PAGE 14
Alamontade
by
She herself rewarded me in the most pleasing manner, by once reading my poems at the window, when their author had become known. Indeed, from a hundred allusions in the poems which she only understood, she might have guessed their author. She looked across to me, smiled, and pressed the book to her bosom, as if she wished to tell me, “I love it, and what you express in it you have addressed to this heart, which feels and is grateful.”
I again took up the withered wreath, at which I had often sung; smiled, made a sigh, and retired.
But no one was more delighted by the applause I had gained than my friend Bertollon. He became more affectionate and confidential. We regarded each other as brothers; he was devoted to me, and proved, in a thousand ways, that he had a heart for others. He did not let a day pass without showing some kindness; it was only by chance that I learned many of his noble deeds.
“Oh! Bertollon,” I once exclaimed, as I pressed him to my heart, “what a man you are! Why must I pity as much as admire you?”
“You go too far in both points, for I deserve neither one nor the other,” replied he, with a complacent smile.
“No! Bertollon, what I lament is, that you are good and virtuous, without wishing to appear so; you call virtue fanaticism and narrowness of ideas, and yet you constantly practise its precepts.”
“Well, then, Alamontade, rest satisfied with that. Why do you for ever weary yourself with my conversion? When you are older I shall see you treading in my footsteps; be, at least, tolerant for the present; the same child has, perhaps, a twofold name.”
“I doubt it. Could you, Bertollon, voluntarily plunge yourself into misery in order to support a righteous cause?”
“What do you call a righteous cause? Your ideas are not clear.”
“If you could save Montpellier from destruction by sacrificing yourself, would you be capable of suffering poverty or death?”
“M. Colas, you rave again. Only fanatics can demand and make such sacrifices, and it is good for the world that there are such. But now come for once to your senses; I am sorry that you are always indulging such whims, for in this way you will never be happy. Run over the whole world and collect the fools who would meet death for your notions: you will not find one in a hundred million. Every thing is true, good, useful, just, and noble, only under certain circumstances. The ideas of men vary everywhere; many have fancied that they could save the world by their death. They died, but for their own caprice, not for the world, and were afterwards laughed at as fools.”
“For these words I could despise you, Bertollon.”
“Then you would not be over virtuous, according to your own notions.”
“If you could increase your wealth by plunging me into misery, would you do so!”
“For such a question I ought to despise you, Colas?”
“And yet I may put it, for you say that you only strive after that which is useful to yourself. You weigh the goodness of an action only by the result.”
“Dear Colas, I see you will be a bad advocate, and will make a poor fortune, if you only defend causes which are right according to your notions, and never an unjust one by which you might gain.”
“I swear to you, Bertollon, I should abhor myself as long as I lived, if ever I moved my lips for the accusation of innocence, and the defence of crime.”
“And yet you, good-hearted simpleton, you will do it more than once, because you will not always find guilt or innocence written on men’s foreheads. You will be the world’s fool, if you will not walk its way.”