
+the peril of my life.
+
+That was two years ago: since then I had not seen the child again but
+at long intervals, and I had almost forgotten her; but Paulette's memory
+was that of a grateful heart, and she came at the beginning of the year
+to offer me her wishes for my happiness. She brought me, besides, a
+wallflower in full bloom; she herself had planted and reared it: it was
+something that belonged wholly to herself; for it was by her care, her
+perseverance, and her patience, that she had obtained it.
+
+The wallflower had grown in a common pot; but Paulette, who is a
+bandbox-maker, had put it into a case of varnished paper, ornamented
+with arabesques. These might have been in better taste, but I did not
+feel the attention and good-will the less.
+
+This unexpected present, the little girl's modest blushes, the
+compliments she stammered out, dispelled, as by a sunbeam, the kind of
+mist which had gathered round my mind; my thoughts suddenly changed
+from the leaden tints of evening to the brightest colors of dawn. I made
+Paulette sit down, and questioned her with a light heart.
+
+At first the little girl replied in monosyllables; but very soon
+the tables were turned, and it was I who interrupted with short
+interjections her long and confidential talk. The poor child leads a
+hard life. She was left an orphan long since, with a brother and sister,
+and lives with an old grandmother, who has "brought them up to poverty,"
+as she always calls it.
+
+However, Paulette now helps her to make bandboxes, her little sister
+Perrine begins to use the needle, and her brother Henry is apprentice
+to a printer. All would go well if it were not for losses and want of
+work--if it were not for clothes which wear out, for appetites which
+grow larger, and for the winter, when you cannot get sunshine for
+nothing. Paulette complains that her candles go too quickly, and that
+her wood costs too much. The fireplace in their garret is so large that
+a fagot makes no more show in it than a match; it is so near the roof
+that the wind blows the rain down it, and in winter it hails upon the
+hearth; so they have left off using it. Henceforth they must be content
+with an earthen chafing-dish, upon which they cook their meals. The
+grandmother had often spoken of a stove that was for sale at the
+broker's close by; but he asked seven francs for it, and the times are
+too hard for such an expense: the family, therefore, resign themselves
+to cold for economy!
+
+As Paulette spoke, I felt more and more that I was losing my fretfulness
+and low spirits. The first disclosures of the little bandbox-maker
+created within me a wish that soon became a plan. I questioned her about
+her daily occupations, and she informed me that on leaving me she must
+go, with her brother, her sister, and grandmother, to the different
+people for whom they work. My plan was immediately settled. I told the
+child that I would go to see her in the evening, and I sent her away
+with fresh thanks.
+
+I placed the wallflower in the open window, where a ray of sunshine bid
+it welcome; the birds were singing around, the sky had cleared up, and
+the day, which began so loweringly, had become bright. I sang as I moved
+about my room, and, having hastily put on my hat and coat, I went out.
+
+Three o'clock.--All is settled with my neighbor, the chimney-doctor; he
+will repair my old stove, and answers for its being as good as new.
+At five o'clock we are to set out, and put it up in Paulette's
+grandmother's room.
+
+Midnight.--All has gone off well. At the hour agreed upon, I was at the
+old bandbox-maker's; she was still out. My Piedmontese
+
+   [In Paris a chimney-sweeper is named "Piedmontese" or "Savoyard,"
+   as they usually come from that country.]
+
+fixed the stove, while I arranged a dozen logs in the great fireplace,
+taken from my winter stock. I shall make up for them by warming myself
+with walking, or by going to bed earlier.
+
+My heart beat at every step that was heard on the staircase; I trembled
+lest they should interrupt me in my preparations, and should thus spoil
+my intended surprise. But no!--see everything ready: the lighted stove
+murmurs gently, the little lamp burns upon the table, and a bottle of
+oil for it is provided on the shelf. The chimney-doctor is gone. Now
+my fear lest they should come is changed into impatience at their not
+coming. At last I hear children's voices; here they are: they push open
+the door and rush in--but they all stop in astonishment.
+
+At the sight of the lamp, the stove, and the visitor, who stands there
+like a magician in the midst of these wonders, they draw back almost
+frightened. Paulette is the first to comprehend it, and the arrival of
+the grandmother, who is more slowly mounting the stairs, finishes the
+explanation. Then come tears, ecstasies, thanks!
+
+But the wonders are not yet ended. The little sister opens the oven, and
+discovers some chestnuts just roasted; the grandmother puts her hand on
+the bottles of cider arranged on the dresser; and I draw forth from the
+basket that I have hidden a cold tongue, a pot of butter, and some fresh
+rolls.
+
+Now their wonder turns into admiration; the little family have never
+seen such a feast! They lay the cloth, they sit down, they eat; it is
+a complete banquet for all, and each contributes his share to it. I had
+brought only the supper: and the bandbox-maker and her children supplied
+the enjoyment.
+
+What bursts of laughter at nothing! What a hubbub of questions which
+waited for no reply, of replies which answered no question! The old
+woman herself shared in the wild merriment of the little ones! I
+have always been struck at the ease with which the poor forget their
+wretchedness. Being used to live only for the present, they make a gain
+of every pleasure as soon as it offers itself. But the surfeited rich
+are more difficult to satisfy: they require time and everything to suit
+before they will consent to be happy.
+
+The evening has passed like a moment. The old woman told me the history
+of her life, sometimes smiling, sometimes drying her eyes. Perrine sang
+an old ballad with her fresh young voice. Henry told us what he knows of
+the great writers of the day, to whom he has to carry their proofs. At
+last we were obliged to separate, not without fresh thanks on the part
+of the happy family.
+
+I have come home slowly, ruminating with a full heart, and pure
+enjoyment, on the simple events of my evening. It has given me much
+comfort and much instruction. Now, no New-Year's Day will come amiss
+to me; I know that no one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give and
+nothing to receive.
+
+As I came in, I met my rich neighbor's new equipage. She, too, had
+just returned from her evening's party; and, as she sprang from the
+carriage-step with feverish impatience, I heard her murmur "At last!"
+
+I, when I left Paulette's family, said "So soon!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CARNIVAL
+
+February 20th
+
+What a noise out of doors! What is the meaning of these shouts and
+cries? Ah! I recollect: this is the last day of the Carnival, and the
+maskers are passing.
+
+Christianity has not been able to abolish the noisy bacchanalian
+festivals of the pagan times, but it has changed the names. That which
+it has given to these "days of liberty" announces the ending of the
+feasts, and the month of fasting which should follow; carn-ival means,
+literally, "farewell to flesh!" It is a forty days' farewell to the
+"blessed pullets and fat hams," so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel.
+Man prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin thoroughly
+before he begins to repent.
+
+Why, in all ages and among every people, do we meet with some one of
+these mad festivals? Must we believe that it requires such an effort
+for men to be reasonable, that the weaker ones have need of rest at
+intervals? The monks of La Trappe, who are condemned to silence by their
+rule, are allowed to speak once in a month, and on this day they all
+talk at once from the rising to the setting of the sun.
+
+Perhaps it is the same in the world. As we are obliged all the year to
+be decent, orderly, and reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint
+during the Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies and
+wishes that have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain.
+For a moment the slaves become the masters, as in the days of the
+Saturnalia, and all is given up to the "fools of the family."
+
+The shouts in the square redouble; the troops of masks increase--on
+foot, in carriages, and on horseback. It is now who can attract the most
+attention by making a figure for a few hours, or by exciting curiosity
+or envy; to-morrow they will all return, dull and exhausted, to the
+employments and troubles of yesterday.
+
+Alas! thought I with vexation, each of us is like these masqueraders;
+our whole life is often but an unsightly Carnival! And yet man has need
+of holidays, to relax his mind, rest his body, and open his heart. Can
+he not have them, then, with these coarse pleasures? Economists have
+been long inquiring what is the best disposal of the industry of the
+human race. Ah! if I could only discover the best disposal of its
+leisure! It is easy enough to find it work; but who will find it
+relaxation? Work supplies the daily bread; but it is cheerfulness that
+gives it a relish. O philosophers! go in quest of pleasure! find us
+amusements without brutality, enjoyments without selfishness; in a word,
+invent a Carnival that will please everybody, and bring shame to no one.
+
+Three o'clock.--I have just shut my window, and stirred up my fire. As
+this is a holiday for everybody, I will make it one for myself, too. So
+I light the little lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of
+the coffee that my portress's son brought from the Levant, and I look in
+my bookcase for one of my favorite authors.
+
+First, here is the amusing parson of Meudon; but his characters are
+too fond of talking slang:--Voltaire; but he disheartens men by always
+bantering them:--Moliere; but he hinders one's laughter by making one
+think:--Lesage; let us stop at him. Being profound rather than grave, he
+preaches virtue while ridiculing vice; if bitterness is sometimes to be
+found in his writings, it is always in the garb of mirth: he sees the
+miseries of the world without despising it, and knows its cowardly
+tricks without hating it.
+
+Let us call up all the heroes of his book.... Gil Blas, Fabrice,
+Sangrado, the Archbishop of Granada, the Duke of Lerma, Aurora, Scipio!
+Ye gay or graceful figures, rise before my eyes, people my solitude;
+bring hither for my amusement the world-carnival, of which you are the
+brilliant maskers!
+
+Unfortunately, at the very moment I made this invocation, I recollected
+I had a letter to write which could not be put off. One of my attic
+neighbors came yesterday to ask me to do it. He is a cheerful old man,
+and has a passion for pictures and prints. He comes home almost every
+day with a drawing or painting--probably of little value; for I know he
+lives penuriously, and even the letter that I am to write for him shows
+his poverty. His only son, who was married in England, is just dead,
+and his widow--left without any means, and with an old mother and a
+child--had written to beg for a home. M. Antoine asked me first to
+translate the letter, and then to write a refusal. I had promised that
+he should have this answer to-day: before everything, let us fulfil our
+promises.
+
+The sheet of "Bath" paper is before me, I have dipped my pen into the
+ink, and I rub my forehead to invite forth a sally of ideas, when I
+perceive that I have not my dictionary. Now, a Parisian who would speak
+English without a dictionary is like a child without leading-strings;
+the ground trembles under him, and he stumbles at the first step. I run
+then to the bookbinder's, where I left my Johnson, who lives close by in
+the square.
+
+The door is half open; I hear low groans; I enter without knocking, and
+I see the bookbinder by the bedside of his fellow-lodger. This latter
+has a violent fever and delirium. Pierre looks at him perplexed and out
+of humor. I learn from him that his comrade was not able to get up in
+the morning, and that since then he has become worse every hour.
+
+I ask whether they have sent for a doctor.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed!" replied Pierre, roughly; "one must have money
+in one's pocket for that, and this fellow has only debts instead of
+savings."
+
+"But you," said I, rather astonished; "are you not his friend?"
+
+"Friend!" interrupted the bookbinder. "Yes, as much as the shaft-horse
+is friend to the leader--on condition that each will take his share of
+the draught, and eat his feed by himself."
+
+"You do not intend, however, to leave him without any help?"
+
+"Bah! he may keep in his bed till to-morrow, as I'm going to the ball."
+
+"You mean to leave him alone?"
+
+"Well! must I miss a party of pleasure at Courtville--[A Parisian summer
+resort.]--because this fellow is lightheaded?" asked Pierre, sharply. "I
+have promised to meet some friends at old Desnoyer's. Those who are sick
+may take their broth; my physic is white wine."
+
+So saying, he untied a bundle, out of which he took the fancy costume of
+a waterman, and proceeded to dress himself in it.
+
+In vain I tried to awaken some fellow-feeling for the unfortunate man
+who lay groaning there close by him; being entirely taken up with the
+thoughts of his expected pleasure, Pierre would hardly so much as hear
+me. At last his coarse selfishness provoked me. I began reproaching
+instead of remonstrating with him, and I declared him responsible for
+the consequences which such a desertion must bring upon the sick man.
+
+At this the bookbinder, who was just going, stopped with an oath,
+and stamped his foot. "Am I to spend my Carnival in heating water for
+footbaths, pray?"
+
+"You must not leave your comrade to die without help!" I replied.
+
+"Let him go to the hospital, then!"
+
+"How can he by himself?"
+
+Pierre seemed to make up his mind.
+
+"Well, I'm going to take him," resumed he; "besides, I shall get rid of
+him sooner. Come, get up, comrade!" He shook his comrade, who had not
+taken off his clothes. I observed that he was too weak to walk, but the
+bookbinder would not listen: he made him get up, and half dragged,
+half supported him to the lodge of the porter, who ran for a hackney
+carriage. I saw the sick man get into it, almost fainting, with the
+impatient waterman; and they both set off, one perhaps to die, the other
+to dine at Courtville Gardens!
+
+Six o'clock.--I have been to knock at my neighbor's door, who opened it
+himself; and I have given him his letter, finished at last, and directed
+to his son's widow. M. Antoine thanked me gratefully, and made me sit
+down.
+
+It was the first time I had been into the attic of the old amateur.
+Curtains stained with damp and hanging down in rags, a cold stove, a bed
+of straw, two broken chairs, composed all the furniture. At the end of
+the room were a great number of prints in a heap, and paintings without
+frames turned against the wall.
+
+At the moment I came in, the old man was making his dinner on some hard
+crusts of bread, which he was soaking in a glass of 'eau sucree'. He
+perceived that my eyes fell upon his hermit fare, and he looked a little
+ashamed.
+
+"There is nothing to tempt you in my supper, neighbor," said he, with a
+smile.
+
+I replied that at least I thought it a very philosophical one for the
+Carnival.
+
+M. Antoine shook his head, and went on again with his supper.
+
+"Every one keeps his holidays in his own way," resumed he, beginning
+again to dip a crust into his glass. "There are several sorts of
+epicures, and not all feasts are meant to regale the palate; there are
+some also for the ears and the eyes."
+
+I looked involuntarily round me, as if to seek for the invisible banquet
+which could make up to him for such a supper.
+
+Without doubt he understood me; for he got up slowly, and, with the
+magisterial air of a man confident in what he is about to do, he
+rummaged behind several picture frames, drew forth a painting, over
+which he passed his hand, and silently placed it under the light of the
+lamp.
+
+It represented a fine-looking old man, seated at table with his wife,
+his daughter, and his children, and singing to the accompaniment of
+musicians who appeared in the background. At first sight I recognized
+the subject, which I had often admired at the Louvre, and I declared it
+to be a splendid copy of Jordaens.
+
+"A copy!" cried M. Antoine; "say an original, neighbor, and an original
+retouched by Rubens! Look closer at the head of the old man, the
+dress of the young woman, and the accessories. One can count
+the pencil-strokes of the Hercules of painters. It is not only a
+masterpiece, sir; it is a treasure--a relic! The picture at the Louvre
+may be a pearl, this is a diamond!"
+
+And resting it against the stove, so as to place it in the best light,
+he fell again to soaking his crusts, without taking his eyes off the
+wonderful picture. One would have said that the sight of it gave the
+crusts an unexpected relish, for he chewed them slowly, and emptied
+his glass by little sips. His shrivelled features became smooth, his
+nostrils expanded; it was indeed, as he said himself, "a feast for the
+eyes."
+
+"You see that I also have my treat," he resumed, nodding his head with
+an air of triumph. "Others may run after dinners and balls; as for me,
+this is the pleasure I give myself for my Carnival."
+
+"But if this painting is really so precious," replied I, "it ought to be
+worth a high price."
+
+"Eh! eh!" said M. Antoine, with an air of proud indifference. "In good
+times, a good judge might value it at somewhere about twenty thousand
+francs."
+
+I started back.
+
+"And you have bought it?" cried I.
+
+"For nothing," replied he, lowering his voice. "These brokers are asses;
+mine mistook this for a student's copy; he let me have it for fifty
+louis, ready money! This morning I took them to him, and now he wishes
+to be off the bargain."
+
+"This morning!" repeated I, involuntarily casting my eyes on the letter
+containing the refusal that M. Antoine had made me write to his son's
+widow, which was still on the little table.
+
+He took no notice of my exclamation, and went on contemplating the work
+of Jordaens in an ecstasy.
+
+"What a knowledge of chiaroscuro!" he murmured, biting his last crust in
+delight. "What relief! what fire! Where can one find such transparency
+of color! such magical lights! such force! such nature!"
+
+As I was listening to him in silence, he mistook my astonishment for
+admiration, and clapped me on the shoulder.
+
+"You are dazzled," said he merrily; "you did not expect such a treasure!
+What do you say to the bargain I have made?"
+
+"Pardon me," replied I, gravely; "but I think you might have done
+better."
+
+M. Antoine raised his head.
+
+"How!" cried he; "do you take me for a man likely to be deceived about
+the merit or value of a painting?"
+
+"I neither doubt your taste nor your skill; but I cannot help thinking
+that, for the price of this picture of a family party, you might have
+had--"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The family itself, sir."
+
+The old amateur cast a look at me, not of anger, but of contempt. In
+his eyes I had evidently just proved myself a barbarian, incapable of
+understanding the arts, and unworthy of enjoying them. He got up without
+answering me, hastily took up the Jordaens, and replaced it in its
+hiding-place behind the prints.
+
+It was a sort of dismissal; I took leave of him, and went away.
+
+Seven o'clock.--When I come in again, I find my water boiling over
+my lamp, and I busy myself in grinding my Mocha, and setting out my
+coffee-things.
+
+The getting coffee ready is the most delicate and most attractive of
+domestic operations to one who lives alone: it is the grand work of a
+bachelor's housekeeping.
+
+Coffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between bodily and spiritual
+nourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the same time, upon the senses
+and the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delightful
+activity to the wits; it is a genius that lends wings to our fancy, and
+transports it to the land of the Arabian Nights.
+
+When I am buried in my old easy-chair, my feet on the fender before a
+blazing fire, my ear soothed by the singing of the coffee-pot, which
+seems to gossip with my fire-irons, the sense of smell gently excited by
+the aroma of the Arabian bean, and my eyes shaded by my cap pulled down
+over them, it often seems as if each cloud of the fragrant steam took a
+distinct form. As in the mirages of the desert, in each as it rises, I
+see some image of which my mind had been longing for the reality.
+
+At first the vapor increases, and its color deepens. I see a cottage
+on a hillside: behind is a garden shut in by a whitethorn hedge, and
+through the garden runs a brook, on the banks of which I hear the bees
+humming.
+
+Then the view opens still more. See those fields planted with
+apple-trees, in which I can distinguish a plough and horses waiting for
+their master! Farther on, in a part of the wood which rings with the
+sound of the axe, I perceive the woodsman's hut, roofed with turf and
+branches; and, in the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem to see a
+figure of myself gliding about. It is my ghost walking in my dream!
+
+The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, compels me to break off
+my meditations, in order to fill up the coffee-pot. I then remember
+that I have no cream; I take my tin can off the hook and go down to the
+milkwoman's.
+
+Mother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Savoy, which she left when
+quite young; and, contrary to the custom of the Savoyards, she has
+not gone back to it again. She has neither husband nor child,
+notwithstanding the title they give her; but her kindness, which never
+sleeps, makes her worthy of the name of mother.
+
+A brave creature! Left by herself in the battle of life, she makes good
+her humble place in it by working, singing, helping others, and leaving
+the rest to God.
+
+At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of laughter. In one of
+the corners of the shop three children are sitting on the ground. They
+wear the sooty dress of Savoyard boys, and in their hands they hold
+large slices of bread and cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the
+eyes with his, and that is the reason of their mirth.
+
+Mother Denis points them out to me.
+
+"Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy themselves!" said she, putting
+her hand on the head of the little glutton.
+
+"He has had no breakfast," puts in one of the others by way of excuse.
+
+"Poor little thing," said the milkwoman; "he is left alone in the
+streets of Paris, where he can find no other father than the All-good
+God!"
+
+"And that is why you make yourself a mother to them?" I replied, gently.
+
+"What I do is little enough," said Mother Denis, measuring out my milk;
+"but every day I get some of them together out of the street, that for
+once they may have enough to eat. Dear children! their mothers will make
+up for it in heaven. Not to mention that they recall my native mountains
+to me: when they sing and dance, I seem to see our old father again."
+
+Here her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"So you are repaid by your recollections for the good you do them?"
+resumed I.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said she, "and by their happiness, too! The laughter of
+these little ones, sir, is like a bird's song; it makes you gay, and
+gives you heart to live."
+
+As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, and added
+some apples and a handful of nuts to them.
+
+"Come, my little dears," she cried, "put these into your pockets against
+to-morrow."
+
+Then, turning to me:
+
+"To-day I am ruining myself," added she; "but we must all have our
+Carnival."
+
+I came away without saying a word: I was too much affected.
+
+At last I have discovered what true pleasure is. After beholding
+the egotism of sensuality and of intellect, I have found the happy
+self-sacrifice of goodness. Pierre, M. Antoine, and Mother Denis had all
+kept their Carnival; but for the first two, it was only a feast for the
+senses or the mind; while for the third, it was a feast for the heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW
+
+March 3d
+
+A poet has said that life is the dream of a shadow: he would better have
+compared it to a night of fever! What alternate fits of restlessness and
+sleep! what discomfort! what sudden starts! what ever-returning thirst!
+what a chaos of mournful and confused fancies! We can neither sleep
+nor wake; we seek in vain for repose, and we stop short on the brink of
+action. Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation, and the
+last third in repenting.
+
+When I say human existence, I mean my own! We are so made that each of
+us regards himself as the mirror of the community: what passes in our
+minds infallibly seems to us a history of the universe. Every man is
+like the drunkard who reports an earthquake, because he feels himself
+staggering.
+
+And why am I uncertain and restless--I, a poor day-laborer in the
+world--who fill an obscure station in a corner of it, and whose work
+it avails itself of, without heeding the workman? I will tell you, my
+unseen friend, for whom these lines are written; my unknown brother, on
+whom the solitary call in sorrow; my imaginary confidant, to whom
+all monologues are addressed and who is but the shadow of our own
+conscience.
+
+A great event has happened in my life! A crossroad has suddenly opened
+in the middle of the monotonous way along which I was travelling
+quietly, and without thinking of it. Two roads present themselves, and
+I must choose between them. One is only the continuation of that I have
+followed till now; the other is wider, and exhibits wondrous prospects.
+On the first there is nothing to fear, but also little to hope; on the
+other are great dangers and great fortune. Briefly, the question is,
+whether I shall give up the humble office in which I thought to die,
+for one of those bold speculations in which chance alone is banker! Ever
+since yesterday I have consulted with myself; I have compared the two
+and I remain undecided.
+
+Where shall I find light--who will advise me?
+
+Sunday, 4th.--See the sun coming out from the thick fogs of winter!
+Spring announces its approach; a soft breeze skims over the roofs, and
+my wallflower begins to blow again.
+
+We are near that sweet season of fresh green, of which the poets of the
+sixteenth century sang with so much feeling:
+
+          Now the gladsome month of May
+          All things newly doth array;
+          Fairest lady, let me too
+          In thy love my life renew.
+
+The chirping of the sparrows calls me: they claim the crumbs I scatter
+to them every morning. I open my window, and the prospect of roofs opens
+out before me in all its splendor.
+
+He who has lived only on a first floor has no idea of the picturesque
+variety of such a view. He has never contemplated these tile-colored
+heights which intersect each other; he has not followed with his eyes
+these gutter-valleys, where the fresh verdure of the attic gardens
+waves, the deep shadows which evening spreads over the slated slopes,
+and the sparkling of windows which the setting sun has kindled to
+a blaze of fire. He has not studied the flora of these Alps of
+civilization, carpeted by lichens and mosses; he is not acquainted with
+the myriad inhabitants that people them, from the microscopic insect to
+the domestic cat--that reynard of the roofs who is always on the prowl,
+or in ambush; he has not witnessed the thousand aspects of a clear or
+a cloudy sky; nor the thousand effects of light, that make these upper
+regions a theatre with ever-changing scenes! How many times have my
+days of leisure passed away in contemplating this wonderful sight; in
+discovering its darker or brighter episodes; in seeking, in short, in
+this unknown world for the impressions of travel that wealthy tourists
+look for lower!
+
+Nine o'clock.--But why, then, have not my winged neighbors picked up the
+crumbs I have scattered for them before my window? I see them fly away,
+come back, perch upon the ledges of the windows, and chirp at the sight
+of the feast they are usually so ready to devour! It is not my presence
+that frightens them; I have accustomed them to eat out of my hand. Then,
+why this fearful suspense? In vain I look around: the roof is clear,
+the windows near are closed. I crumble the bread that remains from my
+breakfast to attract them by an ampler feast. Their chirpings increase,
+they bend down their heads, the boldest approach upon the wing, but
+without daring to alight.
+
+Come, come, my sparrows are the victims of one of the foolish panics
+which make the funds fall at the Bourse! It is plain that birds are not
+more reasonable than men!
+
+With this reflection I was about to shut my window, when suddenly
+I perceived, in a spot of sunshine on my right, the shadow of two
+pricked-up ears; then a paw advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat
+showed itself at the corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying
+there in wait, hoping the crumbs would bring him some game.
