You  know  my  former  anxieties  about  her.  I  see  that
she  worries  still,  and  about  everything.  My  father
feels  the  effect.  They  succeed  in  making  themselves
unhappy,  such  good  people  as  they  are!  No,  certainly,
there  is  no  Providence."

At  the  beginning  of    the  year  1882,  the   situation


22  THE   DAY   OF    RECKONING

however,  underwent  a  change.  Eugene  had  mani-
fested a  desire  to  leave  the  rue  Amyot,  alleging  the
necessity  of  establishing  himself  more  suitably.  Then
followed  the  first  serious  disagreement  between  the
son  and  his  parents.  After  having  approved  of  his
decision,  and  aided  him  in  his  search  for  a  new  abode,
and  superintended  its  being  made  ready  for  him,
the  father  and  mother  suddenly  declared  that  they
could  not  think  of  leaving  the  place  in  which  they
had  lived  for  over  thirty  years ;  and  their  determina-
tion was  invincible.  In  the  light  of  the  facts  which
I  came  to  know  later,  I  now  see  that  this  resolve  of
the  old  people  contained  an  idea  of  expiation  sug-
gested by  the  mother.  But  in  ignorance  of  the  wrong-
doing whose  secret  shame  weighed  upon  this  husband
and  wife,  how  explain  this  obstinacy  except  as  a
form  of  mania?  This  the  physician  did  not  fail  to
do.  But  already  the  suspicion  that  his  parents'  mental
state  concealed  a  mystery,  had  begun  vaguely  to  dawn
in  his  mind.  He  perceived  in  them  a  determination
to  have  no  share  in  the  comfort  of  which  his  situation
would  henceforth  admit.  Almost  without  effort  on  his
part,  and  without  interruption  of  his  work  for  the
examinations,  the  preceding  year  had  brought  hira  in
more  than  two  thousand  dollars  —  an  enormous  sum
for  ways  of  living  so  simple  as  theirs.  He  came  to
see  me,  I  remember,  after  his  last  attempt  to  persuade
his  parents,   and   related  to  me    the    conversation    he


THE  DAY   OF  KECKONING  23

had  had  with  them,  —  his  own  urgency  and  their  more
and  more  positive  refusal.
