ared at the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones:
"As one family!
No. I belong to no family.
I do not belong to yours. I do not belong to any family of men.
In houses where people are among themselves, I am superfluous.
There are families, but there is nothing of the sort for me.
I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside.
Did I have a father and mother?
I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it was well, I said to myself: `Enter thou not.''
I could have lied, it is true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent.
So long as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I must not.
It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing; my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however.
I passed the night in trying to persuade myself to it; you questioned me, and what I have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do it; well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there are two things in which I have not succeeded; in breaking the thread that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or nearly everything.