But no matter! Rastignac had seen you the evening before at the
Bouffons; we took courage again, and made it a point of honor to find
out whether you were roosting in a tree in the Champs-Elysees, or in
one of those philanthropic abodes where the beggars sleep on a
twopenny rope, or if, more luckily, you were bivouacking in some
boudoir or other. We could not find you anywhere. Your name was not in
the jailers' registers at the St. Pelagie nor at La Force! Government
departments, cafes, libraries, lists of prefects' names, newspaper
offices, restaurants, greenrooms--to cut it short, every lurking place
in Paris, good or bad, has been explored in the most expert manner. We
bewailed the loss of a man endowed with such genius, that one might
look to find him at Court or in the common jails. We talked of
canonizing you as a hero of July, and, upon my word, we regretted
you!"
As he spoke, the friends were crossing the Pont des Arts. Without
listening to them, Raphael looked at the Seine, at the clamoring waves
that reflected the lights of Paris. Above that river, in which but now
he had thought to fling himself, the old man's prediction had been
fulfilled, the hour of his death had been already put back by fate.
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