s through an act of my own will. I found
a positive pleasure in the fact that I, the Marquis de Tregars, who
had had a hundred thousand a year--I must the next moment go out in
person to the baker's and the green-grocer's to purchase my supplies
for the day. I was proud to think that it was to my labor alone, to
the work for which I was paid by Marcolet, that I owed the means of
prosecuting my task. And, from the summits where I was carried on
the wings of science, I took pity on your modern existence, on that
ridiculous and tragical medley of passions, interests, and cravings;
that struggle without truce or mercy, whose law is, woe to the weak,
in which whosoever falls is trampled under feet.

"Sometimes, however, like a fire that has been smouldering under
the ashes, the flame of youthful passions blazed up within me. I
had hours of madness, of discouragement, of distress, during which
solitude was loathsome to me. But I had the faith which raises
mountains--faith in myself and my work. And soon, tranquilized, I
would go to sleep in the purple of hope, beholding in the vista of
the distant future the triumphal arches erected to my success.

"Such was my situation, when, one afternoon in the month of February
last, after an experiment upon which I had founded great hopes, and
which had just miserably failed, I came here to breathe a little
fresh air.

"It was a beautiful spring day, warm and sunny. The sparrows were
chirping on the branches, swelled with sap: bands of children were
running along the alleys, filling the air with their joyous screams.

"I was sitting upon a bench, ruminating over the causes of my failure,
when two ladies passed by me; one somewhat aged, the other quite
young. They were walking so rapidly, that I hardly had time to
see them.

"But the young lady's step, the noble simplicity of her carriage,
had struck me so much, that I rose to follow her with the intention
of passing her, and then walking back to have a good view of her
face. I did so; and I was fairly dazzled. At the moment when my
eyes met hers, a voice rose within me, crying that it was all over
now, and that my destiny was fixed."

"I remember, my dear boy," remarked the old soldier in a tone of
friendly raillery; "for you came to see me that night, and I had
not seen you for months before."

Marius proceeded without heeding the remark.

"And yet you know that I am not the man to yield to first impression.
I stru