“See,” said Dr. Sims, pointing out an old gentleman, dressed in the style of 1840, like an old-fashioned lithograph of a beau of the time of Gavarni, “that man has been more than thirty-five years in the institution.  He will not change the cut of his garments, and he is very careful to have his tailor make his clothes in the same style he dressed when he was young.  He is very happy.  He thinks that he is the enchanter Merlin, and he listens to Vivian, who makes appointments with him under the trees.”

As they passed the old man, his neck imprisoned in a high stock, his surtout cut long and very tight in the waist, and his trousers very full about the hips and very close about the ankles, he bowed politely.

“Good-morning, Doctor Sims!  Good-morning, Doctor Fargeas!”

Then, as the director of the establishment approached to speak, he placed a finger upon his lips: 

“Hush,” he said.  “She is there!  Don’t speak, or she will go away.”  And he pointed with a sort of passionate veneration to an elm where Vivian was shut up, and whence she would shortly emerge.

“Poor devil!” murmured Vogotzine.

This was not what Zilah thought, however.  He wondered if this happy hallucination which had lasted so many years, these eternal love-scenes with Vivian, love-scenes which never grew stale, despite the years and the wrinkles, were not the ideal form of happiness for a being condemned to this earth.  This poetical monomaniac lived with his dreams realized, finding, in an asylum of Vaugirard, all the fascinations and chimeras of the Breton land of golden blossoms and pink heather, all the intoxicating, languorous charm of the forest of Broceliande.

“He has within his grasp what Shakespeare was content only to dream of.  Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal realized:” 

“Ah!” replied Dr. Fargeas, “but the real never loses its grip.  Why does this monomaniac preserve both the garments of his youth, which prevent him from feeling his age, and the dream of his life, which consoles him for his lost reason?  Because he is rich.  He can pay the tailor who dresses him, the rent of the pavilion he inhabits by himself, and the special servants who serve him.  If he were poor, he would suffer.”

“Then,” said Zilah, “the question of bread comes up everywhere, even in insanity.”

“And money is perhaps happiness, since it allows of the purchase of happiness.”

“Oh!” said the Prince, “for me, happiness would be—­”

“What?”

“Forgetfulness.”

And he followed with his eyes Vivian’s lover, who now had his ear glued to the trunk of the tree, and was listening to the voice which spoke only to him.

“That man yonder,” said Dr. Sims, indicating a man, still young, who was coming toward them, “is a talented writer whose novels you have doubtless read, and who has lost all idea of his own personality.  Once a great reader, he now holds all literature in intense disgust; from having written so much, he has grown to have a perfect horror of words and letters, and he never opens either a book or a newspaper.  He drinks in the fresh air, cultivates flowers, and watches the trains pass at the foot of the garden.”