CHAPTER I_The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII.

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the

Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

The Works of

Guy de Maupassant

VOLUME VIII

PIERRE ET JEAN

AND OTHER STORIES

_ILLUSTRATED_

NATIONAL LIBRARY COMPANY

NEW YORK

BIGELOW, SMITH & CO.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

PIERRE ET JEAN.

DREAMS

MOONLIGHT

THE CORSICAN BANDIT

A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET

THE CAKE

A LIVELY FRIEND

THE ORPHAN

THE BLIND MAN

A WIFE'S CONFESSION

RELICS OF THE PAST

THE PEDDLER

THE AVENGER

ALL OVER

LETTER FOUND ON A DROWNED MAN

MOTHER AND SON

THE SPASM

A DUEL

THE LOVE OF LONG AGO

AN UNCOMFORTABLE BED

A WARNING NOTE

THE HORRIBLE

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT

BESIDE A DEAD MAN

AFTER

A QUEER NIGHT IN PARIS

BOITELLE

* * * * *

OF "THE NOVEL"

I do not intend in these pages to put in a plea for this little novel.

On the contrary, the ideas I shall try to set forth will rather

involve a criticism of the class of psychological analysis which I

have undertaken in _Pierre et Jean_. I propose to treat of novels in

general.

I am not the only writer who finds himself taken to task in the same

terms each time he brings out a new book. Among many laudatory

phrases, I invariably meet with this observation, penned by the same

critics: "The greatest fault of this book is that it is not, strictly

speaking, a novel."

The same form might be adopted in reply:

"The greatest fault of the writer who does me the honor to review me

is that he is not a critic."

For what are, in fact, the essential characteristics of a critic?

It is necessary that, without preconceived notions, prejudices of

"School," or partisanship for any class of artists, he should

appreciate, distinguish, and explain the most antagonistic tendencies

and the most dissimilar temperaments, recognizing and accepting the

most varied efforts of art.

Now the Critic who, after reading _Manon Lescaut_, _Paul and

Virginia_, _Don Quixote_, _Les Liaisons dangereuses_, _Werther_,

_Elective Affinities_ (_Wahlverwandschaften_), _Clarissa Harlowe_,

_Émile_, _Candide_, _Cinq-Mars_, _René_, _Les Trois Mousquetaires_,

_Mauprat_, _Le Père Goriot_, _La Cousine Bette_, _Colomba_, _Le Rouge

et le Noir_, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, _Notre-Dame de Paris_,

_Salammbo_, _Madame Bovary_, _Adolphe_, _M. de Camors_, _l'Assommoir_,

_Sapho_, etc., still can be so bold as to write "This or that is, or

is not, a novel," seems to me to be gifted with a perspicacity

strangely akin to incompetence. Such a critic commonly understands by

a novel a more or less improbable narrative of adventure, elaborated

after the fashion of a piece for the stage, in three acts, of which

the first contains the exposition, the second the action, and the

third the catastrophe or _dénouement_.

And this method of construction is perfectly admissible, but on

condition that all others are accepted on equal terms.

Are there any rules for the making of a novel, which, if we neglect,

the tale must be called by another name? If _Don Quixote_ is a novel,

then is _Le Rouge et le Noir_ a novel? If _Monte Christo_ is a novel,

is _l'Assommoir_? Can any conclusive comparison be drawn between

Goethe's _Elective Affinities_, _The Three Mousqueteers_, by Dumas,

Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_, _M. de Camors_ by Octave Feuillet, and

_Germinal_, by Zola? Which of them all is The Novel? What are these

famous rules? Where did they originate? Who laid them down? And in

virtue of what principle, of whose authority, and of what reasoning?

And yet, as it would appear, these critics know in some positive and

indisputable way what constitutes a novel, and what distinguishes it

from other tales which are not novels. What this amounts to is that

without being producers themselves they are enrolled under a School,

and that, like the writers of novels, they reject all work which is

conceived and executed outside the pale of their esthetics. An

intelligent critic ought, on the contrary, to seek out everything

which least resembles the novels already written, and urge young

authors as much as possible to try fresh paths.

