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Pierre and Luce-Romain Rolland · The Man of the House

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  Speaker 1: Section one of Pierre and Luce by Roman Roland, translated
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  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Rogermaline
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  Speaker 1: Pierre and Luce by Roman Roland, translated by Charles Decay.
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  Speaker 1: Section one The Isle of Calms. Just as the Gulf
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  Speaker 1: Stream embraces the Sargasso Sea, into which gradually drift the
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  Speaker 1: odds and ends that are carried away by the marine
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  Speaker 1: currents into the regions of calm, so does our aerial
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  Speaker 1: current surround a region where the air is still. It
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  Speaker 1: is called the Isle of Calms. Duration of the story
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  Speaker 1: from Wednesday evening, January thirtieth to good Friday, May twenty ninth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. Pierre plunged into the subway a feverish a
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  Speaker 1: brutal crowd on his feet near the door, closely pressed
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  Speaker 1: in a bank of human bodies and sharing the heavy
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  Speaker 1: atmosphere passing in and out of their mouths. He stared,
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  Speaker 1: without seeing them, at the black and rumbling vaults, over
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  Speaker 1: which flickered the shining eyes of the train. The same
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  Speaker 1: heavy shadows lay in his mind, the same gleams, hard
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  Speaker 1: and tremulous, Suffocating in the raised collar of his overcoat,
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  Speaker 1: his arms jammed against his sides, and his lips compressed,
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  Speaker 1: his forehead damp with perspiration, momentarily cooled by a current
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  Speaker 1: from outside. When the door opened. He tried hard not
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  Speaker 1: to see. He tried not to breathe, he tried not
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  Speaker 1: to live. The heart of this young fellow of eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: still almost a child, was full of dull despair. Above
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  Speaker 1: his head, above the shadows of these long vaulted ways
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  Speaker 1: of this rat run, through which the monster of metal world,
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  Speaker 1: all swarming with human masks, was Paris, the snow, the
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  Speaker 1: cold January darkness, the nightmare of life and of death.
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  Speaker 1: The war, the war four years ago it was. The
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  Speaker 1: war had come to stay. It had weighed heavily on
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  Speaker 1: his adolescent years. It had caught him by surprise, in
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  Speaker 1: that morally critical period when the growing boy, disquieted by
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  Speaker 1: the awakening of his feelings, discovers with a shock the
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  Speaker 1: existence of blind besteal, crushing forces in life whose prey
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  Speaker 1: he is, and that without having asked to live at all,
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  Speaker 1: and if he happens to be delicate in character, tender
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  Speaker 1: of heart, and frail as to body. In the way
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  Speaker 1: Pierre was, he experiences a disgust and horror which he
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  Speaker 1: does not dare confide to others. For all these brutalities,
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  Speaker 1: these nastinesses, all this nonsense of fruitful and devouring nature,
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  Speaker 1: this breeding sow that gobbles up her litter of pigs
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  Speaker 1: in every growing youth between sixteen and eighteen, there is
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  Speaker 1: a bit of the soul of Hamlet. Don't ask him
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  Speaker 1: to understand the war, all right, for you men who
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  Speaker 1: have had your fill. He has all he can do
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  Speaker 1: to understand life and forgive its existence. As a rule,
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  Speaker 1: he digs himself in with his dream and with the arts,
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  Speaker 1: until the time comes when he has got use to
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  Speaker 1: his incarnation and the grub has achieved its agonizing passage
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  Speaker 1: from larva to winged insect. What a need he has
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  Speaker 1: for peace and meditation during these April days, so full
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  Speaker 1: of the trouble of maturing life. But they come after
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  Speaker 1: him to the bottom of his burrow, look him up,
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  Speaker 1: drag him from the dark, While still so tender in
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  Speaker 1: his new maid's skin. They toss him into the raw
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  Speaker 1: air amongst the hard human race, whose follies and hatreds
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  Speaker 1: he is expected at the very first moment to accept
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  Speaker 1: without understanding them, and not understanding to atone for them.
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  Speaker 1: Pierre had been called to military service, along with those
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  Speaker 1: of his own class, boys of sixteen to eighteen. Within
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  Speaker 1: six months, his country would be needing his flesh. The
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  Speaker 1: war claimed him. Six months of respite. Six months. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: if one could only stop thinking at all from this
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  Speaker 1: time to that, just to stay in this underground tunnel,
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  Speaker 1: never see cruel daylight any more. He plunged deeper into
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  Speaker 1: his gloom along with the flying train, and closed his eyes.
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  Speaker 1: When he opened them again, a few steps away, but
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  Speaker 1: separated by the bodies of two strangers, stood a young
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  Speaker 1: girl who had just entered. At first, all he saw
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  Speaker 1: of her was a delicate profile under the shadow of
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  Speaker 1: her hat, one blond curl on a somewhat thin cheek,
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  Speaker 1: a high light perched upon the smooth cheek bone, the
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  Speaker 1: fine line of nose and lifted upper lip, and her
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  Speaker 1: mouth slightly parted, still quivering a little from her sudden
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  Speaker 1: rush into the car. Through the portals of his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: into his heart, she entered. She entered all complete, and
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  Speaker 1: the door closed. Noises from without, fell to nothing, silence, peace.
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  Speaker 1: She was there. She did not look at him. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: she did not even know as yet of his existence,
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  Speaker 1: and yet she was there inside him. He held her
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  Speaker 1: image there, speechless, crushed in his arms, and he dared
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  Speaker 1: not breathe, for fear that his breath might ruffle her.
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  Speaker 1: A jostling at the next station, noisily talking, the crowd
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  Speaker 1: threw themselves into the already packed carriage. Pierre found himself
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  Speaker 1: shoved and carried along by the human wave above the
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  Speaker 1: tunnel vault in the city up there, certain dull reports
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  Speaker 1: the train started up again at that moment. A man
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  Speaker 1: quite out of his senses, who covered up his face
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  Speaker 1: with his hands, came running down the stairway of the
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  Speaker 1: station and rolled down on the floor at the bottom.
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  Speaker 1: There was just enough time to catch sight of the
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  Speaker 1: blood that trickled through his fingers. Then the tunnel and
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  Speaker 1: darkness again in the car frightened outcries the goetas are
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  Speaker 1: at it again. During the general excitement which fused these
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  Speaker 1: closely packed bodies into one. His hand had seized the
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  Speaker 1: hand that touched him, and when he raised his eyes
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  Speaker 1: he saw it was she. She did not pull her
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  Speaker 1: hand away at the pressure of his fingers. Hers replied
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  Speaker 1: in a sympathy of emotion, drawing together a bit, and
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  Speaker 1: then letting themselves go soft and burning without budging. Thus
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  Speaker 1: the two remained in the protective darkness, their hands, like
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  Speaker 1: two birds, hid in the same nest, and the blood
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  Speaker 1: from their hearts ran in a single flood through the
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  Speaker 1: warmth of their palms. They said no word to one another.
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  Speaker 1: His mouth almost touched the curl on her cheek and
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  Speaker 1: the tip of her ear. They did not make a gesture.
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  Speaker 1: She did not look at him. Two stations beyond, she
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  Speaker 1: loosed her hand from his, which did not keep her,
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  Speaker 1: slipped between the bodies, and left, without having looked at him.
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  Speaker 1: When she had vanished, it occurred to him to follow,
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  Speaker 1: too late, the train was in motion. At the next stop,
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  Speaker 1: he ran up to the surface. There he found the
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  Speaker 1: nocturnal cold, the unseen touches of some flakes of snow,
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  Speaker 1: and the city frightened and amused at its fright above it,
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  Speaker 1: very high in the air, circled the warlike birds. But
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  Speaker 1: he saw only her, the one who was within him,
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  Speaker 1: And he reached home holding the hand of the unknown girl.
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  Speaker 1: Pierre Aubier lived with his parents near Clooney Square. His
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  Speaker 1: father was a municipal judge. His brother, older than he
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  Speaker 1: by six years, had volunteered at the beginning of the war.
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  Speaker 1: A good sound family of the bourgeois class, excellent folks,
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  Speaker 1: affectionate and human, never having dared to think for themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and very probably never imagining that such a thing could
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  Speaker 1: be profoundly honest, and with a lofty sense of the
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  Speaker 1: duties of his office, Judge Obia would have rejected with
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  Speaker 1: indignation as a supreme insult the suspicion even that the
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  Speaker 1: verdicts he announced could have been dictated by any other
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  Speaker 1: considerations than those of equity and his own conscience. But
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  Speaker 1: the voice of his conscience had never spoken, let us
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  Speaker 1: better say, whispered against the government. For that conscience was
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  Speaker 1: born a functionary. It registered thoughts as a state function variable,
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  Speaker 1: but in established powers were invested by him with a
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  Speaker 1: sacred truth. He admired sincerely those souls of iron, the great,
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  Speaker 1: free and unbending magistrates of the past, and perhaps secretly
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  Speaker 1: believed himself to be of their stock. He was a
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  Speaker 1: very small edition of Michel de Lospital, over whom a
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  Speaker 1: century of Republican slavery had passed. As to Madame Oubier,
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  Speaker 1: she was as good a Christian as her husband was
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  Speaker 1: a good Republican, just as sincerely and honestly as he
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  Speaker 1: made himself a docile instrument of the government against any
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  Speaker 1: form of liberty which was not official. So did she
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  Speaker 1: mingle her prayers, and that in perfect purity of heart,
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  Speaker 1: with the homicidal vows which were made about the war
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  Speaker 1: in every country of Europe by the Catholic priests, the
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  Speaker 1: Protestant ministers, the rabbis and the popes, the newspapers and
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  Speaker 1: the right minded thinkers of the time, And both of them.
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  Speaker 1: Father and mother adored their children, and like true French
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  Speaker 1: people had for them, only a profound, essential affection, would
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  Speaker 1: have sacrificed everything for them. And yet, in order to
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  Speaker 1: do as others would sacrifice them without hesitation to whom, why,
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  Speaker 1: to the unknown God? In every epoch, Abraham has led
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  Speaker 1: Isaac to the funeral pile, and his magnificent folly still
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  Speaker 1: remains an example for poor human beings. As often as
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  Speaker 1: the case at this family hearth, affection was great and
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  Speaker 1: intimacy null. How should thoughts communicate freely from one to
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  Speaker 1: the other when each one forbore a look into the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of his own mind. Whatever one may feel, one
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  Speaker 1: knows that certain dogmas at any rate must be blinked,
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  Speaker 1: set aside, And if it already amounts to an embarrassment
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  Speaker 1: when the dogmas are discreet enough to stay within the
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  Speaker 1: limits traced for them, that was the case to some
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  Speaker 1: all up of those belonging to the beyond. What is
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  Speaker 1: to be said when they pretend to mix themselves with life,
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  Speaker 1: to rule life entirely as our laical and obligatory dogmas
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  Speaker 1: actually do. Just you try to forget the dogma of
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  Speaker 1: your country. The New Religion compelled a return to the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament. It was not to be made comfortable with
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  Speaker 1: lip devotion and innocent rituals hygienic and ridiculous, like confession, Friday,
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  Speaker 1: fasting rest on Sunday, which once upon a time incited
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  Speaker 1: the racy spirit of our philosophers. During the period when
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  Speaker 1: the people were free under the kings, the New Religion
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  Speaker 1: wanted all, was not satisfied with less all the man complete,
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  Speaker 1: his body, his blood, his life, and his thinking mind
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  Speaker 1: above all his blood. Since the time of the Aztecs
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  Speaker 1: of Mexico never was there a divinity so gorged with blood?
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  Speaker 1: It would be deeply unjust to say that the believers
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  Speaker 1: did not suffer from this. They suffered, but they believed
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  Speaker 1: alas my poor brother men, for whom suffering itself is
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  Speaker 1: a proof positive of the divine. Mister and missus Obier
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  Speaker 1: suffered like the others, and like the others adored. But
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  Speaker 1: from our growing boy one could not demand such abnegation
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  Speaker 1: of heart, feeling and good sense. Pierre would have liked
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  Speaker 1: to comprehend at least what it was that oppressed him.
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  Speaker 1: What a lot of questions burned within which he could
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  Speaker 1: not utter. For the very first word of all was,
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  Speaker 1: but what if I don't believe in it at all?
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  Speaker 1: A blasphemy just to start with. No, he could not
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  Speaker 1: speak out. They would have gazed at him in a stupor, frightened,
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  Speaker 1: indignant with sorrow and shame. And since he was at
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  Speaker 1: that plastic age when the soul with a bark, still
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  Speaker 1: too tender, wrinkles up at the slightest breeze that comes
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  Speaker 1: from outside, and under its furtive fingers molds its form shudderingly,
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  Speaker 1: he felt himself beforehand sorrowful and ashamed. Ah, how they
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  Speaker 1: believed all of them. But did they really all of
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  Speaker 1: them believe? How was it they managed it? Then? One
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  Speaker 1: did not dare to ask not to believe. Standing all
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  Speaker 1: alone among all those who do believe, is like one
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  Speaker 1: who lacks some organ superfluous perchance, but one that all
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  Speaker 1: the others possess, and so blushing one hides one's nudity
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  Speaker 1: from the public. The only one who was able to
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  Speaker 1: comprehend the tortures of the young fellow was his elder brother.
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  Speaker 1: Pierre had for Philip that adoration which the younger ones
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  Speaker 1: often have, but which they jealously conceal for the older
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  Speaker 1: brother or sister, some stranger comrade, at times merely the
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  Speaker 1: vision of an hour and lost again, who realizes in
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  Speaker 1: their eyes the dream at once of what they could
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  Speaker 1: wish to be, and of what they would like to love. Chaste,
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  Speaker 1: ardors and troublesome of the future formed of mixing currents.
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  Speaker 1: The big brother was aware of this naive homage and
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  Speaker 1: was flattered by it. Not so long ago, he had
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  Speaker 1: tried to read the heart of the little brother and
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  Speaker 1: explained things to him with discretion, For although more robust
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  Speaker 1: like him, he was molded of that fine clay, which
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  Speaker 1: among the better sort of men, retains a little of
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  Speaker 1: the woman and does not blush to own it. But
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  Speaker 1: the war had come and torn him away from his
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  Speaker 1: hard working career, from his study of the sciences, from
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  Speaker 1: his twenty year old dream, and from his intimacy with
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  Speaker 1: his young brother. He had dropped everything in the intoxicating
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  Speaker 1: idealism of the moment, like a big crazy bird that
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  Speaker 1: launches out into space with the heroic and absurd illusion
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  Speaker 1: that his beak and his talons will put an end
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  Speaker 1: to the war and restore to Earth the reign of peace.
