--Gentlemen, cried Prometheus, I beseech you to stay, it will not be very long now; but the most important thing of all remains to be said, if I have not already persuaded you.... Gentlemen!--for goodness’ sake.... Here! quickly: a few fireworks; I will keep the best for the end.... Gentlemen!--sit down again, I pray you; look: do not think I want to economize: I light six at a time.--But first, waiter, shut the doors. The fireworks were more or less effective. Nearly every one sat down again. --But where was I? cried Prometheus. I counted upon getting under weigh; disturbance has checked me. --So much the better, cried some one. --Ah! I know ... continued Prometheus. I wished to tell you again.... --Enough! enough!! cried voices from all parts of the hall. ... That you must love your eagle. Several cried “Why?” ironically. --I hear, gentlemen, some one asks me “Why?” I reply: Because then he will become beautiful. --But if we become ugly? --Gentlemen, I do not speak here words of self-interest.... --One can see that. --They are words of self-devotion. Gentlemen, one must devote oneself to one’s eagle.... (Agitation--many get up.) Gentlemen, do not move: I will be personal. It is not necessary to remind you of the history of Cocles and Damocles.--All here know it. Well--Well! I will tell them to their faces: the secret of their lives is in their self-devotion to their debt: You, Cocles, to your blow; you, Damocles, to your bank-note. Cocles, your duty was to make your scar deeper and your empty orbit emptier, oh! Cocles! yours, Damocles, to keep your bank-note, to continue owing it, owing it without shame, owing even more, owing it with joy. There is your eagle; there are other and more glorious ones. But I tell you this: the eagle will devour us anyway--vice or virtue--duty or passion,--cease to be commonplace and you cannot escape it. But.... (Here the voice of Prometheus was barely heard in the tumult)--but if you do not feed your eagle lovingly he will remain grey and miserable, invisible to all and sly; then you will call him conscience, not worthy of the torments he causes; without beauty.--Gentlemen, you must love your eagle, love him to make him beautiful; for it is for his future beauty that you must love your eagle.... Now I have finished, gentlemen, my eagle will make the collection. Gentlemen, you must love my eagle.--In the meantime I will let off some fireworks.... * * * * * Thanks to the pyrotechnic diversion, the assembly dispersed without too much trouble; but Damocles took cold on coming out of the hall. THE ILLNESS OF DAMOCLES I --You know that he is not at all well, said the waiter, seeing Prometheus a few days later. --Who? --Damocles--Oh! very bad:--it was coming out after your lecture that he was taken ill.... --But what is the matter? --The doctors hesitate;--it is a very unusual illness ... a shrinkage of the spine.... --The spine?