element entered into
my life through my own choice. Yes, unbounded ambition makes an
obscure existence simply impossible for me. I have tastes and
remembrances of past pleasures that poison the enjoyments within
my reach; once I should have been satisfied with them, now it is
too late. Oh, dear Eve, no one can think more hardly of me than I
do myself; my condemnation is absolute and pitiless. The struggle
in Paris demands steady effort; my will power is spasmodic, my
brain works intermittently. The future is so appalling that I do
not care to face it, and the present is intolerable.

"I wanted to see you again. I should have done better to stay in
exile all my days. But exile without means of subsistence would be
madness; I will not add another folly to the rest. Death is better
than a maimed life; I cannot think of myself in any position in
which my overweening vanity would not lead me into folly.

"Some human beings are like the figure 0, another must be put
before it, and they acquire ten times their value. I am nothing
unless a strong inexorable will is wedded to mine. Mme. de
Bargeton was in truth my wife; when I refused to leave Coralie for
her I spoiled my life. You and David might have been excellent
pilots for me, but you are not strong enough to tame my weakness,
which in some sort eludes control. I like an easy life, a life
without cares; to clear an obstacle out of my way I can descend to
baseness that sticks at nothing. I was born a prince. I have more
than the requisite intellectual dexterity for success, but only by
moments; and the prizes of a career so crowded by ambitious
competitors are to those who expend no more than the necessary
strength, and retain a sufficient reserve when they reach the
goal.

"I shall do harm again with the best intentions in the world. Some
men are like oaks, I am a delicate shrub it may be, and I
forsooth, must needs aspire to be a forest cedar.

"There you have my bankrupt's schedule. The disproportion between
my powers and my desires, my want of balance, in short, will bring
all my efforts to nothing. There are many such characters among
men of letters, many men whose intellectual powers and character
are always at variance, who will one thing and wish another. What
would become of me? I can see it all beforehand, as I think of
this and that great light that once shone on Paris, now utterly