Thus it was that Godefroid presented, even to the eye, the face that
we meet so often in Paris that it might be called the type of the
Parisian; in it we may see ambitions deceived or dead, inward
wretchedness, hatred sleeping in the indolence of a life passed in
watching the daily and external life of Paris, apathy which seeks
stimulation, lament without talent, a mimicry of strength, the venom
of past disappointments which excites to cynicism, and spits upon all
that enlarges and grows, misconceives all necessary authority,
rejoicing in its embarrassments, and will not hold to any social form.
This Parisian malady is to the active and permanent impulse towards
conspiracy in persons of energy what the sapwood is to the sap of the
trees; it preserves it, feeds it, and conceals it.



II

OLD HOUSE, OLD PEOPLE, OLD CUSTOMS

Weary of himself, Godefroid attempted one day to give a meaning to his
life, after meeting a former comrade who had been the tortoise in the
fable, while he in earlier days had been the hare. In one of those
conversations which arise when schoolmates meet again in after years,
--a conversation held as they were walking together in the sunshine on
the boulevard des Italiens,--he was startled to learn the success of a
man endowed apparently with less gifts, less means, less fortune than
himself; but who had bent his will each morning to the purpose
resolved upon the night before. The sick soul then determined to
imitate that simple action.