And, after again walking hastily up and down, Rodin continued:  “Yes, it is worth attempting.  The more I reflect upon it, the more feasible it appears.  Only how to get at that wretch, Saint-Colombe?  Well, there is Jacques Dumoulin, and the other—­where to find her?  That is the stumbling-block.  I must not shout before I am out of the wood.”

Rodin began again to walk, biting his nails with an air of deep thought.  For some moments, such was the tension of his mind, large drops of sweat stood on his yellow brow.  He walked up and down, stopped, stamped with his foot, now raised his eyes as if in search of an inspiration, and now scratched his head violently with his left hand, whilst he continued to gnaw the nails of the right.  Finally, from time to time, he uttered exclamations of rage, despondency, or hope, as by turns they took possession of his mind.  If the cause of this monster’s agitation had not been horrible, it would have been a curious and interesting spectacle to watch the labors of that powerful brain—­to follow, as it were, on that shifting countenance, the progress and development of the project, on which he was now concentrating all the resources of his strong intellect.  At length, the work appeared to be near completion, for Rodin resumed:  “Yes, yes! it is bold, hazardous—­but then it is prompt, and the consequences may be incalculable.  Who can foresee the effects of the explosion of a mine?”

Then, yielding to a movement of enthusiasm, which was hardly natural to him, the Jesuit exclaimed, with rapture:  “Oh, the passions! the passions! what a magical instrument do they form, if you do but touch the keys with a light, skillful, and vigorous hand!  How beautiful too is the power of thought!  Talk of the acorn that becomes an oak, the seed that grows up to the corn—­the seed takes months, the acorn centuries, to unfold its splendors—­but here is a little word in eight letters, necklace and this word, falling into my brain but a few minutes ago, has grown and grown till it has become larger than any oak.  Yes, that word is the germ of an idea, that, like the oak, lifts itself up towards heaven, for the greater glory of the Lord—­such as they call Him, and such as I would assert Him to be, should I attain—­and I shall attain—­for these miserable Renneponts will pass away like a shadow.  And what matters it, after all, to the moral order I am reserved to guide, whether these people live or die?  What do such lives weigh in the balance of the great destinies of the world? while this inheritance which I shall boldly fling into the scale, will lift me to a sphere, from which one commands many kings, many nations—­let them say and make what noise they will.  The idiots—­the stupid idiots! or rather, the kind, blessed, adorable idiots!  They think they have crushed us, when they say to us men of the church:  ’You take the spiritual, but we will keep the temporal!’—­Oh, their conscience or their modesty inspires them well,