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Updated: June 13, 2025
And at the works during the day which followed Morange gave alarming signs of distress, of the final sinking of his mind into a flood of gloom.
Morange quietly stepped into the void, amid the darkness. And, without a cry, he fell. Alexandre who was close in the rear, almost touching him so as not to lose him, certainly detected the void and the gust which followed the fall, as with sudden horror the flooring failed beneath them; but force of motion carried him on, he stepped forward in his turn, howled and likewise fell, head over heels.
They only remembered on the morrow that they must have seen Morange, if indeed it were really Morange that silent, unobtrusive, almost shadowy gentleman, who had wept while pressing their hands.
And now one evening, at the end of the twelve years, as Morange went in to see her, he detected that the atmosphere of the little drawing-room was changed, quivering as it were with restrained delight amid the eternal silence. "Nothing fresh since yesterday, dear madame?" "Yes, my friend, there's something fresh."
And for the last moment Mathieu had been thinking of Morange, whom he had also invited to the wedding, but who had excused himself from attending, as if he were terrified at the idea of gazing on the joy of others, and dreaded, too, lest some sacrilegious attempt should be made in his absence on the mysterious sanctuary where he worshipped.
And it was only then, everything being ready, that Morange turned into the passage to betake himself to the little drawing room of the mansion. Constance was there waiting for him with Alexandre. She had given instructions for the latter to call half-an-hour earlier, for she wished to confess him while as yet telling him nothing of the real position which she meant him to take in the house.
Beneath the gust of horror which chilled him, Morange could only find these words: "Well, madame, poor Blaise came just behind you and broke his skull." Her demeanor was perfect; her hands quivered as she raised them, and it was in a halting voice that she exclaimed: "Good Lord! good Lord, what a frightful misfortune." But at that moment an uproar arose through the house.
"Well, you know," said she, "it is I who compel him to go about and take as much exercise as possible. He has a temperament that needs the open air. Shooting is very good for him." At this same moment there came another ring at the door, announcing another visitor. And this time it was Madame Morange who entered the room, with her daughter Reine.
Eighteen years had now already elapsed since Morange had lost his wife Valerie; and nine had gone by since the death of his daughter Reine. Yet it always seemed as if he were on the morrow of those disasters, for he had retained his black garb, and still led a cloister-like, retired life, giving utterance only to such words as were indispensable.
The weeks went by, the winter ran its course, and March had come round, when the memory of all that the young fellow had heard and seen that day things which he had vainly striven to forget was revived in the most startling fashion. One morning at eight o'clock Morange abruptly called at the little pavilion in the Rue de la Federation, accompanied by his daughter Reine.
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