enerable convict; it is I, it is always I and nothing but I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms of egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think a little about others?
The highest holiness is to think of others; come, let us examine the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_ forgotten, what would be the result of all this?
What if I denounce myself?
I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back in the galleys; that is well-- and what then?
What is going on here?
Ah! here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers, both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people!
All this I have created; all these I provide with their living; everywhere where there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on the hearth and meat in the pot; I have created ease, circulation, credit; before me there was nothing; I have elevated, vivified, informed with life, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole country-side; lacking me, the soul is lacking; I take myself off, everything dies: and this woman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spite of her fall; the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been!
And that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to her mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens?