“And you then? Don’t you believe in anything?” asked Olivier sadly, for he was fond of Armand, and his ugliness pained him. “_Jubes renovare dolorem_.... You seem to forget, my dear friend, that my parents wanted to make a pastor of me. They nourished me on pious precepts--fed me up with them, if I may say so.... But finally they were obliged to recognize that I hadn’t the vocation. It’s a pity. I might have made a first-class preacher. But my vocation was to write _The Nocturnal Vase_.” “You poor old thing! If you knew how sorry I am for you!” “You have always had what my father calls ‘a heart of gold’ .... I won’t trespass on it any longer.” He took up his hat. He had almost left the room, when he suddenly turned round: “You haven’t asked after Sarah?” “Because you could tell me nothing that I haven’t heard from Bernard.” “Did he tell you that he had left the pension?” “He told me that your sister Rachel had requested him to leave.” Armand had one hand on the door handle; with his walking-stick in the other, he pushed up the portière. The stick went into a hole in the portière and made it bigger. “Account for it how you will,” said he, and his face became very grave. “Rachel is, I believe, the only person in the world I love and respect. I respect her because she is virtuous. And I always behave in such a way as to offend her virtue. As for Bernard and Sarah, she had no suspicions. It was I who told her the whole thing.... And the oculist said she wasn’t to cry! It’s comic!” “Am I to think you sincere now?” “Yes, I think the most sincere thing about me is a horror--a hatred of everything people call Virtue. Don’t try to understand. You have no idea what a Puritan bringing-up can do to one. It leaves one with an incurable resentment in one’s heart ... to judge by myself,” he added, with a jarring laugh. He put down his hat and went up to the window. “Just look here; on the inside of my lip?” He stooped towards Olivier and lifted up his lip with his finger. “I can’t see anything.” “Yes, you can; there; in the corner.” Olivier saw a whitish spot near the corner. A little uneasily: “It’s a gum-boil,” he said to reassure Armand. But Armand shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t talk nonsense--such a serious fellow as you! A gum-boil’s soft and it goes away. This is hard and gets larger every week. And it gives me a kind of bad taste in my mouth.” “Have you had it long?” “It’s more than a month since I first noticed it. But as the _chef-d’œuvre_ says: ‘_Mon mal vient de plus loin_....’” “Well, old boy, if you’re anxious about it, you had better consult a doctor.” “You don’t suppose I needed your advice for that.” “What did he say?” “I didn’t need your advice to say to myself that I ought to consult a doctor. But all the same, I didn’t consult one, because if it’s what I think, I prefer not to know it.” “It’s idiotic.” “Isn’t it stupid? But so human, my friend, so human....” “The idiotic thing is not to be treated for it.”