+
+And I had accused my guests of cowardice! I was so sure that no danger
+could menace them! I thought I had looked well everywhere! I had only
+forgotten the corner behind me!
+
+In life, as on the roofs, how many misfortunes come from having
+forgotten a single corner!
+
+Ten o'clock.--I cannot leave my window; the rain and the cold have kept
+it shut so long that I must reconnoitre all the environs to be able
+to take possession of them again. My eyes search in succession all the
+points of the jumbled and confused prospect, passing on or stopping
+according to what they light upon.
+
+Ah! see the windows upon which they formerly loved to rest; they are
+those of two unknown neighbors, whose different habits they have long
+remarked.
+
+One is a poor work-woman, who rises before sunrise, and whose profile is
+shadowed upon her little muslin window-curtain far into the evening; the
+other is a young songstress, whose vocal flourishes sometimes reach my
+attic by snatches. When their windows are open, that of the work-woman
+discovers a humble but decent abode; the other, an elegantly furnished
+room. But to-day a crowd of tradespeople throng the latter: they take
+down the silk hangings and carry off the furniture, and I now remember
+that the young singer passed under my window this morning with her veil
+down, and walking with the hasty step of one who suffers some inward
+trouble. Ah! I guess it all. Her means are exhausted in elegant fancies,
+or have been taken away by some unexpected misfortune, and now she has
+fallen from luxury to indigence. While the work-woman manages not only
+to keep her little room, but also to furnish it with decent comfort by
+her steady toil, that of the singer is become the property of brokers.
+The one sparkled for a moment on the wave of prosperity; the other sails
+slowly but safely along the coast of a humble and laborious industry.
+
+Alas! is there not here a lesson for us all? Is it really in hazardous
+experiments, at the end of which we shall meet with wealth or ruin, that
+the wise man should employ his years of strength and freedom? Ought he
+to consider life as a regular employment which brings its daily wages,
+or as a game in which the future is determined by a few throws? Why seek
+the risk of extreme chances? For what end hasten to riches by dangerous
+roads? Is it really certain that happiness is the prize of brilliant
+successes, rather than of a wisely accepted poverty? Ah! if men but
+knew in what a small dwelling joy can live, and how little it costs to
+furnish it!
+
+Twelve o'clock.--I have been walking up and down my attic for a long
+time, with my arms folded and my eyes on the ground! My doubts increase,
+like shadows encroaching more and more on some bright space; my fears
+multiply; and the uncertainty becomes every moment more painful to me!
+It is necessary for me to decide to-day, and before the evening! I hold
+the dice of my future fate in my hands, and I dare not throw them.
+
+Three o'clock.--The sky has become cloudy, and a cold wind begins to
+blow from the west; all the windows which were opened to the sunshine of
+a beautiful day are shut again. Only on the opposite side of the street,
+the lodger on the last story has not yet left his balcony.
+
+One knows him to be a soldier by his regular walk, his gray moustaches,
+and the ribbon that decorates his buttonhole. Indeed, one might have
+guessed as much from the care he takes of the little garden which is the
+ornament of his balcony in mid-air; for there are two things especially
+loved by all old soldiers--flowers and children. They have been so long,
+obliged to look upon the earth as a field of battle, and so long cut off
+from the peaceful pleasures of a quiet lot, that they seem to begin life
+at an age when others end it. The tastes of their early years, which
+were arrested by the stern duties of war, suddenly break out again with
+their white hairs, and are like the savings of youth which they spend
+again in old age. Besides, they have been condemned to be destroyers for
+so long that perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, and
+seeing life spring up again: the beauty of weakness has a grace and
+an attraction the more for those who have been the agents of unbending
+force; and the watching over the frail germs of life has all the charms
+of novelty for these old workmen of death.
+
+Therefore the cold wind has not driven my neighbor from his balcony.
+He is digging up the earth in his green boxes, and carefully sowing the
+seeds of the scarlet nasturtium, convolvulus, and sweet-pea. Henceforth
+he will come every day to watch for their first sprouting, to protect
+the young shoots from weeds or insects, to arrange the strings for the
+tendrils to climb on, and carefully to regulate their supply of water
+and heat!
+
+How much labor to bring in the desired harvest! For that, how many times
+shall I see him brave cold or heat, wind or sun, as he does to-day! But
+then, in the hot summer days, when the blinding dust whirls in clouds
+through our streets, when the eye, dazzled by the glare of white stucco,
+knows not where to rest, and the glowing roofs reflect their heat
+upon us to burning, the old soldier will sit in his arbor and perceive
+nothing but green leaves and flowers around him, and the breeze will
+come cool and fresh to him through these perfumed shades. His assiduous
+care will be rewarded at last.
+
+We must sow the seeds, and tend the growth, if we would enjoy the
+flower.
+
+Four o'clock.--The clouds that have been gathering in the horizon for
+a long time are become darker; it thunders loudly, and the rain pours
+down! Those who are caught in it fly in every direction, some laughing
+and some crying.
+
+I always find particular amusement in these helter-skelters, caused by
+a sudden storm. It seems as if each one, when thus taken by surprise,
+loses the factitious character that the world or habit has given him,
+and appears in his true colors.
+
+See, for example, that big man with deliberate step, who suddenly
+forgets his indifference, made to order, and runs like a schoolboy!
+He is a thrifty city gentleman, who, with all his fashionable airs, is
+afraid to spoil his hat.
+
+That pretty woman yonder, on the contrary, whose looks are so modest,
+and whose dress is so elaborate, slackens her pace with the increasing
+storm. She seems to find pleasure in braving it, and does not think
+of her velvet cloak spotted by the hail! She is evidently a lioness in
+sheep's clothing.
+
+Here, a young man, who was passing, stops to catch some of the
+hailstones in his hand, and examines them. By his quick and
+business-like walk just now, you would have taken him for a tax-gatherer
+on his rounds, when he is a young philosopher, studying the effects of
+electricity. And those schoolboys who leave their ranks to run after the
+sudden gusts of a March whirlwind; those girls, just now so demure, but
+who now fly with bursts of laughter; those national guards, who quit the
+martial attitude of their days of duty to take refuge under a porch! The
+storm has caused all these transformations.
+
+See, it increases! The hardiest are obliged to seek shelter. I see
+every one rushing toward the shop in front of my window, which a bill
+announces is to let. It is for the fourth time within a few months. A
+year ago all the skill of the joiner and the art of the painter were
+employed in beautifying it, but their works are already destroyed by the
+leaving of so many tenants; the cornices of the front are disfigured by
+mud; the arabesques on the doorway are spoiled by bills posted upon them
+to announce the sale of the effects. The splendid shop has lost some of
+its embellishments with each change of the tenant. See it now empty, and
+left open to the passersby. How much does its fate resemble that of so
+many who, like it, only change their occupation to hasten the faster to
+ruin!
+
+I am struck by this last reflection: since the morning everything seems
+to speak to me, and with the same warning tone. Everything says: "Take
+care! be content with your happy, though humble lot; happiness can be
+retained only by constancy; do not forsake your old patrons for the
+protection of those who are unknown!"
+
+Are they the outward objects which speak thus, or does the warning
+come from within? Is it not I myself who give this language to all that
+surrounds me? The world is but an instrument, to which we give sound at
+will. But what does it signify if it teaches us wisdom? The low voice
+that speaks in our breasts is always a friendly voice, for it tells
+us what we are, that is to say, what is our capability. Bad conduct
+results, for the most part, from mistaking our calling. There are so
+many fools and knaves, because there are so few men who know themselves.
+The question is not to discover what will suit us, but for what we are
+suited!
+
+What should I do among these many experienced financial speculators? I
+am only a poor sparrow, born among the housetops, and should always
+fear the enemy crouching in the dark corner; I am a prudent workman,
+and should think of the business of my neighbors who so suddenly
+disappeared; I am a timid observer, and should call to mind the flowers
+so slowly raised by the old soldier, or the shop brought to ruin by
+constant change of masters. Away from me, ye banquets, over which hangs
+the sword of Damocles! I am a country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow
+tree, and I ask nothing besides--except security.
+
+And why this insatiable craving for riches? Does a man drink more when
+he drinks from a large glass? Whence comes that universal dread of
+mediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace and liberty? Ah! there is the
+evil which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public and
+private education to anticipate! If that were got rid of, what treasons
+would be spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and
+crime would be forever broken! We award the palm to charity, and to
+self-sacrifice; but, above all, let us award it to moderation, for it
+is the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it
+stands instead of them.
+
+Six o'clock.--I have written a letter of thanks to the promoters of
+the new speculation, and have declined their offer! This decision has
+restored my peace of mind. I stopped singing, like the cobbler, as long
+as I entertained the hope of riches: it is gone, and happiness is come
+back!
+
+O beloved and gentle Poverty! pardon me for having for a moment wished
+to fly from thee, as I would from Want. Stay here forever with thy
+charming sisters, Pity, Patience, Sobriety, and Solitude; be ye my
+queens and my instructors; teach me the stern duties of life; remove far
+from my abode the weakness of heart and giddiness of head which follow
+prosperity. Holy Poverty! teach me to endure without complaining,
+to impart without grudging, to seek the end of life higher than in
+pleasure, farther off than in power. Thou givest the body strength, thou
+makest the mind more firm; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the
+rich attach themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which death may
+cut the cable without awakening all our fears. Continue to sustain me, O
+thou whom Christ hath called Blessed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER
+
+April 9th
+
+The fine evenings are come back; the trees begin to put forth their
+shoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets
+of the flower-girls--all the world have begun their walks again on the
+quays and boulevards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to
+breathe the evening air.
+
+It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. During the day
+the plaster fronts of the houses weary the eye by their monotonous
+whiteness; heavily laden carts make the streets shake under their huge
+wheels; the eager crowd, taken up by the one fear of losing a moment
+from business, cross and jostle one another; the aspect of the city
+altogether has something harsh, restless, and flurried about it. But, as
+soon as the stars appear, everything is changed; the glare of the white
+houses is quenched in the gathering shades; you hear no more any rolling
+but that of the carriages on their way to some party of pleasure; you
+see only the lounger or the light-hearted passing by; work has given
+place to leisure. Now each one may breathe after the fierce race through
+the business of the day, and whatever strength remains to him he gives
+to pleasure! See the ballrooms lighted up, the theatres open, the
+eating-shops along the walks set out with dainties, and the twinkling
+lanterns of the newspaper criers. Decidedly Paris has laid aside the
+pen, the ruler, and the apron; after the day spent in work, it must have
+the evening for enjoyment; like the masters of Thebes, it has put off
+all serious matter till tomorrow.
+
+I love to take part in this happy hour; not to mix in the general
+gayety, but to contemplate it. If the enjoyments of others embitter
+jealous minds, they strengthen the humble spirit; they are the beams of
+sunshine, which open the two beautiful flowers called trust and hope.
+
+Although alone in the midst of the smiling multitude, I do not feel
+myself isolated from it, for its gayety is reflected upon me: it is my
+own kind, my own family, who are enjoying life, and I take a brother's
+share in their happiness. We are all fellow-soldiers in this earthly
+battle, and what does it matter on whom the honors of the victory fall?
+If Fortune passes by without seeing us, and pours her favors on others,
+let us console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by saying,
+"Those, too, are Alexanders."
+
+While making these reflections, I was going on as chance took me. I
+crossed from one pavement to another, I retraced my steps, I stopped
+before the shops or to read the handbills. How many things there are
+to learn in the streets of Paris! What a museum it is! Unknown fruits,
+foreign arms, furniture of old times or other lands, animals of all
+climates, statues of great men, costumes of distant nations! It is the
+world seen in samples!
+
+Let us then look at this people, whose knowledge is gained from the
+shop-windows and the tradesman's display of goods. Nothing has been
+taught them, but they have a rude notion of everything. They have
+seen pineapples at Chevet's, a palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes,
+sugar-canes selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, exhibited in the
+Valentine Hall, have taught them to mimic the dance of the bison, and to
+smoke the calumet of peace; they have seen Carter's lions fed; they
+know the principal national costumes contained in Babin's collection;
+Goupil's display of prints has placed the tiger-hunts of Africa and the
+sittings of the English Parliament before their eyes; they have become
+acquainted with Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kossuth, at
+the office-door of the Illustrated News. We can certainly instruct them,
+but not astonish them; for nothing is completely new to them. You may
+take the Paris ragamuffin through the five quarters of the world, and
+at every wonder with which you think to surprise him, he will settle the
+matter with that favorite and conclusive answer of his class--"I know."
+
+But this variety of exhibitions, which makes Paris the fair of the
+world, does not offer merely a means of instruction to him who walks
+through it; it is a continual spur for rousing the imagination, a first
+step of the ladder always set up before us in a vision. When we see
+them, how many voyages do we take in imagination, what adventures do we
+dream of, what pictures do we sketch! I never look at that shop near
+the Chinese baths, with its tapestry hangings of Florida jessamine,
+and filled with magnolias, without seeing the forest glades of the New
+World, described by the author of Atala, opening themselves out before
+me.
+
+Then, when this study of things and this discourse of reason begin to
+tire you, look around you! What contrasts of figures and faces you
+see in the crowd! What a vast field for the exercise of meditation! A
+half-seen glance, or a few words caught as the speaker passes by, open
+a thousand vistas to your imagination. You wish to comprehend what these
+imperfect disclosures mean, and, as the antiquary endeavors to decipher
+the mutilated inscription on some old monument, you build up a history
+on a gesture or on a word! These are the stirring sports of the mind,
+which finds in fiction a relief from the wearisome dullness of the
+actual.
+
+Alas! as I was just now passing by the carriage-entrance of a great
+house, I noticed a sad subject for one of these histories. A man was
+sitting in the darkest corner, with his head bare, and holding out his
+hat for the charity of those who passed. His threadbare coat had that
+look of neatness which marks that destitution has been met by a long
+struggle. He had carefully buttoned it up to hide the want of a shirt.
+His face was half hid under his gray hair, and his eyes were closed, as
+if he wished to escape the sight of his own humiliation, and he remained
+mute and motionless. Those who passed him took no notice of the beggar,
+who sat in silence and darkness! They had been so lucky as to escape
+complaints and importunities, and were glad to turn away their eyes too.
+
+Suddenly the great gate turned on its hinges; and a very low carriage,
+lighted with silver lamps and drawn by two black horses, came slowly
+out, and took the road toward the Faubourg St. Germain. I could just
+distinguish, within, the sparkling diamonds and the flowers of a
+ball-dress; the glare of the lamps passed like a bloody streak over
+the pale face of the beggar, and showed his look as his eyes opened and
+followed the rich man's equipage until it disappeared in the night.
+
+I dropped a small piece of money into the hat he was holding out, and
+passed on quickly.
+
+I had just fallen unexpectedly upon the two saddest secrets of the
+disease which troubles the age we live in: the envious hatred of him
+who suffers want, and the selfish forgetfulness of him who lives in
+affluence.
+
+All the enjoyment of my walk was gone; I left off looking about me, and
+retired into my own heart. The animated and moving sight in the streets
+gave place to inward meditation upon all the painful problems which
+have been written for the last four thousand years at the bottom of each
+human struggle, but which are propounded more clearly than ever in our
+days.
+
+I pondered on the uselessness of so many contests, in which defeat and
+victory only displace each other by turns, and on the mistaken zealots
+who have repeated from generation to generation the bloody history of
+Cain and Abel; and, saddened with these mournful reflections, I walked
+on as chance took me, until the silence all around insensibly drew me
+out from my own thoughts.
+
+I had reached one of the remote streets, in which those who would live
+in comfort and without ostentation, and who love serious reflection,
+delight to find a home. There were no shops along the dimly lighted
+street; one heard no sounds but of distant carriages, and of the steps
+of some of the inhabitants returning quietly home.
+
+I instantly recognized the street, though I had been there only once
+before.
+
+That was two years ago. I was walking at the time by the side of the
+Seine, to which the lights on the quays and bridges gave the aspect of
+a lake surrounded by a garland of stars; and I had reached the Louvre,
+when I was stopped by a crowd collected near the parapet they had
+gathered round a child of about six, who was crying, and I asked the
+cause of his tears.
+
+"It seems that he was sent to walk in the Tuileries," said a mason, who
+was returning from his work with his trowel in his hand; "the servant
+who took care of him met with some friends there, and told the child to
+wait for him while he went to get a drink; but I suppose the drink made
+him more thirsty, for he has not come back, and the child cannot find
+his way home."
+
+"Why do they not ask him his name, and where he lives?"
+
+"They have been doing it for the last hour; but all he can say is, that
+he is called Charles, and that his father is Monsieur Duval--there are
+twelve hundred Duvals in Paris."
+
+"Then he does not know in what part of the town he lives?"
+
+"I should not think, indeed! Don't you see that he is a gentleman's
+child? He has never gone out except in a carriage or with a servant; he
+does not know what to do by himself."
+
+Here the mason was interrupted by some of the voices rising above the
+others.
+
+"We cannot leave him in the street," said some.
+
+"The child-stealers would carry him off," continued others.
+
+"We must take him to the overseer."
+
+"Or to the police-office."
+
+"That's the thing. Come, little one!"
+
+But the child, frightened by these suggestions of danger, and at the
+names of police and overseer, cried louder, and drew back toward the
+parapet. In vain they tried to persuade him; his fears made him resist
+the more, and the most eager began to get weary, when the voice of a
+little boy was heard through the confusion.
+
+"I know him well--I do," said he, looking at the lost child; "he belongs
+in our part of the town."
+
+"What part is it?"
+
+"Yonder, on the other side of the Boulevards--Rue des Magasins."
+
+"And you have seen him before?"
+
+"Yes, yes! he belongs to the great house at the end of the street, where
+there is an iron gate with gilt points."
+
+The child quickly raised his head, and stopped crying. The little boy
+answered all the questions that were put to him, and gave such details
+as left no room for doubt. The other child understood him, for he went
+up to him as if to put himself under his protection.
+
+"Then you can take him to his parents?" asked the mason, who had
+listened with real interest to the little boy's account.
+
+"I don't care if I do," replied he; "it's the way I'm going."
+
+"Then you will take charge of him?"
+
+"He has only to come with me."
+
+And, taking up the basket he had put down on the pavement, he set off
+toward the postern-gate of the Louvre.
+
+The lost child followed him.
+
+"I hope he will take him right," said I, when I saw them go away.
+
+"Never fear," replied the mason; "the little one in the blouse is
+the same age as the other; but, as the saying is, he knows black from
+white;' poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress!"
+
+The crowd dispersed. For my part, I went toward the Louvre; the thought
+came into my head to follow the two children, so as to guard against any
+mistake.
+
+I was not long in overtaking them; they were walking side by side,
+talking, and already quite familiar with each other. The contrast in
+their dress then struck me. Little Duval wore one of those fanciful
+children's dresses which are expensive as well as in good taste; his
+coat was skilfully fitted to his figure, his trousers came down
+in plaits from his waist to his boots of polished leather with
+mother-of-pearl buttons, and his ringlets were half hid by a velvet cap.
+The appearance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of the class who
+dwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who there maintain their
+ground with no surrender. His old blouse, patched with pieces of
+different shades, indicated the perseverance of an industrious mother
+struggling against the wear and tear of time; his trousers were become
+too short, and showed his stockings darned over and over again; and it
+was evident that his shoes were not made for him.
+
+The countenances of the two children were not less different than their
+dress. That of the first was delicate and refined; his clear blue
+eye, his fair skin, and his smiling mouth gave him a charming look of
+innocence and happiness. The features of the other, on the contrary, had
+something rough in them; his eye was quick and lively, his complexion
+dark, his smile less merry than shrewd; all showed a mind sharpened by
+too early experience; he walked boldly through the middle of the streets
+thronged by carriages, and followed their countless turnings without
+hesitation.
+
+I found, on asking him, that every day he carried dinner to his father,
+who was then working on the left bank of the Seine; and this responsible
+duty had made him careful and prudent. He had learned those hard but
+forcible lessons of necessity which nothing can equal or supply the
+place of. Unfortunately, the wants of his poor family had kept him from
+school, and he seemed to feel the loss; for he often stopped before
+the printshops, and asked his companion to read him the names of the
+engravings. In this way we reached the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which
+the little wanderer seemed to know again. Notwithstanding his fatigue,
+he hurried on; he was agitated by mixed feelings; at the sight of his
+house he uttered a cry, and ran toward the iron gate with the gilt
+points; a lady who was standing at the entrance received him in her
+arms, and from the exclamations of joy, and the sound of kisses, I soon
+perceived she was his mother.
+
+Not seeing either the servant or child return, she had sent in search of
+them in every direction, and was waiting for them in intense anxiety.
+
+I explained to her in a few words what had happened. She thanked me
+warmly, and looked round for the little boy who had recognized and
+brought back her son; but while we were talking, he had disappeared.
+
+It was for the first time since then that I had come into this part of
+Paris. Did the mother continue grateful? Had the children met again, and
+had the happy chance of their first meeting lowered between them that
+barrier which may mark the different ranks of men, but should not divide
+them?
+
+While putting these questions to myself, I slackened my pace, and fixed
+my eyes on the great gate, which I just perceived. Suddenly I saw it
+open, and two children appeared at the entrance. Although much grown, I
+recognized them at first sight; they were the child who was found near
+the parapet of the Louvre, and his young guide. But the dress of the
+latter was greatly changed: his blouse of gray cloth was neat, and even
+spruce, and was fastened round the waist by a polished leather belt; he
+wore strong shoes, but made for his feet, and had on a new cloth cap.
+Just at the moment I saw him, he held in his two hands an enormous bunch
+of lilacs, to which his companion was trying to add narcissuses and
+primroses; the two children laughed, and parted with a friendly good-by.
+M. Duval's son did not go in till he had seen the other turn the corner
+of the street.
+
+Then I accosted the latter, and reminded him of our former meeting; he
+looked at me for a moment, and then seemed to recollect me.
+
+"Forgive me if I do not make you a bow," said he, merrily, "but I want
+both my hands for the nosegay Monsieur Charles has given me."
+
+"You are, then, become great friends?" said I.
+
+"Oh! I should think so," said the child; "and now my father is rich
+too!"
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Monsieur Duval lent him some money; he has taken a shop, where he works
+on his own account; and, as for me, I go to school."
+
+"Yes," replied I, remarking for the first time the cross that decorated
+his little coat; "and I see that you are head-boy!"
+
+"Monsieur Charles helps me to learn, and so I am come to be the first in
+the class."
+
+"Are you now going to your lessons?"
+
+"Yes, and he has given me some lilacs; for he has a garden where we play
+together, and where my mother can always have flowers."
+
+"Then it is the same as if it were partly your own."
+
+"So it is! Ah! they are good neighbors indeed. But here I am; good-by,
+sir."
+
+He nodded to me with a smile, and disappeared.
+
+I went on with my walk, still pensive, but with a feeling of relief.
+If I had elsewhere witnessed the painful contrast between affluence
+and want, here I had found the true union of riches and poverty. Hearty
+good-will had smoothed down the more rugged inequalities on both sides,
+and had opened a road of true neighborhood and fellowship between the
+humble workshop and the stately mansion. Instead of hearkening to the
+voice of interest, they had both listened to that of self-sacrifice,
+and there was no place left for contempt or envy. Thus, instead of the
+beggar in rags, that I had seen at the other door cursing the rich man,
+I had found here the happy child of the laborer loaded with flowers and
+blessing him! The problem, so difficult and so dangerous to examine into
+with no regard but for the rights of it, I had just seen solved by love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. COMPENSATION
+
+Sunday, May 27th
+
+Capital cities have one thing peculiar to them: their days of rest seem
+to be the signal for a general dispersion and flight. Like birds that
+are just restored to liberty, the people come out of their stone cages,
+and joyfully fly toward the country. It is who shall find a green
+hillock for a seat, or the shade of a wood for a shelter; they gather
+May flowers, they run about the fields; the town is forgotten until
+the evening, when they return with sprigs of blooming hawthorn in their
+hats, and their hearts gladdened by pleasant thoughts and recollections
+of the past day; the next day they return again to their harness and to
+work.
+
+These rural adventures are most remarkable at Paris. When the fine
+weather comes, clerks, shop keepers, and workingmen look forward
+impatiently for the Sunday as the day for trying a few hours of this
+pastoral life; they walk through six miles of grocers' shops and
+public-houses in the faubourgs, in the sole hope of finding a real
+turnip-field. The father of a family begins the practical education of
+his son by showing him wheat which has not taken the form of a loaf,
+and cabbage "in its wild state." Heaven only knows the encounters, the
+discoveries, the adventures that are met with! What Parisian has not had
+his Odyssey in an excursion through the suburbs, and would not be able
+to write a companion to the famous Travels by Land and by Sea from Paris
+to St. Cloud?
+
+We do not now speak of that floating population from all parts, for whom
+our French Babylon is the caravansary of Europe: a phalanx of thinkers,
+artists, men of business, and travellers, who, like Homer's hero, have
+arrived in their intellectual country after beholding "many peoples and
+cities;" but of the settled Parisian, who keeps his appointed place, and
+lives on his own floor like the oyster on his rock, a curious vestige of
+the credulity, the slowness, and the simplicity of bygone ages.
