and said:

"Dr. Socrates, I beg you to tell me whether as a scientific man, as a
physiologist, you see any serious objections to the immortality of the
soul?"

He asked the question as a busy and practical man in need of personal
information.

"You are doubtless aware, my dear friend," replied Trublet, "what
Cyrano's bird said on this very subject. One day Cyrano de Bergerac
heard two birds conversing in a tree. One of them said, 'The souls of
birds are immortal,' 'There can be no doubt of it,' replied the other.
'But it is inconceivable that beings who possess neither bill nor
feathers, who have no wings and walk on two legs, should believe that
they, like the birds, have an immortal soul.'"

"All the same," said Pradel, "when I hear the organ, I am chock-full of
religious ideas."

_"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine."_

The celebrated author of _La Nuit du 23 octobre 1812_ appeared in the
church, and no sooner had he done so than he was everywhere at one and
the same moment--in the nave, under the porch, and in the choir. Like
the _Diable boiteux_ he must, bestriding his crutch, have soared above
the heads of the congregation, to pass as he did in the twinkling of an
eye from Morlot, the deputy, who, being a freethinker, had remained in
the parvis, to Marie-Claire kneeling at the foot of the catafalque.

At one and at the same moment he whispered into the ears of all a few
nimble phrases:

"Pradel, can you imagine this fellow going and chucking his part, an
excellent part, and running off to kill himself? A pumpkin-headed fool!
Blows out his brains just two days before the first night. Compels us to
replace him and sets us back a week. What an imbecile! A rotten bad egg.
But we must do him justice; he could jump, and jump well, the animal.
Well, my dear Romilly, we rehearse the new man to-day at two o'clock.
See to it that Regnard has the script of his part, and that he knows how
to climb on to the roof. Let us hope he won't kick the bucket on our
hands like Chevalier. What if he, too, were to commit suicide! You
needn't laugh. There's an evil spell on certain parts. Thus, in my
_Marino Falieri_, the gondolier Sandro breaks his arm at the dress
rehearsal. I am given another Sandro. He sprains his ankle on the first
night. I am given a third, he contracts typhoid fever. My little
Nanteuil, I'll entrust you with a magnificent role to create when you get
to the Francais. But I have sworn by the great gods that