J'entends sonner l'Angélus
Qui rassemble Vos Elus:
Pour moi, du bercail exclus.
C'est la mort qui sonne!
Prier ne profite rien …
Pardonner est le seul bien:
C'est le Vôtre, et c'est le mien:
Moi, je Vous pardonne!
VI.
Soyez d'un égard pareil!
S'il est quelque vrai sommeil
Sans ni rêve, ni réveil,
Ouvrez-m'en la porte—
Faites que l'immense Oubli
Couvre, sous un dernier pli,
Dans mon corps enséveli,
Ma conscience morte!
Oh me duffer! What a hopeless failure was I in all things, little and big.
Part Three
[Illustration]
I had no friends but the Lintots and their friends. "Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis!"
My cousin Alfred had gone into the army, like his father before him. My cousin Charlie had gone into the Church, and we had drifted completely apart. My grandmother was dead. My Aunt Plunket, a great invalid, lived in Florence. Her daughter, Madge, was in India, happily married to a young soldier who is now a most distinguished general.
The Lintots held their heads high as representatives of a liberal profession, and an old Pentonville family. People were generally exclusive in those days—an exclusiveness that was chiefly kept up by the ladies. There were charmed circles even in Pentonville.
Among the most exclusive were the Lintots. Let us hope, in common justice, that those they excluded were at least able to exclude others.