+
+For one of the singularities of Paris is, that it unites twenty
+populations completely different in character and manners. By the
+side of the gypsies of commerce and of art, who wander through all the
+several stages of fortune or fancy, live a quiet race of people with an
+independence, or with regular work, whose existence resembles the dial
+of a clock, on which the same hand points by turns to the same hours. If
+no other city can show more brilliant and more stirring forms of life,
+no other contains more obscure and more tranquil ones. Great cities are
+like the sea: storms agitate only the surface; if you go to the bottom,
+you find a region inaccessible to the tumult and the noise.
+
+For my part, I have settled on the verge of this region, but do not
+actually live in it. I am removed from the turmoil of the world, and
+live in the shelter of solitude, but without being able to disconnect
+my thoughts from the struggle going on. I follow at a distance all its
+events of happiness or grief; I join the feasts and the funerals; for
+how can he who looks on, and knows what passes, do other than take part?
+Ignorance alone can keep us strangers to the life around us: selfishness
+itself will not suffice for that.
+
+These reflections I made to myself in my attic, in the intervals of the
+various household works to which a bachelor is forced when he has
+no other servant than his own ready will. While I was pursuing my
+deductions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my
+cravat; I had at last arrived at the important moment when we pronounce
+complacently that all is finished, and that well.
+
+A grand resolve had just decided me to depart from my usual habits. The
+evening before, I had seen by the advertisements that the next day was
+a holiday at Sevres, and that the china manufactory would be open to the
+public. I was tempted by the beauty of the morning, and suddenly decided
+to go there.
+
+On my arrival at the station on the left bank, I noticed the crowd
+hurrying on in the fear of being late. Railroads, besides many other
+advantages, possess that of teaching the French punctuality. They will
+submit to the clock when they are convinced that it is their master;
+they will learn to wait when they find they will not be waited for.
+Social virtues, are, in a great degree, good habits. How many great
+qualities are grafted into nations by their geographical position, by
+political necessity, and by institutions! Avarice was destroyed for a
+time among the Lacedaemonians by the creation of an iron coinage, too
+heavy and too bulky to be conveniently hoarded.
+
+I found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged women belonging to the
+domestic and retired class of Parisians I have spoken of above. A few
+civilities were sufficient to gain me their confidence, and after some
+minutes I was acquainted with their whole history.
+
+They were two poor sisters, left orphans at fifteen, and had lived ever
+since, as those who work for their livelihood must live, by economy
+and privation. For the last twenty or thirty years they had worked
+in jewelry in the same house; they had seen ten masters succeed one
+another, and make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own
+lot. They had always lived in the same room, at the end of one of the
+passages in the Rue St. Denis, where the air and the sun are unknown.
+They began their work before daylight, went on with it till after
+nightfall, and saw year succeed to year without their lives being marked
+by any other events than the Sunday service, a walk, or an illness.
+
+The younger of these worthy work-women was forty, and obeyed her sister
+as she did when a child. The elder looked after her, took care of her,
+and scolded her with a mother's tenderness. At first it was amusing;
+afterward one could not help seeing something affecting in these two
+gray-haired children, one unable to leave off the habit of obeying, the
+other that of protecting.
+
+And it was not in that alone that my two companions seemed younger than
+their years; they knew so little that their wonder never ceased. We had
+hardly arrived at Clamart before they involuntarily exclaimed, like the
+king in the children's game, that they "did not think the world was so
+great"!
+
+It was the first time they had trusted themselves on a railroad, and
+it was amusing to see their sudden shocks, their alarms, and their
+courageous determinations: everything was a marvel to them! They had
+remains of youth within them, which made them sensible to things which
+usually only strike us in childhood. Poor creatures! they had still the
+feelings of another age, though they had lost its charms.
+
+But was there not something holy in this simplicity, which had been
+preserved to them by abstinence from all the joys of life? Ah! accursed
+be he who first had the bad courage to attach ridicule to that name
+of "old maid," which recalls so many images of grievous deception, of
+dreariness, and of abandonment! Accursed be he who can find a subject
+for sarcasm in involuntary misfortune, and who can crown gray hairs with
+thorns!
+
+The two sisters were called Frances and Madeleine. This day's journey
+was a feat of courage without example in their lives. The fever of
+the times had infected them unawares. Yesterday Madeleine had suddenly
+proposed the idea of the expedition, and Frances had accepted it
+immediately. Perhaps it would have been better not to yield to the great
+temptation offered by her younger sister; but "we have our follies
+at all ages," as the prudent Frances philosophically remarked. As
+for Madeleine, there are no regrets or doubts for her; she is the
+life-guardsman of the establishment.
+
+"We really must amuse ourselves," said she; "we live but once."
+
+And the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. It was evident that
+the fever of independence was at its crisis in both of them.
+
+And in truth it would have been a great pity if any scruple had
+interfered with their happiness, it was so frank and genial! The sight
+of the trees, which seemed to fly on both sides of the road, caused
+them unceasing admiration. The meeting a train passing in the contrary
+direction, with the noise and rapidity of a thunderbolt, made them shut
+their eyes and utter a cry; but it had already disappeared! They look
+around, take courage again, and express themselves full of astonishment
+at the marvel.
+
+Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth the expense of the
+journey, and Frances would have agreed with her if she had not
+recollected, with some little alarm, the deficit which such an expense
+must make in their budget. The three francs spent upon this single
+expedition were the savings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the
+elder of the two sisters was mixed with remorse; the prodigal child now
+and then turned its eyes toward the back street of St. Denis.
+
+But the motion and the succession of objects distract her. See the
+bridge of the Val surrounded by its lovely landscape: on the right,
+Paris with its grand monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle
+in the sun; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines,
+and its royal castle! The two work-women look from one window to the
+other with exclamations of delight. One fellow-passenger laughs at their
+childish wonder; but to me it is deeply touching, for I see in it the
+sign of a long and monotonous seclusion: they are the prisoners of work,
+who have recovered liberty and fresh air for a few hours.
+
+At last the train stops, and we get out. I show the two sisters the path
+that leads to Sevres, between the railway and the gardens, and they go
+on before, while I inquire about the time of returning.
+
+I soon join them again at the next station, where they have stopped at
+the little garden belonging to the gatekeeper; both are already in deep
+conversation with him while he digs his garden-borders, and marks out
+the places for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for
+hoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing annuals, and
+for destroying the insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill
+of her window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of air and sun, she
+has never been able to make anything grow but mustard and cress; but she
+persuades herself that, thanks to this information, all other plants
+may henceforth thrive in them. At last the gatekeeper, who is sowing a
+border with mignonette, gives her the rest of the seeds which he does
+not want, and the old maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over
+again the dream of Paired and her can of milk, with these flowers of her
+imagination.
+
+On reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair was going on, I lost
+sight of the two sisters. I went alone among the sights: there were
+lotteries going on, mountebank shows, places for eating and drinking,
+and for shooting with the cross-bow. I have always been struck by the
+spirit of these out-of-door festivities. In drawing-room entertainments,
+people are cold, grave, often listless, and most of those who go there
+are brought together by habit or the obligations of society; in the
+country assemblies, on the contrary, you only find those who are
+attracted by the hope of enjoyment. There, it is a forced conscription;
+here, they are volunteers for gayety! Then, how easily they are pleased!
+How far this crowd of people is yet from knowing that to be pleased with
+nothing, and to look down on everything, is the height of fashion and
+good taste! Doubtless their amusements are often coarse; elegance and
+refinement are wanting in them; but at least they have heartiness. Oh,
+that the hearty enjoyments of these merry-makings could be retained
+in union with less vulgar feeling! Formerly religion stamped its holy
+character on the celebration of country festivals, and purified the
+pleasures without depriving them of their simplicity.
+
+The hour arrives at which the doors of the porcelain manufactory and the
+museum of pottery are open to the public. I meet Frances and Madeleine
+again in the first room. Frightened at finding themselves in the midst
+of such regal magnificence, they hardly dare walk; they speak in a low
+tone, as if they were in a church.
+
+"We are in the king's house," said the eldest sister, forgetting that
+there is no longer a king in France.
+
+I encourage them to go on; I walk first, and they make up their minds to
+follow me.
+
+What wonders are brought together in this collection! Here we see clay
+moulded into every shape, tinted with every color, and combined with
+every sort of substance!
+
+Earth and wood are the first substances worked upon by man, and seem
+more particularly meant for his use. They, like the domestic animals,
+are the essential accessories of his life; therefore there must be a
+more intimate connection between them and us. Stone and metals require
+long preparations; they resist our first efforts, and belong less to the
+individual than to communities. Earth and wood are, on the contrary, the
+principal instruments of the isolated being who must feed and shelter
+himself.
+
+This, doubtless, makes me feel so much interested in the collection I am
+examining. These cups, so roughly modelled by the savage, admit me to
+a knowledge of some of his habits; these elegant yet incorrectly formed
+vases of the Indian tell me of a declining intelligence,--in which still
+glimmers the twilight of what was once bright sunshine; these jars,
+loaded with arabesques, show the fancy of the Arab rudely and ignorantly
+copied by the Spaniard! We find here the stamp of every race, every
+country, and every age.
+
+My companions seemed little interested in these historical associations;
+they looked at all with that credulous admiration which leaves no room
+for examination or discussion. Madeleine read the name written under
+every piece of workmanship, and her sister answered with an exclamation
+of wonder.
+
+In this way we reached a little courtyard, where they had thrown away
+the fragments of some broken china.
+
+Frances perceived a colored saucer almost whole, of which she took
+possession as a record of the visit she was making; henceforth she would
+have a specimen of the Sevres china, "which is only made for kings!"
+I would not undeceive her by telling her that the products of the
+manufactory are sold all over the world, and that her saucer, before
+it was cracked, was the same as those that are bought at the shops for
+sixpence! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble existence?
+Are we to break down the hedge-flowers that perfume our paths? Things
+are oftenest nothing in themselves; the thoughts we attach to them alone
+give them value. To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover some
+useless reality, is to be like those learned men who will see nothing in
+a plant but the chemical elements of which it is composed.
+
+On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who had taken possession
+of me with the freedom of artlessness, invited me to share the luncheon
+they had brought with them. I declined at first, but they insisted
+with so much good-nature, that I feared to pain them, and with some
+awkwardness gave way.
+
+We had only to look for a convenient spot. I led them up the hill,
+and we found a plot of grass enamelled with daisies, and shaded by two
+walnut-trees.
+
+Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. All her life she had
+dreamed of a dinner out on the grass! While helping her sister to take
+the provisions from the basket, she tells me of all her expeditions into
+the country that had been planned, and put off. Frances, on the other
+hand, was brought up at Montmorency, and before she became an orphan she
+had often gone back to her nurse's house. That which had the attraction
+of novelty for her sister, had for her the charm of recollection. She
+told of the vintage harvests to which her parents had taken her; the
+rides on Mother Luret's donkey, that they could not make go to the right
+without pulling him to the left; the cherry-gathering; and the sails on
+the lake in the innkeeper's boat.
+
+These recollections have all the charm and freshness of childhood.
+Frances recalls to herself less what she has seen than what she has
+felt. While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit down under
+a tree. Before us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses
+abutting upon the gardens and the slopes of the hill; on the other side
+spreads out the park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of trees
+interspersed with meadows; above stretch the heavens like an immense
+ocean, in which the clouds are sailing! I look at this beautiful
+country, and I listen to these good old maids; I admire, and I am
+interested; and time passes gently on without my perceiving it.
+
+At last the sun sets, and we have to think of returning. While Madeleine
+and Frances clear away the dinner, I walk down to the manufactory to ask
+the hour. The merrymaking is at its height; the blasts of the trombones
+resound from the band under the acacias. For a few moments I forget
+myself with looking about; but I have promised the two sisters to take
+them back to the Bellevue station; the train cannot wait, and I make
+haste to climb the path again which leads to the walnut-trees.
+
+Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the other side of the
+hedge. Madeleine and Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clothes
+were burned, her hands blackened, and her face tied up with bloodstained
+bandages. I saw that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowder
+mills, which are built further up on the common. An explosion had taken
+place a few days before; the girl's mother and elder sister were killed;
+she herself escaped by a miracle, and was now left without any means of
+support. She told all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner of
+one who has always been accustomed to suffer. The two sisters were much
+affected; I saw them consulting with each other in a low tone: then
+Frances took thirty sous out of a little coarse silk purse, which was
+all they had left, and gave them to the poor girl. I hastened on to that
+side of the hedge; but, before I reached it, I met the two old sisters,
+who called out to me that they would not return by the railway, but on
+foot!
+
+I then understood that the money they had meant for the journey had just
+been given to the beggar! Good, like evil, is contagious: I run to the
+poor wounded girl, give her the sum that was to pay for my own place,
+and return to Frances and Madeleine, and tell them I will walk with
+them.
+
+       ..........................
+
+I am just come back from taking them home; and have left them delighted
+with their day, the recollection of which will long make them happy.
+This morning I was pitying those whose lives are obscure and joyless;
+now, I understand that God has provided a compensation with every trial.
+The smallest pleasure derives from rarity a relish otherwise unknown.
+Enjoyment is only what we feel to be such, and the luxurious man feels
+no longer: satiety has destroyed his appetite, while privation preserves
+to the other that first of earthly blessings: the being easily made
+happy. Oh, that I could persuade every one of this! that so the rich
+might not abuse their riches, and that the poor might have patience. If
+happiness is the rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of it
+is the rarest of virtues.
+
+Madeleine and Frances! ye poor old maids whose courage, resignation,
+and generous hearts are your only wealth, pray for the wretched who give
+themselves up to despair; for the unhappy who hate and envy; and for the
+unfeeling into whose enjoyments no pity enters.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. UNCLE MAURICE
+
+
+June 7th, Four O'clock A.M.
+
+I am not surprised at hearing, when I awake, the birds singing so
+joyfully outside my window; it is only by living, as they and I do, in
+a top story, that one comes to know how cheerful the mornings really are
+up among the roofs. It is there that the sun sends his first rays, and
+the breeze comes with the fragrance of the gardens and woods; there that
+a wandering butterfly sometimes ventures among the flowers of the attic,
+and that the songs of the industrious work-woman welcome the dawn of
+day. The lower stories are still deep in sleep, silence, and shadow,
+while here labor, light, and song already reign.
+
+What life is around me! See the swallow returning from her search for
+food, with her beak full of insects for her young ones; the sparrows
+shake the dew from their wings while they chase one another in the
+sunshine; and my neighbors throw open their windows, and welcome
+the morning with their fresh faces! Delightful hour of waking, when
+everything returns to feeling and to motion; when the first light of day
+strikes upon creation, and brings it to life again, as the magic wand
+struck the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the wood! It is a moment of
+rest from every misery; the sufferings of the sick are allayed, and a
+breath of hope enters into the hearts of the despairing. But, alas! it
+is but a short respite! Everything will soon resume its wonted course:
+the great human machine, with its long strains, its deep gasps, its
+collisions, and its crashes, will be again put in motion.
+
+The tranquillity of this first morning hour reminds me of that of our
+first years of life. Then, too, the sun shines brightly, the air
+is fragrant, and the illusions of youth-those birds of our life's
+morning-sing around us. Why do they fly away when we are older? Where
+do this sadness and this solitude, which gradually steal upon us,
+come from? The course seems to be the same with individuals and with
+communities: at starting, so readily made happy, so easily enchanted;
+and at the goal, the bitter disappointment or reality! The road, which
+began among hawthorns and primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in
+precipices! Why is there so much confidence at first, so much doubt at
+last? Has, then, the knowledge of life no other end but to make it
+unfit for happiness? Must we condemn ourselves to ignorance if we would
+preserve hope? Is the world and is the individual man intended, after
+all, to find rest only in an eternal childhood?
+
+How many times have I asked myself these questions! Solitude has the
+advantage or the danger of making us continually search more deeply into
+the same ideas. As our discourse is only with ourself, we always give
+the same direction to the conversation; we are not called to turn it
+to the subject which occupies another mind, or interests another's
+feelings; and so an involuntary inclination makes us return forever to
+knock at the same doors!
+
+I interrupted my reflections to put my attic in order. I hate the
+look of disorder, because it shows either a contempt for details or an
+unaptness for spiritual life. To arrange the things among which we have
+to live, is to establish the relation of property and of use between
+them and us: it is to lay the foundation of those habits without which
+man tends to the savage state. What, in fact, is social organization but
+a series of habits, settled in accordance with the dispositions of our
+nature?
+
+I distrust both the intellect and the morality of those people to whom
+disorder is of no consequence--who can live at ease in an Augean stable.
+What surrounds us, reflects more or less that which is within us. The
+mind is like one of those dark lanterns which, in spite of everything,
+still throw some light around. If our tastes did not reveal our
+character, they would be no longer tastes, but instincts.
+
+While I was arranging everything in my attic, my eyes rested on the
+little almanac hanging over my chimney-piece. I looked for the day of
+the month, and I saw these words written in large letters: "FETE DIEU!"
+
+It is to-day! In this great city, where there are no longer any public
+religious solemnities, there is nothing to remind us of it; but it is,
+in truth, the period so happily chosen by the primitive church. "The day
+kept in honor of the Creator," says Chateaubriand, "happens at a time
+when the heaven and the earth declare His power, when the woods and
+fields are full of new life, and all are united by the happiest ties;
+there is not a single widowed plant in the fields."
+
+What recollections these words have just awakened! I left off what I was
+about, I leaned my elbows on the windowsill, and, with my head between
+my two hands, I went back in thought to the little town where the first
+days of my childhood were passed.
+
+The 'Fete Dieu' was then one of the great events of my life! It was
+necessary to be diligent and obedient a long time beforehand, to deserve
+to share in it. I still recollect with what raptures of expectation I
+got up on the morning of the day. There was a holy joy in the air. The
+neighbors, up earlier than usual, hung cloths with flowers or figures,
+worked in tapestry, along the streets. I went from one to another,
+by turns admiring religious scenes of the Middle Ages, mythological
+compositions of the Renaissance, old battles in the style of Louis XIV,
+and the Arcadias of Madame de Pompadour. All this world of phantoms
+seemed to be coming forth from the dust of past ages, to assist--silent
+and motionless--at the holy ceremony. I looked, alternately in fear
+and wonder, at those terrible warriors with their swords always raised,
+those beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow which never left the bow,
+and those shepherds in satin breeches always playing the flute at the
+feet of the perpetually smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, when the wind
+blew behind these hanging pictures, it seemed to me that the figures
+themselves moved, and I watched to see them detach themselves from the
+wall, and take their places in the procession! But these impressions
+were vague and transitory. The feeling that predominated over every
+other was that of an overflowing yet quiet joy. In the midst of all the
+floating draperies, the scattered flowers, the voices of the maidens,
+and the gladness which, like a perfume, exhaled from everything, you
+felt transported in spite of yourself. The joyful sounds of the festival
+were repeated in your heart, in a thousand melodious echoes. You were
+more indulgent, more holy, more loving! For God was not only manifesting
+himself without, but also within us.
+
+And then the altars for the occasion! the flowery arbors! the triumphal
+arches made of green boughs! What competition among the different
+parishes for the erection of the resting-places where the procession was
+to halt! It was who should contribute the rarest and the most beautiful
+of his possessions!
+
+It was there I made my first sacrifice!
+
+The wreaths of flowers were arranged, the candles lighted, and the
+Tabernacle dressed with roses; but one was wanting fit to crown the
+whole! All the neighboring gardens had been ransacked. I alone possessed
+a flower worthy of such a place. It was on the rose-tree given me by my
+mother on my birthday. I had watched it for several months, and there
+was no other bud to blow on the tree. There it was, half open, in its
+mossy nest, the object of such long expectations, and of all a child's
+pride! I hesitated for some moments. No one had asked me for it; I
+might easily avoid losing it. I should hear no reproaches, but one rose
+noiselessly within me. When every one else had given all they had, ought
+I alone to keep back my treasure? Ought I to grudge to God one of the
+gifts which, like all the rest, I had received from him? At this last
+thought I plucked the flower from the stem, and took it to put at the
+top of the Tabernacle. Ah! why does the recollection of this sacrifice,
+which was so hard and yet so sweet to me, now make me smile? Is it
+so certain that the value of a gift is in itself, rather than in the
+intention? If the cup of cold water in the gospel is remembered to the
+poor man, why should not the flower be remembered to the child? Let us
+not look down upon the child's simple act of generosity; it is these
+which accustom the soul to self-denial and to sympathy. I cherished this
+moss-rose a long time as a sacred talisman; I had reason to cherish it
+always, as the record of the first victory won over myself.
+
+It is now many years since I witnessed the celebration of the 'Fete
+Dieu'; but should I again feel in it the happy sensations of former
+days? I still remember how, when the procession had passed, I walked
+through the streets strewed with flowers and shaded with green boughs.
+I felt intoxicated by the lingering perfumes of the incense, mixed with
+the fragrance of syringas, jessamine, and roses, and I seemed no longer
+to touch the ground as I went along. I smiled at everything; the whole
+world was Paradise in my eyes, and it seemed to me that God was floating
+in the air!
+
+Moreover, this feeling was not the excitement of the moment: it might be
+more intense on certain days, but at the same time it continued through
+the ordinary course of my life. Many years thus passed for me in an
+expansion of heart, and a trustfulness which prevented sorrow, if not
+from coming, at least from staying with me. Sure of not being alone, I
+soon took heart again, like the child who recovers its courage, because
+it hears its mother's voice close by. Why have I lost that confidence of
+my childhood? Shall I never feel again so deeply that God is here?
+
+How strange the association of our thoughts! A day of the month recalls
+my infancy, and see, all the recollections of my former years are
+growing up around me! Why was I so happy then? I consider well, and
+nothing is sensibly changed in my condition. I possess, as I did
+then, health and my daily bread; the only difference is, that I am
+now responsible for myself! As a child, I accepted life when it came;
+another cared and provided for me. So long as I fulfilled my present
+duties I was at peace within, and I left the future to the prudence of
+my father! My destiny was a ship, in the directing of which I had no
+share, and in which I sailed as a common passenger. There was the whole
+secret of childhood's happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has
+deprived me of it. When my lot was intrusted to my own and sole keeping,
+I thought to make myself master of it by means of a long insight into
+the future. I have filled the present hour with anxieties, by occupying
+my thoughts with the future; I have put my judgment in the place of
+Providence, and the happy child is changed into the anxious man.
+
+A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important lesson. Who knows that,
+if I had trusted more to Him who rules the world, I should not have been
+spared all this anxiety? It may be that happiness is not possible here
+below, except on condition of living like a child, giving ourselves up
+to the duties of each day as it comes, and trusting in the goodness of
+our heavenly Father for all besides.
+
+This reminds me of my Uncle Maurice! Whenever I have need to strengthen
+myself in all that is good, I turn my thoughts to him; I see again the
+gentle expression of his half-smiling, half-mournful face; I hear his
+voice, always soft and soothing as a breath of summer! The remembrance
+of him protects my life, and gives it light. He, too, was a saint and
+martyr here below. Others have pointed out the path of heaven; he has
+taught us to see those of earth aright.
+
+But, except the angels, who are charged with noting down the sacrifices
+performed in secret, and the virtues which are never known, who has ever
+heard of my Uncle Maurice? Perhaps I alone remember his name, and still
+recall his history.
+
+Well! I will write it, not for others, but for myself! They say that,
+at the sight of the Apollo, the body erects itself and assumes a more
+dignified attitude: in the same way, the soul should feel itself raised
+and ennobled by the recollection of a good man's life!
+
+A ray of the rising sun lights up the little table on which I write; the
+breeze brings me in the scent of the mignonette, and the swallows wheel
+about my window with joyful twitterings. The image of my Uncle Maurice
+will be in its proper place amid the songs, the sunshine, and the
+fragrance.
+
+Seven o'clock.--It is with men's lives as with days: some dawn radiant
+with a thousand colors, others dark with gloomy clouds. That of my Uncle
+Maurice was one of the latter. He was so sickly, when he came into
+the world, that they thought he must die; but notwithstanding these
+anticipations, which might be called hopes, he continued to live,
+suffering and deformed.
+
+He was deprived of all joys as well as of all the attractions of
+childhood. He was oppressed because he was weak, and laughed at for his
+deformity. In vain the little hunchback opened his arms to the world:
+the world scoffed at him, and went its way.
+
+However, he still had his mother, and it was to her that the child
+directed all the feelings of a heart repelled by others. With her he
+found shelter, and was happy, till he reached the age when a man must
+take his place in life; and Maurice had to content himself with that
+which others had refused with contempt. His education would
+have qualified him for any course of life; and he became an
+octroi-clerk--[The octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the
+entrance of the town]--in one of the little toll-houses at the entrance
+of his native town.
+
+He was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet square, with no
+relaxation from the office accounts but reading and his mother's visits.
