Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 2).djvu/239

Rh like the yellow flowers of the meadow, which the first blast uproots. Where is Euphemie? Where Lucy, where our tears and sighs of those days? You have become a little old man in an instant: and, is it not true, that those youthful feelings appeal to you even now sometimes, but like dumb children, with their countenances? Now perform a little bit of a miracle with your superabundant love, and awaken these dead again which lie here in our way. But the question is, whether they would thank you for it, since they have once made a step to the other side, though rather in a neck-breaking manner; for if examined closely, that so called life is a cursedly tedious and base affair, and if one is to expect jokes like these every day, such as have been practised on these fellows here, then really one must be damnably sunk in bad habits, not to put an end to this miserable existence by a single gash on the throat. But thus indeed are we all.