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Updated: June 27, 2025
Eight o'clock P.M. I found Father Chaufour at a table lighted by a little smoky lamp, without a fire, although it is already cold, and making large pasteboard boxes; he was humming a popular song in a low tone. I had hardly entered the room when he uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. "Eh! is it you, neighbor? Come in, then!
October 16th. The little engraving has made me comprehend better the merits of Father Chaufour, and I therefore esteem him all the more. He has just now left my attic. There no longer passes a single day without his coming to work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by his board. The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of it.
Sit down there, neighbor; I don't mean to order you; only take care of the stool; it has but three legs, and we must put good-will in place of the fourth." "It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want of here," I observed. "Good-will!" repeated Chaufour; "that is all my mother left me, and I take it no son has received a better inheritance.
To condemn him who does not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a passing thought, is to break the great law, that which has established the union of souls here below, and to which Christ has given the sweet name of charity. These thoughts came into my mind as I finished dressing, and I said to myself that Father Chaufour had a right to reparation from me.
Sit down there, neighbor; I don't mean to order you; only take care of the stool; it has but three legs, and we must put good-will in place of the fourth." "It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want of here," I observed. "Good-will!" repeated Chaufour; "that is all my mother left me, and I take it no son has received a better inheritance.
His loss was neither mourned by any one, nor disarranged anything in the world; there was merely a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in our house. It is the same which my new neighbor has inhabited for the last few days. But fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chaufour is but the wreck of a man.
At these words Father Chaufour looked at me with a smile, and with his great scissors began cutting the green paper again for his cardboard cases. My heart was touched, and I remained lost in thought. Here is still another member of that sacred phalanx who, in the battle of life, always march in front for the example and the salvation of the world!
While looking upon his countenance, radiant with a serene energy, while listening to his voice, the tone of which has, so to speak, the accent of goodness, we see that the soul has remained entire in the half-destroyed covering. The fortress is a little damaged, as Father Chaufour says, but the garrison is quite hearty.
All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him who looks upon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance. While he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, not on account of himself, but of the general subject. Evidently that which occupied him in the drama of life was not his own part, but the drama itself. This sort of disinterestedness touched me.
I knew that the year before he had married a castle and no few farms, so that I might become permanent coat-brusher to a millionaire, which was not without its temptations. It remained to see if I had not anything better to do. One evening I set myself to reflect upon it. "'Let us see, Chaufour, said I to myself; 'the question is to act like a man.
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