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  Speaker 1: Since then, the big bird had returned two or three
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  Speaker 1: times to the nest, each time alas a little more
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  Speaker 1: worn and plumage. He had come back denuded of many
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  Speaker 1: of his illusions. But he found himself too much mortified
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  Speaker 1: about them to acknowledge it. He was ashamed to have
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  Speaker 1: believed in them, folly, not to have known how to
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  Speaker 1: see life as it is. Now. He set his heart
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  Speaker 1: upon dissipating its enchantment and accepting it stoically, whatsoever it
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  Speaker 1: might turn out. Not himself alone did he punish. A
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  Speaker 1: wretched suffering urged him to punish his illusions in the
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  Speaker 1: heart of his young brother, where he found that they
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  Speaker 1: held their own. At his first coming back, when Pierre
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  Speaker 1: had run up to him, burning in his walled up heart,
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  Speaker 1: he had been frozen at once by the welcome his
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  Speaker 1: elder gave him affectionate, certainly, always affectionate, but with a
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  Speaker 1: certain harsh irony in his tone. Hard to fathom. Questions
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  Speaker 1: that pressed forward to his lips were pushed back on
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  Speaker 1: the instant Philip had seen them coming, and cut them
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  Speaker 1: down with a word, with a look. After two or
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  Speaker 1: three attempts, Pierre drew back with an aching heart. He
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  Speaker 1: did not recognize his brother any more. The other recognized
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  Speaker 1: him only too well. He perceived in him what he
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  Speaker 1: himself had been not so long ago, and what never
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  Speaker 1: he could be again. He made him pay for it.
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  Speaker 1: It caused him regret afterward, but of that he showed
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  Speaker 1: no sign, and just began over again. Both of them suffered, and,
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  Speaker 1: through a too common misunderstanding, their suffering so much alike,
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  Speaker 1: so near, which ought to have brought them together, only
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  Speaker 1: separated them. The sole difference between them was that the
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  Speaker 1: elder knew that it was near, while Pierre believed himself
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  Speaker 1: alone in his suffering. With nobody to whom he could
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  Speaker 1: open his soul. Then why did he not turn toward
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  Speaker 1: those of his own age, his companions at school. It
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  Speaker 1: might seem as if these growing youths ought to have
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  Speaker 1: come close to one another and mutually given one another's support,
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  Speaker 1: But nothing of the kind. On the contrary, A sorrowful
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  Speaker 1: fatality kept them separate, scattered in little groups, and even
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  Speaker 1: in the inner circle of these minim groups kept them
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  Speaker 1: distant and reserved. The commoner sort had plunged, eyes closed,
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  Speaker 1: head foremost into the current of the war. The larger
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  Speaker 1: number drew themselves away and did not feel any connection
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  Speaker 1: with the generations that preceded them. They did not partake
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  Speaker 1: in any way of their passions, their hopes, and their hatreds.
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  Speaker 1: They were bystanders beside all the frantic goings on, like
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  Speaker 1: men who are sober looking on at those who are drunk.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: But what could they do in opposition? Many had started
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  Speaker 1: little magazines, reviews, whose ephemeral lives were snuffed out after
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  Speaker 1: the first numbers for lack of air. The censorship produced
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  Speaker 1: a vacuum. The entire thought of France was under the pneumatic,
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  Speaker 1: exhausting bell. Among these young fellows. The most distinguished ones,
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  Speaker 1: too feeble to rebel and too proud to complain, knew
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  Speaker 1: beforehand that they were delivered up to the sword of war.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: While they waited for their turn at the slaughterhouse, they
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  Speaker 1: looked on and made their judgments in silence, each one
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  Speaker 1: by himself, with a little surprise and a great deal
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of irony. Through a disdainful reaction against the mental condition
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  Speaker 1: of the herd, they fell back into a kind of egotism,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: intellectual and artistic egotism, an idealistic sensualism, where the tracked
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and hunted ego vindicated its rights against human fellowship, laughable fellowship,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: which made itself manifest to these addams lessens only in
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  Speaker 1: the shape of finished murder one undergone in common. A
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  Speaker 1: precocious experience had shriveled their illusions. They had seen how
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  Speaker 1: much those same illusions were worth in their elders, and
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  Speaker 1: how those who did not believe in them paid for
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  Speaker 1: them with their lives, even as to those of their
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  Speaker 1: own age, and as to man in general. Their confidence
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  Speaker 1: was shaken. And besides, at such a time it cost
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  Speaker 1: something to confide in people. Every day one learned of
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  Speaker 1: some denunciation of thoughts and intimate conversations by a patriotic
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: spy whose zeal the government honored and stimulated. So it
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: was that these young people, through discouragement, through disdain, through prudence,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: through a stoical sense of their solitude and thought, gave
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  Speaker 1: themselves very little. Indeed, the one to the other, Pierre
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  Speaker 1: could not find among them that Horatio, whom little eighteen
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  Speaker 1: year old hamlets seek. If he had a horror of
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  Speaker 1: estranging his thoughts from public opinion, that public woman, he
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  Speaker 1: did feel the need of joining it freely with souls
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  Speaker 1: of his own, choosing he was too tender to be
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  Speaker 1: able to content himself with himself. He suffered from the
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  Speaker 1: universal suffering that crushed him by the amount of its pain,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: which he exaggerated, for if humanity does support it in
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  Speaker 1: spite of everything, that is because humanity has a harder
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  Speaker 1: hide than is the delicate skin of a frail boy.
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  Speaker 1: But what he did not exaggerate, and what weighed him
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  Speaker 1: down much more than the suffering of the world, was
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  Speaker 1: the imbecility of it all. It is nothing to undergo pain,
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  Speaker 1: It is nothing to die, if only one can see
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  Speaker 1: a reason for it. Sacrifice is a good thing when
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  Speaker 1: one understands why it is made? But what is this? Why?
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  Speaker 1: What is the sense of this world and its harrowings?
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  Speaker 1: For a youth, if he be sincere and sound of mind,
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  Speaker 1: in what way can he interest himself in the coarse
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: medley of nations standing head to head like stupid rams,
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  Speaker 1: on the brink of an abyss, into which all are
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  Speaker 1: about to tumble, And yet the road was broad enough
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  Speaker 1: for all. Why then, this madness to destroy oneself? Why
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  Speaker 1: these countries given over to pride, these states devoted to rapine,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: these peoples to whom is taught murder, as if murder
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: were their duty? But wherefore this butchery everywhere among living beings?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Why this world that devours itself to what purpose? The
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: nightmare of that monster? An endless chain of life, each
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: one of whose links sets its jaw into the neck
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: of the other, feasts on its flesh, delights in its suffering,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and lives through its death. Why the conflict? And why
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the pain? Why death? Why life? Why? Why? That night
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: when the boy got home, the why had ceased its cry?
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: End of section one recording by Roger Moline. Section two
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of Pierre and Luce by Roman Roland, translated by Charles Decay.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Roger Maline. Nevertheless, nothing had changed there. He was in
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: his own room, littered with papers and books, all about.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: The familiar sounds in the street, the trumpet sounding, the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: close of the warning against air bombs on the house stairs,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the reassured gossip of the tenants coming up from the cellar.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: In the story overhead, the crazy marching to and fro
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of the old neighbor who for months had been waiting
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: for his vanished son. But here in his own chamber
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: lay no longer those cares of his in ambush which
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: he had left there. Sometimes it happens that an incomplete
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: accord in music sounds raucous in a way. It leaves
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the mind disquieted up to the moment when some note
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: is added, which procures a fusion of the hostile or
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: coldly alien elements, like visitors who do not know one
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: another and wait to be introduced. At once the ice
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: is broken, and harmony spreads from one member of the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: group to another. This moral chemistry has just been put
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: in operation by a warm and furtive contact of hands.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Pierre was not conscious of the reason for the change.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: He never dreamed of analyzing, but he felt that the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: habitual hostility of things in general had suddenly softened. A
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: shooting pain takes possession of your head for hours. Of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a sudden you perceive it is no longer there. How
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: was it that it went scarcely a feeling of buzzing
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: about the temples to recall it. Pierre was a bit
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: suspicious of this new found calm. He suspected that it concealed,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: under a passing truce, a much worse return of the pain,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: which was merely taking breath Already. He was acquainted with
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the respites that are obtained through the arts. When into
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: our eyes penetrate the divine proportions of lines and colors,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: or into the voluptuous windings of the sonorous ear shell,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the lovely varied play of accords which combine and interlock
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: in obedience to the laws of harmonious numbers. Peace takes
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: possession of us, and joy inundates our souls. But that
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: is a radiance which comes from outside, one would say,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: from a sun, the distant fires of which hold us
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in suspense, fascinated, lifted high above our life, it endures
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: only a moment, and then one falls again. Art is
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: never more than a passing forgetfulness of the actual. The
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: real Pierre was afraid and fully expected the same deception,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But this time the radiation came from within. Nothing that
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: belongs to life was forgot, but everything fell into harmony,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: his recollections, his new thoughts, even to the familiar objects
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: about him. The books and papers in his chamber sprang
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: alive and took on an interest which they had lost
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: for months past. His intellectual growth had been compressed like
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a young tree which is struck in full blossoming by
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the saints of the ice. He did not belong to
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: those practical boys who profit by the indulgence offered at
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: universities to the younger classes just about to be called
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: to the colors in order to pull out hastily a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: diploma from under the indulgent eyes of the examiners. Nor
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: was he one to feel the despairing eagerness of the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: young man who sees death approaching and so takes double
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: mouthfuls and devours the arts and sciences which he will
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: never have a chance to test and verify in life.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: That perpetual feeling of emptiness at the end emptiness that
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: is underneath and everywhere hidden beneath the cruel and absurd
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: illusion of the world. This it was that swept aside
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: all his enthusiasms. He would throw himself on a book
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: on a thought. Then he stopped, discouraged. Whither would that lead?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: What the use of learning? What is the point of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: getting riches? If it be necessary to lose everything, leave everything,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: if nothing really belongs to you in order that activity,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: In order that science should have any sense, it is
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: necessary that life should have some this sense, no effort
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of the mind, no supplication from the heart, had been
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: able to produce for him. And yet lo and behold
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: all of itself this sense had come. Life had some sense?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: What then, and seeking to find? Whence came this inner sma?
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: He beheld the parted lips upon which his mouth was
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: burning to press itself. In ordinary times, no doubt this
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: wordless fascination would not have persisted at that period of upgrowth.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: When one is a lover of love, one sees love
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: in every eye. The greedy and uncertain heart gathers it,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: flitting from one to the other, and nothing forces it
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to settle down. The heart is just beginning its day.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: But the day at the present period will be a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: short one. It is necessary to hurry up. The heart
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of this young fellow was in a hurry all the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: greater because it was so much behindhand. Great cities, which
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: from a distance appear like the smoking sulfataras of sensuality,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: really harbor fresh souls and ingenuous bodies. How many young
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: men and young girls there are who respect love and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: keep their senses virgin up to the marriage day, even
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in the refined circles where mental curiosity is precociously excited,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: What singular ignorances conceal themselves under the free talk of
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: some young worldly girl or of some student who knows
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: everything and understands nothing. In the heart of Paris there
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: are provinces most naive, little gardens, as of cloisters, pure existences,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: as of springs. Paris permits herself to be betrayed by
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: her literature. Those who speak in her name are the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: most soiled of all. And besides, one only knows too
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: well what a false human consideration often prevents the pure
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: from avowing their innocence. Pierre did not yet understand love,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and he was delivered up to the first appeal. Love
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: made this also air to the enchantment of his thought,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: that love had been borne under the wing of death
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: in that moment of emotion, when they felt the menace
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: of the bombs pass over their heads, when the blood
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: stained apparition of the wounded man contracted their hearts. Then
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: it was their fingers groped toward each other, and both
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: of them had read therein at the same time, with
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the quivering of the flesh that was frightened, the loving
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: consolation of an unknown friend, fleeting pressure. One of the
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: two hands, that of the man, says, lean upon me,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and the other, the maternal one, pushes aside her own fear,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: in order to say, my little dear. Nothing of all
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: this was uttered or heard, but that inward murmur filled
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the soul far better than words, that curtain of foliage
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: which masks our thought. Pierre allowed himself to be cradled
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: by this humming, such the song of a golden wasp
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: that floats through the kiev, a sciro of one's thought.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: His days became numb things in this new languor, that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: solitary and naked heart dreamed of the warmth of a nest.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: During these first weeks of February. Paris was counting her
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: ruins from the last raid and licking her wounds. The press,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: locked up in its kennel, was barking for reprisals, and,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: according to the statement of the man who put the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: fetters on, the government was making war on the French.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: The open season for suits at law for treasonable acts commenced.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: The spectacle of a wretched creature who was defending his
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: own head bitterly demanded by the public. Accuser, was a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: matter of amusement for Touparis, whose appetite for the theater had
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: not yet been satisfied by four years of war and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: ten millions of dead men dissolving behind the flies. But
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the youth remained completely and solely absorbed in the mysterious
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: guest who had just come to make him a visit.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Strange intensity of these visions of love printed on the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: very floor of his thought, and nevertheless, lacking in contour,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Pierre would have been incapable of saying what was the
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: form of her features, or what the color of her
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: eyes or the modeling of her lips. All he could
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: bring back was the emotion already in himself. All his
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: attempts to give precision to the image, merely ended in
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: deforming it. He was no more successful when he went
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to work to find her in the streets of Paris.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: At every turn he believed he had seen her. It
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: was either a smile, or a white young neck, or
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: a gleam and some eyes, And then the blood shook
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: in his heart. There was no resemblance, none whatever, between
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: these flying images and the real image which he sought,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and which he believed he loved. Well, then did he
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: not love her? Surely he loved her, and that is
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: why he saw her everywhere and under every shape, For
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: she just is every smile, each radiance, all life, and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the exact form would be a limitation. But one longs
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: for that limitation in order to clasp love and to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: possess it. Though he might never see her again, he
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: knew that she existed. She existed, and that she was
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the nest in the hurricane, a port, a lighthouse in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the night. Stella Marius, amour, Oh Love, watch over us
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: at the hour of death. Along the quay of the Seine,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: beside the Institute, he wandered, looking with little attention at
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the shelves of the few bocanistes who had stuck to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: their posts. He found himself at the foot of the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: steps of the ponde' art. Raising his eyes, he perceived
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: her for whom he had waited, a portfolio of drawings
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: under her arm. She came down the steps like a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: little doe. He did not reflect for the shadow of
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: a second. He rushed forward to meet her, and while
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: he ascended toward her, who was coming down for the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: first time, their gaze rested the one on the other,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and entered arrived in front of her, and, stopping short,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: he began to blush. Surprised seeing that he blushed, she
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: reddened too. Before he could get his breath again, the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: little deer like step had already gone beyond him. When
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: strength returned and he was able to turn about, her
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: skirt was disappearing at the turning of the arcade, which
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: looks upon the Rue des Sinne. He did not try
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: to follow her. Leaning against the balustrade of the bridge,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: he saw her own look in the stream that flowed below.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: For some time his heart had a pasture new, Oh,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: dear stupid children. A week later he was loafing in
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the Luxembourg gardens, which the sun was filling with a
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: golden softness, such a radiant February in that funereal year,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: dreaming with his eyes open and hardly knowing well whether
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: he was dreaming what he saw, or saw what he
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: was dreaming, steeped in a greedy languor obscurely happy, unhappy
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: in love, as much filled full of tenderness as with
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the sun. He smiled as he strolled with inattentive eyes,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and without his knowing it, his lips moved, reciting words
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: without connection, a song of some kind. He looked down
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: at the sandy path, and like the wingtip of a
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: dove that passes, he had an impression that a smile
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: had just passed along. He whirled about and saw that
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: he had just crossed her path, and just at that moment,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: without stopping in her walk, she turned her head with
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a smile in order to observe him. Then he hesitated
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: no longer and went toward her, his hands almost extended
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in so juvenile and naive a rush that naively she
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: waited for him. He made no excuses for himself. There
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: was no awkwardness between them. It seemed to them they
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: were continuing an interview already begun. You are ladlaughing at me,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: said he, you are quite right, I'm not laughing at you.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Her voice, like her step, was lively and supple. You
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: were laughing all to yourself. I merely laughed at seeing you.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Was I laughing? Really? You are still laughing now now
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I know why she did not ask him what he meant.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: They walked side by side. They were happy. What a
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: jolly little son, said she newly born springtide? Was it
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to him just now? You were sending that little smile?
