"If I have the honor of being loved for the poem of my heart, if some
day such love may make a woman think me only slightly deformed, I ask
you, mademoiselle, shall I not be happier than the handsomest of men,
--as happy as a man of genius beloved by some celestial being like
yourself."
The color which suffused the young girl's face told the cripple nearly
all he sought to know.
"Well, if that be so," he went on, "if we enrich the one we love, if
we please the spirit and withdraw the body, is not that the way to
make one's self beloved? At any rate it is the dream of your poor
dwarf,--a dream of yesterday; for to-day your mother gives me the key
to future wealth by promising me the means of buying a practice. But
before I become another Gobenheim, I seek to know whether this dream
could be really carried out. What do you say, mademoiselle, _you_?"
Modeste was so astonished that she did not notice the question. The
trap of the lover was much better baited than that of the soldier, for
the poor girl was rendered speechless.
"Poor Butscha!" whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband. "Do you
think he is going mad?"
"You want to realize the story of Beauty and the Beast," said Modeste
at length; "but you forget that the Beast turned into Prince
Charming.
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