"That is something
that is never seen. You complain because bottles become empty? There are
many casks in the vaults, and many vaults in the hills. Make me a good
fish-hook gilded with sweet words, with a drop of honey for bait, and
quick! catch for me in the stream of oblivion a pretty consoler, as fresh
and slippery as an eel; you will still have the hook when the fish shall
have glided from your hands. Youth must pass away, and if I were you I
would carry off the queen of Portugal rather than study anatomy."
Such was the advice of Desgenais. I made my way home with swollen heart,
my face concealed under my cloak. I kneeled at the side of my bed and my
poor heart dissolved in tears. What vows! what prayers! Galileo struck
the earth, crying: "Nevertheless it moves!" Thus I struck my heart.
CHAPTER IX
SUDDENLY, in the midst of greatest despair youth and chance led me to
commit an act that decided my fate.
I had written my mistress saying that I never wished to see her again; I
kept my word, but I passed the nights under her window, seated on a bench
before her door. I could see the lights in her room, I could hear the
sound of her piano, at times I saw something that looked like a shadow
through the partially drawn curtains.
One night, as I was seated on the bench, plunged in frightful melancholy,
I saw a belated workman staggering along the street. He muttered a few
words in a dazed manner and then began to sing.
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