+On fine summer days she came to work at the door of his hut, under the
+shade of a clematis planted by Maurice. And, even when she was silent,
+her presence was a pleasant change for the hunchback; he heard the
+clinking of her long knitting-needles; he saw her mild and mournful
+profile, which reminded him of so many courageously-borne trials; he
+could every now and then rest his hand affectionately on that bowed
+neck, and exchange a smile with her!
+
+This comfort was soon to be taken from him. His old mother fell sick,
+and at the end of a few days he had to give up all hope. Maurice was
+overcome at the idea of a separation which would henceforth leave him
+alone on earth, and abandoned himself to boundless grief. He knelt by
+the bedside of the dying woman, he called her by the fondest names, he
+pressed her in his arms, as if he could so keep her in life. His mother
+tried to return his caresses, and to answer him; but her hands were
+cold, her voice was already gone. She could only press her lips against
+the forehead of her son, heave a sigh, and close her eyes forever!
+
+They tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted them and threw himself
+on that now motionless form.
+
+"Dead!" cried he; "dead! She who had never left me, she who was the only
+one in the world who loved me! You, my mother, dead! What then remains
+for me here below?"
+
+A stifled voice replied:
+
+"God!"
+
+Maurice, startled, raised himself! Was that a last sigh from the dead,
+or his own conscience, that had answered him? He did not seek to know,
+but he understood the answer, and accepted it.
+
+It was then that I first knew him. I often went to see him in his little
+toll-house. He joined in my childish games, told me his finest stories,
+and let me gather his flowers. Deprived as he was of all external
+attractiveness, he showed himself full of kindness to all who came to
+him, and, though he never would put himself forward, he had a welcome
+for everyone. Deserted, despised, he submitted to everything with a
+gentle patience; and while he was thus stretched on the cross of life,
+amid the insults of his executioners, he repeated with Christ, "Father,
+forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+No other clerk showed so much honesty, zeal, and intelligence; but those
+who otherwise might have promoted him as his services deserved were
+repelled by his deformity. As he had no patrons, he found his claims
+were always disregarded. They preferred before him those who were better
+able to make themselves agreeable, and seemed to be granting him a favor
+when letting him keep the humble office which enabled him to live. Uncle
+Maurice bore injustice as he had borne contempt; unfairly treated by
+men, he raised his eyes higher, and trusted in the justice of Him who
+cannot be deceived.
+
+He lived in an old house in the suburb, where many work-people, as poor
+but not as forlorn as he, also lodged. Among these neighbors there was
+a single woman, who lived by herself in a little garret, into which came
+both wind and rain. She was a young girl, pale, silent, and with nothing
+to recommend her but her wretchedness and her resignation to it. She was
+never seen speaking to any other woman, and no song cheered her garret.
+She worked without interest and without relaxation; a depressing gloom
+seemed to envelop her like a shroud. Her dejection affected Maurice; he
+attempted to speak to her; she replied mildly, but in few words. It
+was easy to see that she preferred her silence and her solitude to the
+little hunchback's good-will; he perceived it, and said no more.
+
+But Toinette's needle was hardly sufficient for her support, and
+presently work failed her! Maurice learned that the poor girl was in
+want of everything, and that the tradesmen refused to give her credit.
+He immediately went to them privately and engaged to pay them for what
+they supplied Toinette with.
+
+Things went on in this way for several months. The young dressmaker
+continued out of work, until she was at last frightened at the bills
+she had contracted with the shopkeepers. When she came to an explanation
+with them, everything was discovered. Her first impulse was to run to
+Uncle Maurice, and thank him on her knees. Her habitual reserve had
+given way to a burst of deepest feeling. It seemed as if gratitude had
+melted all the ice of that numbed heart.
+
+Being now no longer embarrassed with a secret, the little hunchback
+could give greater efficacy to his good offices. Toinette became to him
+a sister, for whose wants he had a right to provide. It was the first
+time since the death of his mother that he had been able to share his
+life with another. The young woman received his attentions with feeling,
+but with reserve. All Maurice's efforts were insufficient to dispel her
+gloom: she seemed touched by his kindness, and sometimes expressed her
+sense of it with warmth; but there she stopped. Her heart was a closed
+book, which the little hunchback might bend over, but could not read. In
+truth he cared little to do so; he gave himself up to the happiness of
+being no longer alone, and took Toinette such as her long trials had
+made her; he loved her as she was, and wished for nothing else but still
+to enjoy her company.
+
+This thought insensibly took possession of his mind, to the exclusion
+of all besides. The poor girl was as forlorn as himself; she had become
+accustomed to the deformity of the hunchback, and she seemed to look on
+him with an affectionate sympathy! What more could he wish for? Until
+then, the hopes of making himself acceptable to a helpmate had been
+repelled by Maurice as a dream; but chance seemed willing to make it a
+reality. After much hesitation he took courage, and decided to speak to
+her.
+
+It was evening; the little hunchback, in much agitation, directed his
+steps toward the work-woman's garret just as he was about to enter,
+he thought he heard a strange voice pronouncing the maiden's name.
+He quickly pushed open the door, and perceived Toinette weeping, and
+leaning on the shoulder of a young man in the dress of a sailor.
+
+At the sight of my uncle, she disengaged herself quickly, and ran to
+him, crying out:
+
+"Ah! come in--come in! It is he that I thought was dead: it is Julien;
+it is my betrothed!"
+
+Maurice tottered, and drew back. A single word had told him all!
+
+It seemed to him as if the ground shook and his heart was about to
+break; but the same voice that he had heard by his mother's deathbed
+again sounded in his ears, and he soon recovered himself. God was still
+his friend!
+
+He himself accompanied the newly-married pair on the road when they left
+the town, and, after wishing them all the happiness which was denied to
+him, he returned with resignation to the old house in the suburb.
+
+It was there that he ended his life, forsaken by men, but not as he said
+by the Father which is in heaven. He felt His presence everywhere; it
+was to him in the place of all else. When he died, it was with a smile,
+and like an exile setting out for his own country. He who had consoled
+him in poverty and ill-health, when he was suffering from injustice and
+forsaken by all, had made death a gain and blessing to him.
+
+Eight o'clock.--All I have just written has pained me! Till now I have
+looked into life for instruction how to live. Is it then true that
+human maxims are not always sufficient? that beyond goodness, prudence,
+moderation, humility, self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth,
+which alone can face great misfortunes? and that, if man has need of
+virtues for others, he has need of religion for himself?
+
+When, in youth, we drink our wine with a merry heart, as the Scripture
+expresses it, we think we are sufficient for ourselves; strong, happy,
+and beloved, we believe, like Ajax, we shall be able to escape every
+storm in spite of the gods. But later in life, when the back is
+bowed, when happiness proves a fading flower, and the affections grow
+chill-then, in fear of the void and the darkness, we stretch out our
+arms, like the child overtaken by night, and we call for help to Him who
+is everywhere.
+
+I was asking this morning why this growing confusion alike for society
+and for the individual? In vain does human reason from hour to hour
+light some new torch on the roadside: the night continues to grow ever
+darker! Is it not because we are content to withdraw farther and farther
+from God, the Sun of spirits?
+
+But what do these hermit's reveries signify to the world? The inward
+turmoils of most men are stifled by the outward ones; life does not give
+them time to question themselves. Have they time to know what they are,
+and what they should be, whose whole thoughts are in the next lease or
+the last price of stock? Heaven is very high, and wise men look only at
+the earth.
+
+But I--poor savage amid all this civilization, who seek neither power
+nor riches, and who have found in my own thoughts the home and shelter
+of my spirit--I can go back with impunity to these recollections of my
+childhood; and, if this our great city no longer honors the name of
+God with a festival, I will strive still to keep the feast to Him in my
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PRICE OF POWER AND THE WORTH OF FAME
+
+Sunday, July 1st
+
+Yesterday the month dedicated to Juno (Junius, June) by the Romans
+ended. To-day we enter on July.
+
+In ancient Rome this latter month was called Quintiles (the fifth),
+because the year, which was then divided into only ten parts, began in
+March. When Numa Pompilius divided it into twelve months this name
+of Quintiles was preserved, as well as those that followed--Sexteles,
+September, October, November, December--although these designations did
+not accord with the newly arranged order of the months. At last, after
+a time the month Quintiles, in which Julius Caesar was born, was called
+Julius, whence we have July. Thus this name, placed in the calendar, is
+become the imperishable record of a great man; it is an immortal epitaph
+on Time's highway, engraved by the admiration of man.
+
+How many similar inscriptions are there! Seas, continents, mountains,
+stars, and monuments, have all in succession served the same purpose! We
+have turned the whole world into a Golden Book, like that in which
+the state of Venice used to enroll its illustrious names and its great
+deeds. It seems that mankind feels a necessity for honoring itself in
+its elect ones, and that it raises itself in its own eyes by choosing
+heroes from among its own race. The human family love to preserve
+the memory; of the parvenus of glory, as we cherish that of a great
+ancestor, or of a benefactor.
+
+In fact, the talents granted to a single individual do not benefit
+himself alone, but are gifts to the world; everyone shares them, for
+everyone suffers or benefits by his actions. Genius is a lighthouse,
+meant to give light from afar; the man who bears it is but the rock upon
+which this lighthouse is built.
+
+I love to dwell upon these thoughts; they explain to me in what consists
+our admiration for glory. When glory has benefited men, that admiration
+is gratitude; when it is only remarkable in itself, it is the pride
+of race; as men, we love to immortalize the most shining examples of
+humanity.
+
+Who knows whether we do not obey the same instinct in submitting to the
+hand of power? Apart from the requirements of a gradation of ranks, or
+the consequences of a conquest, the multitude delight to surround their
+chiefs with privileges--whether it be that their vanity makes them thus
+to aggrandize one of their own creations, or whether they try to conceal
+the humiliation of subjection by exaggerating the importance of those
+who rule them. They wish to honor themselves through their master; they
+elevate him on their shoulders as on a pedestal; they surround him
+with a halo of light, in order that some of it may be reflected upon
+themselves. It is still the fable of the dog who contents himself with
+the chain and collar, so that they are of gold.
+
+This servile vanity is not less natural or less common than the vanity
+of dominion. Whoever feels himself incapable of command, at least
+desires to obey a powerful chief. Serfs have been known to consider
+themselves dishonored when they became the property of a mere count
+after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Simon mentions a valet who
+would only wait upon marquises.
+
+July 7th, seven o'clock P. M.--I have just now been up the Boulevards;
+it was the opera night, and there was a crowd of carriages in the
+Rue Lepelletier. The foot-passengers who were stopped at a crossing
+recognized the persons in some of these as we went by, and mentioned
+their names; they were those of celebrated or powerful men, the
+successful ones of the day.
+
+Near me there was a man looking on with hollow cheeks and eager eyes,
+whose thin black coat was threadbare. He followed with envious looks
+these possessors of the privileges of power or of fame, and I read on
+his lips, which curled with a bitter smile, all that passed in his mind.
+
+"Look at them, the lucky fellows!" thought he; "all the pleasures
+of wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are theirs. Their names are
+renowned, all their wishes fulfilled; they are the sovereigns of the
+world, either by their intellect or their power; and while I, poor and
+unknown, toil painfully along the road below, they wing their way over
+the mountain-tops gilded by the broad sunshine of prosperity."
+
+I have come home in deep thought. Is it true that there are these
+inequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, but in the happiness of men?
+Do genius and authority really wear life as a crown, while the greater
+part of mankind receive it as a yoke? Is the difference of rank but a
+different use of men's dispositions and talents, or a real inequality
+in their destinies? A solemn question, as it regards the verification of
+God's impartiality.
+
+July 8th, noon.--I went this morning to call upon a friend from the
+same province as myself, who is the first usher-in-waiting to one of our
+ministers. I took him some letters from his family, left for him by a
+traveller just come from Brittany. He wished me to stay.
+
+"To-day," said he, "the Minister gives no audience: he takes a day of
+rest with his family. His younger sisters are arrived; he will take them
+this morning to St. Cloud, and in the evening he has invited his friends
+to a private ball. I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the
+day. We can dine together; read the news while you are waiting for me."
+
+I sat down at a table covered with newspapers, all of which I looked
+over by turns. Most of them contained severe criticisms on the last
+political acts of the minister; some of them added suspicions as to the
+honor of the minister himself.
+
+Just as I had finished reading, a secretary came for them to take them
+to his master.
+
+He was then about to read these accusations, to suffer silently the
+abuse of all those tongues which were holding him up to indignation or
+to scorn! Like the Roman victor in his triumph, he had to endure the
+insults of him who followed his car, relating to the crowd his follies,
+his ignorance, or his vices.
+
+But, among the arrows shot at him from every side, would no one be found
+poisoned? Would not one reach some spot in his heart where the wound
+would be incurable? What is the worth of a life exposed to the attacks
+of envious hatred or furious conviction? The Christians yielded only the
+fragments of their flesh to the beasts of the amphitheatres; the man in
+power gives up his peace, his affections, his honor, to the cruel bites
+of the pen.
+
+While I was musing upon these dangers of greatness, the usher entered
+hastily. Important news had been received: the minister is just summoned
+to the council; he will not be able to take his sisters to St. Cloud.
+
+I saw, through the windows, the young ladies, who were waiting at the
+door, sorrowfully go upstairs again, while their brother went off to the
+council. The carriage, which should have gone filled with so much family
+happiness, is just out of sight, carrying only the cares of a statesman
+in it.
+
+The usher came back discontented and disappointed. The more or less of
+liberty which he is allowed to enjoy, is his barometer of the political
+atmosphere. If he gets leave, all goes well; if he is kept at his
+post, the country is in danger. His opinion on public affairs is but a
+calculation of his own interest. My friend is almost a statesman.
+
+I had some conversation with him, and he told me several curious
+particulars of public life.
+
+The new minister has old friends whose opinions he opposes, though he
+still retains his personal regard for them. Though separated from them
+by the colors he fights under, they remain united by old associations;
+but the exigencies of party forbid him to meet them. If their
+intercourse continued, it would awaken suspicion; people would imagine
+that some dishonorable bargain was going on; his friends would be held
+to be traitors desirous to sell themselves, and he the corrupt minister
+prepared to buy them. He has, therefore, been obliged to break off
+friendships of twenty years' standing, and to sacrifice attachments
+which had become a second nature.
+
+Sometimes, however, the minister still gives way to his old feelings; he
+receives or visits his friends privately; he shuts himself up with
+them, and talks of the times when they could be open friends. By dint
+of precautions they have hitherto succeeded in concealing this blot of
+friendship against policy; but sooner or later the newspapers will be
+informed of it, and will denounce him to the country as an object of
+distrust.
+
+For whether hatred be honest or dishonest, it never shrinks from any
+accusation. Sometimes it even proceeds to crime. The usher assured me
+that several warnings had been given the minister which had made him
+fear the vengeance of an assassin, and that he no longer ventured out on
+foot.
+
+Then, from one thing to another, I learned what temptations came in to
+mislead or overcome his judgment; how he found himself fatally led
+into obliquities which he could not but deplore. Misled by passion,
+over-persuaded by entreaties, or compelled for reputation's sake, he has
+many times held the balance with an unsteady hand. How sad the condition
+of him who is in authority! Not only are the miseries of power imposed
+upon him, but its vices also, which, not content with torturing, succeed
+in corrupting him.
+
+We prolonged our conversation till it was interrupted by the minister's
+return. He threw himself out of the carriage with a handful of papers,
+and with an anxious manner went into his own room. An instant afterward
+his bell was heard; his secretary was called to send off notices to all
+those invited for the evening; the ball would not take place; they
+spoke mysteriously of bad news transmitted by the telegraph, and in such
+circumstances an entertainment would seem to insult the public sorrow.
+
+I took leave of my friend, and here I am at home. What I have just seen
+is an answer to my doubts the other day. Now I know with what pangs men
+pay for their dignities; now I understand
+
+     That Fortune sells what we believe she gives.
+
+This explains to me the reason why Charles V. aspired to the repose of
+the cloister.
+
+And yet I have only glanced at some of the sufferings attached to power.
+What shall I say of the falls in which its possessors are precipitated
+from the heights of heaven to the very depths of the earth? of that
+path of pain along which they must forever bear the burden of their
+responsibility? of that chain of decorums and ennuis which encompasses
+every act of their lives, and leaves them so little liberty?
+
+The partisans of despotism adhere with reason to forms and ceremonies.
+If men wish to give unlimited power to their fellow-man, they must keep
+him separated from ordinary humanity; they must surround him with a
+continual worship, and, by a constant ceremonial, keep up for him
+the superhuman part they have granted him. Our masters cannot remain
+absolute, except on condition of being treated as idols.
+
+But, after all, these idols are men, and, if the exclusive life they
+must lead is an insult to the dignity of others, it is also a torment to
+themselves. Everyone knows the law of the Spanish court, which used to
+regulate, hour by hour, the actions of the king and queen; "so that,"
+says Voltaire, "by reading it one can tell all that the sovereigns of
+Spain have done, or will do, from Philip II to the day of judgment." It
+was by this law that Philip III, when sick, was obliged to endure such
+an excess of heat that he died in consequence, because the Duke of
+Uzeda, who alone had the right to put out the fire in the royal chamber,
+happened to be absent.
+
+When the wife of Charles II was run away with on a spirited horse, she
+was about to perish before anyone dared to save her, because etiquette
+forbade them to touch the queen. Two young officers endangered their
+lives for her by stopping the horse. The prayers and tears of her whom
+they had just snatched from death were necessary to obtain pardon for
+their crime. Every one knows the anecdote related by Madame Campan of
+Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. One day, being at her toilet, when
+the chemise was about to be presented to her by one of the assistants,
+a lady of very ancient family entered and claimed the honor, as she had
+the right by etiquette; but, at the moment she was about to fulfil her
+duty, a lady of higher rank appeared, and in her turn took the garment
+she was about to offer to the queen; when a third lady of still higher
+title came in her turn, and was followed by a fourth, who was no other
+than the king's sister. The chemise was in this manner passed from hand
+to hand, with ceremonies, courtesies, and compliments, before it came
+to the queen, who, half naked and quite ashamed, was shivering with cold
+for the great honor of etiquette.
+
+12th, seven o'clock, P.M.--On coming home this evening, I saw, standing
+at the door of a house, an old man, whose appearance and features
+reminded me of my father. There was the same beautiful smile, the same
+deep and penetrating eye, the same noble bearing of the head, and the
+same careless attitude.
+
+I began living over again the first years of my life, and recalling to
+myself the conversations of that guide whom God in his mercy had given
+me, and whom in his severity he had too soon withdrawn.
+
+When my father spoke, it was not only to bring our two minds together by
+an interchange of thought, but his words always contained instruction.
+
+Not that he endeavored to make me feel it so: my father feared
+everything that had the appearance of a lesson. He used to say that
+virtue could make herself devoted friends, but she did not take pupils:
+therefore he was not desirous to teach goodness; he contented himself
+with sowing the seeds of it, certain that experience would make them
+grow.
+
+How often has good grain fallen thus into a corner of the heart, and,
+when it has been long forgotten, all at once put forth the blade and
+come into ear! It is a treasure laid aside in a time of ignorance, and
+we do not know its value till we find ourselves in need of it.
+
+Among the stories with which he enlivened our walks or our evenings,
+there is one which now returns to my memory, doubtless because the time
+is come to derive its lesson from it.
+
+My father, who was apprenticed at the age of twelve to one of those
+trading collectors who call themselves naturalists, because they put all
+creation under glasses that they may sell it by retail, had always led
+a life of poverty and labor. Obliged to rise before daybreak, by turns
+shop-boy, clerk, and laborer, he was made to bear alone all the work
+of a trade of which his master reaped all the profits. In truth, this
+latter had a peculiar talent for making the most of the labor of other
+people. Though unfit himself for the execution of any kind of work, no
+one knew better how to sell it. His words were a net, in which people
+found themselves taken before they were aware. And since he was devoted
+to himself alone, and looked on the producer as his enemy, and the
+buyer as prey, he used them both with that obstinate perseverance which
+avarice teaches.
+
+My father was a slave all the week, and could call himself his own only
+on Sunday. The master naturalist, who used to spend the day at the house
+of an old female relative, then gave him his liberty on condition that
+he dined out, and at his own expense. But my father used secretly to
+take with him a crust of bread, which he hid in his botanizing-box, and,
+leaving Paris as soon as it was day, he would wander far into the valley
+of Montmorency, the wood of Meudon, or among the windings of the
+Marne. Excited by the fresh air, the penetrating perfume of the growing
+vegetation, or the fragrance of the honeysuckles, he would walk on until
+hunger or fatigue made itself felt. Then he would sit under a hedge,
+or by the side of a stream, and would make a rustic feast, by turns
+on watercresses, wood strawberries, and blackberries picked from the
+hedges; he would gather a few plants, read a few pages of Florian,
+then in greatest vogue, of Gessner, who was just translated, or of Jean
+Jacques, of whom he possessed three old volumes. The day was thus passed
+alternately in activity and rest, in pursuit and meditation, until the
+declining sun warned him to take again the road to Paris, where he would
+arrive, his feet torn and dusty, but his mind invigorated for a whole
+week.
+
+One day, as he was going toward the wood of Viroflay, he met, close to
+it, a stranger who was occupied in botanizing and in sorting the plants
+he had just gathered. He was an elderly man with an honest face; but
+his eyes, which were rather deep-set under his eyebrows, had a somewhat
+uneasy and timid expression. He was dressed in a brown cloth coat,
+a gray waistcoat, black breeches, and worsted stockings, and held an
+ivory-headed cane under his arm. His appearance was that of a small
+retired tradesman who was living on his means, and rather below the
+golden mean of Horace.
+
+My father, who had great respect for age, civilly raised his hat to
+him as he passed. In doing so, a plant he held fell from his hand; the
+stranger stooped to take it up, and recognized it.
+
+"It is a Deutaria heptaphyllos," said he; "I have not yet seen any of
+them in these woods; did you find it near here, sir?"
+
+My father replied that it was to be found in abundance on the top of the
+hill, toward Sevres, as well as the great Laserpitium.
+
+"That, too!" repeated the old man more briskly. "Ah! I shall go and look
+for them; I have gathered them formerly on the hillside of Robaila."
+
+My father proposed to take him. The stranger accepted his proposal with
+thanks, and hastened to collect together the plants he had gathered; but
+all of a sudden he appeared seized with a scruple. He observed to his
+companion that the road he was going was halfway up the hill, and led
+in the direction of the castle of the Dames Royales at Bellevue; that by
+going to the top he would consequently turn out of his road, and that it
+was not right he should take this trouble for a stranger.
+
+My father insisted upon it with his habitual good-nature; but, the more
+eagerness he showed, the more obstinately the old man refused; it
+even seemed to my father that his good intention at last excited his
+suspicion. He therefore contented himself with pointing out the road to
+the stranger, whom he saluted, and he soon lost sight of him.
+
+Many hours passed by, and he thought no more of the meeting. He had
+reached the copses of Chaville, where, stretched on the ground in a
+mossy glade, he read once more the last volume of Emile. The delight of
+reading it had so completely absorbed him that he had ceased to see or
+hear anything around him. With his cheeks flushed and his eyes moist, he
+repeated aloud a passage which had particularly affected him.
+
+An exclamation uttered close by him awoke him from his ecstasy; he
+raised his head, and perceived the tradesman-looking person he had met
+before on the crossroad at Viroflay.
+
+He was loaded with plants, the collection of which seemed to have put
+him into high good-humor.
+
+"A thousand thanks, sir," said he to my father. "I have found all that
+you told me of, and I am indebted to you for a charming walk."
+
+My father respectfully rose, and made a civil reply. The stranger had
+grown quite familiar, and even asked if his young "brother botanist" did
+not think of returning to Paris. My father replied in the affirmative,
+and opened his tin box to put his book back in it.
+
+The stranger asked him with a smile if he might without impertinence ask
+the name of it. My father answered that it was Rousseau's Emile.
+
+The stranger immediately became grave.
+
+They walked for some time side by side, my father expressing, with the
+warmth of a heart still throbbing with emotion, all that this work
+had made him feel; his companion remaining cold and silent. The former
+extolled the glory of the great Genevese writer, whose genius had made
+him a citizen of the world; he expatiated on this privilege of great
+thinkers, who reign in spite of time and space, and gather together a
+people of willing subjects out of all nations; but the stranger suddenly
+interrupted him:
+
+"And how do you know," said he, mildly, "whether Jean Jacques would not
+exchange the reputation which you seem to envy for the life of one of
+the wood-cutters whose chimneys' smoke we see? What has fame brought him
+except persecution? The unknown friends whom his books may have made
+for him content themselves with blessing him in their hearts, while the
+declared enemies that they have drawn upon him pursue him with violence
+and calumny! His pride has been flattered by success: how many times has
+it been wounded by satire? And be assured that human pride is like the
+Sybarite who was prevented from sleeping by a crease in a roseleaf. The
+activity of a vigorous mind, by which the world profits, almost always
+turns against him who possesses it. He expects more from it as he grows
+older; the ideal he pursues continually disgusts him with the actual;
+he is like a man who, with a too-refined sight, discerns spots and
+blemishes in the most beautiful face. I will not speak of stronger
+temptations and of deeper downfalls. Genius, you have said, is a
+kingdom; but what virtuous man is not afraid of being a king? He who
+feels only his great powers, is--with the weaknesses and passions of our
+nature--preparing for great failures. Believe me, sir, the unhappy man
+who wrote this book is no object of admiration or of envy; but, if you
+have a feeling heart, pity him!"
