ily lived again around me; they were there, exposed to the bitings
of the cold and to the pangs of hunger. My mother prayed by the resigned
old man, and my sister, rolled up on some rags of which they had made
her a bed, wept in silence, and held her naked feet in her little blue
hands.

It was a page from the book I had just read transferred into my own
existence.

My heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish. Crouched in a corner,
with my eyes fixed upon this dismal picture, I felt the cold slowly
creeping upon me, and I said to myself with bitterness:

"Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by suspicion, apathy,
and contempt, and from which it is vain to try to escape; let us die,
since there is no place for us at the banquet of the living!"

And I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to wait at her feet for
the hour of release.

This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a start.

I looked around me; my lamp was expiring, the fire in my stove
extinguished, and my half-opened door was letting in an icy wind. I
got up, with a shiver, to shut and double-lock it; then I made for the
alcove, and went to bed in haste.

But the cold kept me awake a long time, and my thoughts continued the
interrupted dream.

The pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration now seemed but a too
faithful representation of reality; and I went to sleep without being
able to recover my optimism--or my warmth.

Thus did a cold stove and a badly closed door alter my point of view.
All went well when my blood circulated properly; all looked gloomy when
the cold laid hold on me.

This reminds me of the story of the duchess who was obliged to pay a
visit to the neighboring convent on a winter's day. The convent was
poor, there was no wood, and the monks had nothing but their discipline
and the ardor of their prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, who
was shivering with cold, returned home, greatly pitying the poor monks.
While the servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more logs to
her fire, she called her steward, whom she ordered to send some wood
to the convent immediately. She then had her couch moved close to the
fireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of what
she had just suffered was speedily lost in her present comfort, when the
steward came in again to ask how many loads of wood he was to send.

"Oh! you may wait," said the great lady carelessly; "the weather is