ed _malism_, not to stir such a charming fire, to act the
Joseph and the fool, to turn away his eyes, and, as it were, to put wax
into his ears, like the companions of Ulysses did when they were
attracted by the divine, seductive songs of the sirens, just to touch
that pretty table, covered with a perfectly new cloth, at which you are
invited to take a seat before any one else, in such a suggestive voice,
and are requested to quench your thirst and to taste that new wine,
whose fresh and strange flavor you will never forget. But who would
hesitate to exercise such self-restraint if, when he rapidly examined
his conscience, in one of those instinctive returns to his sober self,
in which a man thinks clearly and recovers his head; if he were to
measure the gravity of his fault, think of his fault, think of its
consequences, of the reprisals, of the uneasiness which he would always
feel in the future, and which would destroy the repose and the happiness
of his life?

"You may guess that behind all these moral reflections, such as a
gray-beard like myself may indulge in, there is a story hidden, and sad
as it is, I am sure it will interest you on account of the strange
heroism that it shows."

He was silent for a few moments as if to classify recollections, and
with his elbows resting on the arms of his easy chair, and his eyes
looking into space, he continued in the slow voice of a hospital
professor, who is explaining a case to his class of medical students, at
a bedside:

"He was one of those men who, as our grandfathers used to say, never met
with a cruel woman, the type of the adventurous knight who was always
foraging, who had something of the scamp about him, but who despised
danger and was bold even to rashness. He was ardent in the pursuit of
pleasure, and a man who had an irresistible charm about him, one of
those men in whom we excuse the greatest excesses, as the most natural
things in the world. He had run through all his money at gambling and
with pretty girls, and so became, as it were, a soldier of fortune, who
amused himself whenever and however he could, and was at that time
quartered at Versailles.

"I knew him to the very depths of his childish heart, which was only too
easily penetrated and sounded, and I loved him like some old bachelor
uncle loves a nephew who plays him some tricks, but who knows how to
make him indulgent towards him, and how to wheedle him. He had made me
his confidant far more