who had spoken slightingly of him, elbowed him as he passed, and then
turned and jostled him a second time.

"'You are very clumsy!'

"'On the contrary; I did it on purpose.'

"The young man pulled out his card. La Palferine dropped it. 'It has
been carried too long in the pocket. Be good enough to give me
another.'

"On the ground he received a thrust; blood was drawn; his antagonist
wished to stop.

"'You are wounded, monsieur!'

"'I disallow the _botte_,' said La Palferine, as coolly as if he had
been in the fencing-saloon; then as he riposted (sending the point
home this time), he added, 'There is the right thrust, monsieur!'

"His antagonist kept his bed for six months.

"This, still following on M. Sainte-Beuve's tracks, recalls the
_raffines_, the fine-edged raillery of the best days of the monarchy.
In this speech you discern an untrammeled but drifting life; a gaiety
of imagination that deserts us when our first youth is past. The prime
of the blossom is over, but there remains the dry compact seed with
the germs of life in it, ready against the coming winter. Do you not
see that these things are symptoms of something unsatisfied, of an
unrest impossible to analyze, still less to describe, yet not