Chapter 6

For a week or two nothing occurred. The father went fishing; Jean, with
his mother's help, was furnishing and settling himself; Pierre, very
gloomy, never was seen excepting at meal-times.

His father having asked him one evening: "Why the deuce do you always
com in with a face as cheerful as a funeral? This is not the first time
I have remarked it."

The doctor replied: "The fact is I am terribly conscious of the burden
of life."

The old man did not have a notion what he meant, and with an aggrieved
look he went on: "It really is too bad. Ever since we had the good luck
to come into this legacy, every one seems unhappy. It is as though some
accident had befallen us, as if we were in mourning for some one."

"I am in mourning for some one," said Pierre.

"You are? For whom?"

"For some one you never knew, and of whom I was too fond."

Roland imagined that his son alluded to some girl with whom he had had
some love passages, and he said:

"A woman, I suppose."

"Yes, a woman."

"Dead?"

"No. Worse. Ruined!"

"Ah!"

Though he was startled by this unexpected confidence, in his wife's
presence too, and by his son's strange tone about it, the old man made
no further inquiries, for in his opinion such affairs did not concern a
third person.

Mme. Roland affected not to hear; she seemed ill and was very pale.
Several times already her husband, surprised to see her sit down as if
she were dropping into her chair, and to hear her gasp as if she could
not draw her breath, had said:

"Really, Louise, you look very ill; you tire yourself too much with
helping Jean. Give yourself a little rest. Sacristi! The rascal is in no
hurry, as he is a rich man."

She shook her head without a word.

But to-day her pallor was so great that Roland remarked on it again.

"Come, come," said he, "this will not do at all, my dear old woman. You
must take care of yourself." Then, addressing his son, "You surely must
see that your mother is ill. Have you questioned her, at any rate?"

Pierre replied: "No; I had not noticed that there was anything the
matter with her."

At this Roland was angry.

"But it stares you in the face, confound you! What on earth is the good
of your being a doctor if you cannot even see that your mother is out of
sorts? Why, look at her, just look at her. Really, a man might die under
his very eyes and this doctor would never think there was anything the
matter!"

Mme. Roland was panting for breath, and so white that her