Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/65

 had seen him dead, and both the next day admitted that they had been mistaken.... Oh! tortures! God of vengeance!... He came back after a fortnight from this Way of the Cross, aged, broken-down, exhausted.

He found his wife in a paroxysm of frantic grief, which in this good-natured creature had turned to a furious hatred of the enemy; she cried out for revenge, and for the first time Clerambault did not answer. He had not strength enough to hate, he could only suffer.

He shut himself into his room. During that frightful ten days' pilgrimage he had scarcely looked his thoughts in the face, hypnotised as he was, day and night by one idea, like a dog on a scent,--faster! go faster! The slowness of carriages and trains consumed him, and once, when he had taken a room for the night, he rushed away the same evening, without stopping to rest. This fever of haste and expectation devoured everything, and made consecutive thought impossible,--which was his salvation. Now that the chase was ended, his mind, exhausted and dying, recovered its powers.

Clerambault knew certainly that Maxime was dead. He had not told his wife, but had concealed some information that destroyed all hope. She was one of those people who absolutely must keep a gleam of falsehood to lure them on, against all reason, until the first flood of grief is over. Perhaps Clerambault himself had been one of them, but he was not so now; for he saw where this lure had led him. He did not judge, he was not yet able to form a judgment, lying in the darkness. Too weak to rise, and feel about him, he was like someone who moves his crushed limbs after a fall, and with each stab of pain recovers consciousness of life, and tries to understand what has happened to him. The stupid gulf of this death overcame him. That this beautiful child, who had given them so much joy, cost them so much care, all this marvel of hope in flower, the priceless