and
work into which he threw himself were not enough for him; there were
frightful struggles in his mind, of which some echoes reached me.
Finally, he would give utterance to harrowing aspirations for happiness,
and it seemed to me he ought yet to be happy; but what was the obstacle?
Was there a woman he loved? This was a question I asked myself. You may
imagine the extent of the circles of torment that my mind had searched
before coming to so simple and so terrible a question. Notwithstanding
his efforts, my patron did not succeed in stifling the movements of his
heart. Under his austere manner, under the reserve of the magistrate, a
passion rebelled, though coerced with such force that no one but I
who lived with him ever guessed the secret. His motto seemed to be,
'I suffer, and am silent.' The escort of respect and admiration
which attended him; the friendship of workers as valiant as
himself--Grandville and Serizy, both presiding judges--had no hold over
the Count: either he told them nothing, or they knew all. Impassible and
lofty in public, the Count betrayed the man only on rare intervals when,
alone in his garden or his study, he supposed himself unobserved; but
then he was a child again, he gave course to the tears hidden beneath
the toga, to the excitement which, if wrongly interpreted, might have
damaged his credit for perspicacity as a statesman.

"When all this had become to me a matter of certainty, Comte Octave had
all the attractions of a problem, and won on my affection as much as
though he had been my own father. Can you enter into the feeling of
curiosity, tempered by respect? What catastrophe had blasted this
learned man, who, like Pitt, had devoted himself from the age of
eighteen to the studies indispensable to power, while he had no
ambition; this judge, who thoroughly knew the law of nations, political
law, civil and criminal law, and who could find in these a weapon
against every anxiety, against every mistake; this profound legislator,
this serious writer, this pious celibate whose life sufficiently proved
that he was open to no reproach? A criminal could not have been more
hardly punished by God than was my master; sorrow had robbed him of half
his slumbers; he never slept more than four hours. What struggle was
it that went on in the depths of these hours apparently so calm, so
studious, passing without a sound or a murmur, during which I often
detected him, when the pen had dropped from his