"Have you nothing to say?"
Again he spoke with deadly coldness....
"Nothing...."
She waited a moment: then she spoke....
"You have no feelings. When you set out to do a thing, you will trample over every one. I have never been able to do anything with you. You may become a great man, Paul: but I pity any one who loves you, any one who gets in your path. You will kill whatever holds you—always.... I was a fool to give birth to you: a great fool to count on you.... Well, it's over.... You have your way...."
He was amazed: he trembling there, guilty, afraid, horrified, his whole soul beseeching the comfort of her arms! He a cold trampler?
He stood, with all the feeling of one who is falsely condemned, and yet with all the guilt of one who has sinned....
And then, suddenly, a wild animal cry came from his mother's throat....
"Oh," she cried, "how terrible it is to have children!"
His heart echoed her cry.... The executioner's knife seemed to strike his throat....