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

have no regrets; that I love him still even in death; that I shall always love him and never loved any other man; that he was my life, my joy, my hope, my comfort, everything⁠—everything in the world to me for so long! Listen, my boy, before God, who hears me, I should never have had a joy in my existence if I had not met him; never anything⁠—not a touch of tenderness or kindness, not one of those hours which make us regret growing old⁠—nothing. I owe everything to him! I had but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother and you. But for you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. I should never have loved, or known, or cared for anything⁠—I should not even have wept⁠—for I have wept, my little Jean; oh, yes, and bitter tears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for ten years I was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who created us for each other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He was always kind and courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. It was all over! Oh, how I have cried! How dreadful and delusive life is! Nothing lasts. Then we came here⁠—I never saw him again; he never came. He promised it in every letter. I was always expecting him, and I never saw him again⁠—and now he is dead! But he still cared for us since he remembered you. I shall love him to my latest breath, and I never will deny him, and I love you because you are his child, and I could never be ashamed of him before you. Do you understand? I could not. So if you wish me to remain you must accept the situation as his son, and we will talk of him sometimes; and you must love him a little and we must think of him when we look at each other. If you will not do this⁠—if you cannot⁠—then goodbye, my child; it is impossible that we should live together. Now, I will act by your decision.”

Jean replied gently:

“Stay, mother.”

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

“Well, but Pierre. What can we do about Pierre?”

Jean answered:

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

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

“No, I cannot; no, no!” And throwing herself on Jean’s breast she cried in distress of mind:

“Save me from him, you, my little one. Save me; do something⁠—I don’t know what. Think of something. Save me.”

“Yes, mother, I will think of something.”

“And at once. You must, this minute. Do not leave me. I am so afraid of him⁠—so afraid.”

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

“But at once; quick, quick! You cannot imagine what I feel when I see him.”

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

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

“Only for tonight,” she said. “Only for tonight. And tomorrow morning you can send word to Roland that I was taken ill.”

“That is out of the question, as Pierre left you here. Come, take courage. I will arrange everything, I promise you, tomorrow; I will be with you by nine o’clock. Come, put on your bonnet. I will take you home.”

“I will do just what you desire,” she said with a childlike impulse of timidity and gratitude.

She tried to rise, but the shock had been too much for her; she could not stand.

He made her drink some sugared water and smell at some salts, while he bathed her temples with vinegar. She let him do what he would, exhausted, but comforted, as after the pains of childbirth. At last she could walk and she took his arm. The town hall struck three as they went past.

Outside their own door Jean kissed her, saying:

“Good night, mother, keep up your courage.”

She stealthily crept up the silent stairs, and into her room, undressed quickly, and slipped into bed with a reawakened sense of that long-forgotten sin. Roland was snoring. In all the house Pierre alone was awake, and had heard her come in.

VIII

When he got back to his lodgings Jean dropped on a sofa; for the sorrows and anxieties which made his brother long to be moving, and to flee like a hunted prey, acted differently on his torpid nature and broke the strength of his arms and legs. He felt too limp to stir a finger, even to get to bed; limp body and soul, crushed and heartbroken. He had not been hit, as Pierre had been, in the purity of filial love, in the secret dignity which is the refuge of a proud heart; he was overwhelmed by a stroke of fate which, at the same time, threatened his own nearest interests.

When at last his spirit was calmer, when his thoughts had settled like water that has been stirred and lashed, he could contemplate the situation which had come before him. If he had learned the secret of his birth through any other channel he would assuredly have been very wroth and very deeply pained, but after his quarrel with his brother, after the violent and brutal betrayal which had shaken his nerves, the agonizing emotion of his mother’s confession had so bereft him of energy that he could not rebel. The shock to his feeling had been so great as to sweep away in an irresistible tide of pathos, all prejudice, and all the sacred delicacy of natural morality. Besides, he was not a man made for resistance. He did not like contending against anyone,