“That is how, neighbor, I became a volunteer under the Republic before I had cut my wisdom teeth.”

All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him who looks upon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance.

While he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, not on account of himself, but of the general subject.  Evidently that which occupied him in the drama of life was not his own part, but the drama itself.

This sort of disinterestedness touched me.  I prolonged my visit, and showed myself as frank as possible, in order to win his confidence in return.  In an hour’s time he knew my position and my habits; I was on the footing of an old acquaintance.

I even confessed the ill-humor the light of his lamp put me into a short time before.  He took what I said with the touching cheerfulness which comes from a heart in the right place, and which looks upon everything on the good side.  He neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged him to work while I could sleep, nor of the deprivations of the old soldier compared to the luxury of the young clerk; he only struck his forehead, accused himself of thoughtlessness, and promised to put list round his door!

O great and beautiful soul! with whom nothing turns to bitterness, and who art peremptory only in duty and benevolence!

October 15th.—­This morning I was looking at a little engraving I had framed myself, and hung over my writing-table; it is a design of Gavarni’s; in which, in a grave mood, he has represented a veteran and a conscript.

By often contemplating these two figures, so different in expression, and so true to life, both have become living in my eyes; I have seen them move, I have heard them speak; the picture has become a real scene, at which I am present as spectator.

The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on the shoulder of the young soldier.  His eyes, closed for ever, no longer perceive the sun shining through the flowering chestnut-trees.  In the place of his right arm hangs an empty sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, the sound of which on the pavement makes those who pass turn to look.

At the sight of this ancient wreck from our patriotic wars, the greater number shake their heads in pity, and I seem to hear a sigh or an imprecation.

“See the worth of glory!” says a portly merchant, turning away his eyes in horror.

“What a deplorable use of human life!” rejoins a young man who carries a volume of philosophy under his arm.

“The trooper would better not have left his plow,” adds a countryman, with a cunning air.

“Poor old man!” murmurs a woman, almost crying.

The veteran has heard, and he knits his brow; for it seems to him that his guide has grown thoughtful.  The latter, attracted by what he hears around him, hardly answers the old man’s questions, and his eyes, vaguely lost in space, seem to be seeking there for the solution of some problem.