PIERRE & JEAN

By Guy De Maupassant

Translated By Clara Bell

CHAPTER I

"Tschah!" exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remainedmotionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, whilenow and again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea. 

Mme. Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Mme. Rosemilly, who hadbeen invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head tolook at her husband, said:

"Well, well! Gerome. "

And the old fellow replied in a fury:

"They do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only menshould ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it is toolate. "

His two sons, Pierre and Jean, who each held a line twisted round hisforefinger, one to port and one to starboard, both began to laugh, andJean remarked:

"You are not very polite to our guest, father. "

M. Roland was abashed, and apologized. 

"I beg your pardon, Mme. Rosemilly, but that is just like me. I inviteladies because I like to be with them, and then, as soon as I feel thewater beneath me, I think of nothing but the fish. "

Mme. Roland was now quite awake, and gazing with a softened look at thewide horizon of cliff and sea. 

"You have had good sport, all the same, " she murmured. 

But her husband shook his head in denial, though at the same time heglanced complacently at the basket where the fish caught by the threemen were still breathing spasmodically, with a low rustle of clammyscales and struggling fins, and dull, ineffectual efforts, gasping inthe fatal air. Old Roland took the basket between his knees and tiltedit up, making the silver heap of creatures slide to the edge that hemight see those lying at the bottom, and their death-throes became moreconvulsive, while the strong smell of their bodies, a wholesome reekof brine, came up from the full depths of the creel. The old fishermansniffed it eagerly, as we smell at roses, and exclaimed:

"Cristi! But they are fresh enough!" and he went on: "How many did youpull out, doctor?"

His eldest son, Pierre, a man of thirty, with black whiskers trimmedsquare like a lawyer's, his mustache and beard shaved away, replied:

"Oh, not many; three or four. "

The father turned to the younger. "And you, Jean?" said he. 

Jean, a tall fellow, much younger than his brother, fair, with a fullbeard, smiled and murmured:

"Much the same as Pierre--four or five. "

Every time they told the same fib, which delighted father Roland. He hadhitched his line round a row-lock, and folding his arms he announced:

"I will never again try to fish after noon. After ten in the morning itis all over. The lazy brutes will not bite; they are taking their siestain the sun. " And he looked round at the sea on all sides, with thesatisfied air of a proprietor. 

He was a retired jeweller who had been led by an inordinate love ofseafaring and fishing to fly from the shop as soon as he had made enoughmoney to live in modest comfort on the interest of his savings. Heretired to le Havre, bought a boat, and became an amateur skipper. His two sons, Pierre and Jean, had remained at Paris to continue theirstudies, and came for the holidays from time to time to share theirfather's amusements. 

On leaving school, Pierre, the elder, five years older than Jean, hadfelt a vocation to various professions and had tried half a dozen insuccession, but, soon disgusted with each in turn, he started afreshwith new hopes. Medicine had been his last fancy, and he had set to workwith so much ardour that he had just qualified after an unusually shortcourse of study, by a special remission of time from the minister. Hewas enthusiastic, intelligent, fickle, but obstinate, full of Utopiasand philosophical notions. 

Jean, who was as fair as his brother was dark, as deliberate as hisbrother was vehement, as gentle as his brother was unforgiving, hadquietly gone through his studies for the law and had just taken hisdiploma as a licentiate, at the time when Pierre had taken his inmedicine. So they were now having a little rest at home, and both lookedforward to settling in Havre if they could find a satisfactory opening. 

But a vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies which grow upbetween brothers or sisters and slowly ripen till they burst, on theoccasion of a marriage perhaps, or of some good fortune happening toone of them, kept them on the alert in a sort of brotherly andnon-aggressive animosity. They were fond of each other, it is true, butthey watched each other. Pierre, five years old when Jean was born, had looked with the eyes of a little petted animal at that other littleanimal which had suddenly come to lie in his father's and mother's armsand to be loved and fondled by them. Jean, from his birth, had alwaysbeen a pattern of sweetness, gentleness, and good temper, and Pierre hadby degrees begun to chafe at ever-lastingly hearing the praises of thisgreat lad, whose sweetness in his eyes was indolence, whose gentlenesswas stupidity, and whose kindliness was blindness. His parents, whosedream for their sons was some respectable and undistinguished calling, blamed him for so often changing his mind, for his fits of enthusiasm, his abortive beginnings, and all his ineffectual impulses towardsgenerous ideas and the liberal professions. 

Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words:"Look at Jean and follow his example, " but every time he heard them say"Jean did this--Jean does that, " he understood their meaning and thehint the words conveyed. 

Their mother, an orderly person, a thrifty and rather sentimental womanof the middle class, with the soul of a soft-hearted book-keeper, wasconstantly quenching the little rivalries between her two big sonsto which the petty events of their life constantly gave rise. Anotherlittle circumstance, too, just now disturbed her peace of mind, andshe was in fear of some complications; for in the course of the winter, while her boys were finishing their studies, each in his own line, shehad made the acquaintance of a neighbour, Mme. Rosemilly, the widow of acaptain of a merchantman who had died at sea two years before. The youngwidow--quite young, only three-and-twenty--a woman of strong intellectwho knew life by instinct as the free animals do, as though shehad seen, gone through, understood, and weighted every conceivablecontingency, and judged them with a wholesome, strict, and benevolentmind, had fallen into the habit of calling to work or chat for an hourin the evening with these friendly neighbours, who would give her a cupof tea. 

Father Roland, always goaded on by his seafaring craze, would questiontheir new friend about the departed captain; and she would talk of him, and his voyages, and his old-world tales, without hesitation, like aresigned and reasonable woman who loves life and respects death. 

The two sons on their return, finding the pretty widow quite at home inthe house, forthwith began to court her, less from any wish to charm herthan from the desire to cut each other out. 

Their mother, being practical and prudent, sincerely hoped that one ofthem might win the young widow, for she was rich; but then she wouldhave liked that the other should not be grieved. 

Mme. Rosemilly was fair, with blue eyes, a mass of light waving hair, fluttering at the least breath of wind, and an alert, daring, pugnaciouslittle way with her, which did not in the least answer to the sobermethod of her mind. 

She already seemed to like Jean best, attracted, no doubt, by anaffinity of nature. This preference, however, she betrayed only byan almost imperceptible difference of voice and look and also byoccasionally asking his opinion. She seemed to guess that Jean'sviews would support her own, while those of Pierre must inevitablybe different. When she spoke of the doctor's ideas on politics, art, philosophy, or morals, she would sometimes say: "Your crotchets. " Thenhe would look at her with the cold gleam of an accuser drawing up anindictment against women--all women, poor weak things. 

Never till his sons came home had M. Roland invited her to join hisfishing expeditions, nor had he ever taken his wife; for he liked to putoff before daybreak, with his ally, Captain Beausire, a master marinerretired, whom he had first met on the quay at high tides and with whomhe had struck up an intimacy, and the old sailor Papagris, known as JeanBart, in whose charge the boat was left. 

But one evening of the week before, Mme. Rosemilly, who had been diningwith them, remarked, "It must be great fun to go out fishing. " Thejeweller, flattered by her interest and suddenly fired with the wishto share his favourite sport with her, and to make a convert after themanner of priests, exclaimed: "Would you like to come?"

"To be sure I should. "

"Next Tuesday?"

"Yes, next Tuesday. "

"Are you the woman to be ready to start at five in the morning?"

She exclaimed in horror:

"No, indeed: that is too much. "

He was disappointed and chilled, suddenly doubting her true vocation. However, he said:

"At what hour can you be ready?"

"Well--at nine?"

"Not before?"

"No, not before. Even that is very early. "

The old fellow hesitated; he certainly would catch nothing, for when thesun has warmed the sea the fish bite no more; but the two brothers hadeagerly pressed the scheme, and organized and arranged everything thereand then. 

So on the following Tuesday the Pearl had dropped anchor under the whiterocks of Cape la Heve; they had fished till midday, then they had sleptawhile, and then fished again without catching anything; and then itwas that father Roland, perceiving, rather late, that all that Mme. Rosemilly really enjoyed and cared for was the sail on the sea, andseeing that his lines hung motionless, had uttered in a spirit ofunreasonable annoyance, that vehement "Tschah!" which applied as much tothe pathetic widow as to the creatures he could not catch. 

Now he contemplated the spoil--his fish--with the joyful thrill of amiser; seeing as he looked up at the sky that the sun was getting low:"Well, boys, " said he, "suppose we turn homeward. "

The young men hauled in their lines, coiled them up, cleaned the hooksand stuck them into corks, and sat waiting. 

Roland stood up to look out like a captain. 

"No wind, " said he. "You will have to pull, young 'uns. "

And suddenly extending one arm to the northward, he exclaimed:

"Here comes the packet from Southampton. "

Away over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and sheenyand shot with flame and gold, an inky cloud was visible against the rosysky in the quarter to which he pointed, and below it they could make outthe hull of the steamer, which looked tiny at such a distance. And tosouthward other wreaths of smoke, numbers of them, could be seen, allconverging towards the Havre pier, now scarcely visible as a whitestreak with the lighthouse, upright, like a horn, at the end of it. 

Roland asked: "Is not the Normandie due to-day?" And Jean replied:

"Yes, to-day. "

"Give me my glass. I fancy I see her out there. "

The father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, soughtthe speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed:

"Yes, yes, there she is. I know her two funnels. Would you like to look, Mme. Rosemilly?"

She took the telescope and directed it towards the Atlantic horizon, without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she coulddistinguish nothing--nothing but blue, with a coloured halo round it, acircular rainbow--and then all manner of queer things, winking eclipseswhich made her feel sick. 

She said as she returned the glass:

"I never could see with that thing. It used to put my husband in quite arage; he would stand for hours at the windows watching the ships pass. "

Old Roland, much put out, retorted:

"Then it must be some defect in your eye, for my glass is a very goodone. "

Then he offered it to his wife. 

"Would you like to look?"

"No, thank you. I know before hand that I could not see through it. "

Mme. Roland, a woman of eight-and-forty but who did not look it, seemedto be enjoying this excursion and this waning day more than any of theparty. 

Her chestnut hair was only just beginning to show streaks of white. Shehad a calm, reasonable face, a kind and happy way with her which itwas a pleasure to see. Her son Pierre was wont to say that she knew thevalue of money, but this did not hinder her from enjoying the delightsof dreaming. She was fond of reading, of novels, and poetry, not fortheir value as works of art, but for the sake of the tender melancholymood they would induce in her. A line of poetry, often but a poor one, often a bad one, would touch the little chord, as she expressed it, andgive her the sense of some mysterious desire almost realized. And shedelighted in these faint emotions which brought a little flutter to hersoul, otherwise as strictly kept as a ledger. 

Since settling at Havre she had become perceptibly stouter, and herfigure, which had been very supple and slight, had grown heavier. 

This day on the sea had been delightful to her. Her husband, withoutbeing brutal, was rough with her, as a man who is the despot of hisshop is apt to be rough, without anger or hatred; to such men to give anorder is to swear. He controlled himself in the presence of strangers, but in private he let loose and gave himself terrible vent, though hewas himself afraid of every one. She, in sheer horror of the turmoil, of scenes, of useless explanations, always gave way and never asked foranything; for a very long time she had not ventured to ask Roland totake her out in the boat. So she had joyfully hailed this opportunity, and was keenly enjoying the rare and new pleasure. 

From the moment when they started she surrendered herself completely, body and soul, to the soft, gliding motion over the waves. She was notthinking; her mind was not wandering through either memories or hopes;it seemed to her as though her heart, like her body, was floating onsomething soft and liquid and delicious which rocked and lulled it. 

When their father gave the word to return, "Come, take your places atthe oars!" she smiled to see her sons, her two great boys, take offtheir jackets and roll up their shirt-sleeves on their bare arms. 

Pierre, who was nearest to the two women, took the stroke oar, Jean theother, and they sat waiting till the skipper should say: "Give way!" Forhe insisted on everything being done according to strict rule. 

Simultaneously, as if by a single effort, they dipped the oars, andlying back, pulling with all their might, began a struggle to displaytheir strength. They had come out easily, under sail, but the breezehad died away, and the masculine pride of the two brothers was suddenlyaroused by the prospect of measuring their powers. When they went outalone with their father they plied the oars without any steering, forRoland would be busy getting the lines ready, while he kept a lookout inthe boat's course, guiding it by a sign or a word: "Easy, Jean, and you, Pierre, put your back into it. " Or he would say, "Now, then, numberone; come, number two--a little elbow grease. " Then the one who had beendreaming pulled harder, the one who had got excited eased down, and theboat's head came round. 

But to-day they meant to display their biceps. Pierre's arms were hairy, somewhat lean but sinewy; Jean's were round and white and rosy, and theknot of muscles moved under the skin. 

At first Pierre had the advantage. With his teeth set, his brow knit, his legs rigid, his hands clinched on the oar, he made it bend fromend to end at every stroke, and the Pearl was veering landward. FatherRoland, sitting in the bows, so as to leave the stern seat to the twowomen, wasted his breath shouting, "Easy, number one; pull harder, number two!" Pierre pulled harder in his frenzy, and "number two" couldnot keep time with his wild stroke. 

At last the skipper cried: "Stop her!" The two oars were liftedsimultaneously, and then by his father's orders Jean pulled alone fora few minutes. But from that moment he had it all his own way; he greweager and warmed to his work, while Pierre, out of breath and exhaustedby his first vigorous spurt, was lax and panting. Four times runningfather Roland made them stop while the elder took breath, so as to getthe boat into her right course again. Then the doctor, humiliated andfuming, his forehead dropping with sweat, his cheeks white, stammeredout:

"I cannot think what has come over me; I have a stitch in my side. Istarted very well, but it has pulled me up. "

Jean asked: "Shall I pull alone with both oars for a time?"

"No, thanks, it will go off. "

And their mother, somewhat vexed, said:

"Why, Pierre, what rhyme or reason is there in getting into such astate. You are not a child. "

And he shrugged his shoulders and set to once more. 

Mme. Rosemilly pretended not to see, not to understand, not to hear. Her fair head went back with an engaging little jerk every time the boatmoved forward, making the fine wayward hairs flutter about her temples. 

But father Roland presently called out:

"Look, the Prince Albert is catching us up!"

They all looked round. Long and low in the water, with her tworaking funnels and two yellow paddle-boxes like two round cheeks, the Southampton packet came ploughing on at full steam, crowded withpassengers under open parasols. Its hurrying, noisy paddle-wheelsbeating up the water which fell again in foam, gave it an appearance ofhaste as of a courier pressed for time, and the upright stem cut throughthe water, throwing up two thin translucent waves which glided off alongthe hull. 

When it had come quite near the Pearl, father Roland lifted his hat, the ladies shook their handkerchiefs, and half a dozen parasols eagerlywaved on board the steamboat responded to this salute as she went on herway, leaving behind her a few broad undulations on the still and glassysurface of the sea. 

There were other vessels, each with its smoky cap, coming in from everypart of the horizon towards the short white jetty, which swallowed themup, one after another, like a mouth. And the fishing barks and lightercraft with broad sails and slender masts, stealing across the sky in towof inconspicuous tugs, were coming in, faster and slower, towards thedevouring ogre, who from time to time seemed to have had a surfeit, andspewed out to the open sea another fleet of steamers, brigs, schooners, and three-masted vessels with their tangled mass of rigging. Thehurrying steamships flew off to the right and left over the smooth bosomof the ocean, while sailing vessels, cast off by the pilot-tugs whichhad hauled them out, lay motionless, dressing themselves from themain-mast to the fore-tops in canvas, white or brown, and ruddy in thesetting sun. 

Mme. Roland, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: "Good heavens, howbeautiful the sea is!"

And Mme. Rosemilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had nosadness in it:

"Yes, but it is sometimes very cruel, all the same. "

Roland exclaimed:

"Look, there is the Normandie just going in. A big ship, isn't she?"

Then he described the coast opposite, far, far away, on the other sideof the mouth of the Seine--that mouth extended over twenty kilometres, said he. He pointed out Villerville, Trouville, Houlgate, Luc, Arromanches, the little river of Caen, and the rocks of Calvados whichmake the coast unsafe as far as Cherbourg. Then he enlarged on thequestion of the sand-banks in the Seine, which shift at every tide sothat even the pilots of Quilleboeuf are at fault if they do not surveythe channel every day. He bid them notice how the town of Havre dividedUpper from Lower Normandy. In Lower Normandy the shore sloped downto the sea in pasture-lands, fields, and meadows. The coast of UpperNormandy, on the contrary, was steep, a high cliff, ravined, cleft andtowering, forming an immense white rampart all the way to Dunkirk, while in each hollow a village or a port lay hidden: Etretat, Fecamp, Saint-Valery, Treport, Dieppe, and the rest. 

The two women did not listen. Torpid with comfort and impressed by thesight of the ocean covered with vessels rushing to and fro like wildbeasts about their den, they sat speechless, somewhat awed by thesoothing and gorgeous sunset. Roland alone talked on without end; hewas one of those whom nothing can disturb. Women, whose nerves aremore sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound ofuseless speech is as irritating as an insult. 

Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the Pearlwas making for the harbour, a tiny thing among those huge vessels. 

When they came alongside of the quay, Papagris, who was waiting there, gave his hand to the ladies to help them out, and they took the way intothe town. A large crowd, the crowd which haunts the pier every day athigh tide--was also drifting homeward. Mme. Roland and Mme. Rosemillyled the way, followed by the three men. As they went up the Rue de Paristhey stopped now and then in front of a milliner's or a jeweller's shop, to look at a bonnet or an ornament; then after making their commentsthey went on again. In front of the Place de la Bourse Roland paused, ashe did every day, to gaze at the docks full of vessels--the _Bassin duCommerce_, with other docks beyond, where the huge hulls lay side byside, closely packed in rows, four or five deep. And masts innumerable;along several kilometres of quays the endless masts, with their yards, poles, and rigging, gave this great gap in the heart of the townthe look of a dead forest. Above this leafless forest the gulls werewheeling, and watching to pounce, like a falling stone, on any scrapsflung overboard; a sailor boy, fixing a pulley to a cross-beam, lookedas if he had gone up there bird's-nesting. 

"Will you dine with us without any sort of ceremony, just that we mayend the day together?" said Mme. Roland to her friend. 

"To be sure I will, with pleasure; I accept equally without ceremony. Itwould be dismal to go home and be alone this evening. "

Pierre, who had heard, and who was beginning to be restless under theyoung woman's indifference, muttered to himself: "Well, the widow istaking root now, it would seem. " For some days past he had spoken of heras "the widow. " The word, harmless in itself, irritated Jean merely bythe tone given to it, which to him seemed spiteful and offensive. 

The three men spoke not another word till they reached the threshold oftheir own house. It was a narrow one, consisting of a ground-floor andtwo floors above, in the Rue Belle-Normande. The maid, Josephine, a girlof nineteen, a rustic servant-of-all-work at low wages, gifted to excesswith the startled animal expression of a peasant, opened the door, wentup stairs at her master's heels to the drawing-room, which was on thefirst floor, and then said:

"A gentleman called--three times. "

Old Roland, who never spoke to her without shouting and swearing, criedout:

"Who do you say called, in the devil's name?"

She never winced at her master's roaring voice, and replied:

"A gentleman from the lawyer's. "

"What lawyer?"

"Why, M'sieu 'Canu--who else?"

"And what did this gentleman say?"

"That M'sieu 'Canu will call in himself in the course of the evening. "

Maitre Lecanu was M. Roland's lawyer, and in a way his friend, managinghis business for him. For him to send word that he would call in theevening, something urgent and important must be in the wind; and thefour Rolands looked at each other, disturbed by the announcement asfolks of small fortune are wont to be at any intervention of a lawyer, with its suggestions of contracts, inheritance, lawsuits--all sorts ofdesirable or formidable contingencies. The father, after a few momentsof silence, muttered:

"What on earth can it mean?"

Mme. Rosemilly began to laugh. 

"Why, a legacy, of course. I am sure of it. I bring good luck. "

But they did not expect the death of any one who might leave themanything. 

Mme. Roland, who had a good memory for relationships, began to thinkover all their connections on her husband's side and on her own, totrace up pedigrees and the ramifications of cousin-ship. 

Before even taking off her bonnet she said:

"I say, father" (she called her husband "father" at home, and sometimes"Monsieur Roland" before strangers), "tell me, do you remember who itwas that Joseph Lebru married for the second time?"

"Yes--a little girl named Dumenil, a stationer's daughter. "

"Had they any children?"

"I should think so! four or five at least. "

"Not from that quarter, then. "

She was quite eager already in her search; she caught at the hope ofsome added ease dropping from the sky. But Pierre, who was very fond ofhis mother, who knew her to be somewhat visionary and feared she mightbe disappointed, a little grieved, a little saddened if the news werebad instead of good, checked her:

"Do not get excited, mother; there is no rich American uncle. For mypart, I should sooner fancy that it is about a marriage for Jean. "

Every one was surprised at the suggestion, and Jean was a little ruffledby his brother's having spoken of it before Mme. Rosemilly. 

"And why for me rather than for you? The hypothesis is very disputable. You are the elder; you, therefore, would be the first to be thought of. Besides, I do not wish to marry. "

Pierre smiled sneeringly:

"Are you in love, then?"

And the other, much put out, retorted: "Is it necessary that a manshould be in love because he does not care to marry yet?"

"Ah, there you are! That 'yet' sets it right; you are waiting. "

"Granted that I am waiting, if you will have it so. "

But old Roland, who had been listening and cogitating, suddenly hit uponthe most probable solution. 

"Bless me! what fools we are to be racking our brains. Maitre Lecanu isour very good friend; he knows that Pierre is looking out for a medicalpartnership and Jean for a lawyer's office, and he has found somethingto suit one of you. "

This was so obvious and likely that every one accepted it. 

"Dinner is ready, " said the maid. And they all hurried off to theirrooms to wash their hands before sitting down to table. 

Ten minutes later they were at dinner in the little dining-room on theground-floor. 

At first they were silent; but presently Roland began again in amazementat this lawyer's visit. 

"For after all, why did he not write? Why should he have sent his clerkthree times? Why is he coming himself?"

Pierre thought it quite natural. 

"An immediate decision is required, no doubt; and perhaps there arecertain confidential conditions which it does not do to put intowriting. "

Still, they were all puzzled, and all four a little annoyed at havinginvited a stranger, who would be in the way of their discussing anddeciding on what should be done. 

They had just gone upstairs again when the lawyer was announced. Rolandflew to meet him. 

"Good-evening, my dear Maitre, " said he, giving his visitor the titlewhich in France is the official prefix to the name of every lawyer. 

Mme. Rosemilly rose. 

"I am going, " she said. "I am very tired. "

A faint attempt was made to detain her; but she would not consent, andwent home without either of the three men offering to escort her, asthey always had done. 

Mme. Roland did the honours eagerly to their visitor. 

"A cup of coffee, monsieur?"

"No, thank you. I have just had dinner. "

"A cup of tea, then?"

"Thank you, I will accept one later. First we must attend to business. "

The deep silence which succeeded this remark was broken only by theregular ticking of the clock, and below stairs the clatter of saucepanswhich the girl was cleaning--too stupid even to listen at the door. 

The lawyer went on:

"Did you, in Paris, know a certain M. Marechal--Leon Marechal?"

M. And Mme. Roland both exclaimed at once: "I should think so!"

"He was a friend of yours?"

Roland replied: "Our best friend, monsieur, but a fanatic for Paris;never to be got away from the boulevard. He was a head clerk in theexchequer office. I have never seen him since I left the capital, andlatterly we had ceased writing to each other. When people are far apartyou know----"

The lawyer gravely put in:

"M. Marechal is deceased. "

Both man and wife responded with the little movement of pained surprise, genuine or false, but always ready, with which such news is received. 

Maitre Lecanu went on:

"My colleague in Paris has just communicated to me the main item of hiswill, by which he makes your son Jean--Monsieur Jean Roland--his solelegatee. "

They were all too much amazed to utter a single word. Mme. Roland wasthe first to control her emotion and stammered out:

"Good heavens! Poor Leon--our poor friend! Dear me! Dear me! Dead!"

The tears started to her eyes, a woman's silent tears, drops of grieffrom her very soul, which trickle down her cheeks and seem so very sad, being so clear. But Roland was thinking less of the loss than of theprospect announced. Still, he dared not at once inquire into the clausesof the will and the amount of the fortune, so to work round to theseinteresting facts he asked:

"And what did he die of, poor Marechal?"

Maitre Lecanu did not know in the least. 

"All I know is, " said he, "that dying without any direct heirs, hehas left the whole of his fortune--about twenty thousand francs a year($3, 840) in three per cents--to your second son, whom he has known fromhis birth up, and judges worthy of the legacy. If M. Jean should refusethe money, it is to go to the foundling hospitals. "

Old Roland could not conceal his delight and exclaimed:

"Sacristi! It is the thought of a kind heart. And if I had had no heir Iwould not have forgotten him; he was a true friend. "

The lawyer smiled. 

"I was very glad, " he said, "to announce the event to you myself. It isalways a pleasure to be the bearer of good news. "

It had not struck him that this good news was that of the death of afriend, of Roland's best friend; and the old man himself had suddenlyforgotten the intimacy he had but just spoken of with so muchconviction. 

Only Mme. Roland and her sons still looked mournful. She, indeed, wasstill shedding a few tears, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, whichshe then pressed to her lips to smother her deep sobs. 

The doctor murmured:

"He was a good fellow, very affectionate. He often invited us to dinewith him--my brother and me. "

Jean, with wide-open, glittering eyes, laid his hand on his handsomefair beard, a familiar gesture with him, and drew his fingers down itto the tip of the last hairs, as if to pull it longer and thinner. Twicehis lips parted to utter some decent remark, but after long meditationhe could only say this:

"Yes, he was certainly fond of me. He would always embrace me when Iwent to see him. "

But his father's thoughts had set off at a gallop--galloping round thisinheritance to come; nay, already in hand; this money lurking behind thedoor, which would walk in quite soon, to-morrow, at a word of consent. 

