"What makes you look so solemn?" said the medical student, putting an
arm through Eugene's as they went towards the Palais.
"I am tormented by temptations."
"What kind? There is a cure for temptation."
"What?"
"Yielding to it."
"You laugh, but you don't know what it is all about. Have you read
Rousseau?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember that he asks the reader somewhere what he would do if
he could make a fortune by killing an old mandarin somewhere in China
by mere force of wishing it, and without stirring from Paris?"
"Yes."
"Well, then?"
"Pshaw! I am at my thirty-third mandarin."
"Seriously, though. Look here, suppose you were sure that you could do
it, and had only to give a nod. Would you do it?"
"Is he well stricken in years, this mandarin of yours? Pshaw! after
all, young or old, paralytic, or well and sound, my word for it.
. . . Well, then. Hang it, no!"
"You are a good fellow, Bianchon. But suppose you loved a woman well
enough to lose your soul in hell for her, and that she wanted money
for dresses and a carriage, and all her whims, in fact?"
"Why, here you are taking away my reason, and want me to reason!"
"Well, then, Bianchon, I am mad; bring me to my senses.
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