fingers, with his head
resting on one hand, his eyes like two fixed stars, and sometimes wet
with tears? How could the waters of that living spring flow over the
burning strand without being dried up by the subterranean fire? Was
there below it, as there is under the sea, between it and the central
fires of the globe, a bed of granite? And would the volcano burst at
last?

"Sometimes the Count would give me a look of that sagacious and
keen-eyed curiosity by which one man searches another when he desires
an accomplice; then he shunned my eye as he saw it open a mouth, so to
speak, insisting on a reply, and seeming to say, 'Speak first!' Now and
then Comte Octave's melancholy was surly and gruff. If these spurts of
temper offended me, he could get over it without thinking of asking my
pardon; but then his manners were gracious to the point of Christian
humility.

"When I became attached like a son to this man--to me such a mystery,
but so intelligible to the outer world, to whom the epithet eccentric is
enough to account for all the enigmas of the heart--I changed the state
of the house. Neglect of his own interests was carried by the Count
to the length of folly in the management of his affairs. Possessing an
income of about a hundred and sixty thousand francs, without including
the emoluments of his appointments--three of which did not come under
the law against plurality--he spent sixty thousand, of which at least
thirty thousand went to his servants. By the end of the first year I
had got rid of all these rascals, and begged His Excellency to use his
influence in helping me to get honest servants. By the end of the second
year the Count, better fed and better served, enjoyed the comforts of
modern life; he had fine horses, supplied by a coachman to whom I paid
so much a month for each horse; his dinners on his reception days,
furnished by Chevet at a price agreed upon, did him credit; his daily
meals were prepared by an excellent cook found by my uncle, and helped
by two kitchenmaids. The expenditure for housekeeping, not including
purchases, was no more than thirty thousand francs a year; we had two
additional men-servants, whose care restored the poetical aspect of the
house; for this old palace, splendid even in its rust, had an air of
dignity which neglect had dishonored.

"'I am no longer astonished,' said he, on hearing of these results, 'at
the fortunes made by servants. In seven years I have had two cooks