Chapter 8 - Page 2

an idea took him by storm. This fortune which had come to
him. Would an honest man keep it?

"No," was the first immediate answer, and he made up his mind that it
must go to the poor. It was hard, but it could not be helped. He would
sell his furniture and work like any other man, like any other beginner.
This manful and painful resolution spurred his courage; he rose and went
to the window, leaning his forehead against the pane. He had been poor;
he could become poor again. After all he should not die of it. His eyes
were fixed on the gas lamp burning at the opposite side of the street.
A woman, much belated, happened to pass; suddenly he thought of Mme.
Rosemilly with a pang at his heart, the shock of deep feeling which
comes of a cruel suggestion. All the dire results of his decision rose
up before him together. He would have to renounce his marriage, renounce
happiness, renounce everything. Could he do such a thing after having
pledged himself to her? She had accepted him knowing him to be rich.
She would take him still if he were poor; but had he any right to demand
such a sacrifice? Would it not be better to keep this money in trust, to
be restored to the poor at some future date.

And in his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all these
specious interests were struggling and contending. His first scruples
yielded to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and again
disappeared.

He sat down again, seeking some decisive motive, some all-sufficient
pretext to solve his hesitancy and convince his natural rectitude.
Twenty times over had he asked himself this question: "Since I am this
man's son, since I know and acknowledge it, is it not natural that I
should also accept the inheritance?"

But even this argument could not suppress the "No" murmured by his
inmost conscience.

Then came the thought: "Since I am not the son of the man I always
believed to be my father, I can take nothing from him, neither during
his lifetime nor after his death. It would be neither dignified nor
equitable. It would be robbing my brother."

This new view of the matter having relieved him and quieted his
conscience, he went to the window again.

"Yes," he said to himself, "I must give up my share of the family
inheritance. I must let Pierre have the whole of it, since I am not his
father's son. That is but just. Then is it not just that I should keep
my father's money?"

Having discerned that he could take nothing of Roland's savings, having
decided on giving up the whole of this money, he agreed; he resigned
himself to keeping Marechal's; for if he rejected both he would find
himself reduced to