ositive promise that you will come back. I don't wish to lose you
again, especially now that I know all you are worth and how dreadfully
you suffer. I will save you, if need be, in spite of yourself. I will
cure you of your torturing doubts, oh! without catechising you, without
imposing any particular faith on you, but simply by allowing life to do
its work, for life alone can give you back health and hope. So I beg you,
brother, in the name of our affection, come back here, come as often as
you can to spend a day with us. You will then see that when folks have
allotted themselves a task and work together in unison, they escape
excessive unhappiness. A task of any kind--yes, that is what is wanted,
together with some great passion and frank acceptance of life, so that it
may be lived as it should be and loved."

"But what would be the use of my living here?" Pierre muttered bitterly.
"I've no task left me, and I no longer know how to love."

"Well, I will give you a task, and as for love, that will soon be
awakened by the breath of life. Come, brother, consent, consent!"

Then, seeing that Pierre still remained gloomy and sorrowful, and
persisted in his determination to go away and bury himself, Guillaume
added, "Ah! I don't say that the things of this world are such as one
might wish them to be. I don't say that only joy and truth and justice
exist. For instance, the affair of that unhappy fellow Salvat fills me
with anger and revolt. Guilty he is, of course, and yet how many excuses
he had, and how I shall pity him if the crimes of all of us are laid at
his door, if the various political gangs bandy him from one to another,
and use him as a weapon in their sordid fight for power. The thought of
it all so exasperates me that at times I am as unreasonable as yourself.
But now, brother, just to please me, promise that you will come and spend
the day after to-morrow with us."

Then, as Pierre still kept silent, Guillaume went on: "I will have it so.
It would grieve me too much to think that you were suffering from
martyrdom in your solitary nook. I want to cure and save you."

Tears again rose to Pierre's eyes, and in a tone of infinite distress he
answered: "Don't compel me to promise.... All I can say is that I will
try to conquer myself."

The week he then spent in his little, dark, empty home proved a terrible
one. Shutting himself up he brooded over his despair at having lost the
companionship of that elder brot