so frequent for those who give
themselves up to the dangerous calling of imagination.

To these violent crises succeeded painful fits of depression. Rodolphe
would then remain for whole hours as though petrified in a state of
stupefied immobility. His elbows upon the table, his eyes fixed upon the
luminous patch made by the rays of the lamp falling upon the sheet of
paper,--the battlefield on which his mind was vanquished daily, and on
which his pen had become foundered in its attempts to pursue the
unattainable idea--he saw slowly defile before him, like the figures of
dissolving views with which the children are amused, fantastic pictures
which unfolded before him the panorama of his past. It was at first the
laborious days in which each hour marked the accomplishment of some
task, the studious nights spent in _tete-a-tete_ with the muse who came
to adorn with her fairy visions his solitary and patient poverty. And he
remembered then with envy the pride of skill that intoxicated him of
yore when he had completed the task imposed on him by his will.

"Oh, nothing is equal to you!" he exclaimed. "Voluptuous fatigues of
labor which render the mattresses of idleness so sweet. Not the
satisfaction of self-esteem nor the feverish slumbers stifled beneath
the heavy drapery of mysterious alcoves equals that calm and honest joy,
that legitimate self satisfaction which work bestows on the laborer as
a first salary."

And with eyes still fixed on these visions which continued to retrace
for him the scenes of bygone days, he once more ascended the six flights
of stairs of all the garrets in which his adventurous existence had been
spent, in which the Muse, his only love in those days, a faithful and
persevering sweetheart had always followed him, living happily with
poverty and never breaking off her song of hope. But, lo, in the midst
of this regular and tranquil life there suddenly appears a woman's face,
and seeing her enter the dwelling where she had been until then sole
queen and mistress, the poet's Muse rose sadly and gave place to the
new-comer in whom she had divined a rival. Rodolphe hesitated a moment
between the Muse to whom his look seemed to say, "Stay," whilst a
gesture addressed to the stranger said, "Come."

And how could he repulse her, this charming creature who came to him
armed with all the seductions of a beauty at its dawn? Tiny mouth and
rosy lips, speaking in bold and simple language, full of coaxing