"
"That will suffice, monsieur; I will think of it. And now,
enough!"
The dismissal was so imperious that M. Fortunat bowed and went
off, completely bewildered by this denouement. "She's crazy!" he
said to himself. "Crazy in the fullest sense of the word. She
refuses the count's millions from a silly fear of telling people
that she belongs to the Chalusse family. She threatened her
brother, but she would never have carried her threats into
execution. And she prefers her present position to such a
fortune. What lunacy!" But, although he was disappointed and
angry, he did not by any means despair. "Fortunately for me," he
thought, "this proud and haughty lady has a son somewhere in the
world. And she'll do for him what she would not consent to do for
herself. Through her, with a little patience and Victor Chupin's
aid, I shall succeed in discovering this boy. He must be an
intelligent youth--and we'll see if he surrenders his millions as
easily as his mamma does."
XVI.
It is a terrible task to break suddenly with one's past, without
even having had time for preparation; to renounce the life one has
so far lived, to return to the starting point, and begin existence
anew; to abandon everything--the position one has gained, the work
one has become familiar with, every fondly cherished hope, and
friend, and habit; to forsake the known to plunge into the
unknown, to leave the certain for the uncertain, and desert light
for darkness; to cast one's identity aside, assume a strange
individuality, become a living lie, change name, position, face,
and clothes--in one phrase, to cease to be one's self, in order to
become some one else.
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