It became
known to us that Marcas did not utter fifteen sentences in a month; he
never talked to anybody, nor said a word to himself in his dreadful
garret.
"The Ruins of Palmyra are terribly silent!" said Juste.
This taciturnity in a man whose appearance was so imposing was
strangely significant. Sometimes when we met him, we exchanged glances
full of meaning on both sides, but they never led to any advances.
Insensibly this man became the object of our secret admiration, though
we knew no reason for it. Did it lie in his secretly simple habits,
his monastic regularity, his hermit-like frugality, his idiotically
mechanical labor, allowing his mind to remain neuter or to work on his
own lines, seeming to us to hint at an expectation of some stroke of
good luck, or at some foregone conclusion as to his life?
After wandering for a long time among the Ruins of Palmyra, we forgot
them--we were young! Then came the Carnival, the Paris Carnival,
which, henceforth, will eclipse the old Carnival of Venice, unless
some ill-advised Prefect of Police is antagonistic.
Gambling ought to be allowed during the Carnival; but the stupid
moralists who have had gambling suppressed are inert financiers, and
this indispensable evil will be re-established among us when it is
proved that France leaves millions at the German tables.
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