"Poor lad!" sight the Director, letting his arms drop by his side.

That evening he did not write a single line of his Tragedy.




XXVII

The kind-hearted bookbinder harassed his son with no reproaches.

After dinner he went and sat at his shop-door, and looked at the
first star that peeped out in the evening sky.

"My boy," said he, "I am not a man of learning like you; but
I have a notion--and you must not rob me of it, because it is
a comfort to me--that, when I have finished binding books, I
shall go to that star. The idea occurred to me from what I have
read in the paper that the stars are all worlds. What is that
star called?"

"Venus, father."

"In my part of the world, they say it is the shepherd's star.
It's a beautiful star, and I think your mother is there. That
is why I should like to go there."

The old man passed his knotted fingers across his brow, murmuring:

"God forgive me, how one forgets those who are gone!"