"No. But I could not see my mother on that bed, my wife, my children, without yearning for the right life which might have been mine. Do you understand? Elizabeth closed my mother's eyes; it is she who is bringing up Marie Louise and little Philippe alone. Yesterday she spoke to me with so much emotion and consideration. I was not alone in my grief. She has changed very much. She is more beautiful. And by a strange reaction, now that we are only strangers, the one to the other, it seems as though she had acquired all the characteristics which I formerly wished her to have." "Strangers? It is not final. There is nothing final." "Yes, death. Yesterday, I assure you, I envied my mother. Her face was so peaceful, so calm, so pure. One no longer suffers. And, above all, one does not make anyone else suffer. Yes, it is a solution. I have thought of it." "Albert!" "The day before yesterday, this morning again. It is a thought which will return to me. Elizabeth would be free. She deserves to be free, to be happy. I can do nothing now to make her so, and do not even wish that she should be: I am so selfish, so illogical." "You are jealous of her--you still love her." "I have loved her. The past overwhelms me here. I inhale it with every breath." The conversation lagged. Philippe sought a word to turn it. "When are you going away?" he asked, to change the subject. "This evening." "So soon. To Paris?" "No. Anne is waiting for me at Lyons." "Ah. When will you be back?" "I don't know. Perhaps never. Like most men I have not ordered my life. I can change nothing, and when I cross this threshold, I feel like a miserable brute. It is odious." He was exalted by these last words. "And your children," said Philippe. "Their mother is not so indifferent to me that I dare to take them from her. They have become her aim in life. How could I tear them away from her?" And tortured by this question which repeated itself over and over again in his mind, he spoke of it again. "I am an outsider to my own family. How can I crush my wife by demanding this from her? And then her shortcomings are no longer anything compared with mine." For the first time he condemned himself. "Will you answer me?" asked Philippe brusquely. "Are you happy?" Albert looked at him with an expression of bitter irony. "I have lost my mother without seeing her again. I have lost my children, my home, my peace--A little while ago I spoke of dying. And you ask me if I am happy." "I did not mean to offend you, Albert. There is such power in love that it longs to subordinate our greatest misfortunes--or it can give us strength to bear them. You have never known that love--or you no longer feel it." "You are wrong: I still feel it. But love has never fulfilled a man's entire life." "One last word. If you gave up ... that love...."