"
"Monsieur, I love her too well not to have felt a knife in my heart
when I heard her contradicting her own perfections."
"Canalis supported her."
"If she had more self-love than heart there would be nothing for a man
to regret in losing her," answered La Briere.
At this moment, Modeste, followed by Canalis, who had lost the rubber,
came out with her father and Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of
the starry night. While his daughter walked about with the poet,
Charles Mignon left her and came up to La Briere.
"Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a lawyer," he said, smiling
and looking attentively at the young man.
"You must not judge a poet as you would an ordinary man,--as you would
me, for example, Monsieur le comte," said La Briere. "A poet has a
mission. He is obliged by his nature to see the poetry of questions,
just as he expresses that of things. When you think him inconsistent
with himself he is really faithful to his vocation. He is a painter
copying with equal truth a Madonna and a courtesan. Moliere is as true
to nature in his old men as in his young ones, and Moliere's judgment
was assuredly a sound and healthy one.
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