Sir, if you had said that to me a month ago, I should have had nothing to say; but after what happened to me last month, all my ideas have changed. I will not speak of my old thoughts except to make you understand in what way I have changed.--Now, gentlemen, since thirty days I feel that I am an original, unique being, with a very singular destiny.--So, gentlemen, you can deduct that before I felt the contrary, I lived a perfectly ordinary life and made it my business to be as commonplace as possible. Now, however, I must admit that a commonplace man does not exist, and I affirm that it is a vain ambition to try to resemble everybody, for everybody is composed of each one, and each one does not resemble anybody. But never mind, I took the greatest pains to put things right; I drew up statistics; I calculated the happy medium--without understanding that extremes meet, that he who goes to bed very late comes across him who gets up very early, and that he who chooses the happy medium risks to fall between two stools.--Every night I went to bed at ten. I slept eight hours and a half. I was most careful in all my actions to copy the majority, and in all my thoughts the most approved opinions. Useless to insist. But one day a personal adventure happened to me, the importance of which in the life of a well-ordered man as I was can only be understood later on. It is a precedent; it is terrible. And I received it. III Just imagine, one morning I received a letter. Gentlemen, I see by your lack of astonishment that I am telling my story very badly. I should have told you first that I did not expect any letters. I receive exactly two a year: one from my landlord to ask for the rent, and one from my bankers to inform me that I can pay it; but on the first of January I received a third letter.... I cannot tell you where from. The address was in an unknown hand. The complete lack of character shown in the writing, which was revealed to me by graphologists, whom I consulted, gave me no clue. The only indication the writing gave was one of great kindness; and here again certain of them inferred weakness. They could make nothing of it. The writing ... I speak, you understand, of the writing on the envelope; for in the envelope there was none; none--not a word, not a line. In the envelope there was nothing but a bank-note of £20.