"And there is no possible difficulty in the way?" he asked. "Nolawsuit--no one to dispute it?"

Maitre Lecanu seemed quite easy. 

"No; my Paris correspondent states that everything is quite clear. M. Jean has only to sign his acceptance. "

"Good. Then--then the fortune is quite clear?"

"Perfectly clear. "

"All the necessary formalities have been gone through?"

"All. "

Suddenly the old jeweller had an impulse of shame--obscure, instinctive, and fleeting; shame of his eagerness to be informed, and he added:

"You understand that I ask all these questions immediately so as to savemy son unpleasant consequences which he might not foresee. Sometimesthere are debts, embarrassing liabilities, what not! And a legatee findshimself in an inextricable thorn-bush. After all, I am not the heir--butI think first of the little 'un. "

They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the "littleone, " though he was much bigger than Pierre. 

Suddenly Mme. Roland seemed to wake from a dream, to recall some remotefact, a thing almost forgotten that she had heard long ago, and of whichshe was not altogether sure. She inquired doubtingly:

"Were you not saying that our poor friend Marechal had left his fortuneto my little Jean?"

"Yes, madame. "

And she went on simply:

"I am much pleased to hear it; it proves that he was attached to us. "

Roland had risen. 

"And would you wish, my dear sir, that my son should at once sign hisacceptance?"

"No--no, M. Roland. To-morrow, at my office to-morrow, at two o'clock, if that suits you. "

"Yes, to be sure--yes, indeed. I should think so. "

Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after hertears, went up to the lawyer, and laying her hand on the back of hischair while she looked at him with the pathetic eyes of a gratefulmother, she said:

"And now for that cup of tea, Monsieur Lecanu?"

"Now I will accept it with pleasure, madame. "

The maid, on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deeptin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have beenmade for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyageround the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, foldedsquare, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. Athird time she came in with the sugar-basin and cups; then she departedto heat the water. They sat waiting. 

No one could talk; they had too much to think about and nothing tosay. Mme. Roland alone attempted a few commonplace remarks. She gave anaccount of the fishing excursion, and sang the praises of the Pearl andof Mme. Rosemilly. 

"Charming, charming!" the lawyer said again and again. 

Roland, leaning against the marble mantel-shelf as if it were winter andthe fire burning, with his hands in his pockets and his lips puckeredfor a whistle, could not keep still, tortured by the invincible desireto give vent to his delight. The two brothers, in two arm-chairs thatmatched, one on each side of the centre-table, stared in front of them, in similar attitudes full of dissimilar expressions. 

At last the tea appeared. The lawyer took a cup, sugared it, and drankit, after having crumbled into it a little cake which was too hard tocrunch. Then he rose, shook hands, and departed. 

"Then it is understood, " repeated Roland. "To-morrow, at your place, attwo?"

"Quite so. To-morrow, at two. "

Jean had not spoken a word. 

When their guest had gone, silence fell again till father Roland clappedhis two hands on his younger son's shoulders, crying:

"Well, you devilish lucky dog! You don't embrace me!"

Then Jean smiled. He embraced his father, saying:

"It had not struck me as indispensable. "

The old man was beside himself with glee. He walked about the room, strummed on the furniture with his clumsy nails, turned about on hisheels, and kept saying:

"What luck! What luck! Now, that is really what I call luck!"

Pierre asked:

"Then you used to know this Marechal well?"

And his father replied:

"I believe! Why, he used to spend every evening at our house. Surely youremember he used to fetch you from school on half-holidays, and oftentook you back again after dinner. Why, the very day when Jean was bornit was he who went for the doctor. He had been breakfasting with us whenyour mother was taken ill. Of course we knew at once what it meant, andhe set off post-haste. In his hurry he took my hat instead of his own. Iremember that because we had a good laugh over it afterward. It is verylikely that he may have thought of that when he was dying, and as he hadno heir he may have said to himself: 'I remember helping to bring thatyoungster into the world, so I will leave him my savings. '"

Mme. Roland, sunk in a deep chair, seemed lost in reminiscences oncemore. She murmured, as though she were thinking aloud:

"Ah, he was a good friend, very devoted, very faithful, a rare soul inthese days. "

Jean got up. 

"I shall go out for a little walk, " he said. 

His father was surprised and tried to keep him; they had much to talkabout, plans to be made, decisions to be formed. But the young maninsisted, declaring that he had an engagement. Besides, there would betime enough for settling everything before he came into possession ofhis inheritance. So he went away, for he wished to be alone to reflect. Pierre, on his part, said that he too was going out, and after a fewminutes followed his brother. 

As soon as he was alone with his wife, father Roland took her inhis arms, kissed her a dozen times on each cheek, and, replying to areproach she had often brought against him, said:

"You see, my dearest, that it would have been no good to stay any longerin Paris and work for the children till I dropped, instead of cominghere to recruit my health, since fortune drops on us from the skies. "

She was quite serious. 

"It drops from the skies on Jean, " she said. "But Pierre?"

"Pierre? But he is a doctor; he will make plenty of money; besides, hisbrother will surely do something for him. "

"No, he would not take it. Besides, this legacy is for Jean, only forJean. Pierre will find himself at a great disadvantage. "

The old fellow seemed perplexed: "Well, then, we will leave him rathermore in our will. "

"No; that again would not be quite just. "

"Drat it all!" he exclaimed. "What do you want me to do in the matter?You always hit on a whole heap of disagreeable ideas. You must spoil allmy pleasures. Well, I am going to bed. Good-night. All the same, I callit good luck, jolly good luck!"

And he went off, delighted in spite of everything, and without a word ofregret for the friend so generous in his death. 

Mme. Roland sat thinking again in front of the lamp which was burningout. 

CHAPTER II

As soon as he got out, Pierre made his way to the Rue de Paris, thehigh-street of Havre, brightly lighted up, lively and noisy. The rathersharp air of the seacoast kissed his face, and he walked slowly, hisstick under his arm and his hands behind his back. He was ill at ease, oppressed, out of heart, as one is after hearing unpleasant tidings. He was not distressed by any definite thought, and he would have beenpuzzled to account, on the spur of the moment, for this dejection ofspirit and heaviness of limb. He was hurt somewhere, without knowingwhere; somewhere within him there was a pin-point of pain--one of thosealmost imperceptible wounds which we cannot lay a finger on, but whichincommode us, tire us, depress us, irritate us--a slight and occultpang, as it were a small seed of distress. 

When he reached the square in front of the theatre, he was attractedby the lights in the Cafe Tortoni, and slowly bent his steps to thedazzling facade; but just as he was going in he reflected that he wouldmeet friends there and acquaintances--people he would be obliged totalk to; and fierce repugnance surged up in him for this commonplacegood-fellowship over coffee cups and liqueur glasses. So, retracing hissteps, he went back to the high-street leading to the harbour. 

"Where shall I go?" he asked himself, trying to think of a spot he likedwhich would agree with his frame of mind. He could not think of one, forbeing alone made him feel fractious, yet he could not bear to meet anyone. As he came out on the Grand Quay he hesitated once more; then heturned towards the pier; he had chosen solitude. 

Going close by a bench on the breakwater he sat down, tired already ofwalking and out of humour with his stroll before he had taken it. 

He said to himself: "What is the matter with me this evening?" And hebegan to search in his memory for what vexation had crossed him, as wequestion a sick man to discover the cause of his fever. 

His mind was at once irritable and sober; he got excited, then hereasoned, approving or blaming his impulses; but in time primitivenature at last proved the stronger; the sensitive man always had theupper hand over the intellectual man. So he tried to discover what hadinduced this irascible mood, this craving to be moving without wantinganything, this desire to meet some one for the sake of differing fromhim, and at the same time this aversion for the people he might see andthe things they might say to him. 

And then he put the question to himself, "Can it be Jean's inheritance?"

Yes, it was certainly possible. When the lawyer had announced the newshe had felt his heart beat a little faster. For, indeed, one is notalways master of one's self; there are sudden and pertinacious emotionsagainst which a man struggles in vain. 

He fell into meditation on the physiological problem of the impressionproduced on the instinctive element in man, and giving rise to a currentof painful or pleasurable sensations diametrically opposed to thosewhich the thinking man desires, aims at, and regards as right andwholesome, when he has risen superior to himself by the cultivation ofhis intellect. He tried to picture to himself the frame of mind of a sonwho had inherited a vast fortune, and who, thanks to that wealth, maynow know many long-wished-for delights, which the avarice of his fatherhad prohibited--a father, nevertheless, beloved and regretted. 

He got up and walked on to the end of the pier. He felt better, andglad to have understood, to have detected himself, to have unmasked _theother_ which lurks in us. 

"Then I was jealous of Jean, " thought he. "That is really vilely mean. And I am sure of it now, for the first idea which came into my head wasthat he would marry Mme. Rosemilly. And yet I am not in love myself withthat priggish little goose, who is just the woman to disgust a man withgood sense and good conduct. So it is the most gratuitous jealousy, thevery essence of jealousy, which is merely because it is! I must keep aneye on that!"

By this time he was in front of the flag-staff, whence the depth ofwater in the harbour is signalled, and he struck a match to read thelist of vessels signalled in the roadstead and coming in with the nexthigh tide. Ships were due from Brazil, from La Plata, from Chiliand Japan, two Danish brigs, a Norwegian schooner, and a Turkishsteamship--which startled Pierre as much as if it had read a Swisssteamship; and in a whimsical vision he pictured a great vessel crowdedwith men in turbans climbing the shrouds in loose trousers. 

"How absurd!" thought he. "But the Turks are a maritime people, too. "

A few steps further on he stopped again, looking out at the roads. Onthe right, above Sainte-Adresse, the two electric lights of Cape laHeve, like monstrous twin Cyclops, shot their long and powerful beamsacross the sea. Starting from two neighbouring centres, the two parallelshafts of light, like the colossal tails of two comets, fell in astraight and endless slope from the top of the cliff to the uttermosthorizon. Then, on the two piers, two more lights, the children of thesegiants, marked the entrance to the harbour; and far away on the otherside of the Seine others were in sight, many others, steady or winking, flashing or revolving, opening and shutting like eyes--the eyes of theports--yellow, red, and green, watching the night-wrapped sea coveredwith ships; the living eyes of the hospitable shore saying, merely bythe mechanical and regular movement of their eye-lids: "I am here. I amTrouville; I am Honfleur; I am the Andemer River. " And high aboveall the rest, so high that from this distance it might be taken for aplanet, the airy lighthouse of Etouville showed the way to Rouen acrossthe sand banks at the mouth of the great river. 

Out on the deep water, the limitless water, darker than the sky, starsseemed to have fallen here and there. They twinkled in the night haze, small, close to shore or far away--white, red, and green, too. Most ofthem were motionless; some, however, seemed to be scudding onward. Thesewere the lights of the ships at anchor or moving about in search ofmoorings. 

Just at this moment the moon rose behind the town; and it, too, lookedlike some huge, divine pharos lighted up in the heavens to guide thecountless fleet of stars in the sky. Pierre murmured, almost speakingaloud: "Look at that! And we let our bile rise for twopence!"

On a sudden, close to him, in the wide, dark ditch between the twopiers, a shadow stole up, a large shadow of fantastic shape. Leaningover the granite parapet, he saw that a fishing-boat had glided in, without the sound of a voice or the splash of a ripple, or the plungeof an oar, softly borne in by its broad, tawny sail spread to the breezefrom the open sea. 

He thought to himself: "If one could but live on board that boat, whatpeace it would be--perhaps!"

And then again a few steps beyond, he saw a man sitting at the very endof the breakwater. 

A dreamer, a lover, a sage--a happy or a desperate man? Who was it? Hewent forward, curious to see the face of this lonely individual, and herecognised his brother. 

"What, is it you, Jean?"

"Pierre! You! What has brought you here?"

"I came out to get some fresh air. And you?"

Jean began to laugh. 

"I too came out for fresh air. " And Pierre sat down by his brother'sside. 

"Lovely--isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, lovely. "

He understood from the tone of voice that Jean had not looked atanything. He went on:

"For my part, whenever I come here I am seized with a wild desire to beoff with all those boats, to the north or the south. Only to think thatall those little sparks out there have just come from the uttermost endsof the earth, from the lands of great flowers and beautiful olive orcopper coloured girls, the lands of humming-birds, of elephants, of roaming lions, of negro kings, from all the lands which are likefairy-tales to us who no longer believe in the White Cat or the SleepingBeauty. It would be awfully jolly to be able to treat one's self to anexcursion out there; but, then, it would cost a great deal of money, noend--"

He broke off abruptly, remembering that his brother had that money now;and released from care, released from labouring for his daily bread, free, unfettered, happy, and light-hearted, he might go whither helisted, to find the fair-haired Swedes or the brown damsels of Havana. And then one of those involuntary flashes which were common with him, sosudden and swift that he could neither anticipate them, nor stop them, nor qualify them, communicated, as it seemed to him, from some second, independent, and violent soul, shot through his brain. 

"Bah! He is too great a simpleton; he will marry that little Rosemilly. "He was standing up now. "I will leave you to dream of the future. I wantto be moving. " He grasped his brother's hand and added in a heavy tone:

"Well, my dear old boy, you are a rich man. I am very glad to have comeupon you this evening to tell you how pleased I am about it, how truly Icongratulate you, and how much I care for you. "

Jean, tender and soft-hearted, was deeply touched. 

"Thank you, my good brother--thank you!" he stammered. 

And Pierre turned away with his slow step, his stick under his arm, andhis hands behind his back. 

Back in the town again, he once more wondered what he should do, beingdisappointed of his walk and deprived of the company of the sea by hisbrother's presence. He had an inspiration. "I will go and take a glassof liqueur with old Marowsko, " and he went off towards the quarter ofthe town known as Ingouville. 

He had known old Marowsko-_le pere Marowsko_, he called him--in thehospitals in Paris. He was a Pole, an old refugee, it was said, whohad gone through terrible things out there, and who had come to plyhis calling as a chemist and druggist in France after passing a freshexamination. Nothing was known of his early life, and all sorts oflegends had been current among the indoor and outdoor patientsand afterward among his neighbours. This reputation as a terribleconspirator, a nihilist, a regicide, a patriot ready for anything andeverything, who had escaped death by a miracle, had bewitched PierreRoland's lively and bold imagination; he had made friends with the oldPole, without, however, having ever extracted from him any revelation asto his former career. It was owing to the young doctor that this worthyhad come to settle at Havre, counting on the large custom which therising practitioner would secure him. Meanwhile he lived very poorly inhis little shop, selling medicines to the small tradesmen and workmen inhis part of the town. 

Pierre often went to see him and chat with him for an hour after dinner, for he liked Marowsko's calm look and rare speech, and attributed greatdepth to his long spells of silence. 

A simple gas-burner was alight over the counter crowded with phials. Those in the window were not lighted, from motives of economy. Behindthe counter, sitting on a chair with his legs stretched out andcrossed, an old man, quite bald, with a large beak of a nose which, as aprolongation of his hairless forehead, gave him a melancholy likeness toa parrot, was sleeping soundly, his chin resting on his breast. He wokeat the sound of the shop-bell, and recognising the doctor, came forwardto meet him, holding out both hands. 

His black frock-coat, streaked with stains of acids and sirups, wasmuch too wide for his lean little person, and looked like a shabby oldcassock; and the man spoke with a strong Polish accent which gave thechildlike character to his thin voice, the lisping note and intonationsof a young thing learning to speak. 

Pierre sat down, and Marowsko asked him: "What news, dear doctor?"

"None. Everything as usual, everywhere. "

"You do not look very gay this evening. "

"I am not often gay. "

"Come, come, you must shake that off. Will you try a glass of liqueur?"

"Yes, I do not mind. "

"Then I will give you something new to try. For these two months I havebeen trying to extract something from currants, of which only a siruphas been made hitherto--well, and I have done it. I have invented a verygood liqueur--very good indeed; very good. "

And quite delighted, he went to a cupboard, opened it, and picked outa bottle which he brought forth. He moved and did everything in jerkygestures, always incomplete; he never quite stretched out his arm, norquite put out his legs; nor made any broad and definite movements. Hisideas seemed to be like his actions; he suggested them, promised them, sketched them, hinted at them, but never fully uttered them. 

And, indeed, his great end in life seemed to be the concoction ofsirups and liqueurs. "A good sirup or a good liqueur is enough to make afortune, " he would often say. 

He had compounded hundreds of these sweet mixtures without eversucceeding in floating one of them. Pierre declared that Marowsko alwaysreminded him of Marat. 

Two little glasses were fetched out of the back shop and placed on themixing-board. Then the two men scrutinized the colour of the fluid byholding it up to the gas. 

"A fine ruby, " Pierre declared. 

"Isn't it?" Marowsko's old parrot-face beamed with satisfaction. 

The doctor tasted, smacked his lips, meditated, tasted again, meditatedagain, and spoke:

"Very good--capital; and quite new in flavour. It is a find, my dearfellow. "

"Ah, really? Well, I am very glad. "

Then Marowsko took counsel as to baptizing the new liqueur. He wantedto call it "Extract of currants, " or else "_Fine Groseille_" or"_Groselia_, " or again "_Groseline_. " Pierre did not approve of eitherof these names. 

Then the old man had an idea:

"What you said just now would be very good, very good: 'Fine Ruby. '"But the doctor disputed the merit of this name, though it had originatedwith him. He recommended simply "Groseillette, " which Marowsko thoughtadmirable. 

Then they were silent, and sat for some minutes without a word under thesolitary gas-lamp. At last Pierre began, almost in spite of himself:

"A queer thing has happened at home this evening. A friend of myfather's, who is lately dead, has left his fortune to my brother. "

The druggist did not at first seem to understand, but after thinking itover he hoped that the doctor had half the inheritance. When the matterwas clearly explained to him he appeared surprised and vexed; and toexpress his dissatisfaction at finding that his young friend had beensacrificed, he said several times over:

"It will not look well. "

Pierre, who was relapsing into nervous irritation, wanted to know whatMarowsko meant by this phrase. 

Why would it not look well? What was there to look badly in the factthat his brother had come into the money of a friend of the family?

But the cautious old man would not explain further. 

"In such a case the money is left equally to the two brothers, and Itell you, it will not look well. "

And the doctor, out of all patience, went away, returned to his father'shouse, and went to bed. For some time afterward he heard Jean movingsoftly about the adjoining room, and then, after drinking two glasses ofwater, he fell asleep. 

CHAPTER III

The doctor awoke next morning firmly resolved to make his fortune. Several times already he had come to the same determination withoutfollowing up the reality. At the outset of all his trials of some newcareer the hopes of rapidly acquired riches kept up his efforts andconfidence, till the first obstacle, the first check, threw him into afresh path. Snug in bed between the warm sheets, he lay meditating. Howmany medical men had become wealthy in quite a short time! All that wasneeded was a little knowledge of the world; for in the course of hisstudies he had learned to estimate the most famous physicians, and hejudged them all to be asses. He was certainly as good as they, if notbetter. If by any means he could secure a practice among the wealth andfashion of Havre, he could easily make a hundred thousand francs a year. And he calculated with great exactitude what his certain profits mustbe. He would go out in the morning to visit his patients; at the verymoderate average of ten a day, at twenty francs each, that would mountup to seventy-two thousand francs a year at least, or even seventy-fivethousand; for ten patients was certainly below the mark. In theafternoon he would be at home to, say, another ten patients, at tenfrancs each--thirty-six thousand francs. Here, then, in round numberswas an income of twenty thousand francs. Old patients, or friends whomhe would charge only ten francs for a visit, or see at home forfive, would perhaps make a slight reduction on this sum total, butconsultations with other physicians and various incidental fees wouldmake up for that. 

Nothing could be easier than to achieve this by skilful advertisingremarks in the Figaro to the effect that the scientific faculty of Parishad their eye on him, and were interested in the cures effected by themodest young practitioner of Havre! And he would be richer than hisbrother, richer and more famous; and satisfied with himself, for hewould owe his fortune solely to his own exertions; and liberal to hisold parents, who would be justly proud of his fame. He would not marry, would not burden his life with a wife who would be in his way, but hewould choose his mistress from the most beautiful of his patients. Hefelt so sure of success that he sprang out of bed as though to grasp iton the spot, and he dressed to go and search through the town for roomsto suit him. 

Then, as he wandered about the streets, he reflected how slight are thecauses which determine our actions. Any time these three weeks he mightand ought to have come to this decision, which, beyond a doubt, the newsof his brother's inheritance had abruptly given rise to. 

He stopped before every door where a placard proclaimed that "fineapartments" or "handsome rooms" were to be let; announcements without anadjective he turned from with scorn. Then he inspected them with alofty air, measuring the height of the rooms, sketching the plan in hisnote-book, with the passages, the arrangement of the exits, explainingthat he was a medical man and had many visitors. He must have a broadand well-kept stair-case; nor could he be any higher up than the firstfloor. 

After having written down seven or eight addresses and scribbled twohundred notes, he got home to breakfast a quarter of an hour too late. 

In the hall he heard the clatter of plates. Then they had begun withouthim! Why? They were never wont to be so punctual. He was nettled and putout, for he was somewhat thin-skinned. As he went in Roland said to him:

"Come, Pierre, make haste, devil take you! You know we have to be at thelawyer's at two o'clock. This is not the day to be dawdling. "

Pierre sat down without replying, after kissing his mother and shakinghands with his father and brother; and he helped himself from the deepdish in the middle of the table to the cutlet which had been kept forhim. It was cold and dry, probably the least tempting of them all. Hethought that they might have left it on the hot plate till he came in, and not lose their heads so completely as to have forgotten their otherson, their eldest. 

The conversation, which his entrance had interrupted, was taken up againat the point where it had ceased. 

"In your place, " Mme. Roland was saying to Jean, "I will tell you whatI should do at once. I should settle in handsome rooms so as to attractattention; I should ride on horseback and select one or two interestingcases to defend and make a mark in court. I would be a sort of amateurlawyer, and very select. Thank God you are out of all danger of want, and if you pursue a profession, it is, after all, only that you may notlose the benefit of your studies, and because a man ought never to sitidle. "

Old Roland, who was peeling a pear, exclaimed:

"Christi! In your place I should buy a nice yacht, a cutter on the buildof our pilot-boats. I would sail as far as Senegal in such a boat asthat. "

Pierre, in his turn, spoke his views. After all, said he, it was not hiswealth which made the moral worth, the intellectual worth of a man. Toa man of inferior mind it was only a means of degradation, while in thehands of a strong man it was a powerful lever. They, to be sure, wererare. If Jean were a really superior man, now that he could never wanthe might prove it. But then he must work a hundred times harder than hewould have done in other circumstances. His business now must be not toargue for or against the widow and the orphan, and pocket his fees forevery case he gained, but to become a really eminent legal authority, aluminary of the law. And he added in conclusion:

"If I were rich wouldn't I dissect no end of bodies!"

Father Roland shrugged his shoulders. 

"That is all very fine, " he said. "But the wisest way of life is to takeit easy. We are not beasts of burden, but men. If you are born poor youmust work; well, so much the worse; and you do work. But where you havedividends! You must be a flat if you grind yourself to death. "

Pierre replied haughtily:

"Our notions differ. For my part, I respect nothing on earth butlearning and intellect; everything else is beneath contempt. "

Mme. Roland always tried to deaden the constant shocks between fatherand son; she turned the conversation, and began talking of a murdercommitted the week before at Bolbec Nointot. Their minds wereimmediately full of the circumstances under which the crime had beencommitted, and absorbed by the interesting horror, the attractivemystery of crime, which, however commonplace, shameful, and disgusting, exercises a strange and universal fascination over the curiosity ofmankind. Now and again, however, old Roland looked at his watch. "Come, "said he, "it is time to be going. "

Pierre sneered. 

"It is not yet one o'clock, " he said. "It really was hardly worth whileto condemn me to eat a cold cutlet. "

"Are you coming to the lawyer's?" his mother asked. 

"I? No. What for?" he replied dryly. "My presence is quite unnecessary. "

Jean sat silent, as though he had no concern in the matter. When theywere discussing the murder at Bolbec he, as a legal authority, hadput forward some opinions and uttered some reflections on crime andcriminals. Now he spoke no more; but the sparkle in his eye, the brightcolour in his cheeks, the very gloss of his beard seemed to proclaim hishappiness. 

When the family had gone, Pierre, alone once more, resumed hisinvestigations in the apartments to let. After two or three hoursspent in going up and down stairs, he at last found, in the BoulevardFrancois, a pretty set of rooms; a spacious entresol with two doors ontwo different streets, two drawing-rooms, a glass corridor, where hispatients while they waited, might walk among flowers, and a delightfuldining-room with a bow-window looking out over the sea. 

When it came to taking it, the terms--three thousand francs--pulled himup; the first quarter must be paid in advance, and he had nothing, not apenny to call his own. 

The little fortune his father had saved brought him in about eightthousand francs a year, and Pierre had often blamed himself for havingplaced his parents in difficulties by his long delay in deciding on aprofession, by forfeiting his attempts and beginning fresh courses ofstudy. So he went away, promising to send his answer within two days, and it occurred to him to ask Jean to lend him the amount of thisquarter's rent, or even of a half-year, fifteen hundred francs, as soonas Jean should have come into possession. 

"It will be a loan for a few months at most, " he thought. "I shall repayhim, very likely before the end of the year. It is a simple matter, andhe will be glad to do so much for me. "

As it was not yet four o'clock, and he had nothing to do, absolutelynothing, he went to sit in the public gardens; and he remained a longtime on a bench, without an idea in his brain, his eyes fixed on theground, crushed by weariness amounting to distress. 

And yet this was how he had been living all these days since his returnhome, without suffering so acutely from the vacuity of his existence andfrom inaction. How had he spent his time from rising in the morning tillbed-time?

