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diff --git a/3804-h/3804-h.htm b/3804-h/3804-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75c1643 --- /dev/null +++ b/3804-h/3804-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8679 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pierre & Jean, by Guy de Maupassant</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pierre & Jean, by Guy de Maupassant</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Pierre & Jean</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Guy de Maupassant</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Clara Bell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 16, 2001 [eBook #3804]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 11, 2020]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Dagny, John Bickers and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE & JEAN ***</div> + +<h1>Pierre & Jean</h1> + +<h2>by Guy de Maupassant</h2> + +<h3>Translated by Clara Bell</h3> +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p> +“Tschah!” exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remained +motionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, while now and +again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Mme. Rosémilly, who had been +invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head to look at her +husband, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well! Gérome.” +</p> + +<p> +And the old fellow replied in a fury: +</p> + +<p> +“They do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only men +should ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it is too +late.” +</p> + +<p> +His two sons, Pierre and Jean, who each held a line twisted round his +forefinger, one to port and one to starboard, both began to laugh, and Jean +remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“You are not very polite to our guest, father.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Roland was abashed, and apologized. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, Mme. Rosémilly, but that is just like me. I invite +ladies because I like to be with them, and then, as soon as I feel the water +beneath me, I think of nothing but the fish.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland was now quite awake, and gazing with a softened look at the wide +horizon of cliff and sea. +</p> + +<p> +“You have had good sport, all the same,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +But her husband shook his head in denial, though at the same time he glanced +complacently at the basket where the fish caught by the three men were still +breathing spasmodically, with a low rustle of clammy scales and struggling +fins, and dull, ineffectual efforts, gasping in the fatal air. Old Roland took +the basket between his knees and tilted it up, making the silver heap of +creatures slide to the edge that he might see those lying at the bottom, and +their death-throes became more convulsive, while the strong smell of their +bodies, a wholesome reek of brine, came up from the full depths of the creel. +The old fisherman sniffed it eagerly, as we smell at roses, and exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Cristi! But they are fresh enough!” and he went on: “How +many did you pull out, doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +His eldest son, Pierre, a man of thirty, with black whiskers trimmed square +like a lawyer’s, his mustache and beard shaved away, replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not many; three or four.” +</p> + +<p> +The father turned to the younger. “And you, Jean?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, a tall fellow, much younger than his brother, fair, with a full beard, +smiled and murmured: +</p> + +<p> +“Much the same as Pierre—four or five.” +</p> + +<p> +Every time they told the same fib, which delighted father Roland. He had +hitched his line round a row-lock, and folding his arms he announced: +</p> + +<p> +“I will never again try to fish after noon. After ten in the morning it +is all over. The lazy brutes will not bite; they are taking their siesta in the +sun.” And he looked round at the sea on all sides, with the satisfied air +of a proprietor. +</p> + +<p> +He was a retired jeweller who had been led by an inordinate love of seafaring +and fishing to fly from the shop as soon as he had made enough money to live in +modest comfort on the interest of his savings. He retired to le Havre, bought a +boat, and became an amateur skipper. His two sons, Pierre and Jean, had +remained at Paris to continue their studies, and came for the holidays from +time to time to share their father’s amusements. +</p> + +<p> +On leaving school, Pierre, the elder, five years older than Jean, had felt a +vocation to various professions and had tried half a dozen in succession, but, +soon disgusted with each in turn, he started afresh with new hopes. Medicine +had been his last fancy, and he had set to work with so much ardour that he had +just qualified after an unusually short course of study, by a special remission +of time from the minister. He was enthusiastic, intelligent, fickle, but +obstinate, full of Utopias and philosophical notions. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, who was as fair as his brother was dark, as deliberate as his brother was +vehement, as gentle as his brother was unforgiving, had quietly gone through +his studies for the law and had just taken his diploma as a licentiate, at the +time when Pierre had taken his in medicine. So they were now having a little +rest at home, and both looked forward to settling in Havre if they could find a +satisfactory opening. +</p> + +<p> +But a vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies which grow up between +brothers or sisters and slowly ripen till they burst, on the occasion of a +marriage perhaps, or of some good fortune happening to one of them, kept them +on the alert in a sort of brotherly and non-aggressive animosity. They were +fond of each other, it is true, but they watched each other. Pierre, five years +old when Jean was born, had looked with the eyes of a little petted animal at +that other little animal which had suddenly come to lie in his father’s +and mother’s arms and to be loved and fondled by them. Jean, from his +birth, had always been a pattern of sweetness, gentleness, and good temper, and +Pierre had by degrees begun to chafe at ever-lastingly hearing the praises of +this great lad, whose sweetness in his eyes was indolence, whose gentleness was +stupidity, and whose kindliness was blindness. His parents, whose dream 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 towards generous ideas and the liberal +professions. +</p> + +<p> +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 the hint the words conveyed. +</p> + +<p> +Their mother, an orderly person, a thrifty and rather sentimental woman of the +middle class, with the soul of a soft-hearted book-keeper, was constantly +quenching the little rivalries between her two big sons to which the petty +events of their life constantly gave rise. Another little circumstance, too, +just now disturbed her peace of mind, and she 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, she had made the acquaintance of a +neighbour, Mme. Rosémilly, the widow of a captain of a merchantman who had died +at sea two years before. The young widow—quite young, only +three-and-twenty—a woman of strong intellect who knew life by instinct as +the free animals do, as though she had seen, gone through, understood, and +weighted every conceivable contingency, and judged them with a wholesome, +strict, and benevolent mind, had fallen into the habit of calling to work or +chat for an hour in the evening with these friendly neighbours, who would give +her a cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +Father Roland, always goaded on by his seafaring craze, would question their +new friend about the departed captain; and she would talk of him, and his +voyages, and his old-world tales, without hesitation, like a resigned and +reasonable woman who loves life and respects death. +</p> + +<p> +The two sons on their return, finding the pretty widow quite at home in the +house, forthwith began to court her, less from any wish to charm her than from +the desire to cut each other out. +</p> + +<p> +Their mother, being practical and prudent, sincerely hoped that one of them +might win the young widow, for she was rich; but then she would have liked that +the other should not be grieved. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly was fair, with blue eyes, a mass of light waving hair, +fluttering at the least breath of wind, and an alert, daring, pugnacious little +way with her, which did not in the least answer to the sober method of her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +She already seemed to like Jean best, attracted, no doubt, by an affinity of +nature. This preference, however, she betrayed only by an almost imperceptible +difference of voice and look and also by occasionally asking his opinion. She +seemed to guess that Jean’s views would support her own, while those of +Pierre must inevitably be different. When she spoke of the doctor’s ideas +on politics, art, philosophy, or morals, she would sometimes say: “Your +crotchets.” Then he would look at her with the cold gleam of an accuser +drawing up an indictment against women—all women, poor weak things. +</p> + +<p> +Never till his sons came home had M. Roland invited her to join his fishing +expeditions, nor had he ever taken his wife; for he liked to put off before +daybreak, with his ally, Captain Beausire, a master mariner retired, whom he +had first met on the quay at high tides and with whom he had struck up an +intimacy, and the old sailor Papagris, known as Jean Bart, in whose charge the +boat was left. +</p> + +<p> +But one evening of the week before, Mme. Rosémilly, who had been dining with +them, remarked, “It must be great fun to go out fishing.” The +jeweller, flattered by her interest and suddenly fired with the wish to share +his favourite sport with her, and to make a convert after the manner of +priests, exclaimed: “Would you like to come?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure I should.” +</p> + +<p> +“Next Tuesday?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, next Tuesday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you the woman to be ready to start at five in the morning?” +</p> + +<p> +She exclaimed in horror: +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed: that is too much.” +</p> + +<p> +He was disappointed and chilled, suddenly doubting her true vocation. However, +he said: +</p> + +<p> +“At what hour can you be ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—at nine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not before?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not before. Even that is very early.” +</p> + +<p> +The old fellow hesitated; he certainly would catch nothing, for when the sun +has warmed the sea the fish bite no more; but the two brothers had eagerly +pressed the scheme, and organized and arranged everything there and then. +</p> + +<p> +So on the following Tuesday the Pearl had dropped anchor under the white rocks +of Cape la Hève; they had fished till midday, then they had slept awhile, and +then fished again without catching anything; and then it was that father +Roland, perceiving, rather late, that all that Mme. Rosémilly really enjoyed +and cared for was the sail on the sea, and seeing that his lines hung +motionless, had uttered in a spirit of unreasonable annoyance, that vehement +“Tschah!” which applied as much to the pathetic widow as to the +creatures he could not catch. +</p> + +<p> +Now he contemplated the spoil—his fish—with the joyful thrill of a +miser; seeing as he looked up at the sky that the sun was getting low: +“Well, boys,” said he, “suppose we turn homeward.” +</p> + +<p> +The young men hauled in their lines, coiled them up, cleaned the hooks and +stuck them into corks, and sat waiting. +</p> + +<p> +Roland stood up to look out like a captain. +</p> + +<p> +“No wind,” said he. “You will have to pull, young +’uns.” +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly extending one arm to the northward, he exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the packet from Southampton.” +</p> + +<p> +Away over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and sheeny and shot +with flame and gold, an inky cloud was visible against the rosy sky in the +quarter to which he pointed, and below it they could make out the hull of the +steamer, which looked tiny at such a distance. And to southward other wreaths +of smoke, numbers of them, could be seen, all converging towards the Havre +pier, now scarcely visible as a white streak with the lighthouse, upright, like +a horn, at the end of it. +</p> + +<p> +Roland asked: “Is not the Normandie due to-day?” And Jean replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me my glass. I fancy I see her out there.” +</p> + +<p> +The father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, sought the +speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, there she is. I know her two funnels. Would you like to look, +Mme. Rosémilly?” +</p> + +<p> +She took the telescope and directed it towards the Atlantic horizon, without +being able, however, to find the vessel, for she could distinguish +nothing—nothing but blue, with a coloured halo round it, a circular +rainbow—and then all manner of queer things, winking eclipses which made +her feel sick. +</p> + +<p> +She said as she returned the glass: +</p> + +<p> +“I never could see with that thing. It used to put my husband in quite a +rage; he would stand for hours at the windows watching the ships pass.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland, much put out, retorted: +</p> + +<p> +“Then it must be some defect in your eye, for my glass is a very good +one.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he offered it to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to look?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you. I know beforehand that I could not see through it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, a woman of eight-and-forty but who did not look it, seemed to be +enjoying this excursion and this waning day more than any of the party. +</p> + +<p> +Her chestnut hair was only just beginning to show streaks of white. She had a +calm, reasonable face, a kind and happy way with her which it was a pleasure to +see. Her son Pierre was wont to say that she knew the value of money, but this +did not hinder her from enjoying the delights of dreaming. She was fond of +reading, of novels, and poetry, not for their value as works of art, but for +the sake of the tender melancholy mood 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, and give her the sense of some mysterious desire almost +realized. And she delighted in these faint emotions which brought a little +flutter to her soul, otherwise as strictly kept as a ledger. +</p> + +<p> +Since settling at Havre she had become perceptibly stouter, and her figure, +which had been very supple and slight, had grown heavier. +</p> + +<p> +This day on the sea had been delightful to her. Her husband, without being +brutal, was rough with her, as a man who is the despot of his shop is apt to be +rough, without anger or hatred; to such men to give an order is to swear. He +controlled himself in the presence of strangers, but in private he let loose +and gave himself terrible vent, though he was himself afraid of every one. She, +in sheer horror of the turmoil, of scenes, of useless explanations, always gave +way and never asked for anything; for a very long time she had not ventured to +ask Roland to take her out in the boat. So she had joyfully hailed this +opportunity, and was keenly enjoying the rare and new pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +From the moment when they started she surrendered herself completely, body and +soul, to the soft, gliding motion over the waves. She was not thinking; her +mind was not wandering through either memories or hopes; it seemed to her as +though her heart, like her body, was floating on something soft and liquid and +delicious which rocked and lulled it. +</p> + +<p> +When their father gave the word to return, “Come, take your places at the +oars!” she smiled to see her sons, her two great boys, take off their +jackets and roll up their shirt-sleeves on their bare arms. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, who was nearest to the two women, took the stroke oar, Jean the other, +and they sat waiting till the skipper should say: “Give way!” For +he insisted on everything being done according to strict rule. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously, as if by a single effort, they dipped the oars, and lying back, +pulling with all their might, began a struggle to display their strength. They +had come out easily, under sail, but the breeze had died away, and the +masculine pride of the two brothers was suddenly aroused by the prospect of +measuring their powers. When they went out alone with their father they plied +the oars without any steering, for Roland would be busy getting the lines +ready, while he kept a lookout in the 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, number one; come, number two—a little +elbow grease.” Then the one who had been dreaming pulled harder, the one +who had got excited eased down, and the boat’s head came round. +</p> + +<p> +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 the +knot of muscles moved under the skin. +</p> + +<p> +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 from end to end at every +stroke, and the Pearl was veering landward. Father Roland, sitting in the bows, +so as to leave the stern seat to the two women, wasted his breath shouting, +“Easy, number one; pull harder, number two!” Pierre pulled harder +in his frenzy, and “number two” could not keep time with his wild +stroke. +</p> + +<p> +At last the skipper cried: “Stop her!” The two oars were lifted +simultaneously, and then by his father’s orders Jean pulled alone for a +few minutes. But from that moment he had it all his own way; he grew eager and +warmed to his work, while Pierre, out of breath and exhausted by his first +vigorous spurt, was lax and panting. Four times running father Roland made them +stop while the elder took breath, so as to get the boat into her right course +again. Then the doctor, humiliated and fuming, his forehead dropping with +sweat, his cheeks white, stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot think what has come over me; I have a stitch in my side. I +started very well, but it has pulled me up.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean asked: “Shall I pull alone with both oars for a time?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks, it will go off.” +</p> + +<p> +And their mother, somewhat vexed, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Pierre, what rhyme or reason is there in getting into such a state. +You are not a child.” +</p> + +<p> +And he shrugged his shoulders and set to once more. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly pretended not to see, not to understand, not to hear. Her fair +head went back with an engaging little jerk every time the boat moved forward, +making the fine wayward hairs flutter about her temples. +</p> + +<p> +But father Roland presently called out: +</p> + +<p> +“Look, the Prince Albert is catching us up!” +</p> + +<p> +They all looked round. Long and low in the water, with her two raking funnels +and two yellow paddle-boxes like two round cheeks, the Southampton packet came +ploughing on at full steam, crowded with passengers under open parasols. Its +hurrying, noisy paddle-wheels beating up the water which fell again in foam, +gave it an appearance of haste as of a courier pressed for time, and the +upright stem cut through the water, throwing up two thin translucent waves +which glided off along the hull. +</p> + +<p> +When it had come quite near the Pearl, father Roland lifted his hat, the ladies +shook their handkerchiefs, and half a dozen parasols eagerly waved on board the +steamboat responded to this salute as she went on her way, leaving behind her a +few broad undulations on the still and glassy surface of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +There were other vessels, each with its smoky cap, coming in from every part of +the horizon towards the short white jetty, which swallowed them up, one after +another, like a mouth. And the fishing barks and lighter craft with broad sails +and slender masts, stealing across the sky in tow of inconspicuous tugs, were +coming in, faster and slower, towards the devouring ogre, who from time to time +seemed to have had a surfeit, and spewed out to the open sea another fleet of +steamers, brigs, schooners, and three-masted vessels with their tangled mass of +rigging. The hurrying steamships flew off to the right and left over the smooth +bosom of the ocean, while sailing vessels, cast off by the pilot-tugs which had +hauled them out, lay motionless, dressing themselves from the main-mast to the +fore-tops in canvas, white or brown, and ruddy in the setting sun. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: “Good heavens, how +beautiful the sea is!” +</p> + +<p> +And Mme. Rosémilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had no sadness in +it: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but it is sometimes very cruel, all the same.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Look, there is the Normandie just going in. A big ship, isn’t +she?” +</p> + +<p> +Then he described the coast opposite, far, far away, on the other side of 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 which make the coast unsafe as far as +Cherbourg. Then he enlarged on the question of the sand-banks in the Seine, +which shift at every tide so that even the pilots of Quillebœuf are at fault if +they do not survey the channel every day. He bid them notice how the town of +Havre divided Upper from Lower Normandy. In Lower Normandy the shore sloped +down to the sea in pasture-lands, fields, and meadows. The coast of Upper +Normandy, on the contrary, was steep, a high cliff, ravined, cleft and +towering, forming an immense white rampart all the way to Dunkirk, while in +each hollow a village or a port lay hidden: Étretat, Fécamp, Saint-Valery, +Tréport, Dieppe, and the rest. +</p> + +<p> +The two women did not listen. Torpid with comfort and impressed by the sight of +the ocean covered with vessels rushing to and fro like wild beasts about their +den, they sat speechless, somewhat awed by the soothing and gorgeous sunset. +Roland alone talked on without end; he was one of those whom nothing can +disturb. Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without +knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the Pearl was +making for the harbour, a tiny thing among those huge vessels. +</p> + +<p> +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 into the town. A +large crowd, the crowd which haunts the pier every day at high tide—was +also drifting homeward. Mme. Roland and Mme. Rosémilly led the way, followed by +the three men. As they went up the Rue de Paris they 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 comments they went on again. In front of +the Place de la Bourse Roland paused, as he did every day, to gaze at the docks +full of vessels—the <i>Bassin du Commerce</i>, with other docks beyond, +where the huge hulls lay side by side, 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 town the look of a dead forest. Above this leafless forest the gulls +were wheeling, and watching to pounce, like a falling stone, on any scraps +flung overboard; a sailor boy, fixing a pulley to a cross-beam, looked as if he +had gone up there bird’s-nesting. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you dine with us without any sort of ceremony, just that we may end +the day together?” said Mme. Roland to her friend. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure I will, with pleasure; I accept equally without ceremony. It +would be dismal to go home and be alone this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, who had heard, and who was beginning to be restless under the young +woman’s indifference, muttered to himself: “Well, the widow is +taking root now, it would seem.” For some days past he had spoken of her +as “the widow.” The word, harmless in itself, irritated Jean merely +by the tone given to it, which to him seemed spiteful and offensive. +</p> + +<p> +The three men spoke not another word till they reached the threshold of their +own house. It was a narrow one, consisting of a ground-floor and two floors +above, in the Rue Belle-Normande. The maid, Joséphine, a girl of nineteen, a +rustic servant-of-all-work at low wages, gifted to excess with the startled +animal expression of a peasant, opened the door, went up stairs at her +master’s heels to the drawing-room, which was on the first floor, and +then said: +</p> + +<p> +“A gentleman called—three times.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland, who never spoke to her without shouting and swearing, cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“Who do you say called, in the devil’s name?” +</p> + +<p> +She never winced at her master’s roaring voice, and replied: +</p> + +<p> +“A gentleman from the lawyer’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“What lawyer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, M’sieu ’Canu—who else?” +</p> + +<p> +“And what did this gentleman say?” +</p> + +<p> +“That M’sieu ’Canu will call in himself in the course of the +evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Maître Lecanu was M. Roland’s lawyer, and in a way his friend, managing +his business for him. For him to send word that he would call in the evening, +something urgent and important must be in the wind; and the four Rolands looked +at each other, disturbed by the announcement as folks of small fortune are wont +to be at any intervention of a lawyer, with its suggestions of contracts, +inheritance, lawsuits—all sorts of desirable or formidable contingencies. +The father, after a few moments of silence, muttered: +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth can it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, a legacy, of course. I am sure of it. I bring good luck.” +</p> + +<p> +But they did not expect the death of any one who might leave them anything. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, who had a good memory for relationships, began to think over all +their connections on her husband’s side and on her own, to trace up +pedigrees and the ramifications of cousin-ship. +</p> + +<p> +Before even taking off her bonnet she said: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, father” (she called her husband “father” at +home, and sometimes “Monsieur Roland” before strangers), +“tell me, do you remember who it was that Joseph Lebru married for the +second time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—a little girl named Dumenil, a stationer’s +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had they any children?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so! four or five at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not from that quarter, then.” +</p> + +<p> +She was quite eager already in her search; she caught at the hope of some added +ease dropping from the sky. But Pierre, who was very fond of his mother, who +knew her to be somewhat visionary and feared she might be disappointed, a +little grieved, a little saddened if the news were bad instead of good, checked +her: +</p> + +<p> +“Do not get excited, mother; there is no rich American uncle. For my +part, I should sooner fancy that it is about a marriage for Jean.” +</p> + +<p> +Every one was surprised at the suggestion, and Jean was a little ruffled by his +brother’s having spoken of it before Mme. Rosémilly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre smiled sneeringly: +</p> + +<p> +“Are you in love, then?” +</p> + +<p> +And the other, much put out, retorted: “Is it necessary that a man should +be in love because he does not care to marry yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there you are! That ‘yet’ sets it right; you are +waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Granted that I am waiting, if you will have it so.” +</p> + +<p> +But old Roland, who had been listening and cogitating, suddenly hit upon the +most probable solution. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me! what fools we are to be racking our brains. Maître Lecanu is +our very good friend; he knows that Pierre is looking out for a medical +partnership and Jean for a lawyer’s office, and he has found something to +suit one of you.” +</p> + +<p> +This was so obvious and likely that every one accepted it. +</p> + +<p> +“Dinner is ready,” said the maid. And they all hurried off to their +rooms to wash their hands before sitting down to table. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes later they were at dinner in the little dining-room on the +ground-floor. +</p> + +<p> +At first they were silent; but presently Roland began again in amazement at +this lawyer’s visit. +</p> + +<p> +“For after all, why did he not write? Why should he have sent his clerk +three times? Why is he coming himself?” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre thought it quite natural. +</p> + +<p> +“An immediate decision is required, no doubt; and perhaps there are +certain confidential conditions which it does not do to put into +writing.” +</p> + +<p> +Still, they were all puzzled, and all four a little annoyed at having invited a +stranger, who would be in the way of their discussing and deciding on what +should be done. +</p> + +<p> +They had just gone upstairs again when the lawyer was announced. Roland flew to +meet him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, my dear Maître,” said he, giving his visitor the +title which in France is the official prefix to the name of every lawyer. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going,” she said. “I am very tired.” +</p> + +<p> +A faint attempt was made to detain her; but she would not consent, and went +home without either of the three men offering to escort her, as they always had +done. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland did the honours eagerly to their visitor. +</p> + +<p> +“A cup of coffee, monsieur?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you. I have just had dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“A cup of tea, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, I will accept one later. First we must attend to +business.” +</p> + +<p> +The deep silence which succeeded this remark was broken only by the regular +ticking of the clock, and below stairs the clatter of saucepans which the girl +was cleaning—too stupid even to listen at the door. +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you, in Paris, know a certain M. Maréchal—Léon +Maréchal?” +</p> + +<p> +M. and Mme. Roland both exclaimed at once: “I should think so!” +</p> + +<p> +“He was a friend of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +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 the exchequer +office. I have never seen him since I left the capital, and latterly we had +ceased writing to each other. When people are far apart you +know——” +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer gravely put in: +</p> + +<p> +“M. Maréchal is deceased.” +</p> + +<p> +Both man and wife responded with the little movement of pained surprise, +genuine or false, but always ready, with which such news is received. +</p> + +<p> +Maître Lecanu went on: +</p> + +<p> +“My colleague in Paris has just communicated to me the main item of his +will, by which he makes your son Jean—Monsieur Jean Roland—his sole +legatee.” +</p> + +<p> +They were all too much amazed to utter a single word. Mme. Roland was the first +to control her emotion and stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens! Poor Léon—our poor friend! Dear me! Dear me! +Dead!” +</p> + +<p> +The tears started to her eyes, a woman’s silent tears, drops of grief +from 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 the prospect +announced. Still, he dared not at once inquire into the clauses of the will and +the amount of the fortune, so to work round to these interesting facts he +asked: +</p> + +<p> +“And what did he die of, poor Maréchal?” +</p> + +<p> +Maître Lecanu did not know in the least. +</p> + +<p> +“All I know is,” said he, “that dying without any direct +heirs, he has 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 +from his birth up, and judges worthy of the legacy. If M. Jean should refuse +the money, it is to go to the foundling hospitals.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland could not conceal his delight and exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Sacristi! It is the thought of a kind heart. And if I had had no heir I +would not have forgotten him; he was a true friend.” +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I was very glad,” he said, “to announce the event to you +myself. It is always a pleasure to be the bearer of good news.” +</p> + +<p> +It had not struck him that this good news was that of the death of a friend, of +Roland’s best friend; and the old man himself had suddenly forgotten the +intimacy he had but just spoken of with so much conviction. +</p> + +<p> +Only Mme. Roland and her sons still looked mournful. She, indeed, was still +shedding a few tears, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she then +pressed to her lips to smother her deep sobs. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor murmured: +</p> + +<p> +“He was a good fellow, very affectionate. He often invited us to dine +with him—my brother and me.