Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant (top ten ebook reader .txt) 📗

there, still he instinctively tried to gain a few minutes.

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

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

Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who let themselves glide onward like running water. He had been duteous over his tasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studies with credit because his existence was tranquil. Everything in the world seemed to him quite natural and never aroused his particular attention. He loved order, steadiness, and peace, by temperament, his nature having no complications; and face to face with this catastrophe, he found himself like a man who has fallen into the water and cannot swim.

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

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

What was she doing? Not a movement, not a shudder, not a breath, not a sigh revealed the presence of a living creature behind that panel. Could she have run away? But how? If she had run away⁠—she must have jumped out of the window into the street. A shock of terror roused him⁠—so violent and imperious that he drove the door in rather than opened it, and flung himself into the bedroom.

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

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

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

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

“Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me!”

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

“Mother, mother, listen to me. It is not true. I know that it is not true.”

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

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

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

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

“No, my child; it is true.”

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

“It is true, my child. Why lie about it? It is true. You would not believe me if I denied it.”

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

“Hush, mother, be silent.” She stood up with terrible determination and energy.

“I have nothing more to say, my child. Goodbye.” And she went towards the door.

He threw his arms about her exclaiming:

“What are you doing, mother; where are you going?”

“I do not know. How should I know⁠—There is nothing left for me to do, now that I am alone.”

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

“Mother, mother, mother!” And through all her efforts to free herself she was saying:

“No, no. I am not your mother now, poor boy⁠—goodbye.”

It struck him clearly that if he let her go now he should never see her again; lifting her up in his arms he carried her to an armchair,