All writers, Victor Hugo as much as M. Zola, have insistently claimed

the absolute and incontrovertible right to compose--that is to say, to

imagine or observe--in accordance with their individual conception of

originality, and that is a special manner of thinking, seeing,

understanding, and judging. Now the critic who assumes that "the

novel" can be defined in conformity with the ideas he has based on the

novels he prefers, and that certain immutable rules of construction

can be laid down, will always find himself at war with the artistic

temperament of a writer who introduces a new manner of work. A critic

really worthy of the name ought to be an analyst, devoid of

preferences or passions; like an expert in pictures, he should simply

estimate the artistic value of the object of art submitted to him. His

intelligence, open to everything, must so far supersede his

individuality as to leave him free to discover and praise books which

as a man he may not like, but which as a judge he must duly

appreciate.

But critics, for the most part, are only readers; whence it comes that

they almost always find fault with us on wrong grounds, or compliment

us without reserve or measure.

The reader, who looks for no more in a book than that it should

satisfy the natural tendencies of his own mind, wants the writer to

respond to his predominant taste, and he invariably praises a work or

a passage which appeals to his imagination, whether idealistic, gay,

licentious, melancholy, dreamy, or positive, as "striking" or "well

written."

The public as a whole is composed of various groups, whose cry to us

writers is:

"Comfort me."

"Amuse me."

"Touch me."

"Make me dream."

"Make me laugh."

"Make me shudder."

"Make me weep."

"Make me think."

And only a few chosen spirits say to the artist:

"Give me something fine in any form which may suit you best, according

to your own temperament."

The artist makes the attempt; succeeds or fails.

The critic ought to judge the result only in relation to the nature of

the attempt; he has no right to concern himself about tendencies. This

has been said a thousand times already; it will always need repeating.

Thus, after a succession of literary schools which have given us

deformed, superhuman, poetical, pathetic, charming or magnificent

pictures of life, a realistic or naturalistic school has arisen, which

asserts that it shows us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth.

All these theories of art must be recognized as of equal interest, and

we must judge the works which are their outcome solely from the point

of view of artistic value, with an _a priori_ acceptance of the

general notions which gave birth to each. To dispute the author's

right to produce a poetical work or a realistic work, is to endeavor

to coerce his temperament, to take exception to his originality, to

forbid his using the eyes and wits bestowed on him by Nature. To

blame him for seeing things as beautiful or ugly, as mean or epic, as

gracious or sinister, is to reproach him for not being made on this or

that pattern, and for having eyes which do not see exactly as ours

see.

Let him be free by all means to conceive of things as he pleases,

provided he is an artist. Let us rise to poetic heights to judge an

idealist, and then prove to him that his dream is commonplace,

ordinary, not mad or magnificent enough. But if we judge a

materialistic writer, let us show him wherein the truth of life

differs from the truth in his book.

It is self-evident that schools so widely different must have adopted

diametrically opposite processes in composition.

The novelist who transforms truth--immutable, uncompromising, and

displeasing as it is--to extract from it an exceptional and delightful

plot, must necessarily manipulate events without an exaggerated

respect for probability, molding them to his will, dressing and

arranging them so as to attract, excite, or affect the reader. The

scheme of his romance is no more than a series of ingenious

combinations, skillfully leading to the issue. The incidents are

planned and graduated up to the culminating point and effect of the

conclusion, which is the crowning and fatal result, satisfying the

curiosity aroused from the first, closing the interest, and ending the

story so completely that we have no further wish to know what happened

on the morrow to the most engaging actors in it.

The novelist who, on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate

picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events

which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse

us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to

understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing

and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things

in a way peculiar to himself, which is the outcome of the sum total of

his studious observation. It is this personal view of the world which

he strives to communicate to us by reproducing it in a book. To make

the spectacle of life as moving to us as it has been to him, he must

bring it before our eyes with scrupulous exactitude. Hence he must

construct his work with such skill, it must be so artful under so

simple a guise, that it is impossible to detect and sketch the plan,

or discern the writer's purpose.

Instead of manipulating an adventure and working it out in such a way

as to make it interesting to the last, he will take his actor or

actors at a certain period of their lives, and lead them by natural

stages to the next. In this way he will show either how men's minds

are modified by the influence of their environment, or how their

passions and sentiments are evolved; how they love or hate, how they

struggle in every sphere of society, and how their interests

clash--social interests, pecuniary interests, family interests,

political interests. The skill of his plan will not consist in

emotional power or charm, in an attractive opening or a stirring

catastrophe, but in the happy grouping of small but constant facts

from which the final purpose of the work may be discerned. If within

three hundred pages he depicts ten years of a life so as to show what

its individual and characteristic significance may have been in the

midst of all the other human beings which surrounded it, he ought to

know how to eliminate from among the numberless trivial incidents of

daily life all which do not serve his end, and how to set in a special

light all those which might have remained invisible to less

clear-sighted observers, and which give his book caliber and value as

a whole.