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean, with wide-open, glittering eyes, laid his hand on his handsome fair +beard, a familiar gesture with him, and drew his fingers down it to the tip of +the last hairs, as if to pull it longer and thinner. Twice his lips parted to +utter some decent remark, but after long meditation he could only say this: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he was certainly fond of me. He would always embrace me when I went +to see him.” +</p> + +<p> +But his father’s thoughts had set off at a gallop—galloping round +this inheritance to come; nay, already in hand; this money lurking behind the +door, which would walk in quite soon, to-morrow, at a word of consent. +</p> + +<p> +“And there is no possible difficulty in the way?” he asked. +“No lawsuit—no one to dispute it?” +</p> + +<p> +Maître Lecanu seemed quite easy. +</p> + +<p> +“No; my Paris correspondent states that everything is quite clear. M. +Jean has only to sign his acceptance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. Then—then the fortune is quite clear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly clear.” +</p> + +<p> +“All the necessary formalities have been gone through?” +</p> + +<p> +“All.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the old jeweller had an impulse of shame—obscure, instinctive, +and fleeting; shame of his eagerness to be informed, and he added: +</p> + +<p> +“You understand that I ask all these questions immediately so as to save +my son unpleasant consequences which he might not foresee. Sometimes there are +debts, embarrassing liabilities, what not! And a legatee finds himself in an +inextricable thorn-bush. After all, I am not the heir—but I think first +of the little ’un.” +</p> + +<p> +They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the “little +one,” though he was much bigger than Pierre. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Mme. Roland seemed to wake from a dream, to recall some remote fact, a +thing almost forgotten that she had heard long ago, and of which she was not +altogether sure. She inquired doubtingly: +</p> + +<p> +“Were you not saying that our poor friend Maréchal had left his fortune +to my little Jean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +And she went on simply: +</p> + +<p> +“I am much pleased to hear it; it proves that he was attached to +us.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland had risen. +</p> + +<p> +“And would you wish, my dear sir, that my son should at once sign his +acceptance?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no, M. Roland. To-morrow, at my office to-morrow, at two +o’clock, if that suits you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to be sure—yes, indeed. I should think so.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after her tears, went +up to the lawyer, and laying her hand on the back of his chair while she looked +at him with the pathetic eyes of a grateful mother, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“And now for that cup of tea, Monsieur Lecanu?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now I will accept it with pleasure, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +The maid, on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin +boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a +parrot’s beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the +world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those +tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came +in with the sugar-basin and cups; then she departed to heat the water. They sat +waiting. +</p> + +<p> +No one could talk; they had too much to think about and nothing to say. Mme. +Roland alone attempted a few commonplace remarks. She gave an account of the +fishing excursion, and sang the praises of the Pearl and of Mme. Rosémilly. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming, charming!” the lawyer said again and again. +</p> + +<p> +Roland, leaning against the marble mantel-shelf as if it were winter and the +fire burning, with his hands in his pockets and his lips puckered for a +whistle, could not keep still, tortured by the invincible desire to give vent +to his delight. The two brothers, in two arm-chairs that matched, one on each +side of the centre-table, stared in front of them, in similar attitudes full of +dissimilar expressions. +</p> + +<p> +At last the tea appeared. The lawyer took a cup, sugared it, and drank it, +after having crumbled into it a little cake which was too hard to crunch. Then +he rose, shook hands, and departed. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is understood,” repeated Roland. “To-morrow, at your +place, at two?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so. To-morrow, at two.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean had not spoken a word. +</p> + +<p> +When their guest had gone, silence fell again till father Roland clapped his +two hands on his younger son’s shoulders, crying: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you devilish lucky dog! You don’t embrace me!” +</p> + +<p> +Then Jean smiled. He embraced his father, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“It had not struck me as indispensable.” +</p> + +<p> +The old man was beside himself with glee. He walked about the room, strummed on +the furniture with his clumsy nails, turned about on his heels, and kept +saying: +</p> + +<p> +“What luck! What luck! Now, that is really what I call luck!” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Then you used to know this Maréchal well?” +</p> + +<p> +And his father replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I believe! Why, he used to spend every evening at our house. Surely you +remember he used to fetch you from school on half-holidays, and often took you +back again after dinner. Why, the very day when Jean was born it was he who +went for the doctor. He had been breakfasting with us when your mother was +taken ill. Of course we knew at once what it meant, and he set off post-haste. +In his hurry he took my hat instead of his own. I remember that because we had +a good laugh over it afterward. It is very likely that he may have thought of +that when he was dying, and as he had no heir he may have said to himself: +‘I remember helping to bring that youngster into the world, so I will +leave him my savings.’” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, sunk in a deep chair, seemed lost in reminiscences once more. She +murmured, as though she were thinking aloud: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he was a good friend, very devoted, very faithful, a rare soul in +these days.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean got up. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall go out for a little walk,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +His father was surprised and tried to keep him; they had much to talk about, +plans to be made, decisions to be formed. But the young man insisted, declaring +that he had an engagement. Besides, there would be time enough for settling +everything before he came into possession of his 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 few minutes followed his brother. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he was alone with his wife, father Roland took her in his arms, +kissed her a dozen times on each cheek, and, replying to a reproach she had +often brought against him, said: +</p> + +<p> +“You see, my dearest, that it would have been no good to stay any longer +in Paris and work for the children till I dropped, instead of coming here to +recruit my health, since fortune drops on us from the skies.” +</p> + +<p> +She was quite serious. +</p> + +<p> +“It drops from the skies on Jean,” she said. “But +Pierre?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pierre? But he is a doctor; he will make plenty of money; besides, his +brother will surely do something for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he would not take it. Besides, this legacy is for Jean, only for +Jean. Pierre will find himself at a great disadvantage.” +</p> + +<p> +The old fellow seemed perplexed: “Well, then, we will leave him rather +more in our will.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; that again would not be quite just.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 all my pleasures. Well, I am going to bed. Good-night. All the same, I +call it good luck, jolly good luck!” +</p> + +<p> +And he went off, delighted in spite of everything, and without a word of regret +for the friend so generous in his death. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland sat thinking again in front of the lamp which was burning out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +As soon as he got out, Pierre made his way to the Rue de Paris, the high-street +of Havre, brightly lighted up, lively and noisy. The rather sharp air of the +seacoast kissed his face, and he walked slowly, his stick 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 been puzzled to account, on the spur of the moment, +for this dejection of spirit and heaviness of limb. He was hurt somewhere, +without knowing where; somewhere within him there was a pin-point of +pain—one of those almost imperceptible wounds which we cannot lay a +finger on, but which incommode us, tire us, depress us, irritate us—a +slight and occult pang, as it were a small seed of distress. +</p> + +<p> +When he reached the square in front of the theatre, he was attracted by the +lights in the Café Tortoni, and slowly bent his steps to the dazzling façade; +but just as he was going in he reflected that he would meet friends there and +acquaintances—people he would be obliged to talk to; and fierce +repugnance surged up in him for this commonplace good-fellowship over coffee +cups and liqueur glasses. So, retracing his steps, he went back to the +high-street leading to the harbour. +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall I go?” he asked himself, trying to think of a spot he +liked which would agree with his frame of mind. He could not think of one, for +being alone made him feel fractious, yet he could not bear to meet any one. As +he came out on the Grand Quay he hesitated once more; then he turned towards +the pier; he had chosen solitude. +</p> + +<p> +Going close by a bench on the breakwater he sat down, tired already of walking +and out of humour with his stroll before he had taken it. +</p> + +<p> +He said to himself: “What is the matter with me this evening?” And +he began to search in his memory for what vexation had crossed him, as we +question a sick man to discover the cause of his fever. +</p> + +<p> +His mind was at once irritable and sober; he got excited, then he reasoned, +approving or blaming his impulses; but in time primitive nature at last proved +the stronger; the sensitive man always had the upper hand over the intellectual +man. So he tried to discover what had induced this irascible mood, this craving +to be moving without wanting anything, this desire to meet some one for the +sake of differing from him, and at the same time this aversion for the people +he might see and the things they might say to him. +</p> + +<p> +And then he put the question to himself, “Can it be Jean’s +inheritance?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, it was certainly possible. When the lawyer had announced the news he had +felt his heart beat a little faster. For, indeed, one is not always master of +one’s self; there are sudden and pertinacious emotions against which a +man struggles in vain. +</p> + +<p> +He fell into meditation on the physiological problem of the impression produced +on the instinctive element in man, and giving rise to a current of painful or +pleasurable sensations diametrically opposed to those which the thinking man +desires, aims at, and regards as right and wholesome, when he has risen +superior to himself by the cultivation of his intellect. He tried to picture to +himself the frame of mind of a son who had inherited a vast fortune, and who, +thanks to that wealth, may now know many long-wished-for delights, which the +avarice of his father had prohibited—a father, nevertheless, beloved and +regretted. +</p> + +<p> +He got up and walked on to the end of the pier. He felt better, and glad to +have understood, to have detected himself, to have unmasked <i>the other</i> +which lurks in us. +</p> + +<p> +“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 was that he would marry Mme. Rosémilly. And yet I am not in love myself +with that priggish little goose, who is just the woman to disgust a man with +good sense and good conduct. So it is the most gratuitous jealousy, the very +essence of jealousy, which is merely because it is! I must keep an eye on +that!” +</p> + +<p> +By this time he was in front of the flag-staff, whence the depth of water in +the harbour is signalled, and he struck a match to read the list of vessels +signalled in the roadstead and coming in with the next high tide. Ships were +due from Brazil, from La Plata, from Chili and Japan, two Danish brigs, a +Norwegian schooner, and a Turkish steamship—which startled Pierre as much +as if it had read a Swiss steamship; and in a whimsical vision he pictured a +great vessel crowded with men in turbans climbing the shrouds in loose +trousers. +</p> + +<p> +“How absurd!” thought he. “But the Turks are a maritime +people, too.” +</p> + +<p> +A few steps further on he stopped again, looking out at the roads. On the +right, above Sainte-Adresse, the two electric lights of Cape la Hève, like +monstrous twin Cyclops, shot their long and powerful beams across the sea. +Starting from two neighbouring centres, the two parallel shafts of light, like +the colossal tails of two comets, fell in a straight and endless slope from the +top of the cliff to the uttermost horizon. Then, on the two piers, two more +lights, the children of these giants, marked the entrance to the harbour; and +far away on the other side of the Seine others were in sight, many others, +steady or winking, flashing or revolving, opening and shutting like +eyes—the eyes of the ports—yellow, red, and green, watching the +night-wrapped sea covered with ships; the living eyes of the hospitable shore +saying, merely by the mechanical and regular movement of their eye-lids: +“I am here. I am Trouville; I am Honfleur; I am the Andemer River.” +And high above all the rest, so high that from this distance it might be taken +for a planet, the airy lighthouse of Etouville showed the way to Rouen across +the sand banks at the mouth of the great river. +</p> + +<p> +Out on the deep water, the limitless water, darker than the sky, stars seemed +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 of them were +motionless; some, however, seemed to be scudding onward. These were the lights +of the ships at anchor or moving about in search of moorings. +</p> + +<p> +Just at this moment the moon rose behind the town; and it, too, looked like +some huge, divine pharos lighted up in the heavens to guide the countless fleet +of stars in the sky. Pierre murmured, almost speaking aloud: “Look at +that! And we let our bile rise for twopence!” +</p> + +<p> +On a sudden, close to him, in the wide, dark ditch between the two piers, a +shadow stole up, a large shadow of fantastic shape. Leaning over 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 plunge of an oar, softly borne in by its +broad, tawny sail spread to the breeze from the open sea. +</p> + +<p> +He thought to himself: “If one could but live on board that boat, what +peace it would be—perhaps!” +</p> + +<p> +And then again a few steps beyond, he saw a man sitting at the very end of the +breakwater. +</p> + +<p> +A dreamer, a lover, a sage—a happy or a desperate man? Who was it? He +went forward, curious to see the face of this lonely individual, and he +recognised his brother. +</p> + +<p> +“What, is it you, Jean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pierre! You! What has brought you here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I came out to get some fresh air. And you?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I too came out for fresh air.” And Pierre sat down by his +brother’s side. +</p> + +<p> +“Lovely—isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, lovely.” +</p> + +<p> +He understood from the tone of voice that Jean had not looked at anything. He +went on: +</p> + +<p> +“For my part, whenever I come here I am seized with a wild desire to be +off with all those boats, to the north or the south. Only to think that all +those little sparks out there have just come from the uttermost ends of the +earth, from the lands of great flowers and beautiful olive or copper coloured +girls, the lands of humming-birds, of elephants, of roaming lions, of negro +kings, from all the lands which are like fairy-tales to us who no longer +believe in the White Cat or the Sleeping Beauty. It would be awfully jolly to +be able to treat one’s self to an excursion out there; but, then, it +would cost a great deal of money, no end—” +</p> + +<p> +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 he listed, to find +the fair-haired Swedes or the brown damsels of Havana. And then one of those +involuntary flashes which were common with him, so sudden 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bah! He is too great a simpleton; he will marry that little +Rosémilly.” He was standing up now. “I will leave you to dream of +the future. I want to be moving.” He grasped his brother’s hand and +added in a heavy tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear old boy, you are a rich man. I am very glad to have come +upon you this evening to tell you how pleased I am about it, how truly I +congratulate you, and how much I care for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean, tender and soft-hearted, was deeply touched. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, my good brother—thank you!” he stammered. +</p> + +<p> +And Pierre turned away with his slow step, his stick under his arm, and his +hands behind his back. +</p> + +<p> +Back in the town again, he once more wondered what he should do, being +disappointed of his walk and deprived of the company of the sea by his +brother’s presence. He had an inspiration. “I will go and take a +glass of liqueur with old Marowsko,” and he went off towards the quarter +of the town known as Ingouville. +</p> + +<p> +He had known old Marowsko-<i>le père Marowsko</i>, he called him—in the +hospitals in Paris. He was a Pole, an old refugee, it was said, who had gone +through terrible things out there, and who had come to ply his calling as a +chemist and druggist in France after passing a fresh examination. Nothing was +known of his early life, and all sorts of legends had been current among the +indoor and outdoor patients and afterward among his neighbours. This reputation +as a terrible conspirator, a nihilist, a regicide, a patriot ready for anything +and everything, who had escaped death by a miracle, had bewitched Pierre +Roland’s lively and bold imagination; he had made friends with the old +Pole, without, however, having ever extracted from him any revelation as to his +former career. It was owing to the young doctor that this worthy had come to +settle at Havre, counting on the large custom which the rising practitioner +would secure him. Meanwhile he lived very poorly in his little shop, selling +medicines to the small tradesmen and workmen in his part of the town. +</p> + +<p> +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 great depth to +his long spells of silence. +</p> + +<p> +A simple gas-burner was alight over the counter crowded with phials. Those in +the window were not lighted, from motives of economy. Behind the counter, +sitting on a chair with his legs stretched out and crossed, an old man, quite +bald, with a large beak of a nose which, as a prolongation of his hairless +forehead, gave him a melancholy likeness to a parrot, was sleeping soundly, his +chin resting on his breast. He woke at the sound of the shop-bell, and +recognising the doctor, came forward to meet him, holding out both hands. +</p> + +<p> +His black frock-coat, streaked with stains of acids and sirups, was much too +wide for his lean little person, and looked like a shabby old cassock; and the +man spoke with a strong Polish accent which gave the childlike character to his +thin voice, the lisping note and intonations of a young thing learning to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre sat down, and Marowsko asked him: “What news, dear doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +“None. Everything as usual, everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not look very gay this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not often gay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, you must shake that off. Will you try a glass of +liqueur?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do not mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will give you something new to try. For these two months I have +been trying to extract something from currants, of which only a sirup has been +made hitherto—well, and I have done it. I have invented a very good +liqueur—very good indeed; very good.” +</p> + +<p> +And quite delighted, he went to a cupboard, opened it, and picked out a bottle +which he brought forth. He moved and did everything in jerky gestures, always +incomplete; he never quite stretched out his arm, nor quite put out his legs; +nor made any broad and definite movements. His ideas seemed to be like his +actions; he suggested them, promised them, sketched them, hinted at them, but +never fully uttered them. +</p> + +<p> +And, indeed, his great end in life seemed to be the concoction of sirups and +liqueurs. “A good sirup or a good liqueur is enough to make a +fortune,” he would often say. +</p> + +<p> +He had compounded hundreds of these sweet mixtures without ever succeeding in +floating one of them. Pierre declared that Marowsko always reminded him of +Marat. +</p> + +<p> +Two little glasses were fetched out of the back shop and placed on the +mixing-board. Then the two men scrutinized the colour of the fluid by holding +it up to the gas. +</p> + +<p> +“A fine ruby,” Pierre declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it?” Marowsko’s old parrot-face beamed with +satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor tasted, smacked his lips, meditated, tasted again, meditated again, +and spoke: +</p> + +<p> +“Very good—capital; and quite new in flavour. It is a find, my dear +fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, really? Well, I am very glad.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Marowsko took counsel as to baptizing the new liqueur. He wanted to call +it “Extract of currants,” or else “<i>Fine +Groseille</i>” or “<i>Grosélia</i>,” or again +“<i>Groséline</i>.” Pierre did not approve of either of these +names. +</p> + +<p> +Then the old man had an idea: +</p> + +<p> +“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 originated with him. He recommended simply “Groseillette,” +which Marowsko thought admirable. +</p> + +<p> +Then they were silent, and sat for some minutes without a word under the +solitary gas-lamp. At last Pierre began, almost in spite of himself: +</p> + +<p> +“A queer thing has happened at home this evening. A friend of my +father’s, who is lately dead, has left his fortune to my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +The druggist did not at first seem to understand, but after thinking it over he +hoped that the doctor had half the inheritance. When the matter was clearly +explained to him he appeared surprised and vexed; and to express his +dissatisfaction at finding that his young friend had been sacrificed, he said +several times over: +</p> + +<p> +“It will not look well.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, who was relapsing into nervous irritation, wanted to know what Marowsko +meant by this phrase. +</p> + +<p> +Why would it not look well? What was there to look badly in the fact that his +brother had come into the money of a friend of the family? +</p> + +<p> +But the cautious old man would not explain further. +</p> + +<p> +“In such a case the money is left equally to the two brothers, and I tell +you, it will not look well.” +</p> + +<p> +And the doctor, out of all patience, went away, returned to his father’s +house, and went to bed. For some time afterward he heard Jean moving softly +about the adjoining room, and then, after drinking two glasses of water, he +fell asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +The doctor awoke next morning firmly resolved to make his fortune. Several +times already he had come to the same determination without following up the +reality. At the outset of all his trials of some new career the hopes of +rapidly acquired riches kept up his efforts and confidence, till the first +obstacle, the first check, threw him into a fresh path. Snug in bed between the +warm sheets, he lay meditating. How many medical men had become wealthy in +quite a short time! All that was needed was a little knowledge of the world; +for in the course of his studies he had learned to estimate the most famous +physicians, and he judged them all to be asses. He was certainly as good as +they, if not better. If by any means he could secure a practice among the +wealth and fashion of Havre, he could easily make a hundred thousand francs a +year. And he calculated with great exactitude what his certain profits must be. +He would go out in the morning to visit his patients; at the very moderate +average of ten a day, at twenty francs each, that would mount up to seventy-two +thousand francs a year at least, or even seventy-five thousand; for ten +patients was certainly below the mark. In the afternoon he would be at home to, +say, another ten patients, at ten francs each—thirty-six thousand francs. +Here, then, in round numbers was an income of twenty thousand francs. Old +patients, or friends whom he would charge only ten francs for a visit, or see +at home for five, would perhaps make a slight reduction on this sum total, but +consultations with other physicians and various incidental fees would make up +for that. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could be easier than to achieve this by skilful advertising remarks in +the Figaro to the effect that the scientific faculty of Paris had their eye on +him, and were interested in the cures effected by the modest young practitioner +of Havre! And he would be richer than his brother, richer and more famous; and +satisfied with himself, for he would owe his fortune solely to his own +exertions; and liberal to his old 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 he would choose his mistress from the most beautiful of his +patients. He felt so sure of success that he sprang out of bed as though to +grasp it on the spot, and he dressed to go and search through the town for +rooms to suit him. +</p> + +<p> +Then, as he wandered about the streets, he reflected how slight are the causes +which determine our actions. Any time these three weeks he might and ought to +have come to this decision, which, beyond a doubt, the news of his +brother’s inheritance had abruptly given rise to. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped before every door where a placard proclaimed that “fine +apartments” or “handsome rooms” were to be let; announcements +without an adjective he turned from with scorn. Then he inspected them with a +lofty air, measuring the height of the rooms, sketching the plan in his +note-book, with the passages, the arrangement of the exits, explaining that he +was a medical man and had many visitors. He must have a broad and well-kept +stair-case; nor could he be any higher up than the first floor. +</p> + +<p> +After having written down seven or eight addresses and scribbled two hundred +notes, he got home to breakfast a quarter of an hour too late. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall he heard the clatter of plates. Then they had begun without him! +Why? They were never wont to be so punctual. He was nettled and put out, for he +was somewhat thin-skinned. As he went in Roland said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Pierre, make haste, devil take you! You know we have to be at the +lawyer’s at two o’clock. This is not the day to be dawdling.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre sat down without replying, after kissing his mother and shaking hands +with his father and brother; and he helped himself from the deep dish in the +middle of the table to the cutlet which had been kept for him. It was cold and +dry, probably the least tempting of them all. He thought 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 other son, their eldest. +</p> + +<p> +The conversation, which his entrance had interrupted, was taken up again at the +point where it had ceased. +</p> + +<p> +“In your place,” Mme. Roland was saying to Jean, “I will tell +you what I should do at once. I should settle in handsome rooms so as to +attract attention; I should ride on horseback and select one or two interesting +cases to defend and make a mark in court. I would be a sort of amateur lawyer, +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 not lose the benefit of your +studies, and because a man ought never to sit idle.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland, who was peeling a pear, exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Christi! In your place I should buy a nice yacht, a cutter on the build +of our pilot-boats. I would sail as far as Senegal in such a boat as +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, in his turn, spoke his views. After all, said he, it was not his wealth +which made the moral worth, the intellectual worth of a man. To a man of +inferior mind it was only a means of degradation, while in the hands of a +strong man it was a powerful lever. They, to be sure, were rare. If Jean were a +really superior man, now that he could never want he might prove it. But then +he must work a hundred times harder than he would have done in other +circumstances. His business now must be not to argue for or against the widow +and the orphan, and pocket his fees for every case he gained, but to become a +really eminent legal authority, a luminary of the law. And he added in +conclusion: +</p> + +<p> +“If I were rich wouldn’t I dissect no end of bodies!” +</p> + +<p> +Father Roland shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“That is all very fine,” he said. “But the wisest way of life +is to take it easy. We are not beasts of burden, but men. If you are born poor +you must work; well, so much the worse; and you do work. But where you have +dividends! You must be a flat if you grind yourself to death.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre replied haughtily: +</p> + +<p> +“Our notions differ. For my part, I respect nothing on earth but learning +and intellect; everything else is beneath contempt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland always tried to deaden the constant shocks between father and son; +she turned the conversation, and began talking of a murder committed the week +before at Bolbec Nointot. Their minds were immediately full of the +circumstances under which the crime had been committed, and absorbed by the +interesting horror, the attractive mystery of crime, which, however +commonplace, shameful, and disgusting, exercises a strange and universal +fascination over the curiosity of mankind. Now and again, however, old Roland +looked at his watch. “Come,” said he, “it is time to be +going.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not yet one o’clock,” he said. “It really was +hardly worth while to condemn me to eat a cold cutlet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming to the lawyer’s?” his mother asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I? No. What for?” he replied dryly. “My presence is quite +unnecessary.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean sat silent, as though he had no concern in the matter. When they were +discussing the murder at Bolbec he, as a legal authority, had put forward some +opinions and uttered some reflections on crime and criminals. Now he spoke no +more; but the sparkle in his eye, the bright colour in his cheeks, the very +gloss of his beard seemed to proclaim his happiness. +</p> + +<p> +When the family had gone, Pierre, alone once more, resumed his investigations +in the apartments to let. After two or three hours spent in going up and down +stairs, he at last found, in the Boulevard François, a pretty set of rooms; a +spacious entresol with two doors on two different streets, two drawing-rooms, a +glass corridor, where his patients while they waited, might walk among flowers, +and a delightful dining-room with a bow-window looking out over the sea. +</p> + +<p> +When it came to taking it, the terms—three thousand francs—pulled +him up; the first quarter must be paid in advance, and he had nothing, not a +penny to call his own. +</p> + +<p> +The little fortune his father had saved brought him in about eight thousand +francs a year, and Pierre had often blamed himself for having placed his +parents in difficulties by his long delay in deciding on a profession, by +forfeiting his attempts and beginning fresh courses of study. 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 this quarter’s rent, or even of a +half-year, fifteen hundred francs, as soon as Jean should have come into +possession. