er, twisted by rheumatism which he has caught in
the river fogs, has sent the flour to Paris, the market-porters with the
great white hats have carried the crushing sacks on their broad backs,
and last night, even, in the baker's cellar the workmen toiled until
morning.

Verily, yes! It has cost all these efforts, all these pains--the bit of
bread carelessly broken by the white hands of these patricians.

And now the incorrigible Dreamer was possessed by these things. The
delicacies of the repast only recalled to him the suffering of humanity.
Presently, when the butler poured for him a glass of Chambertin, did he
not remember that certain glass-blowers became consumptive through
blowing bottles?

Let it pass--it is absurd. He well knows that so the world is made. An
economist would have laughed in his face. Would he become a Socialist,
perhaps? There will always be rich and poor, as there will always be
well-formed men and hunchbacks.

Besides, the fortunates before him were not unjustly so. These were not
vulgar favorites of the Gilded Calf--parvenus gross and conceited. The
nobleman who presides at the table bears with honor and dignity a name
associated with all the glories of France; the general with the gray
mustache is a hero, and charged at Rezonville with the intrepidity of a
Murat; the painter, the poet, have faithfully served Art and Beauty; the
chemist, a self-made man who began life as a shop-boy in a drug-store,
and to whom the learned world listens to-day as to an oracle, is simply
a man of genius; these high-born dames are generous and good, and they
will often dip their fair hands courageously in the depth of misfortune.
Why should not these members of the _elite_ have exceptional enjoyment?

The Dreamer said to himself that he had been unjust. These were old
sophisms--good, at the best, for the clubs of the faubourgs, which had
been awakened in his memory, and by which he had been duped. Is it
possible? He was ashamed of himself.

But the dinner neared its end; and while the lackeys refilled for the
last time the champagne-glasses, the table grew silent--the guests felt
the apathy of digestion. The Dreamer looked at them, one after the
other, and all the faces had satiated, _blase_ expressions which
disturbed and disquieted him. A sentiment, obscure, inexplicable, but so
bitter! protested even from the depth of his soul against that repast;
and when they rose at last from the table, he repeated s