All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep.
She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her?
She is a sponge that is soaked.
At least, she believes it to be so; but it is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever.
Alas!
What are all these fates, driven on pell-mell? Whither are they going?
Why are they thus?
He who knows that sees the whole of the shadow.
He is alone.
His name is God.
BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT
CHAPTER XII
M. BAMATABOIS'S INACTIVITY
There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred thousand francs a year in Paris.
These are beings of the great neuter species:
impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, my peasants, my woods"; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the diligence, live at the cafe, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris through the medium of Pont-A-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, serve no use, and do no great harm.
M. Felix Tholomyes, had he remained in his own province and never beheld Paris, would have been one of these men.
If they were richer, one would say, "They are dandies;" if they were poorer, one would say, "They are idlers."