countenance at first gave me a feeling of great melancholy, and at
last produced an almost painful impression.

There was a certain harmony between the man and his name. The Z.
preceding Marcas, which was seen on the addresses of his letters, and
which he never omitted from his signature, as the last letter of the
alphabet, suggested some mysterious fatality.

MARCAS! say this two-syllabled name again and again; do you not feel
as if it had some sinister meaning? Does it not seem to you that its
owner must be doomed to martyrdom? Though foreign, savage, the name
has a right to be handed down to posterity; it is well constructed,
easily pronounced, and has the brevity that beseems a famous name. Is
it not pleasant as well as odd? But does it not sound unfinished?

I will not take it upon myself to assert that names have no influence
on the destiny of men. There is a certain secret and inexplicable
concord or a visible discord between the events of a man's life and
his name which is truly surprising; often some remote but very real
correlation is revealed. Our globe is round; everything is linked to
everything else. Some day perhaps we shall revert to the occult
sciences.

Do you not discern in that letter Z an adverse influence? Does it not
prefigure the wayward and fantastic progress of a storm-tossed life?
What wind blew on that letter, which, whatever language we find it in,
begins scarcely fifty words? Marcas' name was Zephirin; Saint Zephirin
is highly venerated in Brittany, and Marcas was a Breton.

Study the name once more: Z Marcas! The man's whole life lies in this