The entire evening would pass thus, and it would be late
in the night before I would ask for a light, or get one myself.
Everything about the house was left unchanged, not a piece of paper was
moved. The great leather armchair in which my father sat, stood near the
fire; his table and his books, just as he left them; I respected even the
dust on these articles, which in life, he never liked to see disturbed.
The walls of that solitary house, accustomed to silence and the most
tranquil life, seemed to look down on me in pity as I sat in my father's
chair, enveloped in his dressing-gown. A feeble voice seemed to whisper:
"Where is the father? It is plain to see that this is an orphan."
I received several letters from Paris and replied to each that I desired
to pass the summer alone in the country, as my father was accustomed to
do. I began to realize that in all evil there is some good, and that
sorrow, whatever else may be said of it, is a means of repose. Whatever
the message brought by those who are sent by God, they always accomplish
the happy result of awakening us from the sleep of the world, and when
they speak, all are silent. Passing sorrows blaspheme and accuse Heaven;
great sorrows neither accuse nor blaspheme, they listen.
In the morning, I passed entire hours in the contemplation of nature. My
windows overlooked a valley in the midst of which arose the village
steeple; all was plain and calm.
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