I had not seen Adèle since her marriage. I would not write to her: the letter might be opened by her husband, and compromise her. I applied to Louise Brézette, our friend in common. Alas! I found the poor child in tears. Chollet, whose education in forestry was finished, had been obliged to return to his parents, and he had carried off with him all the young girl's first dreams of love: she was forlorn and inconsolable; she mourned the whole of her life for her lover, and bore the marks of her love-sickness. I quoted the example of Ariadne to her, advising her to follow it, and I believe ... I believe she followed it, and that I contributed, in some measure, towards inducing her to follow it....
Poor beloved children! true and affectionate friends of my youth! my life is now so much taken up, the hours that belong to me are so few, I am common property to such an extent, that when, by chance, I go home, or you come here, I cannot give you all the time that the claims of love and of memory demand. But when I shall have won a few of those hours of repose in search of which Théaulon spent his life, and which he never found, oh! I promise you those hours shall be given to you unquestionably, unshared by others. You have ample claims to demand the leisure of my old age, and you will make my latter days to flourish as in my springtime. For there are closed tombs there which draw me as much, more even, than open houses; dead friends who talk to me more clearly than do the living.
When I left Louise, I went to Maître Mennesson; I had always kept on pretty good terms with him. But, since our separation, he had married. I think his marriage made him more sceptical than ever.
"Ah!" he said, when he caught sight of me, "so there you are!"
"Yes; I have come to bid you good-bye."
"You have decided to go, then?"
"On Saturday night."
"And how much do you take with you?"
"Fifty francs."
"My dear lad, there are people who started on less than that—M. Laffitte, for example."