Ah, my good
friends, our first peccadilloes gave us so much pleasure because the
consequent remorse set them off and lent a keen relish to them; but
nowadays----"
"Oh! now," said the first speaker, "there is still left----"
"What?" asked another.
"Crime----"
"There is a word as high as the gallows and deeper than the Seine,"
said Raphael.
"Oh, you don't understand me; I mean political crime. Since this
morning, a conspirator's life is the only one I covet. I don't know
that the fancy will last over to-morrow, but to-night at least my
gorge rises at the anaemic life of our civilization and its railroad
evenness. I am seized with a passion for the miseries of retreat from
Moscow, for the excitements of the Red Corsair, or for a smuggler's
life. I should like to go to Botany Bay, as we have no Chartreaux left
us here in France; it is a sort of infirmary reserved for little Lord
Byrons who, having crumpled up their lives like a serviette after
dinner, have nothing left to do but to set their country ablaze, blow
their own brains out, plot for a republic or clamor for a war----"
"Emile," Raphael's neighbor called eagerly to the speaker, "on my
honor, but for the revolution of July I would have taken orders, and
gone off down into the country somewhere to lead the life of an
animal, and----"
"And you would have read your breviary through every day.
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