make his name famous and to acquire a fortune saved him from the
impotence of melancholy. He drew spirited sketches of the family and
sent them to Laure, to prove to her that he was resigned.

He admired his father's impassiveness in the midst of all the confusion
of the household, like an Egyptian pyramid, indifferent to the
hurricane. The fine old man who expected to live upwards of a hundred
years and share with the State, as last survivor, the profits of a
Lafarge tontine policy in which he held a share, a sum amounting to
millions, studied the writings of the Chinese because they were famous
for their longevity. He had lost nothing of his serenity nor of his
caustic wit, and Honore confessed that he himself had very nearly
choked, laughing at some of his jests. Nevertheless he was not a father
in whom one could confide, and the son, isolated and forced to conceal
his feelings, found relief only in his brief periods of work in Paris,
and in observing the habits and manners of the family circle. He
witnessed the preparations for the marriage of his sister, Laurence, to
M. de Montzaigle, visiting inspector of the city imposts of Paris, and
he drew this picturesque portrait of his future brother-in-law: "He is
somewhat taller than Surville; his features are quite ordinary, neither
homely nor handsome; his mouth is widowed of the upper teeth, and there
is no reason for assuming that it will contract a second marriage,
since mother nature forbids it; this widowhood ages him considerably,
but on the whole he is not so bad--as husbands go. He writes poetry, he
is a marvellous shot; if he fires twenty times, he brings down not less
than twenty-six victims! He has been in only two tournaments, and has
taken the prize both times; he is equally strong in billiards; he
rhymes, he hunts, he shoots, he drives, he . . . , he . . . , he . . .
And you feel that all these accomplishments, carried to the highest
degree in one and the same man, have given him great presumption; that