After dinner he went and sat at his shop-door, and looked at thefirst star that peeped out in the evening sky.
"My boy," said he, "I am not a man of learning like you; butI have a notion--and you must not rob me of it, because it isa comfort to me--that, when I have finished binding books, Ishall go to that star. The idea occurred to me from what I haveread in the paper that the stars are all worlds. What is thatstar called?""Venus, father.""In my part of the world, they say it is the shepherd's star.
It's a beautiful star, and I think your mother is there. Thatis why I should like to go there."The old man passed his knotted fingers across his brow, murmuring:
"God forgive me, how one forgets those who are gone!"Jean sought balm for his wounded spirit in reading poetry and inlong, dreamy walks. His head was filled with visions--a welter ofsublime imaginings, in which floated such figures as Ophelia andCassandra, Gretchen, Delia, Ph?dra, Manon Lescaut, and Virginia,and hovering amid these, shadows still nameless, still almostformless, and yet full of seduction! Holding bowls and daggersand trailing long veils, they came and went, faded and grew vividwith colour. And Jean could hear them calling to him; "If everwe win to life, it will be through you. And what a bliss it willbe for you, Jean Servien, to have created us. How you will loveus!" And Jean Servien would answer them; "Come back, come back,or rather do not leave me. But I cannot tell how to make youvisible; you vanish away when I gaze at you, and I cannot netyou in the meshes of beautiful verse!"Again and again he tried to write poems, tragedies, romances;but his indolence, his lack of ideas, his fastidiousness broughthim to a standstill before half a dozen lines were written, andhe would toss the all but virgin page into the fire. Quicklydiscouraged, he turned his attention to politics. The funeralof Victor Noir, the Belleville risings, the _plébiscite_, filledhis thoughts; he read the papers, joined the groups that gatheredon the boulevards, followed the yelping pack of white blouses,and was one of the crowd that hooted the Commissary of Police ashe read the Riot Act. Disorder and uproar intoxicated him; hisheart beat as if it would burst his bosom, his enthusiasm roseto fever pitch, amid these stupid exhibitions of mob violence.
Then to end up, after tramping the streets with other gaping idlerstill late at night, he would make his way back, with weary limbsand aching ribs, his head whirling confusedly with bombast andloud talk, through the sleeping city to the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
There, as he strode past some aristocratic mansion and saw thescutcheon blazoned on its fa?ade and the two lions lying whitein the moonlight on guard before its closed portal, he wouldcast a look of hatred at the building. Presently, as he resumedhis march, he would picture himself standing, musket in hand, ona barricade, in the smoke of insurrection, along with workmenand young fellows from the schools, as we see it all representedin lithographs.
One day in July, he saw a troop of white blouses moving alongthe boulevard and shouting: "To Berlin!" Ragamuffin street-boysran yelping round. Respectable citizens lined the sidewalks,staring in wonder, and saying nothing; but one of them, a stout,tall, red-faced man, waved his hat and shouted:
"To Berlin! long live the Emperor!"Jean recognized Monsieur Bargemont.