The knot must be cut immediately, this very day; for even he had fits of that imperious demand for a swift solution which is the only strength of weak natures, incapable of a prolonged effort of will.  His lawyer’s mind, accustomed as it was to disentangling and studying complicated situations and questions of domestic difficulties in families that had got out of gear, at once foresaw the more immediate consequences of his brother’s state of mind.  In spite of himself, he looked at the issue from an almost professional point of view, as though he had to legislate for the future relations of certain clients after a moral disaster.  Constant friction against Pierre had certainly become unendurable.  He could easily evade it, no doubt, by living in his own lodgings; but even then it was not possible that their mother should live under the same roof with her elder son.  For a long time he sat meditating, motionless, on the cushions, devising and rejecting various possibilities, and finding nothing that satisfied him.

But suddenly an idea took him by storm.  This fortune which had come to him.  Would an honest man keep it?

“No,” was the first immediate answer, and he made up his mind that it must go to the poor.  It was hard, but it could not be helped.  He would sell his furniture and work like any other man, like any other beginner.  This manful and painful resolution spurred his courage; he rose and went to the window, leaning his forehead against the pane.  He had been poor; he could become poor again.  After all he should not die of it.  His eyes were fixed on the gas lamp burning at the opposite side of the street.  A woman, much belated, happened to pass; suddenly he thought of Mme. Rosemilly with a pang at his heart, the shock of deep feeling which comes of a cruel suggestion.  All the dire results of his decision rose up before him together.  He would have to renounce his marriage, renounce happiness, renounce everything.  Could he do such a thing after having pledged himself to her?  She had accepted him knowing him to be rich.  She would take him still if he were poor; but had he any right to demand such a sacrifice?  Would it not be better to keep this money in trust, to be restored to the poor at some future date.

And in his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all these specious interests were struggling and contending.  His first scruples yielded to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and again disappeared.

He sat down again, seeking some decisive motive, some all-sufficient pretext to solve his hesitancy and convince his natural rectitude.  Twenty times over had he asked himself this question:  “Since I am this man’s son, since I know and acknowledge it, is it not natural that I should also accept the inheritance?”

But even this argument could not suppress the “No” murmured by his inmost conscience.

Then came the thought:  “Since I am not the son of the man I always believed to be my father, I can take nothing from him, neither during his lifetime nor after his death.  It would be neither dignified nor equitable.  It would be robbing my brother.”