And he was sorry that he had thus suddenly brought about the crisis, that he had not taken time for reflection, that he had not waited and dissimulated for a month or two, so as to find out for himself.  He ought to have pretended to suspect nothing, and have allowed them to betray themselves at their leisure.  It would have been enough for him, to see the other kiss the child, to guess and to understand.  A friend does not kiss a child as a father does.  He should have watched them behind the doors.  Why had he not thought of that?  If Limousin, when left alone with George, had not at once taken him up, clasped him in his arms and kissed him passionately; if he had looked on indifferently while he was playing, without taking any notice of him, no doubt or hesitation could have been possible; in that case he would not have been the father, he would not have thought that he was, would not have felt that he was.  Thus Parent would have kept the child, while he got rid of the mother, and he would have been happy, perfectly happy.

He tossed about in bed, hot and unhappy, trying to recollect Limousin’s ways with the child.  But he could not remember anything suspicious, not a gesture, not a look, neither word nor caress.  And the child’s mother took very little notice of him, and if she had had him by her lover, she would, no doubt, have loved him more.

They had, therefore, separated him from his son, from vengeance, from cruelty, to punish him for having surprised them, and he made up his mind to go the next morning and obtain the magistrate’s assistance to gain possession of George, but almost as soon as he had formed that resolution, he felt assured of the contrary.  From the moment that Limousin had been Henriette’s lover, her adored lover, she would certainly have given herself up to him, from the very first, with that ardor of self-abandonment which makes women conceive.  The cold reserve which she had always shown in her intimate relations with him, Parent, was surely also an obstacle to her having been fecundated by his embrace.

In that case he would be claiming, he would take with him, constantly keep and look after, the child of another man.  He would not be able to look at him, kiss him, hear him say “Papa” without being struck and tortured by the thought, “he is not my child.”  He was going to condemn himself to that torture, and that wretched life every moment!  No, it would be better to live alone, to grow old alone, and to die alone.

And every day and every night, these dreadful doubts and sufferings, which nothing could calm or end, recommenced.  He especially dreaded the darkness of the evening, the melancholy feeling of the twilight.  Then a flood of sorrow invaded his heart, a torrent of despair, which seemed to overwhelm him and drive him mad.  He was as frightened of his own thoughts as men are of criminals, and he fled before them as one does from wild beasts.  Above all things he feared his empty, dark, horrible dwelling, and the deserted streets, in which, here and there, a gas lamp flickers, where the isolated foot passenger whom one hears in the distance seems to be a night-prowler, and makes one walk faster or slower, according to whether he is coming towards you or following you.