apped foundations."

"Well, some one down there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then I
should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; and with my bad
reputation----"

"Oh, you are slandering yourself," said Emma.

"No! It is dreadful, I assure you."

"But, gentlemen," continued the councilor, "if, banishing from my memory
the remembrance of these sad pictures, I carry my eyes back to the
actual situation of our dear country, what do I see there? Everywhere
commerce and the arts are flourishing; everywhere new means of
communication, like so many new arteries in the body of the state,
establish within it new relations. Our great industrial centers have
recovered all their activity; religion, more consolidated, smiles in all
hearts; our ports are full, confidence is born again, and France
breathes once more!"

"Besides," added Rodolphe, "perhaps from the world's point of view they
are right."

"How so?" she asked.

"What!" said he. "Do you not know that there are souls constantly
tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest passions
and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling themselves into all
sorts of fantasies, of follies."

Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveler who has voyaged over
strange lands, and went on:

"We have not even this distraction, we poor women!"

"A sad distraction, for happiness isn't found in it."

"But is it ever found?" she asked.

"Yes; one day it comes," he answered.

"And this is what you have understood," said the councilor. "You
farmers, agricultural laborers! you pacific pioneers of a work that
belongs wholly to civilization! you men of progress and morality, you
have understood, I say, that political storms are even more redoubtable
than atmospheric disturbances!"

"It comes one day," repeated Rodolphe, "one day suddenly, and when one
is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; it is as if a voice
cried, 'It is here!' You feel the need of confiding the whole of your
life, of giving everything, sacrificing everything to this being. There
is no need for explanations; they understand one another. They have seen
each other in dreams!" He looked at her. "In fine, here it is, this
treasure so sought after, here before you. It glitters, it flashes; yet
one still doubts, one does not believe it; one remains dazzled, as if
one went out from darkness into light!"

And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the word. He passed his
hand ove