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Not to him alone, perhaps to you too, little liar,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: bad boy. You don't even know me, as if one
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: could say such a thing. We have seen each other.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know how often, thrice counting this time. Ah
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you remember then, you see that we are old acquaintances.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about it. I'm agreed, that's all I want. Oh, come,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: let us sit there just an instant, won't you please?
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: It's so nice. At the edge of the water. They
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: were near the Galateea Fountain, which the Masons had covered
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: over with tarpaulins to protect it from the bombs. I
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: really cannot, I shall miss my train. She gave him
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the hour. He showed her that she had more than
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: twenty five minutes. Yes, but she wanted first to buy
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: her lunch. At the corner of Rue Racine, where they
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: kept good little buns. He hauled one out of his pocket.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: No better than this one. Don't you really want to
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: take it? She laughed and hesitated. He put it in
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: her hand and kept hold of her hand. You would
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: give me such pleasure. Come now, come and sit down.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: He led her to a bench in the middle of
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: the walk that runs about the basin. I've something else,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: he brought out of his pocket, a chocolate tablet gourmand,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and what besides, Only I'm ashamed it's not in its wrapper.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Give it me, give it. It's just the war, he
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: looked on as she nibbled. It's the first time, said
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: he that I've thought the war had any good in it. Oh,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: let's not talk of it. It's so completely overwhelming, Yes,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: he said, enthusiastic. We shall never speak of it. All
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, the atmosphere began to grow lighter. Look
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: at those pierrots who are taking their tub, She pointed
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: to the sparrows that were attending to their toilets on
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the edge of the basin. But then the other night
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: he followed her thought the other night in the subway,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Tell me now, did you see me? Then? Sure? But
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you never looked my way all the time, you stayed
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: turned in the other direction. See now, just as at present.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: He gazed at her profile as she nibbled at her bun,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: looking straight ahead of her with roguish eyes. Do look
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: at me a moment? What are you gazing at? Off there?
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: She did not turn her head. He took her right hand,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the glove of which was torn at the end index
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and showed the end of the finger. What are you
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: looking at? And you examining my glove? Will you be
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: so kind as not to tear it more? In a
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: distracted fashion, he was engaged in making the hole larger.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Oh forgive me, but how were you able to see?
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: She did not answer, but in that mocking profile he
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: could see the corner of her eye, and that was laughing. Oh,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: you sly boots. It's very simple. Everybody can do that.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I never could. Just try you simply squint. I never could. Never.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: In order to see, it's necessary for me to look
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: right to the front. Stupidly. Oh no, not so stupidly.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: At last, I see your eye. They looked at each
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: other gently laughing, what's your name? Loose? That's a lovely name,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: lovely is this day, and yours, Pierre rather worn out,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: a fine name, that has honest and clear eyes like mine. Well, yes,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: so far as clear goes they are. That's because they're
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: looking at loose loose people, say mademoiselle. No, no, he
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: shook his head. You are not mademoiselle. You are just loose,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: and I am Pierre. They were holding hands, and without
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: looking at one another, their eyes fixed upon the tender
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: blue of the sky between the branches of the leafless trees.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: They kept silence, the flood of their thoughts intermingled by
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: way of their hands. She said, the other night, both
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: of us were afraid. Yes, said he, How good it
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: was only later they smiled at, having expressed each one
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: what the other was dreaming of. She tore her hand
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: away and suddenly sprang up, having heard the clock strike. Oh,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I have scarcely more than time left. Together they marched
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: at that little quickstep the Parisian women take so prettily,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: so that seeing them trot, one scarcely thinks of their swiftness.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So easy appears the gate. Do you pass here often
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: every day? But oftener on the other side of the terrace.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: She pointed to the garden with its wat trees. I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: am just back from the museum. He looked at the
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: portfolio she carried. Painter, He asked, no, She replied, that's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: too big a word, a little daberet. Why for your
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: own pleasure? Oh no, indeed, for money. For money. It's horrid,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: isn't it to make art for money. It's particularly astonishing
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: to make money if one cannot paint. It's just for
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: that reason, you see. I'll explain it to you another time,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: another time by the fountain. We'll have lunch again. We
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: shall see if it's good weather. But you will come earlier,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Will you not say? Yes? Loose? They were come to
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the station. She jumped on the running board of the
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: tram car. Answer say yes, little light. She did not answer,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: but when the tram was in motion, she made a
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: yes with her eyelids, and he read on her lips
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: without her having spoken yes. Pierre. Both of them thought,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: as they went their way, it's amazing this evening, What
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: a happy look everybody has, And they kept smiling. Without
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: taking heed of what had occurred. They knew only that
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: they had it that they possessed it, and that it
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: belonged to them. It what nothing we feel rich this evening.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: On getting home, they looked at themselves carefully in the mirror,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: just as one looks at a friend with loving eyes.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: They said to themselves that gaze of his of hers
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: was fixed on you. They went to bed early overcome,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: but wherefore by a delicious weariness. While they undressed, they
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: kept thinking, what's best of all at present is that
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: there's a tomorrow. End of section two recording by Roger Moline.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Section three of Pierre and Luce by Roman Roland, translated
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Recording by Roger Moline. Tomorrow. Those who come after us
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: will have some difficulty in understanding what silent despair and
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: weariness of spirit without grounds that word evoked. During the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: fourth year of the war, Oh, such a weariness. So
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: many times had hopes been destroyed. Hundreds of tomorrows, just
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: like yesterday and today followed on, each similarly devoted to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: emptiness and waiting to waiting for emptiness. Time no longer ran.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: The year was like a river styx, which encircles life
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: with the circuit of its black and greasy waters, with
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: its somber, watery, silky flood that seems no longer to move. Tomorrow,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow is dead in the hearts of these children. Tomorrow
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: was resuscitated from the grave. Tomorrow saw them seated again
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: near the fountain, and Tomorrow's followed one another. The fine
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: weather favored these very brief meetings. Every day, a little
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: less brief. Each one brought a lunch in order to
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: have the pleasure of exchanging. Pierre now waited at the
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: door of the museum. He wanted to see her art works.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Although she was not proud of them, she did not
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: make him beg at all before showing them. They were
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: reproductions of famous paintings in miniature or portions of paintings.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: A group, a figure, a bust, not too disagreeable at
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the first glance, but extremely loose in drawing here and there,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: quite true and pretty touches, but right alongside the mistakes
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: of a pupil, exhibiting not merely the most elementary ignorance,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: but a reckless ease, perfectly careless of what any one
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: might think enough good enough. The way they are loose
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: recited the names of the pictures copied, Pierre knew them
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: too well. His face was quite drawn from his discomfiture.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Louise felt that he was not pleased, but she summoned
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: all her courage to show him everything, and this one too,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: wolf It was the ugliest one she had. She kept
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: up her mocking smile, which was directed to her own
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: address as well as to Pierre's, but she would not
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: confess to herself. A pinch of vexation, Pierre hardened his
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: lips in order not to speak, But at last it
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: was too much for him. She showed him a copy
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: of a Florentine Raphael. But these are not its colors,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: said he. Oh, well, that wouldn't be surprising, said she.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't go and look at it. I took a
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: photo and didn't anybody object. Who my clients, they haven't
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: been look at it either, And besides, even if they
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: had seen it, they don't look so narrowly, the red,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the green, the blue. They only see the fire in it.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I copy the original in colors, but I change
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the colors. See here, for instance, this one an angel
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: by Morillo. Do you find it's better? No? But it
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: amused me, and then it's easier, And besides, it's all
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the same to me. The essential thing is that this
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: will sell. At this last piece of boasting, she stopped,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: took the color sketches from him, and burst out laughing. Ha,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: so they're even uglier than you had expected, he said,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: greatly annoyed. But why why do you make things like these?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: She examined his upset visit with a kindly smile of
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: maternal irony. This dear little bourgeois, for whom everything had
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: been so easy, and who could not conceive that one
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: must make concessions for he asked once more, why tell
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: me why? He was quite crestfallen, as if it was
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: he who was the batcher and paint. Dear little boy,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: she would have liked to kiss him very properly on
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: his forehead. She answered gently, why in order to live?
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: He was quite overcome. He had never dreamed of it.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Life is complicated, she went on in a light and
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: mocking tone. In the first place, it is necessary to eat,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and then to eat every day. In the evening one
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: has dined, it's necessary to begin again the next day.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: And then it's necessary to dress oneself, dress oneself completely
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: body head, hands, feet. That's so far as clothing is concerned,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: and then pay for it all, for everything life, it's
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: just paying for the first time he saw what had
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: escaped his short sightedness of his love. The modest fur
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: in some place is worn, the shoes somewhat the worse
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: for wear, the traces of embarrassed means which the natural
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: elegance of a little Parisian woman makes one forget, and
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: his heart contracted within him. Ah, couldn't I be allowed?
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Couldn't I be permitted to help you? She moved away
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: from him a bit and reddened. No, no, she returned,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: much upset. There's no question of that. Never. I have
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: no need, but it would make me so happy. No,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: nothing more to be said about that, or we shall
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: not be friends anymore. We are friends, then, Yes, that's
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: to say, if you are so still after you have
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: seen these horrible daubs, surely, surely it isn't your fault.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: But do they trouble you? Oh? Yes, she laughed out contentedly.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: That makes you laugh, naughty girl. No, it's not being naughty.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: You do not understand, then why do you laugh? I
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: shan't tell you. She was thinking, love, How kind you
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: are to be troubled? Because I have done something that
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: is ugly. She went on, you are so kind. Thank you.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: He looked at her with astonished eyes. Don't try to understand,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: said she, tapping him softly on his hand. There let's
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: talk of something else. Yes, but one word more still
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: I could wish to know. Tell me and don't be hurt.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Are you at the present moment a bit strapped? No? No,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I told you that just now, because there have been
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: now and then hard times. But now it goes much better.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Mamma has found a situation where she is well paid.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Your mother is at work, Yes, in a munition's factory.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: She gets twelve francs a day. It's a fortune in
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a factory, a war factory. Yes, why it's frightful. Oh well,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: one takes what offers loose. But if you you should
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: have such an offer, oh me see for yourself. I
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: just daub ah. You perceive now that I have good
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: reasons to make my smears. But if it were necessary
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: to have money, and there were no other way than
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: to work in one of those factories that produce bombshells,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: would you go if it were necessary to make money
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and no other means, why surely I would run for
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it loose. Do you realize what it is they're doing
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: in there? No, I don't think about it. Everything that
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: will make people suffer, die, that tears them to pieces,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: that burns, that tortures beings like you, like me. She
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: put her hand on her mouth to signal him to hush.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: I know, I know all that, but I don't want
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: to think of it. You don't want to think about it, no,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: said she, And a moment after one must live. If
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: one thinks about it, one cannot live any more. For myself,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I want to live. I want to live. If they
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: compel me to do that in order to live, shall
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I torment myself on this account or on that? That's
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: no business of mine. It isn't I that wants it.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: If it is wrong, it is not my fault, not
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: my own. As for me, what I want is nothing bad?
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: And what is it you do want? First of all?
