ne
of the vastest libraries in the world, I acquired a taste for reading
and a love of study. While, fordone with the toils of a sensual life,
you lay sunk in heavy slumber, I surrounded myself with books, I
studied, I pondered over their pages, sometimes in one of the rooms of
the library, under the busts of the great men of antiquity, sometimes at
the far end of the garden, in the room in the summer-house next to your
own."

On hearing these words, young d'Esparvieu exploded with laughter and
beat the pillow with his fist, an infallible sign of uncontrollable
mirth.

"Ah ... ah ... ah! It was you who pillaged papa's library and drove poor
old Sariette off his head. You know, he has become completely idiotic."

"Busily engaged," continued the Angel, "in cultivating for myself a
sovereign intelligence, I paid no heed to that inferior being, and when
he thought to offer obstacles to my researches and to disturb my work I
punished him for his importunity.

"One particular winter's night in the abode of the philosophers and
globes I let fall a volume of great weight on his head, which he tried
to tear from my invisible hand. Then more recently, raising, with a
vigorous arm composed of a column of condensed air, a precious
manuscript of Flavius Josephus, I gave the imbecile such a fright, that
he rushed out screaming on to the landing and (to borrow a striking
expression from Dante Alighieri) fell even as a dead body falls. He was
well rewarded, for you gave him, Madame, to staunch the blood from his
wound, your little scented handkerchief. It was the day, you may
remember, when behind a celestial globe you exchanged a kiss on the
mouth with Maurice."

"Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, with a frown, "I cannot allow
you...."

But she stopped short, deeming it was an inopportune moment to appear
over-exacting on a matter of decorum.

"I had made up my mind," continued the Angel impassively, "to examine
the foundations of belief. I first attacked the monuments of Judaism,
and I read all the Hebrew texts."

"You know Hebrew, then?" exclaimed Maurice.

"Hebrew is my native tongue: in Paradise for a long time we have spoken
nothing else."

"Ah, you are a Jew. I might have deduced it from your want of tact."

The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I
have delved deep into Oriental antiquities and also into those of
Greece and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians,
philosophers