en
has bestowed on us; that is the cruellest stroke of all. A man
might almost as well never have been born.

[I had listened to him all the time, and as he enacted the scene
with the poor girl, with my heart moved by two conflicting
emotions, I did not know whether to give myself up to the longing I
had to laugh, or to a transport of indignation. I was distressingly
perplexed between two humours; twenty times an uncontrollable burst
of laughter kept my anger back, and twenty times the anger that was
rising from the bottom of my soul suddenly ended in a burst of
laughter. I was confounded by so much shrewdness and so much
vileness, by ideas now so just and then so false, by such general
perversity of sentiments, such complete turpitude, and such
marvellously uncommon frankness. He perceived the struggle going on
within me:] What ails you? said he.

_I._--Nothing.

_He._--You seem to be disturbed.

_I._--And I am.

_He._--But now, after all, what do you advise me to do?

_I._--To change your way of talking. You unfortunate soul, to what
abject state have you fallen!

_He._--I admit it. And yet, do not let my state touch you too
deeply; I had no intention, in opening my mind to you, to give you
pain. I managed to scrape up a few savings when I was with the
people. Remember that I wanted nothing, not a thing, and they made
me a certain allowance for pocket-money.

[He again began to tap his brow with one of his fists, to bite his
lips, and to roll his eyes towards the ceiling, going on to say:]

But 'tis all over; I have put something aside; time has passed, and
that is always so much gained.

_I._--So much lost, you mean.

_He._--No, no; gained. People grow rich every moment; a day less to
live, or a crown to the good, 'tis all one. When the last moment
comes, one is as rich as another; Samuel Bernard, who by pillaging
and stealing and playing bankrupt, leaves seven and twenty million
francs in gold, is just like Rameau, who leaves not a penny, and
will be indebted to charity for a shroud to wrap round him. The
dead man hears not the tolling of the bell; 'tis in vain that a
hundred priests bawl dirges for him, and that a long file of
blazing torches go before: his soul walks not by the side of the
master of the