It is intelligible that this method of construction, so unlike the old

manner which was patent to all, must often mislead the critics, and

that they will not all detect the subtle and secret wires--almost

invisibly fine--which certain modern artists use instead of the one

string formerly known as the "plot."

In a word, while the novelist of yesterday preferred to relate the

crises of life, the acute phases of the mind and heart, the novelist

of to-day writes the history of the heart, soul, and intellect in

their normal condition. To achieve the effects he aims at--that is to

say, the sense of simple reality, and to point the artistic lesson he

endeavors to draw from it--that is to say, a revelation of what his

contemporary man is before his very eyes, he must bring forward no

facts that are not irrefragible and invariable.

But even when we place ourselves at the same point of view as these

realistic artists, we may discuss and dispute their theory, which

seems to be comprehensively stated in these words: "The whole Truth

and nothing but the Truth." Since the end they have in view is to

bring out the philosophy of certain constant and current facts, they

must often correct events in favor of probability and to the detriment

of truth; for

"Le vrai peut quelquefois, n'être pas le vraisemblable." (Truth may

sometimes not seem probable.)

The realist, if he is an artist, will endeavor not to show us a

commonplace photograph of life, but to give us a presentment of it

which shall be more complete, more striking, more cogent than reality

itself. To tell everything is out of the question; it would require at

least a volume for each day to enumerate the endless, insignificant

incidents which crowd our existence. A choice must be made--and this

is the first blow to the theory of "the whole truth."

Life, moreover, is composed of the most dissimilar things, the most

unforeseen, the most contradictory, the most incongruous; it is

merciless, without sequence or connection, full of inexplicable,

illogical, and contradictory catastrophes, such as can only be classed

as miscellaneous facts. This is why the artist, having chosen his

subject, can only select such characteristic details as are of use to

it, from this life overladen with chances and trifles, and reject

everything else, everything by the way.

To give an instance from among a thousand. The number of persons who,

every day, meet with an accidental death, all over the world, is very

considerable. But how can we bring a tile onto the head of an

important character, or fling him under the wheels of a vehicle in the

middle of a story, under the pretext that accident must have its due?

Again, in life there is no difference of foreground and distance, and

events are sometimes hurried on, sometimes left to linger

indefinitely. Art, on the contrary, consists in the employment of

foresight, and elaboration in arranging skillful and ingenious

transitions, in setting essential events in a strong light, simply by

the craft of composition, and giving all else the degree of relief, in

proportion to their importance, requisite to produce a convincing

sense of the special truth to be conveyed.

"Truth" in such work consists in producing a complete illusion by

following the common logic of facts and not by transcribing them

pell-mell, as they succeed each other.

Whence I conclude that the higher order of Realists should rather call

themselves Illusionists.

How childish it is, indeed, to believe in this reality, since to each

of us the truth is in his own mind, his own organs. Our own eyes and

ears, taste and smell, create as many different truths as there are

human beings on earth. And our brains, duly and differently informed

by those organs, apprehend, analyze, and decide as differently as if

each of us were a being of an alien race. Each of us, then, has simply

his own illusion of the world--poetical, sentimental, cheerful,

melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature. And the writer

has no other mission than faithfully to reproduce this illusion, with

all the elaborations of art which he may have learnt and have at his

command. The illusion of beauty--which is merely a conventional term

invented by man! The illusion of ugliness--which is a matter of

varying opinion! The illusion of truth--never immutable! The illusion

of depravity--which fascinates so many minds! All the great artists

are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.

Then we must not be wroth with any theory, since each is simply the

outcome, in generalizations, of a special temperament analyzing

itself.

Two of these theories have more particularly been the subject of

discussion, and set up in opposition to each other instead of being

admitted on an equal footing: that of the purely analytical novel,

and that of the objective novel.

