For two months Nicolas kept silent respecting the designs which he was now maturing.  He was extremely discreet, as are all men of great energy, who reflect before they act.  He must go, that was certain, since neither space nor sufficiency of sunlight remained for him in the cradle of his birth; but if he went off alone, would that not be going in an imperfect state, deficient in the means needed for the heroic task of populating and clearing a new land?  He knew a girl of Janville, one Lisbeth Moreau, who was tall and strong, and whose robust health, seriousness, and activity had charmed him.  She was nineteen years of age, and, like Nicolas, she stifled in the little nook to which destiny had confined her; for she craved for the free and open air, yonder, afar off.  An orphan, and long dependent on an aunt, who was simply a little village haberdasher, she had hitherto, from feelings of affection, remained cloistered in a small and gloomy shop.  But her aunt had lately died, leaving her some ten thousand francs, and her dream was to sell the little business, and go away and really live at last.  One October evening, when Nicolas and Lisbeth told one another things that they had never previously told anybody, they came to an understanding.  They resolutely took each other’s hand and plighted their troth for life, for the hard battle of creating a new world, a new family, somewhere on the earth’s broad surface, in those mysterious, far away climes of which they knew so little.  ’Twas a delightful betrothal, full of courage and faith.

Only then, everything having been settled, did Nicolas speak out, announcing his departure to his father and mother.  It was an autumn evening, still mild, but fraught with winter’s first shiver, and the twilight was falling.  Intense grief wrung the parents’ hearts as soon as they understood their son.  This time it was not simply a young one flying from the family nest to build his own on some neighboring tree of the common forest; it was flight across the seas forever, severance without hope of return.  They would see their other children again, but this one was breathing an eternal farewell.  Their consent would be the share of cruel sacrifice, that life demands, their supreme gift to life, the tithe levied by life on their affection and their blood.  To pursue its victory, life, the perpetual conqueror, demanded this portion of their flesh, this overplus of the numerous family, which was overflowing, spreading, peopling the world.  And what could they answer, how could they refuse?  The son who was unprovided for took himself off; nothing could be more logical or more sensible.  Far beyond the fatherland there were vast continents yet uninhabited, and the seed which is scattered by the breezes of heaven knows no frontiers.  Beyond the race there is mankind with that endless spreading of humanity that is leading us to the one fraternal people of the accomplished times, when the whole earth shall be but one sole city of truth and justice.