"Ah! I feel it already," said Emile, "and I have passed from a day of bright sunshine and intoxicating bliss into the shadow of death. But the profound and irreparable calamity that forces itself upon my mind, whatever sacrifice I may resolve upon, is this--that my heart has become as ice toward my father, and that, for several hours past, it has seemed to me that I no longer love him, that I no longer dread to wound him, that I no longer feel either respect or esteem for him. O my God, preserve me from this suffering beyond my strength! Hitherto, as you know, despite all the pain and terror he has caused me, I still cherished him and I put forth all the strength of my heart to believe in him. I felt in the very depths of my being that I was still his son and his friend, and to-day it seems to me that the bond of blood is broken forever, and that I am struggling against a strange master, who oppresses me, who weighs on my heart like an enemy, like a ghost! Ah! I remember a dream I had the first night I passed in this neighborhood. I dreamed that my father came and sat on me to suffocate me!--It was horrible; and now that ghastly vision is being realized; my father has placed his knees, his elbows, his feet on my breast; he is trying to tear out my conscience or my heart. He is poking about in my entrails to see what weak spot will give way to him. Oh! it is a devilish invention, a murderous project, which leads him astray. Is it possible that love of gold and worship of success can inspire such thoughts in a father's mind against his child? If you had seen the smile of triumph with which he displayed the sudden inspiration of his peculiar generosity! he was not a protector and adviser, but an adversary who has set a trap and seizes his foe with a fiendish laugh. 'Choose,' he seemed to say, 'and if you die, what does it matter? I shall have triumphed.'--O my God! it is horrible, horrible, to condemn and to hate one's father!" And poor Emile, crushed by grief, laid his face on the grass on which he was lying and watered it with burning tears. "Emile," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "you can neither hate your father nor be false to your mistress. Tell me, do you set much store by the truth? Can you lie?" The marquis had touched the right spot. Emile sprang to his feet impetuously. "No, monsieur, no," he said, "you know that I cannot lie. And of what use is falsehood to cowards? What happiness, what repose can it assure them? If I swear to my father that I have changed my religion, that I believe in ignorance, error, injustice, folly, that I hate God in man, and that I despise man in myself, will some monstrous miracle take place in me? shall I be convinced? shall I find myself suddenly transformed into a placid and supercilious egotist?" "Perhaps so, Emile! in evil it is only the first step that costs, and whoever has deceived other men, reaches the point where he is able to deceive himself. That has happened often enough to be credible."