The partisans of analysis require the writer to devote himself to

indicating the smallest evolutions of a soul, and all the most secret

motives of our every action, giving but a quite secondary importance

to the act and fact in itself. It is but the goal, a simple milestone,

the excuse for the book. According to them, these works, at once exact

and visionary, in which imagination merges into observation, are to be

written after the fashion in which a philosopher composes a treatise

on psychology, seeking out causes in their remotest origin, telling

the why and wherefore of every impulse, and detecting every reaction

of the soul's movements under the promptings of interest, passion, or

instinct.

The partisans of objectivity--odious word--aiming, on the contrary, at

giving us an exact presentment of all that happens in life, carefully

avoid all complicated explanations, all disquisitions on motive, and

confine themselves to let persons and events pass before our eyes. In

their opinion, psychology should be concealed in the book, as it is in

reality, under the facts of existence.

The novel as conceived of on these lines gains in interest; there is

more movement in the narrative, more color, more of the stir of life.

Hence, instead of giving long explanations of the state of mind of an

actor in the tale, the objective writer tries to discover the action

or gesture which that state of mind must inevitably lead to in that

personage, under certain given circumstances. And he makes him so

demean himself from one end of the volume to the other, that all his

actions, all his movements shall be the expression of his inmost

nature, of all his thoughts, and all his impulses or hesitancies. Thus

they conceal psychology instead of flaunting it; they use it as the

skeleton of the work, just as the invisible bony framework is the

skeleton of the human body. The artist who paints our portrait does

not display our bones.

To me it seems that the novel executed on this principle gains also in

sincerity. It is, in the first place, more probable, for the persons

we see moving about us do not divulge to us the motives from which

they act.

We must also take into account the fact that, even if by close

observation of men and women we can so exactly ascertain their

characters as to predict their behavior under almost any

circumstances, if we can say decisively: "Such a man, of such a

temperament, in such a case, will do this or that"; yet it does not

follow that we could lay a finger, one by one, on all the secret

evolutions of his mind--which is not our own; all the mysterious

pleadings of his instincts--which are not the same as ours; all the

mingled promptings of his nature--in which the organs, nerves, blood,

and flesh are different from ours.

However great the genius of a gentle, delicate man, guileless of

passions and devoted to science and work, he never can so completely

transfuse himself into the body of a dashing, sensual, and violent

man, of exuberant vitality, torn by every desire or even by every

vice, as to understand and delineate the inmost impulses and

sensations of a being so unlike himself, even though he may very

adequately foresee and relate all the actions of his life.

In short, the man who writes pure psychology can do no more than put

himself in the place of all his puppets in the various situations in

which he places them. It is impossible that he should change his

organs, which are the sole intermediary between external life and

ourselves, which constrain us by their perceptions, circumscribe our

sensibilities, and create in each of us a soul essentially dissimilar

to all those about us. Our purview and knowledge of the world, and our

ideas of life, are acquired by the aid of our senses, and we cannot

help transferring them, in some degree, to all the personages whose

secret and unknown nature we propose to reveal. Thus, it is always

ourselves that we disclose in the body of a king or an assassin, a

robber or an honest man, a courtesan, a nun, a young girl, or a coarse

market woman; for we are compelled to put the problem in this personal

form: "If _I_ were a king, a murderer, a prostitute, a nun, or a

market woman, what should _I_ do, what should _I_ think, how should

_I_ act?" We can only vary our characters by altering the age, the

sex, the social position, and all the circumstances of life, of that

_ego_ which nature has in fact inclosed in an insurmountable barrier

of organs of sense. Skill consists in not betraying this _ego_ to the

reader, under the various masks which we employ to cover it.

Still, though on the point of absolute exactitude, pure psychological

analysis is impregnable, it can nevertheless produce works of art as

fine as any other method of work.

Here, for instance we have the _Symbolists_. And why not? Their

artistic dream is a worthy one; and they have this especially

interesting feature: that they know and proclaim the extreme

difficulty of art.

And, indeed, a man must be very daring or foolish to write at all

nowadays. And so many and such various masters of the craft, of such

multifarious genius, what remains to be done that has not been done,

or what to say that has not been said? Which of us all can boast of

having written a page, a phrase, which is not to be found--or

something very like it--in some other book? When we read, we who are

so soaked in (French) literature that our whole body seems as it were

a mere compound of words, do we ever light on a line, a thought, which

is not familiar to us, or of which we have not had at least some vague

forecast?

