"As soon as I perceived my parents, I crept furtively toward them, under the branches, in order to surprise them, as though Ihad been a veritable wolf. But suddenly seized with fear, Istopped a few paces from them. My father, a prey to the most violent passion, cried:
" 'Your mother is a fool; moreover, it is not your mother that is the question, it is you. I tell you that I want money, and I will make you sign this.'
"My mother responded in a firm voice:
" 'I will not sign it. It is Jean's fortune, I shall guard it for him and I will not allow you to devour it with strange women, as you have your own heritage.'
"Then my father, full of rage, wheeled round and seized his wife by the throat, and began to slap her full in the face with the disengaged hand.
"My mother's hat fell off, her hair became disheveled and fell down her back: she essayed to parry the blows, but could not escape from them. And my father, like a madman, banged and banged at her. My mother rolled over on the ground, covering her face in both her hands. Then he turned her over on her back in order to batter her still more, pulling away the hands which were covering her face.
"As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the world had come to an end, that the eternal laws had changed. I experienced the overwhelming dread that one has in presence of things supernatural, in presence of irreparable disaster. My boyish head whirled round and soared. I began to cry with all my might, without knowing why, a prey to terror, to grief, to a dreadful bewilderment. My father heard me, turned round, and, on seeing me, made as though he would rush at me. I believed that he wanted to kill me, and I fled like a hunted animal, running straight in front of me through the woods.
"I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two, I know not. Darkness had set in, I tumbled over some thick herbs, exhausted, and I lay there lost, devoured by terror, eaten up by a sorrow capable of breaking forever the heart of a child. I became cold, I became hungry. At length day broke. I dared neither get up, walk, return home, nor save myself, fearing to encounter my father whom I did not wish to see again.
"I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot of a tree if the guard had not discovered me and led me away by force.
"I found my parents wearing their ordinary aspect. My mother alone spoke to me:
" 'How you have frightened me, you naughty boy; I have been the whole night sleepless.'
"I did not answer, but began to weep. My father did not utter a single word.
"Eight days later I entered the Lycee.
"Well, my friend, it was all over with me. I had witnessed the other side of things, the bad side; I have not been able to perceive the good side since that day. What things have passed in my mind, what strange phenomena have warped my ideas, I do not know. But I no longer have a taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, no ambition, no hope. And I can always see my poor mother lying on the ground, in the avenue, while my father was maltreating her.
My mother died a few years after; my father lives still. I have not seen him since. Waiter, a 'bock.' "A waiter brought him his "bock," which he swallowed at a gulp.
But, in taking up his pipe again, trembling as he was, he broke it. Then he made a violent gesture:
"Zounds! This is indeed a grief, a real grief. I have had it for a month, and it was coloring so beautifully!"Then he went off through the vast saloon, which was now full of smoke and of people drinking, calling out:
"Waiter, a 'bock'--and a new pipe."
