How astounded were Lacoste and the priest as each found again a friend of his youth in the other. "You are then that pious, sighing, youth," exclaimed Lacoste in amazement, who in the eyes of his Euphemie would see and find the whole Empyraeum? We now wander afar over the flowers of your religious elysium. But tread firmly, for these eyes and noses no longer feel our heels, these faces are only the discarded masks, which still lie about from yesterday's gala. Yes, these masqueraders have destroyed much clothing, that can never be mended again, they have been reduced to tatters at once by extravagant insolence. Aye! aye! Edmond, your reverend cordelier, his hair is become white since then, like the yellow flowers of the meadow, which the first blast uproots. Where is Euphemie? Where Lucy, where our tears and sighs of those days? You have become a little old man in an instant: and, is it not true, that those youthful feelings appeal to you even now sometimes, but like dumb children, with their countenances? Now perform a little bit of a miracle with your superabundant love, and awaken these dead again which lie here in our way. But the question is, whether they would thank you for it, since they have once made a step to the other side, though rather in a neck-breaking manner; for if examined closely, that so called life is a cursedly tedious and base affair, and if one is to expect jokes like these every day, such as have been practised on these fellows here, then really one must be damnably sunk in bad habits, not to put an end to this miserable existence by a single gash on the throat. But thus indeed are we all.