OLD HOUSE, OLD PEOPLE, OLD CUSTOMS
Weary of himself, Godefroid attempted one day to give a meaning to his life, after meeting a former comrade who had been the tortoise in the fable, while he in earlier days had been the hare.In one of those conversations which arise when schoolmates meet again in after years, --a conversation held as they were walking together in the sunshine on the boulevard des Italiens,--he was startled to learn the success of a man endowed apparently with less gifts, less means, less fortune than himself; but who had bent his will each morning to the purpose resolved upon the night before.The sick soul then determined to imitate that simple action.
"Social existence is like the soil," his comrade had said to him; "it makes us a return in proportion to our efforts."Godefroid was in debt.As a first test, a first task, he resolved to live in some retired place, and pay his debts from his income.To a man accustomed to spend six thousand francs when he had but five, it was no small undertaking to bring himself to live on two thousand.
Every morning he studied advertisements, hoping to find the offer of some asylum where his expenses could be fixed, where he might have the solitude a man wants when he makes a return upon himself, examines himself, and endeavors to give himself a vocation.The manners and customs of bourgeois boarding-houses shocked his delicacy, sanitariums seemed to him unhealthy, and he was about to fall back into the fatal irresolution of persons without will, when the following advertisement met his eye:--"To Let.A small lodging for seventy francs a month; suitable for an ecclesiastic.A quiet tenant desired.Board supplied; the rooms can be furnished at a moderate cost if mutually acceptable.