The man who only tries to amuse his public by familiar methods, writes

confidently, in his candid mediocrity, works intended only for the

ignorant and idle crowd. But those who are conscious of the weight of

centuries of past literature, whom nothing satisfies, whom everything

disgusts because they dream of something better, to whom the bloom is

off everything, and who always are impressed with the uselessness, the

commonness of their own achievements--these come to regard literary

art as a thing unattainable and mysterious, scarcely to be detected

save in a few pages by the greatest masters.

A score of phrases suddenly discovered thrill us to the heart like a

startling revelation; but the lines which follow are just like all

other verse, the further flow of prose is like all other prose.

Men of genius, no doubt, escape this anguish and torment because they

bear within themselves an irresistible creative power. They do not sit

in judgment on themselves. The rest of us, who are no more than

persevering and conscientious workers, can only contend against

invincible discouragement by unremitting effort.

Two men by their simple and lucid teaching gave me the strength to try

again and again: Louis Bouilhet and Gustave Flaubert.

If I here speak of myself in connection with them, it is because their

counsels, as summed up in a few lines, may prove useful to some young

writers who may be less self-confident than most are when they make

their _début_ in print. Bouilhet, whom I first came to know somewhat

intimately about two years before I gained the friendship of Flaubert,

by dint of telling me that a hundred lines--or less--if they are

without a flaw and contain the very essence of the talent and

originality of even a second-rate man, are enough to establish an

artist's reputation, made me understand that persistent toil and a

thorough knowledge of the craft, might, in some happy hour of

lucidity, power, and enthusiasm, by the fortunate occurrence of a

subject in perfect concord with the tendency of our mind, lead to the

production of a single work, short but as perfect as we can make it.

Then I learned to see that the best-known writers have hardly ever

left us more than one such volume; and that needful above all else is

the good fortune which leads us to hit upon and discern, amid the

multifarious matter which offers itself for selection, the subject

which will absorb all our faculties, all that is of worth in us, all

our artistic powers.

At a later date, Flaubert, whom I had occasionally met, took a fancy

to me. I ventured to show him a few attempts. He read them kindly and

replied: "I cannot tell whether you will have any talent. What you

have brought me proves a certain intelligence; but never forget this,

young man: talent--as Chateaubriand[1] says--is nothing but long

patience. Go and work."

[Footnote 1: The idea did not originate with Chateaubriand.]

I worked; and I often went to see him, feeling that he liked me, for

he had taken to calling me, in jest, his disciple. For seven years I

wrote verses, I wrote tales, I even wrote a villainous play. Nothing

of all this remains. The master read it all; then, the next Sunday

while we breakfasted together, he would give me his criticisms,

driving into me by degrees two or three principles which sum up the

drift of his long and patient exhortations: "If you have any

originality," said he, "you must above all things bring it out; if you

have not you must acquire it."

Talent is long patience.

Everything you want to express must be considered so long, and so

attentively, as to enable you to find some aspect of it which no one

has yet seen and expressed. There is an unexplored side to everything,

because we are wont never to use our eyes but with the memory of what

others before us have thought of the things we see. The smallest thing

has something unknown in it; we must find it. To describe a blazing

fire, a tree in a plain, we must stand face to face with that fire or

that tree, till to us they are wholly unlike any other fire or tree.

Thus we may become original.

Then, having established the truth that there are not in the whole

world two grains of sand, two flies, two hands, or two noses

absolutely alike, he would make me describe in a few sentences some

person or object, in such a way as to define it exactly, and

distinguish it from every other of the same race or species.

"When you pass a grocer sitting in his doorway," he would say, "a

porter smoking his pipe, or a cab stand, show me that grocer and that

porter, their attitude and their whole physical aspect, including, as

indicated by the skill of the portrait, their whole moral nature, in

such a way that I could never mistake them for any other grocer or

porter; and by a single word give me to understand wherein one cab

horse differs from fifty others before or behind it."

I have explained his notions of style at greater length in another

place; they bear a marked relation to the theory of observation I have

just laid down. Whatever the thing we wish to say, there is but one

word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one

adjective to qualify it. We must seek till we find this noun, this

verb, and this adjective, and never be content with getting very near

it, never allow ourselves to play tricks, even happy ones, or have

recourse to sleights of language to avoid a difficulty. The subtlest

things may be rendered and suggested by applying the hint conveyed in

Boileau's line:

"D'un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir." "He taught the power

of a word put in the right place."

