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.
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!”
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.
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.
He came in not late for breakfast, and amused all the family by his fun
and good humour.
His mother, quite delighted, said to him:
“My little Pierre, you have no notion how humorous and clever you can
be when you choose.”
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.”
As they drank their coffee he said to his father:
“Are you going out in the Pearl to-day?”
“No, my boy.”
“May I have her with Jean Bart?”
“To be sure, as long as you like.”
He bought a good cigar at the first tobacconist’s and went down to 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.
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.
“You and I together, mate,” cried Pierre. He went down the iron ladder
of the quay and leaped into the vessel.
“Which way is the wind?” he asked.
“Due east still, M’sieu Pierre. A fine breeze out at sea.”
“Well, then, old man, off we go!”
They hoisted the foresail and weighed anchor; and the boat, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Suddenly the sailor said: “The fog is coming up, M’sieu Pierre. We must
go in.”
He looked up and saw to the northward a gray shade, filmy but dense,
blotting out the sky and covering the sea; it was sweeping down on 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:
“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.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” the doctor asked.
“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.”
Pierre turned pale. His anger seemed to press on his heart.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Boulevard François.”
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?”
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.”
She was silent for a few seconds and then went on:
“We must look out for something suitable for you; much less
pretentious, since you have nothing, but nice and pretty all the same.
I assure you it will be to your advantage.”
Pierre replied contemptuously:
“For me! Oh, I shall make my way by hard work and learning.”
But his mother insisted: “Yes, but I assure you that to be well lodged
will be of use to you nevertheless.”
About half-way through the meal he suddenly asked:
“How did you first come to know this man Maréchal?”
Old Roland looked up and racked his memory:
“Wait a bit; I scarcely recollect. It is such an old story now. Ah,
yes, I remember. It was your mother who made the acquaintance with him
in 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.”
Pierre, who was eating beans, sticking his fork into them one by one as
if he were spitting them, went on:
“And when was it that you made his acquaintance?”
Again Roland sat thinking, but he could remember no more and appealed
to his wife’s better memory.
“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.”
She did in fact think it over for some minutes, and then replied in a
steady voice and with calm decision:
“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.”
Roland exclaimed:
“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.”
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_ was the cause of his great intimacy with my parents, why
did he leave all his money to my brother and nothing to me?”
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.
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.
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
_Groseillette_.
“Well,” said the doctor, “how is the liqueur getting on?”
The Pole explained that four of the chief cafés in the town had agreed
to have it on sale, and that two papers, the _Northcoast Pharos_ and
the _Havre Semaphore_, would advertise it, in return for certain
chemical preparations to be supplied to the editors.
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.
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.”
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?
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 _Groseillette_, shook hands with the
astounded druggist, and plunged out into the foggy streets again.
He asked himself: “What made this Maréchal leave all his fortune to
Jean?”
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“How are you, my children?” he would say. “Have you any news of your
parents? As for me, they never write to me.”
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.
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.
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.
Then in an undertone, as a man speaks in a nightmare, he muttered: “I
must know. My God! I must know.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
And what next—what next—good God—what next?
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?
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?
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.
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.
Then all was silent once more.
Pierre had opened his eyes and was looking about him, startled to find
himself here, roused from his nightmare.
“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.
Would she have deceived his father—she?
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.
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?
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.
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!
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!
He hurried off homeward. What was he going to do?
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.
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:
“What ship?” And out of the fog the voice of the pilot standing on
deck—not less hoarse—replied:
“The Santa Lucia.”
“Where from?”
“Italy.”
“What port?”
“Naples.”
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.
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.
Another vessel was coming in behind the other, huge and mysterious. An
English India-man, homeward bound.
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.
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.
Then he went in and to bed, and by sheer force of will he at last
dropped asleep.