If, on the contrary, man applies that self-destroying energy to the rigorous observance of the laws imposed on him by God and humanity, if he succeeds in thus limiting his career to the fulfilling of his duties, in tracing out for himself a definite and straight road which ends in a hope of immortality, his life becomes logical, and is the natural consequence of the principles which govern him and the goal towards which he aspires. Then all becomes an admirable sequence, each deed has its cause and its effects. Instead of wandering miserably, with neither interest, hope, nor restraint, he advances towards a definite object. False or true, at least he is travelling along a road, and if the magnificent perspectives in which it ends, and on which he gazes so eagerly, are only a dazzling mirage, what does it matter, since this divine and consoling mirage has led him on to the end of his existence, his heart filled with joy, with hope, and with love? Alas! these noble thoughts vainly filled my mind; I felt neither the desire nor the energy to follow them. So that I fell again with all the weight of my dejection into the void. I understood my disease, but had not the courage to try to cure it. I acted with the weakness of those sick people who, stubborn in their sufferings, obstinately prefer a constant pain to the heroic but beneficent action of the knife or the fire. I led a miserable life; in the daytime I closed my door to the few visitors that my reserve and selfish happiness had not alienated. Sometimes I would give myself up to violent exercise, I would ride on horseback, I would have a furious bout at fencing, so as to tire myself out, thinking thus to dull the mind by fatiguing the body. Then when night came, I felt a strange and melancholy pleasure in enveloping myself in a cloak, and thus wandering alone about Paris, especially when the weather was cloudy or stormy. I gave myself up on these occasions to a sort of scornful rage, as ridiculous as it was puerile, whenever I would pass before a splendid residence, or a brightly lit up theatre, where the carriages were rapidly driving up from every direction. I, too, if I desire it, can have my place in these gay salons, amid this splendid and envied throng; if I so willed it my restive horses would now be bearing me to these very fêtes! The existence I scorn would be the joy and pride of most men, and yet, from I know not what caprice, which thus insults the ready-made happiness that fate has bestowed upon me, I prefer to wander thus on foot, dragging my incurable sadness through these muddy streets.