“How so; what have you done that you must die? Who has condemned you to die?”
“A tribunal from which there is no appeal—I myself.”
“You, child!” cried the priest. “Have you killed a man? Is the scaffold waiting for you? Let us reason together a little. If you are resolved, as you say, to return to nothingness, everything on earth is indifferent to you, is it not?”
Lucien bowed assent.
“Very well, then; can you not tell me about your troubles? Some little affair of the heart has taken a bad turn, no doubt?”
Lucien shrugged his shoulders very significantly.
“Are you resolved to kill yourself to escape dishonor, or do you despair of life? Very good. You can kill yourself at Poitiers quite as easily as at Angoulême, and at Tours it will be no harder than at Poitiers. The quicksands of the Loire never give up their prey——”
“No, father,” said Lucien; “I have settled it all. Not three weeks ago I chanced upon the most charming raft that can ferry a man sick and tired of this life into the other world——”
“The other world? You are not an atheist.”
“Oh! by another world I mean my next transformation, animal or plant.”