+
+My father, astonished at the excitement with which his companion
+pronounced these last words, did not know what to answer.
+
+Just then they reached the paved road which led from Meudon Castle to
+that of Versailles; a carriage was passing.
+
+The ladies who were in it perceived the old man, uttered an exclamation
+of surprise, and leaning out of the window repeated:
+
+"There is Jean Jacques--there is Rousseau!"
+
+Then the carriage disappeared in the distance.
+
+My father remained motionless, confounded, and amazed, his eyes wide
+open, and his hands clasped.
+
+Rousseau, who had shuddered on hearing his name spoken, turned toward
+him:
+
+"You see," said he, with the bitter misanthropy which his later
+misfortunes had produced in him, "Jean Jacques cannot even hide himself:
+he is an object of curiosity to some, of malignity to others, and to all
+he is a public thing, at which they point the finger. It would signify
+less if he had only to submit to the impertinence of the idle; but, as
+soon as a man has had the misfortune to make himself a name, he becomes
+public property. Every one rakes into his life, relates his most trivial
+actions, and insults his feelings; he becomes like those walls, which
+every passer-by may deface with some abusive writing. Perhaps you
+will say that I have myself encouraged this curiosity by publishing my
+Confessions. But the world forced me to it. They looked into my house
+through the blinds, and they slandered me; I have opened the doors and
+windows, so that they should at least know me such as I am. Adieu, sir.
+Whenever you wish to know the worth of fame, remember that you have seen
+Rousseau."
+
+Nine o'clock.--Ah! now I understand my father's story! It contains the
+answer to one of the questions I asked myself a week ago. Yes, I now
+feel that fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought; and that,
+when they dazzle the soul, both are oftenest, as Madame de Stael says,
+but 'un deuil eclatant de bonheur!
+
+          'Tis better to be lowly born,
+          And range with humble livers in content,
+          Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
+          And wear a golden sorrow.
+
+          [Henry VIII., Act II., Scene 3.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE
+
+August 3d, Nine O'clock P.M.
+
+There are days when everything appears gloomy to us; the world, like the
+sky, is covered by a dark fog. Nothing seems in its place; we see only
+misery, improvidence, and cruelty; the world seems without God, and
+given up to all the evils of chance.
+
+Yesterday I was in this unhappy humor. After a long walk in the
+faubourgs, I returned home, sad and dispirited.
+
+Everything I had seen seemed to accuse the civilization of which we are
+so proud! I had wandered into a little by-street, with which I was not
+acquainted, and I found myself suddenly in the middle of those dreadful
+abodes where the poor are born, to languish and die. I looked at those
+decaying walls, which time has covered with a foul leprosy; those
+windows, from which dirty rags hang out to dry; those fetid gutters,
+which coil along the fronts of the houses like venomous reptiles! I felt
+oppressed with grief, and hastened on.
+
+A little farther on I was stopped by the hearse of a hospital; a dead
+man, nailed down in his deal coffin, was going to his last abode,
+without funeral pomp or ceremony, and without followers. There was not
+here even that last friend of the outcast--the dog, which a painter has
+introduced as the sole attendant at the pauper's burial! He whom they
+were preparing to commit to the earth was going to the tomb, as he had
+lived, alone; doubtless no one would be aware of his end. In this battle
+of society, what signifies a soldier the less?
+
+But what, then, is this human society, if one of its members can thus
+disappear like a leaf carried away by the wind?
+
+The hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance of which old men,
+women, and children were quarrelling for the remains of the coarse
+bread which the soldiers had given them in charity! Thus, beings like
+ourselves daily wait in destitution on our compassion till we give
+them leave to live! Whole troops of outcasts, in addition to the trials
+imposed on all God's children, have to endure the pangs of cold, hunger,
+and humiliation. Unhappy human commonwealth! Where man is in a worse
+condition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its subterranean city!
+
+Ah! what then avails our reason? What is the use of so many high
+faculties, if we are neither the wiser nor the happier for them? Which
+of us would not exchange his life of labor and trouble with that of the
+birds of the air, to whom the whole world is a life of joy?
+
+How well I understand the complaint of Mao, in the popular tales of the
+'Foyer Breton' who, when dying of hunger and thirst, says, as he looks
+at the bullfinches rifling the fruit-trees:
+
+"Alas! those birds are happier than Christians; they have no need of
+inns, or butchers, or bakers, or gardeners. God's heaven belongs to
+them, and earth spreads a continual feast before them! The tiny flies
+are their game, ripe grass their cornfields, and hips and haws their
+store of fruit. They have the right of taking everywhere, without paying
+or asking leave: thus comes it that the little birds are happy, and sing
+all the livelong day!"
+
+But the life of man in a natural state is like that of the birds; he
+equally enjoys nature. "The earth spreads a continual feast before him."
+What, then, has he gained by that selfish and imperfect association
+which forms a nation? Would it not be better for every one to turn again
+to the fertile bosom of nature, and live there upon her bounty in peace
+and liberty?
+
+August 20th, four o'clock A.M.--The dawn casts a red glow on my
+bed-curtains; the breeze brings in the fragrance of the gardens below.
+Here I am again leaning on my elbows by the windows, inhaling the
+freshness and gladness of this first wakening of the day.
+
+My eye always passes over the roofs filled with flowers, warbling, and
+sunlight, with the same pleasure; but to-day it stops at the end of a
+buttress which separates our house from the next.
+
+The storms have stripped the top of its plaster covering, and dust
+carried by the wind has collected in the crevices, and, being fixed
+there by the rain, has formed a sort of aerial terrace, where some green
+grass has sprung up. Among it rises a stalk of wheat, which to-day is
+surmounted by a sickly ear that droops its yellow head.
+
+This poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest of which will fall to the
+neighboring sparrows, has carried my thoughts to the rich crops which
+are now falling beneath the sickle; it has recalled to me the
+beautiful walks I took as a child through my native province, when the
+threshing-floors at the farmhouses resounded from every part with the
+sound of a flail, and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, came
+in by all the roads. I still remember the songs of the maidens, the
+cheerfulness of the old men, the open-hearted merriment of the laborers.
+There was, at that time, something in their looks both of pride and
+feeling. The latter came from thankfulness to God, the former from the
+sight of the harvest, the reward of their labor. They felt indistinctly
+the grandeur and the holiness of their part in the general work of the
+world; they looked with pride upon their mountains of corn-sheaves, and
+they seemed to say, Next to God, it is we who feed the world!
+
+What a wonderful order there is in all human labor!
+
+While the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares for every one his
+daily bread, the town artizan, far away, weaves the stuff in which he
+is to be clothed; the miner seeks underground the iron for his plow; the
+soldier defends him against the invader; the judge takes care that
+the law protects his fields; the tax-comptroller adjusts his private
+interests with those of the public; the merchant occupies himself in
+exchanging his products with those of distant countries; the men of
+science and of art add every day a few horses to this ideal team, which
+draws along the material world, as steam impels the gigantic trains of
+our iron roads! Thus all unite together, all help one another; the
+toil of each one benefits himself and all the world; the work has been
+apportioned among the different members of the whole of society by a
+tacit agreement. If, in this apportionment, errors are committed,
+if certain individuals have not been employed according to their
+capacities, those defects of detail diminish in the sublime conception
+of the whole. The poorest man included in this association has his
+place, his work, his reason for being there; each is something in the
+whole.
+
+There is nothing like this for man in the state of nature. As he depends
+only upon himself, it is necessary that he be sufficient for everything.
+All creation is his property; but he finds in it as many hindrances as
+helps. He must surmount these obstacles with the single strength that
+God has given him; he cannot reckon on any other aid than chance and
+opportunity. No one reaps, manufactures, fights, or thinks for him; he
+is nothing to any one. He is a unit multiplied by the cipher of his own
+single powers; while the civilized man is a unit multiplied by the whole
+of society.
+
+But, notwithstanding this, the other day, disgusted by the sight of some
+vices in detail, I cursed the latter, and almost envied the life of the
+savage.
+
+One of the infirmities of our nature is always to mistake feeling for
+evidence, and to judge of the season by a cloud or a ray of sunshine.
+
+Was the misery, the sight of which made me regret a savage life, really
+the effect of civilization? Must we accuse society of having created
+these evils, or acknowledge, on the contrary, that it has alleviated
+them? Could the women and children, who were receiving the coarse bread
+from the soldier, hope in the desert for more help or pity? That dead
+man, whose forsaken state I deplored, had he not found, by the cares of
+a hospital, a coffin and the humble grave where he was about to rest?
+Alone, and far from men, he would have died like the wild beast in his
+den, and would now be serving as food for vultures! These benefits of
+human society are shared, then, by the most destitute. Whoever eats the
+bread that another has reaped and kneaded, is under an obligation to his
+brother, and cannot say he owes him nothing in return. The poorest of us
+has received from society much more than his own single strength would
+have permitted him to wrest from nature.
+
+But cannot society give us more? Who doubts it? Errors have been
+committed in this distribution of tasks and workers. Time will diminish
+the number of them; with new lights a better division will arise; the
+elements of society go on toward perfection, like everything else. The
+difficulty is to know how to adapt ourselves to the slow step of time,
+whose progress can never be forced on without danger.
+
+August 14th, six o'clock A.M.--My garret window rises upon the roof like
+a massive watch-tower. The corners are covered by large sheets of lead,
+which run into the tiles; the successive action of cold and heat has
+made them rise, and so a crevice has been formed in an angle on the
+right side. There a sparrow has built her nest.
+
+I have followed the progress of this aerial habitation from the first
+day. I have seen the bird successively bring the straw, moss, and wool
+designed for the construction of her abode; and I have admired the
+persevering skill she expended in this difficult work. At first, my new
+neighbor spent her days in fluttering over the poplar in the garden, and
+in chirping along the gutters; a fine lady's life seemed the only one to
+suit her. Then all of a sudden, the necessity of preparing a shelter
+for her brood transformed our idler into a worker; she no longer gave
+herself either rest or relaxation. I saw her always either flying,
+fetching, or carrying; neither rain nor sun stopped her. A striking
+example of the power of necessity! We are indebted to it not only for
+most of our talents, but for many of our virtues!
+
+Is it not necessity that has given the people of less favored climates
+that constant activity which has placed them so quickly at the head of
+nations? As they are deprived of most of the gifts of nature, they
+have supplied them by their industry; necessity has sharpened their
+understanding, endurance awakened their foresight. While elsewhere man,
+warmed by an ever brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the
+earth, was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst of gifts he
+did not attempt to explore, here he was forced by necessity to wrest his
+food from the ground, to build habitations to defend himself from the
+intemperance of the weather, and to warm his body by clothing himself
+with the wool of animals. Work makes him both more intelligent and more
+robust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the ladder of
+creation, while those more favored by nature remain on the step nearest
+to the brutes.
+
+I made these reflections while looking at the bird, whose instinct
+seemed to have become more acute since she had been occupied in work.
+At last the nest was finished; she set up her household there, and I
+followed her through all the phases of her new existence.
+
+When she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were hatched, she fed
+them with the most attentive care. The corner of my window had become
+a stage of moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to take
+lessons from. The little ones soon became large, and this morning I have
+seen them take their first flight. One of them, weaker than the others,
+was not able to clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter.
+I caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again on the tile in
+front of his house, but the mother has not noticed him. Once freed from
+the cares of a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the
+trees and along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my window, to
+take from her every excuse for fear; in vain the feeble little bird
+has called to her with plaintive cries; his bad mother has passed by,
+singing and fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. Once only the
+father came near; he looked at his offspring with contempt, and then
+disappeared, never to return!
+
+I crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but he did not know how
+to peck it with his bill. I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the
+forsaken nest. What will become of him there, if his mother does not
+come back!
+
+August 15th, six o'clock.--This morning, on opening my window, I found
+the little bird dying upon the tiles; his wounds showed me that he had
+been driven from the nest by his unworthy mother. I tried in vain to
+warm him again with my breath; I felt the last pulsations of life; his
+eyes were already closed, and his wings hung down! I placed him on the
+roof in a ray of sunshine, and I closed my window. The struggle of life
+against death has always something gloomy in it: it is a warning to us.
+
+Happily I hear some one in the passage; without doubt it is my old
+neighbor; his conversation will distract my thoughts.
+
+It was my portress. Excellent woman! She wished me to read a letter from
+her son the sailor, and begged me to answer it for her.
+
+I kept it, to copy it in my journal. Here it is:
+
+   "DEAR MOTHER: This is to tell you that I have been very well ever
+   since the last time, except that last week I was nearly drowned with
+   the boat, which would have been a great loss, as there is not a
+   better craft anywhere.
+
+   "A gust of wind capsized us; and just as I came up above water, I
+   saw the captain sinking. I went after him, as was my duty, and,
+   after diving three times, I brought him to the surface, which
+   pleased him much; for when we were hoisted on board, and he had
+   recovered his senses, he threw his arms round my neck, as he would
+   have done to an officer.
+
+   "I do not hide from you, dear mother, that this has delighted me.
+   But it isn't all; it seems that fishing up the captain has reminded
+   them that I had a good character, and they have just told me that I
+   am promoted to be a sailor of the first class! Directly I knew it,
+   I cried out, 'My mother shall have coffee twice a day!' And really,
+   dear mother, there is nothing now to hinder you, as I shall now have
+   a larger allowance to send you.
+
+   "I include by begging you to take care of yourself if you wish to do
+   me good; for nothing makes me feel so well as to think that you want
+   for nothing.
+
+   "Your son, from the bottom of my heart,
+
+                         "JACQUES."
+
+This is the answer that the portress dictated to me:
+
+   "MY GOOD JACQUOT: It makes me very happy to see that your heart is
+   still as true as ever, and that you will never shame those who have
+   brought you up. I need not tell you to take care of your life,
+   because you know it is the same as my own, and that without you,
+   dear child, I should wish for nothing but the grave; but we are not
+   bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty.
+
+   "Do not fear for my health, good Jacques; I was never better! I do
+   not grow old at all, for fear of making you unhappy. I want
+   nothing, and I live like a lady. I even had some money over this
+   year, and as my drawers shut very badly, I put it into the savings'
+   bank, where I have opened an account in your name. So, when you
+   come back, you will find yourself with an income. I have also
+   furnished your chest with new linen, and I have knitted you three
+   new sea-jackets.
+
+   "All your friends are well. Your cousin is just dead, leaving his
+   widow in difficulties. I gave her your thirty francs' remittance
+   and said that you had sent it her; and the poor woman remembers you
+   day and night in her prayers. So, you see, I have put that money in
+   another sort of savings' bank; but there it is our hearts that get
+   the interest.
+
+   "Good-bye, dear Jacquot. Write to me often, and always remember the
+   good God, and your old mother,
+
+                    "PHROSINE MILLOT."
+
+Good son, and worthy mother! how such examples bring us back to a love
+for the human race! In a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the
+fate of the savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he; but
+impartial observation soon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on
+examination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, the good
+so far abounds that we are not in the habit of noticing it, while the
+evil strikes us precisely on account of its being the exception. If
+nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad as to be without its compensation
+or its remedy. What spiritual riches are there in the midst of the evils
+of society! how much does the moral world redeem the material!
+
+That which will ever distinguish man from the rest of creation, is his
+power of deliberate affection and of enduring self-sacrifice. The mother
+who took care of her brood in the corner of my window devoted to
+them the necessary time for accomplishing the laws which insure the
+preservation of her kind; but she obeyed an instinct, and not a
+rational choice. When she had accomplished the mission appointed her
+by Providence, she cast off the duty as we get rid of a burden, and
+she returned again to her selfish liberty. The other mother, on the
+contrary, will go on with her task as long as God shall leave her here
+below: the life of her son will still remain, so to speak, joined to her
+own; and when she disappears from the earth, she will leave there that
+part of herself.
+
+Thus, the affections make for our species an existence separate from
+all the rest of creation. Thanks to them, we enjoy a sort of terrestrial
+immortality; and if other beings succeed one another, man alone
+perpetuates himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT
+
+September 15th, Eight O'clock
+
+This morning, while I was arranging my books, Mother Genevieve came in,
+and brought me the basket of fruit I buy of her every Sunday. For the
+nearly twenty years that I have lived in this quarter, I have dealt in
+her little fruit-shop. Perhaps I should be better served elsewhere, but
+Mother Genevieve has but little custom; to leave her would do her harm,
+and cause her unnecessary pain. It seems to me that the length of our
+acquaintance has made me incur a sort of tacit obligation to her; my
+patronage has become her property.
+
+She has put the basket upon my table, and as I want her husband, who is
+a joiner, to add some shelves to my bookcase, she has gone downstairs
+again immediately to send him to me.
+
+At first I did not notice either her looks or the sound of her voice:
+but, now that I recall them, it seems to me that she was not as jovial
+as usual. Can Mother Genevieve be in trouble about anything?
+
+Poor woman! All her best years were subject to such bitter trials, that
+she might think she had received her full share already. Were I to live
+a hundred years, I should never forget the circumstances which made her
+known to me, and which obtained for her my respect.
+
+It was at the time of my first settling in the faubourg. I had noticed
+her empty fruit-shop, which nobody came into, and, being attracted by
+its forsaken appearance, I made my little purchases in it. I have always
+instinctively preferred the poor shops; there is less choice in them,
+but it seems to me that my purchase is a sign of sympathy with a brother
+in poverty. These little dealings are almost always an anchor of hope
+to those whose very existence is in peril--the only means by which some
+orphan gains a livelihood. There the aim of the tradesman is not to
+enrich himself, but to live! The purchase you make of him is more than
+an exchange--it is a good action.
+
+Mother Genevieve at that time was still young, but had already lost that
+fresh bloom of youth which suffering causes to wither so soon among
+the poor. Her husband, a clever joiner, gradually left off working to
+become, according to the picturesque expression of the workshops, a
+worshipper of Saint Monday. The wages of the week, which was always
+reduced to two or three working days, were completely dedicated by him
+to the worship of this god of the Barriers,--[The cheap wine shops are
+outside the Barriers, to avoid the octroi, or municipal excise.]--and
+Genevieve was obliged herself to provide for all the wants of the
+household.
+
+One evening, when I went to make some trifling purchases of her, I
+heard a sound of quarrelling in the back shop. There were the voices of
+several women, among which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by
+sobs. On looking farther in, I perceived the fruit-woman holding a child
+in her arms, and kissing it, while a country nurse seemed to be claiming
+her wages from her. The poor woman, who without doubt had exhausted
+every explanation and every excuse, was crying in silence, and one of
+her neighbors was trying in vain to appease the countrywoman. Excited by
+that love of money which the evils of a hard peasant life but too well
+excuse, and disappointed by the refusal of her expected wages, the nurse
+was launching forth in recriminations, threats, and abuse. In spite
+of myself, I listened to the quarrel, not daring to interfere, and not
+thinking of going away, when Michael Arout appeared at the shop-door.
+
+The joiner had just come from the Barriers, where he had passed part of
+the day at a public-house. His blouse, without a belt, and untied at the
+throat, showed none of the noble stains of work: in his hand he held
+his cap, which he had just picked up out of the mud; his hair was in
+disorder, his eye fixed, and the pallor of drunkenness in his face. He
+came reeling in, looked wildly around him, and called Genevieve.
+
+She heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed into the shop; but at the
+sight of the miserable man, who was trying in vain to steady himself,
+she pressed the child in her arms, and bent over it with tears.
+
+The countrywoman and the neighbor had followed her.
+
+"Come! come!" cried the former in a rage, "do you intend to pay me,
+after all?"
+
+"Ask the master for the money," ironically answered the woman from
+the next door, pointing to the joiner, who had just fallen against the
+counter.
+
+The countrywoman looked at him.
+
+"Ah! he is the father," returned she. "Well, what idle beggars! not to
+have a penny to pay honest people; and get tipsy with wine in that way."
+
+The drunkard raised his head.
+
+"What! what!" stammered he; "who is it that talks of wine? I've had
+nothing but brandy! But I am going back again to get some wine! Wife,
+give me your money; there are some friends waiting for me at the 'Pere
+la Tuille'."
+
+Genevieve did not answer: he went round the counter, opened the till,
+and began to rummage in it.
+
+"You see where the money of the house goes!" observed the neighbor to
+the countrywoman; "how can the poor unhappy woman pay you when he takes
+all?"
+
+"Is that my fault?" replied the nurse, angrily. "They owe to me, and
+somehow or other they must pay me!"
+
+And letting loose her tongue, as these women out of the country do, she
+began relating at length all the care she had taken of the child, and
+all the expense it had been to her. In proportion as she recalled all
+she had done, her words seemed to convince her more than ever of her
+rights, and to increase her anger. The poor mother, who no doubt feared
+that her violence would frighten the child, returned into the back shop,
+and put it into its cradle.
+
+Whether it is that the countrywoman saw in this act a determination to
+escape her claims, or that she was blinded by passion, I cannot say; but
+she rushed into the next room, where I heard the sounds of quarrelling,
+with which the cries of the child were soon mingled. The joiner, who was
+still rummaging in the till, was startled, and raised his head.
+
+At the same moment Genevieve appeared at the door, holding in her arms
+the baby that the countrywoman was trying to tear from her. She ran
+toward the counter, and throwing herself behind her husband, cried:
+
+"Michael, defend your son!"
+
+The drunken man quickly stood up erect, like one who awakes with a
+start.
+
+"My son!" stammered he; "what son?"
+
+His looks fell upon the child; a vague ray of intelligence passed over
+his features.
+
+"Robert," resumed he; "it is Robert!"
+
+He tried to steady himself on his feet, that he might take the baby, but
+he tottered. The nurse approached him in a rage.
+
+"My money, or I shall take the child away!" cried she. "It is I who have
+fed and brought it up: if you don't pay me for what has made it live, it
+ought to be the same to you as if it were dead. I shall not go until I
+have my due, or the baby."
+
+"And what would you do with him?" murmured Genevieve, pressing Robert
+against her bosom.
+
+"Take it to the Foundling!" replied the countrywoman, harshly; "the
+hospital is a better mother than you are, for it pays for the food of
+its little ones."
+
+At the word "Foundling," Genevieve had exclaimed aloud in horror. With
+her arms wound round her son, whose head she hid in her bosom, and her
+two hands spread over him, she had retreated to the wall, and remained
+with her back against it, like a lioness defending her young. The
+neighbor and I contemplated this scene, without knowing how we could
+interfere. As for Michael, he looked at us by turns, making a visible
+effort to comprehend it all. When his eye rested upon Genevieve and the
+child, it lit up with a gleam of pleasure; but when he turned toward us,
+he again became stupid and hesitating.
+
+At last, apparently making a prodigious effort, he cried out, "Wait!"
+
+And going to a tub filled with water, he plunged his face into it
+several times.
+
+Every eye was turned upon him; the countrywoman herself seemed
+astonished. At length he raised his dripping head. This ablution had
+partly dispelled his drunkenness; he looked at us for a moment, then he
+turned to Genevieve, and his face brightened up.
+
+"Robert!" cried he, going up to the child, and taking him in his arms.
+"Ah! give him me, wife; I must look at him."
+
+The mother seemed to give up his son to him with reluctance, and stayed
+before him with her arms extended, as if she feared the child would
+have a fall. The nurse began again in her turn to speak, and renewed
+her claims, this time threatening to appeal to law. At first Michael
+listened to her attentively, and when he comprehended her meaning, he
+gave the child back to its mother.
+
+"How much do we owe you?" asked he.
+
+The countrywoman began to reckon up the different expenses, which
+amounted to nearly thirty francs. The joiner felt to the bottom of
+his pockets, but could find nothing. His forehead became contracted by
+frowns; low curses began to escape him. All of a sudden he rummaged in
+his breast, drew forth a large watch, and holding it up above his head:
+
+"Here it is--here's your money!" cried he with a joyful laugh; "a watch,
+a good one! I always said it would keep for a drink on a dry day; but it
+is not I who will drink it, but the young one. Ah! ah! ah! go and sell
+it for me, neighbor, and if that is not enough, I have my earrings.
+Eh! Genevieve, take them off for me; the earrings will square all! They
+shall not say you have been disgraced on account of the child--no, not
+even if I must pledge a bit of my flesh! My watch, my earrings, and my
+ring--get rid of all of them for me at the goldsmith's; pay the woman,
+and let the little fool go to sleep. Give him me, Genevieve; I will put
+him to bed."
+
+And, taking the baby from the arms of his mother, he carried him with a
+firm step to his cradle.
