But, just at that time, George received an alarming letter from his mother. She was unhappy, almost in despair. In consequence, he could no longer defer his return to the paternal house.
When he became convinced that his duty urged him to hasten at once where there was real sorrow, he was seized by feelings of anguish which overcame by degrees his first sentiment of filial piety, and he felt rise within him a sharp irritation which increased in acuteness as the scenes of the coming conflict, clearer and more numerous, surged through his conscience. And this irritation soon became so acute that it dominated him entirely, persistently nourished by the material annoyances of the departure, by the heart-breaking farewells.
The separation was more cruel than ever. George passed through a period of the most intense sensibility; the exasperation of all his nerves kept him in a constant state of uneasiness. He appeared to no longer believe in the promised happiness, the future peace. When Hippolyte bade him good-by, he asked:
"Shall we meet again?"
When he kissed her lips for the last time, as she passed through the door, he noticed that she lowered a black veil over the kiss, and this insignificant trifle caused him profound distress, assumed in his imagination the importance of a sinister presentiment.
On arriving at Guardiagrele, at his birthplace, under the paternal roof, he was so exhausted that, when he embraced his mother, he began to cry like a child. But neither the embrace nor his tears comforted him. It seemed to him that he was a stranger in his own home—that he was visiting a family which was not his own. This singular sensation of isolation, already experienced under other circumstances connected with his kin, returned now more vivid and more importunate than ever. A thousand little particulars of the family life irritated him, hurt him. During lunch, during dinner, certain silences, during which only the sounds of the forks were heard, made him feel horribly uncomfortable. Certain refinements, to which he was accustomed, received every moment a sudden and painful shock. The air of discord, hostility, and open warfare which weighed heavily on this household almost choked him.
The very evening of his arrival, his mother had taken him aside to recount her troubles and her ailments, to tell him about the bad behavior and dissoluteness of her husband. In a voice trembling with anger, looking at him with tears in her eyes, she had said to him:
"Your father is an infamous man!"
Her eyelids were somewhat swollen, reddened by the large tears; her cheeks were hollow; her whole person bore the signs of long-endured suffering.
"He is an infamous man! A wretch!"