第 19 页

the Abbe to the servant. "Light a lamp and take it into my room, and get

my bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once."

While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying these

instructions, the brothers went into their father's former laboratory, of

which the priest had now made a spacious study. And it was with a cry of

joyous astonishment that the _savant_ greeted them on seeing them enter

the room side by side, the one supporting the other. "What, together!" he

exclaimed. "Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greater

pleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding."

Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features. His

yellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeks

and jaw. Moreover, there was nothing imposing about him; he looked like

some old shop-keeping herbalist. At the same time he had a fine, broad,

smooth brow, and his eyes still glittered brightly beneath his tangled

hair.

"What, have you injured yourself, Guillaume?" he continued, as soon as he

saw the bandaged hand.

Pierre remained silent, so as to let his brother tell the story as he

chose. Guillaume had realised that he must confess the truth, but in

simple fashion, without detailing the circumstances. "Yes, in an

explosion," he answered, "and I really think that I have my wrist

broken."

At this, Bertheroy, whose glance was fixed upon him, noticed that his

moustaches were burnt, and that there was an expression of bewildered

stupor, such as follows a catastrophe, in his eyes. Forthwith the

_savant_ became grave and circumspect; and, without seeking to compel

confidence by any questions, he simply said: "Indeed! an explosion! Will

you let me see the injury? You know that before letting chemistry ensnare

me I studied medicine, and am still somewhat of a surgeon."

On hearing these words Pierre could not restrain a heart-cry: "Yes, yes,

master! Look at the injury--I was very anxious, and to find you here is

unhoped-for good fortune!"

The _savant_ glanced at him, and divined that the hidden circumstances of

the accident must be serious. And then, as Guillaume, smiling, though

paling with weakness, consented to the suggestion, Bertheroy retorted

that before anything else he must be put to bed. The servant just then

returned to say the bed was ready, and so they all went into the

adjoining room, where the injured man was soon undressed and helped

between the sheets.

"Light me, Pierre," said Bertheroy, "take the lamp; and let Sophie give

me a basin full of water and some cloths." Then, having gently washed the

wound, he resumed: "The devil! The wrist isn't broken, but it's a nasty

injury. I am afraid there must be a lesion of the bone. Some nails passed

through the flesh, did they not?"

Receiving no reply, he relapsed into silence. But his surprise was

increasing, and he closely examined the hand, which the flame of the

explosion had scorched, and even sniffed the shirt cuff as if seeking to

understand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of one

of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. In

the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were

characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.

"And so," he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by

professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put

you in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concocting

then?"

Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury,

had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and

agitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay

precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first

experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of

restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me,

master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility of

nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession."

"Oh! certainly, my friend," exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret. Your

discovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you are

capable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must be

aware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions of

others, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance and

motive."

So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant and

free from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his,

which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all the

academical titles that he bore as an official _savant_, made him a man of

the boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth,

as he himself said.

He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after

making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh.

Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the

morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some

comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be

well.

On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting up

and seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise his

loved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had to

take up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately retained full use

of his right hand, and was thus able to pen a few lines to say that he

would not be home that night. He addressed the note to Madame Leroi, the

mother of his deceased mistress, who, since the latter's death, had

remained with him and had reared his three sons. Pierre was aware also

that the household at Montmartre included a young woman of five or six

and twenty, the daughter of an old friend, to whom Guillaume had given

shelter on her father's death, and whom he was soon to marry, in spite of

the great difference in their ages. For the priest, however, all these

were vague, disturbing things, condemnable features of disorderly life,

and he had invariably pretended to be ignorant of them.

"So you wish this note to be taken to Montmartre at once?" he said to his

brother.

"Yes, at once. It is scarcely more than seven o'clock now, and it will be

there by eight. And you will choose a reliable man, won't you?"

"The best course will be for Sophie to take a cab. We need have no fear

with her. She won't chatter. Wait a moment, and I will settle

everything."

Sophie, on being summoned, at once understood what was wanted of her, and

promised to say, in reply to any questions, that M. Guillaume had come to

spend the night at his brother's, for reasons which she did not know. And

without indulging in any reflections herself, she left the house, saying

simply: "Monsieur l'Abbe's dinner is ready; he will only have to take the

broth and the stew off the stove."

However, when Pierre this time returned to the bedside to sit down there,

he found that Guillaume had fallen back with his head resting on both

pillows. And he looked very weary and pale, and showed signs of fever.

The lamp, standing on a corner of a side table, cast a soft light around,

and so deep was the quietude that the big clock in the adjoining

dining-room could be heard ticking. For a moment the silence continued

around the two brothers, who, after so many years of separation, were at

last re-united and alone together. Then the injured man brought his right

hand to the edge of the sheet, and the priest grasped it, pressed it

tenderly in his own. And the clasp was a long one, those two brotherly

hands remaining locked, one in the other.

"My poor little Pierre," Guillaume faintly murmured, "you must forgive me

for falling on you in this fashion. I've invaded the house and taken your

bed, and I'm preventing you from dining."

