During the last week, I have seen him three times. He has given me no cause for complaint; he works, he reflects; his judgment is forming, not a moment of ill-humor; he is calm, docile, and gentle as a lamb. Yes, but it is this excess of gentleness which disturbs me. There is something unnatural to me, in his condition, and I am forced to regret the absence of those transports, and the childishness of which I have endeavored to cure him. "Stephane, you have become too unlike yourself. But a short time since, your feet hardly touched the ground; lively, impetuous, and violent, there came from your lips by turns flashes of merriment or of anger, and in an instant you passed from enthusiasm to despair; but in our recent interviews I could scarcely recognize you. No more freaks of the rebellious child; no more of those familiarities which I loved! Your glances, even, as they meet mine, seem less assured; sometimes they wander over me doubtfully, and from the surprise they express, I am inclined to believe that my figure must have grown some cubits, and you can no longer take it in at a glance. And then those sighs which escape you! Besides, you no longer complain of anything; your existence seems to have become a stranger to you. It must be that without my knowledge--" Ah! unhappy child, I will know. You shall speak; you shall tell me. . . . September 10. Heavens! what a flood of light! Father Alexis, you did not tell me all! The more I think of it. . . . Ah! Gilbert, what scales covered your eyes! Yesterday I carried him that copy of the poem of the Metamorphoses, which I had promised him. A few fragments that I had repeated to him had inspired him with the desire of reading the whole piece, not from the book, but copied in my hand. We read it together, distich by distich. I translated, explained, and commented. When we arrived at these verses: "May you only remember how the tie which first united our souls was a germ from which grew in time a sweet and charming intimacy, and soon friendship revealed its power in our hearts, until love, coming last, crowned it with flowers and with fruit--" At these words he became agitated and trembled violently. "Do not let us go any further," said he, pushing the paper away. "That is poetry enough for this evening." Then leaning upon the table, he opened and turned the leaves of his herbarium; but his eyes and his thoughts were elsewhere. Suddenly he rose, took a few steps in the room, and then returning to me: "Do you think that friendship can change into love?" "Goethe says so; we must believe it." He took a flower from the table, looked at it a moment and dropping it on the floor, he murmured, lowering his eyes: "I am an ignoramus; tell me what is this love?" "It is the folly of friendship." "Have you ever been foolish?" "No, and I do not imagine I ever shall be."