CONCLUSION, 299 
soon as we arrive, he abandons them, and comes curiously tc place 
himself before us, remains with us, seems to say, “You are here, 
then! But where have you been? And why have you absented 
yourself so long from home?” 
The invasion of the robin, which we soon forgot, was not for- 
gotten, it appears, by his timorous victim. The unfortunate nightingale 
fluttered about ever afterwards with an air of alarm, and nothing 
could reassure him. 
Care was taken, however, that no one should approach him. His 
mistress had charged herself with the necessary attentions. The 
peculiar mixture which alone can nourish this ardent centre of life 
(blood, hemp, and poppy), was conscientiously prepared. Blood and 
flesh, these are the substance; hemp is the herb of intoxication; but 
the poppy neutralizes it. The nightingale is the only creature which 
it is necessary to feed incessantly with sleep and dreams. 
But all was in vain. Two or three days passed in a violent 
agitation, and in abstinence through despair. JI was melancholy, and 
filled with remorse. I, a friend of freedom, had nevertheless a . 
prisoner, and a prisoner who would not be consoled! It was not 
without some scruples that I had formed the idea of procuring a 
nightingale; for the mere sake of pleasure, J should never have come 
to such a decision. I knew well that the very spectacle of such a 
captive, deeply sensible of its captivity, was a permanent source of 
sorrow. But how should I set him free? Of all questions, that of 
slavery is the most difficult; the tyrant is punished by the impos- 
sibility of finding a remedy for it. My captive, before coming into 
my possession, had been two years in a cage, and had neither wings 
nor the impulse of industry to seek his own food; but had it been 
otherwise, he could return no more to the free birds. In their proud 
commonwealth, whoever has been a slave, whoever has languished 
in a cage and not died of grief, is pitilessly condemned and put to 
death. 
We should not easily have escaped from this dilemma, if song 
had not come to our assistance. A soft, almost monotonous strain, 