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I want to live? You love life? Why? Of course
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: am I wrong in that? Oh? No, it is so
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: jolly that you do live and you you don't love it? Also,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: I did not up to the time. Up to the time,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: this question did not call for an answer. Both of
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: them knew it. Following up, his thought. Pierre, you just said,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: first of all, I want to live, first of all.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: And what then? What else do you wish? I don't know. Yes,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: you do know. You are very indiscreet. Yes, very It
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: embarrasses me to tell you. Tell me in my ear,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: no one will overhear. She smiled. I would like, she hesitated,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I would like just a little bit of happiness. They
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: were quite close to the one to the other, She
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: went on, Is that too much to ask? They have
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: often told me that I am an egotist? And as
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: for me, I sometimes say to myself, what has one
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: a right to? When one sees so many wretchednesses, so
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: much pain about one, you hardly dare to ask. But
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: in spite of all, my heart does insist and cries out, Yes,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I have the right. I have the right to a
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: very little portion of happiness. Tell me, very frankly, is
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: that being an egotist? Do you think that wrong? He
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: was overcome by an infinite pity. That cry of the heart,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: that poor little naive cry, stirred him down to his soul.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Tears came to his eyes. Side by side on the bench,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: leaning one against the other, they felt the warmth of
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: their legs. He would have liked to turn toward her
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and take her in his arms. He did not dare move,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: for fear of not remaining in control of his emotion. Immovable,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: they looked straight forward at the ground before their feet.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Very swiftly, in a low, ardent voice, almost without moving
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: his lips, he said, oh, my darling little body, oh
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: my heart, would I could hold your little feet in
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: my hands upon my mouth, I would like to eat
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you all, without budging, and very low and very quickly.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Just as he had spoken, she replied, full of trouble, crazy,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: foolish boy, silence, I beg of you. A stroller by
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: of a certain age limped slowly past them. They felt
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: their two bodies melt together with tenderness. Nobody left on
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the walk. A sparrow with ruffled feathers was dusting itself
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: in the sand. The fountain shed its loosent droplets. Timidly.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Their faces turned one toward the other, and scarcely had
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: their eyes met each other, when, like the rush of birds,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: their mouths met, frightened and closely pressed, and then they
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: flew apart, loose, sprang up departed. He also had risen,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: she said to him stay here. They did not dare
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: to look at one another any longer. He murmured, loose
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: that little bit, that little bit of happiness, Say now
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: we have it. End of section three. Recording by Roger Moline.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Section four of Pierre and Luce by Rome rolland translated
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Recording by Roger Moline. The weather caused an interruption to
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the lunches by the fountain of the sparrows. Fogs came
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: to obscure the February sun, but they could not snuff
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: out the one they carried in their hearts. Ah, all
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: the bad weather you could wish might be on hand, cold, hot, rain,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: wind snow or sun, everything would be well always, and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: even things would be better, For when happiness is in
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: its period of growth, the very finest of all the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: days is always to day. The fog offered them a
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: benevolent pretext not to separate during a portion of the day,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: less risk that way of being observed. In the morning,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: he went to wait for her at the arrival of
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the train, and he accompanied her in her walks about Paris.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: He had the collar of his overcoat turned up She
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: wore a fur toak her boer rolled in a chilly
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: way up to her chin, her little veil tightly tied,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: on which her lips pushed out, and made in it
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: a small round relief. But the best veil was the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: moist network of the protective mist. The mist was like
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: a curtain of ashes, dense, grayish, with phosphorescent spots. One
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: could not see farther than ten yards. It became thicker
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: and thicker as they passed down the old streets, perpendicular
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to the sein friendly fog, in which a dream stretches
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: itself between ice, cold linen, and shutters with delight. They
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: were like the alms, and in the shell of the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: nut like a flame enclosed in a dark lantern. Pierre
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: held the left arm of Loose closely pressed to him.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: They walked with the same step, almost of the same stature.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: She a trifle taller, twittering in a half voice, their
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: figures quite close together. He would have liked to kiss
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the little moist round on her veil. She was going
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: to the shopmen who sold false antiques, who had ordered
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: them to dispose of her turnips, her little beats, as
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: she called them. They were never in a great hurry
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: to reach the place, and without doing so on purpose,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: at least that is what they insisted. Took the longest
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: way about, putting their mistake to the debit of the fog.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: When at last, nevertheless, the place came to meet them,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: despite all the efforts made to get it off the track,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Pierre stated at a distance. She entered the shop. He
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: waited at the corner of the street. He waited a
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: long time, and he was not very warm, But he
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: was glad to wait, and not to be warm, and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: even to be bored, because it was all for her.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: At last she came out again, and quick quick she
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: skipped up to him, smiling, tender, in great disquiet, lest
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: he be frozen. He saw in her eyes when she
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: had succeeded, and then he rejoiced over it, as if
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: it were he who had made the money. But most
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: often she came back to him empty handed. It was
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: necessary to return to the shop two or three days
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: in succession in order to obtain her pay. Very happy
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: she if they did not give her back the object
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: ordered accompanied by rebukes. Today, for instance, they had made
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: a great fuss on account of a miniature painted from
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the photograph of an honest fellow deceased whom she had
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: never seen. The family was indignant because she had not
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: given him the exact colors of his eyes and hair.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: It was necessary to do it all over again, since
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: she was disposed rather to look at the comic side
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: of her misadventures. She laughed courageously about it. But Pierre
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: did not laugh. He was furious idiots, triple idiots. When
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Loose showed him the photographs which she had to copy
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: in colors, he thundered in his disdain. Oh, how amused
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: she was at his comical fury at these heads of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: imbeciles frozen in solemn smiles. That the dear eyes of
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: his Loose should have to apply themselves to reproducing and
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: her hands to tracing the pictures of these mugs seemed
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: to him a profanation. No, it was too revolting. Copies
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: from the museums were more worthwhile, but one could not
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: count on them anymore. The last museums had shut their
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: doors and no longer interested her clients. It was no
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: longer the hour for Virgin Mary's and angels, only for
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: the poileu. Every family had its own dead or alive
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: oftener dead and wanted to eternalize his features. The wealthier
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: ones wanted colors. Work paid for well enough, but beginning
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: to be scarce, it was needful for her not to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: be capricious lacking which all that remained for the time
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: being was the enlarging of photographs at laughable prices. The
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: clearest point in all of this was that she no
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: longer had any reason to spend her time in Paris.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: No more copies in the museum. All that was needed
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: being to go to the shop to collect and bring
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: back the orders every two or three days. The work
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: itself could be done at home. That was not exactly
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: what the two children liked. They continued to stroll about
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the streets, unable to decide on taking up the way
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: to the station. Since they felt weary and the icy
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: fog pierced them through, they went into a church, and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: there seated most properly in the corner of a chapel,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: they talked in low voices about the little commonplace affairs
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: of their life while they looked at the stained glass windows.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: From time to time there fell a silence, and their
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: souls delivered from mere words. It was not the meaning
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: in the words that interested them, but their breath of life.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Like the furtive contacts between quivering antennae, their souls pursued
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: another dialogue, more solemn and profound. The dreams in the
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: colored windows, the shadows cast by the peers, the droning
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: of the hymns mingled with their dream evoked the sorrowful
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: facts of life which they desired to forget, and the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: consoling homesickness of the infinite. Although it was nearly eleven o'clock,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: a yellowish twilight brimmed the nave like the oil of
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: a sacred cruet. From on high and from a great distance,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: came strange gleams, the somber purple of a window, a
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: red pool on violet ones, indistinct figures encircled by their
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: black settings. Against the high wall of night. The bloodlike
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: gleam of light made a wound abruptly loose remarked, shall
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: you have to be taken? He understood at once what
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: she meant, for in the silence, his spirit too had
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: pursued the same obscure trail. Yes, he said, we mustn't
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: talk of it. Only one thing. Tell me. When he
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: told her in six months, she sighed. He said, we
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: mustn't think of it any more. What use would it be?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: She said, yes, what use? They drew long breaths in
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: order to push back the thought then courageously, or should
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: one say, to the contrary timorously, Let him who knows
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: decide where true courage lies. They both compelled themselves to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: talk of something else, of the stars of the candles
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: trembling in a reek of the organ, playing a prelude
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: of the beadle who was passing, of the box full
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: of surprises which her handbag was, in which the indiscreet
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: fingers of Pierre were rummaging. They had a very passion
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: of amusing themselves with nothing. Neither one nor the other
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: of these poor little creatures so much as considered the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: shadow of an idea of escaping from that destiny which
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: must separate them. To make any resistance against the war,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: to brave the current of a nation, as well, to
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: lift up the church which covered them with its shell,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: the only recourse was to forget, to forget up to
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the last second, while hoping at bottom that this last
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: second would never arrive until then to be happy. After
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: they went out, while chatting, she pulled him by the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: arm in order to cast a glance at a shop
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: front which they had just passed, a shoe shop. He
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: found his gaze caressing tenderly a pair of fine leather shoes,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: tall and laced up. Pretty, eh, said he, She said,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: a love. He laughed at the expression, and she laughed also,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: wouldn't they be too big? No, just a fit? Well,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: then suppose one bought them. She pressed his arm and
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: pulled him on so as to tear him away from
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: the sight. One has to belong to the wealthy, humming
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: the air of dasson lea capucine. But they're not for us?
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Why not Cinderella put the slipper on? All right? At
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: that time there were fairies. Still in the present time
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: there are lovers still, She sang, Na na nani mo
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: petit ami. Why so, since we are friends, just for
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: that reason? For that, yes, because one cannot accept things
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: from a friend, then perhaps from an enemy rather from
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: a stranger. My shopman, for instance, if he wanted to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: advance me a payment the robber but lose. I certainly
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: have the right to order from you a painting if
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: I wish, She stopped to burst out, laughing, you a
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: painting by me, my poor friend, what could you do
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: with it? You have gained a good deal of merit
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: already just for having looked at them. I know well
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: enough that they are cruits. They would stick in your throat.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Not at all, some of them are very cunning. And besides,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: if they suit my taste, it's certainly changed since yesterday.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Isn't it allowable to change one's taste? No? Not when
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: one's a friend? Loose do my poor? Well? Well, now
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: his portrait, why, it's very serious. I'm as good as
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: those idiots. She squeezed his arm in an unthinking burst. Darling,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: what was that you said? I didn't say anything. I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: heard you all right, Well, then keep it for yourself. No,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: I shan't keep it. I'll give it back to you,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: double darling, Darling, you'll do my portrait, won't you. It's settled.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Have you a photo? No? I have not. Then what
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: do you expect? I can't paint you in the street.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: I suppose you told me that at home you were
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: alone almost every day. Yes, the day's mamma works at
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: the factory. But I don't dare you were afraid then
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: that we shall be seen? No, that's not the reason.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: We have no neighbors. Well, then, what is it you're
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: afraid of? She did not reply. They were come to
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: the square before the tramway station. Although all about them
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: were people who were waiting, they were hardly to be seen.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: The fog continued to isolate the little couple. She evaded
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: his eyes. He took her two hands and said, tenderly,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: my darling, don't be afraid. She lifted her eyes and
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: they gazed at each other. Their eyes were so loyal.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: I trust you, said she. She closed her eyes. She
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: felt that she was sacred to him. They let go hands.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: The tram was about to start. Pierre's gaze questioned Luce
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: what day? He demanded, Thursday, she replied, come about two.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: At the moment of parting, she regained her roguish smile.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: She whispered in his ear, and you must bring your
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: photo just the same. I am not strong enough to
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: paint without the photo. Yes, yes, I know you have some,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: you naughty little humbug. End of section four recording by
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Roger Moline. Section five of Pierre and Luis by Roman Ralande,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: translated by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: public domain. Recording by Adremaline out beyond the malakoff streets
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: like broken teeth, separated by vague regions, losing themselves in
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: a dubious kind of countryside, where among boarded enclosures blossom
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: the cabins of ragpickers. The gray, dull sky is lying
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: low over the colorless ground, whose thin edges smoke with
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: a fog. The air is chill. The house easy to find.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: There are only three of them on one side of
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: the road, the last of the three. It has no
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: neighbors across the street. It has but one story, with
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: a little courtyard, which is surrounded by a picket fence,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: two or three starveling trees, a square patch of kitchen
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: garden under the snow. Pierre has made no noise on entering.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: The snow deadens his steps, but the curtains of the
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: ground floor are in motion, and when he reaches the door,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the door opens, and Loose is on the threshold in
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the half light of the hall. They say good day
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: in a choking voice, and she ushers him into the
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: first apartment, which serves as dining room. There it is
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: that she works. Her easel is installed near the window.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: At first, they do not know what to say to
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: one another. Both have thought over this visit altogether too
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: much beforehand. None of the speeches they had prepared is
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: able to come forth, and they talk in a half voice,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: although there is nobody else in the house, and it's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: just for that reason. They stay seated at some distance
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: from each other, with their arms rigid, and he has
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: not even thrown back the collar of his cloak. They
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: chat about the cold weather and the hours of the
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: tram cars. They are unhappy to feel themselves so silly.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: At last, she makes an effort and asks if he
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: has brought the photographs, and scarcely has he taken them
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: from his pocket, when both pluck up a spirit. These
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: pictures are the intermediaries over whose heads the chat revives.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: For now the two are not entirely alone. There are
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: eyes that look at you, and they are not embarrassing.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Pierre has had the clever idea, there was really no
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: roguishness in it, to bring all his photographs from the
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: age of three. There was one that showed him in
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: a little skirt loose. Laughed with pleasure. She spoke to
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: the photo in comical baby talk. Can there be anything
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: more delightful to a woman than to see the picture
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: of the person she loves when he was quite small.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: She cradles, she rocks him in her thoughts, she gives
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: him the breast, and she is even not so far
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: from the dream that she has given him birth. And besides,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: nor does she dope herself at all. It forms a
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: convenient pretext to say to the infant what she cannot
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: force herself to say to the grown up. When he
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: asks which one of the photographs she prefers, she says,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: without hesitating, the dear little cojure, how serious he looks
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: already almost more serious than to day. Certainly, if Loose
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: dared to look, And just here she does dare, in
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: order to make comparisons with the Pierre of to day,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: she would see in his eyes an expression of joy
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: and infantile gayety that does not appear in the infant.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: For the eyes of this infant, this little bourgeois under
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: a bell glass, are birds in a cage that lack sunlight.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: And the sunlight has come, hasn't it. Loose? In his turn,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: he asks to see photos of Loose. She exhibits a
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: little girl of six with a big plate, who was
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: squeezing a little dog in her arms. And as she
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: sees it again, she thinks mischievously that in that period
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: she loved no less fervently nor very differently. Whatever heart
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: she possessed, she gave it even then to her dog.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: It was Pierre already while waiting till he arrived. Also
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: she showed a young miss of thirteen or fourteen, who
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: twisted her neck with a coquettish and a somewhat pretentious air. Luckily,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: there was always there at the corners of the mouth
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: that roguish little smile, which appeared to say, you know,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: I'm just amusing myself. I don't take myself seriously. Now
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: they had completely forgotten their former embarrassment, she set herself
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: to sketching in the portrait. Since he must not budge
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: one bit anymore, nor talk except with the tips of
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: his lips, she it was who made almost all the
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: conversation all by herself. Instinct told her that silence was dangerous,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: and as it happens with sincere persons who talk at
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: some length, she came quickly to the point of confiding
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: to him the intimate affairs of her life and those
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: of her family, which she did not have the slightest
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: intention of recounting she heard herself speak with astonishment, but
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: there was no way of returning to solid ground. The
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: very silence of Pierre was like a declivity down which
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: the stream glided. She recited the facts of her infant
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: life and the provinces she came from Touraine. Her mother,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: belonging to a well to do family of the solid bourgeoisie,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: became infatuous with a tutor, the son of a farmer.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: The bourgeois family opposed the marriage, but the two lovers
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: were obstinate. The young girl had waited until she was
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: of age in order to send out the legal summons
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: to her family. After the marriage, her people would not
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: recognize her. The young couple lived through years of affection
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: and hard fare. The husband wore himself out at his task,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: and sickness arrived. The wife accepted this further burden courageously.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: She worked for two Her parents, obstinately cherishing their wounded pride,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: refused to do anything to come to his assistance. The
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: sick man died a few months before the outbreak of
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: the war, and the two women did not try to
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: renew connection with the mother's family. The latter would have
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: welcomed the young girl. If she had made any advances,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: she would have been received like Mayakulpa, condoning the action
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: of her mother. But the family might wait rather eat
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: stones for breakfast. Pierre was amazed at the hard heartedness
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: of these bourgeois parents loose, did not find it extraordinary.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Don't you believe there are a great many people like that,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: not wicked. No, I'm sure that my grandparents are not,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: and even believe that it pained them not to say
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: to us come back, but their self respect had been
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: mortified too much, and self love. Among these people there
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: is nothing else that is so great. It is stronger
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: than all the rest. When one has done them wrong,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: it is not merely the wrong that one has done them.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: There is the wrong. The others are wrong, and they
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: themselves are right, and so without being rule. No, really
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: they are not. They would let you die near them
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: at a slow fire, rather than concede that perhaps, after all,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: they were not right. Oh, they are not the only
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: ones one meets with. Many others say, am I mistaken?
