Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/37

Rh dreading the creation of a hero in the usual sense, exercises much restraint in drawing his principal character. There is nothing heroic in Pierre Roland, but fate deals him some hard buffets. In the following scene the son, whose younger brother has been left a fortune by an old friend of his mother's, fights against the conviction that there is something sinister about the legacy. It is an illustration alike of Maupassant's intense vividness, and of his art in analyzing a complex emotion. Pierre has wandered down to the harbour at night, and has been feverishly recalling the visits of the dead friend in old days—his manner to each of the boys—a half-forgotten portrait—a possible resemblance.

His misery at this thought was so intense that he uttered a groan, one of those brief moans wrung from the breast by a too intolerable pang. And immediately, as if it had heard him, as if it had understood and answered him, the fog-horn on the pier bellowed out close to him. Its voice, like that of a fiendish monster, more resonant than thunder—a savage and appalling roar contrived to drown the clamour of the wind and waves—spread through the darkness, across the sea, which was invisible under its shroud of fog. And again, through the mist, far and near, responsive cries