when he had remained late with a patient, as he was returning home in
the dusk a wild terror seized him at the faubourg, at sight of a thick
black smoke rising up in clouds that darkened the heavens. Was it not
La Souleiade that was burning down, set on fire by the bonfire made with
his papers? He ran toward the house, and was reassured only on seeing in
a neighboring field a fire of roots burning slowly.

But how terrible are the tortures of the scientist who feels himself
menaced in this way in the labors of his intellect! The discoveries
which he has made, the writings which he has counted upon leaving
behind him, these are his pride, they are creatures of his blood--his
children--and whoever destroys, whoever burns them, burns a part of
himself. Especially, in this perpetual lying in wait for the creatures
of his brain, was Pascal tortured by the thought that the enemy was in
his house, installed in his very heart, and that he loved her in spite
of everything, this creature whom he had made what she was. He was left
disarmed, without possible defense; not wishing to act, and having
no other resources than to watch with vigilance. On all sides the
investment was closing around him. He fancied he felt the little
pilfering hands stealing into his pockets. He had no longer any
tranquillity, even with the doors closed, for he feared that he was
being robbed through the crevices.

"But, unhappy child," he cried one day, "I love but you in the world,
and you are killing me! And yet you love me, too; you act in this way
because you love me, and it is abominable. It would be better to have
done with it all at once, and throw ourselves into the river with a
stone tied around our necks."

She did not answer, but her dauntless eyes said ardently that she would
willingly die on the instant, if it were with him.

"And if I should suddenly die to-night, what would happen to-morrow?
You would empty the press, you would empty the drawers, you would make
a great heap of all my works and burn them! You would, would you not?
Do you know that that would be a real murder, as much as if you
assassinated some one? And what abominable cowardice, to kill the
thoughts!"

"No," she said at last, in a low voice; "to kill evil, to prevent it
from spreading and springing up again!"

All their explanations only served to kindle anew their anger. And they
had terrible ones. And one evening, when old Mme. Rougon had chanced in
on one of the