THE WORLD, OR WHAT THE RICH LACK I am alone in the world. No one deigns to spare me a thought. All those whom I see make their fortune, have an insolence and hardness of heart which I do not feel in myself. They hate me by reason of kindness and good-humour. Oh, I shall die soon, either from starvation or the unhappiness of seeing men so hard of heart.--_Young_. He hastened to brush his clothes and run down. He was late. Instead of trying to justify himself Julien crossed his arms over his breast. "Peccavi pater optime (I have sinned, I confess my fault, oh, my father)," he said with a contrite air. This first speech was a great success. The clever ones among the seminarists saw that they had to deal with a man who knew something about the elements of the profession. The recreation hour arrived, and Julien saw that he was the object of general curiosity, but he only manifested reserved silence. Following the maxims he had laid down for himself, he considered his three hundred and twenty-one comrades as enemies. The most dangerous of all in his eyes was the abbé Pirard. A few days afterwards Julien had to choose a confessor, and was given a list. "Great heavens! what do they take me for?" he said to himself. "Do they think I don't understand what's what?" Then he chose the abbé Pirard. This step proved decisive without his suspecting it. A little seminarist, who was quite young and a native of Verrières, and who had declared himself his friend since the first day, informed him that he would probably have acted more prudently if he had chosen M. Castanède, the sub-director of the seminary. "The abbé Castanède is the enemy of Pirard, who is suspected of Jansenism," added the little seminarist in a whisper. All the first steps of our hero were, in spite of the prudence on which he plumed himself, as much mistakes as his choice of a confessor. Misled as he was by all the self-confidence of a man of imagination, he took his projects for facts, and believed that he was a consummate hypocrite. His folly went so far as to reproach himself for his success in this kind of weakness. "Alas, it is my only weapon," he said to himself. "At another period I should have earned my livelihood by eloquent deeds in the face of the enemy." Satisfied as he was with his own conduct, Julien looked around him. He found everywhere the appearance of the purest virtue.