He had loafed on the pier at high tide, loafed in the streets, loafed inthe cafes, loafed at Marowsko's, loafed everywhere. And on a sudden thislife, which he had endured till now, had become odious, intolerable. Ifhe had had any pocket-money, he would have taken a carriage for a longdrive in the country, along by the farm-ditches shaded by beech and elmtrees; but he had to think twice of the cost of a glass of beer or apostage-stamp, and such an indulgence was out of his ken. It suddenlystruck him how hard it was for a man of past thirty to be reduced to askhis mother, with a blush for a twenty-franc piece every now and then;and he muttered, as he scored the gravel with the ferule of his stick:

"Christi, if I only had money!"

And again the thought of his brother's legacy came into his head likethe sting of a wasp; but he drove it out indignantly, not choosing toallow himself to slip down that descent to jealousy. 

Some children were playing about in the dusty paths. They were fairlittle things with long hair, and they were making little mounds of sandwith the greatest gravity and careful attention, to crush them at onceby stamping on them. 

It was one of those gloomy days with Pierre when we pry into everycorner of our souls and shake out every crease. 

"All our endeavours are like the labours of those babies, " thought he. And then he wondered whether the wisest thing in life were not to begettwo or three of these little creatures and watch them grow up withcomplacent curiosity. A longing for marriage breathed on his soul. Aman is not so lost when he is not alone. At any rate, he has some onestirring at his side in hours of trouble or of uncertainty; and it issomething only to be able to speak on equal terms to a woman when one issuffering. 

Then he began thinking of women. He knew very little of them, neverhaving had any but very transient connections as a medical student, broken off as soon as the month's allowance was spent, and renewed orreplaced by another the following month. And yet there must be some verykind, gentle, and comforting creatures among them. Had not his motherbeen the good sense and saving grace of his own home? How glad he wouldbe to know a woman, a true woman!

He started up with a sudden determination to go and call on Mme. Rosemilly. But he promptly sat down again. He did not like that woman. Why not? She had too much vulgar and sordid common sense; besides, did she not seem to prefer Jean? Without confessing it to himself toobluntly, this preference had a great deal to do with his low opinion ofthe widow's intellect; for, though he loved his brother, he could nothelp thinking him somewhat mediocre and believing himself the superior. However, he was not going to sit there till nightfall; and as he haddone on the previous evening, he anxiously asked himself: "What am Igoing to do?"

At this moment he felt in his soul the need of a melting mood, of beingembraced and comforted. Comforted--for what? He could not have put itinto words; but he was in one of these hours of weakness and exhaustionwhen a woman's presence, a woman's kiss, the touch of a hand, the rustleof a petticoat, a soft look out of black or blue eyes, seem the onething needful, there and then, to our heart. And the memory flashed uponhim of a little barmaid at a beer-house, whom he had walked home withone evening, and seen again from time to time. 

So once more he rose, to go and drink a bock with the girl. What shouldhe say to her? What would she say to him? Nothing, probably. But whatdid that matter? He would hold her hand for a few seconds. She seemed tohave a fancy for him. Why, then, did he not go to see her oftener?

He found her dozing on a chair in the beer-shop, which was almostdeserted. Three men were drinking and smoking with their elbows on theoak tables; the book-keeper in her desk was reading a novel, while themaster, in his shirt-sleeves, lay sound asleep on a bench. 

As soon as she saw him the girl rose eagerly, and coming to meet him, said:

"Good-day, monsieur--how are you?"

"Pretty well; and you?"

"I--oh, very well. How scarce you make yourself!"

"Yes. I have very little time to myself. I am a doctor, you know. "

"Indeed! You never told me. If I had known that--I was out of sorts lastweek and I would have sent for you. What will you take?"

"A bock. And you?"

"I will have a bock, too, since you are willing to treat me. "

She had addressed him with the familiar _tu_, and continued to useit, as if the offer of a drink had tacitly conveyed permission. Then, sitting down opposite each other, they talked for a while. Every now andthen she took his hand with the light familiarity of girls whose kissesare for sale, and looking at him with inviting eyes she said:

"Why don't you come here oftener? I like you very much, sweetheart. "

He was already disgusted with her; he saw how stupid she was, andcommon, smacking of low life. A woman, he told himself, should appear tous in dreams, or such a glory as may poetize her vulgarity. 

Next she asked him:

"You went by the other morning with a handsome fair man, wearing a bigbeard. Is he your brother?"

"Yes, he is my brother. "

"Awfully good-looking. "

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, indeed; and he looks like a man who enjoys life, too. "

What strange craving impelled him on a sudden to tell this tavern-wenchabout Jean's legacy? Why should this thing, which he kept at arm'slength when he was alone, which he drove from him for fear of thetorment it brought upon his soul, rise to his lips at this moment? Andwhy did he allow it to overflow them as if he needed once more to emptyout his heart to some one, gorged as it was with bitterness?

He crossed his legs and said:

"He has wonderful luck, that brother of mine. He had just come into alegacy of twenty thousand francs a year. "

She opened those covetous blue eyes of hers very wide. 

"Oh! and who left him that? His grandmother or his aunt?"

"No. An old friend of my parents'. "

"Only a friend! Impossible! And you--did he leave you nothing?"

"No. I knew him very slightly. "

She sat thinking some minutes; then, with an odd smile on her lips, shesaid:

"Well, he is a lucky dog, that brother of yours, to have friends of thispattern. My word! and no wonder he is so unlike you. "

He longed to slap her, without knowing why; and he asked with pinchedlips: "And what do you mean by saying that?"

She had put on a stolid, innocent face. 

"O--h, nothing. I mean he has better luck than you. "

He tossed a franc piece on the table and went out. 

Now he kept repeating the phrase: "No wonder he is so unlike you. "

What had her thought been, what had been her meaning under those words?There was certainly some malice, some spite, something shameful in it. Yes, that hussy must have fancied, no doubt, that Jean was Marechal'sson. The agitation which came over him at the notion of this suspicioncast at his mother was so violent that he stood still, looking abouthim for some place where he might sit down. In front of him was anothercafe. He went in, took a chair, and as the waiter came up, "A bock, " hesaid. 

He felt his heart beating, his skin was gooseflesh. And then therecollection flashed upon him of what Marowsko had said the eveningbefore. "It will not look well. " Had he had the same thought, the samesuspicion as this baggage? Hanging his head over the glass, he watchedthe white froth as the bubbles rose and burst, asking himself: "Is itpossible that such a thing should be believed?"

But the reasons which might give rise to this horrible doubt in othermen's minds now struck him, one after another, as plain, obvious, andexasperating. That a childless old bachelor should leave his fortune toa friend's two sons was the most simple and natural thing in the world;but that he should leave the whole of it to one alone--of course peoplewould wonder, and whisper, and end by smiling. How was it that he hadnot foreseen this, that his father had not felt it? How was it thathis mother had not guessed it? No; they had been too delighted at thisunhoped-for wealth for the idea to come near them. And besides, howshould these worthy souls have ever dreamed of anything so ignominious?

But the public--their neighbours, the shopkeepers, their own tradesmen, all who knew them--would not they repeat the abominable thing, laugh atit, enjoy it, make game of his father and despise his mother?

And the barmaid's remark that Jean was fair and he dark, that they werenot in the least alike in face, manner, figure, or intelligence, wouldnow strike every eye and every mind. When any one spoke of Roland's son, the question would be: "Which, the real or the false?"

He rose, firmly resolved to warn Jean, and put him on his guard againstthe frightful danger which threatened their mother's honour. 

But what could Jean do? The simplest thing no doubt, would be to refusethe inheritance, which would then go to the poor, and to tell allfriends or acquaintances who had heard of the bequest that the willcontained clauses and conditions impossible to subscribe to, which wouldhave made Jean not inheritor but merely a trustee. 

As he made his way home he was thinking that he must see his brotheralone, so as not to speak of such a matter in the presence of hisparents. On reaching the door he heard a great noise of voices andlaughter in the drawing-room, and when he went in he found CaptainBeausire and Mme. Rosemilly, whom his father had brought home andengaged to dine with them in honour of the good news. Vermouth andabsinthe had been served to whet their appetites, and every one had beenat once put into good spirits. Captain Beausire, a funny little man whohad become quite round by dint of being rolled about at sea, and whoseideas also seemed to have been worn round, like the pebbles of a beach, while he laughed with his throat full of _r_'s, looked upon life as acapital thing, in which everything that might turn up was good to take. He clinked his glass against father Roland's, while Jean was offeringtwo freshly filled glasses to the ladies. Mme. Rosemilly refused, tillCaptain Beausire, who had known her husband, cried:

"Come, come, madame, _bis repetita placent_, as we say in the lingo, which is as much as to say two glasses of vermouth never hurt any one. Look at me; since I have left the sea, in this way I give myself anartificial roll or two every day before dinner; I add a little pitchingafter my coffee, and that keeps things lively for the rest of theevening. I never rise to a hurricane, mind you, never, never. I am toomuch afraid of damage. "

Roland, whose nautical mania was humoured by the old mariner, laughedheartily, his face flushed already and his eye watery from the absinthe. He had a burly shop-keeping stomach--nothing but stomach--in which therest of his body seemed to have got stowed away; the flabby paunch ofmen who spend their lives sitting, and who have neither thighs, norchest, nor arms, nor neck; the seat of their chairs having accumulatedall their substance in one spot. Beausire, on the contrary, though shortand stout, was as tight as an egg and as hard as a cannon-ball. 

Mme. Roland had not emptied her glass and was gazing at her son Jeanwith sparkling eyes; happiness had brought a colour to her cheeks. 

In him, too, the fulness of joy had now blazed out. It was a settledthing, signed and sealed; he had twenty thousand francs a year. In thesound of his laugh, in the fuller voice with which he spoke, in hisway of looking at the others, his more positive manners, his greaterconfidence, the assurance given by money was at once perceptible. 

Dinner was announced, and as the old man was about to offer his arm toMme. Rosemilly, his wife exclaimed:

"No, no, father. Everything is for Jean to-day. "

Unwonted luxury graced the table. In front of Jean, who sat in hisfather's place, an enormous bouquet of flowers--a bouquet for a reallygreat occasion--stood up like a cupola dressed with flags, and wasflanked by four high dishes, one containing a pyramid of splendidpeaches; the second, a monumental cake gorged with whipped cream andcovered with pinnacles of sugar--a cathedral in confectionery;the third, slices of pine-apple floating in clear sirup; and thefourth--unheard-of lavishness--black grapes brought from the warmersouth. 

"The devil!" exclaimed Pierre as he sat down. "We are celebrating theaccession of Jean the rich. "

After the soup, Madeira was passed round, and already every one wastalking at once. Beausire was giving the history of a dinner he hadeaten at San Domingo at the table of a negro general. Old Roland waslistening, and at the same time trying to get in, between the sentences, his account of another dinner, given by a friend of his at Mendon, afterwhich every guest was ill for a fortnight. Mme. Rosemilly, Jean, andhis mother were planning an excursion to breakfast at Saint Jouin, fromwhich they promised themselves the greatest pleasure; and Pierre wasonly sorry that he had not dined alone in some pot-house by the sea, soas to escape all this noise and laughter and glee which fretted him. Hewas wondering how he could now set to work to confide his fears to hisbrother, and induce him to renounce the fortune he had already acceptedand of which he was enjoying the intoxicating foretaste. It would behard on him, no doubt; but it must be done; he could not hesitate; theirmother's reputation was at stake. 

The appearance of an enormous shade-fish threw Roland back on fishingstories. Beausire told some wonderful tales of adventure on the Gaboon, at Sainte-Marie, in Madagascar, and above all, off the coasts of Chinaand Japan, where the fish are as queer-looking as the natives. And hedescribed the appearance of these fishes--their goggle gold eyes, theirblue or red bellies, their fantastic fins like fans, their eccentriccrescent-shaped tails--with such droll gesticulation that they alllaughed till they cried as they listened. 

Pierre alone seemed incredulous, muttering to himself: "True enough, theNormans are the Gascons of the north!"

After the fish came a vol-au-vent, then a roast fowl, a salad, Frenchbeans with a Pithiviers lark-pie. Mme. Rosemilly's maid helped to waiton them, and the fun rose with the number of glasses of wine they drank. When the cork of the first champagne-bottle was drawn with a pop, fatherRoland, highly excited, imitated the noise with his tongue and thendeclared: "I like that noise better than a pistol-shot. "

Pierre, more and more fractious every moment, retorted with a sneer:

"And yet it is perhaps a greater danger for you. "

Roland, who was on the point of drinking, set his full glass down on thetable again, and asked:

"Why?"

He had for some time been complaining of his health, of heaviness, giddiness, frequent and unaccountable discomfort. The doctor replied:

"Because the bullet might very possibly miss you, while the glass ofwine is dead certain to hit you in the stomach. "

"And what then?"

"Then it scorches your inside, upsets your nervous system, makes thecirculation sluggish, and leads the way to the apoplectic fit whichalways threatens a man of your build. "

The jeweller's incipient intoxication had vanished like smoke before thewind. He looked at his son with fixed, uneasy eyes, trying to discoverwhether he was making game of him. 

But Beausire exclaimed:

"Oh, these confounded doctors! They all sing the same tune--eat nothing, drink nothing, never make love or enjoy yourself; it all plays the devilwith your precious health. Well, all I can say is, I have done all thesethings, sir, in every quarter of the globe, wherever and as often as Ihave had the chance, and I am none the worse. "

Pierre answered with some asperity:

"In the first place, captain, you are a stronger man than my father; andin the next, all free livers talk as you do till the day when--when theycome back no more to say to the cautious doctor: 'You were right. ' WhenI see my father doing what is worst and most dangerous for him, itis but natural that I should warn him. I should be a bad son if I didotherwise. "

Mme. Roland, much distressed, now put in her word: "Come, Pierre, whatails you? For once it cannot hurt him. Think of what an occasion itis for him, for all of us. You will spoil his pleasure and make us allunhappy. It is too bad of you to do such a thing. "

He muttered, as he shrugged his shoulders. 

"He can do as he pleases. I have warned him. "

But father Roland did not drink. He sat looking at his glass full of theclear and luminous liquor while its light soul, its intoxicating soul, flew off in tiny bubbles mounting from its depths in hurried successionto die on the surface. He looked at it with the suspicious eye of a foxsmelling at a dead hen and suspecting a trap. He asked doubtfully: "Doyou think it will really do me much harm?" Pierre had a pang of remorseand blamed himself for letting his ill-humour punish the rest. 

"No, " said he. "Just for once you may drink it; but do not take toomuch, or get into the habit of it. "

Then old Roland raised his glass, but still he could not make up hismind to put it to his lips. He contemplated it regretfully, with longingand with fear; then he smelt it, tasted it, drank it in sips, swallowingthem slowly, his heart full of terrors, of weakness and greediness; andthen, when he had drained the last drop, of regret. 

Pierre's eye suddenly met that of Mme. Rosemilly; it rested on him clearand blue, far-seeing and hard. And he read, he knew, the precise thoughtwhich lurked in that look, the indignant thought of this simple andright-minded little woman; for the look said: "You are jealous--that iswhat you are. Shameful!"

He bent his head and went on with his dinner. 

He was not hungry and found nothing nice. A longing to be off harassedhim, a craving to be away from these people, to hear no more of theirtalking, jests, and laughter. 

Father Roland meanwhile, to whose head the fumes of the wine were risingonce more, had already forgotten his son's advice and was eyeing achampagne-bottle with a tender leer as it stood, still nearly full, bythe side of his plate. He dared not touch it for fear of being lecturedagain, and he was wondering by what device or trick he could possesshimself of it without exciting Pierre's remark. A ruse occurred tohim, the simplest possible. He took up the bottle with an air ofindifference, and holding it by the neck, stretched his arm across thetable to fill the doctor's glass, which was empty; then he filled upall the other glasses, and when he came to his own he began talking veryloud, so that if he poured anything into it they might have sworn it wasdone inadvertently. And in fact no one took any notice. 

Pierre, without observing it, was drinking a good deal. Nervous andfretted, he every minute raised to his lips the tall crystal funnelwhere the bubbles were dancing in the living, translucent fluid. He letthe wine slip very slowly over his tongue, that he might feel the littlesugary sting of the fixed air as it evaporated. 

Gradually a pleasant warmth glowed in his frame. Starting from thestomach as a centre, it spread to his chest, took possession of hislimbs, and diffused itself throughout his flesh, like a warm andcomforting tide, bringing pleasure with it. He felt better now, lessimpatient, less annoyed, and his determination to speak to his brotherthat very evening faded away; not that he thought for a moment ofgiving it up, but simply not to disturb the happy mood in which he foundhimself. 

Beausire presently rose to propose a toast. Having bowed to the company, he began:

"Most gracious ladies and gentlemen, we have met to do honour to a happyevent which has befallen one of our friends. It used to be said thatFortune was blind, but I believe that she is only short-sighted ortricksy, and that she has lately bought a good pair of glasses whichenabled her to discover in the town of Havre the son of our worthyfriend Roland, skipper of the Pearl. "

Every one cried bravo and clapped their hands, and the elder Roland roseto reply. After clearing his throat, for it felt thick and his tonguewas heavy, he stammered out:

"Thank you, captain, thank you--for myself and my son. I shall neverforget your behaviour on this occasion. Here's good luck to you!"

His eyes and nose were full of tears, and he sat down, finding nothingmore to say. 

Jean, who was laughing, spoke in his turn:

"It is I, " said he, "who ought to thank my friends here, my excellentfriends, " and he glanced at Mme. Rosemilly, "who have given me such atouching evidence of their affection. But it is not by words that I canprove my gratitude. I will prove it to-morrow, every hour of my life, always, for our friendship is not one of those which fade away. "

His mother, deeply moved, murmured: "Well said, my boy. "

But Beausire cried out:

"Come, Mme. Rosemilly, speak on behalf of the fair sex. "

She raised her glass, and in a pretty voice, slightly touched withsadness, she said: "I will pledge you to the memory of M. Marechal. "

There was a few moments' lull, a pause for decent meditation, as afterprayer. Beausire, who always had a flow of compliment, remarked:

"Only a woman ever thinks of these refinements. " Then turning to FatherRoland: "And who was this Marechal, after all? You must have been veryintimate with him. "

The old man, emotional with drink, began to whimper, and in a brokenvoice he said:

"Like a brother, you know. Such a friend as one does not make twice--wewere always together--he dined with us every evening--and would treat usto the play--I need say no more--no more--no more. A true friend--a realtrue friend--wasn't he, Louise?"

His wife merely answered: "Yes; he was a faithful friend. "

Pierre looked at his father and then at his mother, then, as the subjectchanged he drank some more wine. He scarcely remembered the remainder ofthe evening. They had coffee, then liqueurs, and they laughed and jokeda great deal. At about midnight he went to bed, his mind confused andhis head heavy; and he slept like a brute till nine next morning. 

CHAPTER IV

These slumbers, lapped in Champagne and Chartreuse, had soothed andcalmed him, no doubt, for he awoke in a very benevolent frame ofmind. While he was dressing he appraised, weighed, and summed up theagitations of the past day, trying to bring out quite clearly and fullytheir real and occult causes, those personal to himself as well as thosefrom outside. 

It was, in fact, possible that the girl at the beer-shop had had an evilsuspicion--a suspicion worthy of such a hussy--on hearing that only oneof the Roland brothers had been made heir to a stranger; but havenot such natures as she always similar notions, without a shadow offoundation, about every honest woman? Do they not, whenever they speak, vilify, calumniate, and abuse all whom they believe to be blameless?Whenever a woman who is above imputation is mentioned in their presence, they are as angry as if they were being insulted, and exclaim: "Ah, yes, I know your married women; a pretty sort they are! Why, they havemore lovers than we have, only they conceal it because they are suchhypocrites. Oh, yes, a pretty sort, indeed!"

Under any other circumstances he would certainly not have understood, not have imagined the possibility of such an insinuation against hispoor mother, who was so kind, so simple, so excellent. But his spiritseethed with the leaven of jealousy that was fermenting within him. Hisown excited mind, on the scent, as it were, in spite of himself, for allthat could damage his brother, had even perhaps attributed to the tavernbarmaid an odious intention of which she was innocent. It was possiblethat his imagination had, unaided, invented this dreadful doubt--hisimagination, which he never controlled, which constantly evaded his willand went off, unfettered, audacious, adventurous, and stealthy, intothe infinite world of ideas, bringing back now and then some which wereshameless and repulsive, and which it buried in him, in the depths ofhis soul, in its most fathomless recesses, like something stolen. Hisheart, most certainly, his own heart had secrets from him; and hadnot that wounded heart discerned in this atrocious doubt a means ofdepriving his brother of the inheritance of which he was jealous? Hesuspected himself now, cross-examining all the mysteries of his mind asbigots search their consciences. 

Mme. Rosemilly, though her intelligence was limited, had certainly awoman's instinct, scent, and subtle intuitions. And this notion hadnever entered her head, since she had, with perfect simplicity, drunkto the blessed memory of the deceased Marechal. She was not the woman tohave done this if she had had the faintest suspicion. Now he doubted nolonger; his involuntary displeasure at his brother's windfall offortune and his religious affection for his mother had magnified hisscruples--very pious and respectable scruples, but exaggerated. As heput this conclusion into words in his own mind he felt happy, as atthe doing of a good action; and he resolved to be nice to every one, beginning with his father, whose manias, and silly statements, andvulgar opinions, and too conspicuous mediocrity were a constantirritation to him. 

He came in not late for breakfast, and amused all the family by his funand good humour. 

His mother, quite delighted, said to him:

"My little Pierre, you have no notion how humorous and clever you can bewhen you choose. "

And he talked, putting things in a witty way, and making them laughby ingenious hits at their friends. Beausire was his butt, and Mme. Rosemilly a little, but in a very judicious way, not too spiteful. Andhe thought as he looked at his brother: "Stand up for her, you muff. Youmay be as rich as you please, I can always eclipse you when I take thetrouble. "

As they drank their coffee he said to his father:

"Are you going out in the Pearl to-day?"

"No, my boy. "

"May I have her with Jean Bart?"

"To be sure, as long as you like. "

He bought a good cigar at the first tobacconist's and went down to thequay with a light step. He glanced up at the sky, which was clear andluminous, of a pale blue, freshly swept by the sea-breeze. 

Papagris, the boatman, commonly called Jean Bart, was dozing in thebottom of the boat, which he was required to have in readiness every dayat noon when they had not been out fishing in the morning. 

"You and I together, mate, " cried Pierre. He went down the iron ladderof the quay and leaped into the vessel. 

"Which way is the wind?" he asked. 

"Due east still, M'sieu Pierre. A fine breeze out at sea. "

"Well, then, old man, off we go!"

They hoisted the foresail and weighed anchor; and the boat, feelingherself free, glided slowly down towards the jetty on the still waterof the harbour. The breath of wind that came down the streets caught thetop of the sail so lightly as to be imperceptible, and the Pearl seemedendowed with life--the life of a vessel driven on by a mysterious latentpower. Pierre took the tiller, and, holding his cigar between his teeth, he stretched his legs on the bunk, and with his eyes half-shut in theblinding sunshine, he watched the great tarred timbers of the breakwateras they glided past. 

When they reached the open sea, round the nose of the north pier whichhad sheltered them, the fresher breeze puffed in the doctor's face andon his hands, like a somewhat icy caress, filled his chest, which rosewith a long sigh to drink it in, and swelling the tawny sail, tilted thePearl on her beam and made her more lively. Jean Bart hastily hauled upthe jib, and the triangle of canvas, full of wind, looked like a wing;then, with two strides to the stern, he let out the spinnaker, which wasclose-reefed against his mast. 

Then, along the hull of the boat, which suddenly heeled over and wasrunning at top speed, there was a soft, crisp sound of water hissing andrushing past. The prow ripped up the sea like the share of a plough gonemad, and the yielding water it turned up curled over and fell white withfoam, as the ploughed soil, heavy and brown, rolls and falls in a ridge. At each wave they met--and there was a short, chopping sea--the Pearlshivered from the point of the bowsprit to the rudder, which trembledunder Pierre's hand; when the wind blew harder in gusts, the swell roseto the gunwale as if it would overflow into the boat. A coal brig fromLiverpool was lying at anchor, waiting for the tide; they made a sweepround her stern and went to look at each of the vessels in the roads oneafter another; then they put further out to look at the unfolding lineof coast. 

For three hours Pierre, easy, calm, and happy, wandered to and fro overthe dancing waters, guiding the thing of wood and canvas, which came andwent at his will, under the pressure of his hand, as if it were a swiftand docile winged creature. 

He was lost in day-dreams, the dreams one has on horseback or on thedeck of a boat; thinking of his future, which should be brilliant, andthe joys of living intelligently. On the morrow he would ask his brotherto lend him fifteen hundred francs for three months, that he mightsettle at once in the pretty rooms on the Boulevard Francois. 

Suddenly the sailor said: "The fog is coming up, M'sieu Pierre. We mustgo in. "

He looked up and saw to the northward a gray shade, filmy but dense, blotting out the sky and covering the sea; it was sweeping down on themlike a cloud fallen from above. He tacked for land and made for thepier, scudding before the wind and followed by the flying fog, whichgained upon them. When it reached the Pearl, wrapping her in itsintangible density, a cold shudder ran over Pierre's limbs, and a smellof smoke and mould, the peculiar smell of a sea-fog, made him close hismouth that he might not taste the cold, wet vapour. By the time the boatwas at her usual moorings in the harbour the whole town was buried inthis fine mist, which did not fall but yet wetted everything like rain, and glided and rolled along the roofs and streets like the flow of ariver. Pierre, with his hands and feet frozen, made haste home and threwhimself on his bed to take a nap till dinner-time. When he made hisappearance in the dining-room his mother was saying to Jean:

"The glass corridor will be lovely. We will fill it with flowers. Youwill see. I will undertake to care for them and renew them. When yougive a party the effect will be quite fairy-like. "

"What in the world are you talking about?" the doctor asked. 

