' I was in the power of their clerks; they could scribble my
name, drag it through the mire, and jeer at it. I was a defaulter. Has
a debtor any right to himself? Could not other men call me to account
for my way of living? Why had I eaten puddings _a la chipolata_? Why had
I iced my wine? Why had I slept, or walked, or thought, or amused
myself when I had not paid them?
"At any moment, in the middle of a poem, during some train of thought,
or while I was gaily breakfasting in the pleasant company of my
friends, I might look to see a gentleman enter in a coat of
chestnut-brown, with a shabby hat in his hand. This gentleman's
appearance would signify my debt, the bill I had drawn; the spectre
would compel me to leave the table to speak to him, blight my spirits,
despoil me of my cheerfulness, of my mistress, of all I possessed,
down to my very bedstead.
"Remorse itself is more easily endured. Remorse does not drive us into
the street nor into the prison of Sainte-Pelagie; it does not force us
into the detestable sink of vice. Remorse only brings us to the
scaffold, where the executioner invests us with a certain dignity; as
we pay the extreme penalty, everybody believes in our innocence; but
people will not credit a penniless prodigal with a single virtue.
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