"I will be brief, messieurs: I was determined to write; I wrote novels, I wrote for the stage; my plays have had more success than I dared hope; in that respect, fortune has constantly favored me, and I earn a good deal of money. But I have been less fortunate in love; I have loved women ardently; and when they told me that they loved me alone, I believed it until I had proof to the contrary; but I have had that proof so often that I am completely disillusioned. Thereupon I set about studying the sex; I discovered that all women are coquettes, and consequently that there is no dependence to be placed on their fidelity; that made me a misanthrope, or rather a misogynist, for some time; but then I said to myself that I must take the world as it is, and content myself with forming liaisons with women which have no other end than mere sensual pleasure. However, I am sure that I was born to love truly, and that it would have made me perfectly happy to be loved truly in return. That is where I stand: I have succeeded, so far as vanity and wealth are concerned, but I have not succeeded according to the longing of my heart; and, in my opinion, a man has not arrived when he is not happy." "Very good!" cried Dodichet; "now it's my turn. I am very different from Adhémar, messieurs, in that I am very happy; for I pass my life enjoying myself. However, I must agree that I have not as yet a well-defined position; I have followed so many trades that you might call me an all-around man. I have had places, in the government service and elsewhere; but I have kept none of them--I don't know why; yes, I ought to say, I do know why. Impelled by my irresistible tendency to jest, I was forever trying to invent some amusing trick to play. When I was a clerk in a fancy goods shop, I succeeded in mixing up all the different things, putting on one shelf what should have been put on another, so that, when customers came, nothing was ever in its place; my employers shouted and swore, and I roared with laughter. As clerk in one of the government bureaux, I had for chief a gentleman who never sat down except on one of those round leather cushions which facilitate respiration. One day, I abstracted that well-padded cushion, and substituted for it one that contained nothing but air; when my chief sank luxuriously into his easy-chair, the cushion burst and flattened out, with a very compromising explosion. This trifling peccadillo caused me to lose that place; there are people whose minds--I should say, whose behinds--are so ill-fashioned! I must confess that, during these various adventures, instead of earning money, I spent all my inheritances little by little. But I still have some wealthy kinsmen; I am going to reform; I have found my real vocation: the stage. Yes, messieurs; I am destined to shine some day on the stage. I have not yet reached that point, it is true; but you will see me there; and I propose that you come to this