instructing me. My
perpetual state of distraction worried him. How many times he waited
in patient astonishment while I, seated near him with a smoking lamp
between us, sat with my arms crossed on my book, lost in revery,
oblivious of his presence and of his pity.

"My dear sir," said I to him one day, "all this is useless, but you are
the best of men. What a task you have undertaken! You must leave me to
my fate; we can do nothing, neither you nor I."

I do not know that he understood my meaning, but he grasped my hand and
there was no more talk of German.

I soon realized that solitude, instead of curing me, was doing me harm,
and so I completely changed my system. I went into the country, and
galloped through the woods with the huntsmen; I would ride until I was
out of breath, trying to cure myself with fatigue, and when, after a
day of sweat in the fields, I reached my bed in the evening smelling of
powder and the stable, I would bury my head in the pillow, roll about
under the covers and cry: "Phantom, phantom! are you not satiated? Will
you not leave me for one single night?"

But why these vain efforts? Solitude sent me to nature, and nature to
love. Standing in the street of Mental Observation, I saw myself pale
and wan, surrounded by corpses, and, drying my hands on my bloody
apron, stifled by the odor of putrefaction, I turned my head in spite
of myself, and saw floating before my eyes green harvests, balmy fields,
and the pensive harmony of the evening. "No," said I, "science can not
console me; rather will I plunge into this sea of irresponsive nature
and die there myself by drowning. I will not war against my youth; I
will live where there is life, or at least die in the sunlight." I began
to mingle with the throngs at Sevres and Chaville, and stretch myself
on flowery swards in secluded groves. Alas! all the forests and fields
cried to me:

"What do you seek here? We are young, poor child! We wear the colors of
hope."

Then I returned to the city; I lost myself in its obscure streets; I
looked up at the lights in its windows, into those mysterious family
nests; I watched the passing carriages; I saw man jostling against man.
Oh, what solitude! How sad the smoke on those roofs! What sorrow in
those tortuous streets where all are hurrying hither and thither,
working and sweating, where thousands of strangers rub against your
elbows; a sewer where society is of bodies only, while souls
are solitary an