With furious pertinacity he rummaged amid the five years of his married life, striving to recall everything, month by month, day by day; and each disturbing fact he discovered pierced his heart like a wasp’s sting.
He gave no thought to Georges, who was quiet now, lying on his back on the carpet. But, seeing that no attention was being paid to him, the child began to cry again.
His father started up, seized him in his arms, and covered his head with kisses. His child, at any rate, remained to him! What did the rest matter? He held him, clasped him, his mouth buried in the fair hair, comforted, consoled, murmuring: “Georges … my little Georges, my dear little Georges! …” But suddenly he remembered what Julie had said! … Yes, she had said that he was Limousin’s child. … Oh, it was not possible, it couldn’t be possible! No, he could not believe it, could not even suspect it for one moment. This was one of the odious infamies that germinate in the mean minds of servants! “Georges,” he repeated, “my dear Georges!” The boy was silent again now, under his caresses.
Parent felt the warmth of his little breast penetrate through the clothes to his own. It filled him with love, with courage, with joy; the child’s sweet warmth caressed him, strengthened him, saved him.
Then he thrust the beloved head with its curly hair a little further from him, and gazed at it passionately. He stared at it hungrily, desperately; the sight of it intoxicated him.
“Oh, my little one … my little Georges!” he repeated over and over again.
Suddenly he thought: “Supposing he were like Limousin … all the same!”
The thought was a strange cruel thing entering into him, a poignant, violent sensation of cold through his body, in all his limbs, as though his bones were suddenly turned to ice. Oh, if he were like Limousin! … and he continued to gaze at Georges, who was now laughing. He gazed at him with wild, distressed, haggard eyes. And he searched his features, the brow, the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, to see whether he could not find in them something of Limousin’s brow, nose, mouth, or cheeks.
His thoughts wandered, like the thoughts of a man going mad; and the face of his child altered beneath his eyes, and took on strange appearances and preposterous resemblances.
Julie had said: “A blind man would not be deceived.” There must be something striking, something quite undeniable! But what? The brow? Yes, perhaps. But Limousin’s brow was narrower! The mouth, then? But Limousin wore a full beard! How could one establish a resemblance between the child’s fat chin and this man’s hairy one?
Parent thought: “I cannot see it, I cannot look at it any longer; I am too distressed; I could not recognise anything now. … I must wait; I must look properly tomorrow morning, when I get up.”
Then he thought: “But if he were like me, I should be saved, saved!”
He crossed the room in two strides, in order to examine his child’s face side by side with his own in the mirror.
He held Georges seated on his arm, in order that their faces might be close together, and spoke out loud, so great was his bewilderment.
“Yes … we have the same nose … the same nose … perhaps … I’m not sure … and the same eyes. … No, his eyes are blue. … Then … Oh, my God! … my God! … my God! … I’m going mad. … I will not look any more. … I’m going mad!”
He fled from the mirror to the other end of the room, fell into an armchair, set the child down in another, and burst into tears. He wept with great, hopeless sobs. Georges, frightened by the sound of his father’s moans, began to cry too.
The front door bell rang. Parent bounded up as though pierced by a bullet.
“There she is,” he said. “What am I to do?”
He ran and shut himself up in his room, so as to have time at least to wipe his eyes. But after some moments, another peal at the bell gave him a second shock; then he remembered that Julie had left and that the housemaid had not been told. So no one would go and open the door? What was to be done? He went himself.
Suddenly he felt brave, resolute, able to play his own part and face the inevitable scene. The appalling shock had matured him in a few moments. And, besides, he wanted to know, he wanted the truth with the fury of a timid man, with the obstinacy of an easygoing man come to the end of his patience.
Nevertheless, he was trembling. Was it with terror? Yes. … Perhaps he was still afraid of her? Who knows how much goaded cowardice has gone to the making of a bold move?
He stopped behind the door that he had reached with furtive steps, and listened. His heart was beating furiously, and he could hear nothing but the sound of it, great dull blows in his chest, and the shrill voice of Georges still crying in the drawing room.
Suddenly the noise of the bell ringing over his head shook him like an explosion; at that he seized the door-handle and, panting, fainting, turned the knob and opened the door.
His
