His prose
clarified and set, that had before been very mixed and cloudy. He
slept well; he comprehended divine things; he was already half a
republican, when one fatal day - it was the feast of the eleven
thousand virgins, and they were too busy up in heaven to consider the
needs of us poor hobbling, polyktonous and betempted wretches of
men - I went with him to the Society for the Prevention of Annoyances
to the Rich, where a certain usurer's son was to read a paper on the
cruelty of Spaniards to their mules. As we were all seated there round
a table with a staring green cloth on it, and a damnable gas pendant
above, the host of that evening offered him whisky and water, and, my
back being turned, he took it. Then when I would have taken it from
him he used these words -
'After all, it is the intention of a pledge that matters;' and I saw
that all was over, for he had abandoned definition, and was plunged
back into the horrible mazes of Conscience and Natural Religion.
What do you think, then, was the consequence? Why, he had to take some
nasty pledge or other to drink nothing whatever, and become a
spectacle and a judgement, whereas if he had kept his exact word he
might by this time have been a happy man.
Remembering him and pondering upon the advantage of strict rule, I
hung on to my cart, taking care to let my feet still feel the road,
and so passed through the high limestone gates of the gorge, and was
in the fourth valley of the Jura, with the fifth ridge standing up
black and huge before me against the last of the daylight. There were
as yet no stars.
There, in this silent place, was the little village of Undervelier,
and I thanked the boy, withdrew from his cart, and painfully
approached the inn, where I asked the woman if she could give me
something to eat, and she said that she could in about an hour, using,
however, with regard to what it was I was to have, words which I did
not understand. For the French had become quite barbaric, and I was
now indeed lost in one of the inner places of the world.
A cigar is, however, even in Undervelier, a cigar; and the best cost a
penny. One of these, therefore, I bought, and then I went out smoking
it into the village square, and, finding a low wall, leaned over it
and contemplated the glorious clear green water tumbling and roaring
along beneath it on the other side; for a little river ran through the
village.
As I leaned there resting and communing I noticed how their church,
close at hand, was built along the low banks of the torrent. I admired
the luxuriance of the grass these waters fed, and the generous arch of
the trees beside it.
