I am quite sure that I am not mistaken, for it was in that year that the child had scarlet fever, and Marechal, whom we knew then but very little, was of the greatest service to us." Roland exclaimed: "To be sure--very true; he was really invaluable.

When your mother was half-dead with fatigue and I had to attend to the shop, he would go to the chemist's to fetch your medicine.

He really had the kindest heart! And when you were well again, you cannot think how glad he was and how he petted you.

It was from that time that we became such great friends." And this thought rushed into Pierre's soul, as abrupt and violent as a cannon-ball rending and piercing it: "Since he knew me first, since he was so devoted to me, since he was so fond of me and petted me so much, since I--_I_ was the cause of his great intimacy with my parents, why did he leave all his money to my brother and nothing to me ?" He asked no more questions and remained gloomy; absent-minded rather than thoughtful, feeling in his soul a new anxiety as yet undefined, the secret germ of a new pain.
He went out early, wandering about the streets once more.

They were shrouded in the fog which made the night heavy, opaque, and nauseous.
It was like a pestilential cloud dropped on the earth.