I will never go
back to my native place, if I ever do go back, unless I am a rich man.
Paris is the antechamber of Paradise. They tell me that you who write
the newspapers can make, as they say, "fine weather and foul"; that
is, you have things all your own way, and it's enough to ask your help
to get any place, no matter what, under government. Now, though I have
faculties, like others, I know myself: I have no education; I don't
know how to write, and that's a misfortune, for I have ideas. I am not
seeking, therefore, to be your rival; I judge myself, and I know I
couldn't succeed there. But, as you are so powerful, and as we are
almost brothers, having played together in childhood, I count upon you
to launch me in a career and to protect me-- Oh, you MUST; I want a
place, a place suitable to my capacity, to such as I am, a place were
I can make my fortune.' Massol was just about to put his compatriot
neck and crop out of the door with some brutal speech, when the rustic
ended his appeal thus: 'I don't ask to enter the administration where
people advance like tortoises--there's your cousin, who has stuck in
one post for twenty years. No, I only want to make my debut.'--'On the
stage?' asked Massol only too happy at that conclusion.--'No, though I
have gesture enough, and figure, and memory.
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