lables, words, and phrases. What becomes of the idea, the beautiful
idea, which these miserable hieroglyphics hide? What does the reader make
of my writing? A series of false sense, of counter sense, and of
nonsense. To read, to hear, is to translate. There are beautiful
translations, perhaps. There are no faithful translations. Why should I
care for the admiration which they give to my books, since it is what
they themselves see in them that they admire? Every reader substitutes
his visions in the place of ours. We furnish him with the means to
quicken his imagination. It is a horrible thing to be a cause of such
exercises. It is an infamous profession."

"You are jesting," said M. Martin-Belleme.

"I do not think so," said Therese. "He recognizes that one mind is
impenetrable to another mind, and he suffers from this. He feels that he
is alone when he is thinking, alone when he is writing. Whatever one may
do, one is always alone in the world. That is what he wishes to say. He
is right. You may always explain: you never are understood."

"There are signs--" said Paul Vence.

"Don't you think, Monsieur Vence, that signs also are a form of
hieroglyphics? Give me news of Monsieur Choulette. I do not see him any
more."

Vence replied that Choulette was very busy in forming the Third Order of
Saint Francis.

"The idea, Madame, came to him in a marvellous fashion one day when he
had gone to call on his Maria in the street where she lives, behind the
public hospital--a street always damp, the houses on which are tottering.
You must know that he considers Maria the saint and martyr who is
responsible for the sins of the people.

"He pulled the bell-rope, made greasy by two centuries of visitors.
Either because the martyr was at the wine-shop, where she is familiarly
known, or because she was busy in her room, she did not open the door.
Choulette rang for a long time, and so violently that the bellrope
remained in his hand. Skilful at understanding symbols and the hidden
meaning of things, he understood at once that this rope had not been
detached without the permission of spiritual powers. He made of it a
belt, and realized that he had been chosen to lead back into its
primitive purity the Third Order of Saint Francis. He renounced the
beauty of women, the delights of poetry, the brightness of glory, and
studied the life and the doctrine of Saint Francis. However, he has sold
to his editor a book entitled 'Les Blandic