Guillaume's sorrow was increasing. "Ah! brother, little brother," he
resumed, "you distress me, for I can detect that you are hiding something
from me. Remember that new ties have linked us together and that we love
one another as in the old days when you were in your cradle and I used to
come to play with you. I know you well, remember. I know all your
tortures, since you have confessed them to me; and I won't have you
suffer, I want to cure you, I do!"

Pierre's heart was full, and as he heard those words he could not
restrain his tears. "Oh! you must leave me to my sufferings," he
responded. "They are incurable. You can do nothing for me, I am beyond
the pale of nature, I am a monster."

"What do you say! Can you not return within nature's pale even if you
_have_ gone beyond it? One thing that I will not allow is that you should
go and shut yourself up in that solitary little house of yours, where you
madden yourself by brooding over the fall of your faith. Come and spend
your time with us, so that we may again give you some taste for life."

Ah! the empty little house which awaited him! Pierre shivered at the
thought of it, at the idea that he would now find himself all alone
there, bereft of the brother with whom he had lately spent so many happy
days. Into what solitude and torment must he not now relapse after that
companionship to which he had become accustomed? However, the very
thought of the latter increased his grief, and confession suddenly gushed
from his lips: "To spend my time here, live with you, oh! no, that is an
impossibility. Why do you compel me to speak out, and tell you things
that I am ashamed of and do not even understand. Ever since this morning
you must have seen that I have been suffering here. No doubt it is
because you and your people work, whereas I do nothing, because you love
one another and believe in your efforts, whereas I no longer know how to
love or believe. I feel out of my element. I'm embarrassed here, and I
embarrass you. In fact you all irritate me, and I might end by hating
you. There remains nothing healthy in me, all natural feelings have been
spoilt and destroyed, and only envy and hatred could sprout up from such
ruins. So let me go back to my accursed hole, where death will some day
come for me. Farewell, brother!"

But Guillaume, full of affection and compassion, caught hold of his arms
and detained him. "You shall not go, I will not allow you to go, without
a p