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Chapter 6 - Page 2
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“Where are your verses?”
“In my head.”
“Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them.”
“True,” said La Fontaine; “but if I do not burn them-”
“Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?”
“They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them.”
“The devil!” cried Loret; “what a dangerous thing! One would go mad with it!”
“The devil, devil, devil!” repeated La Fontaine; “what can I do?”
“I have discovered the way,” said Moliere, who had entered during the last words of the conversation.
“What way?”
“Write them first and burn them afterwards.”
“How simple it is! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind that devil Moliere has!” said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead, “Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean de la Fontaine!” he added.
“What are you saying there, my friend?” broke in Moliere, approaching the poet, whose aside he had heard.
“I say I shall never be aught but an ass,” answered La Fontaine, with a heavy sigh and swimming eyes. “Yes, my friend,” he added, with increasing grief, “it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner.”
“That is wrong.”
“You see! I am a puppy!”
“Who said so?”
“Parbleu! ‘twas Pélisson; did you not, Pélisson?”
Pélisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.
“But if Pélisson said you were a puppy,” cried Moliere, “Pélisson has gravely insulted you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like that unpunished.”
“Oh!” exclaimed La Fontaine.
“Did you ever fight?”
“Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse.”
“What wrong had he done you?”
“It seems he was my wife’s lover.”
“Ah! ah!” said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but as at La Fontaine’s declaration the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips the rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continued to make La Fontaine speak,- “and what was the result of the duel?”
“The result was, that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then made an apology, promising never
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