How is it that the sunlight gives us such joy? Why does this radiance
when it falls on the earth fill us with so much delight of living? The
sky is all blue, the fields are all green, the houses all white; and
our ravished eyes drink in those bright colors which bring
mirthfulness to our souls. And then there springs up in our hearts a
desire to dance, a desire to run, a desire to sing, a happy lightness
of thought, a sort of enlarged tenderness; we feel a longing to
embrace the sun.

The blind, as they sit in the doorways, impassive in their eternal
darkness, remain as calm as ever in the midst of this fresh gayety,
and, not comprehending what is taking place around them, they keep
every moment stopping their dogs from gamboling.

When, at the close of the day, they are returning home on the arm of a
young brother or a little sister, if the child says: "It was a very
fine day!" the other answers: "I could notice that 'twas fine. Loulou
wouldn't keep quiet."

I have known one of these men whose life was one of the most cruel
martyrdoms that could possibly be conceived.

He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. As long as his father
and mother lived, he was more or less taken care of; he suffered
little save from his horrible infirmity; but as soon as the old people
were gone, an atrocious life of misery commenced for him. A dependent
on a sister of his, everybody in the farmhouse treated him as a beggar
who is eating the bread of others. At every meal the very food he
swallowed was made a subject of reproach against him; he was called a
drone, a clown; and although his brother-in-law had taken possession
of his portion of the inheritance, the soup was given to him
grudgingly--just enough to save him from dying.

His face was very pale, and his two big white eyes were like wafers;
and he remained unmoved in spite of the insults inflicted upon him, so
shut up in himself that one could not tell whether he felt them at
all.

Moreover, he had never known any tenderness, his mother having always
treated him unkindly, and caring scarcely at all for him; for in
country places the useless are obnoxious, and the peasants would be
glad, like hens, to kill the infirm of their species.

As soon as the soup had been gulped down, he went to the door in
summer-time and sat down, to the chimney-corner in winter time, and,
after that, never stirred all night. He made no gesture, no movement;
only his eyelids, quivering fr