"Of a delightful apartment I have just taken for your brother. It isquite a find; an entresol looking out on two streets. There are twodrawing-rooms, a glass passage, and a little circular dining-room, perfectly charming for a bachelor's quarters. "

Pierre turned pale. His anger seemed to press on his heart. 

"Where is it?" he asked. 

"Boulevard Francois. "

There was no possibility for doubt. He took his seat in such a stateof exasperation that he longed to exclaim: "This is really too much! Isthere nothing for any one but him?"

His mother, beaming, went on talking: "And only fancy, I got it for twothousand eight hundred francs a year. They asked three thousand, but Igot a reduction of two hundred francs on taking for three, six, or nineyears. Your brother will be delightfully housed there. An elegant homeis enough to make the fortune of a lawyer. It attracts clients, charmsthem, holds them fast, commands respect, and shows them that a man wholives in such good style expects a good price for his words. "

She was silent for a few seconds and then went on:

"We must look out for something suitable for you; much less pretentious, since you have nothing, but nice and pretty all the same. I assure youit will be to your advantage. "

Pierre replied contemptuously:

"For me! Oh, I shall make my way by hard work and learning. "

But his mother insisted: "Yes, but I assure you that to be well lodgedwill be of use to you nevertheless. "

About half-way through the meal he suddenly asked:

"How did you first come to know this man Marechal?"

Old Roland looked up and racked his memory:

"Wait a bit; I scarcely recollect. It is such an old story now. Ah, yes, I remember. It was your mother who made the acquaintance with him in theshop, was it not, Louise? He first came to order something, and thenhe called frequently. We knew him as a customer before we knew him as afriend. "

Pierre, who was eating beans, sticking his fork into them one by one asif he were spitting them, went on:

"And when was it that you made his acquaintance?"

Again Roland sat thinking, but he could remember no more and appealed tohis wife's better memory. 

"In what year was it, Louise? You surely have not forgotten, youwho remember everything. Let me see--it was in--in--in fifty-five orfifty-six? Try to remember. You ought to know better than I. "

She did in fact think it over for some minutes, and then replied in asteady voice and with calm decision:

"It was in fifty-eight, old man. Pierre was three years old. I am quitesure that I am not mistaken, for it was in that year that the child hadscarlet fever, and Marechal, whom we knew then but very little, was ofthe greatest service to us. "

Roland exclaimed:

"To be sure--very true; he was really invaluable. When your mother washalf-dead with fatigue and I had to attend to the shop, he would go tothe chemist's to fetch your medicine. He really had the kindest heart!And when you were well again, you cannot think how glad he was and howhe petted you. It was from that time that we became such great friends. "

And this thought rushed into Pierre's soul, as abrupt and violent as acannon-ball rending and piercing it: "Since he knew me first, since hewas so devoted to me, since he was so fond of me and petted me so much, since I--_I_ was the cause of his great intimacy with my parents, whydid he leave all his money to my brother and nothing to me?"

He asked no more questions and remained gloomy; absent-minded ratherthan thoughtful, feeling in his soul a new anxiety as yet undefined, thesecret germ of a new pain. 

He went out early, wandering about the streets once more. They wereshrouded in the fog which made the night heavy, opaque, and nauseous. It was like a pestilential cloud dropped on the earth. It could be seenswirling past the gas-lights, which it seemed to put out at intervals. The pavement was as slippery as on a frosty night after rain, andall sorts of evil smells seemed to come up from the bowels of thehouses--the stench of cellars, drains, sewers, squalid kitchens--tomingle with the horrible savour of this wandering fog. 

Pierre, with his shoulders up and his hands in his pockets, not caringto remain out of doors in the cold, turned into Marowsko's. Thedruggist was asleep as usual under the gas-light, which kept watch. Onrecognising Pierre for whom he had the affection of a faithful dog, he shook off his drowsiness, went for two glasses, and brought out the_Groseillette_. 

"Well, " said the doctor, "how is the liqueur getting on?"

The Pole explained that four of the chief cafes in the town had agreedto have it on sale, and that two papers, the _Northcoast Pharos_ and the_Havre Semaphore_, would advertise it, in return for certain chemicalpreparations to be supplied to the editors. 

After a long silence Marowsko asked whether Jean had come definitelyinto possession of his fortune; and then he put two or three otherquestions vaguely referring to the same subject. His jealous devotionto Pierre rebelled against this preference. And Pierre felt as though hecould hear him thinking; he guessed and understood, read in his avertedeyes and in the hesitancy of his tone, the words which rose to his lipsbut were not spoken--which the druggist was too timid or too prudent andcautious to utter. 

At this moment, he felt sure, the old man was thinking: "You ought notto have suffered him to accept this inheritance which will make peoplespeak ill of your mother. "

Perhaps, indeed, Marowsko believed that Jean was Marechal's son. Ofcourse he believed it! How could he help believing it when the thingmust seem so possible, so probable, self-evident? Why, he himself, Pierre, her son--had not he been for these three days past fighting withall the subtlety at his command to cheat his reason, fighting againstthis hideous suspicion?

And suddenly the need to be alone, to reflect, to discuss the matterwith himself--to face boldly, without scruple or weakness, this possiblebut monstrous thing--came upon him anew, and so imperative that he rosewithout even drinking his glass of _Groseillette_, shook hands with theastounded druggist, and plunged out into the foggy streets again. 

He asked himself: "What made this Marechal leave all his fortune toJean?"

It was not jealousy now which made him dwell on this question, not therather mean but natural envy which he knew lurked within him, and withwhich he had been struggling these three days, but the dread of anoverpowering horror; the dread that he himself should believe that Jean, his brother, was that man's son. 

No. He did not believe it, he could not even ask himself the questionwhich was a crime! Meanwhile he must get rid of this faint suspicion, improbable as it was, utterly and forever. He craved for light, forcertainty--he must win absolute security in his heart, for he loved noone in the world but his mother. And as he wandered alone through thedarkness he would rack his memory and his reason with a minute searchthat should bring out the blazing truth. Then there would be an endto the matter; he would not think of it again--never. He would go andsleep. 

He argued thus: "Let me see: first to examine the facts; then I willrecall all I know about him, his behaviour to my brother and to me. Iwill seek out the causes which might have given rise to the preference. He knew Jean from his birth? Yes, but he had known me first. If he hadloved my mother silently, unselfishly, he would surely have chosen me, since it was through me, through my scarlet fever, that he became sointimate with my parents. Logically, then, he ought to have preferredme, to have had a keener affection for me--unless it were that he feltan instinctive attraction and predilection for my brother as he watchedhim grow up. "

Then, with desperate tension of brain and of all the powers of hisintellect, he strove to reconstitute from memory the image of thisMarechal, to see him, to know him, to penetrate the man whom he had seenpass by him, indifferent to his heart during all those years in Paris. 

But he perceived that the slight exertion of walking somewhat disturbedhis ideas, dislocated their continuity, weakened their precision, clouded his recollection. To enable him to look at the past and atunknown events with so keen an eye that nothing should escape it, hemust be motionless in a vast and empty space. And he made up his mindto go and sit on the jetty as he had done that other night. As heapproached the harbour he heard, out at sea, a lugubrious and sinisterwail like the bellowing of a bull, but more long-drawn and steady. Itwas the roar of a fog-horn, the cry of a ship lost in the fog. A shiverran through him, chilling his heart; so deeply did this cry of distressthrill his soul and nerves that he felt as if he had uttered it himself. Another and a similar voice answered with such another moan, but fartheraway; then, close by, the fog-horn on the pier gave out a fearful soundin answer. Pierre made for the jetty with long steps, thinking nomore of anything, content to walk on into this ominous and bellowingdarkness. 

When he had seated himself at the end of the breakwater he closed hiseyes, that he might not see the two electric lights, now blurred by thefog, which make the harbour accessible at night, and the red glareof the light on the south pier, which was, however, scarcely visible. Turning half-round, he rested his elbows on the granite and hid his facein his hands. 

Though he did not pronounce the words with his lips, his mind keptrepeating: "Marechal--Marechal, " as if to raise and challenge the shade. And on the black background of his closed eyelids, he suddenly saw himas he had known him: a man of about sixty, with a white beard cut ina point and very thick eyebrows, also white. He was neither tall norshort, his manner was pleasant, his eyes gray and soft, his movementsgentle, his whole appearance that of a good fellow, simple and kindly. He called Pierre and Jean "my dear children, " and had never seemed toprefer either, asking them both together to dine with him. And thenPierre, with the pertinacity of a dog seeking a lost scent, tried torecall the words, gestures, tones, looks, of this man who had vanishedfrom the world. By degrees he saw him quite clearly in his rooms in theRue Tronchet, where he received his brother and himself at dinner. 

He was waited on by two maids, both old women who had been in thehabit--a very old one, no doubt--of saying "Monsieur Pierre" and"Monsieur Jean. " Marechal would hold out both hands, the right hand toone of the young men, the left to the other, as they happened to comein. 

"How are you, my children?" he would say. "Have you any news of yourparents? As for me, they never write to me. "

The talk was quiet and intimate, of commonplace matters. There wasnothing remarkable in the man's mind, but much that was winning, charming, and gracious. He had certainly been a good friend to them, oneof those good friends of whom we think the less because we feel sure ofthem. 

Now, reminiscences came readily to Pierre's mind. Having seen himanxious from time to time, and suspecting his student's impecuniousness, Marechal had of his own accord offered and lent him money, a few hundredfrancs perhaps, forgotten by both, and never repaid. Then this man mustalways have been fond of him, always have taken an interest in him, since he thought of his needs. Well then--well then--why leave his wholefortune to Jean? No, he had never shown more marked affection for theyounger than for the elder, had never been more interested in one thanin the other, or seemed to care more tenderly for this one or that one. Well then--well then--he must have had some strong secret reason forleaving everything to Jean--everything--and nothing to Pierre. 

The more he thought, the more he recalled the past few years, the moreextraordinary, the more incredible was it that he should have made sucha difference between them. And an agonizing pang of unspeakable anguishpiercing his bosom made his heart beat like a fluttering rag. Itssprings seemed broken, and the blood rushed through in a flood, unchecked, tossing it with wild surges. 

Then in an undertone, as a man speaks in a nightmare, he muttered: "Imust know. My God! I must know. "

He looked further back now, to an earlier time, when his parentshad lived in Paris. But the faces escaped him, and this confused hisrecollections. He struggled above all to see Marechal, with light, orbrown, or black hair. But he could not; the later image, his face as anold man, blotted out all others. However, he remembered that he had beenslighter, and had a soft hand, and that he often brought flowers. Veryoften--for his father would constantly say: "What, another bouquet! Butthis is madness, my dear fellow; you will ruin yourself in roses. " AndMarechal would say: "No matter; I like it. "

And suddenly his mother's voice and accent, his mother's as she smiledand said: "Thank you, my kind friend, " flashed on his brain, so clearlythat he could have believed he heard her. She must have spoken thosewords very often that they should remain thus graven on her son'smemory. 

So Marechal brought flowers; he, the gentleman, the rich man, thecustomer, to the humble shop-keeper, the jeweller's wife. Had he lovedher? Why should he have made friends with these tradespeople if he hadnot been in love with the wife? He was a man of education and fairlyrefined tastes. How many a time had he discussed poets and poetry withPierre. He did not appreciate these writers from an artistic point ofview, but with sympathetic and responsive feeling. The doctor had oftensmiled at his emotions which had struck him as rather silly, now heplainly saw that this sentimental soul could never, never have been thefriend of his father, who was so matter-of-fact, so narrow, so heavy, towhom the word "Poetry" meant idiocy. 

This Marechal then, being young, free, rich, ready for any form oftenderness, went by chance into the shop one day, having perhapsobserved its pretty mistress. He had bought something, had come again, had chatted, more intimately each time, paying by frequent purchasesfor the right of a seat in the family, of smiling at the young wife andshaking hands with the husband. 

And what next--what next--good God--what next?

He had loved and petted the first child, the jeweller's child, till thesecond was born; then, till death, he had remained impenetrable; andwhen his grave was closed, his flesh dust, his name erased from thelist of the living, when he himself was quiet and forever gone, havingnothing to scheme for, to dread or to hide, he had given his wholefortune to the second child! Why?

The man had all his wits; he must have understood and foreseen that hemight, that he almost infallibly must, give grounds for the suppositionthat the child was his. He was casting obloquy on a woman. How could hehave done this if Jean were not his son?

And suddenly a clear and fearful recollection shot through his brain. Marechal was fair--fair like Jean. He now remembered a littleminiature portrait he had seen formerly in Paris, on the drawing-roomchimney-shelf, and which had since disappeared. Where was it? Lost, orhidden away? Oh, if he could but have it in his hand for one minute! Hismother kept it perhaps in the unconfessed drawer where love-tokens weretreasured. 

His misery in this thought was so intense that he uttered a groan, oneof those brief moans wrung from the breast by a too intolerable pang. And immediately, as if it had heard him, as if it had understood andanswered him, the fog-horn on the pier bellowed out close to him. Itsvoice, like that of a fiendish monster, more resonant than thunder--asavage and appalling roar contrived to drown the clamour of the wind andwaves--spread through the darkness, across the sea, which was invisibleunder its shroud of fog. And again, through the mist, far and near, responsive cries went up to the night. They were terrifying, these callsgiven forth by the great blind steam-ships. 

Then all was silent once more. 

Pierre had opened his eyes and was looking about him, startled to findhimself here, roused from his nightmare. 

"I am mad, " thought he, "I suspect my mother. " And a surge of love andemotion, of repentance, and prayer, and grief, welled up in his heart. His mother! Knowing her as he knew her, how could he ever have suspectedher? Was not the soul, was not the life of this simple-minded, chaste, and loyal woman clearer than water? Could any one who had seen andknown her ever think of her but as above suspicion? And he, her son, had doubted her! Oh, if he could but have taken her in his arms at thatmoment, how he would have kissed and caressed her, and gone on his kneesto crave pardon. 

Would she have deceived his father--she?

His father!--A very worthy man, no doubt, upright and honest inbusiness, but with a mind which had never gone beyond the horizon of hisshop. How was it that this woman, who must have been very pretty--as heknew, and it could still be seen--gifted, too, with a delicate, tenderemotional soul, could have accepted a man so unlike herself as a suitorand a husband? Why inquire? She had married, as young French girlsdo marry, the youth with a little fortune proposed to her by theirrelations. They had settled at once in their shop in the Rue Montmartre;and the young wife, ruling over the desk, inspired by the feeling of anew home, and the subtle and sacred sense of interests in common whichfills the place of love, and even of regard, by the domestic hearth ofmost of the commercial houses of Paris, had set to work, with all hersuperior and active intelligence, to make the fortune they hoped for. And so her life had flowed on, uniform, peaceful and respectable, butloveless. 

Loveless?--was it possible then that a woman should not love? Thata young and pretty woman, living in Paris, reading books, applaudingactresses for dying of passion on the stage, could live from youth toold age without once feeling her heart touched? He would not believe itof any one else; why should she be different from all others, though shewas his mother?

She had been young, with all the poetic weaknesses which agitate theheart of a young creature. Shut up, imprisoned in the shop, by theside of a vulgar husband who always talked of trade, she had dreamedof moonlight nights, of voyages, of kisses exchanged in the shades ofevening. And then, one day a man had come in, as lovers do in books, andhad talked as they talk. 

She had loved him. Why not? She was his mother. What then? Must a man beblind and stupid to the point of rejecting evidence because it concernshis mother? But did she give herself to him? Why yes, since this man hadhad no other love, since he had remained faithful to her when she wasfar away and growing old. Why yes, since he had left all his fortune tohis son--their son!

And Pierre started to his feet, quivering with such rage that he longedto kill some one. With his arm outstretched, his hand wide open, hewanted to hit, to bruise, to smash, to strangle! Whom? Every one; hisfather, his brother, the dead man, his mother!

He hurried off homeward. What was he going to do?

As he passed a turret close to the signal mast the strident howl of thefog-horn went off in his very face. He was so startled that he nearlyfell and shrank back as far as the granite parapet. He sat downhalf-stunned by the sudden shock. The steamer which was the first toreply seemed to be quite near and was already at the entrance, the tidehaving risen. 

Pierre turned round and could discern its red eye dim through the fog. Then, in the broad light of the electric lanterns, a huge black shadowcrept up between the piers. Behind him the voice of the look-out man, the hoarse voice of an old retired sea-captain, shouted:

"What ship?" And out of the fog the voice of the pilot standing ondeck--not less hoarse--replied:

"The Santa Lucia. "

"Where from?"

"Italy. "

"What port?"

"Naples. "

And before Pierre's bewildered eyes rose, as he fancied, the fierypennon of Vesuvius, while, at the foot of the volcano, fire-flies dancedin the orange-groves of Sorrento or Castellamare. How often had hedreamed of these familiar names as if he knew the scenery. Oh, if hemight but go away, now at once, never mind whither, and never come back, never write, never let any one know what had become of him! But no, hemust go home--home to his father's house, and go to bed. 

He would not. Come what might he would not go in; he would stay theretill daybreak. He liked the roar of the fog-horns. He pulled himselftogether and began to walk up and down like an officer on watch. 

Another vessel was coming in behind the other, huge and mysterious. AnEnglish India-man, homeward bound. 

He saw several more come in, one after another, out of the impenetrablevapour. Then, as the damp became quite intolerable, Pierre set outtowards the town. He was so cold that he went into a sailors' tavern todrink a glass of grog, and when the hot and pungent liquor had scorchedhis mouth and throat he felt a hope revive within him. 

Perhaps he was mistaken. He knew his own vagabond unreason so well! Nodoubt he was mistaken. He had piled up the evidence as a charge is drawnup against an innocent person, whom it is always so easy to convict whenwe wish to think him guilty. When he should have slept he would thinkdifferently. 

Then he went in and to bed, and by sheer force of will he at lastdropped asleep. 

CHAPTER V

But the doctor's frame lay scarcely more than an hour or two in thetorpor of troubled slumbers. When he awoke in the darkness of his warm, closed room he was aware, even before thought was awake in him, of thepainful oppression, the sickness of heart which the sorrow we have slepton leaves behind it. It is as though the disaster of which the shockmerely jarred us at first, had, during sleep, stolen into our veryflesh, bruising and exhausting it like a fever. Memory returned to himlike a blow, and he sat up in bed. Then slowly, one by one, he againwent through all the arguments which had wrung his heart on the jettywhile the fog-horns were bellowing. The more he thought the less hedoubted. He felt himself dragged along by his logic to the inevitablecertainty, as by a clutching, strangling hand. 

He was thirsty and hot, his heart beat wildly. He got up to open hiswindow and breathe the fresh air, and as he stood there a low sound fellon his ear through the wall. Jean was sleeping peacefully, and gentlysnoring. He could sleep! He had no presentiment, no suspicions! A manwho had known their mother had left him all his fortune; he took themoney and thought it quite fair and natural! He was sleeping, rich andcontented, not knowing that his brother was gasping with anguish anddistress. And rage boiled up in him against this heedless and happysleeper. 

Only yesterday he would have knocked at his door, have gone in, andsitting by the bed, would have said to Jean, scared by the suddenwaking:

"Jean you must not keep this legacy which by to-morrow may have broughtsuspicion and dishonour on our mother. "

But to-day he could say nothing; he could not tell Jean that he did notbelieve him to be their father's son. Now he must guard, must bury theshame he had discovered, hide from every eye the stain which hehad detected and which no one must perceive, not even hisbrother--especially not his brother. 

He no longer thought about the vain respect of public opinion. He wouldhave been glad that all the world should accuse his mother if only he, he alone, knew her to be innocent! How could he bear to live with herevery day, believing as he looked at her that his brother was the childof a stranger's love?

And how calm and serene she was, nevertheless, how sure of herself shealways seemed! Was it possible that such a woman as she, pure of souland upright in heart, should fall, dragged astray by passion, andyet nothing ever appear afterward of her remorse and the stings of atroubled conscience? Ah, but remorse must have tortured her, long ago inthe earlier days, and then have faded out, as everything fades. Shehad surely bewailed her sin, and then, little by little, had almostforgotten it. Have not all women, all, this fault of prodigiousforgetfulness which enables them, after a few years, hardly to recognisethe man to whose kisses they have given their lips? The kiss strikeslike a thunderbolt, the love passes away like a storm, and then life, like the sky, is calm once more, and begins again as it was before. Dowe ever remember a cloud?

Pierre could no longer endure to stay in the room! This house, hisfather's house, crushed him. He felt the roof weigh on his head, and thewalls suffocate him. And as he was very thirsty he lighted his candle togo to drink a glass of fresh water from the filter in the kitchen. 

He went down the two flights of stairs; then, as he was coming up againwith the water-bottle filled, he sat down, in his night-shirt, on a stepof the stairs where there was a draught, and drank, without a tumbler, in long pulls like a runner who is out of breath. When he ceased tomove the silence of the house touched his feelings; then, one by one, he could distinguish the faintest sounds. First there was the ticking ofthe clock in the dining-room which seemed to grow louder every second. Then he heard another snore, an old man's snore, short, laboured, andhard, his father beyond doubt; and he writhed at the idea, as if it hadbut this moment sprung upon him, that these two men, sleeping under thesame room--father and son--were nothing to each other! Not a tie, notthe very slightest, bound them together, and they did not know it!They spoke to each other affectionately, they embraced each other, theyrejoiced and lamented together over the same things, just as if the sameblood flowed in their veins. And two men born at opposite ends of theearth could not be more alien to each other than this father and son. They believed they loved each other, because a lie had grown up betweenthem. This paternal love, this filial love, were the outcome of a lie--alie which could not be unmasked, and which no one would ever know buthe, the true son. 

But yet, but yet--if he were mistaken? How could he make sure? Oh, ifonly some likeness, however slight, could be traced between his fatherand Jean, one of those mysterious resemblances which run from anancestor to the great-great-grandson, showing that the whole race arethe offspring of the same embrace. To him, a medical man, so littlewould suffice to enable him to discern this--the curve of a nostril, thespace between the eyes, the character of the teeth or hair; nay less--agesture, a trick, a habit, an inherited taste, any mark or token which apractised eye might recognise as characteristic. 

He thought long, but could remember nothing; no, nothing. But he hadlooked carelessly, observed badly, having no reason for spying suchimperceptible indications. 

He got up to go back to his room and mounted the stairs with a slowstep, still lost in thought. As he passed the door of his brother's roomhe stood stock still, his hand put out to open it. An imperative needhad just come over him to see Jean at once, to look at him at hisleisure, to surprise him in his sleep, while the calm countenance andrelaxed features were at rest and all the grimace of life put off. Thus he might catch the dormant secret of his physiognomy, and if anyappreciable likeness existed it would not escape him. 

But supposing Jean were to wake, what could he say? How could he explainthis intrusion?

He stood still, his fingers clinched on the door-handle, trying todevise a reason, an excuse. Then he remembered that a week ago he hadlent his brother a phial of laudanum to relieve a fit of toothache. Hemight himself have been in pain this night and have come to find thedrug. So he went in with a stealthy step, like a robber. Jean, his mouthopen, was sunk in deep, animal slumbers. His beard and fair hair made agolden patch on the white linen; he did not wake, but he ceased snoring. 

Pierre, leaning over him, gazed at him with hungry eagerness. No, thisyoungster was not in the least like Roland; and for the second time therecollection of the little portrait of Marechal, which had vanished, recurred to his mind. He must find it! When he should see it perhaps heshould cease to doubt!

His brother stirred, conscious no doubt of a presence, or disturbed bythe light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tip-toe tothe door which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, butnot to bed again. 

Day was long in coming. The hours struck one after another on thedining-room clock, and its tone was a deep and solemn one, as though thelittle piece of clockwork had swallowed a cathedral-bell. The sound rosethrough the empty staircase, penetrating through walls and doors, anddying away in the rooms where it fell on the torpid ears of the sleepinghousehold. Pierre had taken to walking to and fro between his bed andthe window. What was he going to do? He was too much upset to spend thisday at home. He wanted still to be alone, at any rate till the next day, to reflect, to compose himself, to strengthen himself for the commonevery-day life which he must take up again. 

Well, he would go over to Trouville to see the swarming crowd on thesands. That would amuse him, change the air of his thoughts, and givehim time to inure himself to the horrible thing he had discovered. As soon as morning dawned he made his toilet and dressed. The fog hadvanished and it was fine, very fine. As the boat for Trouville did notstart till nine, it struck the doctor that he must greet his motherbefore starting. 

He waited till the hour at which she was accustomed to get up, and thenwent downstairs. His heart beat so violently as he touched her doorthat he paused for breath. His hand as it lay on the lock was limp andtremulous, almost incapable of the slight effort of turning the handleto open it. He knocked. His mother's voice inquired:

"Who is there?"

"I--Pierre. "

"What do you want?"

"Only to say good-morning, because I am going to spend the day atTrouville with some friends. "

"But I am still in bed. "

"Very well, do not disturb yourself. I shall see you this evening, whenI come in. "

He hoped to get off without seeing her, without pressing on her cheekthe false kiss which it made his heart sick to think of. But shereplied:

"No. Wait a moment. I will let you in. Wait till I get into bed again. "

He heard her bare feet on the floor and the sound of the bolt drawnback. Then she called out:

"Come in. "

He went in. She was sitting up in bed, while, by her side, Roland, witha silk handkerchief by way of night-cap and his face to the wall, stilllay sleeping. Nothing ever woke him but a shaking hard enough to pullhis arm off. On the days when he went fishing it was Josephine, rung upby Papagris at the hour fixed, who roused her master from his stubbornslumbers. 

Pierre, as he went towards his mother, looked at her with a sudden senseof never having seen her before. She held up her face, he kissed eachcheek, and then sat down in a low chair. 

"It was last evening that you decided on this excursion?" she asked. 

"Yes, last evening. "

"Will you return to dinner?"

