“And I had even agreed with Him,” added he, “that if needs were, I should delay my departure for a few days ... because of the assurance you had given me that you would bring him back with you, do you remember?” I had taken his hand; it was icy and I chafed it between mine. He continued in a monotonous voice: “Then when I saw that you weren’t going to wait till the end of the holidays before coming back, and that I should be able to see the boy without putting off my departure, I thought ... it seemed to me that God had heard my prayer. I thought that He approved me. Yes, I thought that. I didn’t understand at first that He was laughing at me, as usual.” He took his hand from between mine and went on in a more animated voice: “So it was on Wednesday evening that I had resolved to put an end to myself; and it was on Wednesday afternoon that you brought me Boris. I must admit that I did not feel the joy I had looked forward to on seeing him. I thought it over afterwards. Evidently I had no right to expect that the child would be glad to see me. His mother has never talked to him about me. He stopped; his lips trembled and I thought he was going to cry. “Boris asks no better than to love you,” I ventured, “but give him time to know you.” “After the boy had left me,” went on La Pérouse, without having heard me, “when I found myself alone again in the evening (for you know that Madame de La Pérouse is no longer here), I said to myself: ‘The moment has come! Now for it!’ You must know that my brother--the one I lost--left me a pair of pistols, which I always keep beside me, in a case, by my bedside. I went then to fetch the case. I sat down in an arm-chair; there, just as I am now. I loaded one of the pistols....” He turned towards me and abruptly, brutally, repeated, as if I had doubted his word: “Yes, I did load it. You can see for yourself. It still is loaded. What happened? I can’t succeed in understanding. I put the pistol to my forehead. I held it for a long time against my temple. And I didn’t fire. I couldn’t.... At the last moment--it’s shameful ... I hadn’t the courage to fire.” He had grown animated while speaking. His eye was livelier and his cheeks faintly flushed. He looked at me, nodding his head. “How do you explain that? A thing I had resolved on; a thing I hadn’t ceased thinking of for months.... Perhaps that’s the very reason. Perhaps I had exhausted all my courage in thought beforehand.” “As before Boris’s arrival, you had exhausted the joy of seeing him,” said I; but he continued: