But at Paris nothing lasts; the current of life carries us along, like the seaweed torn from the rock; the houses are vessels which take mere passengers.  How many different faces have I already seen pass along the landing-place belonging to our attics!  How many companions of a few days have disappeared forever!  Some are lost in that medley of the living which whirls continually under the scourge of necessity, and others in that resting-place of the dead, who sleep under the hand of God!

Peter the bookbinder is one of these last.  Wrapped up in selfishness, he lived alone and friendless, and he died as he had lived.  His loss was neither mourned by any one, nor disarranged anything in the world; there was merely a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in our house.

It is the same which my new neighbor has inhabited for the last few days.

To say truly (now that I am quite awake, and my ill humor is gone with my nightcap)—­to say truly, this new neighbor, although rising earlier than suits my idleness, is not the less a very good man:  he carries his misfortunes, as few know how to carry their good fortunes, with cheerfulness and moderation.

But fate has cruelly tried him.  Father Chaufour is but the wreck of a man.  In the place of one of his arms hangs an empty sleeve; his left leg is made by the turner, and he drags the right along with difficulty; but above these ruins rises a calm and happy face.  While looking upon his countenance, radiant with a serene energy, while listening to his voice, the tone of which has, so to speak, the accent of goodness, we see that the soul has remained entire in the half-destroyed covering.  The fortress is a little damaged, as Father Chaufour says, but the garrison is quite hearty.

Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, the more I reproach myself for the sort of malediction I bestowed on him when I awoke.

We are generally too indulgent in our secret wrongs toward our neighbor.  All ill-will which does not pass the region of thought seems innocent to us, and, with our clumsy justice, we excuse without examination the sin which does not betray itself by action!

But are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws?  Besides these external relations, is there not a real relation of feeling between men?  Do we not owe to all those who live under the same heaven as ourselves the aid not only of our acts but of our purposes?  Ought not every human life to be to us like a vessel that we accompany with our prayers for a happy voyage?  It is not enough that men do not harm one another; they must also help and love one another!  The papal benediction, ‘Urbi et orbi’! should be the constant cry from all hearts.  To condemn him who does not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a passing thought, is to break the great law, that which has established the union of souls here below, and to which Christ has given the sweet name of charity.