This long exile, this resentment against
a child whose life had cost that of the mother, was also an act of
prudence. He realised it doubly now, and regretted that he had changed
his determination of not seeing him again. Age, twenty years of prayer,
his life as clergyman, had not subdued the unregenerate man within him.
It was simply necessary that this son of his, this child of the wife he
had so adored, should appear with his laughing blue eyes, to make the
blood circulate so rapidly in his veins as if it would burst them, as he
seemed to think that the dead had been brought to life again. He struck
his breast, he sobbed bitterly in penitence, as he remembered that the
joys of married life and the ties springing therefrom were prohibited
to the priesthood. The good Abbe Cornille had spoken of all this to
Hubertine in a low voice and with trembling lips. Mysterious sounds had
been heard, and it was whispered that Monseigneur shut himself up
after twilight, and passed nights of combat, of tears and of cries, the
violence of which, although partly stifled by the hangings of his room,
yet frightened the members of his household. He thought that he had
forgotten; that he had conquered passion; but it reappeared with the
violence of a tempest, reminding him of the terrible man he had been
formerly--the bold adventurer, the descendant of brave, legendary
chieftains.
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