Yet out of them, sure of some response, human heart did break:--in
and around Camille Pontdormi, for instance, brilliant and ambitious,
yet so sensitive about his threadbare home, concerning which however
he had made the whole company, one by one, his confidants--so loyal
to the people there, bursting into wild tears over the letter which
brought the news of his younger brother's death, visibly fretting
over it long afterwards. Still, for the most part, in their perfect
health, nothing seemed to reach them but their own boyish ordinances,
their own arbitrary "form." It was an absolute indifference; most
striking when they lifted their well-trained voices to sing in choir,
vacant as the sparrows, while the eloquent, far-reaching, aspiring
words floated melodiously from them, sometimes, with truly medieval
license, singing to the sacred music those songs from the streets (no
one cared to detect) which were really in their hearts. A world of
vanity and appetite, yet after all of honesty with itself! Like
grown people, they were but playing a game, and meant to observe its
rules.
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