"I do not know. At any rate do not wait for me. "

He looked at her with stupefied curiosity. This woman was his mother!All those features, seen daily from childhood, from the time when hiseye could first distinguish things, that smile, that voice--so wellknown, so familiar--abruptly struck him as new, different from what theyhad always been to him hitherto. He understood now that, loving her, he had never looked at her. All the same it was very really she, and heknew every little detail of her face; still, it was the first time heclearly identified them all. His anxious attention, scrutinizing herface which he loved, recalled a difference, a physiognomy he had neverbefore discerned. 

He rose to go; then, suddenly yielding to the invincible longing to knowwhich had been gnawing at him since yesterday, he said:

"By the way, I fancy I remember that you used to have, in Paris, alittle portrait of Marechal, in the drawing-room. "

She hesitated for a second or two, or at least he fancied she hesitated;then she said:

"To be sure. "

"What has become of the portrait?"

She might have replied more readily:

"That portrait--stay; I don't exactly know--perhaps it is in my desk. "

"It would be kind of you to find it. "

"Yes, I will look for it. What do you want it for?"

"Oh, it is not for myself. I thought it would be a natural thing to giveit to Jean, and that he would be pleased to have it. "

"Yes, you are right; that is a good idea. I will look for it, as soon asI am up. "

And he went out. 

It was a blue day without a breath of wind. The folks in the streetsseemed in good spirits, the merchants going to business, the clerksgoing to their office, the girls going to their shop. Some sang as theywent, exhilarated by the bright weather. 

The passengers were already going on board the Trouville boat; Pierretook a seat aft on a wooden bench. 

He asked himself:

"Now was she uneasy at my asking for the portrait or only surprised? Hasshe mislaid it, or has she hidden it? Does she know where it is, or doesshe not? If she had hidden it--why?"

And his mind, still following up the same line of thought from onededuction to another, came to this conclusion:

That portrait--of a friend, of a lover, had remained in the drawing-roomin a conspicuous place, till one day when the wife and mother perceived, first of all and before any one else, that it bore a likeness to herson. Without doubt she had for a long time been on the watch for thisresemblance; then, having detected it, having noticed its beginnings, and understanding that any one might, any day, observe it too, she hadone evening removed the perilous little picture and had hidden it, notdaring to destroy it. 

Pierre recollected quite clearly now that it was long, long beforethey left Paris that the miniature had vanished. It had disappeared, hethought, about the time that Jean's beard was beginning to grow, whichhad made him suddenly and wonderfully like the fair young man who smiledfrom the picture-frame. 

The motion of the boat as it put off disturbed and dissipated hismeditations. He stood up and looked at the sea. The little steamer, once outside the piers, turned to the left, and puffing and snorting andquivering, made for a distant point visible through the morning haze. The red sail of a heavy fishing-bark, lying motionless on the levelwaters, looked like a large rock standing up out of the sea. Andthe Seine, rolling down from Rouen, seemed a wide inlet dividing twoneighbouring lands. They reached the harbour of Trouville in less thanan hour, and as it was the time of day when the world was bathing, Pierre went to the shore. 

From a distance it looked like a garden full of gaudy flowers. All alongthe stretch of yellow sand, from the pier as far as the Roches Noires, sun-shades of every hue, hats of every shape, dresses of every colour, in groups outside the bathing huts, in long rows by the margin of thewaves, or scattered here and there, really looked like immense bouquetson a vast meadow. And the Babel of sounds--voices near and far ringingthin in the light atmosphere, shouts and cries of children being bathed, clear laughter of women--all made a pleasant, continuous din, minglingwith the unheeding breeze, and breathed with the air itself. 

Pierre walked among all this throng, more lost, more remote from them, more isolated, more drowned in his torturing thoughts, than if he hadbeen flung overboard from the deck of a ship a hundred miles from shore. He passed by them and heard a few sentences without listening; and hesaw, without looking, how the men spoke to the women, and the womensmiled at the men. Then, suddenly, as if he had awoke, he perceived themall; and hatred of them all surged up in his soul, for they seemed happyand content. 

Now, as he went, he studied the groups, wandering round them full of afresh set of ideas. All these many-hued dresses which covered the sandslike nosegays, these pretty stuffs, those showy parasols, the fictitiousgrace of tightened waists, all the ingenious devices of fashion fromthe smart little shoe to the extravagant hat, the seductive charm ofgesture, voice, and smile, all the coquettish airs in short displayedon this seashore, suddenly struck him as stupendous efflorescencesof female depravity. All these bedizened women aimed at pleasing, bewitching, and deluding some man. They had dressed themselves out formen--for all men--all excepting the husband whom they no longer neededto conquer. They had dressed themselves out for the lover of yesterdayand the lover of to-morrow, for the stranger they might meet and noticeor were perhaps on the lookout for. 

And these men sitting close to them, eye to eye and mouth to mouth, invited them, desired them, hunted them like game, coy and elusivenotwithstanding that it seemed so near and so easy to capture. This wideshore was, then, no more than a love-market where some sold, othersgave themselves--some drove a hard bargain for their kisses while otherspromised them for love. All these women thought only of one thing, tomake their bodies desirable--bodies already given, sold, or promisedto other men. And he reflected that it was everywhere the same, all theworld over. 

His mother had done what others did--that was all. Others? These womenhe saw about him, rich, giddy, love-seeking, belonged on the whole tothe class of fashionable and showy women of the world, some indeed tothe less respectable sisterhood, for on these sands, trampled by thelegion of idlers, the tribe of virtuous, home-keeping women were not tobe seen. 

The tide was rising, driving the foremost rank of visitors graduallylandward. He saw the various groups jump up and fly, carrying theirchairs with them, before the yellow waves as they rolled up edged witha lace-like frill of foam. The bathing-machines too were being pulled upby horses, and along the planked way which formed the promenade runningalong the shore from end to end, there was now an increasing flow, slowand dense, of well-dressed people in two opposite streams elbowing andmingling. Pierre, made nervous and exasperated by this bustle, made hisescape into the town, and went to get his breakfast at a modest tavernon the skirts of the fields. 

When he had finished with coffee, he stretched his legs on a couple ofchairs under a lime-tree in front of the house, and as he had hardlyslept the night before, he presently fell into a doze. After resting forsome hours he shook himself, and finding that it was time to go on boardagain he set out, tormented by a sudden stiffness which had come uponhim during his long nap. Now he was eager to be at home again; to knowwhether his mother had found the portrait of Marechal. Would she be thefirst to speak of it, or would he be obliged to ask for it again? If shewaited to be questioned further it must be because she had some secretreason for not showing the miniature. 

But when he was at home again, and in his room, he hesitated about goingdown to dinner. He was too wretched. His revolted soul had not yet timeto calm down. However, he made up his mind to it, and appeared in thedining-room just as they were sitting down. 

All their faces were beaming. 

"Well, " said Roland, "are you getting on with your purchases? I do notwant to see anything till it is all in its place. "

And his wife replied: "Oh, yes. We are getting on. But it takes muchconsideration to avoid buying things that do not match. The furniturequestion is an absorbing one. "

She had spent the day in going with Jean to cabinet-makers andupholsterers. Her fancy was for rich materials, rather splendid tostrike the eye at once. Her son, on the contrary, wished for somethingsimple and elegant. So in front of everything put before them they hadeach repeated their arguments. She declared that a client, a defendant, must be impressed; that as soon as he is shown into his counsel'swaiting-room he should have a sense of wealth. 

Jean, on the other hand, wishing to attract only an elegant and opulentclass, was anxious to captivate persons of refinement by his quiet andperfect taste. 

And this discussion, which had gone on all day, began again with thesoup. 

Roland had no opinion. He repeated: "I do not want to hear anythingabout it. I will go and see it when it is all finished. "

Mme. Roland appealed to the judgment of her elder son. 

"And you, Pierre, what do you think of the matter?"

His nerves were in a state of such intense excitement that he would haveliked to reply with an oath. However, he only answered in a dry tonequivering with annoyance. 

"Oh, I am quite of Jean's mind. I like nothing so well as simplicity, which, in matters of taste, is equivalent to rectitude in matters ofconduct. "

His mother went on:

"You must remember that we live in a city of commercial men, where goodtaste is not to be met with at every turn. "

Pierre replied:

"What does that matter? Is that a reason for living as fools do? If myfellow-townsmen are stupid and ill-bred, need I follow their example? Awoman does not misconduct herself because her neighbour has a lover. "

Jean began to laugh. 

"You argue by comparisons which seem to have been borrowed from themaxims of a moralist. "

Pierre made no reply. His mother and his brother reverted to thequestion of stuffs and arm-chairs. 

He sat looking at them as he had looked at his mother in the morningbefore starting for Trouville; looking at them as a stranger who wouldstudy them, and he felt as though he had really suddenly come into afamily of which he knew nothing. 

His father, above all, amazed his eyes and his mind. That flabby, burlyman, happy and besotted, was his own father! No, no; Jean was not in theleast like him. 

His family!

Within these two days an unknown and malignant hand, the hand of a deadman, had torn asunder and broken, one by one, all the ties which hadheld these four human beings together. It was all over, all ruined. Hehad now no mother--for he could no longer love her now that he could notrevere her with that perfect, tender, and pious respect which a son'slove demands; no brother--since his brother was the child of a stranger;nothing was left him but his father, that coarse man whom he could notlove in spite of himself. 

And he suddenly broke out:

"I say, mother, have you found that portrait?"

She opened her eyes in surprise. 

"What portrait?"

"The portrait of Marechal. "

"No--that is to say--yes--I have not found it, but I think I know whereit is. "

"What is that?" asked Roland. And Pierre answered:

"A little likeness of Marechal which used to be in the dining-room inParis. I thought that Jean might be glad to have it. "

Roland exclaimed:

"Why, yes, to be sure; I remember it perfectly. I saw it again lastweek. Your mother found it in her desk when she was tidying the papers. It was on Thursday or Friday. Do you remember, Louise? I was shavingmyself when you took it out and laid in on a chair by your side with apile of letters of which you burned half. Strange, isn't it, that youshould have come across the portrait only two or three days before Jeanheard of his legacy? If I believed in presentiments I should think thatthis was one. "

Mme. Roland calmly replied:

"Yes, I know where it is. I will fetch it presently. "

Then she had lied! When she had said that very morning to her sonwho had asked her what had become of the miniature: "I don't exactlyknow--perhaps it is in my desk"--it was a lie! She had seen it, touchedit, handled it, gazed at it but a few days since; and then she hadhidden it away again in the secret drawer with those letters--hisletters. 

Pierre looked at the mother who had lied to him; looked at her withthe concentrated fury of a son who had been cheated, robbed of his mostsacred affection, and with the jealous wrath of a man who, after longbeing blind, at last discovers a disgraceful betrayal. If he had beenthat woman's husband--and not her child--he would have gripped her bythe wrists, seized her by the shoulders or the hair, have flung heron the ground, have hit her, hurt her, crushed her! And he might saynothing, do nothing, show nothing, reveal nothing. He was her son; hehad no vengeance to take. And he had not been deceived. 

Nay, but she had deceived his tenderness, his pious respect. She owed tohim to be without reproach, as all mothers owe it to their children. Ifthe fury that boiled within him verged on hatred it was that he felt herto be even more guilty towards him than toward his father. 

The love of man and wife is a voluntary compact in which the one whoproves weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother herduty is a higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If shefails, then she is cowardly, worthless, infamous. 

"I do not care, " said Roland suddenly, stretching out his legs underthe table, as he did every evening while he sipped his glass ofblack-currant brandy. "You may do worse than live idle when you havea snug little income. I hope Jean will have us to dinner in style now. Hang it all! If I have indigestion now and then I cannot help it. "

Then turning to his wife he added:

"Go and fetch that portrait, little woman, as you have done your dinner. I should like to see it again myself. "

She rose, took a taper, and went. Then, after an absence which Pierrethought long, though she was not away more than three minutes, Mme. Roland returned smiling, and holding an old-fashioned gilt frame by thering. 

"Here it is, " said she, "I found it at once. "

The doctor was the first to put forth his hand; he took the picture, and holding it a little away from him, he examined it. Then, fully awarethat his mother was looking at him, he slowly raised his eyes and fixedthem on his brother to compare the faces. He could hardly refrain, inhis violence, from saying: "Dear me! How like Jean!" And though he darednot utter the terrible words, he betrayed his thought by his manner ofcomparing the living face with the painted one. 

They had, no doubt, details in common; the same beard, the same brow;but nothing sufficiently marked to justify the assertion: "This isthe father and that the son. " It was rather a family likeness, arelationship of physiognomies in which the same blood courses. But whatto Pierre was far more decisive than the common aspect of the faces, wasthat his mother had risen, had turned her back, and was pretending, toodeliberately, to be putting the sugar basin and the liqueur bottleaway in a cupboard. She understood that he knew, or at any rate had hissuspicions. 

"Hand it on to me, " said Roland. 

Pierre held out the miniature and his father drew the candle towards himto see it better; then, he murmured in a pathetic tone:

"Poor fellow! To think that he was like that when we first knew him!Cristi! How time flies! He was a good-looking man, too, in those days, and with such a pleasant manner--was not he, Louise?"

As his wife made no answer he went on:

"And what an even temper! I never saw him put out. And now it is all atan end--nothing left of him--but what he bequeathed to Jean. Well, atany rate you may take your oath that that man was a good and faithfulfriend to the last. Even on his death-bed he did not forget us. "

Jean, in his turn, held out his hand for the picture. He gazed at it fora few minutes and then said regretfully:

"I do not recognise it at all. I only remember him with white hair. "

He returned the miniature to his mother. She cast a hasty glance atit, looking away as if she were frightened; then in her usual voice shesaid:

"It belongs to you now, my little Jean, as you are his heir. We willtake it to your new rooms. " And when they went into the drawing-roomshe placed the picture on the chimney-shelf by the clock, where it hadformerly stood. 

Roland filled his pipe; Pierre and Jean lighted cigarettes. Theycommonly smoked them, Pierre while he paced the room, Jean, sunk in adeep arm-chair, with his legs crossed. Their father always sat astride achair and spat from afar into the fire-place. 

Mme. Roland, on a low seat by a little table on which the lamp stood, embroidered, or knitted, or marked linen. 

This evening she was beginning a piece of worsted work, intendedfor Jean's lodgings. It was a difficult and complicated pattern, andrequired all her attention. Still, now and again, her eye, which wascounting the stitches, glanced up swiftly and furtively at the littleportrait of the dead as it leaned against the clock. And the doctor, whowas striding to and fro across the little room in four or five steps, met his mother's look at each turn. 

It was as though they were spying on each other; and acute uneasiness, intolerable to be borne, clutched at Pierre's heart. He was saying tohimself--at once tortured and glad:

"She must be in misery at this moment if she knows that I guess!" Andeach time he reached the fire-place he stopped for a few seconds to lookat Marechal's fair hair, and show quite plainly that he was haunted bya fixed idea. So that this little portrait, smaller than an opened palm, was like a living being, malignant and threatening, suddenly broughtinto this house and this family. 

Presently the street-door bell rang. Mme. Roland, always soself-possessed, started violently, betraying to her doctor son theanguish of her nerves. Then she said: "It must be Mme. Rosemilly;" andher eye again anxiously turned to the mantel-shelf. 

Pierre understood, or thought he understood, her fears and misery. A woman's eye is keen, a woman's wit is nimble, and her instinctssuspicious. When this woman who was coming in should see the miniatureof a man she did not know, she might perhaps at the first glancediscover the likeness between this face and Jean. Then she would knowand understand everything. 

He was seized with dread, a sudden and horrible dread of this shamebeing unveiled, and, turning about just as the door opened, he took thelittle painting and slipped it under the clock without being seen by hisfather and brother. 

When he met his mother's eyes again they seemed to him altered, dim, andhaggard. 

"Good evening, " said Mme. Rosemilly. "I have come to ask you for a cupof tea. "

But while they were bustling about her and asking after her health, Pierre made off, the door having been left open. 

When his absence was perceived they were all surprised. Jean, annoyedfor the young widow, who, he thought, would be hurt, muttered: "What abear!"

Mme. Roland replied: "You must not be vexed with him; he is not verywell to-day and tired with his excursion to Trouville. "

"Never mind, " said Roland, "that is no reason for taking himself offlike a savage. "

Mme. Rosemilly tried to smooth matters by saying: "Not at all, not atall. He has gone away in the English fashion; people always disappear inthat way in fashionable circles if they want to leave early. "

"Oh, in fashionable circles, I dare say, " replied Jean. "But a man doesnot treat his family _a l'Anglaise_, and my brother has done nothingelse for some time past. "

CHAPTER VI

For a week or two nothing occurred. The father went fishing; Jean, withhis mother's help, was furnishing and settling himself; Pierre, verygloomy, never was seen excepting at meal-times. 

His father having asked him one evening: "Why the deuce do you alwayscom in with a face as cheerful as a funeral? This is not the first timeI have remarked it. "

The doctor replied: "The fact is I am terribly conscious of the burdenof life. "

The old man did not have a notion what he meant, and with an aggrievedlook he went on: "It really is too bad. Ever since we had the good luckto come into this legacy, every one seems unhappy. It is as though someaccident had befallen us, as if we were in mourning for some one. "

"I am in mourning for some one, " said Pierre. 

"You are? For whom?"

"For some one you never knew, and of whom I was too fond. "

Roland imagined that his son alluded to some girl with whom he had hadsome love passages, and he said:

"A woman, I suppose. "

"Yes, a woman. "

"Dead?"

"No. Worse. Ruined!"

"Ah!"

Though he was startled by this unexpected confidence, in his wife'spresence too, and by his son's strange tone about it, the old man madeno further inquiries, for in his opinion such affairs did not concern athird person. 

Mme. Roland affected not to hear; she seemed ill and was very pale. Several times already her husband, surprised to see her sit down as ifshe were dropping into her chair, and to hear her gasp as if she couldnot draw her breath, had said:

"Really, Louise, you look very ill; you tire yourself too much withhelping Jean. Give yourself a little rest. Sacristi! The rascal is in nohurry, as he is a rich man. "

She shook her head without a word. 

But to-day her pallor was so great that Roland remarked on it again. 

"Come, come, " said he, "this will not do at all, my dear old woman. Youmust take care of yourself. " Then, addressing his son, "You surely mustsee that your mother is ill. Have you questioned her, at any rate?"

Pierre replied: "No; I had not noticed that there was anything thematter with her. "

At this Roland was angry. 

"But it stares you in the face, confound you! What on earth is the goodof your being a doctor if you cannot even see that your mother is out ofsorts? Why, look at her, just look at her. Really, a man might die underhis very eyes and this doctor would never think there was anything thematter!"

Mme. Roland was panting for breath, and so white that her husbandexclaimed:

"She is going to faint. "

"No, no, it is nothing--I shall get better directly--it is nothing. "

Pierre had gone up to her and was looking at her steadily. 

"What ails you?" he said. And she repeated in an undertone:

"Nothing, nothing--I assure you, nothing. "

Roland had gone to fetch some vinegar; he now returned, and handing thebottle to his son he said:

"Here--do something to ease her. Have you felt her heart?"

As Pierre bent over her to feel her pulse she pulled away her hand sovehemently that she struck it against a chair which was standing by. 

"Come, " said he in icy tones, "let me see what I can do for you, as youare ill. "

Then she raised her arm and held it out to him. Her skin was burning, the blood throbbing in short irregular leaps. 

"You are certainly ill, " he murmured. "You must take something to quietyou. I will write you a prescription. " And as he wrote, stooping overthe paper, a low sound of choked sighs, smothered, quick breathing andsuppressed sobs made him suddenly look round at her. She was weeping, her hands covering her face. 

Roland, quite distracted, asked her:

"Louise, Louise, what is the mater with you? What on earth ails you?"

She did not answer, but seemed racked by some deep and dreadful grief. Her husband tried to take her hands from her face, but she resisted him, repeating:

"No, no, no. "

He appealed to his son. 

"But what is the matter with her? I never saw her like this. "

"It is nothing, " said Pierre, "she is a little hysterical. "

And he felt as if it were a comfort to him to see her suffering thus, as if this anguish mitigated his resentment and diminished his mother'sload of opprobrium. He looked at her as a judge satisfied with his day'swork. 

Suddenly she rose, rushed to the door with such a swift impulse that itwas impossible to forestall or to stop her, and ran off to lock herselfinto her room. 

Roland and the doctor were left face to face. 

"Can you make head or tail of it?" said the father. 

"Oh, yes, " said the other. "It is a little nervous disturbance, notalarming or surprising; such attacks may very likely recur from time totime. "

They did in fact recur, almost every day; and Pierre seemed to bringthem on with a word, as if he had the clew to her strange and newdisorder. He would discern in her face a lucid interval of peace andwith the willingness of a torturer would, with a word, revive theanguish that had been lulled for a moment. 

But he, too, was suffering as cruelly as she. It was dreadful pain tohim that he could no longer love her nor respect her, that he must puther on the rack. When he had laid bare the bleeding wound which he hadopened in her woman's, her mother's heart, when he felt how wretched anddesperate she was, he would go out alone, wander about the town, so tornby remorse, so broken by pity, so grieved to have thus hammered her withhis scorn as her son, that he longed to fling himself into the sea andput an end to it all by drowning himself. 

Ah! How gladly now would he have forgiven her. But he could not, for hewas incapable of forgetting. If only he could have desisted from makingher suffer; but this again he could not, suffering as he did himself. Hewent home to his meals, full of relenting resolutions; then, as soon ashe saw her, as soon as he met her eye--formerly so clear and frank, nowso evasive, frightened, and bewildered--he struck at her in spite ofhimself, unable to suppress the treacherous words which would rise tohis lips. 

This disgraceful secret, known to them alone, goaded him up against her. It was as a poison flowing in his veins and giving him an impulse tobite like a mad dog. 

And there was no one in the way now to hinder his reading her; Jeanlived almost entirely in his new apartments, and only came home todinner and to sleep every night at his father's. 

He frequently observed his brother's bitterness and violence, andattributed them to jealousy. He promised himself that some day he wouldteach him his place and give him a lesson, for life at home was becomingvery painful as a result of these constant scenes. But as he now livedapart he suffered less from this brutal conduct, and his love of peaceprompted him to patience. His good fortune, too, had turned his head, and he scarcely paused to think of anything which had no direct interestfor himself. He would come in full of fresh little anxieties, full ofthe cut of a morning-coat, of the shape of a felt hat, of the propersize for his visiting-cards. And he talked incessantly of all thedetails of his house--the shelves fixed in his bed-room cupboard to keeplinen on, the pegs to be put up in the entrance hall, the electric bellscontrived to prevent illicit visitors to his lodgings. 

It had been settled that on the day when he should take up his abodethere they should make an excursion to Saint Jouin, and return afterdining there, to drink tea in his rooms. Roland wanted to go by water, but the distance and the uncertainty of reaching it in a sailing boat ifthere should be a head-wind, made them reject his plan, and a break washired for the day. 

They set out at ten to get there to breakfast. The dusty high road layacross the plain of Normandy, which, by its gentle undulations, dottedwith farms embowered in trees, wears the aspect of an endless park. Inthe vehicle, as it jogged on at the slow trot of a pair of heavy horses, sat the four Rolands, Mme. Rosemilly, and Captain Beausire, all silent, deafened by the rumble of the wheels, and with their eyes shut to keepout the clouds of dust. 

It was harvest-time. Alternating with the dark hue of clover and the rawgreen of beet-root, the yellow corn lighted up the landscape with gleamsof pale gold; the fields looked as if they had drunk in the sunshinewhich poured down on them. Here and there the reapers were at work, and in the plots where the scythe had been put in the men might be seensee-sawing as they swept the level soil with the broad, wing-shapedblade. 

After a two-hours' drive the break turned off to the left, past awindmill at work--a melancholy, gray wreck, half rotten and doomed, thelast survivor of its ancient race; then it went into a pretty inn yard, and drew up at the door of a smart little house, a hostelry famous inthose parts. 

The mistress, well known as "La belle Alphonsine, " came smiling to thethreshold, and held out her hand to the two ladies who hesitated to takethe high step. 

Some strangers were already at breakfast under a tent by a grass-plotshaded by apple trees--Parisians, who had come from Etretat; and fromthe house came sounds of voices, laughter, and the clatter of plates andpans. 

They were to eat in a room, as the outer dining-halls were all full. Roland suddenly caught sight of some shrimping nets hanging against thewall. 

"Ah! ha!" cried he, "you catch prawns here?"

"Yes, " replied Beausire. "Indeed it is the place on all the coast wheremost are taken. "

"First-rate! Suppose we try to catch some after breakfast. "

As it happened it would be low tide at three o'clock, so it was settledthat they should all spend the afternoon among the rocks, huntingprawns. 

They made a light breakfast, as a precaution against the tendency ofblood to the head when they should have their feet in the water. Theyalso wished to reserve an appetite for dinner, which had been ordered ona grand scale and to be ready at six o'clock when they came in. 

Roland could not sit still for impatience. He wanted to buy the netsspecially constructed for fishing prawns, not unlike those used forcatching butterflies in the country. Their name on the French coast is_lanets_; they are netted bags on a circular wooden frame, at the end ofa long pole. Alphonsine, still smiling, was happy to lend them. Then shehelped the two ladies to make an impromptu change of toilet, so asnot to spoil their dresses. She offered them skirts, coarse worstedstockings and hemp shoes. The men took off their socks and went to theshoemaker's to buy wooden shoes instead. 

Then they set out, the nets over their shoulders and creels on theirbacks. Mme. Rosemilly was very sweet in this costume, with an unexpectedcharm of countrified audacity. The skirt which Alphonsine had lent her, coquettishly tucked up and firmly stitched so as to allow of her runningand jumping fearlessly on the rocks, displayed her ankle and lowercalf--the firm calf of a strong and agile little woman. Her dress wasloose to give freedom to her movements, and to cover her head shehad found an enormous garden hat of coarse yellow straw with anextravagantly broad brim; and to this, a bunch of tamarisk pinned in tocock it on one side, gave a very dashing and military effect. 

