bitterness that was eating out my heart. I held a book in my hand all day
long, but I did not read; I did not even know what I dreamed about. I had
no thoughts; within, all was silence; I had received such a violent blow,
and yet one that was so prolonged in its effects, that I remained a
purely passive being and there seemed to be no reaction.

My servant, Larive by name, had been much attached to my father; he was,
after my father himself, probably the best man I had ever known. He was
of the same height, and wore the clothes my father had left him, having
no livery.

He was of about the same age--that is, his hair was turning gray, and
during the twenty years he had lived with my father, he had learned some
of his ways. While I was pacing up and down the room after dinner, I
heard him doing the same in the hall; although the door was open he did
not enter, and not a word was spoken; but from time to time we would look
at each other and weep. The entire evening would pass thus, and it would
be late in the night before I would ask for a light, or get one myself.

Everything about the house was left unchanged, not a piece of paper was
moved. The great leather armchair in which my father used to sit stood
near the fire; his table and his books were just as he left them; I
respected even the dust on these articles, which in life he never liked
to see disturbed. The walls of that solitary house, accustomed to silence
and a most tranquil life, seemed to look down on me in pity as I sat in
my father's chair, enveloped in his dressing-gown. A feeble voice seemed
to whisper: "Where is the father? It is plain to see that this is an
orphan."

I received several letters from Paris, and replied to each that I desired
to pass the summer alone in the country, as my father was accustomed to
do. I began to realize that in all evil there is some good, and that
sorrow, whatever else may be said of it, is a means of repose. Whatever
the message brought by those who are sent by God, they always accomplish
the happy result of awakening us from the sleep of the world, and when
they speak, all are silent. Passing sorrows blaspheme and accuse heaven;
great sorrows neither accuse nor blaspheme--they listen.

In the morning I passed entire hours in the contemplation of nature. My
windows overlooked a valley, in the midst of which arose a village
steeple; all was plain and calm. Spring, with its budding leaves and
flowers, did not produce on