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be a loan for a few months at most,” he thought. “I +shall repay him, very likely before the end of the year. It is a simple matter, +and he will be glad to do so much for me.” +</p> + +<p> +As it was not yet four o’clock, and he had nothing to do, absolutely +nothing, he went to sit in the public gardens; and he remained a long time on a +bench, without an idea in his brain, his eyes fixed on the ground, crushed by +weariness amounting to distress. +</p> + +<p> +And yet this was how he had been living all these days since his return home, +without suffering so acutely from the vacuity of his existence and from +inaction. How had he spent his time from rising in the morning till bed-time? +</p> + +<p> +He had loafed on the pier at high tide, loafed in the streets, loafed in the +cafés, loafed at Marowsko’s, loafed everywhere. And on a sudden this +life, which he had endured till now, had become odious, intolerable. If he had +had any pocket-money, he would have taken a carriage for a long drive in the +country, along by the farm-ditches shaded by beech and elm trees; but he had to +think twice of the cost of a glass of beer or a postage-stamp, and such an +indulgence was out of his ken. It suddenly struck him how hard it was for a man +of past thirty to be reduced to ask his 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: +</p> + +<p> +“Christi, if I only had money!” +</p> + +<p> +And again the thought of his brother’s legacy came into his head like the +sting of a wasp; but he drove it out indignantly, not choosing to allow himself +to slip down that descent to jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +Some children were playing about in the dusty paths. They were fair little +things with long hair, and they were making little mounds of sand with the +greatest gravity and careful attention, to crush them at once by stamping on +them. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of those gloomy days with Pierre when we pry into every corner of +our souls and shake out every crease. +</p> + +<p> +“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 beget two +or three of these little creatures and watch them grow up with complacent +curiosity. A longing for marriage breathed on his soul. A man is not so lost +when he is not alone. At any rate, he has some one stirring at his side in +hours of trouble or of uncertainty; and it is something only to be able to +speak on equal terms to a woman when one is suffering. +</p> + +<p> +Then he began thinking of women. He knew very little of them, never having had +any but very transient connections as a medical student, broken off as soon as +the month’s allowance was spent, and renewed or replaced by another the +following month. And yet there must be some very kind, gentle, and comforting +creatures among them. Had not his mother been the good sense and saving grace +of his own home? How glad he would be to know a woman, a true woman! +</p> + +<p> +He started up with a sudden determination to go and call on Mme. Rosémilly. 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 too bluntly, this preference had a great deal +to do with his low opinion of the widow’s intellect; for, though he loved +his brother, he could not help thinking him somewhat mediocre and believing +himself the superior. However, he was not going to sit there till nightfall; +and as he had done on the previous evening, he anxiously asked himself: +“What am I going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment he felt in his soul the need of a melting mood, of being +embraced and comforted. Comforted—for what? He could not have put it into +words; but he was in one of these hours of weakness and exhaustion when a +woman’s presence, a woman’s kiss, the touch of a hand, the rustle +of a petticoat, a soft look out of black or blue eyes, seem the one thing +needful, there and then, to our heart. And the memory flashed upon him of a +little barmaid at a beer-house, whom he had walked home with one evening, and +seen again from time to time. +</p> + +<p> +So once more he rose, to go and drink a bock with the girl. What should he say +to her? What would she say to him? Nothing, probably. But what did that matter? +He would hold her hand for a few seconds. She seemed to have a fancy for him. +Why, then, did he not go to see her oftener? +</p> + +<p> +He found her dozing on a chair in the beer-shop, which was almost deserted. +Three men were drinking and smoking with their elbows on the oak tables; the +book-keeper in her desk was reading a novel, while the master, in his +shirt-sleeves, lay sound asleep on a bench. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she saw him the girl rose eagerly, and coming to meet him, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Good-day, monsieur—how are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty well; and you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—oh, very well. How scarce you make yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have very little time to myself. I am a doctor, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! You never told me. If I had known that—I was out of sorts +last week and I would have sent for you. What will you take?” +</p> + +<p> +“A bock. And you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will have a bock, too, since you are willing to treat me.” +</p> + +<p> +She had addressed him with the familiar <i>tu</i>, and continued to use it, as +if the offer of a drink had tacitly conveyed permission. Then, sitting down +opposite each other, they talked for a while. Every now and then she took his +hand with the light familiarity of girls whose kisses are for sale, and looking +at him with inviting eyes she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you come here oftener? I like you very much, +sweetheart.” +</p> + +<p> +He was already disgusted with her; he saw how stupid she was, and common, +smacking of low life. A woman, he told himself, should appear to us in dreams, +or such a glory as may poetize her vulgarity. +</p> + +<p> +Next she asked him: +</p> + +<p> +“You went by the other morning with a handsome fair man, wearing a big +beard. Is he your brother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he is my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully good-looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed; and he looks like a man who enjoys life, too.” +</p> + +<p> +What strange craving impelled him on a sudden to tell this tavern-wench about +Jean’s legacy? Why should this thing, which he kept at arm’s length +when he was alone, which he drove from him for fear of the torment it brought +upon his soul, rise to his lips at this moment? And why did he allow it to +overflow them as if he needed once more to empty out his heart to some one, +gorged as it was with bitterness? +</p> + +<p> +He crossed his legs and said: +</p> + +<p> +“He has wonderful luck, that brother of mine. He had just come into a +legacy of twenty thousand francs a year.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened those covetous blue eyes of hers very wide. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! and who left him that? His grandmother or his aunt?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. An old friend of my parents’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a friend! Impossible! And you—did he leave you +nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I knew him very slightly.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat thinking some minutes; then, with an odd smile on her lips, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he is a lucky dog, that brother of yours, to have friends of this +pattern. My word! and no wonder he is so unlike you.” +</p> + +<p> +He longed to slap her, without knowing why; and he asked with pinched lips: +“And what do you mean by saying that?” +</p> + +<p> +She had put on a stolid, innocent face. +</p> + +<p> +“O—h, nothing. I mean he has better luck than you.” +</p> + +<p> +He tossed a franc piece on the table and went out. +</p> + +<p> +Now he kept repeating the phrase: “No wonder he is so unlike you.” +</p> + +<p> +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 Maréchal’s son. The +agitation which came over him at the notion of this suspicion cast at his +mother was so violent that he stood still, looking about him for some place +where he might sit down. In front of him was another café. He went in, took a +chair, and as the waiter came up, “A bock,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He felt his heart beating, his skin was gooseflesh. And then the recollection +flashed upon him of what Marowsko had said the evening before. “It will +not look well.” Had he had the same thought, the same suspicion as this +baggage? Hanging his head over the glass, he watched the white froth as the +bubbles rose and burst, asking himself: “Is it possible that such a thing +should be believed?” +</p> + +<p> +But the reasons which might give rise to this horrible doubt in other +men’s minds now struck him, one after another, as plain, obvious, and +exasperating. That a childless old bachelor should leave his fortune to a +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 people would +wonder, and whisper, and end by smiling. How was it that he had not foreseen +this, that his father had not felt it? How was it that his mother had not +guessed it? No; they had been too delighted at this unhoped-for wealth for the +idea to come near them. And besides, how should these worthy souls have ever +dreamed of anything so ignominious? +</p> + +<p> +But the public—their neighbours, the shopkeepers, their own tradesmen, +all who knew them—would not they repeat the abominable thing, laugh at +it, enjoy it, make game of his father and despise his mother? +</p> + +<p> +And the barmaid’s remark that Jean was fair and he dark, that they were +not in the least alike in face, manner, figure, or intelligence, would now +strike every eye and every mind. When any one spoke of Roland’s son, the +question would be: “Which, the real or the false?” +</p> + +<p> +He rose, firmly resolved to warn Jean, and put him on his guard against the +frightful danger which threatened their mother’s honour. +</p> + +<p> +But what could Jean do? The simplest thing no doubt, would be to refuse the +inheritance, which would then go to the poor, and to tell all friends or +acquaintances who had heard of the bequest that the will contained clauses and +conditions impossible to subscribe to, which would have made Jean not inheritor +but merely a trustee. +</p> + +<p> +As he made his way home he was thinking that he must see his brother alone, so +as not to speak of such a matter in the presence of his parents. On reaching +the door he heard a great noise of voices and laughter in the drawing-room, and +when he went in he found Captain Beausire and Mme. Rosémilly, whom his father +had brought home and engaged to dine with them in honour of the good news. +Vermouth and absinthe had been served to whet their appetites, and every one +had been at once put into good spirits. Captain Beausire, a funny little man +who had become quite round by dint of being rolled about at sea, and whose +ideas also seemed to have been worn round, like the pebbles of a beach, while +he laughed with his throat full of <i>r</i>’s, looked upon life as a +capital thing, in which everything that might turn up was good to take. He +clinked his glass against father Roland’s, while Jean was offering two +freshly filled glasses to the ladies. Mme. Rosémilly refused, till Captain +Beausire, who had known her husband, cried: +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, madame, <i>bis repetita placent</i>, 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 an artificial roll or +two every day before dinner; I add a little pitching after my coffee, and that +keeps things lively for the rest of the evening. I never rise to a hurricane, +mind you, never, never. I am too much afraid of damage.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland, whose nautical mania was humoured by the old mariner, laughed heartily, +his face flushed already and his eye watery from the absinthe. He had a burly +shop-keeping stomach—nothing but stomach—in which the rest of his +body seemed to have got stowed away; the flabby paunch of men who spend their +lives sitting, and who have neither thighs, nor chest, nor arms, nor neck; the +seat of their chairs having accumulated all their substance in one spot. +Beausire, on the contrary, though short and stout, was as tight as an egg and +as hard as a cannon-ball. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland had not emptied her glass and was gazing at her son Jean with +sparkling eyes; happiness had brought a colour to her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +In him, too, the fulness of joy had now blazed out. It was a settled thing, +signed and sealed; he had twenty thousand francs a year. In the sound of his +laugh, in the fuller voice with which he spoke, in his way of looking at the +others, his more positive manners, his greater confidence, the assurance given +by money was at once perceptible. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner was announced, and as the old man was about to offer his arm to Mme. +Rosémilly, his wife exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, father. Everything is for Jean to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Unwonted luxury graced the table. In front of Jean, who sat in his +father’s place, an enormous bouquet of flowers—a bouquet for a +really great occasion—stood up like a cupola dressed with flags, and was +flanked by four high dishes, one containing a pyramid of splendid peaches; the +second, a monumental cake gorged with whipped cream and covered with pinnacles +of sugar—a cathedral in confectionery; the third, slices of pine-apple +floating in clear sirup; and the fourth—unheard-of lavishness—black +grapes brought from the warmer south. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” exclaimed Pierre as he sat down. “We are +celebrating the accession of Jean the rich.” +</p> + +<p> +After the soup, Madeira was passed round, and already every one was talking at +once. Beausire was giving the history of a dinner he had eaten at San Domingo +at the table of a negro general. Old Roland was listening, 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, after which every guest was ill for a fortnight. +Mme. Rosémilly, Jean, and his mother were planning an excursion to breakfast at +Saint Jouin, from which they promised themselves the greatest pleasure; and +Pierre was only sorry that he had not dined alone in some pot-house by the sea, +so as to escape all this noise and laughter and glee which fretted him. He was +wondering how he could now set to work to confide his fears to his brother, and +induce him to renounce the fortune he had already accepted and of which he was +enjoying the intoxicating foretaste. It would be hard on him, no doubt; but it +must be done; he could not hesitate; their mother’s reputation was at +stake. +</p> + +<p> +The appearance of an enormous shade-fish threw Roland back on fishing stories. +Beausire told some wonderful tales of adventure on the Gaboon, at Sainte-Marie, +in Madagascar, and above all, off the coasts of China and Japan, where the fish +are as queer-looking as the natives. And he described the appearance of these +fishes—their goggle gold eyes, their blue or red bellies, their fantastic +fins like fans, their eccentric crescent-shaped tails—with such droll +gesticulation that they all laughed till they cried as they listened. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre alone seemed incredulous, muttering to himself: “True enough, the +Normans are the Gascons of the north!” +</p> + +<p> +After the fish came a vol-au-vent, then a roast fowl, a salad, French beans +with a Pithiviers lark-pie. Mme. Rosémilly’s maid helped to wait on 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, father Roland, highly +excited, imitated the noise with his tongue and then declared: “I like +that noise better than a pistol-shot.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, more and more fractious every moment, retorted with a sneer: +</p> + +<p> +“And yet it is perhaps a greater danger for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland, who was on the point of drinking, set his full glass down on the table +again, and asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +He had for some time been complaining of his health, of heaviness, giddiness, +frequent and unaccountable discomfort. The doctor replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Because the bullet might very possibly miss you, while the glass of wine +is dead certain to hit you in the stomach.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it scorches your inside, upsets your nervous system, makes the +circulation sluggish, and leads the way to the apoplectic fit which always +threatens a man of your build.” +</p> + +<p> +The jeweller’s incipient intoxication had vanished like smoke before the +wind. He looked at his son with fixed, uneasy eyes, trying to discover whether +he was making game of him. +</p> + +<p> +But Beausire exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, these confounded doctors! They all sing the same tune—eat +nothing, drink nothing, never make love or enjoy yourself; it all plays the +devil with your precious health. Well, all I can say is, I have done all these +things, sir, in every quarter of the globe, wherever and as often as I have had +the chance, and I am none the worse.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre answered with some asperity: +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place, captain, you are a stronger man than my father; and +in the next, all free livers talk as you do till the day when—when they +come back no more to say to the cautious doctor: ‘You were right.’ +When I see my father doing what is worst and most dangerous for him, it is but +natural that I should warn him. I should be a bad son if I did +otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, much distressed, now put in her word: “Come, Pierre, what +ails you? For once it cannot hurt him. Think of what an occasion it is for him, +for all of us. You will spoil his pleasure and make us all unhappy. It is too +bad of you to do such a thing.” +</p> + +<p> +He muttered, as he shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“He can do as he pleases. I have warned him.” +</p> + +<p> +But father Roland did not drink. He sat looking at his glass full of the clear +and luminous liquor while its light soul, its intoxicating soul, flew off in +tiny bubbles mounting from its depths in hurried succession to die on the +surface. He looked at it with the suspicious eye of a fox smelling at a dead +hen and suspecting a trap. He asked doubtfully: “Do you think it will +really do me much harm?” Pierre had a pang of remorse and blamed himself +for letting his ill-humour punish the rest. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he. “Just for once you may drink it; but do not +take too much, or get into the habit of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Then old Roland raised his glass, but still he could not make up his mind to +put it to his lips. He contemplated it regretfully, with longing and with fear; +then he smelt it, tasted it, drank it in sips, swallowing them slowly, his +heart full of terrors, of weakness and greediness; and then, when he had +drained the last drop, of regret. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre’s eye suddenly met that of Mme. Rosémilly; it rested on him clear +and blue, far-seeing and hard. And he read, he knew, the precise thought which +lurked in that look, the indignant thought of this simple and right-minded +little woman; for the look said: “You are jealous—that is what you +are. Shameful!” +</p> + +<p> +He bent his head and went on with his dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He was not hungry and found nothing nice. A longing to be off harassed him, a +craving to be away from these people, to hear no more of their talking, jests, +and laughter. +</p> + +<p> +Father Roland meanwhile, to whose head the fumes of the wine were rising once +more, had already forgotten his son’s advice and was eyeing a +champagne-bottle with a tender leer as it stood, still nearly full, by the side +of his plate. He dared not touch it for fear of being lectured again, and he +was wondering by what device or trick he could possess himself of it without +exciting Pierre’s remark. A ruse occurred to him, the simplest possible. +He took up the bottle with an air of indifference, and holding it by the neck, +stretched his arm across the table to fill the doctor’s glass, which was +empty; then he filled up all the other glasses, and when he came to his own he +began talking very loud, so that if he poured anything into it they might have +sworn it was done inadvertently. And in fact no one took any notice. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, without observing it, was drinking a good deal. Nervous and fretted, he +every minute raised to his lips the tall crystal funnel where the bubbles were +dancing in the living, translucent fluid. He let the wine slip very slowly over +his tongue, that he might feel the little sugary sting of the fixed air as it +evaporated. +</p> + +<p> +Gradually a pleasant warmth glowed in his frame. Starting from the stomach as a +centre, it spread to his chest, took possession of his limbs, and diffused +itself throughout his flesh, like a warm and comforting tide, bringing pleasure +with it. He felt better now, less impatient, less annoyed, and his +determination to speak to his brother that very evening faded away; not that he +thought for a moment of giving it up, but simply not to disturb the happy mood +in which he found himself. +</p> + +<p> +Beausire presently rose to propose a toast. Having bowed to the company, he +began: +</p> + +<p> +“Most gracious ladies and gentlemen, we have met to do honour to a happy +event which has befallen one of our friends. It used to be said that Fortune +was blind, but I believe that she is only short-sighted or tricksy, and that +she has lately bought a good pair of glasses which enabled her to discover in +the town of Havre the son of our worthy friend Roland, skipper of the +Pearl.” +</p> + +<p> +Every one cried bravo and clapped their hands, and the elder Roland rose to +reply. After clearing his throat, for it felt thick and his tongue was heavy, +he stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, captain, thank you—for myself and my son. I shall never +forget your behaviour on this occasion. Here’s good luck to you!” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes and nose were full of tears, and he sat down, finding nothing more to +say. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, who was laughing, spoke in his turn: +</p> + +<p> +“It is I,” said he, “who ought to thank my friends here, my +excellent friends,” and he glanced at Mme. Rosémilly, “who have +given me such a touching evidence of their affection. But it is not by words +that I can prove 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.” +</p> + +<p> +His mother, deeply moved, murmured: “Well said, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +But Beausire cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Mme. Rosémilly, speak on behalf of the fair sex.” +</p> + +<p> +She raised her glass, and in a pretty voice, slightly touched with sadness, she +said: “I will pledge you to the memory of M. Maréchal.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a few moments’ lull, a pause for decent meditation, as after +prayer. Beausire, who always had a flow of compliment, remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Only a woman ever thinks of these refinements.” Then turning to +Father Roland: “And who was this Maréchal, after all? You must have been +very intimate with him.” +</p> + +<p> +The old man, emotional with drink, began to whimper, and in a broken voice he +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Like a brother, you know. Such a friend as one does not make +twice—we were always together—he dined with us every +evening—and would treat us to the play—I need say no more—no +more—no more. A true friend—a real true friend—wasn’t +he, Louise?” +</p> + +<p> +His wife merely answered: “Yes; he was a faithful friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre looked at his father and then at his mother, then, as the subject +changed he drank some more wine. He scarcely remembered the remainder of the +evening. They had coffee, then liqueurs, and they laughed and joked a great +deal. At about midnight he went to bed, his mind confused and his head heavy; +and he slept like a brute till nine next morning. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p> +These slumbers, lapped in Champagne and Chartreuse, had soothed and calmed him, +no doubt, for he awoke in a very benevolent frame of mind. While he was +dressing he appraised, weighed, and summed up the agitations of the past day, +trying to bring out quite clearly and fully their real and occult causes, those +personal to himself as well as those from outside. +</p> + +<p> +It was, in fact, possible that the girl at the beer-shop had had an evil +suspicion—a suspicion worthy of such a hussy—on hearing that only +one of the Roland brothers had been made heir to a stranger; but have not such +natures as she always similar notions, without a shadow of foundation, 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 have more lovers than we have, only they +conceal it because they are such hypocrites. Oh, yes, a pretty sort, +indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +Under any other circumstances he would certainly not have understood, not have +imagined the possibility of such an insinuation against his poor mother, who +was so kind, so simple, so excellent. But his spirit seethed with the leaven of +jealousy that was fermenting within him. His own excited mind, on the scent, as +it were, in spite of himself, for all that could damage his brother, had even +perhaps attributed to the tavern barmaid an odious intention of which she was +innocent. It was possible that his imagination had, unaided, invented this +dreadful doubt—his imagination, which he never controlled, which +constantly evaded his will and went off, unfettered, audacious, adventurous, +and stealthy, into the infinite world of ideas, bringing back now and then some +which were shameless and repulsive, and which it buried in him, in the depths +of his soul, in its most fathomless recesses, like something stolen. His heart, +most certainly, his own heart had secrets from him; and had not that wounded +heart discerned in this atrocious doubt a means of depriving his brother of the +inheritance of which he was jealous? He suspected himself now, cross-examining +all the mysteries of his mind as bigots search their consciences. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly, though her intelligence was limited, had certainly a +woman’s instinct, scent, and subtle intuitions. And this notion had never +entered her head, since she had, with perfect simplicity, drunk to the blessed +memory of the deceased Maréchal. She was not the woman to have done this if she +had had the faintest suspicion. Now he doubted no longer; his involuntary +displeasure at his brother’s windfall of fortune and his religious +affection for his mother had magnified his scruples—very pious and +respectable scruples, but exaggerated. As he put this conclusion into words in +his own mind he felt happy, as at the doing of a good action; and he resolved +to be nice to every one, beginning with his father, whose manias, and silly +statements, and vulgar opinions, and too conspicuous mediocrity were a constant +irritation to him. +</p> + +<p> +He came in not late for breakfast, and amused all the family by his fun and +good humour. +</p> + +<p> +His mother, quite delighted, said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“My little Pierre, you have no notion how humorous and clever you can be +when you choose.” +</p> + +<p> +And he talked, putting things in a witty way, and making them laugh by +ingenious hits at their friends. Beausire was his butt, and Mme. Rosémilly a +little, but in a very judicious way, not too spiteful. And he thought as he +looked at his brother: “Stand up for her, you muff. You may be as rich as +you please, I can always eclipse you when I take the trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +As they drank their coffee he said to his father: +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going out in the Pearl to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I have her with Jean Bart?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure, as long as you like.” +</p> + +<p> +He bought a good cigar at the first tobacconist’s and went down to the +quay with a light step. He glanced up at the sky, which was clear and luminous, +of a pale blue, freshly swept by the sea-breeze. +</p> + +<p> +Papagris, the boatman, commonly called Jean Bart, was dozing in the bottom of +the boat, which he was required to have in readiness every day at noon when +they had not been out fishing in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“You and I together, mate,” cried Pierre. He went down the iron +ladder of the quay and leaped into the vessel. +</p> + +<p> +“Which way is the wind?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Due east still, M’sieu Pierre. A fine breeze out at sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, old man, off we go!” +</p> + +<p> +They hoisted the foresail and weighed anchor; and the boat, feeling herself +free, glided slowly down towards the jetty on the still water of the harbour. +The breath of wind that came down the streets caught the top of the sail so +lightly as to be imperceptible, and the Pearl seemed endowed with +life—the life of a vessel driven on by a mysterious latent power. 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 the blinding sunshine, he +watched the great tarred timbers of the breakwater as they glided past. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the open sea, round the nose of the north pier which had +sheltered them, the fresher breeze puffed in the doctor’s face and on his +hands, like a somewhat icy caress, filled his chest, which rose with a long +sigh to drink it in, and swelling the tawny sail, tilted the Pearl on her beam +and made her more lively. Jean Bart hastily hauled up the 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 was close-reefed against his mast. +</p> + +<p> +Then, along the hull of the boat, which suddenly heeled over and was running at +top speed, there was a soft, crisp sound of water hissing and rushing past. The +prow ripped up the sea like the share of a plough gone mad, and the yielding +water it turned up curled over and fell white with foam, 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 Pearl shivered from the point of the +bowsprit to the rudder, which trembled under Pierre’s hand; when the wind +blew harder in gusts, the swell rose to the gunwale as if it would overflow +into the boat. A coal brig from Liverpool was lying at anchor, waiting for the +tide; they made a sweep round her stern and went to look at each of the vessels +in the roads one after another; then they put further out to look at the +unfolding line of coast. +</p> + +<p> +For three hours Pierre, easy, calm, and happy, wandered to and fro over the +dancing waters, guiding the thing of wood and canvas, which came and went at +his will, under the pressure of his hand, as if it were a swift and docile +winged creature. +</p> + +<p> +He was lost in day-dreams, the dreams one has on horseback or on the deck of a +boat; thinking of his future, which should be brilliant, and the joys of living +intelligently. On the morrow he would ask his brother to lend him fifteen +hundred francs for three months, that he might settle at once in the pretty +rooms on the Boulevard François. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the sailor said: “The fog is coming up, M’sieu Pierre. We +must go in.” +</p> + +<p> +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 them like a cloud +fallen from above. He tacked for land and made for the pier, scudding before +the wind and followed by the flying fog, which gained upon them. When it +reached the Pearl, wrapping her in its intangible density, a cold shudder ran +over Pierre’s limbs, and a smell of smoke and mould, the peculiar smell +of a sea-fog, made him close his mouth that he might not taste the cold, wet +vapour. By the time the boat was at her usual moorings in the harbour the whole +town was buried in this 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 a +river. Pierre, with his hands and feet frozen, made haste home and threw +himself on his bed to take a nap till dinner-time. When he made his appearance +in the dining-room his mother was saying to Jean: +</p> + +<p> +“The glass corridor will be lovely. We will fill it with flowers. You +will see. I will undertake to care for them and renew them. When you give a +party the effect will be quite fairy-like.” +</p> + +<p> +“What in the world are you talking about?” the doctor asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Of a delightful apartment I have just taken for your brother. It is +quite a find; an entresol looking out on two streets. There are two +drawing-rooms, a glass passage, and a little circular dining-room, perfectly +charming for a bachelor’s quarters.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre turned pale. His anger seemed to press on his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Boulevard François.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no possibility for doubt. He took his seat in such a state of +exasperation that he longed to exclaim: “This is really too much! Is +there nothing for any one but him?” +</p> + +<p> +His mother, beaming, went on talking: “And only fancy, I got it for two +thousand eight hundred francs a year. They asked three thousand, but I got a +reduction of two hundred francs on taking for three, six, or nine years. Your +brother will be delightfully housed there. An elegant home is enough to make +the fortune of a lawyer. It attracts clients, charms them, holds them fast, +commands respect, and shows them that a man who lives in such good style +expects a good price for his words.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent for a few seconds and then went on: +</p> + +<p> +“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 you it will +be to your advantage.