My early life was so hard, my dear Bianchon, that
I may dispute the palm of Paris suffering with any man living. I have
endured everything: hunger and thirst, want of money, want of clothes,
of shoes, of linen, every cruelty that penury can inflict. I have blown
on my frozen fingers in that _pickle-jar of great men_, which I should
like to see again, now, with you. I worked through a whole winter,
seeing my head steam, and perceiving the atmosphere of my own moisture
as we see that of horses on a frosty day. I do not know where a man
finds the fulcrum that enables him to hold out against such a life.
"I was alone, with no one to help me, no money to buy books or to pay
the expenses of my medical training; I had not a friend; my irascible,
touchy, restless temper was against me. No one understood that this
irritability was the distress and toil of a man who, at the bottom of
the social scale, is struggling to reach the surface. Still, I had,
as I may say to you, before whom I need wear no draperies, I had that
ground-bed of good feeling and keen sensitiveness which must always be
the birthright of any man who is strong enough to climb to any height
whatever, after having long trampled in the bogs of poverty. I could
obtain nothing from my family, nor from my home, beyond my inadequate
allowance.
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