Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day's work, was
announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt
they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of the
Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely
pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap
emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from
following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts of
childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness in his
mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and reflective
among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. Happiness
makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes it small and
even trivial.
It was when he had reached the little office where he had done the
business of his life--a kind of neutral place where he had ever isolated
himself from the domestic scene--that the final sensation, save one, of
his existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had divined his
purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by a roundabout
way, she had placed herself where she could speak with him alone before
he left the place for ever--if that was to be. She was not sure that his
exit was really inevitable--not yet.
When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his office
where he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting to
be taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she held
out her hand and said:
"But one word, M'sieu' Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend--indeed
a friend.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287