rs know nothing; they live under the awe caused by the name of the
Prefect of Police, and their respect for the power of a Minister. Hence
it is impossible for me to penetrate that heart; the citadel is mine,
but I cannot get into it. I have not a single means of action. An act of
violence would ruin me for ever.

"'How can I argue against reasons of which I know nothing? Should I
write a letter, and have it copied by a public writer, and laid before
Honorine? But that would be to run the risk of a third removal. The
last cost me fifty thousand francs. The purchase was made in the first
instance in the name of the secretary whom you succeeded. The unhappy
man, who did not know how lightly I sleep, was detected by me in the act
of opening a box in which I had put the private agreement; I coughed,
and he was seized with a panic; next day I compelled him to sell the
house to the man in whose name it now stands, and I turned him out.

"'If it were not that I feel all my noblest faculties as a man
satisfied, happy, expansive; if the part I am playing were not that of
divine fatherhood; if I did not drink in delight by every pore, there
are moments when I should believe that I was a monomaniac. Sometimes
at night I hear the jingling bells of madness. I dread the violent
transitions from a feeble hope, which sometimes shines and flashes up,
to complete despair, falling as low as man can fall. A few days since I
was seriously considering the horrible end of the story of Lovelace and
Clarissa Harlowe, and saying to myself, if Honorine were the mother of a
child of mine, must she not necessarily return under her husband's roof?

"'And I have such complete faith in a happy future, that ten months
ago I bought and paid for one of the handsomest houses in the Faubourg
Saint-Honore. If I win back Honorine, I will not allow her to see this
house again, nor the room from which she fled. I mean to place my idol
in a new temple, where she may feel that life is altogether new. That
house is being made a marvel of elegance and taste. I have been told
of a poet who, being almost mad with love for an actress, bought the
handsomest bed in Paris without knowing how the actress would reward his
passion. Well, one of the coldest of lawyers, a man who is supposed to
be the gravest adviser of the Crown, was stirred to the depths of
his heart by that anecdote. The orator of the Legislative Chamber can
understand the poet who fed his ideal on mater