aid the Abbe, smiling as he pinched Lucien's ear with
an almost royal familiarity. "If you are ungrateful to me, it will be
because you are a strong man, and I shall bend before you. But you are
not that just yet; as a simple 'prentice you have tried to be master
too soon, the common fault of Frenchmen of your generation. Napoleon's
example has spoiled them all. You send in your resignation because you
have not the pair of epaulettes that you fancied. But have you
attempted to bring the full force of your will and every action of
your life to bear upon your one idea?"

"Alas! no."

"You have been inconsistent, as the English say," smiled the canon.

"What I have been matters nothing now," said Lucien, "if I can be
nothing in the future."

"If at the back of all your good qualities there is power _semper
virens_," continued the priest, not averse to show that he had a little
Latin, "nothing in this world can resist you. I have taken enough of a
liking for you already----"

Lucien smiled incredulously.

"Yes," said the priest, in answer to the smile, "you interest me as
much as if you had been my son; and I am strong enough to afford to
talk to you as openly as you have just done to me. Do you know what it
is that I like about you?--This: you have made a sort of _tabula rasa_
within yourself, and are ready to hear a sermon on morality that you
will hear nowhere else; for mankind in the mass are even more
consummate hypocrites than any one individual can be when his
interests demand a piece of acting. Most of us spend a good part of
our lives in clearing our minds of the notions that sprang up
unchecked during our nonage. This is called 'getting our
experience.'"

Lucien, listening, thought within himself, "Here is some old intriguer
delighted with a chance of amusing himself on a journey. He is pleased
with the idea of bringing about a change of opinion in a poor wretch
on the brink of suicide; and when he is tired of his amusement, he
will drop me. Still he understands paradox, and seems to be quite a
match for Blondet or Lousteau."

But in spite of these sage reflections, the diplomate's poison had
sunk deeply into Lucien's soul; the ground was ready to receive it,
and the havoc wrought was the greater because such famous examples
were cited. Lucien fell under the charm of his companion's cynical
talk, and clung the more willingly to life because he felt that this
arm which drew him up from the depths was a s