Tears were now streaming from his eyes. "I remember," he continued, "that
in my childhood at Bartres, my mother, a peasant woman, made me join my
hands and implore God's help each morning. The prayer she taught me came
back to my mind, word for word, when I again found myself alone, as weak,
as lost, as a little child. What would you have, my friend? I joined my
hands as in my younger days, I felt too wretched, too forsaken, I had too
keen a need of a superhuman help, of a divine power which should think
and determine for me, which should lull me and carry me on with its
eternal prescience. How great at first was the confusion, the aberration
of my poor brain, under the frightful, heavy blow which fell upon it! I
spent a score of nights without being able to sleep, thinking that I
should surely go mad. All sorts of ideas warred within me; I passed
through periods of revolt when I shook my fist at Heaven, and then I
lapsed into humility, entreating God to take me in my turn. And it was at
last a conviction that there must be justice, a conviction that there
must be love, which calmed me by restoring me my faith. You knew my
daughter, so tall and strong, so beautiful, so brimful of life. Would it
not be the most monstrous injustice if for her, who did not know life,
there should be nothing beyond the tomb? She will live again, I am
absolutely convinced of it, for I still hear her at times, she tells me
that we shall meet, that we shall see one another again. Oh! the dear
beings whom one has lost, my dear daughter, my dear wife, to see them
once more, to live with them elsewhere, that is the one hope, the one
consolation for all the sorrows of this world! I have given myself to
God, since God alone can restore them to me!"

He was shaking with a slight tremor, like the weak old man he had become;
and Pierre was at last able to understand and explain the conversion of
this /savant/, this man of intellect who, growing old, had reverted to
belief under the influence of sentiment. First of all, and this he had