Conscience -- Volume 1

t warning, the candle

here are the can

more; this w

t brighten u

r seat, she took a cushion from the sofa, and placing it before the c

epeated, her eye

r me to do is to return to Auver

surprised Saniel. If there was sadness in this cry,

verty and study? My creditors, who have fallen on me here, will harass me, and my competitors will mock my misery-which is caused by my vices. They will think that I dishonor the Faculty, and I shal

ou mean

ars, the abandonment of my work, death itself. You see now why, in spite of your gayety, I have not been able to hide my preoccupati

uld we s

do you

ned tow

158 disappointment and regrets? If you accept me, I will go with you; together, and loving each other, we cannot be unhappy anywhere. When you come home fatigued you will find me with a smile; when you stay at home you will tell me your thoughts, and explain your work, and I will try to understand. I have no fear of poverty, you know, and neither do I fear solitude. Wherever we are together I shall be happy. All that I ask of you is to take my mother with us, because you know I cannot leave her alone. In attending her, you have learned to know her well enough to know that she is not disagreeable or difficult to please. As for Florentin, he will remain in Paris and work. His trip t

effect of her words. It was the life of both of them that was to be decided, and the fulness of her heart mad

her head in his hands, and looke

love me!"

t in some way b

ardly to let you

enough to feel sure t

nd

at there is nothing in the world, in the present or in the future, but it and you? Because I see you for several hours from time to t

silent for

ve me there?"

to her that he addressed this question

ied. "Why do you doubt

ent, do they not a

ok his

n able to answer your smile with a smile, because, cruel as his life was, he was sustained by hope and confidence; in Auvergne there will be no m

he would be unhappy, and I

ut having ever compassed the scope of this ambition, and of the hopes, dreams if you like, on which it rests. Understand that these dreams are on the eve of being realized; two months more, and in December or January I pass the 'concours' for the central bureau, which will make me a

for

out to undergo a revolution that will transform it. Until now it has been taught officially, in pathology, that the human organism carries within itself the germ of a great many infectious diseases which develop spontaneously in certain conditions; for instance, that tuberculosis is the result of fatigue, privations, and physiological miseries. Well, recently it has been admitted, that is to say, the revolutionists admit, a parasitical origin for these diseases, and in France and Germany there is an army looking for these parasites. I am a soldier in this army, and to help me in these researches I established a laboratory in

? Could you not conti

erg

ter. How could I use this stove in a country where there is no gas? No, no! If I leave Paris, everything is at an end my position, as well as my work. I shall become a country doctor, and nothing but a country doctor. Let the sheriff turn me out to-morrow, and all the four years' accumulations in my laboratory, all my works en train that demand only a few days or hours to complet

his hand, pressed i

ry. I thought more of myself than of you, of our love and our marriage. It was an egotistic thought

Do you think I have n

itations, prayers, and also his request of

"What made you thin

cause you had oft

most wicked of men, capable of any

rom one of my patients that he lend

d he say

nd what I wished, but he would try to find some one, and would give me

t yourself i

I should go to a notary or a banker they would not listen to me, for I should be obliged to tell them, the first thing, that I have no security to

id he g

vic

ou too

rhaps, I shall be turned into the st

will he ask fo

own something who wo

n Caffies hands, who knows what he may exact from you, what

ish me to l

owever secret a man may be, he cannot hide himself from his clerk. He is not only guilty of rascalities, but also of real crimes. I assure you that he de

the concours that he offered me. Who knows what may happen in the short time that he gains for me? Because I n

same, to-morrow eveni