To Dutrex, then, one wet and gloomy morning, in quest of shelter for my pen, I explained my difficulties. He knew my _Ecoutes_, and we had been friends from the first. At noon he handed me the key of the double casemate, No. 55.
With the permission of the commandant he has established a store here. From nine to ten daily, soap, slippers, brushes, blacking, string, and other little necessaries, are sold at cost price.
In this heroic place, a real ice-house, with walls of formidable thickness and screened windows, I spent a long afternoon. I fell ill at once in consequence. That very evening when I returned to No. 17 I was shaking with fever. It cost me a week on the straw. But I bear no grudge against No. 55. It secured me the exquisite luxury of a few hours’ isolation. I shall always think kindly of its strong and cold arches, of its chains for moving the garrison-guns, and of its sepulchral atmosphere, faintly perfumed with haberdashery. But I shall not renew my acquaintance with it, for I learn that the occupants of No. 70, who were being eaten alive by lice, have been transferred to 55. I commiserate them for having to make their choice between lice and rheumatism! As for Dutrex, his soap and other wares have been removed to No. 72, where the sun never enters.
I am now able to work in a warm and dry place, for yesterday, as honorary minister without portfolio, I entered what is spoken of as “the French governing body” of the fort.
Do you think these vain honours? Not at all, for they provide me with a table. To have table and lamp of one’s own, with many hours all to oneself for observation and reflection! In my view, free time is preferable to money. “Time is money,” say the English. I would rather say “Money is time.” It seems to me that the only object of working is to secure leisure. The man within us is formed by leisure. Work produces money, money produces leisure, and leisure produces more work—but this last is noble, lofty, and disinterested work, the true work of humanity. With me it is an article of faith that the true work of humanity is the work of leisure. Thank goodness I have now a little leisure and solitude.
My solitude, a very precarious one, is a kitchen. You must not laugh.