Page:The Revolt of the Angels v2.djvu/94

 win dominion over Heaven, the most beautiful of the Seraphim revolted through pride. As for me, it is science that has inspired me with the generous desire for freedom. Finding myself near you, Maurice, in a house containing one of the vastest libraries in the world, I acquired a taste for reading and a love of study. While, fordone with the toils of a sensual life, you lay sunk in heavy slumber, I surrounded myself with books, I studied, I pondered over their pages, sometimes in one of the rooms of the library, under the busts of the great men of antiquity, sometimes at the far end of the garden, in the room in the summer-house next to your own.”

On hearing these words, young d’Esparvieu exploded with laughter and beat the pillow with his fist, an infallible sign of uncontrollable mirth.

“ ah! It was you who pillaged papa’s library and drove poor old Sariette off his head. You know, he has become completely idiotic.”

“Busily engaged,” continued the Angel, “in cultivating for myself a sovereign intelligence, I paid no heed to that inferior being, and when he thought to offer obstacles to my researches and to disturb my work I punished him for his importunity.

“One particular winter’s night in the abode of the philosophers and globes I let fall a volume of great weight on his head, which he tried to tear