unmarried man should be young, curious, eager. When one is no longer
all that, it becomes dangerous to remain free. Heavens! how I loved my
liberty, long ago, before I loved you more! How burdensome it is to me
to-day! For an old bachelor like me, liberty is an empty thing, empty
everywhere; it is the path to death, with nothing in himself to prevent
him from seeing the end; it is the ceaseless query: 'What shall I do?
Whom can I go to see, so that I shall not be alone?' And I go from one
friend to another, from one handshake to the next, begging for a little
friendship. I gather up my crumbs, but they do not make a loaf. You, I
have You, my friend, but you do not belong to me. Perhaps it is because
of you that I suffer this anguish, for it is the desire for contact with
you, for your presence, for the same roof over our heads, for the
same walls inclosing our lives, the same interests binding our hearts
together, the need of that community of hopes, griefs, pleasures,
joys, sadness, and also of material things, that fills me with so much
yearning. You do belong to me--that is to say, I steal a little of you
from time to time. But I long to breathe forever the same air that you
breathe, to share everything with you, to possess nothing that does
not belong to both of us, to feel that all which makes up my own life
belongs to you as much as to me--the glass from which I drink, the chair
on which I sit, the bread I eat and the fire that warms me.

"Adieu! Return soon. I suffer too much when you are far away.

"OLIVIER."

"Roncieres, August 8th.

"MY FRIEND: I am ill, and so fatigued that you would not recognize me at
all. I believe that I have wept too much. I must rest a little before I
return, for I do not wish you to see me as I am. My husband sets out for
Paris the day after to-morrow, and will give you news of us. He expects
to take you to dinner somewhere, and charges me to ask you to wait for
him at your house about seven o'clock.

"As for me, as soon as I feel a little better, as soon as I have no more
this corpse-like face which frightens me, I will return to be near you.
In all the world, I have only Annette and you, and I wish to offer to
each of you all that I can give without robbing the other.

"I hold out my eyes, which have wept so much, so that you may kiss them.

"ANY."

When he received this letter announcing the still delayed return,
Olivier was seized with an immoderate desire to take a c