"Poor man! he thinks that he is on the pinnacle of glory because he has the disposal for a few months of a few dozen offices, and to this he has consecrated his whole life, all the powers that God has given him. To-morrow this man will die, and he will not have known the love of a tender and innocent wife, nor the enthusiasm awakened in the soul by a heroic action, nor the deep emotion caused by the study of nature, nor the pure delight in contemplating a work of art; he will never have thought, never felt, never loved! Nevertheless, he thinks in good faith that it is his right to swell with pride because a bell rings at the Ministerio when he comes in, and a few unhappy wretches take off their hats before him! How much energy and fawning meanness this ant has had to exercise in order that other ants may greet him respectfully!"
He could not help laughing out loud. Mendoza opened his eyes on hearing him, but being accustomed to these original sallies of his secretary, he instantly closed them again, and once more slumbered.
Miguel, however, went on with his thinking.
"Religion, art, love, heroism, these signs in which I think that I can see the expression of a more elevated nature—may they not also be illusions, like those which this poor devil has, of his own importance? May not the far-off country to which I aspire be a false reflection of my own desires?"
The idea of annihilation came into his mind, and made him tremble.
"If all vanishes at the end like smoke, like a shadow, if the purest emotions of my soul, if my wife's love, if my boy's innocent smile, have the same worth in nature as the hate of the miscreant and the coarse laughter of the vicious; if two beings unite and love only to be separated for an eternity, oh! how gladly would I hate you, infamous universe! If beyond those spaces, beautiful as they are, there is no one capable of compassion, what is the worth of your mighty masses, or your rythmic movements, or your tremendous rivers of light? I, miserable atom, am more noble, because I can love and can feel compassion...."
He remained a few moments lost in suspense, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. A strange depression, such as he had rarely felt, was gradually taking possession of his spirit. In thought he took a rapid survey of his past life, and it appeared to him like a chain of misfortunes; even the pleasures of his youth seemed to him detestable and beneath contempt. In it there was only one delicious and sweet oasis,—the two years of his marriage.
"If all men," he said to himself, "were to look back, they would find it the same; perhaps even worse, because the majority have not been blessed as I have, by Heaven, for a few short moments."
His memory brought up a few friends who had died in the flower of life after cruel sufferings; others, who, weary of struggling against fate, had fallen at last into the depths of misery; he saw the noblest and most intelligent of them filling humble stations, and elevating the low and degraded ones; he remembered his good father, whose last years were embittered by a proud and wilful wife; he remembered his sister, a creature all light and joy, vilely deceived and forever disgraced; he remembered finally that angelic half of his own being snatched from the world when she had just touched her lips to the cup of happiness....
Creation suddenly presented itself before him in a terrible aspect; beings pitilessly devouring each other; the stronger constantly pushing the weaker to the wall—all deceived by the illusion of happiness which is beyond the reach of any, working, suffering for the advantage of other species, and these for still others, and so on to infinity! The world, in fine, appeared to him like an immense fraud, a place of torment for all living beings, more cruel still for those gifted with consciousness; absolute happiness for the All-existent because It is and ever will be: absolute misery for individuals, because they will eternally be created anew to suffer and to die.