human
And this is the kind of answer that you would give concerning me, if my sons should arrive hither in search of me some days after my grave had been closed?
gpt
Come, come! no foreboding! said Rubaut.
human
Foreboding is bad.
gpt
If my sons should present themselves--
human
They will not come here--they cannot come here, interrupted Rubaut.
gpt
No one knows that you are here, but some three or four who will never tell.
human
How, thought Toussaint,
gpt
The reason why we cannot have the pleasure of giving you the range of the fortress is, that the First Consul thinks it necessary to keep secret the place of your abode--for the good of the colony, as he says. With one of our own countrymen, this seclusion might not be necessary, as the good people of the village could hardly distinguish features from the distance at which they are; and they have no telescopes--no idea of playing the spy upon us, as we can upon them. They cannot distinguish features, so high up--
human
But they could complexion.
gpt
Exactly so; and it might get abroad that some one of your colour was here.
human
And if it should get abroad, and some one of my sons, or my wife should come, your answer would be that you remember nothing--that you cannot charge your memory with persons and things that are gone by--that you have had prisoners of all complexions--that some have lived and some have died--and that you have something else to do than to remember what became of each. I hope, however, and (as it would be for the advantage of the First Consul) I believe, that you would have the complaisance to show them my grave.
gpt
Come, come! no foreboding! Foreboding is bad,
human
What other employment do you afford me than that of looking into the past and future, in order to avoid the present? If, turning from the sickening view which the past presents of the treachery of your race to mine, of the abuse of my brotherly trust in him by which your ruler has afflicted our hearts if, turning from this mournful past, I look the other way, what do I see before me but the open grave?
gpt
You are out of spirits,
human
You wear well, however. You must have been very strong in your best days. You wear extremely well.
gpt
I still live; and that I do so is because the sun of my own climate, and the strength of soul of my best days, shine and glow through me now, quenching in part even these damps. But I am old, and every day heaps years on me. However, I am as willing as you that my looking forward should be for others than myself. I might be able to forebode for France, and for its ruler.