... Father, now I can interpret your sadness. Alone I have once more made the pilgrimage of Malpas, and alone there, I could understand you better. You were thinking of your two elder sons, who, burning with sacrifice, would soon be far away, for the service of God and of the fatherland. You were thinking of your dear Mélanie, who, drawn by the severe serenity of the cloister, was awaiting the hour of her majority. The main branches of the tree of life that you had planted were detaching themselves from the trunk. You had been counting upon me to continue your work and I was escaping you. By yourself alone you had sustained the tottering house, and the house, overwhelming you with labours and cares, was separating your own from you. It is the penalty of material necessities,--they do not leave time enough for the guardianship of souls. But you were thinking of triumphing over time by the mere power of your virile love for me, and your eloquence. In one walk, one conversation, you had hoped to regain the ground you had lost, without violating the respect due to your father. The heart of a child of fourteen years is an obscure heart, especially when love has entered it too soon. I did feel the importance of what you were teaching me, and yet I was considering how to shake it off. The less clearly I understood the word liberty, the more it fascinated and drew me. All the music to which I was listening was the music that it made.... My father’s disappointment found expression in a gesture. Grieved at his inability to win me he suddenly seized me by the two arms as if to lift me from the ground, and prove that he possessed me. “Oh, understand me, poor child,” he exclaimed. “You must indeed understand me. Your whole future depends upon it.” “Father, you hurt,” was my only reply. I lied, for his grasp had merely surprised me. He tried to make light of it. “Oh, come, that’s not true! I didn’t hurt you in the least.” “Yes, you did,” I insisted with temper. He replied kindly, almost apologetically, “I did not mean to.” Ah, I might well be proud of myself! That strength which I dreaded had entreated instead of breaking me: it had not conquered me. He laid his hand on my head, no doubt to clear my mind of any mistaken interpretation of his former act, and though he did not lean hard upon it, I felt it heavy upon me. A few years earlier, grandfather, by the same imposition of hands, had invested me with the ownership of all nature. “Let us go back,” said my father. “Let us go back to the house.” He said “the house,” like me. Until then the expression had been too familiar to make an impression. This time it did impress me. On the homeward way we heard the detonations of small cannon, fired in honour of the elections. “So soon!” he said. “The Martinod list is elected.” The frustration of his public hopes had followed hard upon his paternal disappointment. For a moment he bowed his head, but it was only for a moment.