No one could love a child more than I loved your brother
For all Alphonse's attempt to console Victor, his being exactly wrong
about the source of Victor's grief must be indicative of some narrowness
or shortsightedness of his own. His son William is his only concern, and
he assumes the same family priorities for Victor; but Victor knows that
Justine has been murdered, too, and that more than tribal loyalty is at
stake. That the father's commitment to the "public situations" (1.1.1) in which he has passed his mature
years extends so little into actual social benevolence must in some sense
affect how we take his counsel and assess his notion of virtue.