Jean, since he had come into his fortune, had asked himself every daywhether or no he should marry her. Each time he saw her he made up hismind to ask her to be his wife, and then, as soon as he was alone again, he considered that by waiting he would have time to reflect. She was nowless rich than he, for she had but twelve thousand francs a year; but itwas in real estate, in farms and lands near the docks in Havre; andthis by-and-bye might be worth a great deal. Their fortunes werethus approximately equal, and certainly the young widow attracted himgreatly. 

As he watched her walking in front of him that day he said to himself:

"I must really decide; I cannot do better, I am sure. "

They went down a little ravine, sloping from the village to the cliff, and the cliff, at the end of this comb, rose about eighty metres abovethe sea. Framed between the green slopes to the right and left, a greattriangle of silvery blue water could be seen in the distance, and asail, scarcely visible, looked like an insect out there. The sky, palewith light, was so merged into one with the water that it was impossibleto see where one ended and the other began; and the two women, walkingin front of the men, stood out against the bright background, theirshapes clearly defined in their closely-fitting dresses. 

Jean, with a sparkle in his eye, watched the smart ankle, the neat leg, the supple waist, and the coquettish broad hat of Mme. Rosemilly as theyfled away from him. And this flight fired his ardour, urging him on tothe sudden determination which comes to hesitating and timid natures. The warm air, fragrant with sea-coast odours--gorse, clover, and thyme, mingling with the salt smell of the rocks at low tide--excited him stillmore, mounting to his brain; and every moment he felt a little moredetermined, at every step, at every glance he cast at the alert figure;he made up his mind to delay no longer, to tell her that he loved herand hoped to marry her. The prawn-fishing would favour him by affordinghim an opportunity; and it would be a pretty scene too, a pretty spotfor love-making--their feet in a pool of limpid water while they watchedthe long feelers of the shrimps lurking under the wrack. 

When they had reached the end of the comb and the edge of the cliff, they saw a little footpath slanting down the face of it; and below them, about half-way between the sea and the foot of the precipice, an amazingchaos of enormous boulders tumbled over and piled one above the otheron a sort of grassy and undulating plain which extended as far as theycould see to the southward, formed by an ancient landslip. On this longshelf of brushwood and grass, disrupted, as it seemed, by the shocksof a volcano, the fallen rocks seemed the wreck of a great ruined citywhich had once looked out on the ocean, sheltered by the long white wallof the overhanging cliff. 

"That is fine!" exclaimed Mme. Rosemilly, standing still. Jean had comeup with her, and with a beating heart offered his hand to help her downthe narrow steps cut in the rock. 

They went on in front, while Beausire, squaring himself on his littlelegs, gave his arm to Mme. Roland, who felt giddy at the gulf beforeher. 

Roland and Pierre came last, and the doctor had to drag his father down, for his brain reeled so that he could only slip down sitting, from stepto step. 

The two young people who led the way went fast till on a sudden theysaw, by the side of a wooden bench which afforded a resting-place abouthalf-way down the slope, a thread of clear water, springing from acrevice in the cliff. It fell into a hollow as large as a washing basinwhich it had worn in the stone; then, falling in a cascade, hardly twofeet high, it trickled across the footpath which it had carpeted withcresses, and was lost among the briers and grass on the raised shelfwhere the boulders were piled. 

"Oh, I am so thirsty!" cried Mme. Rosemilly. 

But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water in her hand, butit slipped away between her fingers. Jean had an idea; he placed a stoneon the path and on this she knelt down to put her lips to the springitself, which was thus on the same level. 

When she raised her head, covered with myriads of tiny drops, sprinkledall over her face, her hair, her eye-lashes, and her dress, Jean bentover her and murmured: "How pretty you look!"

She answered in the tone in which she might have scolded a child:

"Will you be quiet?"

These were the first words of flirtation they had ever exchanged. 

"Come, " said Jean, much agitated. "Let us go on before they come up withus. "

For in fact they could see quite near them now Captain Beausire ashe came down, backward, so as to give both hands to Mme. Roland; andfurther up, further off, Roland still letting himself slip, loweringhimself on his hams and clinging on with his hands and elbows atthe speed of a tortoise, Pierre keeping in front of him to watch hismovements. 

The path, now less steep, was here almost a road, zigzagging between thehuge rocks which had at some former time rolled from the hill-top. Mme. Rosemilly and Jean set off at a run and they were soon on the beach. They crossed it and reached the rocks, which stretched in a long andflat expanse covered with sea-weed, and broken by endless gleamingpools. The ebbed waters lay beyond, very far away, across this plain ofslimy weed, of a black and shining olive green. 

Jean rolled up his trousers above his calf, and his sleeves to hiselbows, that he might get wet without caring; then saying: "Forward!" heleaped boldly into the first tide-pool they came to. 

The lady, more cautious, though fully intending to go in too, presently, made her way round the little pond, stepping timidly, for she slipped onthe grassy weed. 

"Do you see anything?" she asked. 

"Yes, I see your face reflected in the water. "

"If that is all you see, you will not have good fishing. "

He murmured tenderly in reply:

"Of all fishing it is that I should like best to succeed in. "

She laughed: "Try; you will see how it will slip through your net. "

"But yet--if you will?"

"I will see you catch prawns--and nothing else--for the moment. "

"You are cruel--let us go a little farther, there are none here. "

He gave her his hand to steady her on the slippery rocks. She leaned onhim rather timidly, and he suddenly felt himself overpowered by love andinsurgent with passion, as if the fever that had been incubating in himhad waited till to-day to declare its presence. 

They soon came to a deeper rift, in which long slender weeds, fantastically tinted, like floating green and rose-coloured hair, wereswaying under the quivering water as it trickled off to the distant seathrough some invisible crevice. 

Mme. Rosemilly cried out: "Look, look, I see one, a big one. A verybig one, just there!" He saw it too, and stepped boldly into the pool, though he got wet up to the waist. But the creature, waving its longwhiskers, gently retired in front of the net. Jean drove it towards thesea-weed, making sure of his prey. When it found itself blockaded itrose with a dart over the net, shot across the mere, and was gone. Theyoung woman, who was watching the chase in great excitement, could nothelp exclaiming: "Oh! Clumsy!"

He was vexed, and without a moment's thought dragged his net over a holefull of weed. As he brought it to the surface again he saw in it threelarge transparent prawns, caught blindfold in their hiding-place. 

He offered them in triumph to Mme. Rosemilly, who was afraid to touchthem, for fear of the sharp, serrated crest which arms their heads. However, she made up her mind to it, and taking them up by the tip oftheir long whiskers she dropped them one by one into her creel, with alittle seaweed to keep them alive. Then, having found a shallower poolof water, she stepped in with some hesitation, for the cold plunge ofher feet took her breath away, and began to fish on her own account. Shewas dextrous and artful, with the light hand and the hunter's instinctwhich are indispensable. At almost every dip she brought up some prawns, beguiled and surprised by her ingeniously gentle pursuit. 

Jean now caught nothing; but he followed her, step by step, touchedher now and again, bent over her, pretended great distress at his ownawkwardness, and besought her to teach him. 

"Show me, " he kept saying. "Show me how. "

And then, as their two faces were reflected side by side in water soclear that the black weeds at the bottom made a mirror, Jean smiled atthe face which looked up at him from the depth, and now and then fromhis finger-tips blew it a kiss which seemed to light upon it. 

"Oh! how tiresome you are!" she exclaimed. "My dear fellow, you shouldnever do two things at once. "

He replied: "I am only doing one--loving you. "

She drew herself up and said gravely:

"What has come over you these ten minutes; have you lost your wits?"

"No, I have not lost my wits. I love you, and at last I dare to tell youso. "

They were at this moment both standing in the salt pool wet half-way upto their knees and with dripping hands, holding their nets. They lookedinto each other's eyes. 

She went on in a tone of amused annoyance. 

"How very ill-advised to tell me here and now! Could you not wait tillanother day instead of spoiling my fishing?"

"Forgive me, " he murmured, "but I could not longer hold my peace. Ihave loved you a long time. To-day you have intoxicated me and I lost myreason. "

Then suddenly she seemed to have resigned herself to talk business andthink no more of pleasure. 

"Let us sit down on that stone, " said she, "we can talk morecomfortably. " They scrambled up a rather high boulder, and when they hadsettled themselves side by side in the bright sunshine, she began again:

"My good friend, you are no longer a child, and I am not a young girl. We both know perfectly well what we are about and we can weigh theconsequences of our actions. If you have made up your mind to make loveto me to-day I must naturally infer that you wish to marry me. "

He was not prepared for this matter-of-fact statement of the case, andhe answered blandly:

"Why, yes. "

"Have you mentioned it to your father and mother?"

"No, I wanted to know first whether you would accept me. "

She held out her hand, which was still wet, and as he eagerly claspedit:

"I am ready and willing, " she said. "I believe you to be kind andtrue-hearted. But remember, I should not like to displease yourparents. "

"Oh, do you think that my mother has never foreseen it, or that shewould not be as fond of you as she is if she did not hope that you and Ishould marry?"

"That is true. I am a little disturbed. "

They said no more. He, for his part, was amazed at her being so littledisturbed, so rational. He had expected pretty little flirting ways, refusals which meant yes, a whole coquettish comedy of love chequeredby prawn-fishing in the splashing water. And it was all over; he waspledged, married with twenty words. They had no more to say about itsince they were agreed, and they now sat, both somewhat embarrassed bywhat had so swiftly passed between them; a little perplexed, indeed, notdaring to speak, not daring to fish, not knowing what to do. 

Roland's voice rescued them. 

"This way, this way, children. Come and watch Beausire. The fellow ispositively clearing out the sea!"

The captain had, in fact, had a wonderful haul. Wet above his hips hewaded from pool to pool, recognizing the likeliest spots at a glance, and searching all the hollows hidden under sea-weed, with a steadyslow sweep of his net. And the beautiful transparent, sandy-gray prawnsskipped in his palm as he picked them out of the net with a dry jerkand put them into his creel. Mme. Rosemilly, surprised and delighted, remained at his side, almost forgetful of her promise to Jean, whofollowed them in a dream, giving herself up entirely to the childishenjoyment of pulling the creatures out from among the wavingsea-grasses. 

Roland suddenly exclaimed:

"Ah, here comes Mme. Roland to join us. "

She had remained at first on the beach with Pierre, for they had neitherof them any wish to play at running about among the rocks and paddlingin the tide-pools; and yet they had felt doubtful about stayingtogether. She was afraid of him, and her son was afraid of her and ofhimself; afraid of his own cruelty which he could not control. But theysat down side by side on the stones. And both of them, under the heat ofthe sun, mitigated by the sea-breeze, gazing at the wide, fair horizonof blue water streaked and shot with silver, thought as if in unison:"How delightful this would have been--once. "

She did not venture to speak to Pierre, knowing that he would returnsome hard answer; and he dared not address his mother, knowing thatin spite of himself he should speak violently. He sat twitching thewater-worn pebbles with the end of his cane, switching them and turningthem over. She, with a vague look in her eyes, had picked up three orfour little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping them fromone hand into the other. Then her unsettled gaze, wandering over thescene before her, discerned, among the weedy rocks, her son Jean fishingwith Mme. Rosemilly. She looked at them, watching their movements, dimlyunderstanding, with motherly instinct, that they were talking as theydid not talk every day. She saw them leaning over side by side when theylooked into the water, standing face to face when they questioned theirhearts, then scrambled up the rock and seated themselves to come to anunderstanding. Their figures stood out very sharply, looking as if theywere alone in the middle of the wide horizon, and assuming a sort ofsymbolic dignity in that vast expanse of sky and sea and cliff. 

Pierre, too, was looking at them, and a harsh laugh suddenly broke formhis lips. Without turning to him Mme. Roland said:

"What is it?"

He spoke with a sneer. 

"I am learning. Learning how a man lays himself out to be cozened by hiswife. "

She flushed with rage, exasperated by the insinuation she believed wasintended. 

"In whose name do you say that?"

"In Jean's, by Heaven! It is immensely funny to see those two. "

She murmured in a low voice, tremulous with feeling: "O Pierre, howcruel you are! That woman is honesty itself. Your brother could not finda better. "

He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh:

"Ha! hah! Hah! Honesty itself! All wives are honesty itself--and allhusbands are--betrayed. " And he shouted with laughter. 

She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, andat the risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the sea-weed, ofbreaking a leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging throughthe pools without looking, straight to her other son. 

Seeing her approach, Jean called out:

"Well, mother? So you have made the effort?"

Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say: "Save me, protect me!"

He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said:

"How pale you are! What is the matter?"

She stammered out:

"I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks. "

So then Jean guided her, supported her, explained the sport to her thatshe might take an interest in it. But as she scarcely heeded him, and ashe was bursting with the desire to confide in some one, he led her awayand in a low voice said to her:

"Guess what I have done!"

"But--what--I don't know. "

"Guess. "

"I cannot. I don't know. "

"Well, I have told Mme. Rosemilly that I wish to marry her. "

She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distressthat she could scarcely take it in. She echoed: "Marry her?"

"Yes. Have I done well? She is charming, do not you think?"

"Yes, charming. You have done very well. "

"Then you approve?"

"Yes, I approve. "

"But how strangely you say so! I could fancy that--that you were notglad. "

"Yes, indeed, I am--very glad. "

"Really and truly?"

"Really and truly. "

And to prove it she threw her arms round him and kissed him heartily, with warm motherly kisses. Then, when she had wiped her eyes, whichwere full of tears, she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at fulllength like a dead body, his face hidden against the stones; it was theother one, Pierre, sunk in thought and desperation. 

At this she led her little Jean farther away, quite to the edge of thewaves, and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on whichhe had set his heart. 

The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then theyall made their way to the shore. They roused Pierre, who pretended tobe sleeping; and then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds ofwine. 

CHAPTER VII

In the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean. Beausire and Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbour'sshoulder which repelled them with a shove. Then they sat up, ceasedto snore, opened their eyes, muttered, "A lovely evening!" and almostimmediately fell over on the other side. 

By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that theyhad great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to goto Jean's rooms where tea was waiting for them. He had to be set down athis own door. 

The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; andhe was full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him, atbeing able, that very evening, to show his betrothed the rooms she wasso soon to inhabit. 

The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herselfwould boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the servantsto be kept up for fear of fire. 

No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and theworkmen, that the surprise might be the greater at their being sopretty. 

Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room. He wanted tolight the lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosemilly in the dark withhis father and brother; then he cried: "Come in!" opening the doubledoor to its full width. 

The glass gallery, lighted by a chandelier and little coloured lampshidden among palms, india-rubber plants, and flowers, was first seenlike a scene on the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland, dazzled by such luxury, muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap hishands as if it were a pantomime scene. They then went into the firstdrawing-room, a small room hung with dead gold and furnished to match. The larger drawing-room--the lawyer's consulting-room, very simple, hungwith light salmon-colour--was dignified in style. 

Jean sat down in his arm-chair in front of his writing-table loaded withbooks, and in a solemn, rather stilted tone, he began:

"Yes, madame, the letter of the law is explicit, and, assuming theconsent I promised you, it affords me absolute certainty that the matterwe discussed will come to a happy conclusion within three months. "

He looked at Mme. Rosemilly, who began to smile and glanced at Mme. Roland. Mme. Roland took her hand and pressed it. Jean, in high spirits, cut a caper like a school-boy, exclaiming: "Hah! How well the voicecarries in this room; it would be capital for speaking in. "

And he declaimed:

"If humanity alone, if the instinct of natural benevolence which we feeltowards all who suffer, were the motive of the acquittal we expect ofyou, I should appeal to your compassion, gentlemen of the jury, to yourhearts as fathers and as men; but we have law on our side, and it is thepoint of law only which we shall submit to your judgment. "

Pierre was looking at this home which might have been his, and he wasrestive under his brother's frolics, thinking him really too silly andwitless. 

Mme. Roland opened a door on the right. 

"This is the bed-room, " said she. 

She had devoted herself to its decoration with all her mother's love. The hangings were of Rouen cretonne imitating old Normandy chintz, andthe Louis XV. Design--a shepherdess, in a medallion held in the beaksof a pair of doves--gave the walls, curtains, bed, and arm-chairs afestive, rustic style that was extremely pretty!

"Oh, how charming!" Mme. Rosemilly exclaimed, becoming a little seriousas they entered the room. 

"Do you like it?" asked Jean. 

"Immensely. "

"You cannot imagine how glad I am. "

They looked at each other for a second, with confiding tenderness in thedepths of their eyes. 

She had felt a little awkward, however, a little abashed, in this roomwhich was to be hers. She noticed as she went in that the bed was alarge one, quite a family bed, chosen by Mme. Roland, who had no doubtforeseen and hoped that her son should soon marry; and this motherlyforesight pleased her, for it seemed to tell her that she was expectedin the family. 

When they had returned to the drawing-room Jean abruptly threw open thedoor to the left, showing the circular dining-room with three windows, and decorated to imitate a Chinese lantern. Mother and son had herelavished all the fancy of which they were capable, and the room, withits bamboo furniture, its mandarins, jars, silk hangings glisteningwith gold, transparent blinds threaded with beads looking like dropsof water, fans nailed to the wall to drape the hangings on, screens, swords, masks, cranes made of real feathers, and a myriad triflesin china, wood, paper, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and bronze, hadthe pretentious and extravagant aspect which unpractised hands anduneducated eyes inevitably stamp on things which need the utmost tact, taste, and artistic education. Nevertheless it was the most admired;only Pierre made some observations with rather bitter irony which hurthis brother's feelings. 

Pyramids of fruit stood on the table and monuments of cakes. No one washungry; they picked at the fruit and nibbled at the cakes rather thanate them. Then, at the end of about an hour, Mme. Rosemilly begged totake leave. It was decided that old Roland should accompany her home andset out with her forthwith; while Mme. Roland, in the maid's absence, should cast a maternal eye over the house and see that her son had allhe needed. 

"Shall I come back for you?" asked Roland. 

She hesitated a moment and then said: "No, dear old man; go to bed. Pierre will see me home. "

As soon as they were gone she blew out the candles, locked up the cakes, the sugar, and liqueurs in a cupboard of which she gave the key to Jean;then she went into the bed-room, turned down the bed, saw that therewas fresh water in the water-bottle, and that the window was properlyclosed. 

Pierre and Jean had remained in the little outer drawing-room; theyounger still sore under the criticism passed on his taste, and theelder chafing more and more at seeing his brother in this abode. Theyboth sat smoking without a word. Pierre suddenly started to his feet. 

"Cristi!" he exclaimed. "The widow looked very jaded this evening. Longexcursions do not improve her. "

Jean felt his spirit rising with one of those sudden and furious rageswhich boil up in easy-going natures when they are wounded to the quick. He could hardly find breath to speak, so fierce was his excitement, andhe stammered out:

"I forbid you ever again to say 'the widow' when you speak of Mme. Rosemilly. "

Pierre turned on him haughtily:

"You are giving me an order, I believe. Are you gone mad by any chance?"

Jean had pulled himself up. 

"I am not gone mad, but I have had enough of your manners to me. "

Pierre sneered: "To you? And are you any part of Mme. Rosemilly?"

"You are to know that Mme. Rosemilly is about to become my wife. "

Pierre laughed the louder. 

"Ah! ha! very good. I understand now why I should no longer speak ofher as 'the widow. ' But you have taken a strange way of announcing yourengagement. "

"I forbid any jesting about it. Do you hear? I forbid it. "

Jean had come close up to him, pale, and his voice quivering withexasperation at this irony levelled at the woman he loved and hadchosen. 

But on a sudden Pierre turned equally furious. All the accumulation ofimpotent rage, of suppressed malignity, of rebellion choked down for solong past, all his unspoken despair mounted to his brain, bewildering itlike a fit. 

"How dare you? How dare you? I order you to hold your tongue--do youhear? I order you. "

Jean, startled by his violence, was silent for a few seconds, tryingin the confusion of mind which comes of rage to hit on the thing, thephrase, the word, which might stab his brother to the heart. He went on, with an effort to control himself that he might aim true, and to speakslowly that the words might hit more keenly:

"I have known for a long time that you were jealous of me, ever sincethe day when you first began to talk of 'the widow' because you knew itannoyed me. "

Pierre broke into one of those strident and scornful laughs which werecommon with him. 

"Ah! ah! Good Heavens! Jealous of you! I? I? And of what? Good God! Ofyour person or your mind?"

But Jean knew full well that he had touched the wound in his soul. 

"Yes, jealous of me--jealous from your childhood up. And it became furywhen you saw that this woman liked me best and would have nothing to sayto you. "

Pierre, stung to the quick by this assumption, stuttered out:

"I? I? Jealous of you? And for the sake of that goose, that gaby, thatsimpleton?"

Jean, seeing that he was aiming true, went on:

"And how about the day when you tried to pull me round in the Pearl?And all you said in her presence to show off? Why, you are burstingwith jealousy! And when this money was left to me you were maddened, youhated me, you showed it in every possible way, and made every one sufferfor it; not an hour passes that you do not spit out the bile that ischoking you. "

Pierre clenched his fist in his fury with an almost irresistible impulseto fly at his brother and seize him by the throat. 

"Hold your tongue, " he cried. "At least say nothing about that money. "

Jean went on:

"Why your jealousy oozes out at every pore. You never say a word to myfather, my mother, or me that does not declare it plainly. You pretendto despise me because you are jealous. You try to pick a quarrel withevery one because you are jealous. And now that I am rich you can nolonger contain yourself; you have become venomous, you torture our poormother as if she were to blame!"

Pierre had retired step by step as far as the fire-place, his mouth halfopen, his eyes glaring, a prey to one of those mad fits of passion inwhich a crime is committed. 

He said again in a lower tone, gasping for breath: "Hold yourtongue--for God's sake hold your tongue!"

"No! For a long time I have been wanting to give you my whole mind! Youhave given me an opening--so much the worse for you. I love the woman;you know it, and laugh her to scorn in my presence--so much the worsefor you. But I will break your viper's fangs, I tell you. I will makeyou treat me with respect. "

"With respect--you?"

"Yes--me. "

"Respect you? You who have brought shame on us all by your greed. "

"You say--? Say it again--again. "

"I say that it does not do to accept one man's fortune when another isreputed to be your father. "

Jean stood rigid, not understanding, dazed by the insinuation hescented. 

"What? Repeat that once more. "

"I say--what everybody is muttering, what every gossip is blabbing--thatyou are the son of the man who left you his fortune. Well, then--adecent man does not take the money which brings dishonour on hismother. "

"Pierre! Pierre! Pierre! Think what you are saying. You? Is it you whogive utterance to this infamous thing?"

"Yes, I. It is I. Have you not seen me crushed with woe this month past, spending my nights without sleep and my days in lurking out of sightlike an animal? I hardly know what I am doing or what will become ofme, so miserable am I, so crazed with shame and grief; for first Iguessed--and now I know it. "

"Pierre! Be silent. Mother is in the next room. Remember she mayhear--she must hear. "

But Pierre felt that he must unburden his heart. He told Jean all hissuspicions, his arguments, his struggles, his assurance, and the historyof the portrait--which had again disappeared. He spoke in short brokensentences almost without coherence--the language of a sleep-walker. 

He seemed to have quite forgotten Jean, and his mother in the adjoiningroom. He talked as if no one were listening, because he must talk, because he had suffered too much and smothered and closed the woundtoo tightly. It had festered like an abscess and the abscess had burst, splashing every one. He was pacing the room in the way he almost alwaysdid, his eyes fixed on vacancy, gesticulating in a frenzy of despair, his voice choked with tearless sobs and revulsions of self-loathing; hespoke as if he were making a confession of his own misery and thatof his nearest kin, as though he were casting his woes to the deaf, invisible winds which bore away his words. 

Jean, distracted and almost convinced on a sudden by his brother's blindvehemence, was leaning against the door behind which, as he guessed, their mother had heard them. 

She could not get out, she must come through his room. She had not come;then it was because she dare not. 

Suddenly Pierre stamped his foot. 

"I am a brute, " he cried, "to have told you this. "

And he fled, bare-headed, down the stairs. 

The noise of the front-door closing with a slam roused Jean from thedeep stupor into which he had fallen. Some seconds had elapsed, longerthan hours, and his spirit had sunk into the numb torpor of idiocy. He was conscious, indeed, that he must presently think and act, but hewould wait, refusing to understand, to know, to remember, out offear, weakness, cowardice. He was one of those procrastinators who puteverything off till to-morrow; and when he was compelled to come toa decision then and there, still he instinctively tried to gain a fewminutes. 

But the perfect silence which now reigned, after Pierre's vociferations, the sudden stillness of walls and furniture, with the bright light ofsix wax candles and two lamps, terrified him so greatly that he suddenlylonged to make his escape too. 

Then he roused his brain, roused his heart, and tried to reflect. 

Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who letthemselves glide onward like running water. He had been duteous over histasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studieswith credit because his existence was tranquil. Everything in the worldseemed to him quite natural and never aroused his particular attention. He loved order, steadiness, and peace, by temperament, his nature havingno complications; and face to face with this catastrophe, he foundhimself like a man who has fallen into the water and cannot swim. 

At first he tried to be incredulous. His brother had told a lie, out ofhatred and jealousy. But yet, how could he have been so vile as to saysuch a thing of their mother if he had not himself been distraught bydespair? Besides, stamped on Jean's ear, on his sight, on his nerves, on the inmost fibres of his flesh, were certain words, certain tones ofanguish, certain gestures of Pierre's, so full of suffering that theywere irresistibly convincing; as incontrovertible as certainty itself. 

He was too much crushed to stir or even to will. His distress becameunbearable; and he knew that behind the door was his mother who hadheard everything and was waiting. 

What was she doing? Not a movement, not a shudder, not a breath, not asigh revealed the presence of a living creature behind that panel. Couldshe have run away? But how? If she had run away--she must have jumpedout of the window into the street. A shock of terror roused him--soviolent and imperious that he drove the door in rather than opened it, and flung himself into the bed-room. 

