Politics, by whose vagaries so many fools have made their fortunes, had never tempted him from his reveries for more than a moment. Politics put him in a bad temper. After Napoleon’s futile enterprise in the North, which raised the price of russia leather, he welcomed the French intervention in the Spanish revolution. “This,” he said, “is a good chance to bring chivalric romances and the Cancioneros from the Peninsula.” But the expeditionary army did not think of it, and he was vexed. When any one said Trocadero to him, he would reply ironically, Romancero, which made him pass for a Liberal.
M. de Bourmont’s campaign on the African coast transported him with joy. “Thank heaven!” he said, rubbing his hands; “we shall have cheap levant morocco.” This made him pass for a Carlist.
He was walking one summer’s day in a crowded street, collating a book, when some men, who were coming with a staggering gait from a saloon, commanded him, knife at throat, to cry in the name
of liberty, “Long live the Poles!” “I ask nothing better,” said Theodore, whose perpetual thought was an eternal cry in favor of the human race; “but may I ask why?” “Because we declare war against Holland, who oppresses Poland under the pretext that they do not like the Jesuits,” replied the friend of light, who was a rude geographer and a fearless logician. “God forgive us!” muttered our friend, crossing his hands piteously. “Shall we not in this case be obliged to use M. Montgolfier’s imitation Holland paper?”
The product of modern civilization answered by breaking Theodore’s leg with a blow of his stick.
Theodore stayed in his bed for three months, examining book-catalogues. Always disposed to carry his feelings to extremes, this reading fevered his blood.
Even in his convalescence his sleep was horribly uneasy. One night his wife roused him from the tortures of the nightmare. “You came just in time,” he said, embracing her, “to save me from dying of grief and fear. I was surrounded by monsters who would give me no quarter.”