orn of two voices in anguish. All this time I had seen nothing but her
face. Suddenly I noticed that her dress was in disorder. It appeared
singular to me that, seeing my embarrassment, she did not rearrange
it, and I turned my head to give her an opportunity. She did nothing.
Finally, meeting her eyes and seeing that she was perfectly aware of the
state she was in, I felt as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt, for
I now clearly understood that I was the plaything of her monstrous
effrontery, that grief itself was for her but a means of seducing the
senses. I took my hat without a word, bowed profoundly, and left the
room.

CHAPTER VII. THE WISDOM OF SIRACH

Upon returning to my apartments I found a large box in the centre of
the room. One of my aunts had died, and I was one of the heirs to her
fortune, which was not large.

The box contained, among other things, a number of musty old books. Not
knowing what to do, and being afflicted with ennui, I began to read one
of them. They were for the most part romances of the time of Louis XV;
my pious aunt had probably inherited them herself and never read them,
for they were, so to speak, catechisms of vice.

I was singularly disposed to reflect on everything that came to my
notice, to give everything a mental and moral significance; I treated
events as pearls in a necklace which I tried to string together.

It struck me that there was something significant about the arrival
of these books at this time. I devoured them with a bitterness and a
sadness born of despair. "Yes, you are right," I said to myself, "you
alone possess the secret of life, you alone dare to say that nothing is
true and real but debauchery, hypocrisy, and corruption. Be my friends,
throw on the wound in my soul your corrosive poisons, teach me to
believe in you."

While buried in these shadows, I allowed my favorite poets and
text-books to accumulate dust. I even ground them under my feet in
excess of wrath. "You wretched dreamers!" I said to them; "you who teach
me only suffering, miserable shufflers of words, charlatans, if you know
the truth, fools, if you speak in good faith, liars in either case, who
make fairy-tales of the woes of the human heart. I will burn the last
one of you!"

Then tears came to my aid and I perceived that there was nothing real
but my grief. "Very well," I cried, in my delirium, "tell me, good and
bad genii, counselors for good or evil, tell me what to do! Cho