though I had resigned the little employment which I had held in an
office, and my humble allowance was transformed into a pension more
humble still, I hesitated not. I bought the shell, and carried it with
me, but this time without joy. I possessed several good pictures, dear
and old heirlooms belonging to my family. I sold them to pay for the
shell, which I broke as soon as I had made up the price. Three years
more elapsed, and poverty weighed down my old age more and more. The
failure of a bank had deprived me of a little sum of money, the interest
of which, added to my pension, had enabled me to live, and to augment,
from time to time, my collection of a few good shells. Deprived of this
enjoyment, the only one that remained to me, I had no consolation but in
the possession of the treasure-hoard which I could no longer increase.
My precious spiral often detained me before it for hours. One evening
(never shall I forget, the sorrow the sight cost me), I beheld
here--there--in that box--three spirals like mine! Maledictions hovered
about my lips. I took the shells in my fingers, I slowly examined them,
and returned them to my friend. 'I can not buy them,' I said. He raised
his eyes, he saw my palor and my tears--my tears, gentlemen, for I wept!
He smiled, took a hammer, and pulverized the three precious shells. You
saw what he did just now. God bless him for his disinterestedness, and
his devotion to an old friend! I should die of despair, gentlemen, if,
during my life, another possessed a spiral like mine.'

"Speaking thus, the old man rose, and left us, enveloping himself, as
well as he could, in his fragmentary cloak."

One morning, three or four years ago, God separated the fanatic
conchologist from the collection that was his life. They found the aged
man seated before his cabinet, opposite to his unique spiral. He had
died alone, with his eyes fixed upon that which had possessed his
affections during so many years. His collection has now reverted to the
friend who showed so much sympathy with his jealousy and insensate
passion.

By a strange caprice of fortune, no other spiral similar to his has
since arrived in Europe. It still remains unique and nameless, as when
he possessed it. For the rest, this spiral, which occupied so large a
place in the existence and affections of a scientific man, has, for a
common eye, nothing in its appearance to justify the intense passion
that it inspired. Its rarity constitutes