In a moment he had named such a prodigious number of books that the author felt his head go round.

“These myriads of books,” says he, “have been devoured by readers; and while everybody does not build a house, and some grow hungry, and others have no cravat, or no fire to warm themselves at, yet everybody to some degree is married.  But come look yonder.”

He waved his hand, and appeared to bring before me a distant ocean where all the books of the world were tossing up and down like agitated waves.  The octodecimos bounded over the surface of the water.  The octavos as they were flung on their way uttered a solemn sound, sank to the bottom, and only rose up again with great difficulty, hindered as they were by duodecimos and works of smaller bulk which floated on the top and melted into light foam.  The furious billows were crowded with journalists, proof-readers, paper-makers, apprentices, printers’ agents, whose hands alone were seen mingled in the confusion among the books.  Millions of voices rang in the air, like those of schoolboys bathing.  Certain men were seen moving hither and thither in canoes, engaged in fishing out the books, and landing them on the shore in the presence of a tall man, of a disdainful air, dressed in black, and of a cold, unsympathetic expression.  The whole scene represented the libraries and the public.  The demon pointed out with his finger a skiff freshly decked out with all sails set and instead of a flag bearing a placard.  Then with a peal of sardonic laughter, he read with a thundering voice:  Physiology of Marriage.

The author fell in love, the devil left him in peace, for he would have undertaken more than he could handle if he had entered an apartment occupied by a woman.  Several years passed without bringing other torments than those of love, and the author was inclined to believe that he had been healed of one infirmity by means of another which took its place.  But one evening he found himself in a Parisian drawing-room where one of the men among the circle who stood round the fireplace began the conversation by relating in a sepulchral voice the following anecdote: 

A peculiar thing took place at Ghent while I was staying there.  A lady ten years a widow lay on her bed attacked by mortal sickness.  The three heirs of collateral lineage were waiting for her last sigh.  They did not leave her side for fear that she would make a will in favor of the convent of Beguins belonging to the town.  The sick woman kept silent, she seemed dozing and death appeared to overspread very gradually her mute and livid face.  Can’t you imagine those three relations seated in silence through that winter midnight beside her bed?  An old nurse is with them and she shakes her head, and the doctor sees with anxiety that the sickness has reached its last stage, and holds his hat in one hand and with the other makes a sign to the relations, as if to say to them:  “I have no more visits