Why will my heart, like a hungry thing, gloat on the happiness of others?  He has gone away—­in the midst of the holidays—­no one knows whither; and his sweet wife and pleasant home are as dreary as I. There is a mystery about this house which I have not yet unraveled.  Marcel left in the morning, and M. Pontalba in the evening.  That has been two weeks ago.  I thought he would have fainted when I told him of the garcon’s exodus.  I attempted a history of the gardening; but he would not listen to a word, and remained locked up in his private room during the entire day.  Late in the evening a stranger called, and insisted on an interview.  It resulted in a hasty consultation with the cashier, and an order for a coach.  The two went off together,—­whither, or for how long, no one knows.

Leaf the Fourth.

To-day finds a man in the full glow of health, and strength, and happiness; to-morrow comes death, cold, pitiless, irresistible; mocking all hope, freezing desire, crushing all effort with the eternal law of time and human destiny, it strikes him down with the icy fury of a fiend.  Poetry, passion, humanity, are shivered at the touch.  The glorious creature who, an instant before, quivered with life and love and energy, lies a shapeless mass, disgusting to the sight, loathsome to the touch, revolting to every instinct of our nature.  So, in its ceaseless routine, forever and forever, wheels on the world.  The play-ground bully, the swindler of the corn exchange, who is the more virtuous? dolls with life, babies with genius, which the more sensible?  Even baby has its “pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake,” and is lulled to sleep with visions of a coach and six little ponies.  Dreams, dreams of self, that man wraps himself in like the swathing of a mummy.  Who ever saw a cake marked with “T,” who ever a “Valley of Tranquil Delight”?

The sun rises and sets on the weary diamond-digger of the South, the crazed perfume-hunter in the East, the stifled hemp-curer in the fetid swamps of Russia, the shriveled iron-worker in the scorching furnaces of England.  Here, in Paris, amid that motley herd who feed on virtue, the moon shines down calmly on purblind embroiderers and peerless beauties, on worn-out roues and squalid beggars.  The breeze that wafts to heaven the pure prayer of the maiden witnesses the fierce ribaldry of the courtesan; it flutters the curls of a sleeping infant, and bears on its wings the whispered exchange of chastity for bread.  And man goes on, devouring his three poor meals a day, and babbling the meaningless nothings he has learned by rote.  Oh, land of enlightenment!  Oh, age of Christianity!  Oh, zenith of civilization!

The smoke-wreaths curl into thicker clouds.  I have painted bright pictures, and they have faded.  I have cherished fond dreams, and they are vanished.  “It is not good for man to live alone;” and I am most solitary.  I can make another picture,—­without the roses; but it will be true.