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Aren't they just like that? Pierre pondered. He was excited
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: for he was thinking, why, yes, that is the way
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: they are through the eyes of the little girl. He
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: saw abruptly the penury of heart, the desert like aridity
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: of this bourgeois class, of which he formed a part,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: dry and worn out earth, which little by little has
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: imbibed all the juices of life and does not renew
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: them any more, just like those lands in Asia, where
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: the fecondating rivers, drop by drop have disappeared under the
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: vitreous sand. Even those whom they believe they love are
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: loved in a proprietary way. They sacrifice them to their egotism,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: to their buttressed pride, to their narrow and headstrong intelligence.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: Pierre took a sorrowful review of his parents and himself.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: He was silent. The pains of the apartment vibrated under
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: the shock of a distant cannonade, and Pierre, who was
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: thinking of those who were dying, said with bitterness, and
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: that too is their work. Yes, the hoarse barking of
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: these cannon away off there, the universal war, the grand catastrophe,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: the dryness of heart, and the inhumanity of that braggart
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and limited bourgeoisie had a large part in the responsibility
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: for all that and now, which was only just the
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: unchained monster would never stop un till it had devoured them.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: And Luce said that is true, For without knowing that
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: she did so, she followed the thought of Pierre. He
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: started at the echo. Yes it is true, said he.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: What has come about is just this world was too old,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: it ought to it must die. And loose, bowing her
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: head sorrowful and resigned, said once more, Yes, solemn faces
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: of children bent beneath destiny, whose youthful brows, touched by
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: the wing of care, bore within them such distressful ponderings.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: Darkness increased in the room. It was not very warm
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: in there. Her hands, being icy, loose stopped her work,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: which Pierre was not allowed to see. They went to
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: the wind and contemplated the evening shadows across mournful fields
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and wooded hills. The violet forests formed a half circle
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: against a greenish sky, powdered with dust of a pale gold.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: A bit of the soul of Pouve de Chavan floated there.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: A simple phrase of Luce made it evident that she
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: understood how to read that subtle harmony. He was almost astonished.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: She was not miffed at that, and said that one
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: might easily feel a thing that one would be incapable
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: of expressing. Though she painted very badly, it was not
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: altogether her fault. Through an economical turn, perhaps ill advised,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: she had not finished her course at the Arts Decoratives. Besides,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: poverty alone had made her turn to painting. What use
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: in painting without a purpose? And did not Pierre think
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: that almost all those who produce art do it without
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: actual necessity, through vanity, in order to occupy their time,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: or else because at first they think they need it,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: and later on will not confess they were mistaken. One
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: should not be an artist save when one absolutely cannot
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: keep to oneself the feeling one has. Only when one
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: has too much feeling. But Luce said she possessed just
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: enough for one. She went on, no for two. Because
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: he made a face at her, The lovely golden tints
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: in the sky began to turn to brown. The deserted
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: plane put on a disconsolate mask. Pierre asked Luce if
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: she was not afraid in that solitude. No, when you
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: get home late, there is no danger. The apaches don't
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: come here. They have their own customs. They are bourgeois too. Besides,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: we have over there an old ragpicker and his dog.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: And besides, I have no fear. Oh I'm not boasting
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: about myself. I have no merit at all in it.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: I am not courageous naturally, only I have not as
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: yet had any occasion to meet with real fear. The
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: day I do see it, perhaps I shall be more
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: of a poultroon than the next one. Does one ever
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: know what one really is? Well, I, for my part,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: know what you are, quoth Pierre. Ah, that is much
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: easier I myself. Likewise, I know as to you. One
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: always knows better about another. The moist chill of evening
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: entered the room through the closed windows. Pierre felt a
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: little shudder. Luce, who perceived it at once on his neck,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: ran to make him a cup of chocolate, which she
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: heeded on her spirit lamp. They took a bit of food.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Luce had thrown her shawl maternally over Pierre's shoulders, and
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: he let her do it like a cat, enjoying the
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: warmth of the stuff. Once more. The current of their
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: thoughts brought them back to the family history, which Luce
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: had interrupted. Pierre continued, Both of you all alone, so
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: entirely alone, you and your mother you must be deeply
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: attached to one another. Yes, said Luce. We were very
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: much attached, were repeated Pierre, Oh, said Luce. We always
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: love each other, still somewhat embarrassed by the word which
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: had escaped her, without thinking, why must she always tell
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: him more than she meant to? And nevertheless he did
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: not ask, He dared not ask her. But she saw
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: that his heart was putting the question. And it's so
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: nice to confide in someone when one has never had
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: the chance. The silence of the house, the half shade
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: of the room, encouraged her to confess. She observed, there's
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: no saying or knowing what has been going on for
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: the last four years. The whole world is changed. You
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: mean to say that your mother or that you have
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: changed the whole world? Repeated she in what respect? That's
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: hard to define. One feels everywhere among people who know
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: each other, even in the family, that the relations are
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: not the same. One is never sure of anything any more.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: In the morning, one says to oneself, what is it
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: I am going to experience this night? Shall I recognize it?
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: One is as if on a plank in the water,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: just about to upset. What is it that's happened. I
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: don't know, said Luce. I can't explain it, but it
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: has come since the war. There is something in the air.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: Everybody is troubled. In families, one sees people who were
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: not capable of doing without one another, marching off to day,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: each one in his own direction, and as if intoxicated,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: each one runs along with nose on the trail. Where
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: do they go? I don't know, and I believe they
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: don't either either pure chance or some desire spurs them.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: Women take lovers, men forget their wives, and kindly people too,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: who generally appear so calm and so orderly. Everywhere we
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: hear of households broken up. It's the same between parents
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: and children. My mother, she stopped, then ran on. My
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: mother lives her own life. She stopped again. Oh, it's
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: perfectly natural. She is still young, and poor Mamma has
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: not had much happiness. She has not poured out her
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: sum of affection. She has a right to want to
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: make her life over again. Pierre inquired she wants to
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: marry again. Loose shook her head. One could hardly know
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: very well. Pierre dared not insist. She loves me well still,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: but it's not the way it used to be. She
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: is able to do without me at present, Poor mamma.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: She would be so sorry if she knew that her
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: love for me is no longer in her heart. As
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: the first of all, she would never confess that. Never,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: Oh how queer it is this life. She wore a
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: sweet smile, sorrowful and roguish upon her hands placed on
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: the table. Pierre put his hands tenderly and sat without motion.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: We are poor creatures, he muttered, loose continued in a moment,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: we too, how tranquil we are. The others have the fever,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: the war, the factories. People are in a hurry. They
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: hustle to work hard, to live, to enjoy themselves. Yes,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: said Pierre, the time is short, all the more reason
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: not to run, said LuSE. One gets too soon to
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: the end. Let us walk slowly, but it's time that
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: hurries along. Hold on to it, well, I'm holding on
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: to it. I'm holding said Luce, grasping his hand thus
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: back and forward, tenderly, gravely. They talked like a pair
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: of good old friends, but they took good care that
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: the table should stay between them. And behold, they perceived
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: that the knight had filled the room, Pierre rose hurriedly.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Luce did nothing to retain him. The short hour had passed.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: They were afraid of the hour that might come. They
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: said au revoir to each other with the same constraint,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the same low and choked voice as when he came
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: in on the threshold. Their hands scarcely dared to press
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: each other. But when the door was shut, just as
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: he was about to leave the garden, as he turned
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: his head toward the window of the ground floor, he
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: saw in the last gleam of the copper colored twilight
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: on the pane, the outline of Loose, who was following
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: his departure into the uncertain depths of the gleam, filled
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: obscurity with a face full of passion, and turning back
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: to the window, he pressed his lips against the closed pane.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: Their lips kissed through the wall of glass. Then Loose
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: moved back into the shadows of the room, and the
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: curtain fell. End of section five. Recording by Roger Moline.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: Section six of Pierre and Loose by Roman Rolande, translated
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: Recording by Roger Moline for the past fortnight. They had
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: been unaware of anything that was going on in the world.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: In Paris, people might make arrests and issue condemnations as
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: hard as they could. Germany might make treaties and tear
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: up those she had signed. Governments might lie, the press denounce,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: and armies kill. They did not read the papers. They
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: knew there was the war somewhere all about them, just
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: as there is typhus or else influenza, but that did
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: not touch them. They did not want to think about it.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: The war recalled itself to them that night they had
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: already gone to bed. They spent their heart so freely
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: in those days that when evening came they were worn out.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: They heard the alarm signals, each in his or her
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: respective quarter, and declined to get up. They hid their
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: heads in their beds under the bedclothes, as a child
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: will during a thunder storm, not at all from fear.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: They were positive that nothing could happen to them, but
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: in order to dream. Listening to the air rumbling in
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: the night, Loose thought it would be delightful to listen
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: to the storm as it passes in his arms. Pierre
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: stopped his ears, let nothing trouble his thoughts he insisted
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: on picking out on the piano of memory. The song
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: of the day passed, the melodious thread of the hours
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: from the first minute that he entered Loose's house, the
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: slightest inflections of her voice and her gestures, the successive
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: images which his eyes eyes had hastily snapped up. A
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: shadow under the eyelids, a wave of emotion that passed
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: beneath the skin like a shiver across the water, a
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: smile just brushing against the lips like a sun ray.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: And his palm pressed on nestled against the nude softness
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: of the two extended hands, these precious fragments that endeavored
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: to reunite the magic fantasy of love in a single
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: close embrace. He would not permit that noises from without
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: should enter there. The outside was for him a tiresome visitor.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: The war. Oh, I know, I know, has it come?
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: Let it wait? And the war did wait at the
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: door patiently. War knew that it would have its turn.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: He knew that also. That is why he had no
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: shame in his egotism. The rising billow of death was
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: about to seize him. So he owed death nothing in advance,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: nothing let death come back again at the date of
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: the contract. Up to that day, let death be silent
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: ah up to then, at least he did not want
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: to lose anything of this marvelous time. Each second was
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: a golden grain, and he the miser who paused over
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: his treasure. It's mine, it's my property. Don't you dare
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: touch my piece, my love, it's my own. Up to
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: the hour. And when will the hour come? Perhaps it
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: will not come at all? A miracle? Why not meantime?
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: The stream of hours and days kept on flowing. At
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: each new bend of the channel, the roaring of the
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: rapids drew nearer. Stretched out in their bark, Pierre and
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Loose listened and heard, but they had no more fear.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: Even that enormous voice, like the base notes of an organ,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: cradled their amorous dream. When the gulf should be there,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: they would close their eyes, press closer together, and all
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: would be over in one blow. The gulf spared them
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: the trouble of thinking about the life that was to be,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: that might possibly be afterward, about the future without an issue,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: For Loose foresaw the obstacles that Pierre would have to
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: encounter if he wished to marry her, and Pierre less clearly,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: he had less taste for clearness, feared them. Also, let
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: us not look so far ahead. Life beyond the gulf
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: was like that other life they talked about in church.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: They tell you that we shall find each other again,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: but they are not so very sure. One soul thing
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: is sure, the present, our own present. Let's pour into it,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: without any taking of stock, the whole of our part
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: in eternity. Even less than Pierre did loose inform herself
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: about the news, the war did not interest her in
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: the least. It was only one misery. More, amongst all
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: the various miseries which form the web and woof of
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: social existence, those who can be astonished about it are
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: those only who stand sheltered from naked realities. And the
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: little girl, with her precocious experience, who understood the struggle
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: for one's daily bread panum quotidianum. God does not grant it.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: For nothing revealed to her bourgeois friend the murderous war, which,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: for poor folks and particularly for women, reigns cunningly deep
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: and without a truce, below the lie of peace. She
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: did not talk too much about it, however, for fear
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: of depressing him on seeing the excitement into which her
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: accounts threw him. She had an affectionate feeling of her
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: own superiority. Like most women, she did not entertain with
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: regard to certain ugly facts of life, the physical and
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: moral disgust which upset the young fellow. There was nothing
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: of the rebel in her. In still worse circumstances, she
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: would have been able to accept repugnant tasks without repugnance
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: and quit them quite calm and natty, without a stain.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: To day, she could not do that any more, for
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: since she had come to know Pierre, her love had
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: caused her to be filled with the tastes and distaste
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: of her friend. But that was not her fundamental nature.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: Calm and smiling, by reason of her race, not pessimistic
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: at all. Melancholy and the grand, detached airs of life
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: were not her business. Life is as it is, let
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: us take it as it is. It might have been worse.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: The hazards of an existence which loose had always known
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: to be precarious on the lookout for expedients, and particularly
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: since the war had taught her to be careless of
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: the morrow. Add to this that every preoccupation concerning the
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: beyond was a stranger to this free little French girl.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: Life was enough for her. Loose found life delightful. But
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: it all hangs by a thread, and it takes so
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: little to make the thread break that really it is
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: not worth the trouble to torment oneself about what may
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: turn up tomorrow, eyes of mine, drink in the daylight
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: that bathes you as you pass. As to what may
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: come after, Oh, my heart, abandon yourself in confidence to
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: the stream. And since anyhow we cannot do otherwise, And
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: now that we love each other, isn't it just delicious?
