“Oh, I know quite well that all the merit of a good deed evaporates at once if it benefits the doer in the slightest degree,” said Genestas.  “If he tells the story of it, the toll brought in to his vanity is a sufficient substitute for gratitude.  But if every doer of kindly actions always held his tongue about them, those who reaped the benefits would hardly say very much either.  Now the people, according to your system, stand in need of examples, and how are they to hear of them amid this general reticence?  Again, there is this poor pontooner of ours, who saved the whole French army, and who was never able to tell his tale to any purpose; suppose that he had lost the use of his limbs, would the consciousness of what he had done have found him in bread?  Answer me that, philosopher!”

“Perhaps the rules of morality cannot be absolute,” Benassis answered; “though this is a dangerous idea, for it leaves the egoist free to settle cases of conscience in his own favor.  Listen, captain; is not the man who never swerves from the principles of morality greater than he who transgresses them, even through necessity?  Would not our veteran, dying of hunger, and unable to help himself, be worthy of rank with Homer?  Human life is doubtless a final trial of virtue as of genius, for both of which a better world is waiting.  Virtue and genius seem to me to be the fairest forms of that complete and constant surrender of self that Jesus Christ came among men to teach.  Genius sheds its light in the world and lives in poverty all its days, and virtue sacrifices itself in silence for the general good.”

“I quite agree with you, sir,” said Genestas; “but those who dwell on earth are men after all, and not angels; we are not perfect.”

“That is quite true,” Benassis answered.  “And as for errors, I myself have abused the indulgence.  But ought we not to aim, at any rate, at perfection?  Is not virtue a fair ideal which the soul must always keep before it, a standard set up by Heaven?”

“Amen,” said the soldier.  “An upright man is a magnificent thing, I grant you; but, on the other hand, you must admit that virtue is a divinity who may indulge in a scrap of gossip now and then in the strictest propriety.”

The doctor smiled, but there was a melancholy bitterness in his tone as he said, “Ah! sir, you regard things with the lenience natural to those who live at peace with themselves; and I with all the severity of one who sees much that he would fain obliterate in the story of his life.”

The two horsemen reached a cottage beside the bed of the torrent, the doctor dismounted and went into the house.  Genestas, on the threshold, looked over the bright spring landscape that lay without, and then at the dark interior of the cottage, where a man was lying in bed.  Benassis examined his patient, and suddenly exclaimed, “My good woman, it is no use my coming here unless you carry out my instructions!  You have been giving him bread; you want to kill your husband, I suppose?  Botheration!  If after this you give him anything besides the tisane of couch-grass, I will never set foot in here again, and you can look where you like for another doctor.”