+
+It was easy to perceive the change which took place in Michael from
+this day. He cut all his old drinking acquaintances. He went early every
+morning to his work, and returned regularly in the evening to finish the
+day with Genevieve and Robert. Very soon he would not leave them at all,
+and he hired a place near the fruit-shop, and worked in it on his own
+account.
+
+They would soon have been able to live in comfort, had it not been for
+the expenses which the child required. Everything was given up to his
+education. He had gone through the regular school training, had studied
+mathematics, drawing, and the carpenter's trade, and had only begun to
+work a few months ago. Till now, they had been exhausting every resource
+which their laborious industry could provide to push him forward in his
+business; and, happily, all these exertions had not proved useless: the
+seed had brought forth fruit, and the days of harvest were close by.
+
+While I was thus recalling these remembrances to my mind, Michael had
+come in, and was occupied in fixing shelves where they were wanted.
+
+During the time I was writing the notes of my journal, I was also
+scrutinizing the joiner.
+
+The excesses of his youth and the labor of his manhood have deeply
+marked his face; his hair is thin and gray, his shoulders stoop, his
+legs are shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in
+his whole being. His very features have an expression of sorrow and
+despondency. He answers my questions by monosyllables, and like a man
+who wishes to avoid conversation. Whence comes this dejection, when one
+would think he had all he could wish for? I should like to know!
+
+Ten o'clock.--Michael is just gone downstairs to look for a tool he has
+forgotten. I have at last succeeded in drawing from him the secret of
+his and Genevieve's sorrow. Their son Robert is the cause of it!
+
+Not that he has turned out ill after all their care--not that he is
+idle or dissipated; but both were in hopes he would never leave them any
+more. The presence of the young man was to have renewed and made glad
+their lives once more; his mother counted the days, his father prepared
+everything to receive their dear associate in their toils; and at the
+moment when they were thus about to be repaid for all their sacrifices,
+Robert had suddenly informed them that he had just engaged himself to a
+contractor at Versailles.
+
+Every remonstrance and every prayer were useless; he brought forward
+the necessity of initiating himself into all the details of an important
+contract, the facilities he should have in his new position of improving
+himself in his trade, and the hopes he had of turning his knowledge
+to advantage. At, last, when his mother, having come to the end of her
+arguments, began to cry, he hastily kissed her, and went away that he
+might avoid any further remonstrances.
+
+He had been absent a year, and there was nothing to give them hopes of
+his return. His parents hardly saw him once a month, and then he only
+stayed a few moments with them.
+
+"I have been punished where I had hoped to be rewarded," Michael said to
+me just now. "I had wished for a saving and industrious son, and God has
+given me an ambitious and avaricious one! I had always said to myself
+that when once he was grown up we should have him always with us,
+to recall our youth and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always
+thinking of getting him married, and having children again to care for.
+You know women always will busy themselves about others. As for me, I
+thought of him working near my bench, and singing his new songs; for he
+has learnt music, and is one of the best singers at the Orpheon.
+
+"A dream, sir, truly! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to flight,
+and remembers neither father nor mother. Yesterday, for instance, was
+the day we expected him; he should have come to supper with us. No
+Robert to-day, either! He has had some plan to finish, or some bargain
+to arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after
+the customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it
+would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money,
+for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it
+for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with
+my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good
+fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, no!
+you see women and children are our bane. They soften our hearts; they
+lead us a life of hope and affection; we pass a quarter of our lives in
+fostering the growth of a grain of corn which is to be everything to us
+in our old age, and when the harvest-time comes--good-night, the ear is
+empty!"
+
+While he was speaking, Michael's voice became hoarse, his eyes fierce,
+and his lips quivered. I wished to answer him, but I could only think of
+commonplace consolations, and I remained silent. The joiner pretended he
+needed a tool, and left me.
+
+Poor father! Ah! I know those moments of temptation when virtue has
+failed to reward us, and we regret having obeyed her! Who has not felt
+this weakness in hours of trial, and who has not uttered, at least once,
+the mournful exclamation of Brutus?
+
+But if virtue is only a word, what is there then in life that is true
+and real? No, I will not believe that goodness is in vain! It does not
+always give the happiness we had hoped for, but it brings some other. In
+the world everything is ruled by order, and has its proper and necessary
+consequences, and virtue cannot be the sole exception to the general
+law. If it had been prejudicial to those who practised it, experience
+would have avenged them; but experience has, on the contrary, made it
+more universal and more holy. We only accuse it of being a faithless
+debtor because we demand an immediate payment, and one apparent to our
+senses. We always consider life as a fairytale, in which every good
+action must be rewarded by a visible wonder. We do not accept as payment
+a peaceful conscience, self-content, or a good name among men--treasures
+that are more precious than any other, but the value of which we do not
+feel till after we have lost them!
+
+Michael is come back, and has returned to his work. His son has not yet
+arrived.
+
+By telling me of his hopes and his grievous disappointments, he became
+excited; he unceasingly went over again the same subject, always adding
+something to his griefs. He had just wound up his confidential discourse
+by speaking to me of a joiner's business which he had hoped to buy, and
+work to good account with Robert's help. The present owner had made a
+fortune by it, and, after thirty years of business, he was thinking of
+retiring to one of the ornamental cottages in the outskirts of the city,
+a usual retreat for the frugal and successful workingman. Michael had
+not indeed the two thousand francs which must be paid down; but perhaps
+he could have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Robert's presence would
+have been a security for him, for the young man could not fail to insure
+the prosperity of a workshop; besides science and skill, he had the
+power of invention and bringing to perfection. His father had discovered
+among his drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had occupied his
+thoughts for a long time; and he even suspected him of having engaged
+himself to the Versailles contractor for the very purpose of executing
+it. The youth was tormented by this spirit of invention, which took
+possession of all his thoughts, and, while devoting his mind to study,
+he had no time to listen to his feelings.
+
+Michael told me all this with a mixed feeling of pride and vexation. I
+saw he was proud of the son he was abusing, and that his very pride made
+him more sensitive to that son's neglect.
+
+Six o'clock P.M.--I have just finished a happy day. How many events
+have happened within a few hours, and what a change for Genevieve and
+Michael!
+
+He had just finished fixing the shelves, and telling me of his son,
+while I laid the cloth for my breakfast.
+
+Suddenly we heard hurried steps in the passage, the door opened, and
+Genevieve entered with Robert.
+
+The joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but he repressed it
+immediately, as if he wished to keep up the appearance of displeasure.
+
+The young man did not appear to notice it, but threw himself into his
+arms in an open-hearted manner, which surprised me. Genevieve, whose
+face shone with happiness, seemed to wish to speak, and to restrain
+herself with difficulty.
+
+I told Robert I was glad to see him, and he answered me with ease and
+civility.
+
+"I expected you yesterday," said Michael Arout, rather dryly.
+
+"Forgive me, father," replied the young workman, "but I had business at
+St. Germain's. I was not able to come back till it was very late, and
+then the master kept me."
+
+The joiner looked at his son sidewise, and then took up his hammer
+again.
+
+"All right," muttered he, in a grumbling tone; "when we are with other
+people we must do as they wish; but there are some who would like better
+to eat brown bread with their own knife than partridges with the silver
+fork of a master."
+
+"And I am one of those, father," replied Robert, merrily, "but, as the
+proverb says, 'you must shell the peas before you can eat them.' It was
+necessary that I should first work in a great workshop--"
+
+"To go on with your plan of the staircase," interrupted Michael,
+ironically.
+
+"You must now say Monsieur Raymond's plan, father," replied Robert,
+smiling.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I have sold it to him."
+
+The joiner, who was planing a board, turned round quickly.
+
+"Sold it!" cried he, with sparkling eyes.
+
+"For the reason that I was not rich enough to give it him."
+
+Michael threw down the board and tool.
+
+"There he is again!" resumed he, angrily; "his good genius puts an idea
+into his head which would have made him known, and he goes and sells it
+to a rich man, who will take the honor of it himself."
+
+"Well, what harm is there done?" asked Genevieve.
+
+"What harm!" cried the joiner, in a passion. "You understand nothing
+about it--you are a woman; but he--he knows well that a true workman
+never gives up his own inventions for money, no more than a soldier
+would give up his cross. That is his glory; he is bound to keep it for
+the honor it does him! Ah, thunder! if I had ever made a discovery,
+rather than put it up at auction I would have sold one of my eyes! Don't
+you see that a new invention is like a child to a workman? He takes care
+of it, he brings it up, he makes a way for it in the world, and it is
+only a poor creature who sells it."
+
+Robert colored a little.
+
+"You will think differently, father," said he, "when you know why I sold
+my plan."
+
+"Yes, and you will thank him for it," added Genevieve, who could no
+longer keep silence.
+
+"Never!" replied Michael.
+
+"But, wretched man!" cried she, "he sold it only for our sakes!"
+
+The joiner looked at his wife and son with astonishment. It was
+necessary to come to an explanation. The latter related how he had
+entered into a negotiation with Master Benoit, who had positively
+refused to sell his business unless one half of the two thousand francs
+were first paid down. It was in the hopes of obtaining this sum that
+he had gone to work with the contractor at Versailles; he had had an
+opportunity of trying his invention, and of finding a purchaser. Thanks
+to the money he received for it, he had just concluded the bargain with
+Benoit, and had brought his father the key of the new work-yard.
+
+This explanation was given by the young workman with so much modesty
+and simplicity that I was quite affected by it. Genevieve cried; Michael
+pressed his son to his heart, and in a long embrace he seemed to ask his
+pardon for having unjustly accused him.
+
+All was now explained with honor to Robert. The conduct which his
+parents had ascribed to indifference really sprang from affection; he
+had neither obeyed the voice of ambition nor of avarice, nor even the
+nobler inspiration of inventive genius: his whole motive and single aim
+had been the happiness of Genevieve and Michael. The day for proving his
+gratitude had come, and he had returned them sacrifice for sacrifice!
+
+After the explanations and exclamations of joy were over, all three were
+about to leave me; but, the cloth being laid, I added three more places,
+and kept them to breakfast.
+
+The meal was prolonged: the fare was only tolerable; but the
+over-flowings of affection made it delicious. Never had I better
+understood the unspeakable charm of family love. What calm enjoyment in
+that happiness which is always shared with others; in that community
+of interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of
+existences which forms one single being of so many! What is man without
+those home affections, which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in
+the earth, and permit him to imbibe all the juices of life? Energy,
+happiness--do not all these come from them? Without family life where
+would man learn to love, to associate, to deny himself? A community in
+little, is it not this which teaches us how to live in the great one?
+Such is the holiness of home, that, to express our relation with God, we
+have been obliged to borrow the words invented for our family life. Men
+have named themselves the sons of a heavenly Father!
+
+Ah! let us carefully preserve these chains of domestic union. Do not let
+us unbind the human sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of
+chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us
+carry the principles and the habits of home beyond set bounds; and, if
+it may be, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles
+when he exclaimed to the newborn children of Christ: "Be ye like-minded,
+having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. OUR COUNTRY
+
+
+October 12th, Seven O'clock A.M.
+
+The nights are already become cold and long; the sun, shining through my
+curtains, no more wakens me long before the hour for work; and even when
+my eyes are open, the pleasant warmth of the bed keeps me fast under
+my counterpane. Every morning there begins a long argument between my
+activity and my indolence; and, snugly wrapped up to the eyes, I wait
+like the Gascon, until they have succeeded in coming to an agreement.
+
+This morning, however, a light, which shone from my door upon my
+pillow, awoke me earlier than usual. In vain I turned on my side;
+the persevering light, like a victorious enemy, pursued me into every
+position. At last, quite out of patience, I sat up and hurled my
+nightcap to the foot of the bed!
+
+(I will observe, by way of parenthesis, that the various evolutions of
+this pacific headgear seem to have been, from the remotest time, symbols
+of the vehement emotions of the mind; for our language has borrowed its
+most common images from them.)
+
+But be this as it may, I got up in a very bad humor, grumbling at my
+new neighbor, who took it into his head to be wakeful when I wished to
+sleep. We are all made thus; we do not understand that others may live
+on their own account. Each one of us is like the earth, according to the
+old system of Ptolemy, and thinks he can have the whole universe revolve
+around himself. On this point, to make use of the metaphor alluded to:
+'Tous les hommes ont la tete dans le meme bonnet'.
+
+I had for the time being, as I have already said, thrown mine to the
+other end of my bed; and I slowly disengaged my legs from the
+warm bedclothes, while making a host of evil reflections upon the
+inconvenience of having neighbors.
+
+For more than a month I had not had to complain of those whom chance
+had given me; most of them only came in to sleep, and went away again
+on rising. I was almost always alone on this top story--alone with the
+clouds and the sparrows!
+
+But at Paris nothing lasts; the current of life carries us along, like
+the seaweed torn from the rock; the houses are vessels which take mere
+passengers. How many different faces have I already seen pass along the
+landing-place belonging to our attics! How many companions of a few days
+have disappeared forever! Some are lost in that medley of the living
+which whirls continually under the scourge of necessity, and others in
+that resting-place of the dead, who sleep under the hand of God!
+
+Peter the bookbinder is one of these last. Wrapped up in selfishness,
+he lived alone and friendless, and he died as he had lived. His loss was
+neither mourned by any one, nor disarranged anything in the world; there
+was merely a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in
+our house.
+
+It is the same which my new neighbor has inhabited for the last few
+days.
+
+To say truly (now that I am quite awake, and my ill humor is gone with
+my nightcap)--to say truly, this new neighbor, although rising earlier
+than suits my idleness, is not the less a very good man: he carries
+his misfortunes, as few know how to carry their good fortunes, with
+cheerfulness and moderation.
+
+But fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chaufour is but the wreck of a
+man. In the place of one of his arms hangs an empty sleeve; his left leg
+is made by the turner, and he drags the right along with difficulty; but
+above these ruins rises a calm and happy face. While looking upon his
+countenance, radiant with a serene energy, while listening to his voice,
+the tone of which has, so to speak, the accent of goodness, we see
+that the soul has remained entire in the half-destroyed covering. The
+fortress is a little damaged, as Father Chaufour says, but the garrison
+is quite hearty.
+
+Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, the more I reproach
+myself for the sort of malediction I bestowed on him when I awoke.
+
+We are generally too indulgent in our secret wrongs toward our neighbor.
+All ill-will which does not pass the region of thought seems innocent to
+us, and, with our clumsy justice, we excuse without examination the sin
+which does not betray itself by action!
+
+But are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws? Besides
+these external relations, is there not a real relation of feeling
+between men? Do we not owe to all those who live under the same heaven
+as ourselves the aid not only of our acts but of our purposes? Ought not
+every human life to be to us like a vessel that we accompany with our
+prayers for a happy voyage? It is not enough that men do not harm
+one another; they must also help and love one another! The papal
+benediction, 'Urbi et orbi'! should be the constant cry from all hearts.
+To condemn him who does not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a
+passing thought, is to break the great law, that which has established
+the union of souls here below, and to which Christ has given the sweet
+name of charity.
+
+These thoughts came into my mind as I finished dressing, and I said to
+myself that Father Chaufour had a right to reparation from me. To make
+amends for the feeling of ill-will I had against him just now, I owed
+him some explicit proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune in
+his room; he was at work, and I determined that I would make the first
+neighborly call.
+
+Eight o'clock P.M.--I found Father Chaufour at a table lighted by a
+little smoky lamp, without a fire, although it is already cold, and
+making large pasteboard boxes; he was humming a popular song in a low
+tone. I had hardly entered the room when he uttered an exclamation of
+surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Eh! is it you, neighbor? Come in, then! I did not think you got up so
+early, so I put a damper on my music; I was afraid of waking you."
+
+Excellent man! while I was sending him to the devil he was putting
+himself out of his way for me!
+
+This thought touched me, and I paid my compliments on his having become
+my neighbor with a warmth which opened his heart.
+
+"Faith! you seem to me to have the look of a good Christian," said he in
+a voice of soldierlike cordiality, and shaking me by the hand. "I do not
+like those people who look on a landing-place as a frontier line, and
+treat their neighbors as if they were Cossacks. When men snuff the same
+air, and speak the same lingo, they are not meant to turn their backs
+to each other. Sit down there, neighbor; I don't mean to order you; only
+take care of the stool; it has but three legs, and we must put good-will
+in place of the fourth."
+
+"It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want of here," I
+observed.
+
+"Good-will!" repeated Chaufour; "that is all my mother left me, and I
+take it no son has received a better inheritance. Therefore they used to
+call me Monsieur Content in the batteries."
+
+"You are a soldier, then?"
+
+"I served in the Third Artillery under the Republic, and afterward
+in the Guard, through all the commotions. I was at Jemappes and at
+Waterloo; so I was at the christening and at the burial of our glory, as
+one may say!"
+
+I looked at him with astonishment.
+
+"And how old were you then, at Jemappes?" asked I.
+
+"Somewhere about fifteen," said he.
+
+"How came you to think of being a soldier so early?"
+
+"I did not really think about it. I then worked at toy-making, and never
+dreamed that France would ask me for anything else than to make her
+draught-boards, shuttlecocks, and cups and balls. But I had an old uncle
+at Vincennes whom I went to see from time to time--a Fontenoy veteran in
+the same rank of life as myself, but with ability enough to have risen
+to that of a marshal. Unluckily, in those days there was no way for
+common people to get on. My uncle, whose services would have got him
+made a prince under the other, had then retired with the mere rank of
+sub-lieutenant. But you should have seen him in his uniform, his cross
+of St. Louis, his wooden leg, his white moustaches, and his noble
+countenance. You would have said he was a portrait of one of those old
+heroes in powdered hair which are at Versailles!
+
+"Every time I visited him, he said something which remained fixed in my
+memory. But one day I found him quite grave.
+
+"'Jerome,' said he, 'do you know what is going on on the frontier?'
+
+"'No, lieutenant,' replied I.
+
+"'Well,' resumed he, 'our country is in danger!'
+
+"I did not well understand him, and yet it seemed something to me.
+
+"'Perhaps you have never thought what your country means,' continued he,
+placing his hand on my shoulder; `it is all that surrounds you, all that
+has brought you up and fed you, all that you have loved! This ground
+that you see, these houses, these trees, those girls who go along there
+laughing--this is your country! The laws which protect you, the bread
+which pays for your work, the words you interchange with others, the
+joy and grief which come to you from the men and things among which you
+live--this is your country! The little room where you used to see
+your mother, the remembrances she has left you, the earth where she
+rests--this is your country! You see it, you breathe it, everywhere!
+Think to yourself, my son, of your rights and your duties, your
+affections and your wants, your past and your present blessings; write
+them all under a single name--and that name will be your country!'
+
+"I was trembling with emotion, and great tears were in my eyes.
+
+"'Ah! I understand,' cried I; 'it is our home in large; it is that part
+of the world where God has placed our body and our soul.'
+
+"'You are right, Jerome,' continued the old soldier; 'so you comprehend
+also what we owe it.'
+
+"'Truly,' resumed I, 'we owe it all that we are; it is a question of
+love.'
+
+"'And of honesty, my son,' concluded he. 'The member of a family who
+does not contribute his share of work and of happiness fails in his
+duty, and is a bad kinsman; the member of a partnership who does not
+enrich it with all his might, with all his courage, and with all his
+heart, defrauds it of what belongs to it, and is a dishonest man. It
+is the same with him who enjoys the advantages of having a country, and
+does not accept the burdens of it; he forfeits his honor, and is a bad
+citizen!'
+
+"'And what must one do, lieutenant, to be a good citizen?' asked I.
+
+"'Do for your country what you would do for your father and mother,'
+said he.
+
+"I did not answer at the moment; my heart was swelling, and the blood
+boiling in my veins; but on returning along the road, my uncle's words
+were, so to speak, written up before my eyes. I repeated, 'Do for your
+country what you would do for your father and mother.' And my country is
+in danger; an enemy attacks it, while I--I turn cups and balls!
+
+"This thought tormented me so much all night that the next day I
+returned to Vincennes to announce to the lieutenant that I had just
+enlisted, and was going off to the frontier. The brave man pressed upon
+me his cross of St. Louis, and I went away as proud as an ambassador.
+
+"That is how, neighbor, I became a volunteer under the Republic before I
+had cut my wisdom teeth."
+
+All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him who looks
+upon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance.
+
+While he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, not on account of
+himself, but of the general subject. Evidently that which occupied him
+in the drama of life was not his own part, but the drama itself.
+
+This sort of disinterestedness touched me. I prolonged my visit, and
+showed myself as frank as possible, in order to win his confidence in
+return. In an hour's time he knew my position and my habits; I was on
+the footing of an old acquaintance.
+
+I even confessed the ill-humor the light of his lamp put me into a short
+time before. He took what I said with the touching cheerfulness which
+comes from a heart in the right place, and which looks upon everything
+on the good side. He neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged
+him to work while I could sleep, nor of the deprivations of the old
+soldier compared to the luxury of the young clerk; he only struck his
+forehead, accused himself of thoughtlessness, and promised to put list
+round his door!
+
+O great and beautiful soul! with whom nothing turns to bitterness, and
+who art peremptory only in duty and benevolence!
+
+October 15th.--This morning I was looking at a little engraving I
+had framed myself, and hung over my writing-table; it is a design of
+Gavarni's; in which, in a grave mood, he has represented a veteran and a
+conscript.
+
+By often contemplating these two figures, so different in expression,
+and so true to life, both have become living in my eyes; I have seen
+them move, I have heard them speak; the picture has become a real scene,
+at which I am present as spectator.
+
+The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on the shoulder of the
+young soldier. His eyes, closed for ever, no longer perceive the sun
+shining through the flowering chestnut-trees. In the place of his right
+arm hangs an empty sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, the sound of
+which on the pavement makes those who pass turn to look.
+
+At the sight of this ancient wreck from our patriotic wars, the greater
+number shake their heads in pity, and I seem to hear a sigh or an
+imprecation.
+
+"See the worth of glory!" says a portly merchant, turning away his eyes
+in horror.
+
+"What a deplorable use of human life!" rejoins a young man who carries a
+volume of philosophy under his arm.
+
+"The trooper would better not have left his plow," adds a countryman,
+with a cunning air.
+
+"Poor old man!" murmurs a woman, almost crying.
+
+The veteran has heard, and he knits his brow; for it seems to him that
+his guide has grown thoughtful. The latter, attracted by what he hears
+around him, hardly answers the old man's questions, and his eyes,
+vaguely lost in space, seem to be seeking there for the solution of some
+problem.
+
+I seem to see a twitching in the gray moustaches of the veteran; he
+stops abruptly, and, holding back his guide with his remaining arm:
+
+"They all pity me," says he, "because they do not understand it; but if
+I were to answer them--"
+
+"What would you say to them, father?" asks the young man, with
+curiosity.
+
+"I should say first to the woman who weeps when she looks at me, to keep
+her tears for other misfortunes; for each of my wounds calls to mind
+some struggle for my colors. There is room for doubting how some men
+have done their duty; with me it is visible. I carry the account of my
+services, written with the enemy's steel and lead, on myself; to pity me
+for having done my duty is to suppose I would better have been false to
+it."
+
+"And what would you say to the countryman, father?"
+
+"I should tell him that, to drive the plow in peace, we must first
+secure the country itself; and that, as long as there are foreigners
+ready to eat our harvest, there must be arms to defend it."
+
+"But the young student, too, shook his head when he lamented such a use
+of life."
+
+"Because he does not know what self-sacrifice and suffering can teach.
+The books that he studies we have put in practice, though we never
+read them: the principles he applauds we have defended with powder and
+bayonet."
+
+"And at the price of your limbs and your blood. The merchant said, when
+he saw your maimed body, 'See the worth of glory!"'
+
+"Do not believe him, my son: the true glory is the bread of the soul;
+it is this which nourishes self-sacrifice, patience, and courage. The
+Master of all has bestowed it as a tie the more between men. When we
+desire to be distinguished by our brethren, do we not thus prove our
+esteem and our sympathy for them? The longing for admiration is but one
+side of love. No, no; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for!
+That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which prove
+a generous self-sacrifice, but those which our vices or our imprudence
+have called forth. Ah! if I could speak aloud to those who, when
+passing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man whose
+excesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, 'What have you done
+with your eyes?' To the slothful man, who with difficulty drags along
+his enervated mass of flesh, 'What have you done with your feet?' To the
+old man, who is punished for his intemperance by the gout, 'What have
+you done with your hands?' To all, 'What have you done with the days God
+granted you, with the faculties you should have employed for the good of
+your brethren?' If you cannot answer, bestow no more of your pity upon
+the old soldier maimed in his country's cause; for he--he at least--can
+show his scars without shame."
+
+October 16th.--The little engraving has made me comprehend better the
+merits of Father Chaufour, and I therefore esteem him all the more.
+
+He has just now left my attic. There no longer passes a single day
+without his coming to work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by
+his board.
+
+The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of it. For twenty
+years he was an armed traveller throughout Europe, and he fought without
+hatred, for he was possessed by a single thought--the honor of the
+national flag! It might have been his superstition, if you will; but it
+was, at the same time, his safeguard.
