"But still, my dear Count," replied the Chevalier, "you seem still to approach to my argument, while you deny its force. If such be the result of satiety, as you say it is, namely, to lead us to the aspiration after higher enjoyments, till those aspirations point to another world, surely it is better to arrive at that result as soon as possible."
"No," replied the Count; "in the first place, I did not say that such was the result of satiety; I said that it was the result of discovering by experience the insufficiency of all earthly enjoyments to give perfect satisfaction to a high and immortal spirit and well-regulated mind. Satiety I hold to be quite the reverse of this; I hold it to be the degradation of our faculties of enjoyment, either by excessive indulgence, or by evil direction. The man who follows such a course of life as to produce any chance of reaching satiety, tends downward instead of upward, to lower rather than to higher pleasures, and exhausts his own capabilities, not the blessings of God. The opposite course produces the opposite result; we know and learn that all God's creations afford us some enjoyment, although we know and learn, at the same time, that it has been his will that none of those enjoyments upon earth should give complete and final satisfaction. Our capabilities of enjoying by enjoying properly are not blunted but acuminated; we fly from satiety instead of approaching it; and even while we learn to aspire to higher things, we lose not a particle of the power--except by the natural decay of our faculties--of enjoying even the slight foretaste that Heaven has given us here."
"Solomon, Solomon, Solomon!" said his companion, "Solomon was evidently a misanthrope either by nature or by satiety. He had seen every thing under the sun, and he pronounced every thing vanity--ay, lighter than vanity itself."
"And he was right," replied the Count; "every thing is lighter than vanity itself, when comparing the things of this world with the things of eternity. But you know," he added with a smile, "that we Huguenots, as you call us, acknowledge no authority against the clear operation of reason, looking upon no man as perfect but one. If you were to tell me that it was right to put a friend in a dangerous place where he was sure to be killed for the purpose of marrying his widow, I should not a bit more believe that it was right, because David had done it; and even if you were to prove to me that through the whole writings of Solomon there was not, as I believe there is, a continual comparison between earthly things and heavenly things, I should still say that you were in the wrong; the satiety that he felt being a just punishment upon him for the excesses he committed and the follies to which he gave way, and by no means a proof of his wisdom, any more than those follies and excesses themselves. Long before we have exhausted the manifold pleasures which Heaven has given us here by moderate and virtuous enjoyment--long before we have even discovered by experience the insufficiency of one half that we may properly enjoy, the span of man's life is finished; and at the gates of death he may think himself happy, if, while he has learnt to desire the more perfect enjoyment of heavenly things, he has not rendered himself unfit for that enjoyment, by having depraved his faculties to satiety by excess."
"Well, well," said the Chevalier, seeing that his friend spoke earnestly, "I am afraid I must give up Solomon, Albert. If I remember right, the man had some hundreds of wives or so; and I am sure he might well cry out that all is vanity after that. I wonder they did not all fall upon him at once, and smother him under looking-glasses and bonbonnières."
The Count saw that his friend turned the matter into a joke, and, from his long acquaintance with him, he doubted not that he had been carrying on the discussion from first to last for sport. He was not angry or cross about it; but, of an eager and of an earnest disposition, he could not play with subjects of value, like an unconscious child tossing jewels to and fro, and he remained thoughtful for some time. While the Chevalier continued to jest upon a thousand things, sometimes connecting one joke with another in rapid and long succession, sometimes pausing for a moment or two, and taking his next subject from any accidental circumstance in their ride or feature in the scene around, the Count gradually resumed the conversation upon indifferent matters. Having only in view, however, in any extracts that we may give from their conversation, either to forward the progress of their history or to display the peculiar character of each, we shall dwell no longer upon their words during the rest of the ride to a little village, some seventeen miles from the château, where they stayed a moment to water their horses. The Count was looking down, watching the animals drink; but the Chevalier, who was gazing at every thing in the place, suddenly exclaimed,
"Surely there cannot be two such ugly heads as that in France! The Abbé Pelisson, as I live! Why, Monsieur Pelisson," he exclaimed, advancing till he was directly under the window from which the head of the Abbé was protruded, "how have you stuck here by the way?"
"Alas! my good sir," replied the Abbé, "the fright of the day before yesterday had such an effect upon my poor companion de St. Helie, that he was quite unable to proceed. He is better this afternoon, and we shall set out in an hour, after he has taken something to refresh him and give him strength."
"You will overtake us at our next lodging," said the Chevalier.
"Oh no, we shall pass you far," replied the Abbé. "We shall still have five hours' light, and as we travel by post, we may calculate upon going between five and six miles an hour."
The Count on his part made no comment, but merely nodded his head to Pelisson; and when the Chevalier's brief conversation was at an end, they rode on. The village which they had fixed upon for their resting-place that night was a large straggling open collection of houses, which had grown up on either side of the wide road, simply because it happened to be at a convenient distance from many other places. The buildings were scattered, and separated by large gardens or courts, and the inn itself was in fact the only respectable dwelling in the place, having been an old brick-built country seat in former days, with the walls that defended it from attack still standing round the court, the windows rattling and quivering with the wind and their antiquity, the rooms wide and lofty, and perhaps a little cheerless, and the kitchen, which formed the entrance, as black as the smoke of many generations could render it.
The whole house was prepared to meet the Count de Morseiul, his coming having been announced by the servants sent on with the horses; and did ducks and fowls in various countries write the histories of their several races, that morning would have been memorable for the massacre that took place, and only be comparable to the day of St. Bartholomew. But the culinary art was great in France then as it is now, and the cook, knowing that she had a difficult task to perform, exerted her utmost ingenuity to render tough poultry tender, and insipid viands savoury, for the distinguished guest that was to dine and sleep within those walls. Though the preparations had been begun at an early hour, yet they were by no means concluded when the party arrived; and while Jerome Riquet plunged into the kitchen, and communicated to the cook a thousand secrets from the vast stores of his own mind, the Count and his friend gazed forth from the window of a high, wide, square-shaped room over the wide prospect, which lay in gentle undulations beneath their eyes, with the road that they themselves had just passed taking, as it were, a standing leap over each of the little hills that it met with in its way.
The day had been remarkably fine during the earlier portion thereof, but towards three o'clock clouds had come over, not indeed veiling the sky under a sheet of sombre grey, but fleeting lightly across the blue expanse, like the momentary cares of infancy, and passing away, after dropping a few large tears, which the joyful sun dried up again the moment after. As the Count and his friend gazed forth, however, a heavier shower was seen sweeping over the prospect, the sky became quite covered, a grey mist--through which, however, a yellow gleam was seen, saying that the summer night was not far off,--advanced over wood and field, and hill and dale, and dashing down with all the impetuous and short-lived fury of an angry boy, the cloud poured forth its burden on the earth. While yet it was raging in its utmost wrath, the plain carriage of Pelisson and his companions was seen rolling slowly onward towards the village, with coachman and lackey holding down the drenched head towards the storm, and shading the defenceless neck. All the windows of the vehicle were closed, in order, if possible, to keep out the wind and rain; but constructed as carriages were in those days, there was no great protection to be found in them from the breath or the drops of heaven; and, as the rumbling vehicle approached the village, the head of Pelisson was seen suddenly thrust forth on the safest side, shouting