It was apparently empty, lighted by a single candle standing on thechest of drawers. 

Jean flew to the window; it was shut and the shutters bolted. He lookedabout him, peering into the dark corners with anxious eyes, and he thennoticed that the bed-curtains were drawn. He ran forward and openedthem. His mother was lying on the bed, her face buried in the pillowwhich she had pulled up over her ears that she might hear no more. 

At first he thought she had smothered herself. Then, taking her by theshoulders, he turned her over without her leaving go of the pillow, which covered her face, and in which she had set her teeth to keepherself from crying out. 

But the mere touch of this rigid form, of those arms so convulsivelyclinched, communicated to him the shock of her unspeakable torture. Thestrength and determination with which she clutched the linen case fullof feathers with her hands and teeth, over her mouth and eyes and ears, that he might neither see her nor speak to her, gave him an idea, by theturmoil it roused in him, of the pitch suffering may rise to, and hisheart, his simple heart, was torn with pity. He was no judge, not he;not even a merciful judge; he was a man full of weakness and a son fullof love. He remembered nothing of what his brother had told him;he neither reasoned nor argued, he merely laid his two hands on hismother's inert body, and not being able to pull the pillow away, heexclaimed, kissing her dress:

"Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me!"

She would have seemed to be dead but that an almost imperceptibleshudder ran through all her limbs, the vibration of a strained cord. Andhe repeated:

"Mother, mother, listen to me. It is not true. I know that it is nottrue. "

A spasm seemed to come over her, a fit of suffocation; then she suddenlybegan to sob into the pillow. Her sinews relaxed, her rigid musclesyielded, her fingers gave way and left go of the linen; and he uncoveredher face. 

She was pale, quite colourless; and from under her closed lids tearswere stealing. He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her eyes, slowly, with long heart-broken kisses, wet with her tears; and he saidagain and again:

"Mother, my dear mother, I know it is not true. Do not cry; I know it. It is not true. "

She raised herself, she sat up, looked in his face, and with an effortof courage such as it must cost in some cases to kill one's self, shesaid:

"No, my child; it is true. "

And they remained speechless, each in the presence of the other. Forsome minutes she seemed again to be suffocating, craning her throatand throwing back her head to get breath; then she once more masteredherself and went on:

"It is true, my child. Why lie about it? It is true. You would notbelieve me if I denied it. "

She looked like a crazy creature. Overcome by alarm, he fell on hisknees by the bedside, murmuring:

"Hush, mother, be silent. " She stood up with terrible determination andenergy. 

"I have nothing more to say, my child. Good-bye. " And she went towardsthe door. 

He threw his arms about her exclaiming:

"What are you doing, mother; where are you going?"

"I do not know. How should I know--There is nothing left for me to do, now that I am alone. "

She struggled to be released. Holding her firmly, he could find onlywords to say again and again:

"Mother, mother, mother!" And through all her efforts to free herselfshe was saying:

"No, no. I am not your mother now, poor boy--good-bye. "

It struck him clearly that if he let her go now he should never see heragain; lifting her up in his arms he carried her to an arm-chair, forcedher into it, and kneeling down in front of her barred her in with hisarms. 

"You shall not quit this spot, mother. I love you and I will keep you! Iwill keep you always--I love you and you are mine. "

She murmured in a dejected tone:

"No, my poor boy, it is impossible. You weep to-night, but to-morrow youwould turn me out of the house. You, even you, could not forgive me. "

He replied: "I? I? How little you know me!" with such a burst of genuineaffection that, with a cry, she seized his head by the hair with bothhands, and dragging him violently to her kissed him distractedly allover his face. 

Then she sat still, her cheek against his, feeling the warmth of hisskin through his beard, and she whispered in his ear: "No, my littleJean, you would not forgive me to-morrow. You think so, but you deceiveyourself. You have forgiven me this evening, and that forgiveness hassaved my life; but you must never see me again. "

And he repeated, clasping her in his arms:

"Mother, do not say that. "

"Yes, my child, I must go away. I do not know where, nor how I shall setabout it, nor what I shall do; but it must be done. I could never lookat you, nor kiss you, do you understand?"

Then he in his turn spoke into her ear:

"My little mother, you are to stay, because I insist, because I wantyou. And you must pledge your word to obey me, now, at once. "

"No, my child. "

"Yes, mother, you must; do you hear? You must. "

"No, my child, it is impossible. It would be condemning us all to thetortures of hell. I know what that torment is; I have known it thismonth past. Your feelings are touched now, but when that is over, when you look on me as Pierre does, when you remember what I have toldyou--oh, my Jean, think--think--I am your mother!"

"I will not let you leave me, mother. I have no one but you. "

"But think, my son, we can never see each other again without both of usblushing, without my feeling that I must die of shame, without my eyesfalling before yours. "

"But it is not so, mother. "

"Yes, yes, yes, it is so! Oh, I have understood all your poor brother'sstruggles, believe me! All--from the very first day. Now, when I hearhis step in the house my heart beats as if it would burst, when Ihear his voice I am ready to faint. I still had you; now I have you nolonger. Oh, my little Jean! Do you think I could live between you two?"

"Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of it. "

"As if that were possible!"

"But it is possible. "

"How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your brotherand you on each hand? Would you cease to think of it, I ask you?"

"I? I swear I should. "

"Why you would think of it at every hour of the day. "

"No, I swear it. Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and getkilled. "

This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a passionateand tender embrace. He went on:

"I love you more than you think--ah, much more, much more. Come, bereasonable. Try to stay for only one week. Will you promise me one week?You cannot refuse me that?"

She laid her two hands on Jean's shoulders, and holding him at arm'slength she said:

"My child, let us try and be calm and not give way to emotions. First, listen to me. If I were ever to hear from your lips what I have heardfor this month past from your brother, if I were once to see in youreyes what I read in his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that Iwas as odious to you as I am to him--within one hour, mark me--withinone hour I should be gone forever. "

"Mother, I swear to you--"

"Let me speak. For a month past I have suffered all that any creaturecan suffer. From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my otherson, suspected me, that as the minutes went by, he guessed the truth, every moment of my life has been a martyrdom which no words could tellyou. "

Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery broughtthe tears to Jean's eyes. 

He tried to kiss her, but she held him off. 

"Leave me--listen; I still have so much to say to make you understand. But you never can understand. You see, if I stayed--I must--no, no. Icannot. "

"Speak on, mother, speak. "

"Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you. You want me tostay with you? For what--for us to be able to see each other, speak toeach other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dareopen a door for fear of finding your brother behind it. If we are todo that, you must not forgive me--nothing is so wounding asforgiveness--but you must owe me no grudge for what I have done. Youmust feel yourself strong enough, and so far unlike the rest of theworld, as to be able to say to yourself that you are not Roland's sonwithout blushing for the fact or despising me. I have suffered enough--Ihave suffered too much; I can bear no more, no indeed, no more! And itis not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, long years. But youcould never understand that; how should you! If you and I are to livetogether and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe thatthough I was your father's mistress I was yet more truly his wife, hisreal wife; that, at the bottom of my heart, I cannot be ashamed of it;that I have no regrets; that I love him still even in death; that Ishall always love him and never loved any other man; that he was mylife, my joy, my hope, my comfort, everything--everything in the worldto me for so long! Listen, my boy, before God, who hears me, I shouldnever have had a joy in my existence if I had not met him; neveranything--not a touch of tenderness or kindness, not one of those hourswhich make us regret growing old--nothing. I owe everything to him! Ihad but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother and you. Butfor you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. Ishould never have loved, or known, or cared for anything--I should noteven have wept--for I have wept, my little Jean; oh, yes, and bittertears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for tenyears I was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who createdus for each other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He wasalways kind and courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. Itwas all over! Oh, how I have cried! How dreadful and delusive life is!Nothing lasts. Then we came here--I never saw him again; he never came. He promised it in every letter. I was always expecting him, and I neversaw him again--and now he is dead! But he still cared for us since heremembered you. I shall love him to my latest breath, and I never willdeny him, and I love you because you are his child, and I could neverbe ashamed of him before you. Do you understand? I could not. So if youwish me to remain you must accept the situation as his son, and we willtalk of him sometimes; and you must love him a little and we must thinkof him when we look at each other. If you will not do this--if youcannot--then good-bye, my child; it is impossible that we should livetogether. Now, I will act by your decision. "

Jean replied gently:

"Stay, mother. "

She clasped him in her arms, and her tears flowed again; then, with herface against his, she went on:

"Well, but Pierre. What can we do about Pierre?"

Jean answered:

"We will find some plan! You cannot live with him any longer. "

At the thought of her elder son she was convulsed with terror. 

"No, I cannot; no, no!" And throwing herself on Jean's breast she criedin distress of mind:

"Save me from him, you, my little one. Save me; do something--I don'tknow what. Think of something. Save me. "

"Yes, mother, I will think of something. "

"And at once. You must, this minute. Do not leave me. I am so afraid ofhim--so afraid. "

"Yes, yes; I will hit on some plan. I promise you I will. "

"But at once; quick, quick! You cannot imagine what I feel when I seehim. "

Then she murmured softly in his ear: "Keep me here, with you. "

He paused, reflected, and with his blunt good-sense saw at once thedangers of such an arrangement. But he had to argue for a long time, combating her scared, terror-stricken insistence. 

"Only for to-night, " she said. "Only for to-night. And to-morrow morningyou can send word to Roland that I was taken ill. "

"That is out of the question, as Pierre left you here. Come, takecourage. I will arrange everything, I promise you, to-morrow; I willbe with you by nine o'clock. Come, put on your bonnet. I will take youhome. "

"I will do just what you desire, " she said with a childlike impulse oftimidity and gratitude. 

She tried to rise, but the shock had been too much for her; she couldnot stand. 

He made her drink some sugared water and smell at some salts, whilehe bathed her temples with vinegar. She let him do what he would, exhausted, but comforted, as after the pains of child-birth. At last shecould walk and she took his arm. The town hall struck three as they wentpast. 

Outside their own door Jean kissed her, saying:

"Good-night, mother, keep up your courage. "

She stealthily crept up the silent stairs, and into her room, undressed quickly, and slipped into bed with a reawakened sense of thatlong-forgotten sin. Roland was snoring. In all the house Pierre alonewas awake, and had heard her come in. 

CHAPTER VIII

When he got back to his lodgings Jean dropped on a sofa; for the sorrowsand anxieties which made his brother long to be moving, and to fleelike a hunted prey, acted differently on his torpid nature and broke thestrength of his arms and legs. He felt too limp to stir a finger, evento get to bed; limp body and soul, crushed and heart-broken. He hadnot been hit, as Pierre had been, in the purity of filial love, in thesecret dignity which is the refuge of a proud heart; he was overwhelmedby a stroke of fate which, at the same time, threatened his own nearestinterests. 

When at last his spirit was calmer, when his thoughts had settledlike water that has been stirred and lashed, he could contemplate thesituation which had come before him. If he had learned the secret of hisbirth through any other channel he would assuredly have been very wrothand very deeply pained, but after his quarrel with his brother, afterthe violent and brutal betrayal which had shaken his nerves, theagonizing emotion of his mother's confession had so bereft him of energythat he could not rebel. The shock to his feeling had been so great asto sweep away in an irresistible tide of pathos, all prejudice, and allthe sacred delicacy of natural morality. Besides, he was not a man madefor resistance. He did not like contending against any one, least ofall against himself, so he resigned himself at once; and by instinctivetendency, a congenital love of peace, and of an easy and tranquil life, he began to anticipate the agitations which must surge up around him andat once be his ruin. He foresaw that they were inevitable, and to avertthem he made up his mind to superhuman efforts of energy and activity. The knot must be cut immediately, this very day; for even he had fits ofthat imperious demand for a swift solution which is the only strengthof weak natures, incapable of a prolonged effort of will. His lawyer'smind, accustomed as it was to disentangling and studying complicatedsituations and questions of domestic difficulties in families that hadgot out of gear, at once foresaw the more immediate consequences of hisbrother's state of mind. In spite of himself, he looked at the issuefrom an almost professional point of view, as though he had to legislatefor the future relations of certain clients after a moral disaster. Constant friction against Pierre had certainly become unendurable. Hecould easily evade it, no doubt, by living in his own lodgings; but eventhen it was not possible that their mother should live under the sameroof with her elder son. For a long time he sat meditating, motionless, on the cushions, devising and rejecting various possibilities, andfinding nothing that satisfied him. 

But suddenly an idea took him by storm. This fortune which had come tohim. Would an honest man keep it?

"No, " was the first immediate answer, and he made up his mind that itmust go to the poor. It was hard, but it could not be helped. He wouldsell his furniture and work like any other man, like any other beginner. This manful and painful resolution spurred his courage; he rose and wentto the window, leaning his forehead against the pane. He had been poor;he could become poor again. After all he should not die of it. His eyeswere fixed on the gas lamp burning at the opposite side of the street. A woman, much belated, happened to pass; suddenly he thought of Mme. Rosemilly with a pang at his heart, the shock of deep feeling whichcomes of a cruel suggestion. All the dire results of his decision roseup before him together. He would have to renounce his marriage, renouncehappiness, renounce everything. Could he do such a thing after havingpledged himself to her? She had accepted him knowing him to be rich. She would take him still if he were poor; but had he any right to demandsuch a sacrifice? Would it not be better to keep this money in trust, tobe restored to the poor at some future date. 

And in his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all thesespecious interests were struggling and contending. His first scruplesyielded to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and againdisappeared. 

He sat down again, seeking some decisive motive, some all-sufficientpretext to solve his hesitancy and convince his natural rectitude. Twenty times over had he asked himself this question: "Since I am thisman's son, since I know and acknowledge it, is it not natural that Ishould also accept the inheritance?"

But even this argument could not suppress the "No" murmured by hisinmost conscience. 

Then came the thought: "Since I am not the son of the man I alwaysbelieved to be my father, I can take nothing from him, neither duringhis lifetime nor after his death. It would be neither dignified norequitable. It would be robbing my brother. "

This new view of the matter having relieved him and quieted hisconscience, he went to the window again. 

"Yes, " he said to himself, "I must give up my share of the familyinheritance. I must let Pierre have the whole of it, since I am not hisfather's son. That is but just. Then is it not just that I should keepmy father's money?"

Having discerned that he could take nothing of Roland's savings, havingdecided on giving up the whole of this money, he agreed; he resignedhimself to keeping Marechal's; for if he rejected both he would findhimself reduced to beggary. 

This delicate question being thus disposed of he came back to that ofPierre's presence in the family. How was he to be got rid of? He wasgiving up his search for any practical solution when the whistle of asteam-vessel coming into port seemed to blow him an answer by suggestinga scheme. 

Then he threw himself on his bed without undressing, and dozed anddreamed till daybreak. 

At a little before nine he went out to ascertain whether his plans werefeasible. Then, after making sundry inquiries and calls, he went to hisold home. His mother was waiting for him in her room. 

"If you had not come, " she said, "I should never have dared to go down. "

In a minute Roland's voice was heard on the stairs: "Are we to havenothing to eat to-day, hang it all?"

There was no answer, and he roared out, with a thundering oath thistime: "Josephine, what the devil are you about?"

The girl's voice came up from the depths of the basement. 

"Yes, M'sieu--what is it?"

"Where is your Miss'es?"

"Madame is upstairs with M'sieu Jean. "

Then he shouted, looking up at the higher floor: "Louise!"

Mme. Roland half opened her door and answered:

"What is it, my dear?"

"Are we to have nothing to eat to-day, hang it all?"

"Yes, my dear, I am coming. "

And she went down, followed by Jean. 

Roland, as soon as he saw him, exclaimed:

"Hallo! There you are! Sick of your home already?"

"No, father, but I had something to talk over with mother this morning. "

Jean went forward holding out his hand, and when he felt his fingersin the old man's fatherly clasp, a strange, unforeseen emotion thrilledthrough him, and a sense as of parting and farewell without return. 

Mme. Roland asked:

"Pierre is not come down?"

Her husband shrugged his shoulders. 

"No, but never mind him; he is always behind-hand. We will begin withouthim. "

She turned to Jean:

"You had better go to call him, my child; it hurts his feelings if we donot wait for him. "

"Yes, mother. I will go. "

And the young man went. He mounted the stairs with the fevereddetermination of a man who is about to fight a duel and who is in afright. When he knocked at the door Pierre said:

"Come in. "

He went in. The elder was writing, leaning over his table. 

"Good-morning, " said Jean. 

Pierre rose. 

"Good-morning!" and they shook hands as if nothing had occurred. 

"Are you not coming down to breakfast?"

"Well--you see--I have a good deal to do. " The elder brother's voice wastremulous, and his anxious eye asked his younger brother what he meantto do. 

"They are waiting for you. "

"Oh! There is--is my mother down?"

"Yes, it was she who sent me to fetch you. "

"Ah, very well; then I will come. "

At the door of the dining-room he paused, doubtful about going in first;then he abruptly opened the door and saw his father and mother seated atthe table opposite each other. 

He went straight up to her without looking at her or saying a word, andbending over her, offered his forehead for her to kiss, as he had donefor some time past, instead of kissing her on both cheeks as of old. He supposed that she put her lips near but he did not feel them on hisbrow, and he straightened himself with a throbbing heart after thisfeint of a caress. And he wondered:

"What did they say to each other after I had left?"

Jean constantly addressed her tenderly as "mother, " or "dear mother, "took care of her, waited on her, and poured out her wine. 

Then Pierre understood that they had wept together, but he could notread their minds. Did Jean believe in his mother's guilt, or think hisbrother a base wretch?

And all his self-reproach for having uttered the horrible thing cameupon him again, choking his throat and his tongue, and preventing hiseither eating or speaking. 

He was now a prey to an intolerable desire to fly, to leave the housewhich was his home no longer, and these persons who were bound to him bysuch imperceptible ties. He would gladly have been off that moment, no matter whither, feeling that everything was over, that he could notendure to stay with them, that his presence was torture to them, andthat they would bring on him incessant suffering too great to endure. Jean was talking, chatting with Roland. Pierre, as he did not listen, did not hear. But he presently was aware of a pointed tone in hisbrother's voice and paid more attention to his words. Jean was saying:

"She will be the finest ship in their fleet. They say she is of 6, 500tons. She is to make her first trip next month. "

Roland was amazed. 

"So soon? I thought she was not to be ready for sea this summer. "

"Yes. The work has been pushed forward very vigorously, to get herthrough her first voyage before the autumn. I looked in at the Company'soffice this morning, and was talking to one of the directors. "

"Indeed! Which of them?"

"M. Marchand, who is a great friend of the Chairman of the Board. "

"Oh! Do you know him?"

"Yes. And I wanted to ask him a favour. "

"Then you will get me leave to go over every part of the Lorraine assoon as she comes into port?"

"To be sure; nothing could be easier. "

Then Jean seemed to hesitate, to be weighing his words, and to want tolead up to a difficult subject. He went on:

"On the whole, life is very endurable on board those great Transatlanticliners. More than half the time is spent on shore in two splendidcities--New York and Havre; and the remainder at sea with delightfulcompany. In fact, very pleasant acquaintances are sometimes made amongthe passengers, and very useful in after-life--yes, really very useful. Only think, the captain, with his perquisites on coal, can make as muchas twenty-five thousand francs a year or more. "

Roland muttered an oath followed by a whistle, which testified to hisdeep respect for the sum and the captain. 

Jean went on:

"The purser makes as much as ten thousand, and the doctor has a fixedsalary of five thousand, with lodgings, keep, light, firing, service, and everything, which makes it up to ten thousand at least. That is verygood pay. "

Pierre raising his eyes met his brother's and understood. 

Then, after some hesitation, he asked:

"Is it very hard to get a place as medical man on board a Transatlanticliner?"

"Yes--and no. It all depends on circumstances and recommendation. "

There was a long pause; then the doctor began again. 

"Next month, you say, the Lorraine is to sail?"

"Yes. On the 7th. "

And they said nothing more. 

Pierre was considering. It certainly would be a way out of manydifficulties if he could embark as medical officer on board thesteamship. By-and-by he could see; he might perhaps give it up. Meanwhile he would be gaining a living, and asking for nothing from hisparents. Only two days since he had been forced to sell his watch, forhe would no longer hold out his hand to beg of his mother. So he had noother resource left, no opening to enable him to eat the bread of anyhouse but this which had become uninhabitable, or sleep in any otherbed, or under any other roof. He presently said, with some littlehesitation:

"If I could, I would very gladly sail in her. "

Jean asked:

"What should hinder you?"

"I know no one in the Transatlantic Shipping Company. "

Roland was astounded. 

"And what has become of all your fine schemes for getting on?"

Pierre replied in a low voice:

"There are times when we must bring ourselves to sacrifice everythingand renounce our fondest hopes. And after all it is only to make abeginning, a way of saving a few thousand francs to start fair withafterward. "

His father was promptly convinced. 

"That is very true. In a couple of years you can put by six or seventhousand francs, and that well laid out, will go a long way. What do youthink of the matter, Louise?"

She replied in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible:

"I think Pierre is right. "

Roland exclaimed:

"I will go and talk it over with M. Poulin: I know him very well. He isassessor of the Chamber of Commerce and takes an interest in theaffairs of the Company. There is M. Lenient, too, the ship-owner, who isintimate with one of the vice-chairmen. "

Jean asked his brother:

"Would you like me to feel my way with M. Marchand at once?"

"Yes, I should be very glad. "

After thinking a few minutes Pierre added:

"The best thing I can do, perhaps, will be to write to my professors atthe college of Medicine, who had a great regard for me. Very inferiormen are sometimes shipped on board those vessels. Letters of strongrecommendation from such professors as Mas-Roussel, Remusot, Flanche, and Borriquel would do more for me in an hour than all the doubtfulintroductions in the world. It would be enough if your friend M. Marchand would lay them before the board. "

Jean approved heartily. 

"Your idea is really capital. " And he smiled, quite reassured, almosthappy, sure of success and incapable of allowing himself to be unhappyfor long. 

"You will write to-day?" he said. 

"Directly. Now; at once. I will go and do so. I do not care for anycoffee this morning; I am too nervous. "

He rose and left the room. 

Then Jean turned to his mother:

"And you, mother, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing. I do not know. "

"Will you come with me to call on Mme. Rosemilly?"

"Why, yes--yes. "

"You know I must positively go to see her to-day. "

"Yes, yes. To be sure. "

"Why must you positively?" asked Roland, whose habit it was never tounderstand what was said in his presence. 

"Because I promised her I would. "

"Oh, very well. That alters the case. " And he began to fill his pipe, while the mother and son went upstairs to make ready. 

When they were in the street Jean said:

"Will you take my arm, mother?"

He was never accustomed to offer it, for they were in the habit ofwalking side by side. She accepted and leaned on him. 

For some time they did not speak; then he said:

"You see that Pierre is quite ready and willing to go away. "

She murmured:

"Poor boy!"

"But why 'poor boy'? He will not be in the least unhappy on board theLorraine. "

"No--I know. But I was thinking of so many things. "

And she thought for a long time, her head bent, accommodating her stepto her son's; then, in the peculiar voice in which we sometimesgive utterance to the conclusion of long and secret meditations, sheexclaimed:

"How horrible life is! If by any chance we come across any sweetnessin it, we sin in letting ourselves be happy, and pay dearly for itafterward. "

He said in a whisper:

"Do not speak of that any more, mother. "

"Is that possible? I think of nothing else. "

"You will forget it. "

Again she was silent; then with deep regret she said:

"How happy I might have been, married to another man!"

She was visiting it on Roland now, throwing all the responsibility ofher sin on his ugliness, his stupidity, his clumsiness, the heaviness ofhis intellect, and the vulgarity of his person. It was to this that itwas owing that she had betrayed him, had driven one son to desperation, and had been forced to utter to the other the most agonizing confessionthat can make a mother's heart bleed. She muttered: "It is so frightfulfor a young girl to have to marry such a husband as mine. "

Jean made no reply. He was thinking of the man he had hitherto believedto be his father; and possibly the vague notion he had long sinceconceived, of that father's inferiority, with his brother's constantirony, the scornful indifference of others, and the very maid-servant'scontempt for Roland, had somewhat prepared his mind for his mother'sterrible avowal. It had all made it less dreadful to him to find thathe was another man's son; and if, after the great shock and agitationof the previous evening, he had not suffered the reaction of rage, indignation, and rebellion which Mme. Roland had feared, it was becausehe had long been unconsciously chafing under the sense of being thechild of this well-meaning lout. 

They had now reached the dwelling of Mme. Rosemilly. 

She lived on the road to Sainte-Adresse, on the second floor of a largetenement which she owned. The windows commanded a view of the wholeroadstead. 

On seeing Mme. Roland, who entered first, instead of merely holding outher hands as usual, she put her arms round her and kissed her, for shedivined the purpose of her visit. 

The furniture of this drawing-room, all in stamped velvet, was alwaysshrouded in chair-covers. The walls, hung with flowered paper, weregraced by four engravings, the purchase of her late husband, thecaptain. They represented sentimental scenes of seafaring life. In thefirst a fisherman's wife was seen, waving a handkerchief on shore, whilethe vessel which bore away her husband vanished on the horizon. In thesecond the same woman, on her knees on the same shore, under a sky shotwith lightning, wrung her arms as she gazed into the distance at herhusband's boat which was going to the bottom amid impossible waves. 

The others represented similar scenes in a higher rank of society. Ayoung lady with fair hair, resting her elbows on the ledge of a largesteamship quitting the shore, gazed at the already distant coast witheyes full of tears and regret. Whom is she leaving behind?

Then the same young lady sitting by an open widow with a view of thesea, had fainted in an arm-chair; a letter she had dropped lay at herfeet. So he is dead! What despair!

