She is as young as
innocence, and I am as old as vice."
The unfortunate magistrate felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. He
understood Claire, and excused her. He reproached himself for having
shown her how he suffered; for having cast a shadow upon her life. He
could not forgive himself for having spoken of his love. Ought he not
to have foreseen what had happened?--that she would refuse him, that he
would thus deprive himself of the happiness of seeing her, of hearing
her, and of silently adoring her?
"A young and romantic girl," pursued he, "must have a lover she can
dream of,--whom she can caress in imagination, as an ideal, gratifying
herself by seeing in him every great and brilliant quality, imagining
him full of nobleness, of bravery, of heroism. What would she see,
if, in my absence, she dreamed of me? Her imagination would present me
dressed in a funeral robe, in the depth of a gloomy dungeon, engaged
with some vile criminal. Is it not my trade to descend into all moral
sinks, to stir up the foulness of crime? Am I not compelled to wash
in secrecy and darkness the dirty linen of the most corrupt members of
society? Ah! some professions are fatal.
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