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre replied contemptuously: +</p> + +<p> +“For me! Oh, I shall make my way by hard work and learning.” +</p> + +<p> +But his mother insisted: “Yes, but I assure you that to be well lodged +will be of use to you nevertheless.” +</p> + +<p> +About half-way through the meal he suddenly asked: +</p> + +<p> +“How did you first come to know this man Maréchal?” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland looked up and racked his memory: +</p> + +<p> +“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 the shop, +was it not, Louise? He first came to order something, and then he called +frequently. We knew him as a customer before we knew him as a friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, who was eating beans, sticking his fork into them one by one as if he +were spitting them, went on: +</p> + +<p> +“And when was it that you made his acquaintance?” +</p> + +<p> +Again Roland sat thinking, but he could remember no more and appealed to his +wife’s better memory. +</p> + +<p> +“In what year was it, Louise? You surely have not forgotten, you who +remember everything. Let me see—it was in—in—in fifty-five or +fifty-six? Try to remember. You ought to know better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +She did in fact think it over for some minutes, and then replied in a steady +voice and with calm decision: +</p> + +<p> +“It was in fifty-eight, old man. Pierre was three years old. I am quite +sure that I am not mistaken, for it was in that year that the child had scarlet +fever, and Maréchal, whom we knew then but very little, was of the greatest +service to us.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure—very true; he was really invaluable. When your mother +was half-dead with fatigue and I had to attend to the shop, he would go to the +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 how he petted +you. It was from that time that we became such great friends.” +</p> + +<p> +And this thought rushed into Pierre’s soul, as abrupt and violent as a +cannon-ball rending and piercing it: “Since he knew me first, since he +was so devoted to me, since he was so fond of me and petted me so much, since +I—<i>I</i> was the cause of his great intimacy with my parents, why did +he leave all his money to my brother and nothing to me?” +</p> + +<p> +He asked no more questions and remained gloomy; absent-minded rather than +thoughtful, feeling in his soul a new anxiety as yet undefined, the secret germ +of a new pain. +</p> + +<p> +He went out early, wandering about the streets once more. They were shrouded in +the fog which made the night heavy, opaque, and nauseous. It was like a +pestilential cloud dropped on the earth. It could be seen swirling past the +gas-lights, which it seemed to put out at intervals. The pavement was as +slippery as on a frosty night after rain, and all sorts of evil smells seemed +to come up from the bowels of the houses—the stench of cellars, drains, +sewers, squalid kitchens—to mingle with the horrible savour of this +wandering fog. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, with his shoulders up and his hands in his pockets, not caring to +remain out of doors in the cold, turned into Marowsko’s. The druggist was +asleep as usual under the gas-light, which kept watch. On recognising Pierre +for whom he had the affection of a faithful dog, he shook off his drowsiness, +went for two glasses, and brought out the <i>Groseillette</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the doctor, “how is the liqueur getting +on?” +</p> + +<p> +The Pole explained that four of the chief cafés in the town had agreed to have +it on sale, and that two papers, the <i>Northcoast Pharos</i> and the <i>Havre +Semaphore</i>, would advertise it, in return for certain chemical preparations +to be supplied to the editors. +</p> + +<p> +After a long silence Marowsko asked whether Jean had come definitely into +possession of his fortune; and then he put two or three other questions vaguely +referring to the same subject. His jealous devotion to Pierre rebelled against +this preference. And Pierre felt as though he could hear him thinking; he +guessed and understood, read in his averted eyes and in the hesitancy of his +tone, the words which rose to his lips but were not spoken—which the +druggist was too timid or too prudent and cautious to utter. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, he felt sure, the old man was thinking: “You ought not to +have suffered him to accept this inheritance which will make people speak ill +of your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, indeed, Marowsko believed that Jean was Maréchal’s son. Of +course he believed it! How could he help believing it when the thing must seem +so possible, so probable, self-evident? Why, he himself, Pierre, her +son—had not he been for these three days past fighting with all the +subtlety at his command to cheat his reason, fighting against this hideous +suspicion? +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly the need to be alone, to reflect, to discuss the matter with +himself—to face boldly, without scruple or weakness, this possible but +monstrous thing—came upon him anew, and so imperative that he rose +without even drinking his glass of <i>Groseillette</i>, shook hands with the +astounded druggist, and plunged out into the foggy streets again. +</p> + +<p> +He asked himself: “What made this Maréchal leave all his fortune to +Jean?” +</p> + +<p> +It was not jealousy now which made him dwell on this question, not the rather +mean but natural envy which he knew lurked within him, and with which he had +been struggling these three days, but the dread of an overpowering horror; the +dread that he himself should believe that Jean, his brother, was that +man’s son. +</p> + +<p> +No. He did not believe it, he could not even ask himself the question which was +a crime! Meanwhile he must get rid of this faint suspicion, improbable as it +was, utterly and forever. He craved for light, for certainty—he must win +absolute security in his heart, for he loved no one in the world but his +mother. And as he wandered alone through the darkness he would rack his memory +and his reason with a minute search that should bring out the blazing truth. +Then there would be an end to the matter; he would not think of it +again—never. He would go and sleep. +</p> + +<p> +He argued thus: “Let me see: first to examine the facts; then I will +recall all I know about him, his behaviour to my brother and to me. I will 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 had loved my mother silently, +unselfishly, he would surely have chosen me, since it was through me, through +my scarlet fever, that he became so intimate with my parents. Logically, then, +he ought to have preferred me, to have had a keener affection for +me—unless it were that he felt an instinctive attraction and predilection +for my brother as he watched him grow up.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, with desperate tension of brain and of all the powers of his intellect, +he strove to reconstitute from memory the image of this Maréchal, to see him, +to know him, to penetrate the man whom he had seen pass by him, indifferent to +his heart during all those years in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +But he perceived that the slight exertion of walking somewhat disturbed his +ideas, dislocated their continuity, weakened their precision, clouded his +recollection. To enable him to look at the past and at unknown events with so +keen an eye that nothing should escape it, he must be motionless in a vast and +empty space. And he made up his mind to go and sit on the jetty as he had done +that other night. As he approached the harbour he heard, out at sea, a +lugubrious and sinister wail like the bellowing of a bull, but more long-drawn +and steady. It was the roar of a fog-horn, the cry of a ship lost in the fog. A +shiver ran through him, chilling his heart; so deeply did this cry of distress +thrill 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 farther away; +then, close by, the fog-horn on the pier gave out a fearful sound in answer. +Pierre made for the jetty with long steps, thinking no more of anything, +content to walk on into this ominous and bellowing darkness. +</p> + +<p> +When he had seated himself at the end of the breakwater he closed his eyes, +that he might not see the two electric lights, now blurred by the fog, which +make the harbour accessible at night, and the red glare of the light on the +south pier, which was, however, scarcely visible. Turning half-round, he rested +his elbows on the granite and hid his face in his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Though he did not pronounce the words with his lips, his mind kept repeating: +“Maréchal—Maréchal,” as if to raise and challenge the shade. +And on the black background of his closed eyelids, he suddenly saw him as he +had known him: a man of about sixty, with a white beard cut in a point and very +thick eyebrows, also white. He was neither tall nor short, his manner was +pleasant, his eyes gray and soft, his movements gentle, his whole appearance +that of a good fellow, simple and kindly. He called Pierre and Jean “my +dear children,” and had never seemed to prefer either, asking them both +together to dine with him. And then Pierre, with the pertinacity of a dog +seeking a lost scent, tried to recall the words, gestures, tones, looks, of +this man who had vanished from the world. By degrees he saw him quite clearly +in his rooms in the Rue Tronchet, where he received his brother and himself at +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He was waited on by two maids, both old women who had been in the habit—a +very old one, no doubt—of saying “Monsieur Pierre” and +“Monsieur Jean.” Maréchal would hold out both hands, the right hand +to one of the young men, the left to the other, as they happened to come in. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, my children?” he would say. “Have you any news +of your parents? As for me, they never write to me.” +</p> + +<p> +The talk was quiet and intimate, of commonplace matters. There was nothing +remarkable in the man’s mind, but much that was winning, charming, and +gracious. He had certainly been a good friend to them, one of those good +friends of whom we think the less because we feel sure of them. +</p> + +<p> +Now, reminiscences came readily to Pierre’s mind. Having seen him anxious +from time to time, and suspecting his student’s impecuniousness, Maréchal +had of his own accord offered and lent him money, a few hundred francs perhaps, +forgotten by both, and never repaid. Then this man must always 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 whole fortune to Jean? No, he had +never shown more marked affection for the younger than for the elder, had never +been more interested in one than in 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 for leaving everything to Jean—everything—and +nothing to Pierre. +</p> + +<p> +The more he thought, the more he recalled the past few years, the more +extraordinary, the more incredible was it that he should have made such a +difference between them. And an agonizing pang of unspeakable anguish piercing +his bosom made his heart beat like a fluttering rag. Its springs seemed broken, +and the blood rushed through in a flood, unchecked, tossing it with wild +surges. +</p> + +<p> +Then in an undertone, as a man speaks in a nightmare, he muttered: “I +must know. My God! I must know.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked further back now, to an earlier time, when his parents had lived in +Paris. But the faces escaped him, and this confused his recollections. He +struggled above all to see Maréchal, with light, or brown, or black hair. But +he could not; the later image, his face as an old man, blotted out all others. +However, he remembered that he had been slighter, and had a soft hand, and that +he often brought flowers. Very often—for his father would constantly say: +“What, another bouquet! But this is madness, my dear fellow; you will +ruin yourself in roses.” And Maréchal would say: “No matter; I like +it.” +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly his mother’s voice and accent, his mother’s as she +smiled and said: “Thank you, my kind friend,” flashed on his brain, +so clearly that he could have believed he heard her. She must have spoken those +words very often that they should remain thus graven on her son’s memory. +</p> + +<p> +So Maréchal brought flowers; he, the gentleman, the rich man, the customer, to +the humble shop-keeper, the jeweller’s wife. Had he loved her? Why should +he have made friends with these tradespeople if he had not been in love with +the wife? He was a man of education and fairly refined tastes. How many a time +had he discussed poets and poetry with Pierre. He did not appreciate these +writers from an artistic point of view, but with sympathetic and responsive +feeling. The doctor had often smiled at his emotions which had struck him as +rather silly, now he plainly saw that this sentimental soul could never, never +have been the friend of his father, who was so matter-of-fact, so narrow, so +heavy, to whom the word “Poetry” meant idiocy. +</p> + +<p> +This Maréchal then, being young, free, rich, ready for any form of tenderness, +went by chance into the shop one day, having perhaps observed its pretty +mistress. He had bought something, had come again, had chatted, more intimately +each time, paying by frequent purchases for the right of a seat in the family, +of smiling at the young wife and shaking hands with the husband. +</p> + +<p> +And what next—what next—good God—what next? +</p> + +<p> +He had loved and petted the first child, the jeweller’s child, till the +second was born; then, till death, he had remained impenetrable; and when his +grave was closed, his flesh dust, his name erased from the list of the living, +when he himself was quiet and forever gone, having nothing to scheme for, to +dread or to hide, he had given his whole fortune to the second child! Why? +</p> + +<p> +The man had all his wits; he must have understood and foreseen that he might, +that he almost infallibly must, give grounds for the supposition that the child +was his. He was casting obloquy on a woman. How could he have done this if Jean +were not his son? +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly a clear and fearful recollection shot through his brain. Maréchal +was fair—fair like Jean. He now remembered a little miniature portrait he +had seen formerly in Paris, on the drawing-room chimney-shelf, and which had +since disappeared. Where was it? Lost, or hidden away? Oh, if he could but have +it in his hand for one minute! His mother kept it perhaps in the unconfessed +drawer where love-tokens were treasured. +</p> + +<p> +His misery in this thought was so intense that he uttered a groan, one of 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 and answered him, the fog-horn +on the pier bellowed out close to him. Its voice, like that of a fiendish +monster, more resonant than thunder—a savage and appalling roar contrived +to drown the clamour of the wind and waves—spread through the darkness, +across the sea, which was invisible under its shroud of fog. And again, through +the mist, far and near, responsive cries went up to the night. They were +terrifying, these calls given forth by the great blind steam-ships. +</p> + +<p> +Then all was silent once more. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre had opened his eyes and was looking about him, startled to find himself +here, roused from his nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +“I am mad,” thought he, “I suspect my mother.” And a +surge of love and emotion, of repentance, and prayer, and grief, welled up in +his heart. His mother! Knowing her as he knew her, how could he ever have +suspected her? 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 and +known 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 that moment, how +he would have kissed and caressed her, and gone on his knees to crave pardon. +</p> + +<p> +Would she have deceived his father—she? +</p> + +<p> +His father!—A very worthy man, no doubt, upright and honest in business, +but with a mind which had never gone beyond the horizon of his shop. How was it +that this woman, who must have been very pretty—as he knew, and it could +still be seen—gifted, too, with a delicate, tender emotional soul, could +have accepted a man so unlike herself as a suitor and a husband? Why inquire? +She had married, as young French girls do marry, the youth with a little +fortune proposed to her by their relations. 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 a new home, and the subtle and sacred sense of interests in +common which fills the place of love, and even of regard, by the domestic +hearth of most of the commercial houses of Paris, had set to work, with all her +superior and active intelligence, to make the fortune they hoped for. And so +her life had flowed on, uniform, peaceful and respectable, but loveless. +</p> + +<p> +Loveless?—was it possible then that a woman should not love? That a young +and pretty woman, living in Paris, reading books, applauding actresses for +dying of passion on the stage, could live from youth to old age without once +feeling her heart touched? He would not believe it of any one else; why should +she be different from all others, though she was his mother? +</p> + +<p> +She had been young, with all the poetic weaknesses which agitate the heart of a +young creature. Shut up, imprisoned in the shop, by the side of a vulgar +husband who always talked of trade, she had dreamed of moonlight nights, of +voyages, of kisses exchanged in the shades of evening. And then, one day a man +had come in, as lovers do in books, and had talked as they talk. +</p> + +<p> +She had loved him. Why not? She was his mother. What then? Must a man be blind +and stupid to the point of rejecting evidence because it concerns his mother? +But did she give herself to him? Why yes, since this man had had no other love, +since he had remained faithful to her when she was far away and growing old. +Why yes, since he had left all his fortune to his son—their son! +</p> + +<p> +And Pierre started to his feet, quivering with such rage that he longed to kill +some one. With his arm outstretched, his hand wide open, he wanted to hit, to +bruise, to smash, to strangle! Whom? Every one; his father, his brother, the +dead man, his mother! +</p> + +<p> +He hurried off homeward. What was he going to do? +</p> + +<p> +As he passed a turret close to the signal mast the strident howl of the +fog-horn went off in his very face. He was so startled that he nearly fell and +shrank back as far as the granite parapet. He sat down half-stunned by the +sudden shock. The steamer which was the first to reply seemed to be quite near +and was already at the entrance, the tide having risen. +</p> + +<p> +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 shadow crept up between +the piers. Behind him the voice of the look-out man, the hoarse voice of an old +retired sea-captain, shouted: +</p> + +<p> +“What ship?” And out of the fog the voice of the pilot standing on +deck—not less hoarse—replied: +</p> + +<p> +“The Santa Lucia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where from?” +</p> + +<p> +“Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“What port?” +</p> + +<p> +“Naples.” +</p> + +<p> +And before Pierre’s bewildered eyes rose, as he fancied, the fiery pennon +of Vesuvius, while, at the foot of the volcano, fire-flies danced in the +orange-groves of Sorrento or Castellamare. How often had he dreamed of these +familiar names as if he knew the scenery. Oh, if he might 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, he must go home—home to his +father’s house, and go to bed. +</p> + +<p> +He would not. Come what might he would not go in; he would stay there till +daybreak. He liked the roar of the fog-horns. He pulled himself together and +began to walk up and down like an officer on watch. +</p> + +<p> +Another vessel was coming in behind the other, huge and mysterious. An English +India-man, homeward bound. +</p> + +<p> +He saw several more come in, one after another, out of the impenetrable vapour. +Then, as the damp became quite intolerable, Pierre set out towards the town. He +was so cold that he went into a sailors’ tavern to drink a glass of grog, +and when the hot and pungent liquor had scorched his mouth and throat he felt a +hope revive within him. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he was mistaken. He knew his own vagabond unreason so well! No doubt he +was mistaken. He had piled up the evidence as a charge is drawn up against an +innocent person, whom it is always so easy to convict when we wish to think him +guilty. When he should have slept he would think differently. +</p> + +<p> +Then he went in and to bed, and by sheer force of will he at last dropped +asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p> +But the doctor’s frame lay scarcely more than an hour or two in the +torpor 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 the painful +oppression, the sickness of heart which the sorrow we have slept on leaves +behind it. It is as though the disaster of which the shock merely jarred us at +first, had, during sleep, stolen into our very flesh, bruising and exhausting +it like a fever. Memory returned to him like a blow, and he sat up in bed. Then +slowly, one by one, he again went through all the arguments which had wrung his +heart on the jetty while the fog-horns were bellowing. The more he thought the +less he doubted. He felt himself dragged along by his logic to the inevitable +certainty, as by a clutching, strangling hand. +</p> + +<p> +He was thirsty and hot, his heart beat wildly. He got up to open his window and +breathe the fresh air, and as he stood there a low sound fell on his ear +through the wall. Jean was sleeping peacefully, and gently snoring. He could +sleep! He had no presentiment, no suspicions! A man who had known their mother +had left him all his fortune; he took the money and thought it quite fair and +natural! He was sleeping, rich and contented, not knowing that his brother was +gasping with anguish and distress. And rage boiled up in him against this +heedless and happy sleeper. +</p> + +<p> +Only yesterday he would have knocked at his door, have gone in, and sitting by +the bed, would have said to Jean, scared by the sudden waking: +</p> + +<p> +“Jean you must not keep this legacy which by to-morrow may have brought +suspicion and dishonour on our mother.” +</p> + +<p> +But to-day he could say nothing; he could not tell Jean that he did not believe +him to be their father’s son. Now he must guard, must bury the shame he +had discovered, hide from every eye the stain which he had detected and which +no one must perceive, not even his brother—especially not his brother. +</p> + +<p> +He no longer thought about the vain respect of public opinion. He would have +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 her every day, +believing as he looked at her that his brother was the child of a +stranger’s love? +</p> + +<p> +And how calm and serene she was, nevertheless, how sure of herself she always +seemed! Was it possible that such a woman as she, pure of soul and upright in +heart, should fall, dragged astray by passion, and yet nothing ever appear +afterward of her remorse and the stings of a troubled conscience? Ah, but +remorse must have tortured her, long ago in the earlier days, and then have +faded out, as everything fades. She had surely bewailed her sin, and then, +little by little, had almost forgotten it. Have not all women, all, this fault +of prodigious forgetfulness which enables them, after a few years, hardly to +recognise the man to whose kisses they have given their lips? The kiss strikes +like 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. Do we ever remember +a cloud? +</p> + +<p> +Pierre could no longer endure to stay in the room! This house, his +father’s house, crushed him. He felt the roof weigh on his head, and the +walls suffocate him. And as he was very thirsty he lighted his candle to go to +drink a glass of fresh water from the filter in the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +He went down the two flights of stairs; then, as he was coming up again with +the water-bottle filled, he sat down, in his night-shirt, on a step of 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 to move the silence of the +house touched his feelings; then, one by one, he could distinguish the faintest +sounds. First there was the ticking of the clock in the dining-room which +seemed to grow louder every second. Then he heard another snore, an old +man’s snore, short, laboured, and hard, his father beyond doubt; and he +writhed at the idea, as if it had but this moment sprung upon him, that these +two men, sleeping under the same room—father and son—were nothing +to each other! Not a tie, not the very slightest, bound them together, and they +did not know it! They spoke to each other affectionately, they embraced each +other, they rejoiced and lamented together over the same things, just as if the +same blood flowed in their veins. And two men born at opposite ends of the +earth 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 between them. This +paternal love, this filial love, were the outcome of a lie—a lie which +could not be unmasked, and which no one would ever know but he, the true son. +</p> + +<p> +But yet, but yet—if he were mistaken? How could he make sure? Oh, if only +some likeness, however slight, could be traced between his father and Jean, one +of those mysterious resemblances which run from an ancestor to the +great-great-grandson, showing that the whole race are the offspring of the same +embrace. To him, a medical man, so little would suffice to enable him to +discern this—the curve of a nostril, the space between the eyes, the +character of the teeth or hair; nay less—a gesture, a trick, a habit, an +inherited taste, any mark or token which a practised eye might recognise as +characteristic. +</p> + +<p> +He thought long, but could remember nothing; no, nothing. But he had looked +carelessly, observed badly, having no reason for spying such imperceptible +indications. +</p> + +<p> +He got up to go back to his room and mounted the stairs with a slow step, still +lost in thought. As he passed the door of his brother’s room he stood +stock still, his hand put out to open it. An imperative need had just come over +him to see Jean at once, to look at him at his leisure, to surprise him in his +sleep, while the calm countenance and relaxed features were at rest and all the +grimace of life put off. Thus he might catch the dormant secret of his +physiognomy, and if any appreciable likeness existed it would not escape him. +</p> + +<p> +But supposing Jean were to wake, what could he say? How could he explain this +intrusion? +</p> + +<p> +He stood still, his fingers clinched on the door-handle, trying to devise a +reason, an excuse. Then he remembered that a week ago he had lent his brother a +phial of laudanum to relieve a fit of toothache. He might himself have been in +pain this night and have come to find the drug. So he went in with a stealthy +step, like a robber. Jean, his mouth open, was sunk in deep, animal slumbers. +His beard and fair hair made a golden patch on the white linen; he did not +wake, but he ceased snoring. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, leaning over him, gazed at him with hungry eagerness. No, this +youngster was not in the least like Roland; and for the second time the +recollection of the little portrait of Maréchal, which had vanished, recurred +to his mind. He must find it! When he should see it perhaps he should cease to +doubt! +</p> + +<p> +His brother stirred, conscious no doubt of a presence, or disturbed by the +light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tip-toe to the door +which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, but not to bed +again. +</p> + +<p> +Day was long in coming. The hours struck one after another on the dining-room +clock, and its tone was a deep and solemn one, as though the little piece of +clockwork had swallowed a cathedral-bell. The sound rose through the empty +staircase, penetrating through walls and doors, and dying away in the rooms +where it fell on the torpid ears of the sleeping household. Pierre had taken to +walking to and fro between his bed and the window. What was he going to do? He +was too much upset to spend this day 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 common every-day life which he must take up again. +</p> + +<p> +Well, he would go over to Trouville to see the swarming crowd on the sands. +That would amuse him, change the air of his thoughts, and give him time to +inure himself to the horrible thing he had discovered. As soon as morning +dawned he made his toilet and dressed. The fog had vanished and it was fine, +very fine. As the boat for Trouville did not start till nine, it struck the +doctor that he must greet his mother before starting. +</p> + +<p> +He waited till the hour at which she was accustomed to get up, and then went +downstairs. His heart beat so violently as he touched her door that he paused +for breath. His hand as it lay on the lock was limp and tremulous, almost +incapable of the slight effort of turning the handle to open it. He knocked. +His mother’s voice inquired: +</p> + +<p> +“Who is there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—Pierre.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only to say good-morning, because I am going to spend the day at +Trouville with some friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am still in bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, do not disturb yourself. I shall see you this evening, when I +come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He hoped to get off without seeing her, without pressing on her cheek the false +kiss which it made his heart sick to think of. But she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“No. Wait a moment. I will let you in. Wait till I get into bed +again.” +</p> + +<p> +He heard her bare feet on the floor and the sound of the bolt drawn back. Then +she called out: +</p> + +<p> +“Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He went in. She was sitting up in bed, while, by her side, Roland, with a silk +handkerchief by way of night-cap and his face to the wall, still lay sleeping. +Nothing ever woke him but a shaking hard enough to pull his arm off. On the +days when he went fishing it was Joséphine, rung up by Papagris at the hour +fixed, who roused her master from his stubborn slumbers. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, as he went towards his mother, looked at her with a sudden sense of +never having seen her before. She held up her face, he kissed each cheek, and +then sat down in a low chair. +</p> + +<p> +“It was last evening that you decided on this excursion?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, last evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you return to dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know. At any rate do not wait for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with stupefied curiosity. This woman was his mother! All those +features, seen daily from childhood, from the time when his eye could first +distinguish things, that smile, that voice—so well known, so +familiar—abruptly struck him as new, different from what they had 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 he knew every little detail of +her face; still, it was the first time he clearly identified them all. His +anxious attention, scrutinizing her face which he loved, recalled a difference, +a physiognomy he had never before discerned. +</p> + +<p> +He rose to go; then, suddenly yielding to the invincible longing to know which +had been gnawing at him since yesterday, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, I fancy I remember that you used to have, in Paris, a little +portrait of Maréchal, in the drawing-room.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated for a second or two, or at least he fancied she hesitated; then +she said: +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has become of the portrait?” +</p> + +<p> +She might have replied more readily: +</p> + +<p> +“That portrait—stay; I don’t exactly know—perhaps it is +in my desk.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be kind of you to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will look for it. What do you want it for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is not for myself. I thought it would be a natural thing to give +it to Jean, and that he would be pleased to have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are right; that is a good idea. I will look for it, as soon as +I am up.” +</p> + +<p> +And he went out. +</p> + +<p> +It was a blue day without a breath of wind. The folks in the streets seemed in +good spirits, the merchants going to business, the clerks going to their +office, the girls going to their shop. Some sang as they went, exhilarated by +the bright weather. +</p> + +<p> +The passengers were already going on board the Trouville boat; Pierre took a +seat aft on a wooden bench. +</p> + +<p> +He asked himself: +</p> + +<p> +“Now was she uneasy at my asking for the portrait or only surprised? Has +she mislaid it, or has she hidden it? Does she know where it is, or does she +not? If she had hidden it—why?” +</p> + +<p> +And his mind, still following up the same line of thought from one deduction to +another, came to this conclusion: +</p> + +<p> +That portrait—of a friend, of a lover, had remained in the drawing-room +in 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 her son. Without +doubt she had for a long time been on the watch for this resemblance; then, +having detected it, having noticed its beginnings, and understanding that any +one might, any day, observe it too, she had one evening removed the perilous +little picture and had hidden it, not daring to destroy it. