* * * * * "Well," she said to me, "I have read your argument in favour of wild beasts; but how did two persons so well fitted to understand each other finally come out?" "Ah! there you are! It ended as all great passions do, by a misunderstanding. Each believes in some treachery; one refrains from explaining from pride, the other quarrels from obstinacy." "And sometimes, at the happiest moment," she said; "a glance, an exclamation is enough--well, finish your story." "It is very difficult, but you will understand what the old veteran had already confided to me, when, as he finished his bottle of champagne, he exclaimed: "'I don't know how I hurt her, but she turned as if she had gone mad, and wounded my thigh with her sharp teeth--a slight wound. I, thinking that she meant to devour me, plunged my dagger into her throat. She rolled over with a cry which tore my soul; I saw her struggle, gazing at me without a trace of anger. I would have given anything in the world, even my cross, which I had not then earned, to restore her to life again. It was as if I had murdered a human being; and the soldiers who had seen my flag and who hurried to my rescue found me weeping. Well, monsieur,' he continued, after a moment's silence, 'since then I have fought in Germany, Spain, Russia, and France; I have marched my poor old bones about, but I have seen nothing comparable to the desert. Ah, that is magnificent, I tell you!' "'What were your feelings there?' I asked. "'Oh, they cannot be told, young man. Besides, I do not always regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is all--and yet nothing.' "'Stay!--explain that.' "'Well, then,' he said, with a gesture of impatience, 'God is there, and man is not.'" 1830. End of Project Gutenberg's Little French Masterpieces, by Honoré de Balzac