“I should think you could pretty well imagine,” said Edouard. Then, after a moment: “Are you?” “I?” said Bernard savagely, “... I could kill him.” VII THE AUTHOR REVIEWS HIS CHARACTERS THE traveller, having reached the top of the hill, sits down and looks about him before continuing his journey, which henceforward lies all downhill. He seeks to distinguish in the darkness--for night is falling--where the winding path he has chosen is leading him. So the undiscerning author stops awhile to regain his breath, and wonders with some anxiety where his tale will take him. I am afraid that Edouard, in confiding little Boris to Azaïs’s care, is committing an imprudence. Every creature acts according to his own law and Edouard’s leads him to constant experimentalizing. He has a kind heart, no doubt, but for the sake of others I should prefer to see him act out of self-interest; for the generosity which impels him is often merely the accompaniment of a curiosity which is liable to turn into cruelty. He knows Azaïs’s school; he knows the poisonous air that reigns in it, under the stifling cover of morality and religion. He knows Boris--how tender he is--how fragile. He ought to foresee the rubs to which he is exposing him. But he refuses to consider anything but the protection, the help, the support, which old Azaïs’s austerity will afford the little boy’s precarious purity. To what sophisms does he not lend an ear? They must be the promptings of the devil, for if they came from anyone else, he would not listen to them. Edouard has irritated me more than once (when he speaks of Douviers, for instance)--enraged me even; I hope I haven’t shown it too much; but now I may be allowed to say so. His behaviour to Laura--at times so generous--has at times seemed to me revolting. What I dislike about Edouard are the reasons he gives himself. Why does he try and persuade himself that he is conspiring for Boris’s good? Does the torrent which drowns a child pretend that it is giving him drink?... I do not deny that there are actions in the world that are noble, generous and even disinterested; I only say that there often lies hidden behind the good motive a devil who is clever enough to find his profit in the very thing one thought one was wresting from him. Let us make use of this summer season which disperses our characters to examine them at leisure. And besides, we have reached that middle point of our story, when its pace seems to slacken, in order to gather a new impetus and rush on again with swifter speed to its end. Bernard is assuredly much too young to take direction of an intrigue. He is convinced he will be able to guard Boris; but the very utmost he will be able to do is to observe him. We have already seen Bernard change; passions may come which will modify him still more. I find in a note-book a sentence or two in which I have written down what I thought of him some time ago: