"I ought," said Rodolphe, "to get back a little further."

"Why?" said Emma.

But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose to an extraordinary

pitch. He declaimed-"This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil discord ensanguined

our public places, when the landlord, the business-man, the working-man

himself, falling asleep at night, lying down to peaceful sleep, trembled

lest he should be awakened suddenly by the noise of incendiary tocsins,

when the most subversive doctrines audaciously sapped foundations."

"Well, someone down there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then

I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; and with my bad

reputation--"

"Oh, you are slandering yourself," said Emma.

"No! It is dreadful, I assure you."

"But, gentlemen," continued the councillor, "if, banishing from my

memory the remembrance of these sad pictures, I carry my eyes back

to the actual situation of our dear country, what do I see there?

Everywhere commerce and the arts are flourishing; everywhere new means

of communication, like so many new arteries in the body of the state,

establish within it new relations. Our great industrial centres have

recovered all their activity; religion, more consolidated, smiles in

all hearts; our ports are full, confidence is born again, and France

breathes once more!"

"Besides," added Rodolphe, "perhaps from the world's point of view they

are right."

"How so?" she asked.

"What!" said he. "Do you not know that there are souls constantly

tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest passions

and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling themselves into all

sorts of fantasies, of follies."

Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who has voyaged over

strange lands, and went on-"We have not even this distraction, we poor women!"

"A sad distraction, for happiness isn't found in it."

"But is it ever found?" she asked.

"Yes; one day it comes," he answered.

"And this is what you have understood," said the councillor.

"You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you pacific pioneers of a work

that belongs wholly to civilization! you, men of progress and morality,

you have understood, I say, that political storms are even more

redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances!"

"It comes one day," repeated Rodolphe, "one day suddenly, and when

one is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; it is as if a voice

cried, 'It is here!' You feel the need of confiding the whole of your

life, of giving everything, sacrificing everything to this being. There

is no need for explanations; they understand one another. They have seen

each other in dreams!"




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024