Along a street of the capital is skipping a man who is still young.--His
movements are cheerful, alert; his eyes are beaming, his lips are
smiling, his sensitive face is pleasantly rosy.... He is all contentment
and joy.
What has happened to him? Has he come into an inheritance? Has he been
elevated in rank? Is he hastening to a love tryst? Or, simply, has he
breakfasted well, and is it a sensation of health, a sensation of
full-fed strength which is leaping for joy in all his limbs? Or they may
have hung on his neck thy handsome, eight-pointed cross, O Polish King
Stanislaus!
No. He has concocted a calumny against an acquaintance, he has
assiduously disseminated it, he has heard it--that same calumny--from
the mouth of another acquaintance--and _has believed it himself_.
Oh, how contented, how good even at this moment is that nice,
highly-promising young man.
February, 1878.