Dr. Pirette having gone on board, Pierre went to the ship, where he was received in a little state-room by a young man with a fair beard, not unlike his brother.  They talked together a long time.

In the hollow depths of the huge ship they could hear a confused and continuous commotion; the noise of bales and cases pitched down into the hold mingling with footsteps, voices, the creaking of the machinery lowering the freight, the boatswain’s whistle, and the clatter of chains dragged or wound on to capstans by the snorting and panting engine which sent a slight vibration from end to end of the great vessel.

But when Pierre had left his colleague and found himself in the street once more, a new form of melancholy came down on him, enveloping him like the fogs which roll over the sea, coming up from the ends of the world and holding in their intangible density something mysteriously impure, as it were the pestilential breath of a far-away, unhealthy land.

In his hours of greatest suffering he had never felt himself so sunk in a foul pit of misery.  It was as though he had given the last wrench; there was no fibre of attachment left.  In tearing up the roots of every affection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a lost dog.  It was no longer a torturing mortal pain, but the frenzy of a forlorn and homeless animal, the physical anguish of a vagabond creature without a roof for shelter, lashed by the rain, the wind, the storm, all the brutal forces of the universe.  As he set foot on the vessel, as he went into the cabin rocked by the waves, the very flesh of the man, who had always slept in a motionless and steady bed, had risen up against the insecurity henceforth of all his morrows.  Till now that flesh had been protected by a solid wall built into the earth which held it, by the certainty of resting in the same spot, under a roof which could resist the gale.  Now all that, which it was a pleasure to defy in the warmth of home, must become a peril and a constant discomfort.  No earth under foot, only the greedy, heaving, complaining sea; no space around for walking, running, losing the way, only a few yards of planks to pace like a convict among other prisoners; no trees, no gardens, no streets, no houses; nothing but water and clouds.  And the ceaseless motion of the ship beneath his feet.  On stormy days he must lean against the wainscot, hold on to the doors, cling to the edge of the narrow berth to save himself from rolling out.  On calm days he would hear the snorting throb of the screw, and feel the swift flight of the ship, bearing him on in its unpausing, regular, exasperating race.

And he was condemned to this vagabond convict’s life solely because his mother had yielded to a man’s caresses.

He walked on, his heart sinking with the despairing sorrow of those who are doomed to exile.  He no longer felt a haughty disdain and scornful hatred of the strangers he met, but a woeful impulse to speak to them, to tell them all that he had to quit France, to be listened to and comforted.  There was in the very depths of his heart the shame-faced need of a beggar who would fain hold out his hand—­a timid but urgent need to feel that some one would grieve at his departing.