a son who might be able to see you when I shall see you no more.
How I should love him! Ah! such a son would--what am I saying?--
why, he would be no just twenty years old if you had only been
willing, Clementine--you whose cheeks used to look so ruddy under
your pink hood! But you are married to that young bank clerk,
Noel Alexandre, who made so many millions afterwards! I never met
you again after your marriage, Clementine, but I can see you now,
with your bright curls and your pink hood.

A looking-glass! a looking-glass! a looking-glass! Really, it would
be curious to see what I look like now, with my white hair, sighing
Clementine's name to the stars! Still, it is not right to end with
sterile irony the thought begun in the spirit of faith and love. No,
Clementine, if your name came to my lips by chance this beautiful
night, be it for ever blessed, your dear name! and may you ever, as
a happy mother, a happy grandmother, enjoy to the very end of life
with your rich husband the utmost degree of that happiness which
you had the right to believe you could not win with the poor young
scholar who loved you! If--though I cannot even now imagine it--if
your beautiful hair has become white, Clementine, bear worthily the
bundle of keys confided to you by Noel Alexandre, and impart to your
grandchildren the knowledge of all domestic virtues!

Ah! beautiful Night! She rules, with such noble repose, over men and
animals alike, kindly loosed by her from the yoke of daily toil;
and even I feel her beneficent influence, although my habits of
sixty years have so changed me that I can feel most things only
through the signs which represent them. My world is wholly formed
of words--so much of a philologist I have become! Each one dreams
the dream of life in his own way. I have dreamed it in my library;