As he reflected thus, Julien ceased to swim and sank rapidly. He thought of his mother's despair, and when he touched bottom, he pushed himself up with his foot and returned to the surface. He was a good swimmer and could play with death thus without any risk; but the temptation was strong, and the thought of suicide produces a terrible vertigo. Three times he abandoned himself to the temptation, with increasing excitement, and three times he recovered himself, with decreasing resolution. As a fourth paroxysm, more violent than the others, was impending, Julien rushed ashore, afraid of himself, and threw himself on the sand, crying: "Forgive me, mother!" And he wept bitterly for the first time since his father's death. Tears did not relieve him. The tears of strong men are horrible cries and stifling sobs. He blushed to feel that he was so weak, and had to confess that he would be like that for a long while, perhaps forever. He returned home, dissatisfied with himself, and almost cursing the days of happiness he had enjoyed. He raged in his heart, and, wandering alone through the garden, while his mother slept, and the lightning constantly set the horizon on fire, he reproached his mother for loving him too well, and depriving him of liberty to dispose of himself. "Why!" he exclaimed, "to live always for some other than oneself is downright slavery! I have no right to die! Why have I a mother? They who belong to no one are the happiest; they can, if they still love a broken life, hurl themselves into the dissipation which distracts the mind, into the debauchery which intoxicates. But I have not even that right! Nor have I the right to be depressed and ill. I must burn at a slow fire, smiling all the while; a tear is a crime. I cannot breathe heavily, dream, utter an exclamation in the night without my mother rushing to my side, terrified and ill herself. I cannot depart from my habits, go on a journey, seek oblivion and diversion in motion and fatigue; anything of that sort would worry her. To live without me would kill her. I must be a hero or a saint so that my mother may live! Happy are the orphans and abandoned children! they are not doomed to bear a burden beyond their strength!" Julien had no sooner given vent to this revolt against destiny than other blasphemies entered his mind. Why had Julie disturbed his dream of self-sacrifice and virtue? Had he not accepted all the duties of his position? had he not performed those duties faithfully? By what right did that woman, because she was tired of solitude, take possession of his solitude? Was it not cowardly and blameworthy of her to give him a glimpse of the joys of heaven, although he neither hoped nor asked for anything, and then leave him to the humiliation of having believed in her?