breathed voluptuously that flower of
civilization which is called good company.

He knew--none better than he--how everything in this environment--the
charm of the women, the wit of the men, the glittering table, the
furnishing of the hall, to the exquisite wine which he had just touched
to his lips--how everything was choice and rare, and he rejoiced that a
concourse of things so lovely and so harmonious existed. He was plunged
in a bath of optimism; it seemed to him good that there should be,
sometimes and somewhere in the weary world, beings almost happy.
Provided that they were accessible to pity, charitable--and these happy
people probably were that--who could distress them? what could injure
them? Ah, beautiful and consoling chimera to believe that for such as
these life is pleasant; that they retain always--or almost always--that
gay, happy light in the eye, that half-blossomed smile upon the lips;
that they have blotted out, as far as possible, from their existence,
imperious and discreditable desires and abject infirmities.

He whom we will call the Dreamer was pursuing that train of thought,
when the _maitre d'hotel_--the superb _maitre d'hotel_--entered with
solemnity, carrying in a great silver plate a turbot of fabulous
dimensions--one of those phenomenal fish which are only seen in the old
paintings representing the miraculous draught of fish, or perhaps in the
window of Chevet, before a row of astonished street-boys who flatten
their noses against the glass window.

* * * * *

Dinner is served. But when the Dreamer had before him on his plate a
portion of the monstrous turbot, the light odor of the sea evoked in his
mind, prone to unexpected suggestions, that corner of Breton, that poor
village of sailors, where he had been belated the other autumn until the
equinox, and where he had rendered assistance in some dreadful storms.
He suddenly called to mind that terrible night when the fishing-boats
could not come back to port, the night that he had passed on the mole
amid a group of frightened women, standing where the sea-spray streamed
down his face, and the cold and furious wind seemed striving to tear his
clothes from his back. What a life was theirs, those poor men! Down
there how many widows, young and old, wearing always the black shawl,
went at break of day, with their swarms of children, to earn their
bread--oh, nothing but bread!--working in the sickening smell o