Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/81

 It was a week before Clerambault could go out again. The terrible crisis through which he had passed had left him weak but resolved, and though the exaltation of his despair had quieted down, he was stoically determined to follow the truth even to the end. The remembrance of the errors in which his mind had delighted, and the half-truths on which it had fed made him humble; he doubted his own strength, and wished to advance step by step. He was ready to welcome the advice of those wiser than himself. He remembered how Perrotin listened to his former confidences with a sarcastic reserve that irritated him at the time, but which now attracted him. His first visit of convalescence was to this wise old friend.

Perrotin was rather short-sighted and selfish, and did not take the trouble to look carefully at things that were not necessary to him, being a closer observer of books than of faces, but he was none the less struck by the alteration in Clerambault's expression.

"My dear friend," said he, "have you been ill?"

"Yes, ill enough," answered Clerambault, "but I have pulled myself together again, and am better now."

"It is the cruelest blow of all," said Perrotin, "to lose at our age, such a friend as your poor boy was to you ..."

"The most cruel is not his loss," said the father, "it is that I contributed to his death."

"What do you mean, my good friend?" said Perrotin in surprise. "How can you imagine such things to add to your trouble?"

"It was I who shut his eyes," said Clerambault bitterly, "and he has opened mine."

Perrotin pushed aside the work, which according to his