ew old within a few days. I will no longer attach myself to any
creature but to unreasoning animals, or plants, or superficial things.
I think more of Taglioni's grace than of all human feeling. I abhor life
and the world in which I live alone. Nothing, nothing," he went on, in
a tone that startled the younger man, "no, nothing can move or interest
me."

"But you have children?"

"My children!" he repeated bitterly. "Yes--well, is not my eldest
daughter the Comtesse de Vandenesse? The other will, through her
sister's connections, make some good match. As to my sons, have they
not succeeded? The Viscount was public prosecutor at Limoges, and is now
President of the Court at Orleans; the younger is public prosecutor
in Paris.--My children have their own cares, their own anxieties and
business to attend to. If of all those hearts one had been devoted to
me, if one had tried by entire affection to fill up the void I have
here," and he struck his breast, "well, that one would have failed
in life, have sacrificed it to me. And why should he? Why? To bring
sunshine into my few remaining years--and would he have succeeded? Might
I not have accepted such generosity as a debt? But, doctor," and the
Count smiled with deep irony, "it is not for nothing that we teach them
arithmetic and how to count. At this moment perhaps they are waiting for
my money."

"O Monsieur le Comte, how could such an idea enter your head--you who
are kind, friendly, and humane! Indeed, if I were not myself a living
proof of the benevolence you exercise so liberally and so nobly--"

"To please myself," replied the Count. "I pay for a sensation, as I
would to-morrow pay a pile of gold to recover the most childish illusion
that would but make my heart glow.--I help my fellow-creatures for my
own sake, just as I gamble; and I look for gratitude from none. I should
see you die without blinking; and I beg of you to feel the same with
regard to me. I tell you, young man, the events of life have swept
over my heart like the lavas of Vesuvius over Herculaneum. The town is
there--dead."

"Those who have brought a soul as warm and as living as yours was to
such a pitch of indifference are indeed guilty!"

"Say no more," said the Count, with a shudder of aversion.

"You have a malady which you ought to allow me to treat," said Bianchon
in a tone of deep emotion.

"What, do you know of a cure for death?" cried the Count irritably.

"I undertake, Monsieur le