elty of nature. I
practise now only to prevent suffering."

"Then, master," she asked, in the same indistinct murmur, "if you no
longer desire to cure, do you still think everything must be told? For
the frightful necessity of displaying the wounds of humanity had no
other excuse than the hope of curing them."

"Yes, yes, it is necessary to know, in every case, and to conceal
nothing; to tell everything regarding things and individuals. Happiness
is no longer possible in ignorance; certainty alone makes life tranquil.
When people know more they will doubtless accept everything. Do you not
comprehend that to desire to cure everything, to regenerate everything
is a false ambition inspired by our egotism, a revolt against life,
which we declare to be bad, because we judge it from the point of view
of self-interest? I know that I am more tranquil, that my intellect has
broadened and deepened ever since I have held evolution in respect. It
is my love of life which triumphs, even to the extent of not questioning
its purpose, to the extent of confiding absolutely in it, of losing
myself in it, without wishing to remake it according to my own
conception of good and evil. Life alone is sovereign, life alone knows
its aim and its end. I can only try to know it in order to live it as it
should be lived. And this I have understood only since I have possessed
your love. Before I possessed it I sought the truth elsewhere, I
struggled with the fixed idea of saving the world. You have come, and
life is full; the world is saved every hour by love, by the immense and
incessant labor of all that live and love throughout space. Impeccable
life, omnipotent life, immortal life!"

They continued to talk together in low tones for some time longer,
planning an idyllic life, a calm and healthful existence in the country.
It was in this simple prescription of an invigorating environment that
the experiments of the physician ended. He exclaimed against cities.
People could be well and happy only in the country, in the sunshine, on
the condition of renouncing money, ambition, even the proud excesses of
intellectual labor. They should do nothing but live and love, cultivate
the soil, and bring up their children.

IX.

Dr. Pascal then resumed his professional visits in the town and the
surrounding country. And he was generally accompanied by Clotilde,
who went with him into the houses of the poor, where she, too, brought
health and cheerf