With Albert, he became kind and friendly, and full of the liveliest
compassion. Unfortunate man! how greatly he must suffer, he whose whole
life had been like one long enchantment. How at a single blow everything
about him had fallen in ruins. Who could have foreseen all this at
the time when he was the one hope of a wealthy and illustrious house!
Recalling the past, the magistrate pictured to him the most touching
reminiscences of his early youth, and stirred up the ashes of all
his extinct affections. Taking advantage of all that he knew of the
prisoner's life, he tortured him by the most mournful allusions to
Claire. Why did he persist in bearing alone his great misfortune? Had he
no one in the world who would deem it happiness to share his sufferings?
Why this morose silence? Should he not rather hasten to reassure her
whose very life depended upon his? What was necessary for that? A single
word. Then he would be, if not free, at least returned to the world. His
prison would become a habitable abode, no more solitary confinement; his
friends would visit him, he might receive whomsoever he wished to see.
It was no longer the magistrate who spoke; it was a father, who, no
matter what happens, always keeps in the recesses of his heart, the
greatest indulgence for his child.
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