oluntary spectator of a
scene which wrung her heart. She was sitting before one of the windows
of the study, reading, concealed by the high back of her chair, when
she saw Pascal, who had been shut up in his room since the day before,
entering. He held open before his eyes with both hands a sheet of
yellow paper, in which she recognized the genealogical tree. He was so
completely absorbed, his gaze was so fixed, that she might have come
forward without his observing her. He spread the tree upon the table,
continuing to look at it for a long time, with the terrified expression
of interrogation which had become habitual to him, which gradually
changed to one of supplication, the tears coursing down his cheeks.

Why, great God! would not the tree answer him, and tell him what
ancestor he resembled, in order that he might inscribe his case on his
own leaf, beside the others? If he was to become mad, why did not the
tree tell him so clearly, which would have calmed him, for he believed
that his suffering came only from his uncertainty? Tears clouded his
vision, yet still he looked, he exhausted himself in this longing to
know, in which his reason must finally give way.

Clotilde hastily concealed herself as she saw him walk over to the
press, which he opened wide. He seized the envelopes, threw them on
the table, and searched among them feverishly. It was the scene of the
terrible night of the storm that was beginning over again, the gallop
of nightmares, the procession of phantoms, rising at his call from this
heap of old papers. As they passed by, he addressed to each of them a
question, an ardent prayer, demanding the origin of his malady, hoping
for a word, a whisper which should set his doubts at rest. First, it was
only an indistinct murmur, then came words and fragments of phrases.

"Is it you--is it you--is it you--oh, old mother, the mother of us
all--who are to give me your madness? Is it you, inebriate uncle, old
scoundrel of an uncle, whose drunkenness I am to pay for? Is it you,
ataxic nephew, or you, mystic nephew, or yet you, idiot niece, who are
to reveal to me the truth, showing me one of the forms of the lesion
from which I suffer? Or is it rather you, second cousin, who hanged
yourself; or you, second cousin, who committed murder; or you, second
cousin, who died of rottenness, whose tragic ends announce to me
mine--death in a cell, the horrible decomposition of being?"

And the gallop continued, they ro