perish under the executioner's axe? He detested the government a hundred
times more than they did, and with better reason. He had been a lifelong
heretic; was a heretic to-day, upon sincerer conviction than them all.
What a queer comedy he had been playing of late years--simply from
tedium and disgust. He to believe in God? What sort of a God was it who
was gracious only to the young, and left the old in the lurch? A God
who, when the fancy took him, became a devil; who transformed wealth
into poverty, fortune into misfortune, happiness into despair. "You play
with us--and we are to worship you? To doubt your existence is the only
resource left open to us if we are not to blaspheme you! You do not
exist; for if you did exist, I should curse you!"

Shaking his clenched fists heavenward, he rose to his feet.
Involuntarily, a detested name rose to his lips. Voltaire! Yes, now he
was in the right mood to finish his polemic against the sage of Ferney.
To finish it? No, now was the time to begin it. A new one! A different
one! One in which the ridiculous old fool should be shown up as he
deserved: for his pusillanimity, his half-heartedness, his subservience.
He an unbeliever? A man of whom the latest news was that he was on
excellent terms with the priests, that he visited church, and on feast
days actually went to confession! He a heretic? He was a chatterbox, a
boastful coward, nothing more! But the day of reckoning was at hand,
and soon there would be nothing left of the great philosopher but a
quill-driving buffoon.

What airs he had given himself, this worthy M. Voltaire! "My dear M.
Casanova, I am really vexed with you. What concern have I with the works
of Merlin? It is your fault that I have wasted four hours over such
nonsense."