[Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant]@TWC D-Link bookPierre and Jean CHAPTER V 22/31
That flabby, burly man, happy and besotted, was his own father! No, no; Jean was not in the least like him. His family! Within these two days an unknown and malignant hand, the hand of a dead man, had torn asunder and broken, one by one, all the ties which had held these four human beings together.
It was all over, all ruined.
He had now no mother--for he could no longer love her now that he could not revere her with that perfect, tender, and pious respect which a son's love demands; no brother--since his brother was the child of a stranger; nothing was left him but his father, that coarse man whom he could not love in spite of himself. And he suddenly broke out: "I say, mother, have you found that portrait ?" She opened her eyes in surprise. "What portrait ?" "The portrait of Marechal." "No--that is to say--yes--I have not found it, but I think I know where it is." "What is that ?" asked Roland.
And Pierre answered: "A little likeness of Marechal which used to be in the dining-room in Paris.
I thought that Jean might be glad to have it." Roland exclaimed: "Why, yes, to be sure; I remember it perfectly.
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