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The Lock and Key Library - The most interesting stories of all nations: French novels by Unknown
page 62 of 463 (13%)
hate men and life, without the necessity of your interference? He
knows nothing of humanity, but what he sees through the bars of his
prison; and imagines that there is nothing in the world but
capricious tyrants and trembling, degraded slaves. Why thus kill
in his heart every germ of enthusiasm, of hope, of manly and
generous faith?

But may not Stephane be a vicious child, whose perverse instincts a
justly provoked father seeks to curb by a pitiless discipline? No,
a thousand times no! It is false, it is impossible; it is only
necessary to look at him to be satisfied of this. His face is
often hard, cold, scornful; but it never expresses a low thought, a
pollution of soul, or a precocious corruption of mind. In his
quiet moods there is upon his brow a stamp of infantile purity. I
was wrong in supposing that his soul had lost its youth.

Alas! with what cruel harshness they dispute the little pleasures
which remain to him. In spite of his jests over the periwinkles,
he has a taste for flowers, and had obtained from the gardener the
concession of a little plot of ground to cultivate according to his
fancy. The Count, it appears, had ratified this favor; but this
unheard-of condescension proved to be but a refinement of cruelty.
For some time, every evening after dinner, Stephane passed an hour
in his little parterre; he plucked out the weeds, planted, watered,
and watched with a paternal eye the growth of his favorites.
Yesterday, an hour after the sanguinary castigation, while his
father was dressing Ivan's wounds, he had gone out on tiptoe. Some
minutes after, as I was walking upon the terrace, I saw him
occupied. with absorbing gravity, in this great work of watering.
I was but a few paces from him, when the gardener approached,
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