“Well, then, I want to know if you would be very much frightened at the idea of being cast away alone on a desert island.”
“I?” exclaimed Paganel.
“Come now, my good fellow,” said the Major, “don’t go and tell us that it is your most cherished desire.”
“I don’t pretend it is that, but still, after all, such an adventure would not be very unpleasant to me. I should begin a new life; I should hunt and fish; I should choose a grotto for my domicile in Winter and a tree in Summer. I should make storehouses for my harvests: in one word, I should colonize my island.”
“All by yourself?”
“All by myself if I was obliged. Besides, are we ever obliged? Cannot one find friends among the animals, and choose some tame kid or eloquent parrot or amiable monkey? And if a lucky chance should send one a companion like the faithful Friday, what more is needed? Two friends on a rock, there is happiness. Suppose now, the Major and I—”
“Thank you,” replied the Major, interrupting him; “I have no inclination in that line, and should make a very poor Robinson Crusoe.”
“My dear Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “you are letting your imagination run away with you, as usual. But the dream is very different from the reality. You are thinking of an imaginary Robinson’s life, thrown on a picked island and treated like a spoiled child by nature. You only see the sunny side.”
“What, madam! You don’t believe a man could be happy on a desert island?”
“I do not. Man is made for society and not for solitude, and solitude can only engender despair. It is a question of time. At the outset it is quite possible that material wants and the very necessities of existence may engross the poor shipwrecked fellow, just snatched from the waves; but afterward, when he feels himself alone, far from his fellow men, without any hope of seeing country and friends again, what must he think, what must he suffer? His little island is all his world. The whole human race is shut up in himself, and when death comes, which utter loneliness will make terrible, he will be like the last man on the last day of the world. Believe me, Monsieur Paganel, such a man is not to be envied.”