+
+The word FRANCE, which was then resounding so gloriously through the
+world, served as a talisman to him against all sorts of temptation. To
+have to support a great name may seem a burden to vulgar minds, but it
+is an encouragement to vigorous ones.
+
+"I, too, have had many moments," said he to me the other day, "when I
+have been tempted to make friends with the devil. War is not precisely
+the school for rural virtues. By dint of burning, destroying, and
+killing, you grow a little tough as regards your feelings; 'and, when
+the bayonet has made you king, the notions of an autocrat come into
+your head a little strongly. But at these moments I called to mind that
+country which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whispered to myself
+the well-known phrase, 'Toujours Francais! It has been laughed at since.
+People who would make a joke of the death of their mother have turned it
+into ridicule, as if the name of our country was not also a noble and a
+binding thing. For my part, I shall never forget from how many follies
+the title of Frenchman has kept me. When, overcome with fatigue, I
+have found myself in the rear of the colors, and when the musketry
+was rattling in the front ranks, many a time I heard a voice, which
+whispered in my ear, 'Leave the others to fight, and for today take care
+of your own hide!' But then, that word Francais! murmured within me, and
+I pressed forward to help my comrades. At other times, when, irritated
+by hunger, cold, and wounds, I have arrived at the hovel of some
+Meinherr, I have been seized by an itching to break the master's back,
+and to burn his hut; but I whispered to myself, Francais! and this name
+would not rhyme with either incendiary or murderer. I have, in this
+way, passed through kingdoms from east to west, and from north to south,
+always determined not to bring disgrace upon my country's flag. The
+lieutenant, you see, had taught me a magic word--My country! Not only
+must we defend it, but we must also make it great and loved."
+
+October 17th.--To-day I have paid my neighbor a long visit. A chance
+expression led the way to his telling me more of himself than he had yet
+done.
+
+I asked him whether both his limbs had been lost in the same battle.
+
+"No, no!" replied he; "the cannon only took my leg; it was the Clamart
+quarries that my arm went to feed."
+
+And when I asked him for the particulars--
+
+"That's as easy as to say good-morning," continued he. "After the great
+break-up at Waterloo, I stayed three months in the camp hospital to give
+my wooden leg time to grow. As soon as I was able to hobble a little, I
+took leave of headquarters, and took the road to Paris, where I hoped to
+find some relative or friend; but no--all were gone, or underground. I
+should have found myself less strange at Vienna, Madrid, or Berlin. And
+although I had a leg the less to provide for, I was none the better off;
+my appetite had come back, and my last sous were taking flight.
+
+"I had indeed met my old colonel, who recollected that I had helped
+him out of the skirmish at Montereau by giving him my horse, and he had
+offered me bed and board at his house. I knew that the year before he
+had married a castle and no few farms, so that I might become permanent
+coat-brusher to a millionaire, which was not without its temptations.
+It remained to see if I had not anything better to do. One evening I set
+myself to reflect upon it.
+
+"'Let us see, Chaufour,' said I to myself; 'the question is to act like
+a man. The colonel's place suits you, but cannot you do anything better?
+Your body is still in good condition, and your arms strong; do you not
+owe all your strength to your country, as your Vincennes uncle said?
+Why not leave some old soldier, more cut up than you are, to get his
+hospital at the colonel's? Come, trooper, you are still fit for another
+stout charge or two! You must not lay up before your time.'
+
+"Whereupon I went to thank the colonel, and to offer my services to an
+old artilleryman, who had gone back to his home at Clamart, and who had
+taken up the quarryman's pick again.
+
+"For the first few months I played the conscript's part--that is to say,
+there was more stir than work; but with a good will one gets the better
+of stones, as of everything else. I did not become, so to speak, the
+leader of a column, but I brought up the rank among the good workmen,
+and I ate my bread with a good appetite, seeing I had earned it with
+a good will. For even underground, you see, I still kept my pride. The
+thought that I was working to do my part in changing rocks into houses
+pleased my heart. I said to myself, 'Courage, Chaufour, my old boy; you
+are helping to beautify your country.' And that kept up my spirit.
+
+"Unfortunately, some of my companions were rather too sensible to the
+charms of the brandy-bottle; so much so, that one day one of them, who
+could hardly distinguish his right hand from his left, thought proper to
+strike a light close to a charged mine. The mine exploded suddenly,
+and sent a shower of stone grape among us, which killed three men, and
+carried away the arm of which I have now only the sleeve."
+
+"So you were again without means of living?" said I to the old soldier.
+
+"That is to say, I had to change them," replied he, quietly. "The
+difficulty was to find one which would do with five fingers instead of
+ten; I found it, however."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"Among the Paris street-sweepers."
+
+"What! you have been one--"
+
+"Of the pioneers of the health force for a while, neighbor, and that was
+not my worst time either. The corps of sweepers is not so low as it is
+dirty, I can tell you! There are old actresses in it who could never
+learn to save their money, and ruined merchants from the exchange; we
+even had a professor of classics, who for a little drink would recite
+Latin to you, or Greek tragedies, as you chose. They could not have
+competed for the Monthyon prize; but we excused faults on account of
+poverty, and cheered our poverty by our good-humor and jokes. I was as
+ragged and as cheerful as the rest, while trying to be something better.
+Even in the mire of the gutter I preserved my faith that nothing is
+dishonorable which is useful to our country.
+
+"'Chaufour,' said I to myself with a smile, 'after the sword, the
+hammer; after the hammer, the broom; you are going downstairs, my old
+boy, but you are still serving your country.'"
+
+"'However, you ended by leaving your new profession?' said I."
+
+"A reform was required, neighbor. The street-sweepers seldom have their
+feet dry, and the damp at last made the wounds in my good leg open
+again. I could no longer follow the regiment, and it was necessary to
+lay down my arms. It is now two months since I left off working in the
+sanitary department of Paris.
+
+"At the first moment I was daunted. Of my four limbs, I had now only my
+right hand, and even that had lost its strength; so it was necessary
+to find some gentlemanly occupation for it. After trying a little of
+everything, I fell upon card-box making, and here I am at cases for the
+lace and buttons of the national guard; it is work of little profit, but
+it is within the capacity of all. By getting up at four and working
+till eight, I earn sixty-five centimes; my lodging and bowl of soup
+take fifty of them, and there are three sous over for luxuries. So I am
+richer than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget; and I
+continue to serve her, as I save her lace and buttons."
+
+At these words Father Chaufour looked at me with a smile, and with his
+great scissors began cutting the green paper again for his cardboard
+cases. My heart was touched, and I remained lost in thought.
+
+Here is still another member of that sacred phalanx who, in the battle
+of life, always march in front for the example and the salvation of the
+world! Each of these brave soldiers has his war-cry; for this one it is
+"Country," for that "Home," for a third "Mankind;" but they all
+follow the same standard--that of duty; for all the same divine law
+reigns--that of self-sacrifice. To love something more than one's
+self--that is the secret of all that is great; to know how to live for
+others--that is the aim of all noble souls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES
+
+November 13th, Nine O'clock P.M.
+
+I had well stopped up the chinks of my window; my little carpet was
+nailed down in its place; my lamp, provided with its shade, cast a
+subdued light around, and my stove made a low, murmuring sound, as if
+some live creature was sharing my hearth with me.
+
+All was silent around me. But, out of doors the snow and rain swept the
+roofs, and with a low, rushing sound ran along the gurgling gutters;
+sometimes a gust of wind forced itself beneath the tiles, which
+rattled together like castanets, and afterward it was lost in the empty
+corridor. Then a slight and pleasurable shiver thrilled through my
+veins: I drew the flaps of my old wadded dressing-gown around me, I
+pulled my threadbare velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting myself sink
+deeper into my easy-chair, while my feet basked in the heat and light
+which shone through the door of the stove, I gave myself up to a
+sensation of enjoyment, made more lively by the consciousness of the
+storm which raged without. My eyes, swimming in a sort of mist, wandered
+over all the details of my peaceful abode; they passed from my prints to
+my bookcase, resting upon the little chintz sofa, the white curtains of
+the iron bedstead, and the portfolio of loose papers--those archives
+of the attics; and then, returning to the book I held in my hand, they
+attempted to seize once more the thread of the reading which had been
+thus interrupted.
+
+In fact, this book, the subject of which had at first interested me, had
+become painful to me. I had come to the conclusion that the pictures of
+the writer were too sombre. His description of the miseries of the
+world appeared exaggerated to me; I could not believe in such excess of
+poverty and of suffering; neither God nor man could show themselves so
+harsh toward the sons of Adam. The author had yielded to an artistic
+temptation: he was making a show of the sufferings of humanity, as Nero
+burned Rome for the sake of the picturesque.
+
+Taken altogether, this poor human house, so often repaired, so much
+criticised, is still a pretty good abode; we may find enough in it to
+satisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them; the happiness
+of the wise man costs but little, and asks but little space.
+
+These consoling reflections became more and more confused. At last my
+book fell on the ground without my having the resolution to stoop and
+take it up again; and insensibly overcome by the luxury of the silence,
+the subdued light, and the warmth, I fell asleep.
+
+I remained for some time lost in the sort of insensibility belonging to
+a first sleep; at last some vague and broken sensations came over me.
+It seemed to me that the day grew darker, that the air became colder.
+I half perceived bushes covered with the scarlet berries which foretell
+the coming of winter. I walked on a dreary road, bordered here and there
+with juniper-trees white with frost. Then the scene suddenly changed.
+I was in the diligence; the cold wind shook the doors and windows; the
+trees, loaded with snow, passed by like ghosts; in vain I thrust my
+benumbed feet into the crushed straw. At last the carriage stopped, and,
+by one of those stage effects so common in sleep, I found myself alone
+in a barn, without a fireplace, and open to the winds on all sides.
+I saw again my mother's gentle face, known only to me in my early
+childhood, the noble and stern countenance of my father, the little fair
+head of my sister, who was taken from us at ten years old; all my dead
+family lived again around me; they were there, exposed to the bitings
+of the cold and to the pangs of hunger. My mother prayed by the resigned
+old man, and my sister, rolled up on some rags of which they had made
+her a bed, wept in silence, and held her naked feet in her little blue
+hands.
+
+It was a page from the book I had just read transferred into my own
+existence.
+
+My heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish. Crouched in a corner,
+with my eyes fixed upon this dismal picture, I felt the cold slowly
+creeping upon me, and I said to myself with bitterness:
+
+"Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by suspicion, apathy,
+and contempt, and from which it is vain to try to escape; let us die,
+since there is no place for us at the banquet of the living!"
+
+And I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to wait at her feet for
+the hour of release.
+
+This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a start.
+
+I looked around me; my lamp was expiring, the fire in my stove
+extinguished, and my half-opened door was letting in an icy wind. I
+got up, with a shiver, to shut and double-lock it; then I made for the
+alcove, and went to bed in haste.
+
+But the cold kept me awake a long time, and my thoughts continued the
+interrupted dream.
+
+The pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration now seemed but a too
+faithful representation of reality; and I went to sleep without being
+able to recover my optimism--or my warmth.
+
+Thus did a cold stove and a badly closed door alter my point of view.
+All went well when my blood circulated properly; all looked gloomy when
+the cold laid hold on me.
+
+This reminds me of the story of the duchess who was obliged to pay a
+visit to the neighboring convent on a winter's day. The convent was
+poor, there was no wood, and the monks had nothing but their discipline
+and the ardor of their prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, who
+was shivering with cold, returned home, greatly pitying the poor monks.
+While the servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more logs to
+her fire, she called her steward, whom she ordered to send some wood
+to the convent immediately. She then had her couch moved close to the
+fireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of what
+she had just suffered was speedily lost in her present comfort, when the
+steward came in again to ask how many loads of wood he was to send.
+
+"Oh! you may wait," said the great lady carelessly; "the weather is very
+much milder."
+
+Thus, man's judgments are formed less from reason than from sensation;
+and as sensation comes to him from the outward world, so he finds
+himself more or less under its influence; by little and little he
+imbibes a portion of his habits and feelings from it.
+
+It is not, then, without cause that, when we wish to judge of a
+stranger beforehand, we look for indications of his character in the
+circumstances which surround him. The things among which we live are
+necessarily made to take our image, and we unconsciously leave in them
+a thousand impressions of our minds. As we can judge by an empty bed
+of the height and attitude of him who has slept in it, so the abode of
+every man discovers to a close observer the extent of his intelligence
+and the feelings of his heart. Bernardin de St.-Pierre has related the
+story of a young girl who refused a suitor because he would never have
+flowers or domestic animals in his house. Perhaps the sentence was
+severe, but not without reason. We may presume that a man insensible
+to beauty and to humble affection must be ill prepared to feel the
+enjoyments of a happy marriage.
+
+14th, seven o'clock P.M.--This morning, as I was opening my journal to
+write, I had a visit from our old cashier.
+
+His sight is not so good as it was, his hand begins to shake, and the
+work he was able to do formerly is now becoming somewhat laborious to
+him. I had undertaken to write out some of his papers, and he came for
+those I had finished.
+
+We conversed a long time by the stove, while he was drinking a cup of
+coffee which I made him take.
+
+M. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little; so
+that he has always something to say.
+
+While looking over the accounts I had prepared for him, his look fell
+upon my journal, and I was obliged to acknowledge that in this way I
+wrote a diary of my actions and thoughts every evening for private use.
+From one thing to another, I began speaking to him of my dream the day
+before, and my reflections about the influence of outward objects upon
+our ordinary sentiments. He smiled.
+
+"Ah! you, too, have my superstitions," he said, quietly. "I have always
+believed, like you, that you may know the game by the lair: it is
+only necessary to have tact and experience; but without them we commit
+ourselves to many rash judgments. For my part. I have been guilty of
+this more than once, but sometimes I have also drawn a right conclusion.
+I recollect especially an adventure which goes as far back as the first
+years of my youth--"
+
+He stopped. I looked at him as if I waited for his story, and he told it
+me at once.
+
+At this time he was still but third clerk to an attorney at Orleans. His
+master had sent him to Montargis on different affairs, and he intended
+to return in the diligence the same evening, after having received
+the amount of a bill at a neighboring town; but they kept him at the
+debtor's house, and when he was able to set out the day had already
+closed.
+
+Fearing not to be able to reach Montargis in good time, he took a
+crossroad they pointed out to him. Unfortunately the fog increased, no
+star was visible in the heavens, and the darkness became so great
+that he lost his road. He tried to retrace his steps, passed twenty
+footpaths, and at last was completely astray.
+
+After the vexation of losing his place in the diligence, came the
+feeling of uneasiness as to his situation. He was alone, on foot, lost
+in a forest, without any means of finding his right road again, and with
+a considerable sum of money about him, for which he was responsible.
+His anxiety was increased by his inexperience. The idea of a forest was
+connected in his mind with so many adventures of robbery and murder,
+that he expected some fatal encounter every instant.
+
+To say the truth, his situation was not encouraging. The place was not
+considered safe, and for some time past there had been rumors of the
+sudden disappearance of several horse-dealers, though there was no trace
+of any crime having been committed.
+
+Our young traveller, with his eyes staring forward, and his ears
+listening, followed a footpath which he supposed might take him to some
+house or road; but woods always succeeded to woods. At last he perceived
+a light at a distance, and in a quarter of an hour he reached the
+highroad.
+
+A single house, the light from which had attracted him, appeared at a
+little distance. He was going toward the entrance gate of the courtyard,
+when the trot of a horse made him turn his head. A man on horseback had
+just appeared at the turning of the road, and in an instant was close to
+him.
+
+The first words he addressed to the young man showed him to be the
+farmer himself. He related how he had lost himself, and learned from the
+countryman that he was on the road to Pithiviers. Montargis was three
+leagues behind him.
+
+The fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling rain, which was
+beginning to wet the young clerk through; he seemed afraid of the
+distance he had still to go, and the horseman, who saw his hesitation,
+invited him to come into the farmhouse.
+
+It had something of the look of a fortress. Surrounded by a pretty high
+wall, it could not be seen except through the bars of the great gate,
+which was carefully closed. The farmer, who had got off his horse, did
+not go near it, but, turning to the right, reached another entrance
+closed in the same way, but of which he had the key.
+
+Hardly had he passed the threshold when a terrible barking resounded
+from each end of the yard. The farmer told his guest to fear nothing,
+and showed him the dogs chained up to their kennels; both were of an
+extraordinary size, and so savage that the sight of their master himself
+could not quiet them.
+
+A boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the house and took the
+farmer's horse. The latter began questioning him about some orders he
+had given before he left the house, and went toward the stable to see
+that they had been executed.
+
+Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him.
+
+A lantern which the boy had placed on the ground cast a dim light over
+the courtyard. All around seemed empty and deserted. Not a trace was
+visible of the disorder often seen in a country farmyard, and which
+shows a temporary cessation of the work which is soon to be resumed
+again. Neither a cart forgotten where the horses had been unharnessed,
+nor sheaves of corn heaped up ready for threshing, nor a plow overturned
+in a corner and half hidden under the freshly-cut clover. The yard was
+swept, the barns shut up and padlocked. Not a single vine creeping up
+the walls; everywhere stone, wood, and iron!
+
+He took up the lantern and went up to the corner of the house. Behind
+was a second yard, where he heard the barking of a third dog, and a
+covered wall was built in the middle of it.
+
+Our traveller looked in vain for the little farm garden, where pumpkins
+of different sorts creep along the ground, or where the bees from the
+hives hum under the hedges of honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and
+flowers were nowhere to be seen. He did not even perceive the sight of a
+poultry-yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of his host was everywhere
+wanting in that which makes the grace and the life of the country.
+
+The young man thought that his host must be of a very careless or a very
+calculating disposition, to concede so little to domestic enjoyments and
+the pleasures of the eye; and judging, in spite of himself, by what he
+saw, he could not help feeling a distrust of his character.
+
+In the mean time the farmer returned from the stables, and made him
+enter the house.
+
+The inside of the farmhouse corresponded to its outside. The whitewashed
+walls had no other ornament than a row of guns of all sizes; the massive
+furniture hardly redeemed its clumsy appearance by its great solidity.
+The cleanliness was doubtful, and the absence of all minor conveniences
+proved that a woman's care was wanting in the household concerns. The
+young clerk learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here with no one but
+his two sons.
+
+Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A table with the cloth
+laid, that no one had taken the trouble to clear away, was left near the
+window. The plates and dishes were scattered upon it without any order,
+and loaded with potato-parings and half-picked bones. Several empty
+bottles emitted an odor of brandy, mixed with the pungent smell of
+tobacco-smoke.
+
+After seating his guest, the farmer lighted his pipe, and his two sons
+resumed their work by the fireside. Now and then the silence was just
+broken by a short remark, answered by a word or an exclamation; and then
+all became as mute as before.
+
+"From my childhood," said the old cashier, "I had been very sensible to
+the impression of outward objects; later in life, reflection had taught
+me to study the causes of these impressions rather than to drive them
+away. I set myself, then, to examine everything around me with great
+attention.
+
+"Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, some wolftraps were
+suspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf's
+paw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened
+chimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall,
+their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each;
+a fox's skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larder
+hook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose body
+swayed about over our heads.
+
+"My eyes were offended by all these details, and I turned them again
+upon my hosts. The father, who sat opposite to me, only interrupted his
+smoking to pour out his drink, or address some reprimand to his
+sons. The eldest of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody
+scrapings, which he threw into the fire every instant, filled the room
+with a disagreeable fetid smell; the second son was sharpening some
+butcher's knives. I learned from a word dropped from the father that
+they were preparing to kill a pig the next day.
+
+"These occupations and the whole aspect of things inside the house told
+of such habitual coarseness in their way of living as seemed to explain,
+while it formed the fitting counterpart of, the forbidding gloominess
+of the outside. My astonishment by degrees changed into disgust, and my
+disgust into uneasiness. I cannot detail the whole chain of ideas which
+succeeded one another in my imagination; but, yielding to an impulse I
+could not overcome, I got up, declaring I would go on my road again.
+
+"The farmer made some effort to keep me; he spoke of the rain, of the
+darkness, and of the length of the way. I replied to all by the absolute
+necessity there was for my being at Montargis that very night; and
+thanking him for his brief hospitality, I set off again in a haste which
+might well have confirmed the truth of my words to him.
+
+"However, the freshness of the night and the exercise of walking did not
+fail to change the directions of my thoughts. When away from the objects
+which had awakened such lively disgust in me, I felt it gradually
+diminishing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of my feelings,
+and then, in proportion as the rain became heavier and colder, these
+strictures on myself assumed a tone of ill-temper. I silently accused
+myself of the absurdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of my
+reason. After all, were not the farmer and his sons free to live alone,
+to hunt, to keep dogs, and to kill a pig? Where was the crime of it?
+With less nervous susceptibility, I should have accepted the shelter
+they offered me, and I should now be sleeping snugly on a truss of
+straw, instead of walking with difficulty through the cold and drizzling
+rain. I thus continued to reproach myself, until, toward morning, I
+arrived at Montargis, jaded and benumbed with cold.
+
+"When, however, I got up refreshed, toward the middle of the next day,
+I instinctively returned to my first opinion. The appearance of the
+farmhouse presented itself to me under the same repulsive colors which
+the evening before had determined me to make my escape from it. Reason
+itself remained silent when reviewing all those coarse details, and was
+forced to recognize in them the indications of a low nature, or else the
+presence of some baleful influence.
+
+"I went away the next day without being able to learn anything
+concerning the farmer or his sons; but the recollection of my adventure
+remained deeply fixed in my memory.
+
+"Ten years afterward I was travelling in the diligence through the
+department of the Loiret; I was leaning from the window, and looking at
+some coppice ground now for the first time brought under cultivation,
+and the mode of clearing which one of my travelling companions was
+explaining to me, when my eyes fell upon a walled inclosure, with an
+iron-barred gate. Inside it I perceived a house with all the blinds
+closed, and which I immediately recollected; it was the farmhouse where
+I had been sheltered. I eagerly pointed it out to my companion, and
+asked who lived in it.
+
+"'Nobody just now,' replied he.
+
+"'But was it not kept, some years ago, by a farmer and his two sons?'
+
+"'The Turreaus;' said my travelling companion, looking at me; 'did you
+know them?'
+
+"'I saw them once.'
+
+"He shook his head.
+
+"'Yes, yes!' resumed he; 'for many years they lived there like wolves in
+their den; they merely knew how to till land, kill game, and drink. The
+father managed the house, but men living alone, without women to love
+them, without children to soften them, and without God to make them
+think of heaven, always turn into wild beasts, you see; so one morning
+the eldest son, who had been drinking too much brandy, would not harness
+the plow-horses; his father struck him with his whip, and the son, who
+was mad drunk, shot him dead with his gun.'"
+
+16th, P.M.--I have been thinking of the story of the old cashier these
+two days; it came so opportunely upon the reflections my dream had
+suggested to me.
+
+Have I not an important lesson to learn from all this?
+
+If our sensations have an incontestable influence upon our judgments,
+how comes it that we are so little careful of those things which awaken
+or modify these sensations? The external world is always reflected in us
+as in a mirror, and fills our minds with pictures which, unconsciously
+to ourselves, become the germs of our opinions and of our rules of
+conduct. All the objects which surround us are then, in reality, so many
+talismans whence good and evil influences are emitted, and it is for
+us to choose them wisely, so as to create a healthy atmosphere for our
+minds.
+
+Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a survey of my
+attic.
+
+The first object on which my eyes rest is an old map of the history of
+the principal monastery in my native province. I had unrolled it with
+much satisfaction, and placed it on the most conspicuous part of the
+wall. Why had I given it this place? Ought this sheet of old worm-eaten
+parchment to be of so much value to me, who am neither an antiquary nor
+a scholar? Is not its real importance in my sight that one of the abbots
+who founded it bore my name, and that I shall, perchance, be able
+to make myself a genealogical tree of it for the edification of my
+visitors? While writing this, I feel my own blushes. Come, down with the
+map! let us banish it into my deepest drawer.
+
+As I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting cards complacently
+displayed in the frame. By what chance is it that there are only
+names that make a show among them? Here is a Polish count--a retired
+colonel--the deputy of my department. Quick, quick, into the fire with
+these proofs of vanity! and let us put this card in the handwriting of
+our office-boy, this direction for cheap dinners, and the receipt of
+the broker where I bought my last armchair, in their place. These
+indications of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne says, 'mater ma
+superbe', and will always make me recollect the modesty in which the
+dignity of the lowly consists.
+
+I have stopped before the prints hanging upon the wall. This large
+and smiling Pomona, seated on sheaves of corn, and whose basket is
+overflowing with fruit, only produces thoughts of joy and plenty; I was
+looking at her the other day, when I fell asleep denying such a thing
+as misery. Let us give her as companion this picture of Winter, in which
+everything tells of sorrow and suffering: one picture will modify the
+other.
