“Where are you going?” asked Eusebe.
“My friend,” responded the cicerone, “the best way to arrive anywhere is not to know where you are going.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
“Hold!” said Clamens. “Do you see this expanse of asphaltum, which extends from where we stand to the Chaussée d’Antin?”
“Yes,” replied Eusebe: “it is the Boulevard des Italiens.”
“Just so. Well, all humanity is represented in this narrow space, which is hardly more extensive than your father’s garden. Take a seat, and observe, and in one hour you will know Paris as well as if you had made it; and Paris is the universe. The other cities of the world, such as Bordeaux, Lyons, London, Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg, are rivers for which Paris is the sea. Every variety of the human species flows hither, to roll and writhe, like furious waves, in that sublime tempest which we call life. You wish to investigate this billowy mass. You will find nothing there but froth and foam, or you will drown yourself for want of that life-preserver which is called experience.”
“Better to drown oneself at once than to die of weariness on a rock whence nothing but a void is visible; but, indeed, it seems to me we are employing very large words to speak of very small things.”
“Ah,” rejoined Clamens, “there is nothing insignificant in this world. A drop of water may save a man; three may kill him; a hundred will fill a gutter; a thousand will form a rivulet. Multiply ten times these numbers by themselves, and you will have a torrent which may inundate France. Men are like drops of water. Look at them separately, and you see nothing terrible; but when, by a mysterious free-masonry, they assemble and arrange themselves according to their vices, their merits, their passions, or their aspirations, they can convulse society to its very centre.”