FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  
gh to be an honest man. No one with the same clear vision as myself of what might happen would have hesitated any more than I did." "So you regret nothing?" He took her hand and, sadly: "Oh, mother, how can you talk like that, you who know me? How can I be indifferent to all this break-up around me?" He spoke the words with such despondency that she received an insight into his distress. But her anger with him was too great and especially their natures were too different for her to be touched by it. She concluded: "No matter, my boy, it's all your fault. If you had not listened to Suzanne...." He did not reply. The accusation cut into the most sensitive part of a wound which nothing could allay; and he was not the man to seek excuses. "Come," said his mother. She took him to another room on the second floor, further than the first from that which Marthe occupied: "Victor will bring you your bag and serve your meals in here; that will be best. And I will let your wife know." "Give her this letter, which I got ready for her," he said. "It is only asking for an interview, an explanation. She can't refuse." * * * In this way, in the course of that Tuesday, the Morestal family were once more gathered under the same roof; but in what heart-rending conditions! And how great was the hatred that now divided those beings once united by so warm an affection! Philippe felt the disaster in a way that was, so to speak, visible and palpable, during these hours in which each of his victims remained locked up, as though in a torture-chamber. Nothing could have distracted his mind from its obsession, and even the fear of that accursed war which he had not been able to avert. And yet news reached him at every moment, threatening news, like the news of a plague that comes nearer and nearer, despite the distance, despite the intervening waters. At lunch-time, it was Victor, who had hardly entered the room with Philippe's tray before he exclaimed: "Have you heard of the telegram from England, sir? The British premier has declared in parliament that, if war came, he would land a hundred thousand men at Brest and Cherbourg. That means an open alliance." Later on, he heard the gardener's son, Henriot, returning on his bicycle from Saint-Elophe, shouting to his father and Victor: "There's a mutiny at Strasburg! They're barricading the s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  



Top keywords:
Victor
 

Philippe

 

nearer

 

mother

 

reached

 
Strasburg
 
obsession
 

father

 
mutiny
 

accursed


torture

 

disaster

 
visible
 

barricading

 
affection
 

beings

 
united
 
palpable
 

chamber

 

Nothing


locked

 

remained

 

victims

 

distracted

 

premier

 

alliance

 

British

 

telegram

 

gardener

 

England


declared

 
parliament
 

thousand

 

Cherbourg

 

hundred

 
divided
 

bicycle

 
distance
 

intervening

 
waters

moment
 

Elophe

 
threatening
 
plague
 

exclaimed

 

Henriot

 
returning
 

entered

 
shouting
 

natures