Here a violent gust of wind shook the window-frames and shutters of the inn, which stood detached.  It was like a prolonged murmur of the sky.  The orator paused a moment, and then resumed.

“An interruption; very good.  Speak, north wind.  Gentlemen, I am not angry.  The wind is loquacious, like all solitary creatures.  There is no one to keep him company up there, so he jabbers.  I resume the thread of my discourse.  Here you see associated artists.  We are four—­a lupo principium.  I begin by my friend, who is a wolf.  He does not conceal it.  See him!  He is educated, grave, and sagacious.  Providence, perhaps, entertained for a moment the idea of making him a doctor of the university; but for that one must be rather stupid, and that he is not.  I may add that he has no prejudices, and is not aristocratic.  He chats sometimes with bitches; he who, by right, should consort only with she-wolves.  His heirs, if he have any, will no doubt gracefully combine the yap of their mother with the howl of their father.  Because he does howl.  He howls in sympathy with men.  He barks as well, in condescension to civilization—­a magnanimous concession.  Homo is a dog made perfect.  Let us venerate the dog.  The dog—­curious animal! sweats with its tongue and smiles with its tail.  Gentlemen, Homo equals in wisdom, and surpasses in cordiality, the hairless wolf of Mexico, the wonderful xoloitzeniski.  I may add that he is humble.  He has the modesty of a wolf who is useful to men.  He is helpful and charitable, and says nothing about it.  His left paw knows not the good which his right paw does.  These are his merits.  Of the other, my second friend, I have but one word to say.  He is a monster.  You will admire him.  He was formerly abandoned by pirates on the shores of the wild ocean.  This third one is blind.  Is she an exception?  No, we are all blind.  The miser is blind; he sees gold, and he does not see riches.  The prodigal is blind; he sees the beginning, and does not see the end.  The coquette is blind; she does not see her wrinkles.  The learned man is blind; he does not see his own ignorance.  The honest man is blind; he does not see the thief.  The thief is blind; he does not see God.  God is blind; the day that he created the world He did not see the devil manage to creep into it.  I myself am blind; I speak, and do not see that you are deaf.  This blind girl who accompanies us is a mysterious priestess.  Vesta has confided to her her torch.  She has in her character depths as soft as a division in the wool of a sheep.  I believe her to be a king’s daughter, though I do not assert it as a fact.  A laudable distrust is the attribute of wisdom.  For my own part, I reason and I doctor, I think and I heal. Chirurgus sum.  I cure fevers, miasmas, and plagues.  Almost all our melancholy and sufferings are issues, which if carefully treated relieve us quietly from other evils which might be worse.  All the same I do not recommend you to