He raised his head which he had bent over the tablecloth, and in his most authoritative and cutting manner, answered:
"No."
She was always uneasy before undertaking a step, but once undertaken, all her fear vanished. The brutal refusal of her son did not stop her.
"Listen, Albert," she went on, "a man may become a victim of temptation, he may make mistakes. I know that. Without God's help we are all weak, and you have quite forgotten that. But when one has a home, children, one belongs to them. Nothing in the world has the power to free you."
She was instantly able to read on the hardened features of her son the effect of her exhortation. He wore his most distant and forbidding expression, as though high walls were surrounding him. Protected and powerful he explained with perfect freedom of mind:
"I did not wish to discuss this subject with you, Mother. What is the good? But you are wrong to condemn me. A hearth, the name explains itself—it lives, it revives, it illumines. At mine, I breathed a poison which little by little enervated me. I gave Elizabeth the life which suited her. She lacked nothing. And I, I was choked. I did not want our separation. It is she who unjustly desired it. In reality, we had been separated for years and through her own fault."
"Have you not been impatient with her? And if she had some slight faults, how can you compare them to your wrong-doing?"
"I recognize no wrong-doing."
"Ah!"
"You, you have been happy."