orced to write, the book, nevertheless, was completed. One
page of it was found on the bed of a sick man, another on the sofa of a
boudoir. The glances of women when they turned in the mazes of a waltz
flung to him some thoughts; a gesture or a word filled his disdainful
brain with others. On the day when he said to himself, "This work, which
haunts me, shall be achieved," everything vanished; and like the three
Belgians, he drew forth a skeleton from the place over which he had bent
to seize a treasure.

A mild, pale countenance took the place of the demon who had tempted
me; it wore an engaging expression of kindliness; there were no sharp
pointed arrows of criticism in its lineaments. It seemed to deal more
with words than with ideas, and shrank from noise and clamor. It was
perhaps the household genius of the honorable deputies who sit in the
centre of the Chamber.

"Wouldn't it be better," it said, "to let things be as they are? Are
things so bad? We ought to believe in marriage as we believe in the
immortality of the soul; and you are certainly not making a book to
advertise the happiness of marriage. You will surely conclude that among
a million of Parisian homes happiness is the exception. You will find
perhaps that there are many husbands disposed to abandon their wives to
you; but there is not a single son who will abandon his mother. Certain
people who are hit by the views which you put forth will suspect your
morals and will misrepresent your intentions. In a word, in order
to handle social sores, one ought to be a king, or a first consul at
least."

Reason, although it appeared under a form most pleasing to the author,
was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of
Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to catch
it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules. Moreover, the
cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young man who was less
pleased with producing a good work than with wearing fine gloves could
not even touch it.

"Is our work completed?" asked the younger of the two feminine
assistants of the author.

"Alas! madame," I said, "will you ever requite me for all the hatreds
which that work will array against me?"

She waved her hand, and then the author replied to her doubt by a look
of indifference.

"What do you mean? Would you hesitate? You must publish it without fear.
In the present day we accept a book more because it is