“And that is?”

“To see you grappling with that ability which you call meddlesome.”

“Well, you know, Monsieur le ministre, that we all spend three fourths of life in wishing for the impossible.”

“Why impossible?  Would you be the first man of the Opposition to be seen at the Tuileries?  An invitation to dinner given publicly, openly, which would, by bringing you into contact with one whom you misjudge at a distance—­”

“I should have the honor to refuse.”

And he emphasized the words have the honor in a way to show the meaning he attached to them.

“You are all alike, you men of the Opposition!” cried the minister; “you won’t let yourselves be enlightened when the opportunity presents itself; or, to put it better, you—­”

“Do you call the rays of those gigantic red bottles in a chemist’s shop light, when they flash into your eyes as you pass them after dark?  Don’t they, on the contrary, seem to blind you?”

“It is not our rays that frighten you,” said Rastignac; “it is the dark lantern of your party watchmen on their rounds.”

“There may be some truth in what you say; a party and the man who undertakes to represent it are in some degree a married couple, who in order to live peaceably together must be mutually courteous, frank, and faithful in heart as well as in principle.”

“Well, try to be moderate.  Your dream is far more impossible to realize than mine; the day will come when you will have more to say about the courtesy of your chaste better half.”

“If there is an evil for which I ought to be prepared, it is that.”

“Do you think so?  With the lofty and generous sentiments so apparent in your nature, shall you remain impassive under political attack, —­under calumny, for instance?”

“You yourself, Monsieur le ministre, have not escaped its venom; but it did not, I think, deter you from your course.”

“But,” said Rastignac, lowering his voice, “suppose I were to tell you that I have already sternly refused to listen to a proposal to search into your private life on a certain side which, being more in the shade than the rest, seems to offer your enemies a chance to entrap you.”

“I do not thank you for the honor you have done yourself in rejecting with contempt the proposals of men who can be neither of my party nor of yours; they belong to the party of base appetites and selfish passions.  But, supposing the impossible, had they found some acceptance from you, pray believe that my course, which follows the dictates of my conscience, could not be affected thereby.”

“But your party,—­consider for a moment its elements:  a jumble of foiled ambitions, brutal greed, plagiarists of ’93, despots disguising themselves as lovers of liberty.”

“My party has nothing, and seeks to gain something.  Yours calls itself conservative, and it is right; its chief concern is how to preserve its power, offices, and wealth,—­in short, all it now monopolizes.”