elf speak
with astonishment; but there was no way of returning to solid ground;
the very silence of Pierre was like a declivity down which the stream
glided....

She recited the facts of her infant life in the provinces. She came from
Touraine. Her mother belonging to a well-to-do family of the solid
_bourgeoisie_ became infatuated with a tutor, the son of a farmer. The
_bourgeois_ family opposed the marriage; but the two lovers were
obstinate; the young girl had waited until she was of age in order to
send out the legal summons to her family. After the marriage her people
would not recognize her. The young couple lived through years of
affection and hard fare. The husband wore himself out at his task and
sickness arrived. The wife accepted this further burden courageously;
she worked for two. Her parents, obstinately cherishing their wounded
pride, refused to do anything to come to his assistance. The sick man
died a few months before the outbreak of the war. And the two women did
not try to renew connection with the mother's family. The latter would
have welcomed the young girl if she had made any advances; she would
have been received like a _mea culpa_ condoning the action of her
mother. But the family might wait! Rather eat stones for breakfast!

Pierre was amazed at the hard heartedness of these _bourgeois_ parents.
Luce did not find it extraordinary.

"Don't you believe there are a great many people like that? Not wicked.
No, I am sure that my grandparents are not, and even believe that it
pained them not to say to us: 'Come back!' But their self-respect had
been mortified too much. And self-love among these people, there's
nothing else that is so great. It is stronger than all the rest. When
one has done them wrong it is not merely the wrong that one has done
them; there is _the Wrong_; the others are wrong and they themselves are
right. And so, without being cruel (no, really, they are not) they would
let you die near them at a slow fire rather than concede that perhaps
after all they were not right. Oh, they are not the only ones! One meets
with many others!... Say, am I mistaken? Aren't they just like that?"

Pierre pondered. He was excited. For he was thinking:

"Why, yes. That is the way they are...."

Through the eyes of the little girl he saw abruptly the penury of heart,
the desert-like aridity of this _bourgeois_ class of which he formed a
part. Dry and wornout earth which little by little has imb