Chapter 2 - Page 2

always master of one's self; there are sudden and pertinacious emotions
against which a man struggles in vain.

He fell into meditation on the physiological problem of the impression
produced on the instinctive element in man, and giving rise to a current
of painful or pleasurable sensations diametrically opposed to those
which the thinking man desires, aims at, and regards as right and
wholesome, when he has risen superior to himself by the cultivation of
his intellect. He tried to picture to himself the frame of mind of a son
who had inherited a vast fortune, and who, thanks to that wealth, may
now know many long-wished-for delights, which the avarice of his father
had prohibited--a father, nevertheless, beloved and regretted.

He got up and walked on to the end of the pier. He felt better, and
glad to have understood, to have detected himself, to have unmasked _the
other_ which lurks in us.

"Then I was jealous of Jean," thought he. "That is really vilely mean.
And I am sure of it now, for the first idea which came into my head was
that he would marry Mme. Rosemilly. And yet I am not in love myself with
that priggish little goose, who is just the woman to disgust a man with
good sense and good conduct. So it is the most gratuitous jealousy, the
very essence of jealousy, which is merely because it is! I must keep an
eye on that!"

By this time he was in front of the flag-staff, whence the depth of
water in the harbour is signalled, and he struck a match to read the
list of vessels signalled in the roadstead and coming in with the next
high tide. Ships were due from Brazil, from La Plata, from Chili
and Japan, two Danish brigs, a Norwegian schooner, and a Turkish
steamship--which startled Pierre as much as if it had read a Swiss
steamship; and in a whimsical vision he pictured a great vessel crowded
with men in turbans climbing the shrouds in loose trousers.

"How absurd!" thought he. "But the Turks are a maritime people, too."

A few steps further on he stopped again, looking out at the roads. On
the right, above Sainte-Adresse, the two electric lights of Cape la
Heve, like monstrous twin Cyclops, shot their long and powerful beams
across the sea. Starting from two neighbouring centres, the two parallel
shafts of light, like the colossal tails of two comets, fell in a
straight and endless slope from the top of the cliff to the uttermost
horizon. Then, on the two piers, two more lights, the children of these
giants, marked the entrance to the harbour; and far away on the other
side of the Seine others were in sight, many others, steady or winking,
flashing or revolving, opening and shutting like eyes--the eyes of the
ports--yellow, red, and