covert glances he cast now and then upon his children, the traces of
some wearing thought which showed for a moment upon the surface.
Watching him, who could fail to understand him? Who would not have
seen that he had fatally transmitted to his children those weakly
bodies in which the principle of life was lacking. But if he blamed
himself he denied to others the right to judge him. Harsh as one who
knows himself in fault, yet without greatness of soul or charm to
compensate for the weight of misery he had thrown into the balance,
his private life was no doubt the scene of irascibilities that were
plainly revealed in his angular features and by the incessant
restlessness of his eye. When his wife returned, followed by the
children who seemed fastened to her side, I felt the presence of
unhappiness, just as in walking over the roof of a vault the feet
become in some way conscious of the depths below. Seeing these four
human beings together, holding them all as it were in one glance,
letting my eye pass from one to the other, studying their countenances
and their respective attitudes, thoughts steeped in sadness fell upon
my heart as a fine gray rain dims a charming landscape after the sun
has risen clear.

When the immediate subject of conversation was exhausted the count
told his wife who I was, and related certain circumstances connected
with my family that were wholly unknown to me. He asked me my age.
When I told it, the countess echoed my own exclamation of surprise at
her daughter's age. Perhaps she had thought me fifteen. Later on, I
discovered that this was still another tie which bound her strongly to
me. Even then I read her soul. Her motherhood quivered with a tardy
ray of hope. Seeing me at over twenty years of age so slight and
delicate and yet so nervously strong, a voice cried to her, "They too
will live!" She looked at me searchingly, and in that moment I felt