ancs a year; all else was gone. I was then thirty-four years
old. I obtained, through the influence of Monsieur Bordin, a place as
clerk, with a salary of eight hundred francs, in a branch office of
the Mont-de-piete, rue des Augustins.[*] From that time I lived very
modestly. I found a small lodging in the rue des Marais, on the third
floor (two rooms and a closet), for two hundred and fifty francs a year.
I dined at a common boarding-house for forty francs a month. I copied
writings at night. Ugly as I was and poor, I had to renounce marriage."

[*] The Mont-de-Piete and its branches are pawn-shops under
control of the government.--TR.

As Godefroid heard this judgment which the poor man passed upon himself
with beautiful simplicity and resignation, he made a movement which
proved, far more than any confidence in words could have done, the
resemblance of their destinies; and the goodman, in answer to that
eloquent gesture, seemed to expect the words that followed it.

"Have you never been loved?" asked Godefroid.

"Never!" he said; "except by Madame, who returns to us all the love we
have for her,--a love which I may call divine. You must be aware of it.
We live through her life as she lives through ours; we have but one soul
among us; and such pleasures, though they are not physical, are none the
less intense; we exist through our hearts. Ah, my child!" he continued,
"when women come to appreciate moral qualities, they are indifferent
to others; and they are then old--Oh! I have suffered deeply,--yes,
deeply!"

"And I, in the same way," said Godefroid.

"Under the Empire," said the worthy man, resuming his narrative, "the
Funds did not always pay their dividends regularly; it was necessary
to be prepared for suspensions of payment. From 1802 to 1814 there was
scarcely a week that I did not attribute my misfortune to Mongenod.
'If it were not for Mongenod,' I used to say to myself, 'I might have
married. If I had never known him I should not be obliged to live in
such privation.' But then, again, there were other times when I said,
'Perhaps the unfortunate fellow has met with ill luck over there.' In
1806, at a time when I found my life particularly hard to bear, I wrote
him a long letter, which I sent by way of Holland. I received no answer.
I waited three years, placing all my hopes on that answer. At last I
resigned myself to my life. To the five hundred francs I received from
the Funds I now added