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: Loose well knew that it could not be for long,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: But neither her life nor she herself either would be
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: for long. She did not resemble much that little fellow
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: who loved her and whom she loved, tender, ardent and nervous,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: happy and miserable, who always enjoyed and suffered to excess,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: who gave himself, who flew into a rage always with passion,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: and who was dear to her just because he resembled
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: her hardly at all. But both of them were in
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: accord as to a mute resolve not to look into
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: the future. The girl, through the carelessness of the resigned
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: rivulet that sings on its way, the other through that
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: exalted negation, which plunges into the gulf of the present
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: and never desires to emerge again. The big brother had
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: come back again on furlough for a few days. During
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: the first evening at home, he perceived that there was
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: something changed in the family atmosphere. What he could not tell,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: but he was vexed. The mind possesses antenna which perceive
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: at a distance before consciousness is able to touch and
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: consider the object, And the finest of all antenna are
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: those of vanity. Phillips agitated themselves, searched about, and were
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: surprised they missed something. Did he not have his circle
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: of affection which rendered unto him to the customary homage
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: the attentive audience, to which, in miserly fashion he doled
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: out his stories his parents, who brooded him under their
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: touched admiration. The young brother stopped there. It was he,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: exactly he who was missing to the appeal. He was present,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: of course, but he did not exert himself about his
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: big brother. He did not beg for confidences, as was
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: his wont which the other used to take pleasure in
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: denying pitiful vanity. Philip, who on former occasions affected in
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: regard of the ardent questions of his younger brother a
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: sort of protective and bantering lackadaisicalness, was hurt that he
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: did not put them. This time it was he who
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: tried to provoke them. He became more loquacious, and he
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: looked at Pierre as if he wished him to feel
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: that his talk was meant for him. At another time,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: Pierre would have thrilled with joy and caught on the
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: fly the handkerchief that was tossed him, but he quietly
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: permitted phil to pick it up for himself if he
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: had any desire to do so. Philip, feeling piqued, tried
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: irony instead of being troubled. Pierre answered with composure in
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: the same detached tone Philip wanted to discuss, became agitated harangued.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: After a few minutes, he found that he was haranguing
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: all by himself. Pierre looked on at his efforts, wearing
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: an air of saying, go ahead, my dear boy, if
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: that is any pleasure to you, continue, I'm listening that
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: insolent little smile. Their roles were reversed Philip stopped talking,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: much mortified, and observed his young brother more attentively, who, however,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: did not occupy himself further with him how he had changed.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: The parents, who saw him every day had not noticed anything,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: but the penetrating and moreover jealous eyes of Philip did
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: not find any more the well known expression. After several
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: months of absence, Pierre had a happy, languid, thoughtless, torpid air,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: indifferent as to persons, inattentive to what is about them,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: floating in an atmosphere of voluptuous dream like a young girl.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: And Philip felt that he counted for nothing in the
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: little brother's thoughts. Since he was no less expert in
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: analyzing himself than in observing others, he was quick to
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: recover consciousness of his own vexation and laugh at it.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: Vanity thrust aside, he interested himself in Pierre and searched
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: for the secret of his metamorphosis. He would have liked
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: well to have solicited his confidence, but that was a
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: business to which he was not habituated, and besides, little
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: brother did not seem to have any need of confiding.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: With a careless and chafing unconstraint. He looked on, while
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: Philip attempted awkwardly to spread the net, and with his
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: hands in his pockets, smiling his thoughts elsewhere, whistling a
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: little air, he answered vaguely, without listening carefully to what
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: he was being asked. Then all of a sudden turned
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: off to his own regions. Good night, and he was
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: no longer there, one caught only at his reflection in
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: the water which escaped from between one's fingers, and Philip,
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: like a lover disdained, felt all his value now and
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: experienced the attraction of the mystery in this heart which
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: he had lost. The key to the enigma came to
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: him by pure chance. As he was coming home in
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: the evening by Boulevard Montparnasse in the dark, he passed
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: Pierre and Loose. He was afraid they might have noticed him,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: but they cared little for what surrounded them. Closely pressed together,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: Pierre supporting his arm on the arm of Loose, and
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: holding her hand with fingers interlaced, they strolled along with
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: short steps, immersed in the hungry and gluttonous tenderness of
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: Eros and Psyche, as they lie at length on the
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: nuptial couch in the Pharnacina. The close embrace of their
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: gaze fused them into a single being, like a waxen group. Philip,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: leaning against a tree, looked upon them as they passed, stopped,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: went on, and disappeared in the dark, and his heart
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: was full of pity for the two children. He thought,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: my life is sacrificed, so be it, but it is
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: not right to take those also, if at the least
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: I could pay for their happiness. The next morning, in
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: spite of his polite inattention, Pierre noticed, vaguely, in actual fact,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: not at once, but after some reflection, the affectionate tone
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: of his brother with him, and getting half awake, he
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: perceived his kind eyes, which he had not noticed before.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: Philip looked at him with such clarity that Pierre had
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: an impression that his gaze was scrutinizing him, and awkwardly,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: he hastened at once to push the shutter over his secret,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: but Philip smiled, rose, and, putting his hand on his shoulder,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: proposed that they should take a turn in the open.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: Pierre could not resist the new confidence which was tendered him,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: and together they proceeded to the Luxembourg near at hand.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: The big brother had kept his hand on the shoulder
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: of the youngster, and the latter felt himself proud of
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: the re established accord. His tongue was loosed. They talked animatedly,
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: of intellectual things, of books, their reflections on men, their
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: new experiences, of everything except the subject both were thinking about.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: It was like a tacit convention. They were happy to
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: feel themselves intimate, with a secret between them. While chatting,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: Pierre inquired of himself, does he know? But how could
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: he know? Philip observed him as he chattered along and
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: kept on smiling. Pierre ended by stopping short in the
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: midst of a sentence, What's the matter with you? Nothing?
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: I'm just looking at you. I am delighted with you.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: They shook hands while they were returning. Philip said, are
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: you happy? Without speaking. Pierre nodded with his head. Yes,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: you are right, my boy. A great beautiful thing is happiness.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Take my portion. In order not to trouble him, Philip,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: during his furlough avoided making any allusion to the near
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: incorporation of Pierre's class in the army, but on the
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: day of his departure, he could not prevent himself from
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: expressing his anxiety at seeing his young brother exposed very
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: soon to the trials which he knew only too well.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: Scarcely did a shadow cross the brow of the young lover.
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: He drew his eyebrows a bit together, blinked with his eyes,
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: as if to drive off a troublesome vision, and said enough.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: Later on QUI lo sa we know it only too well,
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: said Philip. What in any case I do know, said Pierre,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: vexed that he should insist, is that when I am
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: down there, I, for my part, shall do no killing.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: Without contradicting him, Philip smiled sorrowfully, knowing well what the
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: implacable power of the crowd does with weak souls and
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: with their will. End of section six. Recording by Rogermline.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: Section seven of Pierre and Luce by Roman Rolande, translated
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: Recording by Rogermline. March was back again, with a longer
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: day and the first songs of birds, but along with
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: the days in cre least the sinister flames of the war.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: The air was feverish, with waiting for springtime and waiting
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: for the cataclysm. One heard the monstrous rumbling grow in intensity,
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: the arms of millions of enemies clashing together, heaped up
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: for the past months against the dyke of the trenches,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: and already to spill over like a tidal boar upon
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: the Il de France and the Nave of Lactae. The
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: shadow of frightful rumors preceded the plague, a fantastic report
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: of poisoned gases of deadly venom scattered through the air,
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: which was about so it was said to descend on
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: whole provinces and destroy everything, like the asphyxiating overflow from
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: Peleais Mountain. Finally, the visits of bombing Gothas coming Oftener
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: and Oftener cleverly kept up the nervousness of Paris. Pierre
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: and Lucie continued to refuse to recognize anything about them,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: but the slow fever which they breathed in, whether they
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: would or not, from that atmosphere heavy with menace, kindled
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: the desire that glowed in their young bodies. Three years
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: of war had propagated in European souls a freedom of
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: morals which reached even the most honest and straight, And
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: of the two children, neither one nor the other had
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: any religious beliefs, but they were protected by their delicacy
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: of heart, their instinctive modesty. Only in secret, they had
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: decided to give themselves completely one to the other, before
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: the blind cruelty of mankind should separate them. They had
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: not spoken of this, they said it to themselves that evening.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: Once or twice during the week. Luce's mother was kept
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: at the factory by her night work. On these nights, loose,
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: in order not to to stay alone in that desert quarter,
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: slept in Paris with the girlfriend. Nobody kept watch over her.
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: The two lovers took advantage of this freedom to pass
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: a portion of the evening together, and sometimes they took
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: a simple dinner in a little out of the way restaurant.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: On leaving after dinner on this mid March evening, they
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: heard the bomb alert signal sound. They took refuge in
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: the nearest place as if it were an affair of
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: a rain shower, and for some time amused themselves observing
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: their chance comrades, but the danger seeming distant or no
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: longer there. Although nothing had occurred to announce the end
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: of the bomb warning, Luce and Pierre, who did not
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: want to get home, too late, went on their way,
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: chatting gaily. They followed an old, dark and narrow street
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: near Satselpice. They had just passed a Hackney coach standing
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: eye idle, both horse and driver asleep, near the gate
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: of a porte cochere. They were twenty steps away and
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: on the other sidewalk, when everything about them shuddered a red,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: blinding flash, a roll of thunder, a rain of loosened
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: tiles and broken window panes near the buttress of a house,
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: which made a sharp projection into the street. They flattened
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: themselves against the wall, and their bodies interlaced by the
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: gleam of the explosion. They had seen their own eyes
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: full of love and dismay, and when the darkness fell again,
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: Luci's voice was saying, no, Pierre, I want no more.
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: And Pierre felt upon his own lips, the lips and
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: the teeth of the passionate girl. They remained palpitating in
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: the darkness of the street. Some paces away, some men
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: issuing from the houses picked the dying coachmen from among
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: the remnants of the smashed vehicle. They passed quite close
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: to them, with the unfortunate man whose blood was falling
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: drop by drop, Louise and Pierre remained petrified, so closely
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: knit together that when consciousness revived in them, it seemed
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: as if their bodies had been naked in the pressure.
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: They loosened, their hands and lips grown together, which drank
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: of the loved one like roots, and both of them
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: they began to tremble. Let us go home, said LuSE.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: Invaded by a sacred terror, she dragged him away. Loose,
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: you will not let me leave this life before, Oh God,
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: said Louse, squeezing his arm. That thought would be worse
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: than death. My love, my love. They kept repeating, one
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: to the other. Once more they came to a stop.
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: When shall I be yours? Said Pierre. He could not
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: have dared to ask, when shall you be mine? Loose
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: noticed this and was touched by it. Adored one, She
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: said to him, very soon, Let's not hurry. You cannot
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: desire it more than I wish it. Let us stay
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: this way a little while it is splendid, this month longer,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: right to the end, until Easter. He murmured, This year
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: Easter was the last day in March. Yes, at the resurrection,
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: ah quoth he, there's the death before resurrection. Hush, she interposed,
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: closing his mouth with her own. They drew away from
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: each other this night. It's our betrothal, whispered Pierre. Huddled
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: against each other while they walked in the shadows, they
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: wept gently with tenderness. The ground crackled under foot with
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: the broken glass, and the sidewalk was bloody. Death and
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: the night were lying in ambush round about their love,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: but above their heads, like a magic circle, beyond the
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: embrasure of the two black walls, in the narrow street,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: as through a chimney, the heart of a star throbbed
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: against the deep, pulpy grain of the sky. Lo And
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: behold the voices of the bells sing out. Lights are rekindled,
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: and the streets are animate once more. The air is
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: free of foes. Paris breathes again. Death has flown. They
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: had come to the day preceding Palm Sunday. Every day
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: they saw each other for hours together, and they did
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: not even try to hide themselves any more. They no
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: longer had any accounts to render the world by Such
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: gossamer threads were they attached to it, and so near
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: to breaking. Two days before the German Grand Offensive had
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: been started. The wave advanced along a front of nearly
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: a hundred kilometers. Fast following emotions caused the city to vibrate,
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: the explosion of Coroneuve, which had shaken Paris like an earthquake,
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: the incessant air bomb alarms, which broke in on sleep
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: and wore out nerves. And on this morning of Saturday,
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: after a troubled night, all those who were not able
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: to close an eyelid until very late were roused again
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: by the thunder of the mysterious cannon buried in the
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: far distance, which beyond the Somme launched death and trial
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: shots as if from another planet. In the course of
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: the earlier shots, which were attributed to the coming back
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: of the aerial Gothas, people had taken refuge in a
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: docile way inside their cellars. But a danger that continues
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: becomes in time a habit to which life accommodates itself,
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: and the peril is not far from turning out an attraction,
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: even when the risks run are common to all and
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: are not too great. Besides, the weather was too lovely.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: It was a pity to bury one's self alive. Before noon,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: all the world was out of doors, and the streets
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: and gardens. The terraces of the cafes had a festival
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: air on this radiant and burning afternoon. It was this
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: afternoon Pierre and Luce had selected to pass far from
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: the crowd in the forest of Chaville. For the past
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: ten days they had existed in an uplifted calm, profound
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: peace at the heart, and nerves on edge. They had
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: a feeling like existing on an islet about which rushed
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: a frantic current. A vertigo of sight and hearing carried
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: them away, but with eyelids lowered and hands on ears.
