"
"Adieu, thou old carcase!" I said to myself; "adieu, thou walking
marriage! Adieu, thou stick of a burnt-out fire-work! Adieu, thou
machine! Although I have given thee from time to time some glimpses of
people dear to me, old family portraits,--back with you to the picture
dealer's shop, to Madame de T-----, and all the rest of them; take
your place round the bier with undertaker's mutes, for all I care!"
MEDITATION XXX.
CONCLUSION.
A recluse, who was credited with the gift of second sight, having
commanded the children of Israel to follow him to a mountain top in
order to hear the revelation of certain mysteries, saw that he was
accompanied by a crowd which took up so much room on the road that,
prophet as he was, his _amour-propre_ was vastly tickled.
But as the mountain was a considerable distance off, it happened that
at the first halt, an artisan remembered that he had to deliver a new
pair of slippers to a duke and peer, a publican fell to thinking how
he had some specie to negotiate, and off they went.
A little further on two lovers lingered under the olive trees and
forgot the discourse of the prophet; for they thought that the
promised land was the spot where they stood, and the divine word was
heard when they talked to one another.
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