There is no need for an eccentric vocabulary to formulate every shade

of thought--the complicated, multifarious, and outlandish words which

are put upon us nowadays in the name of artistic writing; but every

modification of the value of a word by the place it fills must be

distinguished with extreme clearness. Give us fewer nouns, verbs, and

adjectives, with almost inscrutable shades of meaning, and let us have

a greater variety of phrases, more variously constructed, ingeniously

divided, full of sonority and learned rhythm. Let us strive to be

admirable in style, rather than curious in collecting rare words.

It is in fact more difficult to bend a sentence to one's will and make

it express everything--even what it does not say, to fill it full of

implications of covert and inexplicit suggestions, than to invent new

expressions, or seek out in old and forgotten books all those which

have fallen into disuse and lost their meaning, so that to us they are

as a dead language.

The French tongue, to be sure, is a pure stream, which affected

writers never have and never can trouble. Each age has flung into the

limpid waters its pretentious archaisms and euphuisms, but nothing has

remained on the surface to perpetuate these futile attempts and

impotent efforts. It is the nature of the language to be clear,

logical, and vigorous. It does not lend itself to weakness, obscurity,

or corruption.

Those who describe without duly heeding abstract terms, those who make

rain and hail fall on the _cleanliness_ of the window panes, may throw

stones at the simplicity of their brothers of the pen. The stones may

indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt

simplicity--which has none.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT.

LA GUILLETTE, ETRETAT, September, 1887.

PIERRE ET JEAN

CHAPTER I

"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.

Madame Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Madame Rosémilly,

who had been invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning

her head to look at her husband, said:

"Well, well! Gérome."

And the old fellow replied in a fury:

"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."

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:

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

M. Roland was abashed, and apologized.

"I beg your pardon, Madame 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."

Madame Roland was now quite awake, and gazing with a softened look at

the wide horizon of cliff and sea.

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

But her husband shook his head in denial, though at the same time 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:

"Cristi! But they are fresh enough!" and he went on: "How many did you

pull out, doctor?"

His eldest son, Pierre, a man of thirty, with black whiskers trimmed

square like a lawyer's, his moustache and beard shaved away, replied:

"Oh, not many; three or four."

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

Jean, a tall fellow, much younger than his brother, fair, with a full

beard, smiled and murmured:

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

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:

"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.

He was a retired jeweler 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 et Jean, had remained at Paris to continue their

studies, and came for the holidays from time to time to share their

father's amusements.

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 ardor 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.

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 at Havre if they could find a satisfactory

opening.

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 everlastingly

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 toward generous ideas and

the liberal professions.

Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words:

"Look at Jean and follow his example," but every time he heard them

say "Jean did this--Jean does that," he understood their meaning and

the hint the words conveyed.

Their mother, an orderly soul, 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 in common gave rise day by day.

Another little circumstance, too, just now disturbed her peace of

mind, and she was in fear of some complication; 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 neighbor, 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 weighed 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 neighbors, who would

give her a cup of tea.

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.

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.

Their mother, being practical and prudent, sincerely hoped that one of

them might win the young widow, for she was rich; and then she would

have liked that the other should not be grieved.

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.

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 woman--all women, poor weak things.

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.

But one evening of the week before, as Mme. Rosémilly, who had been

dining with them, remarked, "It must be great fun to go out fishing,"

the jeweler, flattered on his passion, and suddenly fired with the

wish to impart it, to make a convert after the manner of priests,

exclaimed: "Would you like to come?"

"To be sure I should."

"Next Tuesday?"

"Yes, next Tuesday."

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

She exclaimed in horror:

"No, indeed: that is too much."

He was disappointed and chilled, suddenly doubting her true vocation.

However, he said:

"At what hour can you be ready?"

"Well--at nine?"

"Not before?"

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

The old fellow hesitated; he certainly would catch nothing, for when

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.

So on the following Tuesday the _Pearl_ had dropped anchor under the

white rocks of Cape la Héve; they had fished till mid-day, 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.

Now he contemplated the spoil--his fish--with the joyful thrill of a

miser; and seeing as he looked up at the sky that the sun was getting

low: "Well, boys," said he, "suppose we turn homeward."

The young men hauled in their lines, coiled them up, cleaned the hooks

and stuck them into corks, and sat waiting.