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: When the bolt is pushed on the door, suddenly, in
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: one's inner deep there comes a silence, a blinding silence,
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: the moveless summer day, when joy, invisible like a hidden bird,
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: sings its song, fresh and liquid like a brook, Oh joy,
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: magical singer, warblings of happiness. I know too well it
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: suffices that a slit should open between my lids, or
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: that my finger should cease to push a moment against
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: my ear, and the foam and roar of the stream
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: will follow in frailed dike. Just to know it so
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: frail exalts the mood of joy, which I know is
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: threatened peace and silence itself take on a passionate look
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: the woods. Once reached, they held each other by the hand.
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: The first days of spring are a new wine that
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: rises to the head. The youthful sun intoxicates with the
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: purest juice of its vine. Light still floats over the
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: leafless wood and athwart the bare branches. The blue eye
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: of the sky fascinates the reason and lulls it to sleep.
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: Scarcely did they endeavor to exchange a few words. Their
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: tongues declined to finish a phrase once started. Their legs
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: were weak, and they hated to walk under the sunshine
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: and the silence of the woods. They tottered the earth
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: drew them just to lie down in the path, just
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: to let themselves be carried along on the rim of
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: the colossal wheel of the worlds. They scrambled over the
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: bank of the wayside, entered a thicket, and side by
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: side on the old dead leaves through which violets showed
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: their buds, they stretched themselves out. The first songs of
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: the birds and the distant thuds of the guns mingled
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: with the village bells that were proclaiming the festival of
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: the morrow. The luminous air, vibrated hope, faith, love, death.
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: Notwithstanding the solitude, they spoke in whispers. Their hearts were
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: oppressed by happiness or by sorrow. They could not have
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: told they were submerged in their dream. Lucille immobile, stretched
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: out her arms close to her body, her eyes open, absorbed,
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: and gazing at the sky, felt rising in her a
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: hidden suffering which, since the morning she forced herself to
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: drive away in order not to mar the joy of
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: the hut holiday. Pierre laid his head on Luci's knees
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: in the hollow of her skirt, like a child who
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: goes to sleep with its face close couched against the
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: warmth of the stomach, and LuSE, without a word, caressed
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: with her hands the ears and eyes, the nose and
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: lips of her beloved one, dear spiritual hands, which seemed,
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: as in the tails about fairies, to have little mouths
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: at the finger tips. And Pierre, a thinking piano, divined
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: the meaning of the little waves that sped under the tips,
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: the emotions that passed through the soul of his darling.
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: He heard her sigh before she had begun to sigh.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: Luce had raised herself with her body leaning forward and
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: with breathing oppressed, she moaned in a whisper, Pierre, Oh, Pierre.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: Pierre looked at her, troubled, Oh Pierre, what are we anyway?
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: What is it they want of us? What do we want?
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: What is this going on? Within us? These guns, these birds,
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: this war, this love, these hands, body eyes? Where am i?
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: And what am i? Pierre, who did not recognize this
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: expression of bewilderment in her, wanted to take her in
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: his arms, but she repulsed him. No, no, and hiding
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: her face in her hands, she thrust face and hands
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: together into the grass. Pierre was upset and begged of her. Lose.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: He thrust his head close to that of Luce. Lose.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: He repeated, what's the matter with you? Is it against me?
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: She raised her head No, and he saw tears in
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: her eyes. Are you in trouble? Yes? Why? I don't know?
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: Tell me, Ah, I'm ashamed, she said, ashamed about what
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: about everything? She fell silent. Since the morning she had
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: been haunted by a sorrowful memory, painful and degrading her mother,
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: crazed by the poison that crept about in the promiscuous
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: conditions of the factories, made for luxury and for murder
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: in those human vats. No longer kept up any restraint
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: upon herself. At home, she had indulged in a scene
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: of furious jealousy with her lover, without caring if her
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: daughter heard, and Luce had learned that her mother was
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: with child. For her, this was like a blot that
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: extended to herself, whose entire love, whose love for Pierre,
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: was polluted thereby. That is why, when Pierre had approached her,
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: she had repulsed him. She was ashamed of herself and
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: of him, ashamed of him, poor Pierre. He remained there,
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: humiliated and not daring to budge any more. She was
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: struck with remorse, smiled in the midst of tears, and
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: resting her head on Pierre's knees, said it is my turn.
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: Still disquieted, Pierre smoothed her hair as one pets a cat.
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: He murmured, loose, what is all this tell me nothing?
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: She responded, I've seen sorrowful things. He had too much
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: respect for her secrets to insist, but Louse went on
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: a few minutes later, Ah, there are moments one is
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: ashamed to belong to mankind. Pierre trembled, yes, said he,
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: and after a silence, bending over, he said, very low,
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: forgive me. Luce sprang up impetuously threw herself on Pierre's neck,
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: repeating forgive me, and their mouths found each other. The
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: two children felt the need of consoling one another, both
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: of them without saying it aloud. They were thinking, luckily,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: we are going to die. The most frightful thing would
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: be to become one of those men who are proud
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: of being man, to destroy, to render vile lips, touching lips, eyelashes,
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: brushing eyelashes. They plunged their gaze one in the other,
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: smiling and with a tender pity. They did not tire
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: of that divine sentiment, which is the purest form of love.
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: At last, they tore themselves from their contemplation and loose
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: with eyes again. Serene perceived once more the gentle hue
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: of the sky, the sweetness of the renewing trees, and
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: the breath of flowers. How lovely it all is, she exclaimed.
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: She was thinking, why are things so beautiful and we
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: so poor, so mediocre, so ugly? Unless it be you,
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: my love, Unless it be you, She gazed at Pierre again, Shah,
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: what are others to me, and with the magnificent illogicality
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: of love, she burst out, laughing, sprang up with a leap,
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: rushed into the wood, and cried, catch me, Catch me.
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: They played like two children all the rest of the day,
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: and when they were very tired they returned with slow
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: steps towards the valley, filled like a basket with the
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: sheaves of the setting sun. Everything they savored seemed new
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: to them. With one heart for two, with two bodies
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: for one. End of section seven. Recording by Roger Moline,
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: Section eight of Pierre and LUs by Romain rolland translated
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: Recording by Roger Moline. They were five friends about the
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: same age, met together at the house of one of them,
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: Five young comrades at their studies, whom a certain conformity
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: of mind and a first sorting out of opinions had
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: grouped together apart from the rest, And yet no two
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: of them who thought the same way. Beneath the pretended
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: unanimity of forty millions of Frenchmen, there are forty million
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: brains that keep right to themselves. Thought in France is
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: like the country a state composed of small properties, from
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: one bit of farm to the other. The five Friends
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: tried to exchange their ideas across the hedge, but they
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: did that only to affirm themselves more imperatively in their
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: several opinions, each for himself, each one, for that matter,
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: liberal in mind, and if not all of them, Republicans,
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: all foes of intellectual or social reaction or any backward return.
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: Jacques Cier was the most blazingly in favor of the war.
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: This generous young Jew had espoused all the passions the
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: spirit of France contained all through Europe. His cousins in
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: Israel espoused him the causes and the ideas of their
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: adopted countries. Moreover, according to their method, they even had
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: a tendency toward an exaggeration of whatever they adopted. This
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: fine fellow with ardent but rather heavy voice and look,
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: with his regular features as if marked with a stamp imposed,
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: was more pronounced in his convictions than was needful and
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: violent in contradiction. According to him, all that was necessary
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: was a crusade made by the democracies to deliver the
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: nations and extinguish war. Four years of the philanthropic slaughter
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: house had not convinced him. He was one of those
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: who would never accept the flat contradiction of facts. He
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: had a twofold pride, the secret pride of his race,
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: which race he wished to rehabilitate, and his pride personal
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: that wanted to prove itself right. He wished this all
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: the more because he was not entirely sure of it.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: His sincere idealism served as a screen against exacting instincts
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: too long suppressed, and to a need for action and adventure,
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: which was no less sincere Antoine n Day. He too
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: was for the war, but that was because he could
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: not do otherwise. This big, honest, young bourgeois, with his
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: rosy cheeks, placid and keen, who had a short breath
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: and rolled his r with the pretty grace of the
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: provinces of the Center, contemplated with a quiet smile the
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic transports of his frenzier or else he knew how,
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: on occasion to make him climb a tree with a
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: careless word, But the big lazy fellow took precious care
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: not to follow him up. What is the use of
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: getting in a sweat for or against what does not
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: depend upon ourselves. It is only in the tragedies that
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: one finds the heroic and loquacious conflict between duty and
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: one's pleasure. When we have no choice, we do our
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: duty without wasting words. It was no jollier on that account.
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: Nade neither admired nor recriminated. His good sense told him
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: that once the train started and the war in motion,
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: it was necessary to roll along with it. There was
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: no other position to take. As for searching after the responsibilities,
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: that was merely time lost. When I am forced to fight,
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: it gives me a gay outlook, a pretty consolation to
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: know that I might have not fought if things had
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: really been what they haven't been. The responsibilities Now, for
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: Bernard sessay, they were exactly the primordial question. He was
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: obstinate in disentangling that not of snakes, or rather like
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: a little fury, he brandished the snakes above his head.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: A frail boy, distinguished looking impassioned, too many nerves burning,
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: with a too lively sensitiveness of the brain, belonging to
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: the wealthy bourgeoisie and an old Republican family which had
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: played a part in the highest offices of state. He
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: professed through reaction all the ultra revolutionary passions he had
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: inspected too near at hand the masters of the day,
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: and what they brought forth he accused all the governments,
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: and by preference his own. He talked of nothing anymore
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: but of Sindicholists and Bolsheveki. He had just made a
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: discovery of them, and he fraternized with them as if
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: he had known them from infancy, without knowing too well,
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: which he saw no remedy save in a total upset
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: of society. He hated war, but he would have sacrificed
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: himself with joy in a war between classes, a war
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: against his own class, a war against himself. The fourth
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: in the group, Claude Pouget, sat by at these jousts
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: of words with a cold and somewhat disdainful attention, coming
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: from the very undermost bourgeoisie. Poor, uprooted from his province
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: by a passing inspector of schools, who remarked his intelligence prematurely.
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: Deprived of the intimate influence of his family, this winner
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: of a Lysier scholarship, accustomed to depend upon himself alone,
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: to live only with himself, merely lived by himself and
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: for himself. An egotistic philosopher given to analysis of the soul,
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: voluptuously immersed in his introspection like a big cat curled
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: up in a ball. He was not moved at all
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: by the agitation of the others. These three friends of his,
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: who never could agree among themselves, he put in the
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: same bag with the populars. Did not all three forfeit
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: their social rank by wishing to partake in the aspirations
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: of the mob. Truth to say, the mob was a
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: different crowd for each of them. But for Pouget, the crowd,
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be, was always wrong. The crowd was
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: the enemy. The intellect should remain alone and follow its
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: particular laws, and found apart from the vulgar crowd in
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: the state, the small and closed kingdom of thought. And
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: Pierre seated near the window, distractedly, looked out of doors
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: and dreamed. Generally speaking, he mingled in these juvenile assaults
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: with passion. But to day it seemed to him a
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: humming of idle words, which he listened to from so
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: far away, oh so far away, in a bored and
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: mocking demi. Torpidity plunged in their discussions. The others were
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: a long while in remarking his muteness. But at last Sessay,
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: accustomed to find in Pierre an echo of his verbal
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: Bolshevisms was astonished at failing to hear it reverberate any more,
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: and put the question to him. Pierre waked up in
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: a hurry, reddened, smiled and asked, what were you talking about?
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: They were most indignant. Why you haven't been listening to anything?
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: What the when were you brooding about? Asked Nodet. A
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: little confused, a little impertinent, Pierre replied about the spring tide.
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: It has come back, all right, without your permission, It
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: will clear out without our help. All of them crushed
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: him with their disdain. Nadet taunted him as a poet,
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: and Jacques Saie as a poseur. Pouget alone fixed his
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: eyes on him, with curiosity and irony in them, his
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: wrinkled eyes, with their cold pupils flying aunt What, questioned Pierre,
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: rather amused. Beware of the wings, said Pouget. It's the
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: nuptial flight. It only lasts one hour. Life does not
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: last much more, said Pierre. During Passion week, they saw
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: one another every day. Pierre went to see Loose in
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: her isolated house, the thin and hungry garden was waking up.
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: They passed the afternoon there. They felt now an antipathy
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: toward Paris and the crowd against life. Also, at certain
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: moments even a moral paralysis kept them silent, immovable, one
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: close to the other, without a wish to stir. A
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: strange feeling was at work in both of them. They
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: were afraid, fear in the measure that the day approached
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: when they should give themselves, the one to the other.
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: Fear through excess of love, through the purification of soul,
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: which the ugly things, the cruelties, the shameful facts of life, frightened,
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: and which, in an intoxication of passion and melancholy, dreamed
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: of being delivered from it all. They said nothing about
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: it to each other. The most of their time they
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: passed in babbling gently about their future lodgings, their work
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: in common, their little household. They arranged in advance, down
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: to the smallest item of their installation, the furniture, the
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: wall papers, the spot for each object a true woman.
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: The evocation of these tender nothings, intimate and familiar images
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: of daily life, moved loose, sometimes to tears. They tasted
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: the exquisite small joys of the hearth of the future.
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: They knew that nothing of that sort would occur. Pierre
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: through the presentiment of his native pessimism, Loose through the
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: clairvoyance of love, which understood the practical impossibility of the marriage.
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: That is why they hasted to enjoy it in their dream,
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: and each concealed from the other the certainty felt that
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: it would not be anything else but a dream. Each
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: one believed that this secret was personal, and watched deeply,
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: touched over the other's illusion. When they had exhausted the
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: mournful delights of the impossible future, they were overcome with fatigue,
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: as if they had lived through all of it. Then
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: they rested themselves seated under the arbor with the dried
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: up vines, while the sun melted the congealed sap, and
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: Pierre's head on Lucia's shoulder. They listened dreamily to the
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: humming of the earth. Behind the passing clouds. The young
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: son of March played bo Peep, laughed, and disappeared. Clear
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: sun rays, somber shadows ran across the plain, as in
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: a soul run joys and sorrows. Loose, said Pierre abruptly,
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: don't you recollect. It was long long ago, even then
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: we were like this, yes, said Loose. That's true, all
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: of it, I remember all. But where were we? They
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: amused themselves by trying to recall under what shapes they
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: had known one another before, already as human beings, perhaps,
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: but certainly at that time. Pierre was the girl and
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: Loose the lover birds in the air. When she was
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: a small child, her mother told Loose that she had
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: been a little wild goose that had fallen down the
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: chimney ah. She had thoroughly broken her wings. But where
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: particularly they enjoyed finding themselves again was in the elementary
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: fluid forms that penetrate one another, twist about and untwist,
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: like the volumes of a dream or else of smoke.
