attractive and affecting aspects than it is creditable to you to depict
the abject condition to which the scornful rigor of your social precepts
may debase him.

I knew that young man and that beautiful child; I knew their story, for
they had a story, everybody has his story, and everybody might arouse
interest in the romance of his own life if he but understood it.
Although a peasant and a simple ploughman, Germain had taken account of
his duties and his affections. He had detailed them to me ingenuously
one day, and I had listened to him with interest. When I had watched him
at work for a considerable time, I asked myself why his story should not
be written, although it was as simple, as straightforward, and as devoid
of ornament as the furrow he made with his plough.

Next year that furrow will be filled up and covered by a new furrow.
Thus the majority of men make their mark and disappear in the field of
humanity. A little earth effaces it, and the furrows we have made
succeed one another like graves in the cemetery. Is not the furrow of
the ploughman as valuable as that of the idler, who has a name, however,
a name that will live, if, by reason of some peculiarity or some absurd
exploit, he makes a little noise in the world?

So let us, if we can, rescue from oblivion the furrow of Germain, the
_cunning ploughman_. He will know nothing about it, and will not be
disturbed; but I shall have had a little pleasure in making the attempt.




III