The same
evening we passed through the Champs Elysees; Desgenais, seeing another
carriage passing, stopped it after the manner of a highwayman; he
intimidated the coachman by threats and forced him to climb down and lie
flat on his stomach. He then opened the carriage door and found within a
young man and lady motionless with fright. Whispering to me to imitate
him, we began to enter one door and go out the other, so that in the
obscurity the poor young people thought they saw a procession of bandits
going through their carriage.
As I understand it, the men who say that the world gives experience ought
to be astonished if they are believed. The world is merely a number of
whirlpools, each one whirling independent of the others; they float about
in groups like flocks of birds. There is no resemblance between the
different quarters of the same city, and the denizen of the Chausee
d'Antin has as much to learn at Marais as at Lisbon. It is true that
these whirlpools are traversed, and have been since the beginning of the
world, by seven personages who are always the same: the first is called
hope; the second, conscience; the third, opinion; the fourth, desire; the
fifth, sorrow; the sixth, pride; and the seventh, man.
We were, therefore, my companions and I, a flock of birds, and we
remained together until springtime, sometimes singing, sometimes flying.
"But," the reader objects, "where are the women in all this? I see
nothing of debauchery here.
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