Roland stood up to look out like a captain:

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

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

"Here comes the packet from Southampton."

Away over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and

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 the southward other wreaths of smoke, numbers of

them, could be seen, all converging toward the Havre pier, now

scarcely visible as a white streak with the light-house, upright, like

a horn, at the end of it.

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

"Yes, to-day."

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

The father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, sought

the speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed:

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

look, Mme. Rosémilly?"

She took the telescope and directed it toward the Atlantic horizon,

without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she could

distinguish nothing--nothing but blue, with a colored halo round it, a

circular rainbow--and then all manner of queer things, winking

eclipses which made her feel sick.

She said as she returned the glass:

"I never could see with that thing. It used to put my husband in quite

a rage; he would stand for hours at the window watching the ships

pass."

Old Roland, much put out, retorted:

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

one."

Then he offered it to his wife.

"Would you like to look?"

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

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.

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.

Since settling at Havre she had become perceptibly stouter, and her

figure, which had been very supple and slight, had grown heavier.

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.

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.

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.

Pierre, who was the 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.

Both at once, as if by a single effort, they dipped the oars and lay

back, pulling with all their might, and then a struggle began 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.

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.

At first Pierre had the advantage. With his teeth set, his brow knit,

his legs rigid, his hands clenched 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.

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:

"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."

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

"No, thanks, it will go off."

And their mother, somewhat vexed, said:

"Why, Pierre, what rhyme or reason is there in getting in such a

state. You are not a child."

And he shrugged his shoulders and set to once more.

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.

But father Roland presently called out:

"Look, the _Prince Albert_ is catching us up!"

They all looked round. Long and low in the water, with her two raking

funnels and two yellow paddle-boxes like two round cheeks, the

Southampton packet came plowing 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.

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.

There were other vessels, each with its smoky cap, coming in from

every part of the horizon toward 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, toward 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

top-weight of tangled antlers. The hurrying steam-ships 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 mainmast to the fore-top in

canvas, white or brown, and ruddy in the setting sun.

Mme. Roland, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: "Good heavens, how

beautiful the sea is!"

And Mme. Rosémilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had no

sadness in it:

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

Roland exclaimed:

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

Then he described the coast opposite, far, far away, on the other side

of the mouth of the Seine--that mouth extended over twenty kilometers,

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 the pilots of Quilleboeuf 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: Etretat,

Fécamp, Saint-Valery, Tréport, Dieppe, and the rest.

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.

Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the

_Pearl_ was making for the harbor, a tiny thing among those huge

vessels.

When they came alongside of the quay, Papagris, who was waiting there,

gave his hand to the ladies to help them out, and they took the way

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

jeweler'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 _Bassin du Commerce_, 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 kilometers 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.

"Will you dine with us without any sort of ceremony, just that we may

end the day together?" said Mme. Roland to her friend.

"To be sure I will, with pleasure; I accept equally without ceremony.

It would be dismal to go home and be alone this evening."

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.

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 upstairs at her master's heels to the drawing-room,

which was on the first floor, and then said:

"A gentleman called--three times."

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

cried out:

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

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

"A gentleman from the lawyer's."

"What lawyer?"

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

"And what did this gentleman say?"

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

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, law-suits--all sorts of desirable or formidable

contingencies. The father, after a few moments of silence, muttered:

"What on earth can it mean?"

Mme. Rosémilly began to laugh.

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

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

anything.

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 cousinship.

Before even taking off her bonnet she said:

"I say, father" (she called her husband "Father" at home, and

sometimes "Monsieur Roland" before strangers), "tell me, do you

remember who it was that Joseph Lebru married for the second time?"

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

"Had they any children?"

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

"Not from that quarter, then."

She was quite eager already in her search; she caught at the hope 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:

"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."

Every one was surprised at the suggestion, and Jean was a little

ruffled by his brother's having spoken of it before Madame Rosémilly.

"And why for me rather than for you? The hypothesis is very

disputable. You are the elder; you, therefore, would be the first to

be thought of. Besides, I do not wish to marry."

Pierre smiled sneeringly:

"Are you in love, then?"

And the other, much put out, retorted:

"Is it necessary that a man should be in love because he does not care

to marry yet?"

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

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

But old Roland who had been listening and cogitating, suddenly hit

upon the most probable solution.

