the times when he was working the hardest, and of which he made no
secret from me, for he would say, 'Go on with this for me,' and trust
me with the work in hand.

"This man, wrapped in the threefold duties of the statesman, the
judge, and the orator, charmed me by a taste for flowers, which shows
an elegant mind, and which is shared by almost all persons of
refinement. His garden and his study were full of the rarest plants,
but he always bought them half-withered. Perhaps it pleased him to see
such an image of his own fate! He was faded like these dying flowers,
whose almost decaying fragrance mounted strangely to his brain. The
Count loved his country; he devoted himself to public interests with
the frenzy of a heart that seeks to cheat some other passion; but the
studies and work into which he threw himself were not enough for him;
there were frightful struggles in his mind, of which some echoes
reached me. Finally, he would give utterance to harrowing aspirations
for happiness, and it seemed to me he ought yet to be happy; but what
was the obstacle? Was there a woman he loved? This was a question I
asked myself. You may imagine the extent of the circles of torment
that my mind had searched before coming to so simple and so terrible a
question. Notwithstanding his efforts, my patron did not succeed in
stifling the movements of his heart. Under his austere manner, under
the reserve of the magistrate, a passion rebelled, though coerced with
such force that no one but I who lived with him ever guessed the
secret. His motto seemed to be, 'I suffer, and am silent.' The escort
of respect and admiration which attended him; the friendship of
workers as valiant as himself--Grandville and Serizy, both presiding
judges--had no hold over the Count: either he told them nothing, or
they knew all. Impassible and lofty in public, the Count betrayed the
man only on rare intervals when, alone in his garden or his study, he