e concerned, you are a little used up and 'blase',
as we all are in this Babylon of ours; have recourse, then, as a remedy,
to the very excesses which have brought you into this state.
Homoeopathize yourself morally. It may cure you, it may kill you; I wash
my hands of it.'

"The doctor was joking, I said to myself after he had left. Does he think
that passions are like the Wandering Jew's five sous, that there is
nothing to do but to put your hand in your pocket and take them out at
your convenience when necessary. However, this idea, strange as it
seemed, struck me forcibly. I decided to try it.

"The next day at seven o'clock in the evening, I was rolling along the
road to Lyons. Eight days later, I was rowing in a boat on Lake Geneva.
For a long time I had wanted to go to Switzerland, and it seemed as if I
could not have chosen a better time. I hoped that the fresh mountain air
and the soft pure breezes from the lakes would communicate some of their
calm serenity to my heart and brain.

"There is something in Parisian life, I do not know what, so exclusive
and hardening, that it ends by making one irresponsive to sensations of a
more simple order.

"'My kingdom for the gutter in the Rue du Bac!' I exclaimed with Madame
de Stael from the height of the Coppet terrace. The spectacle of nature
interests only contemplative and religious minds powerfully. Mine was
neither the one nor the other. My habits of analysis and observation make
me find more attraction in a characteristic face than in a magnificent
landscape; I prefer the exercising of thought to the careless
gratification of ecstasy, the study of flesh and soul to earthly
horizons, of human passions to a perfectly pure atmosphere.

"I met at Geneva an Englishman, who was as morose as myself. We vented
our spleen in common and were both bored together. We travelled thus
through the Oberland and the best part of Valais; we were often rolled up
in our travelling robes in the depths of the carriage, and fast asleep
when the most beautiful points of interest were in sight.

"From Valais we went to Mont-Blanc, and one night we arrived at
Chamounix--"

"Did you see any idiots in Valais?" suddenly interrupted Marillac, as he
filled his pipe the second time.

"Several, and they were all horrible."

"Do you not think we might compose something with an idiot in it? It
might be rather taking."

"It would not equal Caliban or Quasimodo; will you be so kind as to s