"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."

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

"Dinner is ready," said the maid. And they all hurried off to their

rooms to wash their hands before sitting down to table.

Ten minutes after they were at dinner in the little dining-room on the

ground-floor.

At first they were silent; but presently Roland began again in

amazement at this lawyer's visit.

"For after all, why did he not write? Why should he have sent his

clerk three times? Why is he coming himself?"

Pierre thought it quite natural.

"An immediate decision is required, no doubt; and perhaps there are

certain confidential conditions which it does not do to put into

writing."

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.

They had just gone upstairs again when the lawyer was announced.

Roland flew to meet him:

"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.

Mme. Rosémilly rose.

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

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.

Mme. Roland did the honors eagerly to their visitor.

"A cup of coffee, Monsieur?"

"No, thank you. I have this moment done dinner."

"A cup of tea, then?"

"Thank you, I will not refuse presently. First we must attend to

business."

The total 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.

The lawyer went on:

"Did you, in Paris, know a certain M. Maréchal--Léon Maréchal?"

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

"He was a friend of yours?"

Roland replied: "Our best friend, monsieur, but a fanatic for Paris;

never to be got away from the boulevard. He was 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--"

The lawyer gravely put in:

"M. Maréchal is deceased."

Both man and wife responded with the little movement of pained

surprise, genuine or false, but always ready, with which such news is

received.

Maître Lecanu went on:

"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."

They were all too much amazed to utter a single word. Mme. Roland was

the first to control her emotions and stammered out:

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

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 around

to these interesting facts he asked.

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

Maître Lecanu did not know in the least.

"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."

Old Roland could not conceal his delight and exclaimed:

"Sacristi! It is the thought of a kind heart. And if I had no heir I

would not have forgotten him; he was a true friend."

The lawyer smiled.

"I was very glad," he said, "to announce the event to you myself. It

is always a pleasure to be the bearer of good news."

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 just spoken of with so much conviction.

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.

The doctor murmured:

"He was a good fellow, very affectionate. He often invited us to dine

with him--my brother and me."

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:

"Yes, he was certainly fond of me. He would always embrace me when I

went to see him."

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.

"And there is no possible difficulty in the way?" he asked. "No

lawsuit--no one to dispute it?"

Maître Lecanu seemed quite easy.

"No; my Paris correspondent states that everything is quite clear. M.

Jean has only to sign his acceptance."

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

"Perfectly clear."

"All the necessary formalities have been gone through?"

"All."

Suddenly the old jeweler had an impulse of shame--obscure,

instinctive, and fleeting; shame of his eagerness to be informed, and

he added:

"You understand when I ask all these questions so immediately it is to

save my son disagreeables 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."

They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the "little

one," though he was much bigger than Pierre.

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:

"Were you not saying that our poor friend Maréchal had left his

fortune to my little Jean?"

"Yes, madame."

And she went on simply:

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

Roland had risen.

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

acceptance?"

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

if that suits you."

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

Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after 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:

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

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

The maid, on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in

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.

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.

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

Roland, leaning against the marble mantelshelf 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 armchairs that matched, one on each side of the center-table,

stared in front of them, in similar attitudes full of dissimilar

expression.

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.

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

at two?"

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

Jean had not spoken a word.

When their guest had gone, silence fell again till father Roland

clapped his two hands on his younger son's shoulders, crying:

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

Then Jean smiled. He embraced his father, saying:

"It had not struck me as indispensable."

The old man was beside himself with glee. He walked about the room,

strummed on the furniture with his clumsy nails, turned about on his

heels, and kept saying:

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

Pierre asked:

"Then you used to know this Maréchal well?"

And his father replied:

"I believe you! 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.'"

Mme. Roland, sunk in a deep chair, seemed lost in reminiscences once

more. She murmured, as though she were thinking aloud:

"Ah, he was a good friend, very devoted, very faithful, a rare soul in

these days."

Jean got up.

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

His father was surprised and tried to keep him; they had much to 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 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.

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:

"You see, my dearest, it would have been of 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."

She was quite serious.

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

"Pierre? But he is a doctor; he will make plenty of money; besides,

his brother will surely do something for him."

"No, he would not take it. Besides, this legacy is for Jean, only for

Jean. Pierre will find himself at a great disadvantage."

The old fellow seemed perplexed: "Well, then, we will leave him rather