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre recollected quite clearly now that it was long, long before they left +Paris that the miniature had vanished. It had disappeared, he thought, about +the time that Jean’s beard was beginning to grow, which had made him +suddenly and wonderfully like the fair young man who smiled from the +picture-frame. +</p> + +<p> +The motion of the boat as it put off disturbed and dissipated his meditations. +He stood up and looked at the sea. The little steamer, once outside the piers, +turned to the left, and puffing and snorting and quivering, made for a distant +point visible through the morning haze. The red sail of a heavy fishing-bark, +lying motionless on the level waters, looked like a large rock standing up out +of the sea. And the Seine, rolling down from Rouen, seemed a wide inlet +dividing two neighbouring lands. They reached the harbour of Trouville in less +than an hour, and as it was the time of day when the world was bathing, Pierre +went to the shore. +</p> + +<p> +From a distance it looked like a garden full of gaudy flowers. All along the +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 the waves, or scattered here +and there, really looked like immense bouquets on a vast meadow. And the Babel +of sounds—voices near and far ringing thin in the light atmosphere, +shouts and cries of children being bathed, clear laughter of women—all +made a pleasant, continuous din, mingling with the unheeding breeze, and +breathed with the air itself. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre walked among all this throng, more lost, more remote from them, more +isolated, more drowned in his torturing thoughts, than if he had been 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 he saw, without looking, how +the men spoke to the women, and the women smiled at the men. Then, suddenly, as +if he had awoke, he perceived them all; and hatred of them all surged up in his +soul, for they seemed happy and content. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as he went, he studied the groups, wandering round them full of a fresh +set of ideas. All these many-hued dresses which covered the sands like +nosegays, these pretty stuffs, those showy parasols, the fictitious grace of +tightened waists, all the ingenious devices of fashion from the smart little +shoe to the extravagant hat, the seductive charm of gesture, voice, and smile, +all the coquettish airs in short displayed on this seashore, suddenly struck +him as stupendous efflorescences of female depravity. All these bedizened women +aimed at pleasing, bewitching, and deluding some man. They had dressed +themselves out for men—for all men—all excepting the husband whom +they no longer needed to conquer. They had dressed themselves out for the lover +of yesterday and the lover of to-morrow, for the stranger they might meet and +notice or were perhaps on the lookout for. +</p> + +<p> +And these men sitting close to them, eye to eye and mouth to mouth, invited +them, desired them, hunted them like game, coy and elusive notwithstanding that +it seemed so near and so easy to capture. This wide shore was, then, no more +than a love-market where some sold, others gave themselves—some drove a +hard bargain for their kisses while others promised them for love. All these +women thought only of one thing, to make their bodies desirable—bodies +already given, sold, or promised to other men. And he reflected that it was +everywhere the same, all the world over. +</p> + +<p> +His mother had done what others did—that was all. Others? These women he +saw about him, rich, giddy, love-seeking, belonged on the whole to the class of +fashionable and showy women of the world, some indeed to the less respectable +sisterhood, for on these sands, trampled by the legion of idlers, the tribe of +virtuous, home-keeping women were not to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +The tide was rising, driving the foremost rank of visitors gradually landward. +He saw the various groups jump up and fly, carrying their chairs with them, +before the yellow waves as they rolled up edged with a lace-like frill of foam. +The bathing-machines too were being pulled up by horses, and along the planked +way which formed the promenade running along the shore from end to end, there +was now an increasing flow, slow and dense, of well-dressed people in two +opposite streams elbowing and mingling. Pierre, made nervous and exasperated by +this bustle, made his escape into the town, and went to get his breakfast at a +modest tavern on the skirts of the fields. +</p> + +<p> +When he had finished with coffee, he stretched his legs on a couple of chairs +under a lime-tree in front of the house, and as he had hardly slept the night +before, he presently fell into a doze. After resting for some hours he shook +himself, and finding that it was time to go on board again he set out, +tormented by a sudden stiffness which had come upon him during his long nap. +Now he was eager to be at home again; to know whether his mother had found the +portrait of Maréchal. Would she be the first to speak of it, or would he be +obliged to ask for it again? If she waited to be questioned further it must be +because she had some secret reason for not showing the miniature. +</p> + +<p> +But when he was at home again, and in his room, he hesitated about going down +to dinner. He was too wretched. His revolted soul had not yet time to calm +down. However, he made up his mind to it, and appeared in the dining-room just +as they were sitting down. +</p> + +<p> +All their faces were beaming. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Roland, “are you getting on with your purchases? +I do not want to see anything till it is all in its place.” +</p> + +<p> +And his wife replied: “Oh, yes. We are getting on. But it takes much +consideration to avoid buying things that do not match. The furniture question +is an absorbing one.” +</p> + +<p> +She had spent the day in going with Jean to cabinet-makers and upholsterers. +Her fancy was for rich materials, rather splendid to strike the eye at once. +Her son, on the contrary, wished for something simple and elegant. So in front +of everything put before them they had each repeated their arguments. She +declared that a client, a defendant, must be impressed; that as soon as he is +shown into his counsel’s waiting-room he should have a sense of wealth. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, on the other hand, wishing to attract only an elegant and opulent class, +was anxious to captivate persons of refinement by his quiet and perfect taste. +</p> + +<p> +And this discussion, which had gone on all day, began again with the soup. +</p> + +<p> +Roland had no opinion. He repeated: “I do not want to hear anything about +it. I will go and see it when it is all finished.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland appealed to the judgment of her elder son. +</p> + +<p> +“And you, Pierre, what do you think of the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +His nerves were in a state of such intense excitement that he would have liked +to reply with an oath. However, he only answered in a dry tone quivering with +annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +of conduct.” +</p> + +<p> +His mother went on: +</p> + +<p> +“You must remember that we live in a city of commercial men, where good +taste is not to be met with at every turn.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre replied: +</p> + +<p> +“What does that matter? Is that a reason for living as fools do? If my +fellow-townsmen are stupid and ill-bred, need I follow their example? A woman +does not misconduct herself because her neighbour has a lover.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You argue by comparisons which seem to have been borrowed from the +maxims of a moralist.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre made no reply. His mother and his brother reverted to the question of +stuffs and arm-chairs. +</p> + +<p> +He sat looking at them as he had looked at his mother in the morning before +starting for Trouville; looking at them as a stranger who would study them, and +he felt as though he had really suddenly come into a family of which he knew +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +His father, above all, amazed his eyes and his mind. That flabby, burly man, +happy and besotted, was his own father! No, no; Jean was not in the least like +him. +</p> + +<p> +His family! +</p> + +<p> +Within these two days an unknown and malignant hand, the hand of a dead man, +had torn asunder and broken, one by one, all the ties which had held these four +human beings together. It was all over, all ruined. He had now no +mother—for he could no longer love her now that he could not revere her +with that perfect, tender, and pious respect which a son’s love 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 not love in spite of +himself. +</p> + +<p> +And he suddenly broke out: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, mother, have you found that portrait?” +</p> + +<p> +She opened her eyes in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“What portrait?” +</p> + +<p> +“The portrait of Maréchal.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—that is to say—yes—I have not found it, but I think +I know where it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” asked Roland. And Pierre answered: +</p> + +<p> +“A little likeness of Maréchal which used to be in the dining-room in +Paris. I thought that Jean might be glad to have it.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, to be sure; I remember it perfectly. I saw it again last week. +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 shaving myself when you took +it out and laid in on a chair by your side with a pile of letters of which you +burned half. Strange, isn’t it, that you should have come across the +portrait only two or three days before Jean heard of his legacy? If I believed +in presentiments I should think that this was one.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland calmly replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know where it is. I will fetch it presently.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she had lied! When she had said that very morning to her son who had asked +her what had become of the miniature: “I don’t exactly +know—perhaps it is in my desk”—it was a lie! She had seen it, +touched it, handled it, gazed at it but a few days since; and then she had +hidden it away again in the secret drawer with those letters—his letters. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre looked at the mother who had lied to him; looked at her with the +concentrated fury of a son who had been cheated, robbed of his most sacred +affection, and with the jealous wrath of a man who, after long being blind, at +last discovers a disgraceful betrayal. If he had been that woman’s +husband—and not her child—he would have gripped her by the wrists, +seized her by the shoulders or the hair, have flung her on the ground, have hit +her, hurt her, crushed her! And he might say nothing, do nothing, show nothing, +reveal nothing. He was her son; he had no vengeance to take. And he had not +been deceived. +</p> + +<p> +Nay, but she had deceived his tenderness, his pious respect. She owed to him to +be without reproach, as all mothers owe it to their children. If the fury that +boiled within him verged on hatred it was that he felt her to be even more +guilty towards him than toward his father. +</p> + +<p> +The love of man and wife is a voluntary compact in which the one who proves +weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother her duty is a +higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If she fails, then she +is cowardly, worthless, infamous. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not care,” said Roland suddenly, stretching out his legs +under the table, as he did every evening while he sipped his glass of +black-currant brandy. “You may do worse than live idle when you have a +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Then turning to his wife he added: +</p> + +<p> +“Go and fetch that portrait, little woman, as you have done your dinner. +I should like to see it again myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose, took a taper, and went. Then, after an absence which Pierre thought +long, though she was not away more than three minutes, Mme. Roland returned +smiling, and holding an old-fashioned gilt frame by the ring. +</p> + +<p> +“Here it is,” said she, “I found it at once.” +</p> + +<p> +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 aware that his +mother was looking at him, he slowly raised his eyes and fixed them on his +brother to compare the faces. He could hardly refrain, in his violence, from +saying: “Dear me! How like Jean!” And though he dared not utter the +terrible words, he betrayed his thought by his manner of comparing the living +face with the painted one. +</p> + +<p> +They had, no doubt, details in common; the same beard, the same brow; but +nothing sufficiently marked to justify the assertion: “This is the father +and that the son.” It was rather a family likeness, a relationship of +physiognomies in which the same blood courses. But what to Pierre was far more +decisive than the common aspect of the faces, was that his mother had risen, +had turned her back, and was pretending, too deliberately, to be putting the +sugar basin and the liqueur bottle away in a cupboard. She understood that he +knew, or at any rate had his suspicions. +</p> + +<p> +“Hand it on to me,” said Roland. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre held out the miniature and his father drew the candle towards him to see +it better; then, he murmured in a pathetic tone: +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +As his wife made no answer he went on: +</p> + +<p> +“And what an even temper! I never saw him put out. And now it is all at +an end—nothing left of him—but what he bequeathed to Jean. Well, at +any rate you may take your oath that that man was a good and faithful friend to +the last. Even on his death-bed he did not forget us.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean, in his turn, held out his hand for the picture. He gazed at it for a few +minutes and then said regretfully: +</p> + +<p> +“I do not recognise it at all. I only remember him with white +hair.” +</p> + +<p> +He returned the miniature to his mother. She cast a hasty glance at it, looking +away as if she were frightened; then in her usual voice she said: +</p> + +<p> +“It belongs to you now, my little Jean, as you are his heir. We will take +it to your new rooms.” And when they went into the drawing-room she +placed the picture on the chimney-shelf by the clock, where it had formerly +stood. +</p> + +<p> +Roland filled his pipe; Pierre and Jean lighted cigarettes. They commonly +smoked them, Pierre while he paced the room, Jean, sunk in a deep arm-chair, +with his legs crossed. Their father always sat astride a chair and spat from +afar into the fire-place. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland, on a low seat by a little table on which the lamp stood, +embroidered, or knitted, or marked linen. +</p> + +<p> +This evening she was beginning a piece of worsted work, intended for +Jean’s lodgings. It was a difficult and complicated pattern, and required +all her attention. Still, now and again, her eye, which was counting the +stitches, glanced up swiftly and furtively at the little portrait of the dead +as it leaned against the clock. And the doctor, who was striding to and fro +across the little room in four or five steps, met his mother’s look at +each turn. +</p> + +<p> +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 to +himself—at once tortured and glad: +</p> + +<p> +“She must be in misery at this moment if she knows that I guess!” +And each time he reached the fire-place he stopped for a few seconds to look at +Maréchal’s fair hair, and show quite plainly that he was haunted by a +fixed idea. So that this little portrait, smaller than an opened palm, was like +a living being, malignant and threatening, suddenly brought into this house and +this family. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the street-door bell rang. Mme. Roland, always so self-possessed, +started violently, betraying to her doctor son the anguish of her nerves. Then +she said: “It must be Mme. Rosémilly;” and her eye again anxiously +turned to the mantel-shelf. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre understood, or thought he understood, her fears and misery. A +woman’s eye is keen, a woman’s wit is nimble, and her instincts +suspicious. When this woman who was coming in should see the miniature of a man +she did not know, she might perhaps at the first glance discover the likeness +between this face and Jean. Then she would know and understand everything. +</p> + +<p> +He was seized with dread, a sudden and horrible dread of this shame being +unveiled, and, turning about just as the door opened, he took the little +painting and slipped it under the clock without being seen by his father and +brother. +</p> + +<p> +When he met his mother’s eyes again they seemed to him altered, dim, and +haggard. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening,” said Mme. Rosémilly. “I have come to ask you +for a cup of tea.” +</p> + +<p> +But while they were bustling about her and asking after her health, Pierre made +off, the door having been left open. +</p> + +<p> +When his absence was perceived they were all surprised. Jean, annoyed for the +young widow, who, he thought, would be hurt, muttered: “What a +bear!” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland replied: “You must not be vexed with him; he is not very well +to-day and tired with his excursion to Trouville.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Roland, “that is no reason for taking +himself off like a savage.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly tried to smooth matters by saying: “Not at all, not at +all. He has gone away in the English fashion; people always disappear in that +way in fashionable circles if they want to leave early.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, in fashionable circles, I dare say,” replied Jean. “But +a man does not treat his family <i>à l’Anglaise</i>, and my brother has +done nothing else for some time past.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p> +For a week or two nothing occurred. The father went fishing; Jean, with his +mother’s help, was furnishing and settling himself; Pierre, very gloomy, +never was seen excepting at meal-times. +</p> + +<p> +His father having asked him one evening: “Why the deuce do you always +come in with a face as cheerful as a funeral? This is not the first time I have +remarked it.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor replied: “The fact is I am terribly conscious of the burden of +life.” +</p> + +<p> +The old man did not have a notion what he meant, and with an aggrieved look he +went on: “It really is too bad. Ever since we had the good luck to come +into this legacy, every one seems unhappy. It is as though some accident had +befallen us, as if we were in mourning for some one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am in mourning for some one,” said Pierre. +</p> + +<p> +“You are? For whom?” +</p> + +<p> +“For some one you never knew, and of whom I was too fond.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland imagined that his son alluded to some girl with whom he had had some +love passages, and he said: +</p> + +<p> +“A woman, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Worse. Ruined!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” +</p> + +<p> +Though he was startled by this unexpected confidence, in his wife’s +presence too, and by his son’s strange tone about it, the old man made no +further inquiries, for in his opinion such affairs did not concern a third +person. +</p> + +<p> +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 if she were +dropping into her chair, and to hear her gasp as if she could not draw her +breath, had said: +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Louise, you look very ill; you tire yourself too much with +helping Jean. Give yourself a little rest. Sacristi! The rascal is in no hurry, +as he is a rich man.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head without a word. +</p> + +<p> +But to-day her pallor was so great that Roland remarked on it again. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come,” said he, “this will not do at all, my dear old +woman. You must take care of yourself.” Then, addressing his son, +“You surely must see that your mother is ill. Have you questioned her, at +any rate?” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre replied: “No; I had not noticed that there was anything the matter +with her.” +</p> + +<p> +At this Roland was angry. +</p> + +<p> +“But it stares you in the face, confound you! What on earth is the good +of your being a doctor if you cannot even see that your mother is out of sorts? +Why, look at her, just look at her. Really, a man might die under his very eyes +and this doctor would never think there was anything the matter!” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland was panting for breath, and so white that her husband exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“She is going to faint.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, it is nothing—I shall get better directly—it is +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre had gone up to her and was looking at her steadily. +</p> + +<p> +“What ails you?” he said. And she repeated in an undertone: +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, nothing—I assure you, nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland had gone to fetch some vinegar; he now returned, and handing the bottle +to his son he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Here—do something to ease her. Have you felt her heart?” +</p> + +<p> +As Pierre bent over her to feel her pulse she pulled away her hand so +vehemently that she struck it against a chair which was standing by. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said he in icy tones, “let me see what I can do for +you, as you are ill.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she raised her arm and held it out to him. Her skin was burning, the blood +throbbing in short irregular leaps. +</p> + +<p> +“You are certainly ill,” he murmured. “You must take +something to quiet you. I will write you a prescription.” And as he +wrote, stooping over the paper, a low sound of choked sighs, smothered, quick +breathing and suppressed sobs made him suddenly look round at her. She was +weeping, her hands covering her face. +</p> + +<p> +Roland, quite distracted, asked her: +</p> + +<p> +“Louise, Louise, what is the mater with you? What on earth ails +you?” +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no.” +</p> + +<p> +He appealed to his son. +</p> + +<p> +“But what is the matter with her? I never saw her like this.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing,” said Pierre, “she is a little +hysterical.” +</p> + +<p> +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’s load of +opprobrium. He looked at her as a judge satisfied with his day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she rose, rushed to the door with such a swift impulse that it was +impossible to forestall or to stop her, and ran off to lock herself into her +room. +</p> + +<p> +Roland and the doctor were left face to face. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you make head or tail of it?” said the father. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said the other. “It is a little nervous +disturbance, not alarming or surprising; such attacks may very likely recur +from time to time.” +</p> + +<p> +They did in fact recur, almost every day; and Pierre seemed to bring them on +with a word, as if he had the clew to her strange and new disorder. He would +discern in her face a lucid interval of peace and with the willingness of a +torturer would, with a word, revive the anguish that had been lulled for a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +But he, too, was suffering as cruelly as she. It was dreadful pain to him that +he could no longer love her nor respect her, that he must put her on the rack. +When he had laid bare the bleeding wound which he had opened in her +woman’s, her mother’s heart, when he felt how wretched and +desperate she was, he would go out alone, wander about the town, so torn by +remorse, so broken by pity, so grieved to have thus hammered her with his scorn +as her son, that he longed to fling himself into the sea and put an end to it +all by drowning himself. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! How gladly now would he have forgiven her. But he could not, for he was +incapable of forgetting. If only he could have desisted from making her suffer; +but this again he could not, suffering as he did himself. He went home to his +meals, full of relenting resolutions; then, as soon as he saw her, as soon as +he met her eye—formerly so clear and frank, now so evasive, frightened, +and bewildered—he struck at her in spite of himself, unable to suppress +the treacherous words which would rise to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +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 to bite like a mad +dog. +</p> + +<p> +And there was no one in the way now to hinder his reading her; Jean lived +almost entirely in his new apartments, and only came home to dinner and to +sleep every night at his father’s. +</p> + +<p> +He frequently observed his brother’s bitterness and violence, and +attributed them to jealousy. He promised himself that some day he would teach +him his place and give him a lesson, for life at home was becoming very painful +as a result of these constant scenes. But as he now lived apart he suffered +less from this brutal conduct, and his love of peace prompted him to patience. +His good fortune, too, had turned his head, and he scarcely paused to think of +anything which had no direct interest for himself. He would come in full of +fresh little anxieties, full of the cut of a morning-coat, of the shape of a +felt hat, of the proper size for his visiting-cards. And he talked incessantly +of all the details of his house—the shelves fixed in his bed-room +cupboard to keep linen on, the pegs to be put up in the entrance hall, the +electric bells contrived to prevent illicit visitors to his lodgings. +</p> + +<p> +It had been settled that on the day when he should take up his abode there they +should make an excursion to Saint Jouin, and return after dining 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 if there should be a head-wind, +made them reject his plan, and a break was hired for the day. +</p> + +<p> +They set out at ten to get there to breakfast. The dusty high road lay across +the plain of Normandy, which, by its gentle undulations, dotted with farms +embowered in trees, wears the aspect of an endless park. In the vehicle, as it +jogged on at the slow trot of a pair of heavy horses, sat the four Rolands, +Mme. Rosémilly, and Captain Beausire, all silent, deafened by the rumble of the +wheels, and with their eyes shut to keep out the clouds of dust. +</p> + +<p> +It was harvest-time. Alternating with the dark hue of clover and the raw green +of beet-root, the yellow corn lighted up the landscape with gleams of pale +gold; the fields looked as if they had drunk in the sunshine which 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 seen see-sawing as they swept the level +soil with the broad, wing-shaped blade. +</p> + +<p> +After a two-hours’ drive the break turned off to the left, past a +windmill at work—a melancholy, gray wreck, half rotten and doomed, the +last 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 in those parts. +</p> + +<p> +The mistress, well known as “La belle Alphonsine,” came smiling to +the threshold, and held out her hand to the two ladies who hesitated to take +the high step. +</p> + +<p> +Some strangers were already at breakfast under a tent by a grass-plot shaded by +apple trees—Parisians, who had come from Étretat; and from the house came +sounds of voices, laughter, and the clatter of plates and pans. +</p> + +<p> +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 the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! ha!” cried he, “you catch prawns here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Beausire. “Indeed it is the place on all the +coast where most are taken.” +</p> + +<p> +“First-rate! Suppose we try to catch some after breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +As it happened it would be low tide at three o’clock, so it was settled +that they should all spend the afternoon among the rocks, hunting prawns. +</p> + +<p> +They made a light breakfast, as a precaution against the tendency of blood to +the head when they should have their feet in the water. They also wished to +reserve an appetite for dinner, which had been ordered on a grand scale and to +be ready at six o’clock when they came in. +</p> + +<p> +Roland could not sit still for impatience. He wanted to buy the nets specially +constructed for fishing prawns, not unlike those used for catching butterflies +in the country. Their name on the French coast is <i>lanets</i>; they are +netted bags on a circular wooden frame, at the end of a long pole. Alphonsine, +still smiling, was happy to lend them. Then she helped the two ladies to make +an impromptu change of toilet, so as not to spoil their dresses. She offered +them skirts, coarse worsted stockings and hemp shoes. The men took off their +socks and went to the shoemaker’s to buy wooden shoes instead. +</p> + +<p> +Then they set out, the nets over their shoulders and creels on their backs. +Mme. Rosémilly was very sweet in this costume, with an unexpected charm of +countrified audacity. The skirt which Alphonsine had lent her, coquettishly +tucked up and firmly stitched so as to allow of her running and jumping +fearlessly on the rocks, displayed her ankle and lower calf—the firm calf +of a strong and agile little woman. Her dress was loose to give freedom to her +movements, and to cover her head she had found an enormous garden hat of coarse +yellow straw with an extravagantly broad brim; and to this, a bunch of tamarisk +pinned in to cock it on one side, gave a very dashing and military effect. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, since he had come into his fortune, had asked himself every day whether +or no he should marry her. Each time he saw her he made up his mind 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 now less rich than he, for she +had but twelve thousand francs a year; but it was in real estate, in farms and +lands near the docks in Havre; and this by-and-bye might be worth a great deal. +Their fortunes were thus approximately equal, and certainly the young widow +attracted him greatly. +</p> + +<p> +As he watched her walking in front of him that day he said to himself: +</p> + +<p> +“I must really decide; I cannot do better, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +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 above the sea. Framed +between the green slopes to the right and left, a great triangle of silvery +blue water could be seen in the distance, and a sail, scarcely visible, looked +like an insect out there. The sky, pale with light, was so merged into one with +the water that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began; +and the two women, walking in front of the men, stood out against the bright +background, their shapes clearly defined in their closely-fitting dresses. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, with a sparkle in his eye, watched the smart ankle, the neat leg, the +supple waist, and the coquettish broad hat of Mme. Rosémilly as they fled away +from him. And this flight fired his ardour, urging him on to the 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 still more, mounting +to his brain; and every moment he felt a little more determined, 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 her and hoped to marry her. The prawn-fishing +would favour him by affording him an opportunity; and it would be a pretty +scene too, a pretty spot for love-making—their feet in a pool of limpid +water while they watched the long feelers of the shrimps lurking under the +wrack. +</p> + +<p> +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 amazing chaos of enormous +boulders tumbled over and piled one above the other on a sort of grassy and +undulating plain which extended as far as they could see to the southward, +formed by an ancient landslip. On this long shelf of brushwood and grass, +disrupted, as it seemed, by the shocks of a volcano, the fallen rocks seemed +the wreck of a great ruined city which had once looked out on the ocean, +sheltered by the long white wall of the overhanging cliff. +</p> + +<p> +“That is fine!” exclaimed Mme. Rosémilly, standing still. Jean had +come up with her, and with a beating heart offered his hand to help her down +the narrow steps cut in the rock. +</p> + +<p> +They went on in front, while Beausire, squaring himself on his little legs, +gave his arm to Mme. Roland, who felt giddy at the gulf before her. +</p> + +<p> +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 step to step. +</p> + +<p> +The two young people who led the way went fast till on a sudden they saw, by +the side of a wooden bench which afforded a resting-place about half-way down +the slope, a thread of clear water, springing from a crevice in the cliff. It +fell into a hollow as large as a washing basin which it had worn in the stone; +then, falling in a cascade, hardly two feet high, it trickled across the +footpath which it had carpeted with cresses, and was lost among the briers and +grass on the raised shelf where the boulders were piled. