mixture. Ah, you see but a short distance. I am an old branch, happily
torn from a vile trunk and transplanted into good soil, but still
knotted and rough like the wild holly of the original stock. I have,
believe me, had no little trouble in reaching the state of comparative
gentleness and calm in which you behold me. Alas! if I dared, I should
reproach Providence with a great injustice--that of having allotted me
a life as short as other men's. When one has to struggle for forty or
fifty years to transform one's self from a wolf into a man, one ought to
live a hundred years longer to enjoy one's victory. Yet what good
would that do me?" he added in a tone of sadness. "The kind fairy who
transformed me is here no more to take pleasure in her work. Bah! it is
quite time to have done with it all."

Then he turned towards me, and, looking at me with big dark eyes, still
strangely animated, said:

"Come, my dear young man; I know what brings you to see me; you are
curious to hear my history. Draw nearer the fire, then. Mauprat though
I am, I will not make you do duty for a log. In listening you are giving
me the greatest pleasure you could give. Your friend will tell you,
however, that I do not willingly talk of myself. I am generally afraid
of having to deal with blockheads, but you I have already heard of;
I know your character and your profession; you are an observer and
narrator--in other words, pardon me, inquisitive and a chatterbox."

He began to laugh, and I made an effort to laugh too, though with
a rising suspicion that he was making game of us. Nor could I help
thinking of the nasty tricks that his grandfather took a delight in
playing on the imprudent busybodies who called upon him. But he put his
arm through mine in a friendly way, and making me sit down in front of a