ndon this stubbornly
respectful attitude. Thus, the moment she touched certain subjects, he
took refuge in absolute silence.

"Come," she continued; "I can understand that you should not wish to
yield to Clotilde; but to me? How if I were to entreat you to make me
the sacrifice of all those abominable papers which are there in the
press! Consider for an instant if you should die suddenly, and those
papers should fall into strange hands. We should all be disgraced. You
would not wish that, would you? What is your object, then? Why do you
persist in so dangerous a game? Promise me that you will burn them."

He remained silent for a time, but at last he answered:

"Mother, I have already begged of you never to speak on that subject. I
cannot do what you ask."

"But at least," she cried, "give me a reason. Any one would think our
family was as indifferent to you as that drove of oxen passing below
there. Yet you belong to it. Oh, I know you do all you can not to belong
to it! I myself am sometimes astonished at you. I ask myself where you
can have come from. But for all that, it is very wicked of you to run
this risk, without stopping to think of the grief you are causing to me,
your mother. It is simply wicked."

He grew still paler, and yielding for an instant to his desire to defend
himself, in spite of his determination to keep silent, he said:

"You are hard; you are wrong. I have always believed in the necessity,
the absolute efficacy of truth. It is true that I tell the truth about
others and about myself, and it is because I believe firmly that in
telling the truth I do the only good possible. In the first place, those
papers are not intended for the public; they are only personal notes
which it would be painful to me to part with. And then, I know well that
you would not burn only them--all my other works would also be thrown
into the fire. Would they not? And that is what I do not wish; do you
understand? Never, while I live, shall a line of my writing be destroyed
here."

But he already regretted having said so much, for he saw that she was
urging him, leading him on to the cruel explanation she desired.

"Then finish, and tell me what it is that you reproach us with. Yes, me,
for instance; what do you reproach me with? Not with having brought you
up with so much difficulty. Ah, fortune was slow to win! If we enjoy
a little happiness now, we have earned it hard. Since you have seen
everything, and since