"Ah, well! fathers know no better; I loved them so; I went back to
them as a gambler goes to the gaming table. This love was my vice, you
see, my mistress--they were everything in the world to me. They were
always wanting something or other, dresses and ornaments, and what
not; their maids used to tell me what they wanted, and I used to give
them the things for the sake of the welcome that they bought for me.
But, at the same time, they used to give me little lectures on my
behavior in society; they began about it at once. Then they began to
feel ashamed of me. That is what comes of having your children well
brought up. I could not go to school again at my time of life. (This
pain is fearful! _Mon Dieu!_ These doctors! these doctors! If they
would open my head, it would give me some relief!) Oh, my daughters,
my daughters! Anastasie! Delphine! If I could only see them! Send for
the police, and make them come to me! Justice is on my side, the whole
world is on my side, I have natural rights, and the law with me. I
protest! The country will go to ruin if a father's rights are trampled
under foot. That is easy to see. The whole world turns on fatherly
love; fatherly love is the foundation of society; it will crumble into
ruin when children do not love their fathers. Oh! if I could only see
them, and hear them, no matter what they said; if I could simply hear
their voices, it would soothe the pain. Delphine! Delphine most of
all. But tell them when they come not to look so coldly at me as they
do. Oh! my friend, my good Monsieur Eugene, you do not know that it is
when all the golden light in a glance suddenly turns to a leaden gray.
It has been one long winter here since the light in their eyes shone
no more for me. I have had nothing but disappointments to devour.
Disappointment has been my daily bread; I have lived on humiliation
and insults. I have swallowed down all the affronts for which they
sold me my poor stealthy little moments of joy; for I love them so!