Page 52 - les-miserables

CHAPTER VIII

PHILOSOPHY AFTER

DRINKING

The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had
made his own way, heedless of those things which present
obstacles, and which are called conscience, sworn faith,
justice, duty: he had marched straight to his goal, without
once flinching in the line of his advancement and his in-
terest. He was an old attorney, softened by success; not a
bad man by any means, who rendered all the small services
in his power to his sons, his sons-in-law, his relations, and
even to his friends, having wisely seized upon, in life, good
sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. Everything else
seemed to him very stupid. He was intelligent, and just suf-
ficiently educated to think himself a disciple of Epicurus;
while he was, in reality, only a product of Pigault-Lebrun.
He laughed willingly and pleasantly over infinite and eter-
nal things, and at the ‘Crotchets of that good old fellow the
Bishop.’ He even sometimes laughed at him with an ami-
able authority in the presence of M. Myriel himself, who
listened to him.

52 Les Miserables