"That is difficult," I answered. "But I will give it to you in the words of the old veteran, as he finished the bottle of champagne and exclaimed:--
"'I don't know how I could have hurt her, but she suddenly turned upon me as if in fury, and seized my thigh with her sharp teeth; and yet (as I afterwards remembered) not cruelly. I thought she meant to devour me, and I plunged my dagger into her throat. She rolled over with a cry that froze my soul; she looked at me in her death struggle, but without anger. I would have given all the world--my cross, which I had not then gained, all, everything--to have brought her back to life. It was as if I had murdered a friend, a human being. When the soldiers who saw my flag came to my rescue they found me weeping. Monsieur,' he resumed, after a moment's silence, 'I went through the wars in Germany, Spain, Russia, France; I have marched my carcass well-nigh over all the world; but I have seen nothing comparable to the desert. Ah, it is grand! glorious!'
"'What were your feelings there?' I asked.
"'They cannot be told, young man. Besides, I do not always regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is all--and yet nothing.'
"'Stay!--explain that.'
"'Well, then,' he said, with a gesture of impatience, 'God is there, and man is not.'"
FROM 'THE COUNTRY DOCTOR'
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
"Let us go to my barn," said the doctor, taking Genestas by the arm, after saying good-night to the curate and his other guests. "And there, Captain Bluteau, you will hear about Napoleon. We shall find a few old cronies who will set Goguelat, the postman, to declaiming about the people's god. Nicolle, my stable-man, was to put a ladder by which we can get into the hay-loft through a window, and find a place where we can see and hear all that goes on. A veillée is worth the trouble, believe me. Come, it isn't the first time I've hidden in the hay to hear the tale of a soldier or some peasant yarn. But we must hide; if these poor people see a stranger they are constrained at once, and are no longer their natural selves."