ved passionately?"

"Oh silence!" angrily exclaimed Edmond: "who now would speak of that
with you?"

"A curious discourse that we are holding," said Lacoste coolly; "if you
know nothing of it, so much the better for you, but at your age, I was
so thoroughly in love and enraptured, that a mere touch from me would
have made a thousand men in love, as by the magnet the bar of iron
acquires the power of attraction. At that time, the earth, with all its
stones, appeared to me transparent, I was so benevolent and
affectionate, that I would willingly have given my eye-brows to the
nightingales, that they might carry them to their nests, to make a bed
for their young brood. And beautiful was my beloved, the blind might
almost have been aware of it, she was even still more loving and
compassionate than I was. She would indeed have voluntarily taken upon
herself all the suffering and sorrows of the whole world, would have
even suffered herself to be condemned, could she thereby have released
from hell, and make the hungry and sick, rich and healthy."

"Even in your wickedness," said Edmond, softened, "you represent this
girl as a noble one, who was well worthy of her heavenly origin."

"Heavenly," said the former, "to disgust: quite natural. That is just
what I mean. To every beggar she would have freely given her all; but
to me--she saw my love, my despair, how I only breathed in her looks,
how I withered away, and my grief, my inexpressible misery would
assuredly have driven me to the grave or to madness.--But that was
indifferent to her, more even then indifferent, it was pleasing to her."

"But how is such a thing possible?" asked Edmond.

"Every thing has its drawback," resumed Lacoste. "It is but just, when
senseless fools, such as I was, are ill-treated by women, that they may
serve as an example to other simpletons. But she would however have
leant to mercy's rather than to justice's side, had it not been for a
fault that lay within myself and which still oppresses me, although I
do not see it as such."

"And what is it?"

"The same upon which our conversation commenced; those same wings which
always sit so ridiculously upon us. To come to the point, I was not
religious; I could by no means comprehend how people made this
discovery. I had learned to think, to judge, to fancy, but I could
believe neither of the new lights of which I had heard so much. From
whence was I to derive it too? I exist, I rejoice if all g