"The fate of the grub when it is in its chrysalis."
"Then it was not without cause that I went to you that evening when you shut your door in my face? And yet I only said what I did because I feared that either the gibbet or suicide awaited you on the path you chose to take."
Here her voice trembled, her chin, her lips twitched convulsively, and her eyes filled with tears.
A lady in tears is dangerous!
I did not hasten to dry her tears. On the contrary, I replied with cool cynicism:
"Every career has its own peculiar maleficium—drowning awaits the sailor, shooting the soldier; the doctor may fall a victim to an epidemic; the glass-maker suffers from caries; choke-damp kills the miner; and he who meddles with politics runs a chance of being hanged or guillotined."
"No, no! They shall not do it!" she cried hoarsely, seizing my hand in both her own.
"I do not want them to do it," I said, "and that is why I am hiding myself here at the back of beyond."
"But how long is this to go on? What future do you see before you?"
"For the present I am like the convalescent beggar whose promenading does not go beyond the house-door. I thought of beginning a little farming in this valley and forgetting all my dreams of glory. I shall become an agriculturist."