midnight
For some day , across your stagnant life , a gust of wind will blow . Those beautiful trees that you water with the stream of oblivion , Providence will destroy ; you will be reduced to despair , messieurs the impassive , there will be tears in your eyes . I will not say that your mistresses will deceive you ; that would not grieve you so much as the loss of your horse ; but I do tell you that you will lose on the Bourse ; your moneyed tranquillity , your golden happiness are in the care of a banker who may fail ; in short I tell you , all frozen as you are , you are capable of loving something ; some fiber of your being will be torn and you will give vent to a cry that will resemble a moan of pain . Some day , wandering about the muddy streets , when daily material joys shall have failed , you will find yourself seated disconsolately on a deserted bench at midnight . O ! men of marble , sublime egoists , inimitable reasoners who have never given way to despair or made a mistake in arithmetic , if this ever happens to you , at the hour of your ruin you will remember Abelard when he lost Heloise . For he loved her more than you love your horses , your money or your mistresses ; for he lost in losing her more than your prince Satan would lose in falling again from the battlements of Heaven ; for he loved her with a certain love of which the gazettes do not speak , the shadow of which your wives and your daughters do not perceive in our theaters and in our books ; for he passed half of his life kissing her white forehead , teaching her to sing the psalms of David and the canticles of Saul ; for he did not love her on earth alone ; and God consoled him .