ity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice,
to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessity
and can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, an
empty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything,
anything whatever!"

Pierre had risen to his full height, with arms outstretched as if to let
all the nothingness within his heart and mind fall from them. And
Guillaume, distracted by the sight of such a fierce denier, such a
despairing Nihilist as was now revealed to him, drew near, quivering:
"What are you saying, brother! I thought you so firm, so calm in your
belief! A priest to be admired, a saint worshipped by the whole of this
parish! I was unwilling even to discuss your faith, and now it is you who
deny all, and believe in nothing whatever!"

Pierre again slowly stretched out his arms. "There is nothing, I tried to
learn all, and only found the atrocious grief born of the nothingness
that overwhelms me."

"Ah! how you must suffer, Pierre, my little brother! Can religion, then,
be even more withering than science, since it has ravaged you like that,
while I have yet remained an old madman, still full of fancies?"

Guillaume caught hold of Pierre's hands and pressed them, full of
terrified compassion in presence of all the grandeur and horror embodied
in that unbelieving priest who watched over the belief of others, and
chastely, honestly discharged his duty amidst the haughty sadness born of
his falsehood. And how heavily must that falsehood have weighed upon his
conscience for him to confess himself in that fashion, amidst an utter
collapse of his whole being! A month previously, in the unexpansiveness
of his proud solitude, he would never have taken such a course. To speak
out it was necessary that he should have been stirred by many things, his
reconciliation with his brother, the conversations he had heard of an
evening, the terrible drama in which he was mingled, as well as his
reflections on labour struggling against want, and the vague hope with
which the sight of intellectual youth had inspired him. And, indeed, amid
the very excess of his negation was there not already the faint dawn of a
new faith?

This Guillaume must have understood, on seeing how he quivered with
unsatisfied tenderness as he emerged from the fierce silence which he had
preserved so long. He made him sit down near the window, and placed
himself beside him w