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: White clouds that dissolve in the gulf of the sky,
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: little waves that play about, the rain on the so oil,
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: the dew on the bush, seeds of dandelion that swim
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: at the beck of the air. But the wind carries
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: them away, provided it does not begin to blow again,
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: And that we shall not lose each other any more
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: for all eternity. But he decided, as for me, I
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: believe that we never did quit one another. We were together,
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: just as we are now lying against each other. Only
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: we were asleep, and we dreamed dreams. From time to time.
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: We awake with difficulty. I feel your breath, your cheek
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: against mine. One makes a great effort, We bring our
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: mouths together. One falls back asleep. Darling, darling, I am here.
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: I hold your hand. Don't let me go now, it
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: is not quite yet. The hour spring hardly shows the
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: end of his icy nose, like yours said, loose, very
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: soon we shall awake on a fine summer's day. We
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: ourselves shall be that fine day of summer, says Loose.
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: The warm shade of the lime trees, the sun through
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: the branches, the bees that sing, the peach on the
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: warm wall, and its perfumed pulp, the noon spell of
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: the harvesters and their golden sheaves, the lazy cattle that
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: chew their cud, and at evensong by the sunset like
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: a flower set pool, the liquid light that runs across
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: the tops of the fields. Yes, we shall be everything,
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: quoth Luce, everything that is good and sweet to see
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: and to have, to kiss, and to eat, to touch,
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: and inhale. What's left over we shall leave to them.
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: She added, pointing to the city and its oak wreaths.
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: She laughed. Then kissing her friend, she said, we have
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: chanted our little duet. Well, what do you say, my friend, Pierot, yay, verily, Jessica,
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: he replied, My poor Pierot, she returned, we are none
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: too well equipped for this world where people know how
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: to sing. Nothing else but the Marseilles good enough if
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: they even knew how to sing. That we have got
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: off at the wrong station. We left the train too early.
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: I am afraid, said Pierre, that the next station would
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: have been still worse. Can you see us, my darling,
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: in the social fabric of the future, the hive, they
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: promise us, where none will have the right to live
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: except for the queen Bee's service, or for the republic
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: laying eggs from morning tonight like amitrieuse, or from morning
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: to night licking the eggs of others. Thank you for
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: that choice, said Loose, Oh, loose, little ugly one. How
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: ugly you talk, said Pierre, laughing, yes, it's very bad.
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: I know it. I am good for nothing, nor you either,
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: my friend. You are just as ill fitted for killing
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: or maiming men as I am for sewing them up. Again,
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: like those wretched horses when they are ripped up at
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: the bullfights so that they can serve again at the
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: next afray. We too are useless beings and dangerous who
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: have the ridiculous, criminal pretension to live only in order
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: to love those we do love. Likewise, my little lover,
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: lad and my friends, honest people and little children, the
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: good light of the day, also good white bread, and
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: everything that is pretty and right for me to put
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: in my mouth. It's shameful, it's shameful blush for me, Piero.
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: But we shall be well punished. There is going to
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: be no place for us in that factory of the
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: state without rest and without truce, which the earth will
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: be soon. Luckily we shall not be here. Yes, what
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: happiness quoth Pierre, If in thine arms, o, lady of
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: my heart, I die to greater fame, I'll not aspire,
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: content upon thy bosom, to expire whilst kissing thee and
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: thus from living part well, little darling, what sort of
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: a fashion is that? Nevertheless, it is after a good
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: old French mode. It's by Ronsard, said Pierre. Else I
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: would only claim a century. Hence, sans glory and sans
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: fail aime slothful to die upon thy lap. Cassandra a
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: hundred years sighed Luce. He doesn't ask much, or I mistake,
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: or more delights are heaped in death like that than
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: all the honors reaped by Caesar Great or Firebolt Alexander. Naughty, naughty, naughty,
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: little scamp, have you no shame in this epoch of heroes?
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: There are too many? Said Pierre. I would rather be
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: a little fellow who loves a babe of a man,
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: the babe of a woman who still has on his
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: lips the milk from my breast, cried Luce, seizing him
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: round the neck, My babe, my own. End of section
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: eight recording by Rogermaline. Section nine of Pierre and Luce
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: by Romain rolland translated by Charles Decay. This LibriVox recording
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain recording by Roger Moline. Survivors
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: of those days, who since then have been witnessed to
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: the dazzling change of fortune will have forgotten, doubtless the menacing,
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: heavy flight of the dark Wing, which during that week
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: covered the Eel de France and touched Paris with its shadow.
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: Joy does not take further stock in past trials. The
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: German Drive reached the line of its summit. Between Holy
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: Monday and Holy Wednesday, the Psalmme traversed Bapam Vassel Guiscard
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: roy Noyon Albert carried eleven hundred guns, taken sixty thousand prisoners,
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: symbol of the land of Grace trampled upon. On Holy Tuesday,
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: died Debussy, the harmonious, A liar that is snapped, poor
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: little expiring grease. What will remain of it? A few
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: chiseled vases, a few perfect steeleeye which the grass will invade,
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: from the path of tombs, immortal vestiges of ruined Athens,
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: as from the height of a hill. Pierre and Luce
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: watched the shadow that moved upon the town. Still wrapped
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: in the rays of their love, they waited without fear
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: for the end of the brief day. Now they would
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: be two in the night like to the evening, and
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: jealous There rose up to them, conjured up the voluptuous
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: melancholy of the lovely cords of Debussy, which they had
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 1: so god greatly loved, more than it had ever done
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: in any other time. Music responded to the need of
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: their hearts. Music was the only art which rendered the
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: voice of the delivered soul behind the screen of forms.
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: On Holy Thursday, they walked loose on Pierre's arm and
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: holding his hand, along the streets of the suburb, soused
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: with the rain. Gusts of wind scurried over the moistened plain.
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: They noted neither rain nor wind, neither the hideousness of
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: the fields nor the muddy ways. They seated themselves on
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 1: the low wall of a park, a section of which
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: had recently fallen in under Pierre's umbrella, which scarcely protected
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: her head and shoulders, loose, her legs hanging down, and
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: her hands wet, her rubber coat all steeped, looked at
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: the water dripping down. When the wind stirred the branches,
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: a little fire of drops sounded, Clup, clup. Louse was silent, smiling, tranquility, luminous.
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: A profound joy bathed them. Why does one love so much?
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: Said Pierre, Ah, Pierre, you do not love me so
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: very much? If you ask that, I ask you that,
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: said Pierre, in order to make you say what I
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: know just as well as you. You want me to
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: give you some compliments, But you'll be neatly caught for
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: if you know why I love you, I, for my part,
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: do not know. Why you don't know, said Pierre in consternation.
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: Why no, she was laughing in her sleeve. And there
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: is no need at all why I should know. When
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: one asks why something is, it means that one is
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: not sure about it, that the thing is not good.
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: Now that I do love no more? Why, no more,
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: where or when or for nor how? Either My love is,
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: My love is. All beside may exist if it cares
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: to their faces kissed each other. The rain took advantage
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: of that, gliding under the awkward umbrella in order to
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: brush with its fingers their hair and cheeks. Between their lips.
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: They drank in a little cold drop. Pierre remarked, But
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: the others, what others? Quoth Luce the poor, answered Pierre,
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: All those who are not us, Let them do as
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: we do, love and be loved loose all the world
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: cannot do that? Why yes, Why no, you don't realize
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: the value of the gift you have made me. To
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: give one's heart, to love, one's lips to the beloved,
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: is to give one's eyes to the light. It isn't giving,
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: it's taking. There are blind people. We cannot cure them, Pierot,
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: Let's do the seeing for them. Pierre remained silent. What
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: are you thinking of, asked she. I am thinking that
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: on this day, very far from us, very near, he
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: suffered the passion, he who came on earth to cure
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: the blind loose, took his hand. Do you believe in him? No, LuSE,
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: I believe no longer. But he remains always the friend
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: of those he has accepted, even once at his table.
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: And you do you know him, hardly, responded Luce. They
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: never talk to me about him, but without knowing him,
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: I love him for I know that he loved not
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: as we do. Why not we ourselves have a poor
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: little heart that knows only how to love you, my love?
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: But he he loved all of us. But it's always
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: the same love. Would you like we should go tomorrow,
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: asked Pierre, much moved in honor of his death. I
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: was told that they will have fine music at Saint Gervais. Yes,
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: I would love well to go to church with you
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: on that day. I am sure he will give us welcome.
• 2:43:02
  Speaker 1: And being nearer to him, one is nearer each to
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 1: the other. They fell silent, rain, rain, rain, The rain
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: falls the night falls at this hour tomorrow, said she,
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: we shall be down there. The fog was penetrating. She
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: gave a little shudder. Darling, are you not cold, he asked, Disquieted,
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: she rose, no, No, Everything is love to me. I
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: love everything, and everything loves me. The rain loves me,
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: the wind loves me, the gray sky and the cold,
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: and my little greatly beloved. For Holy Friday, the heavens
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: remained clothed in their long gray veils, but the air
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: was soft and calm. In the streets one soft flowers,
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: john quills stalks. Pierre took a few, which she kept
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: in her hand. They followed the peaceful Quay des Orfevre
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: and passed along the base of pure Notre Dame. The
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: charm of the old city, clothed in a discreet light,
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: surrounded them with its noble gentleness. On the place Saint Gervais,
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: pigeons flew up under their feet. They followed them with
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: their eyes about the facade of the church. One of
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: the birds settled on the head of a statue at
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: the top of the steps to the parvis before the church.
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: As they were about to enter, loose turned about and
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: perceived in the midst of the crowd. A few steps
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: away a little girl with reddish hair, about a dozen
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: years old, leaning against the portal, both arms raised above
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: her head. Who I was looking at them? She had
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: the fine and somewhat archaic face of some little cathedral statue,
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: with an enigmatic smile. Graceful, shrewd and tender. Loose smiled
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: also at her, while calling Pierre's attention to her. But
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: the little girl's gaze passed over her head and suddenly
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: changed to fright and hiding her face in her hands,
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: the child vanished. What is the matter with her? Asked Luce,
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: but Pierre did not look. They entered above their heads,
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: the dove was cooing. Last noise from outside. The voices
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: of Paris were quenched. The fresh air ceased, the hangings
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: of the organ, the lofty vaultings, the curtain of stones
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: and sounds parted them from the world. They installed themselves
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: in one of the side aisles between the second and
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: the third chapel, on the left as you enter in
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: the hollow of a peer. Both of them crouched seated
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 1: on some steps, hidden from the rest of the assembly,
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 1: turning their backs to the choir. On raising their eyes.
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: They saw the summit of the altar, the crucifix, and
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: the stained windows of a lateral chapel, the beautiful old
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: Chance wept out their pious melancholy. They were holding hands,
• 2:46:32
  Speaker 1: the two little pagans before the Great Friend in the church,
• 2:46:36
  Speaker 1: all swathed in mourning, and both of them at the
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: same time murmured in a low voice, Great Friend, before
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: your face, I take him, I take her, Unite us.
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: You see our hearts and their fingers remained joined and interlaced,
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: like the straw of a basket. They were one single flesh,
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: which the waves of music passed through with their shivering notes.
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: They took to dreaming, as if they lay in the
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: same bed. Luce saw again in her thought that little
• 2:47:13
  Speaker 1: girl with reddish hair, and behold, it seemed to her
• 2:47:17
  Speaker 1: that she recalled how she had seen her before in
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: a dream the past night. She could not reach the
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: point of knowing whether that was actually true, or if
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: she were projecting the vision of the present back to
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: the past. Slumber, Then, weary of the effort, her thoughts
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: allowed themselves to float, Pierre pondered over the days of
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 1: his short expended life. The lark that rises from the
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: misty plain to reach the sun, how far it is,
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: how high it is, will it ever be reached? The
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: fog thickens. There is no earth any more, there are
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: no heavens any more, And strength gives out. Suddenly, while
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: beneath the vault of the choir, a Gregorian vocalese trickled down.
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: The jubilant song gushed forth, and out from the shadows
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: emerges the little shivering form of the lark that swims
• 2:48:16
  Speaker 1: on the sea of light without shore. A pressure of
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: their fingers recalled to them that they were swimming together.
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: They found themselves again in the darkness of the church,
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: closely pressed together, listening to the beautiful chance. Their hearts
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: melted with love and touched the summits of the purest joy,
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: and both of them desired. They prayed never to descend
• 2:48:44
  Speaker 1: to earth again. At that moment, Luce, who had just
• 2:48:49
  Speaker 1: kissed her dear little comrade with a passionate glance, his
• 2:48:53
  Speaker 1: eyes half closed and his lips parted. He appeared lost
• 2:48:57
  Speaker 1: in an ecstasy of happiness, and raised him head in
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: a rush of thankful joy toward that supreme power which
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 1: we look for instinctively. On high Luce saw with terror
• 2:49:10
  Speaker 1: in the red and gilded window of the chapel, the
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 1: face of the reddish haired child in the parvist, who
• 2:49:16
  Speaker 1: was smiling at her. And as she sat mute, frozen
• 2:49:21
  Speaker 1: with astonishment, she saw once more on that strange visage
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: the same expression of fright and of pity. And at
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: the same instant the great peer against which they leaned
• 2:49:33
  Speaker 1: their backs, moved and down to its very base. The
• 2:49:37
  Speaker 1: entire church trembled and loose, whose heart beats deadened in
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: her the crash of the explosion and the shrieks of
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 1: the crowd, threw herself, without having time to fear or
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: to suffer, upon Pierre, in order to cover him with
• 2:49:53
  Speaker 1: her body, like a hen, with her brood. Upon Pierre, who,
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: with closed eyes was smile, smiling with happiness, with a
• 2:50:02
  Speaker 1: maternal movement, she clasped the dear head against her bosom
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: and that with all her power, and coiled upon him,
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: her mouth on his neck. They shrank together to their utmost,
• 2:50:16
  Speaker 1: and the massive peer crumbled down upon them with one crash.
• 2:50:23
  Speaker 1: The end end of section nine. End of Pierre and
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: Luce by Roman Roland, translated by Charles Decay, recording by
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: Roger Moline