him enough. Perhaps he had not brought me up in the manner he should have done. But what difference did it make? He did everything he could! . . . He was himself without experience in life, defenseless
against evil, of a kindly but timid nature. And in the
measure that the features of my father stood out clearly before me even to their smallest details, the face of my mother was obliterating itself, and I was no longer able to recall its endearing outline. At this moment all the affection that I had for my mother I
transferred to my father. I recalled with tenderness
how on the day my mother died he took me on his lap and said, "Perhaps it's for the best." And now I understood how much sorrow accumulated in the past and terror in facing the future there was summed up
in that phrase. It was for her sake that he said that, and also for the sake of one who resembled my mother so much, and not for his own consolation, unhappy man that he was, who had resigned himself to suffering all. . . . During the last three years he had aged very much; his tall frame was worn out, his face, formerly so red with the color of health, grew yellow and wrinkled, his hair became almost white. He no longer lay in wait for the birds in the park, he let the
cats rove among the lianas and lick the water from
the basin; he took little interest in his practice, the
direction of which he left to his chief clerk, a trusted
man who was stealing from him; he no longer occupied himself with the small but honorable affairs of his locality. He never went out, he would not even stir from his rocking-chair with small pillows which
he ordered moved into the kitchen, not wishing to stay alone without Marie who would bring him his cane and his hat.
"Well, Monsieur, you must take a little walk. You are getting all 'rusty' in your corner there. . . . "
