I
should advise you ill if I induced you to publish this volume, and I
should be doing you a sorry service in publishing it at my expense." So
saying, he rose, and gave me back my manuscript. I did not attempt to
contest the point with Fate, which spoke in the voice of the oracle. I
took up the volume, thanked M. Didot, and, offering some excuse for
having trespassed on his time, I went downstairs, my legs trembling
beneath me, and my eyes moistened with tears.
Ah, if M. Didot, who was a kind and feeling man, a patron of letters,
could have read in my heart, and have understood that it was neither
fame nor fortune that the unknown youth came to beg, with his book in
his hand; that it was life and love I sued for--I am sure he would have
printed my volume. He would have been repaid in heaven, at least.
LXXXIV.
I returned to my room in despair. The child and the dog wondered, for
the first time, at my sullen silence, and at the gloom that overspread
my countenance. I lighted the stove, and threw in, sheet by sheet, my
whole volume, without sparing a single page.
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