Instead of his advancing from tenderness to cunning, like the majority of men, age would have given him an easy access to emotion, he would have been cured of an insane distrust ... But what good is there in these vain predictions?
Au lieu de marcher du tendre au rusé, comme la plupart des hommes, l’âge lui eût donné la bonté facile à s’attendrir, il se fût guéri d’une méfiance folle… Mais à quoi bon ces vaines prédictions?