+
+And this Happy Family of Greuze's! What joy in the children's eyes! What
+sweet repose in the young woman's face! What religious feeling in the
+grandfather's countenance! May God preserve their happiness to them! but
+let us hang by its side the picture of this mother, who weeps over an
+empty cradle. Human life has two faces, both of which we must dare to
+contemplate in their turn.
+
+Let me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters which ornament my
+chimneypiece. Plato has said that "the beautiful is nothing else than
+the visible form of the good." If it is so, the ugly should be the
+visible form of the evil, and, by constantly beholding it, the mind
+insensibly deteriorates.
+
+But above all, in order to cherish the feelings of kindness and pity,
+let me hang at the foot of my bed this affecting picture of the Last
+Sleep! Never have I been able to look at it without feeling my heart
+touched.
+
+An old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a roadside; her stick is at
+her feet, and her head rests upon a stone; she has fallen asleep; her
+hands are clasped; murmuring a prayer of her childhood, she sleeps her
+last sleep, she dreams her last dream!
+
+She sees herself, again a strong and happy child, keeping the sheep on
+the common, gathering the berries from the hedges, singing, curtsying to
+passers-by, and making the sign of the cross when the first star appears
+in the heavens! Happy time, filled with fragrance and sunshine! She
+wants nothing yet, for she is ignorant of what there is to wish for.
+
+But see her grown up; the time is come for working bravely: she must
+cut the corn, thresh the wheat, carry the bundles of flowering clover
+or branches of withered leaves to the farm. If her toil is hard, hope
+shines like a sun over everything and it wipes the drops of sweat away.
+The growing girl already sees that life is a task, but she still sings
+as she fulfills it.
+
+By-and-bye the burden becomes heavier; she is a wife, she is a mother!
+She must economize the bread of to-day, have her eye upon the morrow,
+take care of the sick, and sustain the feeble; she must act, in short,
+that part of an earthly Providence, so easy when God gives us his aid,
+so hard when he forsakes us. She is still strong, but she is anxious;
+she sings no longer!
+
+Yet a few years, and all is overcast. The husband's health is broken;
+his wife sees him pine away by the now fireless hearth; cold and hunger
+finish what sickness had begun; he dies, and his widow sits on the
+ground by the coffin provided by the charity of others, pressing her two
+half-naked little ones in her arms. She dreads the future, she weeps,
+and she droops her head.
+
+At last the future has come; the children are grown up, but they are no
+longer with her. Her son is fighting under his country's flag, and his
+sister is gone. Both have been lost to her for a long time--perhaps
+forever; and the strong girl, the brave wife, the courageous mother, is
+henceforth only a poor old beggar-woman, without a family, and without
+a home! She weeps no more, sorrow has subdued her; she surrenders, and
+waits for death.
+
+Death, that faithful friend of the wretched, is come: not hideous and
+with mockery, as superstition represents, but beautiful, smiling, and
+crowned with stars! The gentle phantom stoops to the beggar; its pale
+lips murmur a few airy words, which announce to her the end of her
+labors; a peaceful joy comes over the aged beggarwoman, and, leaning on
+the shoulder of the great Deliverer, she has passed unconsciously from
+her last earthly sleep to her eternal rest.
+
+Lie there, thou poor way-wearied woman! The leaves will serve thee for a
+winding-sheet. Night will shed her tears of dew over thee, and the birds
+will sing sweetly by thy remains. Thy visit here below will not have
+left more trace than their flight through the air; thy name is already
+forgotten, and the only legacy thou hast to leave is the hawthorn stick
+lying forgotten at thy feet!
+
+Well! some one will take it up--some soldier of that great human host
+which is scattered abroad by misery or by vice; for thou art not an
+exception, thou art an instance; and under the same sun which shines
+so pleasantly upon all, in the midst of these flowering vineyards, this
+ripe corn, and these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, succeed
+each other, and still bequeath to each the beggar's stick!
+
+The sight of this sad picture shall make me more grateful for what God
+has given me, and more compassionate for those whom he has treated with
+less indulgence; it shall be a lesson and a subject for reflection for
+me.
+
+Ah! if we would watch for everything that might improve and instruct
+us; if the arrangements of our daily life were so disposed as to be a
+constant school for our minds! but oftenest we take no heed of them. Man
+is an eternal mystery to himself; his own person is a house into which
+he never enters, and of which he studies the outside alone. Each of
+us need have continually before him the famous inscription which once
+instructed Socrates, and which was engraved on the walls of Delphi by an
+unknown hand:
+
+             KNOW THYSELF.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE END OF THE YEAR
+
+December 30th, P.M.
+
+I was in bed, and hardly recovered from the delirious fever which had
+kept me for so long between life and death. My weakened brain was
+making efforts to recover its activity; my thoughts, like rays of light
+struggling through the clouds, were still confused and imperfect; at
+times I felt a return of the dizziness which made a chaos of all my
+ideas, and I floated, so to speak, between alternate fits of mental
+wandering and consciousness.
+
+Sometimes everything seemed plain to me, like the prospect which, from
+the top of some high mountain, opens before us in clear weather. We
+distinguish water, woods, villages, cattle, even the cottage perched on
+the edge of the ravine; then suddenly there comes a gust of wind laden
+with mist, and all is confused and indistinct.
+
+Thus, yielding to the oscillations of a half-recovered reason, I allowed
+my mind to follow its various impulses without troubling myself to
+separate the real from the imaginary; I glided softly from one to the
+other, and my dreams and waking thoughts succeeded closely upon one
+another.
+
+Now, while my mind is wandering in this unsettled state, see, underneath
+the clock which measures the hours with its loud ticking, a female
+figure appears before me!
+
+At first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that she was not a daughter of
+Eve. In her eye was the last flash of an expiring star, and her face had
+the pallor of an heroic death-struggle. She was dressed in a drapery of
+a thousand changing colors of the brightest and the most sombre hues,
+and held a withered garland in her hand.
+
+After having contemplated her for some moments, I asked her name, and
+what brought her into my attic. Her eyes, which were following the
+movements of the clock, turned toward me, and she replied:
+
+"You see in me the year which is just drawing to its end; I come to
+receive your thanks and your farewell."
+
+I raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon gave place to bitter
+resentment.
+
+"Ah! you want thanks," cried I; "but first let me know what for?
+
+"When I welcomed your coming, I was still young and vigorous: you have
+taken from me each day some little of my strength, and you have ended by
+inflicting an illness upon me; already, thanks to you, my blood is less
+warm, my muscles less firm, and my feet less agile than before! You
+have planted the germs of infirmity in my bosom; there, where the summer
+flowers of life were growing, you have wickedly sown the nettles of old
+age!
+
+"And, as if it were not enough to weaken my body, you have also
+diminished the powers of my soul; you have extinguished her enthusiasm;
+she is become more sluggish and more timid. Formerly her eyes took in
+the whole of mankind in their generous survey; but you have made her
+nearsighted, and now she hardly sees beyond herself! That is what you
+have done for my spiritual being: then as to my outward existence, see
+to what grief, neglect, and misery you have reduced it! For the many
+days that the fever has kept me chained to this bed, who has taken care
+of this home in which I placed all my joy? Shall I not find my closets
+empty, my bookcase, stripped, all my poor treasures lost through
+negligence or dishonesty? Where are the plants I cultivated, the birds I
+fed? All are gone! my attic is despoiled, silent and solitary! As it is
+only for the last few moments that I have returned to a consciousness of
+what surrounds me, I am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long
+illness! Doubtless some hireling, who will leave when all my means of
+recompense are exhausted! And what will my masters, for whom I am
+bound to work, have said to my absence? At this time of the year, when
+business is most pressing, can they have done without me, will they
+even have tried to do so? Perhaps I am already superseded in the humble
+situation by which I earned my daily bread! And it is thou-thou alone,
+wicked daughter of Time--who hast brought all these misfortunes upon
+me: strength, health, comfort, work--thou hast taken all from me. I have
+only received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou darest to claim
+my gratitude!"
+
+"Ah! die then, since thy day is come; but die despised and cursed; and
+may I write on thy tomb the epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon that
+of a king:
+
+     "'Rejoice, thou passer-by: he whom we have buried here
+     cannot live again.'"
+
+       .......................
+
+I was wakened by a hand taking mine; and opening my eyes, I recognized
+the doctor.
+
+After having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat down at the foot of
+the bed, and looked at me, rubbing his nose with his snuffbox. I have
+since learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor.
+
+"Well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?" said M. Lambert, in
+his half-joking, half-scolding way. "What the deuce of a hurry we were
+in! It was necessary to hold you back with both arms at least!"
+
+"Then you had given me up, doctor?" asked I, rather alarmed.
+
+"Not at all," replied the old physician. "We can't give up what we
+have not got; and I make it a rule never to have any hope. We are but
+instruments in the hands of Providence, and each of us should say, with
+Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!"'
+
+"May He be blessed then, as well as you," cried I; "and may my health
+come back with the new year!"
+
+M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Begin by asking yourself for it," resumed he, bluntly. "God has given
+it you, and it is your own sense, and not chance, that must keep it for
+you. One would think, to hear people talk, that sickness comes upon us
+like the rain or the sunshine, without one having a word to say in the
+matter. Before we complain of being ill we should prove that we deserve
+to be well."
+
+I was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry.
+
+"Ah! you think that I am joking," resumed he, raising his voice; "but
+tell me, then, which of us gives his health the same attention that he
+gives to his business? Do you economize your strength as you economize
+your money? Do you avoid excess and imprudence in the one case with the
+same care as extravagance or foolish speculations in the other? Do
+you keep as regular accounts of your mode of living as you do of
+your income? Do you consider every evening what has been wholesome
+or unwholesome for you, with the same care that you bring to the
+examination of your expenditure? You may smile; but have you not brought
+this illness on yourself by a thousand indiscretions?"
+
+I began to protest against this, and asked him to point out these
+indiscretions. The old doctor spread out his fingers, and began to
+reckon upon them one by one.
+
+"Primo," cried he, "want of exercise. You live here like a mouse in
+a cheese, without air, motion, or change. Consequently, the blood
+circulates badly, the fluids thicken, the muscles, being inactive, do
+not claim their share of nutrition, the stomach flags, and the brain
+grows weary.
+
+"Secundo. Irregular food. Caprice is your cook; your stomach a slave who
+must accept what you give it, but who presently takes a sullen revenge,
+like all slaves.
+
+"Tertio. Sitting up late. Instead of using the night for sleep, you
+spend it in reading; your bedstead is a bookcase, your pillows a desk!
+At the time when the wearied brain asks for rest, you lead it through
+these nocturnal orgies, and you are surprised to find it the worse for
+them the next day.
+
+"Quarto. Luxurious habits. Shut up in your attic, you insensibly
+surround yourself with a thousand effeminate indulgences. You must have
+list for your door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, an
+easy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire lit at the
+first sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp; and thanks to all these
+precautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, common chairs give
+you no rest, and you must wear spectacles to support the light of
+day. You have thought you were acquiring comforts, and you have only
+contracted infirmities.
+
+"Quinto"
+
+"Ah! enough, enough, doctor!" cried I. "Pray, do not carry your
+examination farther; do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my
+pleasures."
+
+The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuffbox.
+
+"You see," said he, more gently, and rising at the same time, "you would
+escape from the truth. You shrink from inquiry--a proof that you are
+guilty. 'Habemus confitentem reum'! But at least, my friend, do not go
+on laying the blame on Time, like an old woman."
+
+Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, declaring that his
+function was at an end, and that the rest depended upon myself.
+
+When the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting upon what he had said.
+
+Although his words were too sweeping, they were not the less true in the
+main. How often we accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we
+should seek in ourselves! Perhaps it would have been wiser to let him
+finish the examination he had begun.
+
+But is there not another of more importance--that which concerns
+the health of the soul? Am I so sure of having neglected no means of
+preserving that during the year which is now ending? Have I, as one of
+God's soldiers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms efficient? Shall
+I be ready for the great review of souls which must pass before Him WHO
+IS in the dark valley of Jehoshaphat?
+
+Darest thou examine thyself, O my soul! and see how often thou hast
+erred?
+
+First, thou hast erred through pride! for I have not duly valued the
+lowly. I have drunk too deeply of the intoxicating wines of genius, and
+have found no relish in pure water. I have disdained those words which
+had no other beauty than their sincerity; I have ceased to love men
+solely because they are men--I have loved them for their endowments; I
+have contracted the world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, and
+my sympathy has been awakened by admiration only. The vulgar crowd,
+which I ought to have followed with a friendly eye because it is
+composed of my brothers in hope or grief, I have let pass by with as
+much indifference as if it were a flock of sheep. I am indignant with
+him who rolls in riches and despises the man poor in worldly wealth; and
+yet, vain of my trifling knowledge, I despise him who is poor in mind--I
+scorn the poverty of intellect as others do that of dress; I take credit
+for a gift which I did not bestow on myself, and turn the favor of
+fortune into a weapon with which to attack others.
+
+Ah! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ignorance has revolted and
+raised a cry of hatred against genius, the fault is not alone in
+the envious malice of ignorance, but comes in part, too, from the
+contemptuous pride of knowledge.
+
+Alas! I have too completely forgotten the fable of the two sons of the
+magician of Bagdad.
+
+One of them, struck by an irrevocable decree of destiny, was born blind,
+while the other enjoyed all the delights of sight. The latter, proud of
+his own advantages, laughed at his brother's blindness, and disdained
+him as a companion. One morning the blind boy wished to go out with him.
+
+"To what purpose," said he, "since the gods have put nothing in common
+between us? For me creation is a stage, where a thousand charming scenes
+and wonderful actors appear in succession; for you it is only an
+obscure abyss, at the bottom of which you hear the confused murmur of
+an invisible world. Continue then alone in your darkness, and leave the
+pleasures of light to those upon whom the day-star shines."
+
+With these words he went away, and his brother, left alone, began to cry
+bitterly. His father, who heard him, immediately ran to him, and tried
+to console him by promising to give him whatever he desired.
+
+"Can you give me sight?" asked the child.
+
+"Fate does not permit it," said the magician.
+
+"Then," cried the blind boy, eagerly, "I ask you to put out the sun!"
+
+Who knows whether my pride has not provoked the same wish on the part of
+some one of my brothers who does not see?
+
+But how much oftener have I erred through levity and want of thought!
+How many resolutions have I taken at random! how many judgments have I
+pronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have I not
+done without any sense of my responsibility! The greater part of men
+harm one another for the sake of doing something. We laugh at the honor
+of one, and compromise the reputation of another, like an idle man who
+saunters along a hedgerow, breaking the young branches and destroying
+the most beautiful flowers.
+
+And, nevertheless, it is by this very thoughtlessness that the fame of
+some men is created. It rises gradually, like one of those mysterious
+mounds in barbarous countries, to which a stone is added by every
+passerby; each one brings something at random, and adds it as he passes,
+without being able himself to see whether he is raising a pedestal or a
+gibbet. Who will dare look behind him, to see his rash judgments held up
+there to view?
+
+Some time ago I was walking along the edge of the green mound on which
+the Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths
+which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my
+attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance
+to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he
+described various strange figures in the air. He spoke very loud, and
+in a voice which seemed to me convulsed with passion. He raised his
+eyes every now and then with an expression of savage harshness, and it
+appeared to me that he was reproaching and threatening the girl, and
+that she was listening to him with a submissiveness which touched my
+heart. Two or three times she ventured a few words, doubtless in the
+attempt to justify herself; but the man in the greatcoat began again
+immediately with his loud and angry voice, his savage looks, and his
+threatening evolutions in the air. I followed him with my eyes, vainly
+endeavoring to catch a word as he passed, until he disappeared behind
+the hill.
+
+I had evidently just seen one of those domestic tyrants whose sullen
+tempers are excited by the patience of their victims, and who, though
+they have the power to become the beneficent gods of a family, choose
+rather to be their tormentors.
+
+I cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and I felt indignant that these
+crimes against the sacred peace of home could not be punished as they
+deserve, when I heard his voice approaching nearer. He had turned the
+path, and soon appeared before me at the top of the slope.
+
+The first glance, and his first words, explained everything to me: in
+place of what I had taken for the furious tones and terrible looks of an
+angry man, and the attitude of a frightened victim, I had before me only
+an honest citizen, who squinted and stuttered, but who was explaining
+the management of silkworms to his attentive daughter.
+
+I turned homeward, smiling at my mistake; but before I reached my
+faubourg I saw a crowd running, I heard calls for help, and every
+finger pointed in the same direction to a distant column of flame. A
+manufactory had taken fire, and everybody was rushing forward to assist
+in extinguishing it.
+
+I hesitated. Night was coming on; I felt tired; a favorite book was
+awaiting me; I thought there would be no want of help, and I went on my
+way.
+
+Just before I had erred from want of consideration; now it was from
+selfishness and cowardice.
+
+But what! have I not on a thousand other occasions forgotten the duties
+which bind us to our fellowmen? Is this the first time I have avoided
+paying society what I owe it? Have I not always behaved to my companions
+with injustice, and like the lion? Have I not claimed successively every
+share? If any one is so ill-advised as to ask me to return some little
+portion, I get provoked, I am angry, I try to escape from it by every
+means. How many times, when I have perceived a beggar sitting huddled up
+at the end of the street, have I not gone out of my way, for fear that
+compassion would impoverish me by forcing me to be charitable! How often
+have I doubted the misfortunes of others, that I might with justice
+harden my heart against them.
+
+With what satisfaction have I sometimes verified the vices of the poor
+man, in order to show that his misery is the punishment he deserves!
+
+Oh! let us not go farther--let us not go farther! I interrupted the
+doctor's examination, but how much sadder is this one! We pity the
+diseases of the body; we shudder at those of the soul.
+
+I was happily disturbed in my reverie by my neighbor, the old soldier.
+
+Now I think of it, I seem always to have seen, during my fever, the
+figure of this good old man, sometimes leaning against my bed, and
+sometimes sitting at his table, surrounded by his sheets of pasteboard.
+
+He has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire of green paper, and
+his great scissors. I called him by his name; he uttered a joyful
+exclamation, and came near me.
+
+"Well! so the bullet is found again!" cried he, taking my two hands into
+the maimed one which was left him; "it has not been without trouble, I
+can tell you; the campaign has been long enough to win two clasps in.
+I have seen no few fellows with the fever batter windmills during my
+hospital days: at Leipsic, I had a neighbor who fancied a chimney was
+on fire in his stomach, and who was always calling for the fire-engines;
+but the third day it all went out of itself. But with you it has lasted
+twenty-eight days--as long as one of the Little Corporal's campaigns."
+
+"I am not mistaken then; you were near me?"
+
+"Well! I had only to cross the passage. This left hand has not made you
+a bad nurse for want of the right; but, bah! you did not know what hand
+gave you drink, and it did not prevent that beggar of a fever from being
+drowned--for all the world like Poniatowski in the Elster."
+
+The old soldier began to laugh, and I, feeling too much affected to
+speak, pressed his hand against my breast. He saw my emotion, and
+hastened to put an end to it.
+
+"By-the-bye, you know that from to-day you have a right to draw
+your rations again," resumed he gayly; "four meals, like the German
+meinherrs--nothing more! The doctor is your house steward."
+
+"We must find the cook, too," replied I, with a smile.
+
+"She is found," said the veteran.
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"Genevieve."
+
+"The fruit-woman?"
+
+"While I am talking she is cooking for you, neighbor; and do not fear
+her sparing either butter or trouble. As long as life and death were
+fighting for you, the honest woman passed her time in going up and down
+stairs to learn which way the battle went. And, stay, I am sure this is
+she."
+
+In fact we heard steps in the passage, and he went to open the door.
+
+"Oh, well!" continued he, "it is Mother Millot, our portress, another
+of your good friends, neighbor, and whose poultices I recommend to you.
+Come in, Mother Millot--come in; we are quite bonny boys this morning,
+and ready to step a minuet if we had our dancing-shoes."
+
+The portress came in, quite delighted. She brought my linen, washed and
+mended by herself, with a little bottle of Spanish wine, the gift of her
+sailor son, and kept for great occasions. I would have thanked her,
+but the good woman imposed silence upon me, under the pretext that the
+doctor had forbidden me to speak. I saw her arrange everything in my
+drawers, the neat appearance of which struck me; an attentive hand
+had evidently been there, and day by day put straight the unavoidable
+disorder consequent on sickness.
+
+As she finished, Genevieve arrived with my dinner; she was followed by
+Mother Denis, the milk-woman over the way, who had learned, at the
+same time, the danger I had been in, and that I was now beginning to
+be convalescent. The good Savoyard brought me a new-laid egg, which she
+herself wished to see me eat.
+
+It was necessary to relate minutely all my illness to her. At every
+detail she uttered loud exclamations; then, when the portress warned her
+to be less noisy, she excused herself in a whisper. They made a circle
+around me to see me eat my dinner; each mouthful I took was accompanied
+by their expressions of satisfaction and thankfulness. Never had the
+King of France, when he dined in public, excited such admiration among
+the spectators.
+
+As they were taking the dinner away, my colleague, the old cashier,
+entered in his turn.
+
+I could not prevent my heart beating as I recognized him. How would the
+heads of the firm look upon my absence, and what did he come to tell me?
+
+I waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to speak; but he sat down by
+me, took my hand, and began rejoicing over my recovery, without saying a
+word about our masters. I could not endure this uncertainty any longer.
+
+"And the Messieurs Durmer," asked I, hesitatingly, "how have they
+taken--the interruption to my work?"
+
+"There has been no interruption," replied the old clerk, quietly.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Each one in the office took a share of your duty; all has gone on as
+usual, and the Messieurs Durmer have perceived no difference."
+
+This was too much. After so many instances of affection, this filled up
+the measure. I could not restrain my tears.
+
+Thus the few services I had been able to do for others had been
+acknowledged by them a hundredfold! I had sown a little seed, and every
+grain had fallen on good ground, and brought forth a whole sheaf. Ah!
+this completes the lesson the doctor gave me. If it is true that the
+diseases, whether of the mind or body, are the fruit of our follies and
+our vices, sympathy and affection are also the rewards of our having
+done our duty. Every one of us, with God's help, and within the
+narrow limits of human capability, himself makes his own disposition,
+character, and permanent condition.
+
+Everybody is gone; the old soldier has brought me back my flowers and
+my birds, and they are my only companions. The setting sun reddens my
+half-closed curtains with its last rays. My brain is clear, and my heart
+lighter. A thin mist floats before my eyes, and I feel myself in that
+happy state which precedes a refreshing sleep.
+
+Yonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in her drapery of a thousand
+changing colors, and with her withered garland, again appears before me;
+but this time I hold out my hand to her with a grateful smile.
+
+"Adieu, beloved year! whom I but now unjustly accused. That which I have
+suffered must not be laid to thee; for thou wast but a tract through
+which God had marked out my road--a ground where I had reaped the
+harvest I had sown. I will love thee, thou wayside shelter, for those
+hours of happiness thou hast seen me enjoy; I will love thee even for
+the suffering thou hast seen me endure. Neither happiness nor suffering
+came from thee; but thou hast been the scene for them. Descend again
+then, in peace, into eternity, and be blest, thou who hast left me
+experience in the place of youth, sweet memories instead of past time,
+and gratitude as payment for good offices."
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Always to mistake feeling for evidence
+     Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!'
+     Are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws
+     Attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures
+     Brought them up to poverty
+     But above these ruins rises a calm and happy face
+     Carn-ival means, literally, "farewell to flesh!"
+     Coffee is the grand work of a bachelor's housekeeping
+     Contemptuous pride of knowledge
+     Death, that faithful friend of the wretched
+     Defeat and victory only displace each other by turns
+     Did not think the world was so great
+     Do they understand what makes them so gay?
+     Each of us regards himself as the mirror of the community
+     Ease with which the poor forget their wretchedness
+     Every one keeps his holidays in his own way
+     Fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought
+     Favorite and conclusive answer of his class--"I know"
+     Fear of losing a moment from business
+     Finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins to repent
+     Fortune sells what we believe she gives
+     Her kindness, which never sleeps
+     Houses are vessels which take mere passengers
+     Hubbub of questions which waited for no reply
+     I make it a rule never to have any hope
+     Ignorant of what there is to wish for
+     Looks on an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance
+     Make himself a name: he becomes public property
+     Moderation is the great social virtue
+     More stir than work
+     My patronage has become her property
+     No one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give
+     Not desirous to teach goodness
+     Nothing is dishonorable which is useful
+     Our tempers are like an opera-glass
+     Poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress
+     Power of necessity
+     Prisoners of work
+     Progress can never be forced on without danger
+     Question is not to discover what will suit us
+     Richer than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget
+     Ruining myself, but we must all have our Carnival
+     Satisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them
+     Sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little
+     So much confidence at first, so much doubt at las
+     Sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their victims
+     The happiness of the wise man costs but little
+     The man in power gives up his peace
+     Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation
+     Virtue made friends, but she did not take pupils
+     We do not understand that others may live on their own account
+     We are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty
+     What have you done with the days God granted you
+     What a small dwelling joy can live
+     You may know the game by the lair
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete
+by Emile Souvestre
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