dn't go into politics, because
I was a Bellegarde--the Bellegardes don't recognize the Bonapartes. I
couldn't go into literature, because I was a dunce. I couldn't marry a
rich girl, because no Bellegarde had ever married a roturiere, and it
was not proper that I should begin. We shall have to come to it, yet.
Marriageable heiresses, de notre bord, are not to be had for nothing; it
must be name for name, and fortune for fortune. The only thing I could
do was to go and fight for the Pope. That I did, punctiliously, and
received an apostolic flesh-wound at Castlefidardo. It did neither the
Holy Father nor me any good, that I could see. Rome was doubtless a
very amusing place in the days of Caligula, but it has sadly fallen off
since. I passed three years in the Castle of St. Angelo, and then came
back to secular life."

"So you have no profession--you do nothing," said Newman.

"I do nothing! I am supposed to amuse myself, and, to tell the truth, I
have amused myself. One can, if one knows how. But you can't keep it up
forever. I am good for another five years, perhaps, but I foresee that
after that I shall lose my appetite. Then what shall I do? I think I
shall turn monk. Seriously, I think I shall tie a rope round my waist
and go into a monastery. It was an old custom, and the old customs were
very good. People understood life quite as well as we do. They kept
the pot boiling till it cracked, and then they put it on the shelf
altogether."

"Are you very religious?" asked Newman, in a tone which gave the inquiry
a grotesque effect.

M. de Bellegarde evidently appreciated the comical element in the
question, but he looked at Newman a moment with extreme soberness. "I am
a very good Catholic. I respect the Church. I adore the blessed Virgin.
I fear the Devil."

"Well, then," said Newman, "you are very well fixed. You have got
pleasure in the present and religion in the future; what do you complain
of?"

"It's a part of one's pleasure to complain. There is something in your
own circumstances that irritates me. You are the first man I have ever
envied. It's singular, but so it is. I have known many men who, besides
any factitious advantages that I may possess, had money and brains into
the bargain; but somehow they have never disturbed my good-humor. But
you have got something that I should have liked to have. It is not
money, it is not even brains--though no doubt yours are excellent. It is
not your six feet of heig