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am so thirsty!” cried Mme. Rosémilly. +</p> + +<p> +But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water in her hand, but it +slipped away between her fingers. Jean had an idea; he placed a stone on the +path and on this she knelt down to put her lips to the spring itself, which was +thus on the same level. +</p> + +<p> +When she raised her head, covered with myriads of tiny drops, sprinkled all +over her face, her hair, her eye-lashes, and her dress, Jean bent over her and +murmured: “How pretty you look!” +</p> + +<p> +She answered in the tone in which she might have scolded a child: +</p> + +<p> +“Will you be quiet?” +</p> + +<p> +These were the first words of flirtation they had ever exchanged. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Jean, much agitated. “Let us go on before they +come up with us.” +</p> + +<p> +For in fact they could see quite near them now Captain Beausire as he came +down, backward, so as to give both hands to Mme. Roland; and further up, +further off, Roland still letting himself slip, lowering himself on his hams +and clinging on with his hands and elbows at the speed of a tortoise, Pierre +keeping in front of him to watch his movements. +</p> + +<p> +The path, now less steep, was here almost a road, zigzagging between the huge +rocks which had at some former time rolled from the hill-top. Mme. Rosémilly +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 and flat expanse covered with +sea-weed, and broken by endless gleaming pools. The ebbed waters lay beyond, +very far away, across this plain of slimy weed, of a black and shining olive +green. +</p> + +<p> +Jean rolled up his trousers above his calf, and his sleeves to his elbows, that +he might get wet without caring; then saying: “Forward!” he leaped +boldly into the first tide-pool they came to. +</p> + +<p> +The lady, more cautious, though fully intending to go in too, presently, made +her way round the little pond, stepping timidly, for she slipped on the grassy +weed. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see anything?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I see your face reflected in the water.” +</p> + +<p> +“If that is all you see, you will not have good fishing.” +</p> + +<p> +He murmured tenderly in reply: +</p> + +<p> +“Of all fishing it is that I should like best to succeed in.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed: “Try; you will see how it will slip through your net.” +</p> + +<p> +“But yet—if you will?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will see you catch prawns—and nothing else—for the +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are cruel—let us go a little farther, there are none +here.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave her his hand to steady her on the slippery rocks. She leaned on him +rather timidly, and he suddenly felt himself overpowered by love and insurgent +with passion, as if the fever that had been incubating in him had waited till +to-day to declare its presence. +</p> + +<p> +They soon came to a deeper rift, in which long slender weeds, fantastically +tinted, like floating green and rose-coloured hair, were swaying under the +quivering water as it trickled off to the distant sea through some invisible +crevice. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly cried out: “Look, look, I see one, a big one. A very big +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 long whiskers, gently +retired in front of the net. Jean drove it towards the sea-weed, making sure of +his prey. When it found itself blockaded it rose with a dart over the net, shot +across the mere, and was gone. The young woman, who was watching the chase in +great excitement, could not help exclaiming: “Oh! Clumsy!” +</p> + +<p> +He was vexed, and without a moment’s thought dragged his net over a hole +full of weed. As he brought it to the surface again he saw in it three large +transparent prawns, caught blindfold in their hiding-place. +</p> + +<p> +He offered them in triumph to Mme. Rosémilly, who was afraid to touch them, 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 of their long whiskers she +dropped them one by one into her creel, with a little seaweed to keep them +alive. Then, having found a shallower pool of water, she stepped in with some +hesitation, for the cold plunge of her feet took her breath away, and began to +fish on her own account. She was dextrous and artful, with the light hand and +the hunter’s instinct which are indispensable. At almost every dip she +brought up some prawns, beguiled and surprised by her ingeniously gentle +pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Jean now caught nothing; but he followed her, step by step, touched her now and +again, bent over her, pretended great distress at his own awkwardness, and +besought her to teach him. +</p> + +<p> +“Show me,” he kept saying. “Show me how.” +</p> + +<p> +And then, as their two faces were reflected side by side in water so clear that +the black weeds at the bottom made a mirror, Jean smiled at the face which +looked up at him from the depth, and now and then from his finger-tips blew it +a kiss which seemed to light upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! how tiresome you are!” she exclaimed. “My dear fellow, +you should never do two things at once.” +</p> + +<p> +He replied: “I am only doing one—loving you.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew herself up and said gravely: +</p> + +<p> +“What has come over you these ten minutes; have you lost your +wits?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have not lost my wits. I love you, and at last I dare to tell you +so.” +</p> + +<p> +They were at this moment both standing in the salt pool wet half-way up to +their knees and with dripping hands, holding their nets. They looked into each +other’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She went on in a tone of amused annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +“How very ill-advised to tell me here and now! Could you not wait till +another day instead of spoiling my fishing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me,” he murmured, “but I could not longer hold my +peace. I have loved you a long time. To-day you have intoxicated me and I lost +my reason.” +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly she seemed to have resigned herself to talk business and think no +more of pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us sit down on that stone,” said she, “we can talk more +comfortably.” They scrambled up a rather high boulder, and when they had +settled themselves side by side in the bright sunshine, she began again: +</p> + +<p> +“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 the consequences of +our actions. If you have made up your mind to make love to me to-day I must +naturally infer that you wish to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +He was not prepared for this matter-of-fact statement of the case, and he +answered blandly: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you mentioned it to your father and mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I wanted to know first whether you would accept me.” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand, which was still wet, and as he eagerly clasped it: +</p> + +<p> +“I am ready and willing,” she said. “I believe you to be kind +and true-hearted. But remember, I should not like to displease your +parents.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you think that my mother has never foreseen it, or that she would +not be as fond of you as she is if she did not hope that you and I should +marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is true. I am a little disturbed.” +</p> + +<p> +They said no more. He, for his part, was amazed at her being so little +disturbed, so rational. He had expected pretty little flirting ways, refusals +which meant yes, a whole coquettish comedy of love chequered by prawn-fishing +in the splashing water. And it was all over; he was pledged, married with +twenty words. They had no more to say about it since they were agreed, and they +now sat, both somewhat embarrassed by what had so swiftly passed between them; +a little perplexed, indeed, not daring to speak, not daring to fish, not +knowing what to do. +</p> + +<p> +Roland’s voice rescued them. +</p> + +<p> +“This way, this way, children. Come and watch Beausire. The fellow is +positively clearing out the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +The captain had, in fact, had a wonderful haul. Wet above his hips he waded +from pool to pool, recognizing the likeliest spots at a glance, and searching +all the hollows hidden under sea-weed, with a steady slow sweep of his net. And +the beautiful transparent, sandy-gray prawns skipped in his palm as he picked +them out of the net with a dry jerk and put them into his creel. Mme. +Rosémilly, surprised and delighted, remained at his side, almost forgetful of +her promise to Jean, who followed them in a dream, giving herself up entirely +to the childish enjoyment of pulling the creatures out from among the waving +sea-grasses. +</p> + +<p> +Roland suddenly exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, here comes Mme. Roland to join us.” +</p> + +<p> +She had remained at first on the beach with Pierre, for they had neither of +them any wish to play at running about among the rocks and paddling in the +tide-pools; and yet they had felt doubtful about staying together. She was +afraid of him, and her son was afraid of her and of himself; afraid of his own +cruelty which he could not control. But they sat down side by side on the +stones. And both of them, under the heat of the sun, mitigated by the +sea-breeze, gazing at the wide, fair horizon of blue water streaked and shot +with silver, thought as if in unison: “How delightful this would have +been—once.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not venture to speak to Pierre, knowing that he would return some hard +answer; and he dared not address his mother, knowing that in spite of himself +he should speak violently. He sat twitching the water-worn pebbles with the end +of his cane, switching them and turning them over. She, with a vague look in +her eyes, had picked up three or four little stones and was slowly and +mechanically dropping them from one hand into the other. Then her unsettled +gaze, wandering over the scene before her, discerned, among the weedy rocks, +her son Jean fishing with Mme. Rosémilly. She looked at them, watching their +movements, dimly understanding, with motherly instinct, that they were talking +as they did not talk every day. She saw them leaning over side by side when +they looked into the water, standing face to face when they questioned their +hearts, then scrambled up the rock and seated themselves to come to an +understanding. Their figures stood out very sharply, looking as if they were +alone in the middle of the wide horizon, and assuming a sort of symbolic +dignity in that vast expanse of sky and sea and cliff. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, too, was looking at them, and a harsh laugh suddenly broke form his +lips. Without turning to him Mme. Roland said: +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with a sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“I am learning. Learning how a man lays himself out to be cozened by his +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +She flushed with rage, exasperated by the insinuation she believed was +intended. +</p> + +<p> +“In whose name do you say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“In Jean’s, by Heaven! It is immensely funny to see those +two.” +</p> + +<p> +She murmured in a low voice, tremulous with feeling: “O Pierre, how cruel +you are! That woman is honesty itself. Your brother could not find a +better.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh: +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! hah! Hah! Honesty itself! All wives are honesty itself—and all +husbands are—betrayed.” And he shouted with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, and at the +risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the sea-weed, of breaking a +leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging through the pools without +looking, straight to her other son. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing her approach, Jean called out: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, mother? So you have made the effort?” +</p> + +<p> +Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say: “Save me, protect +me!” +</p> + +<p> +He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said: +</p> + +<p> +“How pale you are! What is the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +She stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks.” +</p> + +<p> +So then Jean guided her, supported her, explained the sport to her that she +might take an interest in it. But as she scarcely heeded him, and as he was +bursting with the desire to confide in some one, he led her away and in a low +voice said to her: +</p> + +<p> +“Guess what I have done!” +</p> + +<p> +“But—what—I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Guess.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot. I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have told Mme. Rosémilly that I wish to marry her.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distress that +she could scarcely take it in. She echoed: “Marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Have I done well? She is charming, do not you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, charming. You have done very well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you approve?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I approve.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how strangely you say so! I could fancy that—that you were not +glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed, I am—very glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really and truly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really and truly.” +</p> + +<p> +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, which were full of tears, +she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at full length like a dead body, +his face hidden against the stones; it was the other one, Pierre, sunk in +thought and desperation. +</p> + +<p> +At this she led her little Jean farther away, quite to the edge of the waves, +and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on which he had set his +heart. +</p> + +<p> +The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then they all made +their way to the shore. They roused Pierre, who pretended to be sleeping; and +then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds of wine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p> +In the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean. Beausire and +Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbour’s shoulder which +repelled them with a shove. Then they sat up, ceased to snore, opened their +eyes, muttered, “A lovely evening!” and almost immediately fell +over on the other side. +</p> + +<p> +By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that they had +great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to go to +Jean’s rooms where tea was waiting for them. He had to be set down at his +own door. +</p> + +<p> +The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; and he was +full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him, at being able, +that very evening, to show his betrothed the rooms she was so soon to inhabit. +</p> + +<p> +The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herself would +boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the servants to be kept +up for fear of fire. +</p> + +<p> +No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and the workmen, that +the surprise might be the greater at their being so pretty. +</p> + +<p> +Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room. He wanted to light the +lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosémilly in the dark with his father and +brother; then he cried: “Come in!” opening the double door to its +full width. +</p> + +<p> +The glass gallery, lighted by a chandelier and little coloured lamps hidden +among palms, india-rubber plants, and flowers, was first seen like a scene on +the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland, dazzled by such luxury, +muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap his hands as if it were a pantomime +scene. They then went into the first drawing-room, a small room hung with dead +gold and furnished to match. The larger drawing-room—the lawyer’s +consulting-room, very simple, hung with light salmon-colour—was dignified +in style. +</p> + +<p> +Jean sat down in his arm-chair in front of his writing-table loaded with books, +and in a solemn, rather stilted tone, he began: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, madame, the letter of the law is explicit, and, assuming the +consent I promised you, it affords me absolute certainty that the matter we +discussed will come to a happy conclusion within three months.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Mme. Rosémilly, 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 voice carries in this +room; it would be capital for speaking in.” +</p> + +<p> +And he declaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“If humanity alone, if the instinct of natural benevolence which we feel +towards all who suffer, were the motive of the acquittal we expect of you, I +should appeal to your compassion, gentlemen of the jury, to your hearts as +fathers and as men; but we have law on our side, and it is the point of law +only which we shall submit to your judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre was looking at this home which might have been his, and he was restive +under his brother’s frolics, thinking him really too silly and witless. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland opened a door on the right. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the bed-room,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +She had devoted herself to its decoration with all her mother’s love. The +hangings were of Rouen cretonne imitating old Normandy chintz, and the Louis +XV. design—a shepherdess, in a medallion held in the beaks of a pair of +doves—gave the walls, curtains, bed, and arm-chairs a festive, rustic +style that was extremely pretty! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how charming!” Mme. Rosémilly exclaimed, becoming a little +serious as they entered the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like it?” asked Jean. +</p> + +<p> +“Immensely.” +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot imagine how glad I am.” +</p> + +<p> +They looked at each other for a second, with confiding tenderness in the depths +of their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She had felt a little awkward, however, a little abashed, in this room which +was to be hers. She noticed as she went in that the bed was a large one, quite +a family bed, chosen by Mme. Roland, who had no doubt foreseen and hoped that +her son should soon marry; and this motherly foresight pleased her, for it +seemed to tell her that she was expected in the family. +</p> + +<p> +When they had returned to the drawing-room Jean abruptly threw open the door to +the left, showing the circular dining-room with three windows, and decorated to +imitate a Chinese lantern. Mother and son had here lavished all the fancy of +which they were capable, and the room, with its bamboo furniture, its +mandarins, jars, silk hangings glistening with gold, transparent blinds +threaded with beads looking like drops of water, fans nailed to the wall to +drape the hangings on, screens, swords, masks, cranes made of real feathers, +and a myriad trifles in china, wood, paper, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and bronze, +had the pretentious and extravagant aspect which unpractised hands and +uneducated 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 hurt his brother’s +feelings. +</p> + +<p> +Pyramids of fruit stood on the table and monuments of cakes. No one was hungry; +they picked at the fruit and nibbled at the cakes rather than ate them. Then, +at the end of about an hour, Mme. Rosémilly begged to take leave. It was +decided that old Roland should accompany her home and set 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 all he needed. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I come back for you?” asked Roland. +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment and then said: “No, dear old man; go to bed. +Pierre will see me home.” +</p> + +<p> +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 there was fresh water in +the water-bottle, and that the window was properly closed. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre and Jean had remained in the little outer drawing-room; the younger +still sore under the criticism passed on his taste, and the elder chafing more +and more at seeing his brother in this abode. They both sat smoking without a +word. Pierre suddenly started to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Cristi!” he exclaimed. “The widow looked very jaded this +evening. Long excursions do not improve her.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean felt his spirit rising with one of those sudden and furious rages which +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, and he stammered +out: +</p> + +<p> +“I forbid you ever again to say ‘the widow’ when you speak of +Mme. Rosémilly.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre turned on him haughtily: +</p> + +<p> +“You are giving me an order, I believe. Are you gone mad by any +chance?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean had pulled himself up. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not gone mad, but I have had enough of your manners to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre sneered: “To you? And are you any part of Mme. Rosémilly?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are to know that Mme. Rosémilly is about to become my wife.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre laughed the louder. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! ha! very good. I understand now why I should no longer speak of her +as ‘the widow.’ But you have taken a strange way of announcing your +engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +“I forbid any jesting about it. Do you hear? I forbid it.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean had come close up to him, pale, and his voice quivering with exasperation +at this irony levelled at the woman he loved and had chosen. +</p> + +<p> +But on a sudden Pierre turned equally furious. All the accumulation of impotent +rage, of suppressed malignity, of rebellion choked down for so long past, all +his unspoken despair mounted to his brain, bewildering it like a fit. +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you? How dare you? I order you to hold your tongue—do you +hear? I order you.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean, startled by his violence, was silent for a few seconds, trying in the +confusion of mind which comes of rage to hit on the thing, the phrase, 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 speak slowly that the words +might hit more keenly: +</p> + +<p> +“I have known for a long time that you were jealous of me, ever since the +day when you first began to talk of ‘the widow’ because you knew it +annoyed me.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre broke into one of those strident and scornful laughs which were common +with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! ah! Good Heavens! Jealous of you! I? I? And of what? Good God! Of +your person or your mind?” +</p> + +<p> +But Jean knew full well that he had touched the wound in his soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, jealous of me—jealous from your childhood up. And it became +fury when you saw that this woman liked me best and would have nothing to say +to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre, stung to the quick by this assumption, stuttered out: +</p> + +<p> +“I? I? Jealous of you? And for the sake of that goose, that gaby, that +simpleton?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean, seeing that he was aiming true, went on: +</p> + +<p> +“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 bursting with jealousy! +And when this money was left to me you were maddened, you hated me, you showed +it in every possible way, and made every one suffer for it; not an hour passes +that you do not spit out the bile that is choking you.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre clenched his fist in his fury with an almost irresistible impulse to fly +at his brother and seize him by the throat. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue,” he cried. “At least say nothing about +that money.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Why your jealousy oozes out at every pore. You never say a word to my +father, my mother, or me that does not declare it plainly. You pretend to +despise me because you are jealous. You try to pick a quarrel with every one +because you are jealous. And now that I am rich you can no longer contain +yourself; you have become venomous, you torture our poor mother as if she were +to blame!” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre had retired step by step as far as the fire-place, his mouth half open, +his eyes glaring, a prey to one of those mad fits of passion in which a crime +is committed. +</p> + +<p> +He said again in a lower tone, gasping for breath: “Hold your +tongue—for God’s sake hold your tongue!” +</p> + +<p> +“No! For a long time I have been wanting to give you my whole mind! You +have 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 worse for you. +But I will break your viper’s fangs, I tell you. I will make you treat me +with respect.” +</p> + +<p> +“With respect—you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Respect you? You who have brought shame on us all by your greed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You say—? Say it again—again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say that it does not do to accept one man’s fortune when another +is reputed to be your father.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean stood rigid, not understanding, dazed by the insinuation he scented. +</p> + +<p> +“What? Repeat that once more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say—what everybody is muttering, what every gossip is +blabbing—that you are the son of the man who left you his fortune. Well, +then—a decent man does not take the money which brings dishonour on his +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pierre! Pierre! Pierre! Think what you are saying. You? Is it you who +give utterance to this infamous thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 sight like an +animal? I hardly know what I am doing or what will become of me, so miserable +am I, so crazed with shame and grief; for first I guessed—and now I know +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pierre! Be silent. Mother is in the next room. Remember she may +hear—she must hear.” +</p> + +<p> +But Pierre felt that he must unburden his heart. He told Jean all his +suspicions, his arguments, his struggles, his assurance, and the history of the +portrait—which had again disappeared. He spoke in short broken sentences +almost without coherence—the language of a sleep-walker. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to have quite forgotten Jean, and his mother in the adjoining room. +He talked as if no one were listening, because he must talk, because he had +suffered too much and smothered and closed the wound too 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 always did, his eyes fixed on vacancy, +gesticulating in a frenzy of despair, his voice choked with tearless sobs and +revulsions of self-loathing; he spoke as if he were making a confession of his +own misery and that of his nearest kin, as though he were casting his woes to +the deaf, invisible winds which bore away his words. +</p> + +<p> +Jean, distracted and almost convinced on a sudden by his brother’s blind +vehemence, was leaning against the door behind which, as he guessed, their +mother had heard them. +</p> + +<p> +She could not get out, she must come through his room. She had not come; then +it was because she dare not. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Pierre stamped his foot. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a brute,” he cried, “to have told you this.” +</p> + +<p> +And he fled, bare-headed, down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +The noise of the front-door closing with a slam roused Jean from the deep +stupor into which he had fallen. Some seconds had elapsed, longer than hours, +and his spirit had sunk into the numb torpor of idiocy. He was conscious, +indeed, that he must presently think and act, but he would wait, refusing to +understand, to know, to remember, out of fear, weakness, cowardice. He was one +of those procrastinators who put everything off till to-morrow; and when he was +compelled to come to a decision then and there, still he instinctively tried to +gain a few minutes. +</p> + +<p> +But the perfect silence which now reigned, after Pierre’s vociferations, +the sudden stillness of walls and furniture, with the bright light of six wax +candles and two lamps, terrified him so greatly that he suddenly longed to make +his escape too. +</p> + +<p> +Then he roused his brain, roused his heart, and tried to reflect. +</p> + +<p> +Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who let +themselves glide onward like running water. He had been duteous over his tasks +for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studies with credit +because his existence was tranquil. Everything in the world seemed to him quite +natural and never aroused his particular attention. He loved order, steadiness, +and peace, by temperament, his nature having no complications; and face to face +with this catastrophe, he found himself like a man who has fallen into the +water and cannot swim. +</p> + +<p> +At first he tried to be incredulous. His brother had told a lie, out of hatred +and jealousy. But yet, how could he have been so vile as to say such a thing of +their mother if he had not himself been distraught by despair? Besides, stamped +on Jean’s ear, on his sight, on his nerves, on the inmost fibres of his +flesh, were certain words, certain tones of anguish, certain gestures of +Pierre’s, so full of suffering that they were irresistibly convincing; as +incontrovertible as certainty itself. +</p> + +<p> +He was too much crushed to stir or even to will. His distress became +unbearable; and he knew that behind the door was his mother who had heard +everything and was waiting. +</p> + +<p> +What was she doing? Not a movement, not a shudder, not a breath, not a sigh +revealed the presence of a living creature behind that panel. Could she have +run away? But how? If she had run away—she must have jumped out of the +window into the street. A shock of terror roused him—so violent and +imperious that he drove the door in rather than opened it, and flung himself +into the bed-room. +</p> + +<p> +It was apparently empty, lighted by a single candle standing on the chest of +drawers. +</p> + +<p> +Jean flew to the window; it was shut and the shutters bolted. He looked about +him, peering into the dark corners with anxious eyes, and he then noticed that +the bed-curtains were drawn. He ran forward and opened them. His mother was +lying on the bed, her face buried in the pillow which she had pulled up over +her ears that she might hear no more. +</p> + +<p> +At first he thought she had smothered herself. Then, taking her by the +shoulders, he turned her over without her leaving go of the pillow, which +covered her face, and in which she had set her teeth to keep herself from +crying out. +</p> + +<p> +But the mere touch of this rigid form, of those arms so convulsively clinched, +communicated to him the shock of her unspeakable torture. The strength and +determination with which she clutched the linen case full of 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 the turmoil it roused in him, of the +pitch suffering may rise to, and his heart, 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 full of love. He remembered nothing of what his brother had +told him; he neither reasoned nor argued, he merely laid his two hands on his +mother’s inert body, and not being able to pull the pillow away, he +exclaimed, kissing her dress: +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me!” +</p> + +<p> +She would have seemed to be dead but that an almost imperceptible shudder ran +through all her limbs, the vibration of a strained cord. And he repeated: +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, mother, listen to me. It is not true. I know that it is not +true.” +</p> + +<p> +A spasm seemed to come over her, a fit of suffocation; then she suddenly began +to sob into the pillow. Her sinews relaxed, her rigid muscles yielded, her +fingers gave way and left go of the linen; and he uncovered her face. +</p> + +<p> +She was pale, quite colourless; and from under her closed lids tears were +stealing. He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her eyes, slowly, with +long heart-broken kisses, wet with her tears; and he said again and again: +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, my dear mother, I know it is not true. Do not cry; I know it. It +is not true.” +</p> + +<p> +She raised herself, she sat up, looked in his face, and with an effort of +courage such as it must cost in some cases to kill one’s self, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“No, my child; it is true.” +</p> + +<p> +And they remained speechless, each in the presence of the other. For some +minutes she seemed again to be suffocating, craning her throat and throwing +back her head to get breath; then she once more mastered herself and went on: +</p> + +<p> +“It is true, my child. Why lie about it? It is true. You would not +believe me if I denied it.