"Don't talk, don't tire yourself any more," interrupted Pierre. "Is not

this the right place for you when you are in trouble?"

A warmer pressure came from Guillaume's feverish hand, and tears gathered

in his eyes. "Thanks, my little Pierre. I've found you again, and you are

as gentle and loving as you always were. Ah! you cannot know how

delightful it seems to me."

Then the priest's eyes also were dimmed by tears. Amidst the deep

quietude, the great sense of comfort which had followed their violent

emotion, the brothers found an infinite charm in being together once more

in the home of their childhood.* It was there that both their father and

mother had died--the father tragically, struck down by an explosion in

his laboratory; the mother piously, like a very saint. It was there, too,

in that same bed, that Guillaume had nursed Pierre, when, after their

mother's death, the latter had nearly died; and it was there now that

Pierre in his turn was nursing Guillaume. All helped to bow them down and

fill them with emotion: the strange circumstances of their meeting, the

frightful catastrophe which had caused them such a shock, the

mysteriousness of the things which remained unexplained between them. And

now that after so long a separation they were tragically brought together

again, they both felt their memory awaking. The old house spoke to them

of their childhood, of their parents dead and gone, of the far-away days

when they had loved and suffered there. Beneath the window lay the

garden, now icy cold, which once, under the sunbeams, had re-echoed with

their play. On the left was the laboratory, the spacious room where their

father had taught them to read. On the right, in the dining-room, they

could picture their mother cutting bread and butter for them, and looking

so gentle with her big, despairing eyes--those of a believer mated to an

infidel. And the feeling that they were now alone in that home, and the

pale, sleepy gleam of the lamp, and the deep silence of the garden and

the house, and the very past itself, all filled them with the softest of

emotion blended with the keenest bitterness.

* See M. Zola's "Lourdes," Day I., Chapter II.

They would have liked to talk and unbosom themselves. But what could they

say to one another? Although their hands remained so tightly clasped, did

not the most impassable of chasms separate them? In any case, they

thought so. Guillaume was convinced that Pierre was a saint, a priest of

the most robust faith, without a doubt, without aught in common with

himself, whether in the sphere of ideas or in that of practical life. A

hatchet-stroke had parted them, and each lived in a different world. And

in the same way Pierre pictured Guillaume as one who had lost caste,

whose conduct was most suspicious, who had never even married the mother

of his three children, but was on the point of marrying that girl who was

far too young for him, and who had come nobody knew whence. In him,

moreover, were blended the passionate ideas of a _savant_ and a

revolutionist, ideas in which one found negation of everything,

acceptance and possibly provocation of the worst forms of violence, with

a glimpse of the vague monster of Anarchism underlying all. And so, on

what basis could there be any understanding between them, since each

retained his prejudices against the other, and saw him on the opposite

side of the chasm, without possibility of any plank being thrown across

it to enable them to unite? Thus, all alone in that room, their poor

hearts bled with distracted brotherly love.

Pierre knew that, on a previous occasion, Guillaume had narrowly escaped

being compromised in an Anarchist affair. He asked him no questions, but

he could not help reflecting that he would not have hidden himself in

this fashion had he not feared arrest for complicity. Complicity with

Salvat? Was he really an accomplice? Pierre shuddered, for the only

materials on which he could found a contrary opinion were, on one hand,

the words that had escaped his brother after the crime, the cry he had

raised accusing Salvat of having stolen a cartridge from him; and, on the

other hand, his heroic rush into the doorway of the Duvillard mansion in

order to extinguish the match. A great deal still remained obscure; but

if a cartridge of that frightful explosive had been stolen from Guillaume

the fact must be that he manufactured such cartridges and had others at

home. Of course, even if he were not an accomplice, the injury to his

wrist had made it needful for him to disappear. Given his bleeding hand,

and the previous suspicions levelled against him, he would never have

convinced anybody of his innocence. And yet, even allowing for these

surmises, the affair remained wrapt in darkness: a crime on Guillaume's

part seemed a possibility, and to Pierre it was all dreadful to think of.

Guillaume, by the trembling of his brother's moist, yielding hand, must

in some degree have realised the prostration of his poor mind, already

shattered by doubt and finished off by this calamity. Indeed, the

sepulchre was empty now, the very ashes had been swept out of it.

"My poor little Pierre," the elder brother slowly said. "Forgive me if I

do not tell you anything. I cannot do so. And besides, what would be the

use of it? We should certainly not understand one another.... So let

us keep from saying anything, and let us simply enjoy the delight of

being together and loving one another in spite of all."

Pierre raised his eyes, and for a long time their glances lingered, one

fixed on the other. "Ah!" stammered the priest, "how frightful it all

is!"

Guillaume, however, had well understood the mute inquiry of Pierre's

eyes. His own did not waver but replied boldly, beaming with purity and

loftiness: "I can tell you nothing. Yet, all the same, let us love each

other, my little Pierre."