{"id":"01KG8AK98DHZ2XTSXGJBAKG802","cid":"bafkreihnylpmc7xc3zp4jamdmkzoktpk2uvjelbhiobokaek7yfrcqxm5y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8181,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":8121,"text":"CHAPTER XXXIV.\r\n\r\nIN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN.\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Charlemont was a young merchant of French descent, living in St.\r\nLouis--a man not deficient in mind, and possessed of that sterling and\r\ncaptivating kindliness, seldom in perfection seen but in youthful\r\nbachelors, united at times to a remarkable sort of gracefully\r\ndevil-may-care and witty good-humor. Of course, he was admired by\r\neverybody, and loved, as only mankind can love, by not a few. But in his\r\ntwenty-ninth year a change came over him. Like one whose hair turns gray\r\nin a night, so in a day Charlemont turned from affable to morose. His\r\nacquaintances were passed without greeting; while, as for his\r\nconfidential friends, them he pointedly, unscrupulously, and with a kind\r\nof fierceness, cut dead.\r\n\r\n\"One, provoked by such conduct, would fain have resented it with words\r\nas disdainful; while another, shocked by the change, and, in concern for\r\na friend, magnanimously overlooking affronts, implored to know what\r\nsudden, secret grief had distempered him. But from resentment and from\r\ntenderness Charlemont alike turned away.\r\n\r\n\"Ere long, to the general surprise, the merchant Charlemont was\r\ngazetted, and the same day it was reported that he had withdrawn from\r\ntown, but not before placing his entire property in the hands of\r\nresponsible assignees for the benefit of creditors.\r\n\r\n\"Whither he had vanished, none could guess. At length, nothing being\r\nheard, it was surmised that he must have made away with himself--a\r\nsurmise, doubtless, originating in the remembrance of the change some\r\nmonths previous to his bankruptcy--a change of a sort only to be\r\nascribed to a mind suddenly thrown from its balance.\r\n\r\n\"Years passed. It was spring-time, and lo, one bright morning,\r\nCharlemont lounged into the St. Louis coffee-houses--gay, polite,\r\nhumane, companionable, and dressed in the height of costly elegance. Not\r\nonly was he alive, but he was himself again. Upon meeting with old\r\nacquaintances, he made the first advances, and in such a manner that it\r\nwas impossible not to meet him half-way. Upon other old friends, whom he\r\ndid not chance casually to meet, he either personally called, or left\r\nhis card and compliments for them; and to several, sent presents of game\r\nor hampers of wine.\r\n\r\n\"They say the world is sometimes harshly unforgiving, but it was not so\r\nto Charlemont. The world feels a return of love for one who returns to\r\nit as he did. Expressive of its renewed interest was a whisper, an\r\ninquiring whisper, how now, exactly, so long after his bankruptcy, it\r\nfared with Charlemont's purse. Rumor, seldom at a loss for answers,\r\nreplied that he had spent nine years in Marseilles in France, and there\r\nacquiring a second fortune, had returned with it, a man devoted\r\nhenceforth to genial friendships.\r\n\r\n\"Added years went by, and the restored wanderer still the same; or\r\nrather, by his noble qualities, grew up like golden maize in the\r\nencouraging sun of good opinions. But still the latent wonder was, what\r\nhad caused that change in him at a period when, pretty much as now, he\r\nwas, to all appearance, in the possession of the same fortune, the same\r\nfriends, the same popularity. But nobody thought it would be the thing\r\nto question him here.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJMVHB3JWCPPBXFKE822Q","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK98Q9T7B5D9M293KZ0NV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.245Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.291Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}