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked like a crazy creature. Overcome by alarm, he fell on his knees by +the bedside, murmuring: +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, mother, be silent.” She stood up with terrible determination +and energy. +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing more to say, my child. Good-bye.” And she went +towards the door. +</p> + +<p> +He threw his arms about her exclaiming: +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing, mother; where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know. How should I know—There is nothing left for me to +do, now that I am alone.” +</p> + +<p> +She struggled to be released. Holding her firmly, he could find only words to +say again and again: +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, mother, mother!” And through all her efforts to free +herself she was saying: +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. I am not your mother now, poor boy—good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +It struck him clearly that if he let her go now he should never see her again; +lifting her up in his arms he carried her to an arm-chair, forced her into it, +and kneeling down in front of her barred her in with his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall not quit this spot, mother. I love you and I will keep you! I +will keep you always—I love you and you are mine.” +</p> + +<p> +She murmured in a dejected tone: +</p> + +<p> +“No, my poor boy, it is impossible. You weep to-night, but to-morrow you +would turn me out of the house. You, even you, could not forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +He replied: “I? I? How little you know me!” with such a burst of +genuine affection that, with a cry, she seized his head by the hair with both +hands, and dragging him violently to her kissed him distractedly all over his +face. +</p> + +<p> +Then she sat still, her cheek against his, feeling the warmth of his skin +through his beard, and she whispered in his ear: “No, my little Jean, you +would not forgive me to-morrow. You think so, but you deceive yourself. You +have forgiven me this evening, and that forgiveness has saved my life; but you +must never see me again.” +</p> + +<p> +And he repeated, clasping her in his arms: +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, do not say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my child, I must go away. I do not know where, nor how I shall set +about it, nor what I shall do; but it must be done. I could never look at you, +nor kiss you, do you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +Then he in his turn spoke into her ear: +</p> + +<p> +“My little mother, you are to stay, because I insist, because I want you. +And you must pledge your word to obey me, now, at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother, you must; do you hear? You must.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my child, it is impossible. It would be condemning us all to the +tortures of hell. I know what that torment is; I have known it this month 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 told you—oh, my Jean, +think—think—I am your mother!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not let you leave me, mother. I have no one but you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think, my son, we can never see each other again without both of us +blushing, without my feeling that I must die of shame, without my eyes falling +before yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is not so, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, yes, it is so! Oh, I have understood all your poor +brother’s struggles, believe me! All—from the very first day. Now, +when I hear his step in the house my heart beats as if it would burst, when I +hear his voice I am ready to faint. I still had you; now I have you no longer. +Oh, my little Jean! Do you think I could live between you two?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if that were possible!” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your brother +and you on each hand? Would you cease to think of it, I ask you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I? I swear I should.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why you would think of it at every hour of the day.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I swear it. Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and get +killed.” +</p> + +<p> +This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a passionate and +tender embrace. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +“I love you more than you think—ah, much more, much more. Come, be +reasonable. Try to stay for only one week. Will you promise me one week? You +cannot refuse me that?” +</p> + +<p> +She laid her two hands on Jean’s shoulders, and holding him at +arm’s length she said: +</p> + +<p> +“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 heard for this +month past from your brother, if I were once to see in your eyes what I read in +his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that I was as odious to you as I am +to him—within one hour, mark me—within one hour I should be gone +forever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, I swear to you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me speak. For a month past I have suffered all that any creature can +suffer. From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my other son, +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 tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery brought the tears +to Jean’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to kiss her, but she held him off. +</p> + +<p> +“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. I cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak on, mother, speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you. You want me to +stay with you? For what—for us to be able to see each other, speak to +each other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dare open a +door for fear of finding your brother behind it. If we are to do that, you must +not forgive me—nothing is so wounding as forgiveness—but you must +owe me no grudge for what I have done. You must feel yourself strong enough, +and so far unlike the rest of the world, as to be able to say to yourself that +you are not Roland’s son without blushing for the fact or despising me. I +have suffered enough—I have suffered too much; I can bear no more, no +indeed, no more! And it is not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, +long years. But you could never understand that; how should you! If you and I +are to live together and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe that +though I was your father’s mistress I was yet more truly his wife, his +real 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 I shall always love +him and never loved any other man; that he was my life, my joy, my hope, my +comfort, everything—everything in the world to me for so long! Listen, my +boy, before God, who hears me, I should never have had a joy in my existence if +I had not met him; never anything—not a touch of tenderness or kindness, +not one of those hours which make us regret growing old—nothing. I owe +everything to him! I had but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother +and you. But for you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. I +should never have loved, or known, or cared for anything—I should not +even have wept—for I have wept, my little Jean; oh, yes, and bitter +tears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for ten years I +was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who created us for each +other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He was always kind and +courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. It was 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 never saw him again—and now he +is dead! But he still cared for us since he remembered you. I shall love him to +my latest breath, and I never will deny him, and I love you because you are his +child, and I could never be ashamed of him before you. Do you understand? I +could not. So if you wish me to remain you must accept the situation as his +son, and we will talk of him sometimes; and you must love him a little and we +must think of him when we look at each other. If you will not do this—if +you cannot—then good-bye, my child; it is impossible that we should live +together. Now, I will act by your decision.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean replied gently: +</p> + +<p> +“Stay, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +She clasped him in her arms, and her tears flowed again; then, with her face +against his, she went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but Pierre. What can we do about Pierre?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean answered: +</p> + +<p> +“We will find some plan! You cannot live with him any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +At the thought of her elder son she was convulsed with terror. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I cannot; no, no!” And throwing herself on Jean’s breast +she cried in distress of mind: +</p> + +<p> +“Save me from him, you, my little one. Save me; do something—I +don’t know what. Think of something. Save me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother, I will think of something.” +</p> + +<p> +“And at once. You must, this minute. Do not leave me. I am so afraid of +him—so afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; I will hit on some plan. I promise you I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“But at once; quick, quick! You cannot imagine what I feel when I see +him.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she murmured softly in his ear: “Keep me here, with you.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, reflected, and with his blunt good-sense saw at once the dangers of +such an arrangement. But he had to argue for a long time, combating her scared, +terror-stricken insistence. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for to-night,” she said. “Only for to-night. And +to-morrow morning you can send word to Roland that I was taken ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is out of the question, as Pierre left you here. Come, take +courage. I will arrange everything, I promise you, to-morrow; I will be with +you by nine o’clock. Come, put on your bonnet. I will take you +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will do just what you desire,” she said with a childlike impulse +of timidity and gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +She tried to rise, but the shock had been too much for her; she could not +stand. +</p> + +<p> +He made her drink some sugared water and smell at some salts, while he bathed +her temples with vinegar. She let him do what he would, exhausted, but +comforted, as after the pains of child-birth. At last she could walk and she +took his arm. The town hall struck three as they went past. +</p> + +<p> +Outside their own door Jean kissed her, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, mother, keep up your courage.” +</p> + +<p> +She stealthily crept up the silent stairs, and into her room, undressed +quickly, and slipped into bed with a reawakened sense of that long-forgotten +sin. Roland was snoring. In all the house Pierre alone was awake, and had heard +her come in. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p> +When he got back to his lodgings Jean dropped on a sofa; for the sorrows and +anxieties which made his brother long to be moving, and to flee like a hunted +prey, acted differently on his torpid nature and broke the strength of his arms +and legs. He felt too limp to stir a finger, even to get to bed; limp body and +soul, crushed and heart-broken. He had not been hit, as Pierre had been, in the +purity of filial love, in the secret dignity which is the refuge of a proud +heart; he was overwhelmed by a stroke of fate which, at the same time, +threatened his own nearest interests. +</p> + +<p> +When at last his spirit was calmer, when his thoughts had settled like water +that has been stirred and lashed, he could contemplate the situation which had +come before him. If he had learned the secret of his birth through any other +channel he would assuredly have been very wroth and very deeply pained, but +after his quarrel with his brother, after the violent and brutal betrayal which +had shaken his nerves, the agonizing emotion of his mother’s confession +had so bereft him of energy that he could not rebel. The shock to his feeling +had been so great as to sweep away in an irresistible tide of pathos, all +prejudice, and all the sacred delicacy of natural morality. Besides, he was not +a man made for resistance. He did not like contending against any one, least of +all against himself, so he resigned himself at once; and by instinctive +tendency, a congenital love of peace, and of an easy and tranquil life, he +began to anticipate the agitations which must surge up around him and at once +be his ruin. He foresaw that they were inevitable, and to avert them 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 of that imperious demand for a +swift solution which is the only strength of weak natures, incapable of a +prolonged effort of will. His lawyer’s mind, accustomed as it was to +disentangling and studying complicated situations and questions of domestic +difficulties in families that had got out of gear, at once foresaw the more +immediate consequences of his brother’s state of mind. In spite of +himself, he looked at the issue from an almost professional point of view, as +though he had to legislate for the future relations of certain clients after a +moral disaster. Constant friction against Pierre had certainly become +unendurable. He could easily evade it, no doubt, by living in his own lodgings; +but even then it was not possible that their mother should live under the same +roof with her elder son. For a long time he sat meditating, motionless, on the +cushions, devising and rejecting various possibilities, and finding nothing +that satisfied him. +</p> + +<p> +But suddenly an idea took him by storm. This fortune which had come to him. +Would an honest man keep it? +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was the first immediate answer, and he made up his mind that +it must go to the poor. It was hard, but it could not be helped. He would sell +his furniture and work like any other man, like any other beginner. This manful +and painful resolution spurred his courage; he rose and went to 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 eyes were 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. Rosémilly with a pang at his heart, the shock +of deep feeling which comes of a cruel suggestion. All the dire results of his +decision rose up before him together. He would have to renounce his marriage, +renounce happiness, renounce everything. Could he do such a thing after having +pledged 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 demand such a +sacrifice? Would it not be better to keep this money in trust, to be restored +to the poor at some future date. +</p> + +<p> +And in his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all these +specious interests were struggling and contending. His first scruples yielded +to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and again disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down again, seeking some decisive motive, some all-sufficient pretext to +solve his hesitancy and convince his natural rectitude. Twenty times over had +he asked himself this question: “Since I am this man’s son, since I +know and acknowledge it, is it not natural that I should also accept the +inheritance?” +</p> + +<p> +But even this argument could not suppress the “No” murmured by his +inmost conscience. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the thought: “Since I am not the son of the man I always +believed to be my father, I can take nothing from him, neither during his +lifetime nor after his death. It would be neither dignified nor equitable. It +would be robbing my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +This new view of the matter having relieved him and quieted his conscience, he +went to the window again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said to himself, “I must give up my share of the +family inheritance. I must let Pierre have the whole of it, since I am not his +father’s son. That is but just. Then is it not just that I should keep my +father’s money?” +</p> + +<p> +Having discerned that he could take nothing of Roland’s savings, having +decided on giving up the whole of this money, he agreed; he resigned himself to +keeping Maréchal’s; for if he rejected both he would find himself reduced +to beggary. +</p> + +<p> +This delicate question being thus disposed of he came back to that of +Pierre’s presence in the family. How was he to be got rid of? He was +giving up his search for any practical solution when the whistle of a +steam-vessel coming into port seemed to blow him an answer by suggesting a +scheme. +</p> + +<p> +Then he threw himself on his bed without undressing, and dozed and dreamed till +daybreak. +</p> + +<p> +At a little before nine he went out to ascertain whether his plans were +feasible. Then, after making sundry inquiries and calls, he went to his old +home. His mother was waiting for him in her room. +</p> + +<p> +“If you had not come,” she said, “I should never have dared +to go down.” +</p> + +<p> +In a minute Roland’s voice was heard on the stairs: “Are we to have +nothing to eat to-day, hang it all?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer, and he roared out, with a thundering oath this time: +“Joséphine, what the devil are you about?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s voice came up from the depths of the basement. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, M’sieu—what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your Miss’es?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame is upstairs with M’sieu Jean.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he shouted, looking up at the higher floor: “Louise!” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland half opened her door and answered: +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are we to have nothing to eat to-day, hang it all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear, I am coming.” +</p> + +<p> +And she went down, followed by Jean. +</p> + +<p> +Roland, as soon as he saw him, exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Hallo! There you are! Sick of your home already?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, father, but I had something to talk over with mother this +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean went forward holding out his hand, and when he felt his fingers in the old +man’s fatherly clasp, a strange, unforeseen emotion thrilled through him, +and a sense as of parting and farewell without return. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Pierre is not come down?” +</p> + +<p> +Her husband shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but never mind him; he is always behind-hand. We will begin without +him.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned to Jean: +</p> + +<p> +“You had better go to call him, my child; it hurts his feelings if we do +not wait for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother. I will go.” +</p> + +<p> +And the young man went. He mounted the stairs with the fevered determination of +a man who is about to fight a duel and who is in a fright. When he knocked at +the door Pierre said: +</p> + +<p> +“Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He went in. The elder was writing, leaning over his table. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning,” said Jean. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning!” and they shook hands as if nothing had occurred. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you not coming down to breakfast?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—you see—I have a good deal to do.” The elder +brother’s voice was tremulous, and his anxious eye asked his younger +brother what he meant to do. +</p> + +<p> +“They are waiting for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! There is—is my mother down?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was she who sent me to fetch you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, very well; then I will come.” +</p> + +<p> +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 at the table +opposite each other. +</p> + +<p> +He went straight up to her without looking at her or saying a word, and bending +over her, offered his forehead for her to kiss, as he had done for 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 his brow, and he straightened himself +with a throbbing heart after this feint of a caress. And he wondered: +</p> + +<p> +“What did they say to each other after I had left?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean constantly addressed her tenderly as “mother,” or “dear +mother,” took care of her, waited on her, and poured out her wine. +</p> + +<p> +Then Pierre understood that they had wept together, but he could not read their +minds. Did Jean believe in his mother’s guilt, or think his brother a +base wretch? +</p> + +<p> +And all his self-reproach for having uttered the horrible thing came upon him +again, choking his throat and his tongue, and preventing his either eating or +speaking. +</p> + +<p> +He was now a prey to an intolerable desire to fly, to leave the house which was +his home no longer, and these persons who were bound to him by such +imperceptible ties. He would gladly have been off that moment, no matter +whither, feeling that everything was over, that he could not endure to stay +with them, that his presence was torture to them, and that 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 his brother’s voice and paid more attention to his +words. Jean was saying: +</p> + +<p> +“She will be the finest ship in their fleet. They say she is of 6,500 +tons. She is to make her first trip next month.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland was amazed. +</p> + +<p> +“So soon? I thought she was not to be ready for sea this summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. The work has been pushed forward very vigorously, to get her +through her first voyage before the autumn. I looked in at the Company’s +office this morning, and was talking to one of the directors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! Which of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“M. Marchand, who is a great friend of the Chairman of the Board.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And I wanted to ask him a favour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you will get me leave to go over every part of the Lorraine as soon +as she comes into port?” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure; nothing could be easier.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Jean seemed to hesitate, to be weighing his words, and to want to lead up +to a difficult subject. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +“On the whole, life is very endurable on board those great Transatlantic +liners. More than half the time is spent on shore in two splendid +cities—New York and Havre; and the remainder at sea with delightful +company. In fact, very pleasant acquaintances are sometimes made among the +passengers, and very useful in after-life—yes, really very useful. Only +think, the captain, with his perquisites on coal, can make as much as +twenty-five thousand francs a year or more.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland muttered an oath followed by a whistle, which testified to his deep +respect for the sum and the captain. +</p> + +<p> +Jean went on: +</p> + +<p> +“The purser makes as much as ten thousand, and the doctor has a fixed +salary of five thousand, with lodgings, keep, light, firing, service, and +everything, which makes it up to ten thousand at least. That is very good +pay.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre raising his eyes met his brother’s and understood. +</p> + +<p> +Then, after some hesitation, he asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it very hard to get a place as medical man on board a Transatlantic +liner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and no. It all depends on circumstances and +recommendation.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long pause; then the doctor began again. +</p> + +<p> +“Next month, you say, the Lorraine is to sail?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. On the 7th.” +</p> + +<p> +And they said nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre was considering. It certainly would be a way out of many difficulties if +he could embark as medical officer on board the steamship. By-and-by he could +see; he might perhaps give it up. Meanwhile he would be gaining a living, and +asking for nothing from his parents. Only two days since he had been forced to +sell his watch, for he would no longer hold out his hand to beg of his mother. +So he had no other resource left, no opening to enable him to eat the bread of +any house but this which had become uninhabitable, or sleep in any other bed, +or under any other roof. He presently said, with some little hesitation: +</p> + +<p> +“If I could, I would very gladly sail in her.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean asked: +</p> + +<p> +“What should hinder you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know no one in the Transatlantic Shipping Company.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland was astounded. +</p> + +<p> +“And what has become of all your fine schemes for getting on?” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre replied in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +“There are times when we must bring ourselves to sacrifice everything and +renounce our fondest hopes. And after all it is only to make a beginning, a way +of saving a few thousand francs to start fair with afterward.” +</p> + +<p> +His father was promptly convinced. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very true. In a couple of years you can put by six or seven +thousand francs, and that well laid out, will go a long way. What do you think +of the matter, Louise?” +</p> + +<p> +She replied in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible: +</p> + +<p> +“I think Pierre is right.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“I will go and talk it over with M. Poulin: I know him very well. He is +assessor of the Chamber of Commerce and takes an interest in the affairs of the +Company. There is M. Lenient, too, the ship-owner, who is intimate with one of +the vice-chairmen.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean asked his brother: +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to feel my way with M. Marchand at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I should be very glad.” +</p> + +<p> +After thinking a few minutes Pierre added: +</p> + +<p> +“The best thing I can do, perhaps, will be to write to my professors at +the college of Medicine, who had a great regard for me. Very inferior men are +sometimes shipped on board those vessels. Letters of strong recommendation from +such professors as Mas-Roussel, Rémusot, Flanche, and Borriquel would do more +for me in an hour than all the doubtful introductions in the world. It would be +enough if your friend M. Marchand would lay them before the board.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean approved heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“Your idea is really capital.” And he smiled, quite reassured, +almost happy, sure of success and incapable of allowing himself to be unhappy +for long. +</p> + +<p> +“You will write to-day?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Directly. Now; at once. I will go and do so. I do not care for any +coffee this morning; I am too nervous.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose and left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Then Jean turned to his mother: +</p> + +<p> +“And you, mother, what are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. I do not know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come with me to call on Mme. Rosémilly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I must positively go to see her to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. To be sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why must you positively?” asked Roland, whose habit it was never +to understand what was said in his presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I promised her I would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well. That alters the case.” And he began to fill his +pipe, while the mother and son went upstairs to make ready. +</p> + +<p> +When they were in the street Jean said: +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take my arm, mother?” +</p> + +<p> +He was never accustomed to offer it, for they were in the habit of walking side +by side. She accepted and leaned on him. +</p> + +<p> +For some time they did not speak; then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You see that Pierre is quite ready and willing to go away.” +</p> + +<p> +She murmured: +</p> + +<p> +“Poor boy!” +</p> + +<p> +“But why ‘poor boy’? He will not be in the least unhappy on +board the Lorraine.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I know. But I was thinking of so many things.” +</p> + +<p> +And she thought for a long time, her head bent, accommodating her step to her +son’s; then, in the peculiar voice in which we sometimes give utterance +to the conclusion of long and secret meditations, she exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“How horrible life is! If by any chance we come across any sweetness in +it, we sin in letting ourselves be happy, and pay dearly for it +afterward.” +</p> + +<p> +He said in a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +“Do not speak of that any more, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that possible? I think of nothing else.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +Again she was silent; then with deep regret she said: +</p> + +<p> +“How happy I might have been, married to another man!” +</p> + +<p> +She was visiting it on Roland now, throwing all the responsibility of her sin +on his ugliness, his stupidity, his clumsiness, the heaviness of his intellect, +and the vulgarity of his person. It was to this that it was owing that she had +betrayed him, had driven one son to desperation, and had been forced to utter +to the other the most agonizing confession that can make a mother’s heart +bleed. She muttered: “It is so frightful for a young girl to have to +marry such a husband as mine.” +</p> + +<p> +Jean made no reply. He was thinking of the man he had hitherto believed to be +his father; and possibly the vague notion he had long since conceived, of that +father’s inferiority, with his brother’s constant irony, the +scornful indifference of others, and the very maid-servant’s contempt for +Roland, had somewhat prepared his mind for his mother’s terrible avowal. +It had all made it less dreadful to him to find that he was another man’s +son; and if, after the great shock and agitation of the previous evening, he +had not suffered the reaction of rage, indignation, and rebellion which Mme. +Roland had feared, it was because he had long been unconsciously chafing under +the sense of being the child of this well-meaning lout. +</p> + +<p> +They had now reached the dwelling of Mme. Rosémilly. +</p> + +<p> +She lived on the road to Sainte-Adresse, on the second floor of a large +tenement which she owned. The windows commanded a view of the whole roadstead. +</p> + +<p> +On seeing Mme. Roland, who entered first, instead of merely holding out her +hands as usual, she put her arms round her and kissed her, for she divined the +purpose of her visit. +</p> + +<p> +The furniture of this drawing-room, all in stamped velvet, was always shrouded +in chair-covers. The walls, hung with flowered paper, were graced by four +engravings, the purchase of her late husband, the captain. They represented +sentimental scenes of seafaring life. In the first a fisherman’s wife was +seen, waving a handkerchief on shore, while the vessel which bore away her +husband vanished on the horizon. In the second the same woman, on her knees on +the same shore, under a sky shot with lightning, wrung her arms as she gazed +into the distance at her husband’s boat which was going to the bottom +amid impossible waves. +</p> + +<p> +The others represented similar scenes in a higher rank of society. A young lady +with fair hair, resting her elbows on the ledge of a large steamship quitting +the shore, gazed at the already distant coast with eyes full of tears and +regret. Whom is she leaving behind? +</p> + +<p> +Then the same young lady sitting by an open widow with a view of the sea, had +fainted in an arm-chair; a letter she had dropped lay at her feet. So he is +dead! What despair! +</p> + +<p> +Visitors were generally much moved and charmed by the commonplace pathos of +these obvious and sentimental works. They were at once intelligible without +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 not precisely known. But +this very doubt contributed to the sentiment. She had, no doubt, lost her +lover. On entering the room the eye was immediately attracted to these four +pictures, and riveted as if fascinated. If it wandered it was only to return +and contemplate the four expressions on the faces of the two women, who were as +like each other as two sisters. And the very style of these works, in their +shining frames, crisp, sharp, and highly finished, with the elegance of a +fashion plate, suggested a sense of cleanliness and propriety which was +confirmed by the rest of the fittings. The seats were always in precisely the +same order, some against the wall and some round the circular centre-table. The +immaculately white curtains hung in such straight 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 gilt clock, in the taste of the first empire—a +terrestrial globe supported by Atlas on his knees—looked like a melon +left there to ripen. +</p> + +<p> +The two women as they sat down somewhat altered the normal position of their +chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“You have not been out this morning?” asked Mme. Roland. