e goes into hiding when he wishes to
finish an engraving.

But Madame Lampron was at home. After a little hesitation I told her all,
and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just the
counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving consolation.
She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great
set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less
weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She
called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way
she said the words. I used to think she wanted refinement; she does not,
she only lacks reading, and lack of reading may go with the most delicate
and lofty feelings. No one ever taught her certain turns of expression
which she used. "If your mother was alive," said she, "this is what she
would say." And then she spoke to me of God, who alone can determinate
man's trials, either by the end He ordains, or the resignation He
inspires. I felt myself carried with her into the regions where our
sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon broadens around them.
And I remember she uttered this fine thought, "See how my son has
suffered! It makes one believe, Monsieur Fabien, that the elect of the
earth are the hardest tried, just as the stones that crown the building
are more deeply cut than their fellows."

I returned from Madame Lampron's, softened, calmer, wiser.

CHAPTER IX

A VISIT FROM MY UNCLE

May 5th.

A letter from M. Mouillard breathing fire and fury. Were I not so low
spirited I could laugh at it.

He would have liked me, after taking my degree at two in the afternoon,
to take the train for Bourges the same evening, where my uncle, his
practice, and provincial bliss awaited me. M. Mouillard's friends had had
due notice, and would have come to meet me at the station. In short, I am
an ungrateful wretch. At least I might have fixed the hour of my imminent
arrival, for I can not want to stop in Paris with nothing there to detain
me. But no, not a sign, not a word of returning; simply the announcement
that I have passed. This goes beyond the bounds of mere folly and
carelessness. M. Mouillard, his most elementary notions of life shaken to
their foundations, concludes in these words:

"Fabien, I have long suspected it; some creature has you in bondage.
I am coming to break the bonds!

"BRUTUS MOUI