Page 283 sur 896

"Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable."

"--or twenty years hence--"

"You do me too much honour," said the Marquis; "still, I prefer

that supposition."

"--I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is

little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and

ruin!"

"Hah!" said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.

"To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity,

under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of

waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,

hunger, nakedness, and suffering."

"Hah!" said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.