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I must own to being rather tired.” +</p> + +<p> +And she spoke as if in gratitude to Jean and his mother, of all the pleasure +she had derived from the expedition and the prawn-fishing. +</p> + +<p> +“I ate my prawns this morning,” she added, “and they were +excellent. If you felt inclined we might go again one of these days.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man interrupted her: +</p> + +<p> +“Before we start on a second fishing excursion, suppose we complete the +first?” +</p> + +<p> +“Complete it? It seems to me quite finished.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, madame, I, for my part, caught something on the rocks of Saint +Jouain which I am anxious to carry home with me.” +</p> + +<p> +She put on an innocent and knowing look. +</p> + +<p> +“You? What can it be? What can you have found?” +</p> + +<p> +“A wife. And my mother and I have come to ask you whether she had changed +her mind this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled: “No, monsieur. I never change my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he held out his hand, wide open, and she put hers into it with a +quick, determined movement. Then he said: “As soon as possible, I +hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“In six weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no opinion. What does my future mother-in-law say?” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland replied with a rather melancholy smile: +</p> + +<p> +“I? Oh, I can say nothing. I can only thank you for having accepted Jean, +for you will make him very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will do our best, mamma.” +</p> + +<p> +Somewhat overcome, for the first time, Mme. Rosémilly rose, and throwing her +arms round Mme. Roland, kissed her a long time as a child of her own might have +done; and under this new embrace the poor woman’s sick heart swelled 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 in return she had found a +daughter, a grown-up daughter. +</p> + +<p> +When they faced each other again, and were seated, they took hands and remained +so, looking at each and smiling, while they seemed to have forgotten Jean. +</p> + +<p> +Then they discussed a number of things which had to be thought of in view of an +early marriage, and when everything was settled and decided Mme. Rosémilly +seemed suddenly to remember a further detail and asked: “You have +consulted M. Roland, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +A flush of colour mounted at the same instant on the face of both mother and +son. It was the mother who replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, it is quite unnecessary!” Then she hesitated, feeling that +some explanation was needed, and added: “We do everything without saying +anything to him. It is enough to tell him what we have decided on.” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly, not in the least surprised, only smiled, taking it as a matter +of course, for the good man counted for so little. +</p> + +<p> +When Mme. Roland was in the street again with her son she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose we go to your rooms for a little while. I should be glad to +rest.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt herself homeless, shelterless, her own house being a terror to her. +</p> + +<p> +They went into Jean’s apartments. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the door was closed upon her she heaved a deep sigh, as if that bolt +had placed her in safety, but then, instead of resting as she had said, she +began to open the cupboards, to count the piles of linen, the +pocket-handkerchiefs, and socks. She changed the arrangement to place them in +more harmonious order, more pleasing to her housekeeper’s eye; and when +she had put everything to her mind, laying out the towels, the shirts, and the +drawers on their several shelves and dividing all the linen into three +principal classes, body-linen, household-linen, and table-linen, she drew back +and contemplated the results, and called out: +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, Jean, and see how nice it looks.” +</p> + +<p> +He went and admired it to please her. +</p> + +<p> +On a sudden, when he had sat down again, she came softly up behind his +arm-chair, and putting her right arm round his neck she kissed him, while she +laid on the chimney-shelf a small packet wrapped in white paper which she held +in the other hand. +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” he asked. Then, as she made no reply, he +understood, recognising the shape of the frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Give it me!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She pretended not to hear him, and went back to the linen cupboards. He got up +hastily, took the melancholy relic, and going across the room, put it in the +drawer of his writing-table, which he locked and double locked. She wiped away +a tear with the tip of her finger, and said in a rather quavering voice: +“Now I am going to see whether your new servant keeps the kitchen in good +order. As she is out I can look into everything and make sure.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p> +Letters of recommendation from Professors Mas-Roussel, Rémusot, Flache, and +Borriquel, written in the most flattering terms with regard to Dr. Pierre +Roland, their pupil, had been submitted by M. Marchand to the directors of the +Transatlantic Shipping Co., seconded by M. Poulin, judge of the Chamber of +Commerce, M. Lenient, a great ship-owner, and Mr. Marival, deputy to the Mayor +of Havre, and a particular friend of Captain Beausires’s. It proved that +no medical officer had yet been appointed to the Lorraine, and Pierre was lucky +enough to be nominated within a few days. +</p> + +<p> +The letter announcing it was handed to him one morning by Joséphine, just as he +was dressed. His first feeling was that of a man condemned to death who is told +that his sentence is commuted; he had an immediate sense of relief at the +thought of his early departure and of the peaceful life on board, cradled by +the rolling waves, always wandering, always moving. His life under his +father’s roof was now that of a stranger, silent and reserved. Ever since +the evening when he allowed the shameful secret he had discovered to escape him +in his brother’s presence, he had felt that the last ties to his kindred +were broken. He was harassed by remorse for having told this thing to Jean. He +felt that it was odious, indecent, and brutal, and yet it was a relief to him +to have uttered it. +</p> + +<p> +He never met the eyes either of his mother or his brother; to avoid his gaze +theirs had become surprisingly alert, with the cunning of foes who fear to +cross each other. He was always wondering: “What can she have said 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 not guess, and it +drove him to frenzy. And he scarcely ever spoke to them, excepting when Roland +was by, to avoid his questioning. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he received the letter announcing his appointment he showed it at +once to his family. His father, who was prone to rejoicing over everything, +clapped his hands. Jean spoke seriously, though his heart was full of gladness: +“I congratulate you with all my heart, for I know there were several +other candidates. You certainly owe it to your professors’ +letters.” +</p> + +<p> +His mother bent her head and murmured: +</p> + +<p> +“I am very glad you have been successful.” +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast he went to the Company’s offices to obtain information on +various particulars, and he asked the name of the doctor on board the Picardie, +which was to sail next day, to inquire of him as to the details of his new life +and any details he might think useful. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Pirette having gone on board, Pierre went to the ship, where he was +received in a little state-room by a young man with a fair beard, not unlike +his brother. They talked together a long time. +</p> + +<p> +In the hollow depths of the huge ship they could hear a confused and continuous +commotion; the noise of bales and cases pitched down into the hold mingling +with footsteps, voices, the creaking of the machinery lowering the freight, the +boatswain’s whistle, and the clatter of chains dragged or wound on to +capstans by the snorting and panting engine which sent a slight vibration from +end to end of the great vessel. +</p> + +<p> +But when Pierre had left his colleague and found himself in the street once +more, a new form of melancholy came down on him, enveloping him like the fogs +which roll over the sea, coming up from the ends of the world and holding in +their intangible density something mysteriously impure, as it were the +pestilential breath of a far-away, unhealthy land. +</p> + +<p> +In his hours of greatest suffering he had never felt himself so sunk in 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 every affection he had not +hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a +lost dog. It was no longer a torturing mortal pain, but the frenzy of a forlorn +and homeless animal, the physical anguish of a vagabond creature without a roof +for shelter, lashed by the rain, the wind, the storm, all the brutal forces of +the universe. As he set 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 and +steady bed, had risen up against the insecurity henceforth of all his morrows. +Till now that flesh had been protected by a solid wall built into the earth +which held it, by the certainty of resting in the same spot, under a roof which +could resist the gale. Now all that, which it was a pleasure to defy in the +warmth of home, must become a peril and a 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 and clouds. And the ceaseless motion of the ship beneath his feet. On +stormy days he must lean against the wainscot, hold on to the doors, cling to +the edge of the narrow berth to save himself from rolling out. On calm days he +would hear the snorting throb of the screw, and feel the swift flight of the +ship, bearing him on in its unpausing, regular, exasperating race. +</p> + +<p> +And he was condemned to this vagabond convict’s life solely because his +mother had yielded to a man’s caresses. +</p> + +<p> +He walked on, his heart sinking with the despairing sorrow of those who are +doomed to exile. He no longer felt a haughty disdain and scornful hatred 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 and comforted. There was in the very +depths of his heart the shame-faced need of a beggar who would fain hold out +his hand—a timid but urgent need to feel that some one would grieve at +his departing. +</p> + +<p> +He thought of Marowsko. The old Pole was the only person who loved him well +enough to feel true and keen emotion, and the doctor at once determined to go +and see him. +</p> + +<p> +When he entered the shop, the druggist, who was pounding powders in a marble +mortar, started and left his work. +</p> + +<p> +“You are never to be seen nowadays,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre explained that he had had a great many serious matters to attend to, but +without giving the reason, and he took a seat, asking: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and how is business doing?” +</p> + +<p> +Business was not doing at all. Competition was fearful, and rich folks rare in +that workmen’s quarter. Nothing would sell but cheap drugs, and the +doctors did not prescribe the costlier and more complicated remedies on which a +profit is made of five hundred per cent. The old fellow ended by saying: +“If this goes on for three months I shall shut up shop. If I did not +count on you, dear good doctor, I should have turned shoe-black by this +time.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre felt a pang, and made up his mind to deal the blow at once, since it +must be done. +</p> + +<p> +“I—oh, I cannot be of any use to you. I am leaving Havre early next +month.” +</p> + +<p> +Marowsko took off his spectacles, so great was his agitation. +</p> + +<p> +“You! You! What are you saying?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say that I am going away, my poor friend.” +</p> + +<p> +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 he loved, whom he +had so implicitly trusted, and who forsook him thus. +</p> + +<p> +He stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +“You are surely not going to play me false—you?” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre was so deeply touched that he felt inclined to embrace the old fellow. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not playing you false. I have not found anything to do here, and I +am going as medical officer on board a Transatlantic passenger boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Monsieur Pierre! And you always promised you would help me to make a +living!” +</p> + +<p> +“What can I do? I must make my own living. I have not a farthing in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +Marowsko said: “It is wrong; what you are doing is very wrong. There is +nothing for me but to die of hunger. At my age this is the end of all things. +It is wrong. You are forsaking a poor old man who came here to be with you. It +is wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +Pierre tried to explain, to protest, to give reasons, to prove that he could +not have done otherwise; the Pole, enraged by his desertion, would not listen +to him, and he ended by saying, with an allusion no doubt to political events: +</p> + +<p> +“You French—you never keep your word!” +</p> + +<p> +At this Pierre rose, offended on his part, and taking rather a high tone he +said: +</p> + +<p> +“You are unjust, père Marowsko; a man must have very strong motives to +act as I have done and you ought to understand that. Au revoir—I hope I +may find you more reasonable.” And he went away. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” he thought, “not a soul will feel a sincere +regret for me.” +</p> + +<p> +His mind sought through all the people he knew or had known, and among the +faces which crossed his memory he saw that of the girl at the tavern who had +led him to doubt his mother. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated, having still an instinctive grudge against her, then suddenly +reflected on the other hand: “After all, she was right.” And he +looked about him to find the turning. +</p> + +<p> +The beer-shop, as it happened, was full of people, and also full of smoke. The +customers, tradesmen, and labourers, for it was a holiday, were shouting, +calling, laughing, and the master himself was waiting on them, running from +table to table, carrying away empty glasses and returning them crowned with +froth. +</p> + +<p> +When Pierre had found a seat not far from the desk he waited, hoping that the +girl would see him and recognise him. But she passed him again and again as she +went to and fro, pattering her feet under her skirts with a smart little strut. +At last he rapped a coin on the table, and she hurried up. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you take, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not look at him; her mind was absorbed in calculations of the liquor +she had served. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said he, “this is a pretty way of greeting a +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +wish for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a bock!” +</p> + +<p> +When she brought it he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I have come to say good-bye. I am going away.” +</p> + +<p> +And she replied indifferently: +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed. Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To America.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very fine country, they say.” +</p> + +<p> +And that was all! +</p> + +<p> +Really, he was very ill-advised to address her on such a busy day; there were +too many people in the café. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre went down to the sea. As he reached the jetty he descried the Pearl; his +father and Beausire were coming in. Papagris was pulling, and the two men, +seated in the stern, smoked their pipes with a look of perfect happiness. As +they went past the doctor said to himself: “Blessed are the +simple-minded!” And he sat down on one of the benches on the breakwater, +to try to lull himself in animal drowsiness. +</p> + +<p> +When he went home in the evening his mother said, without daring to lift her +eyes to his face: +</p> + +<p> +“You will want a heap of things to take with you. I have ordered your +under-linen, and I went into the tailor’s shop about cloth clothes; but +is there nothing else you need—things which I, perhaps, know nothing +about?” +</p> + +<p> +His lips parted to say, “No, nothing.” But he reflected that he +must accept the means of getting a decent outfit, and he replied in a very calm +voice: “I hardly know myself, yet. I will make inquiries at the +office.” +</p> + +<p> +He inquired, and they gave him a list of indispensable necessaries. His mother, +as she took it from his hand, looked up at him for the first time for very +long, and in the depths of her eyes there was the humble expression, gentle, +sad, and beseeching, of a dog that has been beaten and begs forgiveness. +</p> + +<p> +On the 1st of October the Lorraine from Saint-Nazaire, came into the harbour of +Havre to sail on the 7th, bound for New York, and Pierre Roland was to take +possession of the little floating cabin in which henceforth his life was to be +confined. +</p> + +<p> +Next day as he was going out, he met his mother on the stairs waiting for him, +to murmur in an almost inaudible voice: +</p> + +<p> +“You would not like me to help you to put things to rights on +board?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you. Everything is done.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she said: +</p> + +<p> +“I should have liked to see your cabin.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing to see. It is very small and very ugly.” +</p> + +<p> +And he went downstairs, leaving her stricken, leaning against the wall with a +wan face. +</p> + +<p> +Now Roland, who had gone over the Lorraine that very day, could talk of nothing +all dinnertime but this splendid vessel, and wondered that his wife should not +care to see it as their son was to sail on board. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre had scarcely any intercourse with his family during the days which +followed. He was nervous, irritable, hard, and his rough speech seemed to lash +every one indiscriminately. But the day before he left he was suddenly quite +changed, and much softened. As he embraced his parents before going to sleep on +board for the first time he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You will come to say good-bye to me on board, will you not?” +</p> + +<p> +Roland exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, of course—of course, Louise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, certainly,” she said in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +Pierre went on: “We sail at eleven precisely. You must be there by +half-past nine at the latest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hah!” cried his father. “A good idea! As soon as we have bid +you good-bye, we will make haste on board the Pearl, and look out for you +beyond the jetty, so as to see you once more. What do you say, Louise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland went on: “And in that way you will not lose sight of us among the +crowd which throngs the breakwater when the great liners sail. It is impossible +to distinguish your own friends in the mob. Does that meet your views?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to be sure; that is settled.” +</p> + +<p> +An hour later he was lying in his berth—a little crib as long and narrow +as a coffin. There he remained with his eyes wide open for a long time, +thinking over all that had happened during the last two months of his life, +especially in his own soul. By dint of suffering and making others suffer, his +aggressive and revengeful anguish had lost its edge, like a blunted sword. He +scarcely had the heart left in him to owe any one or anything a grudge; he let +his rebellious wrath float away down stream, as his life must. He was so weary +of wrestling, weary of fighting, weary of hating, weary of everything, that he +was quite worn out, and tried to stupefy his heart with forgetfulness as he +dropped asleep. He heard vaguely, all about him, the unwonted noises of the +ship, slight noises, and scarcely audible on this calm night in port; and he +felt no more of the dreadful wound which had tortured him hitherto, but the +discomfort and strain of its healing. +</p> + +<p> +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 the passengers from Paris. +Then he wandered about the vessel among all these busy, bustling folks +inquiring for their cabins, questioning and answering each other at random, in +the scare and fuss of a voyage already begun. After greeting the Captain and +shaking hands with his comrade the purser, he went into the saloon where some +Englishmen were already asleep in the corners. The large low room, with its +white marble panels framed in gilt beading, was furnished with looking-glasses, +which prolonged, in endless perspective, the long tables, flanked by +pivot-seats covered with red velvet. It was fit, indeed, to be the vast +floating cosmopolitan dining-hall, where the rich natives of two continents +might eat in common. Its magnificent luxury was that of great hotels, and +theatres, and public rooms; the imposing and commonplace luxury which appeals +to the eye of the millionaire. +</p> + +<p> +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 board the night before, +and he went down to the lower deck. He was met by a sickening smell of dirty, +poverty-stricken humanity, an atmosphere of naked flesh (far more revolting +than the odour of fur or the skin of wild beasts). There, in a sort of +basement, low and dark, like a gallery in a mine, Pierre could discern some +hundreds of men, women, and children, stretched on shelves fixed one above +another, or lying on the floor in heaps. He could not see their faces, but +could dimly make out this squalid, ragged crowd of wretches, beaten in the +struggle for life, worn out and crushed, setting forth, each with a starving +wife and weakly children, for an unknown land where they hoped, perhaps, not to +die of hunger. And as he thought of their past labour—wasted labour, and +barren effort—of the mortal struggle taken up afresh and in vain each +day, of the energy expended by this tattered crew who were going to begin +again, not knowing where, this life of hideous misery, he longed to cry out to +them: +</p> + +<p> +“Tumble yourselves overboard, rather, with your women and your little +ones.” And his heart ached so with pity that he went away unable to +endure the sight. +</p> + +<p> +He found his father, his mother, Jean, and Mme. Rosémilly waiting for him in +his cabin. +</p> + +<p> +“So early!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mme. Roland in a trembling voice. “We wanted to +have a little time to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her. She was dressed all in black as if she were in mourning, and +he noticed that her hair, which only a month ago had been gray, was now almost +white. It was very difficult to find space for four persons to sit down in the +little room, and he himself got on to his bed. The door was left open, and they +could see a great crowd hurrying by, as if it were a street on a holiday, for +all the friends of the passengers and a host of inquisitive visitors had +invaded the huge vessel. They pervaded the passages, the saloons, every corner +of the ship; and heads peered in at the doorway while a voice murmured outside: +“That is the doctor’s cabin.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Pierre shut the door; but no sooner was he shut in with his own party than +he longed to open it again, for the bustle outside covered their agitation and +want of words. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly at last felt she must speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Very little air comes in through those little windows.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 time explaining +the fastening. Roland presently asked: “And you have your doctor’s +shop here?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor opened a cupboard and displayed an array of phials ticketed with +Latin names on white paper labels. He took one out and enumerated the +properties of its contents; then a second and a third, a perfect lecture on +therapeutics, to which they all listened with great attention. Roland, shaking +his head, said again and again: “How very interesting!” There was a +tap at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” said Pierre, and Captain Beausire appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I am late,” he said as he shook hands, “I did not want to be +in the way.” He, too, sat down on the bed and silence fell once more. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the Captain pricked his ears. He could hear the orders being given, +and he said: +</p> + +<p> +“It is time for us to be off if we mean to get on board the Pearl to see +you once more outside, and bid you good-bye out on the open sea.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Roland was very eager about this, to impress the voyagers on board the +Lorraine, no doubt, and he rose in haste. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, my boy.” He kissed Pierre on the whiskers and then +opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland had not stirred, but sat with downcast eyes, very pale. Her husband +touched her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he said, “we must make haste, we have not a minute to +spare.” +</p> + +<p> +She pulled herself up, went to her son and offered him first one and then +another cheek of white wax which he kissed without saying a word. Then he shook +hands with Mme. Rosémilly and his brother, asking: +</p> + +<p> +“And when is the wedding to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know yet exactly. We will make it fit in with one of your +return voyages.” +</p> + +<p> +At last they were all out of the cabin, and up on deck among the crowd of +visitors, porters, and sailors. The steam was snorting in the huge belly of the +vessel, which seemed to quiver with impatience. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” said Roland in a great bustle. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” replied Pierre, standing on one of the landing-planks +lying between the deck of the Lorraine and the quay. He shook hands all round +once more, and they were gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Make haste, jump into the carriage,” cried the father. +</p> + +<p> +A fly was waiting for them and took them to the outer harbour, where Papagris +had the Pearl in readiness to put out to sea. +</p> + +<p> +There was not a breath of air; it was one of those crisp, still autumn days, +when the sheeny sea looks as cold and hard as polished steel. +</p> + +<p> +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 crowd stood packed, +hustling, and noisy, to see the Lorraine come out. The Pearl glided down +between these two waves of humanity and was soon outside the mole. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Beausire, seated between the two women, held the tiller, and he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You will see, we shall be close in her way—close.” +</p> + +<p> +And the two oarsmen pulled with all their might to get out as far as possible. +Suddenly Roland cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“Here she comes! I see her masts and her two funnels! She is coming out +of the inner harbour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cheerily, lads!” cried Beausire. +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Roland took out her handkerchief and held it to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Roland stood up, clinging to the mast, and answered: +</p> + +<p> +“At this moment she is working round in the outer harbour. She is +standing still—now she moves again! She is taking the tow-rope on board +no doubt. There she goes. Bravo! She is between the piers! Do you hear the +crowd shouting? Bravo! The Neptune has her in tow. Now I see her +bows—here she comes—here she is! Gracious Heavens, what a ship! +Look! Look!” +</p> + +<p> +Mme. Rosémilly and Beausire looked behind them, the oarsmen ceased pulling; +only Mme. Roland did not stir. +</p> + +<p> +The immense steamship, towed by a powerful tug, which, in front of her, looked +like a caterpillar, came slowly and majestically out of the harbour. And the +good people of Havre, who crowded the piers, the beach, and the windows, +carried away by a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, cried: “<i>Vive la +Lorraine!</i>” with acclamations and applause for this magnificent +beginning, this birth of the beautiful daughter given to the sea by the great +maritime town. +</p> + +<p> +She, as soon as she had passed beyond the narrow channel between the two +granite walls, feeling herself free at last, cast off the tow-ropes and went +off alone, like a monstrous creature walking on the waters. +</p> + +<p> +“Here she is—here she comes, straight down on us!” Roland +kept shouting; and Beausire, beaming, exclaimed: “What did I promise you! +Heh! Do I know the way?” +</p> + +<p> +Jean in a low tone said to his mother: “Look, mother, she is close upon +us!” And Mme. Roland uncovered her eyes, blinded with tears. +</p> + +<p> +The Lorraine came on, still under the impetus of her swift exit from the +harbour, in the brilliant, calm weather. Beausire, with his glass to his eye, +called out: +</p> + +<p> +“Look out! M. Pierre is at the stern, all alone, plainly to be seen! Look +out!” +</p> + +<p> +The ship was almost touching the Pearl now, as tall as a mountain and as swift +as a train. Mme. Roland, distraught and desperate, held out her arms towards +it; and she saw her son, her Pierre, with his officer’s cap on, throwing +kisses to her with both hands. +</p> + +<p> +But he was going away, flying, vanishing, a tiny speck already, no more than an +imperceptible spot on the enormous vessel. She tried still to distinguish him, +but she could not. +</p> + +<p> +Jean took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You saw?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I saw. How good he is!” +</p> + +<p> +And they turned to go home. +</p> + +<p> +“Cristi! How fast she goes!” exclaimed Roland with enthusiastic +conviction. +</p> + +<p> +The steamer, in fact, was shrinking every second, as though she were melting +away in the ocean. Mme. Roland, turning back to look at her, watched her +disappearing on the horizon, on her way to an unknown land at the other side of +the world. +</p> + +<p> +In that vessel which nothing could stay, that vessel which she soon would see +no more, was her son, her poor son. And she felt as though half her heart had +gone with him; she felt, too, as if her life were ended; yes, and she felt as +though she would never see the child again. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you crying?” asked her husband, “when you know he +will be back again within a month.” +</p> + +<p> +She stammered out: “I don’t know; I cry because I am hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +When they had landed, Beausire at once took leave of them to go to breakfast +with a friend. Then Jean led the way with Mme. Rosémilly, and Roland said to +his wife: +</p> + +<p> +“A very fine fellow, all the same, is our Jean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied the mother. +</p> + +<p> +And her mind being too much bewildered to think of what she was saying, she +went on: +</p> + +<p> +“I am very glad that he is to marry Mme. Rosémilly.” +</p> + +<p> +The worthy man was astounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Heh? What? He is to marry Mme. Rosémilly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we meant to ask your opinion about it this very day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me! And has this engagement been long in the wind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, only a very few days. Jean wished to make sure that she would +accept him before consulting you.” +</p> + +<p> +Roland rubbed his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. Very good. It is capital. I entirely approve.” +</p> + +<p> +As they were about to turn off from the quay down the Boulevard François, his +wife once more looked back to cast a last look at the high seas, but she could +see nothing now but a puff of gray smoke, so far away, so faint that it looked +like a film of haze. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE & JEAN ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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