“‘Debitricem martyrii fidem’,” repeated Dorsenne, “that is beautiful, indeed. And,” he added, in a low voice, “you just now abused very rudely the dilettantes and the sceptic. But do you think there would be one of them who would refuse martyrdom if he could have at the same time faith?”
Never had Montfanon heard the young man utter a similar phrase and in such an accent. The image returned to him, by way of contrast, of Dorsenne, alert and foppish, the dandy of literature, so gayly a scoffer and a sophist, to whom antique and venerable Rome was only a city of pleasure, a cosmopolis more paradoxical than Florence, Nice, Biarritz, St. Moritz, than such and such other cities of international winter and summer. He felt that for the first time that soul was strained to its depths, the tragical death of poor Alba had become in the mind of the writer the point of remorse around which revolved the moral life of the superior and incomplete being, exiled from simple humanity by the most invincible pride of mind. Montfanon comprehended that every additional word would pain the wounded heart. He was afraid of having already lectured Dorsenne too severely. He took within his arm the arm of the young man, and he pressed it silently, putting into that manly caress all the warm and discreet pity of an elder brother.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
Conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity
Despotism natural to puissant personalities
Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre
Follow their thoughts instead of heeding objects
Has as much sense as the handle of a basket
Have never known in the morning what I would do in the evening
I no longer love you
Imagine what it would be never to have been born
Mediocre sensibility
Melancholy problem of the birth and death of love
Mobile and complaisant conscience had already forgiven himself
No flies enter a closed mouth
Not an excuse, but an explanation of your conduct
One of those trustful men who did not judge when they loved
Only one thing infamous in love, and that is a falsehood
Pitiful checker-board of life
Scarcely a shade of gentle condescension
Sufficed him to conceive the plan of a reparation
That suffering which curses but does not pardon
That you can aid them in leading better lives?
The forests have taught man liberty
There is an intelligent man, who never questions his ideas
There is always and everywhere a duty to fulfil
Thinking it better not to lie on minor points
Too prudent to risk or gain much
Walked at the rapid pace characteristic of monomaniacs
Words are nothing; it is the tone in which they are uttered