Ah! how I repented of the fact that I did not love 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...." "All right, Marie. I am going to take the air.... I'll walk along the bank of the river, if you want me to." "No, Monsieur, you must take a walk in the woods.... The air there will do you good." "All right, Marie, I am going to take a walk in the woods." At times, seeing him inactive, slumbering, she would tap him on the shoulder: "Why don't you get your rifle, Monsieur? There are a lot of finches in the park." And looking at her with an air of reproach, my father would mutter: "Finches?... The poor things!..." Why did my father not write to me? Did my letters reach him at all? I reproached myself with having been too dry in my letters until now, and I promised myself to write to him the next day--the first opportunity I got--a long affectionate letter, in which I was going to pour out my heart to him.