"
And, indeed, it seemed to Pierre as if he could feel the breath of
vigilant affection which Guillaume evoked passing over them both. There
was again a revival of all the past, all their youth, and nothing could
have been more delightful.
"You hear me, brother," Guillaume resumed. "You must reconcile them, for
it is only in you that they can be reconciled. You have his firm, lofty
brow, and her mouth and eyes of unrealisable tenderness. So, try to bring
them to agreement, by some day contenting, as your reason shall allow,
the everlasting thirst for love, and self-bestowal, and life, which for
lack of satisfaction is killing you. Your frightful wretchedness has no
other cause. Come back to life, love, bestow yourself, be a man!"
Pierre raised a dolorous cry: "No, no, the death born of doubt has swept
through me, withering and shattering everything, and nothing more can
live in that cold dust!"
"But, come," resumed Guillaume, "you cannot have reached such absolute
negation. No man reaches it. Even in the most disabused of minds there
remains a nook of fancy and hope. To deny charity, devotion, the
prodigies which love may work, ah! for my part I do not go so far as
that. And now that you have shown me your sore, why should I not tell you
my dream, the wild hope which keeps me alive! It is strange; but, are
/savants/ to be the last childish dreamers, and is faith only to spring
up nowadays in chemical laboratories?"
Intense emotion was stirring Guillaume; there was battle waging in both
his brain and his heart.
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