"What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soul
must enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a--mind which can
judge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets too
little rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be getting
to mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance,
it is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, and
madame's body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is
like the sun steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and
the comfortable darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun
in summer-shines, shines, shines like a furnace. Madame's body goes like
that--at the dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls,
growing her strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax;
and then again it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day;
and it rests. So it is with the human soul--I am a philosopher--I think
the soul goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in the
heat of the sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudy
day, when the body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest--the soul
has a rest, which is good for it, m'sieu'.
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