"What?" asked another.

"Crime----"

"There is a word as high as the gallows and deeper than the Seine,"
said Raphael.

"Oh, you don't understand me; I mean political crime. Since this
morning, a conspirator's life is the only one I covet. I don't know
that the fancy will last over to-morrow, but to-night at least my
gorge rises at the anaemic life of our civilization and its railroad
evenness. I am seized with a passion for the miseries of retreat from
Moscow, for the excitements of the Red Corsair, or for a smuggler's
life. I should like to go to Botany Bay, as we have no Chartreaux left
us here in France; it is a sort of infirmary reserved for little Lord
Byrons who, having crumpled up their lives like a serviette after
dinner, have nothing left to do but to set their country ablaze, blow
their own brains out, plot for a republic or clamor for a war----"

"Emile," Raphael's neighbor called eagerly to the speaker, "on my
honor, but for the revolution of July I would have taken orders, and
gone off down into the country somewhere to lead the life of an
animal, and----"

"And you would have read your breviary through every day."

"Yes."

"You are a coxcomb!"