Page:Zanoni.djvu/90

60 The lawyer paused, out of breath. The stranger regarded him fixedly and turned pale.

"You change countenance, sir," said Dumas; "you do not agree with me."

"Pardon me, I was at that moment repressing a vague fear which seemed prophetic."

"And that"

"Was that we should meet again, when your opinions on Death and the philosophy of Revolutions might be different."

"Never!"

"You enchant me, cousin Réné," said the old man, who had listened to his relation with delight. " Ah, I see you have proper sentiments of justice and philanthropy. Why did I not seek to know you before? You admire the Revolution? — you, equally with me, detest the barbarity of kings and the fraud of priests?"

"Detest! How could I love mankind if I did not?"

"And," said the old man, hesitatingly, "you do not think, with this noble gentleman, that I erred in the precepts I instilled into that wretched man?"

"Erred! Was Socrates to blame if Alcibiades was an adulterer and a traitor?"

"You hear him — you hear him! But Socrates had also a Plato; henceforth you shall be a Plato to me. You hear him?" exclaimed the old man, turning to the stranger.

But the latter was at the threshold. Who shall argue with the most stubborn of all bigotries — the fanaticism of unbelief?