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

least of all against himself, so he resigned himself at once; and by instinctive tendency, a congenital love of peace, and of an easy and tranquil life, he began to anticipate the agitations which must surge up around him and at once be his ruin. He foresaw that they were inevitable, and to avert them he made up his mind to superhuman efforts of energy and activity. The knot must be cut immediately, this very day; for even he had fits of that imperious demand for a swift solution which is the only strength of weak natures, incapable of a prolonged effort of will. His lawyer’s mind, accustomed as it was to disentangling and studying complicated situations and questions of domestic difficulties in families that had got out of gear, at once foresaw the more immediate consequences of his brother’s state of mind. In spite of himself, he looked at the issue from an almost professional point of view, as though he had to legislate for the future relations of certain clients after a moral disaster. Constant friction against Pierre had certainly become unendurable. He could easily evade it, no doubt, by living in his own lodgings; but even then it was not possible that their mother should live under the same roof with her elder son. For a long time he sat meditating, motionless, on the cushions, devising and rejecting various possibilities, and finding nothing that satisfied him.

But suddenly an idea took him by storm. This fortune which had come to him. Would an honest man keep it?

“No,” was the first immediate answer, and he made up his mind that it must go to the poor. It was hard, but it could not be helped. He would sell his furniture and work like any other man, like any other beginner. This manful and painful resolution spurred his courage; he rose and went to the window, leaning his forehead against the pane. He had been poor; he could become poor again. After all he should not die of it. His eyes were fixed on the gas lamp burning at the opposite side of the street. A woman, much belated, happened to pass; suddenly he thought of Mme. Rosémilly with a pang at his heart, the shock of deep feeling which comes of a cruel suggestion. All the dire results of his decision rose up before him together. He would have to renounce his marriage, renounce happiness, renounce everything. Could he do such a thing after having pledged himself to her? She had accepted him knowing him to be rich. She would take him still if he were poor; but had he any right to demand such a sacrifice? Would it not be better to keep this money in trust, to be restored to the poor at some future date.

And in his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all these specious interests were struggling and contending. His first scruples yielded to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and again disappeared.

He sat down again, seeking some decisive motive, some all-sufficient pretext to solve his hesitancy and convince his natural rectitude. Twenty times over had he asked himself this question: “Since I am this man’s son, since I know and acknowledge it, is it not natural that I should also accept the inheritance?”

But even this argument could not suppress the “No” murmured by his inmost conscience.

Then came the thought: “Since I am not the son of the man I always believed to be my father, I can take nothing from him, neither during his lifetime nor after his death. It would be neither dignified nor equitable. It would be robbing my brother.”

This new view of the matter having relieved him and quieted his conscience, he went to the window again.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “I must give up my share of the family inheritance. I must let Pierre have the whole of it, since I am not his father’s son. That is but just. Then is it not just that I should keep my father’s money?”

Having discerned that he could take nothing of Roland’s savings, having decided on giving up the whole of this money, he agreed; he resigned himself to keeping Maréchal’s; for if he rejected both he would find himself reduced to beggary.

This delicate question being thus disposed of he came back to that of Pierre’s presence in the family. How was he to be got rid of? He was giving up his search for any practical solution when the whistle of a steam-vessel coming into port seemed to blow him an answer by suggesting a scheme.

Then he threw himself on his bed without undressing, and dozed and dreamed till daybreak.

At a little before nine he went out to ascertain whether his plans were feasible. Then, after making sundry inquiries and calls, he went to his old home. His mother was waiting for him in her room.

“If you had not come,” she said, “I should never have dared to go down.”

In a minute Roland’s voice was heard on the stairs: “Are we to have nothing to eat today, hang it all?”

There was no answer, and he roared out, with a thundering oath this time: “Joséphine, what the devil are you about?”

The girl’s voice came up from the depths of the basement.

“Yes, M’sieu⁠—what is it?”

“Where is your Miss’es?”

“Madame is upstairs with M’sieu Jean.”

Then he shouted, looking up at the higher floor: “Louise!”

Mme. Roland half opened her door and answered:

“What is it, my dear?”

“Are we to have nothing to eat today, hang it all?”

“Yes, my dear, I am coming.”

And she went down, followed by Jean.

Roland, as soon as he saw him, exclaimed:

“Hallo! There you are! Sick of your home already?”

“No, father, but I had something to talk over with mother this morning.”

Jean went forward holding out his hand, and when he felt his fingers in the old man’s fatherly clasp, a strange, unforeseen emotion thrilled through him, and a sense as of parting and farewell without return.

Mme. Roland asked:

“Pierre is not