p.

During the first months of my life in the country I had no thought
either of the past or of the future. It did not seem to be I who had
lived up to that time; what I felt was not despair, and in no way
resembled the terrible griefs I had experienced in the past; there was
a sort of languor in every action, a sense of disgust with life, a
poignant bitterness that was eating out my heart. I held a book in
my hand all day long, but I did not read; I did not even know what
I dreamed about. I had no thoughts; within, all was silence; I had
received such a violent blow, and yet one that was so prolonged in its
effects, that I remained a purely passive being and there seemed to be
no reaction.

My servant, Larive by name, had been much attached to my father; he was,
after my father himself, probably the best man I had ever known. He was
of the same height, and wore the clothes my father had left him, having
no livery.

He was of about the same age--that is, his hair was turning gray, and
during the twenty years he had lived with my father, he had learned some
of his ways. While I was pacing up and down the room after dinner, I
heard him doing the same in the hall; although the door was open he did
not enter, and not a word was spoken; but from time to time we would
look at each other and weep. The entire evening would pass thus, and it
would be late in the night before I would ask for a light, or get one
myself.

Everything about the house was left unchanged, not a piece of paper was
moved. The great leather armchair in which my father used to sit stood
near the fire; his table and his books were just as he left them; I
respected even the dust on these articles, which in life he never
liked to see disturbed. The walls of that solitary house, accustomed to
silence and a most tranquil life, seemed to look down on me in pity as I
sat in my father's chair, enveloped in his dressing-gown. A feeble voice
seemed to whisper: "Where is the father? It is plain to see that this is
an orphan."

I received several letters from Paris, and replied to each that I
desired to pass the summer alone in the country, as my father was
accustomed to do. I began to realize that in all evil there is some
good, and that sorrow, whatever else may be said of it, is a means of
repose. Whatever the message brought by those who are sent by God, they
always accomplish the happy result of awakening us from the sleep of the
world, and when they speak