[Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant]@TWC D-Link book
Pierre and Jean

CHAPTER IX
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Jean spoke seriously, though his heart was full of gladness: "I congratulate you with all my heart, for I know there were several other candidates.

You certainly owe it to your professors' letters." His mother bent her head and murmured: "I am very glad you have been successful." After breakfast he went to the Company's offices to obtain information on various particulars, and he asked the name of the doctor on board the Picardie, which was to sail next day, to inquire of him as to the details of his new life and any details he might think useful.
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.


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