And his twenty years, burning with the fever of vast desires, betray
themselves in a single exclamation: "To be celebrated and to be loved!"

But there were times when he left his garret at nightfall, mingled with
the crowd and there exercised those marvellous faculties of his which
verged upon prodigy. He has described them in a short tale, Facino
Cano, and they appear to have been an exceptional gift. "I lived
frugally," he writes; "I had accepted all the conditions of monastic
life, so essential to those who toil. Even when the weather was fine, I
rarely allowed myself a short walk along the Boulevard Bourdon. One
passion alone drew me away from my studious habits; yet was not this
itself a form of study? I used to go to observe the manners and customs
of suburban Paris, its inhabitants and their characteristics. Being as
ill-clad and as careless of appearances as the labourers themselves, I
was not mistrusted by them, I was able to mingle with groups of them,
to watch them concluding their bargains and quarrelling together at the
hour when they quit their work. In my case, observation had already
become intuitive, it penetrated the soul without neglecting the body,
or rather it grasped so well the exterior details that it straightway
passed above and beyond them; it gave me the faculty of living the life
of the individual on whom it was exerted, by permitting me to
substitute myself for him, just as the dervish in the Thousand and One
Nights took the body and soul of those persons over whom he pronounced
certain words.

"To throw off my own habits, to become some one else than myself,
through an intoxication of the moral faculties, and to play this game
at will, such was my way of amusing myself. To what do I owe this gift?
Is it a form of second sight? Is it one of those qualities, the abuse