Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
Old, weary and knowing, very gentle and refined in his banter, and refusing to be blinded or irritated by the trickeries of destiny, Denis Ramel, when asked why, at his age and with his talents, he was neither a deputy, nor a millionaire, nor a member of the Institute, but only a Warwick living like a poor devil, smiled and said, with the tone of a man who has probed to the bottom the affairs of life: "Bah! what is the use?
Before leaving him, Vaudrey, with a feeling of timidity, desired to ask him if work was at least fairly good. "Thanks!" replied Garnier. "I have found a situation And then " he shook his head as he pointed out behind the black trees and the white graves, the spot where they had lowered Ramel "One has always a place when all is over, and that perhaps is the best of all!"
The man would have refused charity and the minister, in all the personnel of bustling employés, often useless, that fill the ministry, had not a single place to give to this workman whose chest was on fire and whose throat was choking. "I will return and we will talk about him," he said to Ramel, as he arose, indicating Garnier by a nod. "Do not tell him who I am.
It was a miracle that he had just been able to exchange a few words with Mademoiselle Kayser and Ramel. The vulgarity of the place had at once impressed him, the more so because he was the object of attraction for all those crowded faces.
But with this simplicity, as neat as a newly-shaved old man, all was orderly, and arranged and cared for with scrupulous attention. This modest establishment, the few books, the deep peace, the oblivion found in this Batignolles lodging, in this home of clerks, poor, petty tradesmen and workmen, sufficed for Ramel.
And then, indeed, he would never, perhaps, see Mademoiselle Kayser again! He would, however, do everything to see her again at the coming soirée at the ministry, an invitation Suddenly his thoughts abruptly turned to Ramel, whom he also wished to invite and meet again. He loved him so dearly.
Thanks, your Excellency!" said Ramel, smiling. "No, I am too old, and never having asked any one for anything, I am not going to begin at my age." "You do not ask, it is offered you." "Well, I have no desire for that. I am at the hour of the far niente that precedes the final slumber. It is a pleasant condition. One has seen so many things and persons that one has no further desires."
"The fact is," said the minister, "that if all the people you have obligated in your life had solicited an invitation from Madame Marsy, these salons would not be large enough to contain them." "Bah! they have all forgotten as I have, myself," said Ramel, with a shake of his head and smiling pleasantly.
They were then in the corridor of the Opéra, and heard the prelude to the curtain-raising. Guy took the Soir from his pocket and handed it to Vaudrey: "Here, see! That poor Ramel! You were very fond of him, were you not?" "Ramel!" Vaudrey had no need to read. He knew everything as soon as Guy showed him the paper and mentioned Denis's name in a mournful tone. Dead!
She required so little to make her smile: mere crumbs of joy. She was better than he. He excused himself by reflecting that he would not have been able to talk to Ramel. And then it would have been necessary to talk to Adrienne, whereas the joy of the present moment was this solitary silence, the bath of warm air taken in the complete forgetfulness of the habitual existence.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking