She can’t understand that those are the only lessons that interest me; yes, the only lessons I really care about … giving. I have taken to reflecting a great deal lately. Here! there’s something I should like to ask you. Why is it there is so little about old people in books?… I suppose it’s because old people aren’t able to write themselves and young ones don’t take any interest in them. No one’s interested in an old man.… And yet there are a great many curious things that might be said about them. For instance: there are certain acts in my past life which I’m only just beginning to understand. Yes, I’m just beginning to understand that they haven’t at all the meaning I attached to them in the old days when I did them.… I’ve only just begun to understand that I have been a dupe during the whole of my life. Madame de La Pérouse has fooled me; my son has fooled me; everybody has fooled me; God has fooled me.… ”

The evening was closing in. I could hardly make out my old master’s features; but suddenly the light of the street lamp flashed out and showed me his cheeks glittering with tears. I looked anxiously at first at an odd mark on his temple, like a dint, like a hole; but as he moved a little, the spot changed places and I saw that it was only a shadow cast by a knob of the balustrade. I put my hand on his scraggy arm; he shivered. “You’ll catch cold,” I said. “Really, shan’t we light the fire?… Come along.”

“No, no; one must harden oneself.”

“What? Stoicism?”

“Yes, a little. It’s because my throat was delicate that I never would wear a scarf. I have always struggled with myself.”

“That’s all very well as long as one is victorious; but if one’s body gives way …”

“That would be the real victory.”

He let go my hand and went on: “I was afraid you would go away without coming to see me.”

“Go where?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You travel so much. There’s something I wanted to say to you.… I expect to be going away myself soon.”

“What! are you thinking of travelling?” I asked clumsily, pretending not to understand him, notwithstanding the mysterious solemnity of his voice. He shook his head.

“You know very well what I mean.… Yes, yes. I know it will soon be time. I am beginning to earn less than my keep; and I can’t endure it. There’s a certain point beyond which I have promised myself not to go.”

He spoke in an emotional tone which alarmed me.

“Do you think it is wrong? I have never been able to understand why it was forbidden by religion. I have reflected a great deal latterly. When I was young, I led a very austere life; I used to congratulate myself on my force of character every time I refused a solicitation in the street. I didn’t understand, that when I thought I was freeing myself, in reality I was becoming more and more the slave of my own pride. Every one of these triumphs over myself was another turn of the key in the door of my prison. That’s what I meant just now by saying that God had fooled me. He made me take my pride for virtue. He was laughing at me. It amuses him. I think he plays with us as a cat does with a mouse.