Visitors were generally much moved and charmed by the commonplace pathosof these obvious and sentimental works. They were at once intelligiblewithout question or explanation, and the poor women were to be pitied, though the nature of the grief of the more elegant of the two was notprecisely known. But this very doubt contributed to the sentiment. She had, no doubt, lost her lover. On entering the room the eyewas immediately attracted to these four pictures, and riveted as iffascinated. If it wandered it was only to return and contemplate thefour expressions on the faces of the two women, who were as like eachother as two sisters. And the very style of these works, in theirshining frames, crisp, sharp, and highly finished, with the elegance ofa fashion plate, suggested a sense of cleanliness and propriety whichwas confirmed by the rest of the fittings. The seats were always inprecisely the same order, some against the wall and some round thecircular centre-table. The immaculately white curtains hung in suchstraight and regular pleats that one longed to crumple them a little;and never did a grain of dust rest on the shade under which the giltclock, in the taste of the first empire--a terrestrial globe supportedby Atlas on his knees--looked like a melon left there to ripen. 

The two women as they sat down somewhat altered the normal position oftheir chairs. 

"You have not been out this morning?" asked Mme. Roland. 

"No. I must own to being rather tired. "

And she spoke as if in gratitude to Jean and his mother, of all thepleasure she had derived from the expedition and the prawn-fishing. 

"I ate my prawns this morning, " she added, "and they were excellent. Ifyou felt inclined we might go again one of these days. "

The young man interrupted her:

"Before we start on a second fishing excursion, suppose we complete thefirst?"

"Complete it? It seems to me quite finished. "

"Nay, madame, I, for my part, caught something on the rocks of SaintJouain which I am anxious to carry home with me. "

She put on an innocent and knowing look. 

"You? What can it be? What can you have found?"

"A wife. And my mother and I have come to ask you whether she hadchanged her mind this morning. "

She smiled: "No, monsieur. I never change my mind. "

And then he held out his hand, wide open, and she put hers into it witha quick, determined movement. Then he said: "As soon as possible, Ihope. "

"As soon as you like. "

"In six weeks?"

"I have no opinion. What does my future mother-in-law say?"

Mme. Roland replied with a rather melancholy smile:

"I? Oh, I can say nothing. I can only thank you for having acceptedJean, for you will make him very happy. "

"We will do our best, mamma. "

Somewhat overcome, for the first time, Mme. Rosemilly rose, and throwingher arms round Mme. Roland, kissed her a long time as a child of her ownmight have done; and under this new embrace the poor woman's sick heartswelled with deep emotion. She could not have expressed the feeling;it was at once sad and sweet. She had lost her son, her big boy, but inreturn she had found a daughter, a grown-up daughter. 

When they faced each other again, and were seated, they took hands andremained so, looking at each and smiling, while they seemed to haveforgotten Jean. 

Then they discussed a number of things which had to be thought of inview of an early marriage, and when everything was settled and decidedMme. Rosemilly seemed suddenly to remember a further detail and asked:"You have consulted M. Roland, I suppose?"

A flush of colour mounted at the same instant on the face of both motherand son. It was the mother who replied:

"Oh, no, it is quite unnecessary!" Then she hesitated, feeling thatsome explanation was needed, and added: "We do everything without sayinganything to him. It is enough to tell him what we have decided on. "

Mme. Rosemilly, not in the least surprised, only smiled, taking it as amatter of course, for the good man counted for so little. 

When Mme. Roland was in the street again with her son she said:

"Suppose we go to your rooms for a little while. I should be glad torest. "

She felt herself homeless, shelterless, her own house being a terror toher. 

They went into Jean's apartments. 

As soon as the door was closed upon her she heaved a deep sigh, as ifthat bolt had placed her in safety, but then, instead of resting as shehad said, she began to open the cupboards, to count the piles of linen, the pocket-handkerchiefs, and socks. She changed the arrangement toplace them in more harmonious order, more pleasing to her housekeeper'seye; and when she had put everything to her mind, laying out the towels, the shirts, and the drawers on their several shelves and dividing allthe linen into three principal classes, body-linen, household-linen, andtable-linen, she drew back and contemplated the results, and called out:

"Come here, Jean, and see how nice it looks. "

He went and admired it to please her. 

On a sudden, when he had sat down again, she came softly up behind hisarm-chair, and putting her right arm round his neck she kissed him, while she laid on the chimney-shelf a small packet wrapped in whitepaper which she held in the other hand. 

"What is that?" he asked. Then, as she made no reply, he understood, recognising the shape of the frame. 

"Give it me!" he said. 

She pretended not to hear him, and went back to the linen cupboards. Hegot up hastily, took the melancholy relic, and going across the room, put it in the drawer of his writing-table, which he locked and doublelocked. She wiped away a tear with the tip of her finger, and said in arather quavering voice: "Now I am going to see whether your newservant keeps the kitchen in good order. As she is out I can look intoeverything and make sure. "

CHAPTER IX

Letters of recommendation from Professors Mas-Roussel, Remusot, Flache, and Borriquel, written in the most flattering terms with regard to Dr. Pierre Roland, their pupil, had been submitted by M. Marchand to thedirectors of the Transatlantic Shipping Co. , seconded by M. Poulin, judge of the Chamber of Commerce, M. Lenient, a great ship-owner, andMr. Marival, deputy to the Mayor of Havre, and a particular friend ofCaptain Beausires's. It proved that no medical officer had yet beenappointed to the Lorraine, and Pierre was lucky enough to be nominatedwithin a few days. 

The letter announcing it was handed to him one morning by Josephine, just as he was dressed. His first feeling was that of a man condemnedto death who is told that his sentence is commuted; he had an immediatesense of relief at the thought of his early departure and of thepeaceful life on board, cradled by the rolling waves, always wandering, always moving. His life under his father's roof was now that of astranger, silent and reserved. Ever since the evening when he allowedthe shameful secret he had discovered to escape him in his brother'spresence, he had felt that the last ties to his kindred were broken. Hewas harassed by remorse for having told this thing to Jean. He felt thatit was odious, indecent, and brutal, and yet it was a relief to him tohave uttered it. 

He never met the eyes either of his mother or his brother; to avoid hisgaze theirs had become surprisingly alert, with the cunning of foes whofear to cross each other. He was always wondering: "What can she havesaid to Jean? Did she confess or deny it? What does my brother believe?What does he think of her--what does he think of me?" He could notguess, and it drove him to frenzy. And he scarcely ever spoke to them, excepting when Roland was by, to avoid his questioning. 

As soon as he received the letter announcing his appointment he showedit at once to his family. His father, who was prone to rejoicing overeverything, clapped his hands. Jean spoke seriously, though his heartwas full of gladness: "I congratulate you with all my heart, for Iknow there were several other candidates. You certainly owe it to yourprofessors' letters. "

His mother bent her head and murmured:

"I am very glad you have been successful. "

After breakfast he went to the Company's offices to obtain informationon various particulars, and he asked the name of the doctor on boardthe Picardie, which was to sail next day, to inquire of him as to thedetails of his new life and any details he might think useful. 

Dr. Pirette having gone on board, Pierre went to the ship, where he wasreceived in a little state-room by a young man with a fair beard, notunlike his brother. They talked together a long time. 

In the hollow depths of the huge ship they could hear a confused andcontinuous commotion; the noise of bales and cases pitched down intothe hold mingling with footsteps, voices, the creaking of the machinerylowering the freight, the boatswain's whistle, and the clatter of chainsdragged or wound on to capstans by the snorting and panting engine whichsent a slight vibration from end to end of the great vessel. 

But when Pierre had left his colleague and found himself in the streetonce more, a new form of melancholy came down on him, enveloping himlike the fogs which roll over the sea, coming up from the ends of theworld and holding in their intangible density something mysteriouslyimpure, as it were the pestilential breath of a far-away, unhealthyland. 

In his hours of greatest suffering he had never felt himself so sunkin a foul pit of misery. It was as though he had given the last wrench;there was no fibre of attachment left. In tearing up the roots of everyaffection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now cameover him, like that of a lost dog. It was no longer a torturing mortalpain, but the frenzy of a forlorn and homeless animal, the physicalanguish of a vagabond creature without a roof for shelter, lashed by therain, the wind, the storm, all the brutal forces of the universe. As heset foot on the vessel, as he went into the cabin rocked by the waves, the very flesh of the man, who had always slept in a motionless andsteady bed, had risen up against the insecurity henceforth of all hismorrows. Till now that flesh had been protected by a solid wall builtinto the earth which held it, by the certainty of resting in the samespot, under a roof which could resist the gale. Now all that, which itwas a pleasure to defy in the warmth of home, must become a peril anda constant discomfort. No earth under foot, only the greedy, heaving, complaining sea; no space around for walking, running, losing the way, only a few yards of planks to pace like a convict among other prisoners;no trees, no gardens, no streets, no houses; nothing but water andclouds. And the ceaseless motion of the ship beneath his feet. On stormydays he must lean against the wainscot, hold on to the doors, cling tothe edge of the narrow berth to save himself from rolling out. On calmdays he would hear the snorting throb of the screw, and feel theswift flight of the ship, bearing him on in its unpausing, regular, exasperating race. 

And he was condemned to this vagabond convict's life solely because hismother had yielded to a man's caresses. 

He walked on, his heart sinking with the despairing sorrow of those whoare doomed to exile. He no longer felt a haughty disdain and scornfulhatred of the strangers he met, but a woeful impulse to speak to them, to tell them all that he had to quit France, to be listened to andcomforted. There was in the very depths of his heart the shame-facedneed of a beggar who would fain hold out his hand--a timid but urgentneed to feel that some one would grieve at his departing. 

He thought of Marowsko. The old Pole was the only person who lovedhim well enough to feel true and keen emotion, and the doctor at oncedetermined to go and see him. 

When he entered the shop, the druggist, who was pounding powders in amarble mortar, started and left his work. 

"You are never to be seen nowadays, " said he. 

Pierre explained that he had had a great many serious matters to attendto, but without giving the reason, and he took a seat, asking:

"Well, and how is business doing?"

Business was not doing at all. Competition was fearful, and rich folksrare in that workmen's quarter. Nothing would sell but cheap drugs, andthe doctors did not prescribe the costlier and more complicated remedieson which a profit is made of five hundred per cent. The old fellow endedby saying: "If this goes on for three months I shall shut up shop. If Idid not count on you, dear good doctor, I should have turned shoe-blackby this time. "

Pierre felt a pang, and made up his mind to deal the blow at once, sinceit must be done. 

"I--oh, I cannot be of any use to you. I am leaving Havre early nextmonth. "

Marowsko took off his spectacles, so great was his agitation. 

"You! You! What are you saying?"

"I say that I am going away, my poor friend. "

The old man was stricken, feeling his last hope slipping from under him, and he suddenly turned against this man, whom he had followed, whom heloved, whom he had so implicitly trusted, and who forsook him thus. 

He stammered out:

"You are surely not going to play me false--you?"

Pierre was so deeply touched that he felt inclined to embrace the oldfellow. 

"I am not playing you false. I have not found anything to do here, and Iam going as medical officer on board a Transatlantic passenger boat. "

"O Monsieur Pierre! And you always promised you would help me to make aliving!"

"What can I do? I must make my own living. I have not a farthing in theworld. "

Marowsko said: "It is wrong; what you are doing is very wrong. There isnothing for me but to die of hunger. At my age this is the end of allthings. It is wrong. You are forsaking a poor old man who came here tobe with you. It is wrong. "

Pierre tried to explain, to protest, to give reasons, to prove that hecould not have done otherwise; the Pole, enraged by his desertion, wouldnot listen to him, and he ended by saying, with an allusion no doubt topolitical events:

"You French--you never keep your word!"

At this Pierre rose, offended on his part, and taking rather a high tonehe said:

"You are unjust, pere Marowsko; a man must have very strong motives toact as I have done and you ought to understand that. Au revoir--I hope Imay find you more reasonable. " And he went away. 

"Well, well, " he thought, "not a soul will feel a sincere regret forme. "

His mind sought through all the people he knew or had known, and amongthe faces which crossed his memory he saw that of the girl at the tavernwho had led him to doubt his mother. 

He hesitated, having still an instinctive grudge against her, thensuddenly reflected on the other hand: "After all, she was right. " And helooked about him to find the turning. 

The beer-shop, as it happened, was full of people, and also full ofsmoke. The customers, tradesmen, and labourers, for it was a holiday, were shouting, calling, laughing, and the master himself was waitingon them, running from table to table, carrying away empty glasses andreturning them crowned with froth. 

When Pierre had found a seat not far from the desk he waited, hopingthat the girl would see him and recognise him. But she passed him againand again as she went to and fro, pattering her feet under her skirtswith a smart little strut. At last he rapped a coin on the table, andshe hurried up. 

"What will you take, sir?"

She did not look at him; her mind was absorbed in calculations of theliquor she had served. 

"Well, " said he, "this is a pretty way of greeting a friend. "

She fixed her eyes on his face. "Ah!" said she hurriedly. "Is it you?You are pretty well? But I have not a minute to-day. A bock did you wishfor?"

"Yes, a bock!"

When she brought it he said:

"I have come to say good-bye. I am going away. "

And she replied indifferently:

"Indeed. Where are you going?"

"To America. "

"A very find country, they say. "

And that was all!

Really, he was very ill-advised to address her on such a busy day; therewere too many people in the cafe. 

Pierre went down to the sea. As he reached the jetty he descried thePearl; his father and Beausire were coming in. Papagris was pulling, and the two men, seated in the stern, smoked their pipes with a lookof perfect happiness. As they went past the doctor said to himself:"Blessed are the simple-minded!" And he sat down on one of the bencheson the breakwater, to try to lull himself in animal drowsiness. 

When he went home in the evening his mother said, without daring to lifther eyes to his face:

"You will want a heap of things to take with you. I have ordered yourunder-linen, and I went into the tailor's shop about cloth clothes; butis there nothing else you need--things which I, perhaps, know nothingabout?"

His lips parted to say, "No, nothing. " But he reflected that he mustaccept the means of getting a decent outfit, and he replied in a verycalm voice: "I hardly know myself, yet. I will make inquiries at theoffice. "

He inquired, and they gave him a list of indispensable necessaries. Hismother, as she took it from his hand, looked up at him for the firsttime for very long, and in the depths of her eyes there was the humbleexpression, gentle, sad, and beseeching, of a dog that has been beatenand begs forgiveness. 

On the 1st of October the Lorraine from Saint-Nazaire, came into theharbour of Havre to sail on the 7th, bound for New York, and PierreRoland was to take possession of the little floating cabin in whichhenceforth his life was to be confined. 

Next day as he was going out, he met his mother on the stairs waitingfor him, to murmur in an almost inaudible voice:

"You would not like me to help you to put things to rights on board?"

"No, thank you. Everything is done. "

Then she said:

"I should have liked to see your cabin. "

"There is nothing to see. It is very small and very ugly. "

And he went downstairs, leaving her stricken, leaning against the wallwith a wan face. 

Now Roland, who had gone over the Lorraine that very day, could talk ofnothing all dinnertime but this splendid vessel, and wondered that hiswife should not care to see it as their son was to sail on board. 

Pierre had scarcely any intercourse with his family during the dayswhich followed. He was nervous, irritable, hard, and his rough speechseemed to lash every one indiscriminately. But the day before he lefthe was suddenly quite changed, and much softened. As he embraced hisparents before going to sleep on board for the first time he said:

"You will come to say good-bye to me on board, will you not?"

Roland exclaimed:

"Why, yes, of course--of course, Louise?"

"Certainly, certainly, " she said in a low voice. 

Pierre went on: "We sail at eleven precisely. You must be there byhalf-past nine at the latest. "

"Hah!" cried his father. "A good idea! As soon as we have bid yougood-bye, we will make haste on board the Pearl, and look out for youbeyond the jetty, so as to see you once more. What do you say, Louise?"

"Certainly. "

Roland went on: "And in that way you will not lose sight of us amongthe crowd which throngs the breakwater when the great liners sail. Itis impossible to distinguish your own friends in the mob. Does that meetyour views?"

"Yes, to be sure; that is settled. "

An hour later he was lying in his berth--a little crib as long andnarrow as a coffin. There he remained with his eyes wide open for a longtime, thinking over all that had happened during the last two months ofhis life, especially in his own soul. By dint of suffering and makingothers suffer, his aggressive and revengeful anguish had lost its edge, like a blunted sword. He scarcely had the heart left in him to owe anyone or anything a grudge; he let his rebellious wrath float awaydown stream, as his life must. He was so weary of wrestling, weary offighting, weary of hating, weary of everything, that he was quite wornout, and tried to stupefy his heart with forgetfulness as he droppedasleep. He heard vaguely, all about him, the unwonted noises of theship, slight noises, and scarcely audible on this calm night in port;and he felt no more of the dreadful wound which had tortured himhitherto, but the discomfort and strain of its healing. 

He had been sleeping soundly when the stir of the crew roused him. It was day; the tidal train had come down to the pier bringing thepassengers from Paris. Then he wandered about the vessel among allthese busy, bustling folks inquiring for their cabins, questioningand answering each other at random, in the scare and fuss of a voyagealready begun. After greeting the Captain and shaking hands with hiscomrade the purser, he went into the saloon where some Englishmen werealready asleep in the corners. The large low room, with its white marblepanels framed in gilt beading, was furnished with looking-glasses, which prolonged, in endless perspective, the long tables, flanked bypivot-seats covered with red velvet. It was fit, indeed, to be thevast floating cosmopolitan dining-hall, where the rich natives of twocontinents might eat in common. Its magnificent luxury was that of greathotels, and theatres, and public rooms; the imposing and commonplaceluxury which appeals to the eye of the millionaire. 

The doctor was on the point of turning into the second-class saloon, when he remembered that a large cargo of emigrants had come on boardthe night before, and he went down to the lower deck. He was met by asickening smell of dirty, poverty-stricken humanity, an atmosphere ofnaked flesh (far more revolting than the odour of fur or the skin ofwild beasts). There, in a sort of basement, low and dark, like agallery in a mine, Pierre could discern some hundreds of men, women, andchildren, stretched on shelves fixed one above another, or lying on thefloor in heaps. He could not see their faces, but could dimly make outthis squalid, ragged crowd of wretches, beaten in the struggle forlife, worn out and crushed, setting forth, each with a starving wife andweakly children, for an unknown land where they hoped, perhaps, not todie of hunger. And as he thought of their past labour--wasted labour, and barren effort--of the mortal struggle taken up afresh and in vaineach day, of the energy expended by this tattered crew who were going tobegin again, not knowing where, this life of hideous misery, he longedto cry out to them:

"Tumble yourselves overboard, rather, with your women and your littleones. " And his heart ached so with pity that he went away unable toendure the sight. 

He found his father, his mother, Jean, and Mme. Rosemilly waiting forhim in his cabin. 

"So early!" he exclaimed. 

"Yes, " said Mme. Roland in a trembling voice. "We wanted to have alittle time to see you. "

He looked at her. She was dressed all in black as if she were inmourning, and he noticed that her hair, which only a month ago had beengray, was now almost white. It was very difficult to find space for fourpersons to sit down in the little room, and he himself got on to hisbed. The door was left open, and they could see a great crowd hurryingby, as if it were a street on a holiday, for all the friends of thepassengers and a host of inquisitive visitors had invaded the hugevessel. They pervaded the passages, the saloons, every corner of theship; and heads peered in at the doorway while a voice murmured outside:"That is the doctor's cabin. "

Then Pierre shut the door; but no sooner was he shut in with his ownparty than he longed to open it again, for the bustle outside coveredtheir agitation and want of words. 

Mme. Rosemilly at last felt she must speak. 

"Very little air comes in through those little windows. "

"Port-holes, " said Pierre. He showed her how thick the glass was, to enable it to resist the most violent shocks, and took a long timeexplaining the fastening. Roland presently asked: "And you have yourdoctor's shop here?"

The doctor opened a cupboard and displayed an array of phials ticketedwith Latin names on white paper labels. He took one out and enumeratedthe properties of its contents; then a second and a third, a perfectlecture on therapeutics, to which they all listened with greatattention. Roland, shaking his head, said again and again: "How veryinteresting!" There was a tap at the door. 

"Come in, " said Pierre, and Captain Beausire appeared. 

"I am late, " he said as he shook hands, "I did not want to be in theway. " He, too, sat down on the bed and silence fell once more. 

Suddenly the Captain pricked his ears. He could hear the orders beinggiven, and he said:

"It is time for us to be off if we mean to get on board the Pearl to seeyou once more outside, and bid you good-bye out on the open sea. "

Old Roland was very eager about this, to impress the voyagers on boardthe Lorraine, no doubt, and he rose in haste. 

"Good-bye, my boy. " He kissed Pierre on the whiskers and then opened thedoor. 

Mme. Roland had not stirred, but sat with downcast eyes, very pale. Herhusband touched her arm. 

"Come, " he said, "we must make haste, we have not a minute to spare. "

She pulled herself up, went to her son and offered him first one andthen another cheek of white wax which he kissed without saying a word. Then he shook hands with Mme. Rosemilly and his brother, asking:

"And when is the wedding to be?"

"I do not know yet exactly. We will make it fit in with one of yourreturn voyages. "

At last they were all out of the cabin, and up on deck among the crowdof visitors, porters, and sailors. The steam was snorting in the hugebelly of the vessel, which seemed to quiver with impatience. 

"Good-bye, " said Roland in a great bustle. 

"Good-bye, " replied Pierre, standing on one of the landing-planks lyingbetween the deck of the Lorraine and the quay. He shook hands all roundonce more, and they were gone. 

"Make haste, jump into the carriage, " cried the father. 

A fly was waiting for them and took them to the outer harbour, wherePapagris had the Pearl in readiness to put out to sea. 

There was not a breath of air; it was one of those crisp, still autumndays, when the sheeny sea looks as cold and hard as polished steel. 

Jean took one oar, the sailor seized the other and they pulled off. On the breakwater, on the piers, even on the granite parapets, a crowdstood packed, hustling, and noisy, to see the Lorraine come out. ThePearl glided down between these two waves of humanity and was soonoutside the mole. 

Captain Beausire, seated between the two women, held the tiller, and hesaid:

"You will see, we shall be close in her way--close. "

And the two oarsmen pulled with all their might to get out as far aspossible. Suddenly Roland cried out:

"Here she comes! I see her masts and her two funnels! She is coming outof the inner harbour. "

"Cheerily, lads!" cried Beausire. 

Mme. Roland took out her handkerchief and held it to her eyes. 

Roland stood up, clinging to the mast, and answered:

"At this moment she is working round in the outer harbour. She isstanding still--now she moves again! She is taking the tow-rope on boardno doubt. There she goes. Bravo! She is between the piers! Do you hearthe crowd shouting? Bravo! The Neptune has her in tow. Now I see herbows--here she comes--here she is! Gracious Heavens, what a ship! Look!Look!"

Mme. Rosemilly and Beausire looked behind them, the oarsmen ceasedpulling; only Mme. Roland did not stir. 

The immense steamship, towed by a powerful tug, which, in front ofher, looked like a caterpillar, came slowly and majestically out of theharbour. And the good people of Havre, who crowded the piers, the beach, and the windows, carried away by a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, cried: "_Vive la Lorraine!_" with acclamations and applause for thismagnificent beginning, this birth of the beautiful daughter given to thesea by the great maritime town. 

She, as soon as she had passed beyond the narrow channel between the twogranite walls, feeling herself free at last, cast off the tow-ropes andwent off alone, like a monstrous creature walking on the waters. 

"Here she is--here she comes, straight down on us!" Roland keptshouting; and Beausire, beaming, exclaimed: "What did I promise you!Heh! Do I know the way?"

Jean in a low tone said to his mother: "Look, mother, she is close uponus!" And Mme. Roland uncovered her eyes, blinded with tears. 

The Lorraine came on, still under the impetus of her swift exit from theharbour, in the brilliant, calm weather. Beausire, with his glass to hiseye, called out:

"Look out! M. Pierre is at the stern, all alone, plainly to be seen!Look out!"

The ship was almost touching the Pearl now, as tall as a mountain andas swift as a train. Mme. Roland, distraught and desperate, held out herarms towards it; and she saw her son, her Pierre, with his officer's capon, throwing kisses to her with both hands. 

But he was going away, flying, vanishing, a tiny speck already, no morethan an imperceptible spot on the enormous vessel. She tried still todistinguish him, but she could not. 

Jean took her hand. 

"You saw?" he said. 

"Yes, I saw. How good he is!"

And they turned to go home. 

"Cristi! How fast she goes!" exclaimed Roland with enthusiasticconviction. 

The steamer, in fact, was shrinking every second, as though she weremelting away in the ocean. Mme. Roland, turning back to look at her, watched her disappearing on the horizon, on her way to an unknown landat the other side of the world. 

In that vessel which nothing could stay, that vessel which she soonwould see no more, was her son, her poor son. And she felt as thoughhalf her heart had gone with him; she felt, too, as if her life wereended; yes, and she felt as though she would never see the child again. 

"Why are you crying?" asked her husband, "when you know he will be backagain within a month. "

She stammered out: "I don't know; I cry because I am hurt. "

When they had landed, Beausire at once took leave of them to go tobreakfast with a friend. Then Jean led the way with Mme. Rosemilly, andRoland said to his wife:

"A very fine fellow, all the same, is our Jean. "

"Yes, " replied the mother. 

And her mind being too much bewildered to think of what she was saying, she went on:

"I am very glad that he is to marry Mme. Rosemilly. "

The worthy man was astounded. 

"Heh? What? He is to marry Mme. Rosemilly?"

"Yes, we meant to ask your opinion about it this very day. "

"Bless me! And has this engagement been long in the wind?"

"Oh, no, only a very few days. Jean wished to make sure that she wouldaccept him before consulting you. "

Roland rubbed his hands. 

"Very good. Very good. It is capital. I entirely approve. "

As they were about to turn off from the quay down the BoulevardFrancois, his wife once more looked back to cast a last look at the highseas, but she could see nothing now but a puff of gray smoke, so faraway, so faint that it looked like a film of haze.