Then, I felt a keen desire to obtain a word from this woman. I would have given my blood to hear the sound of Laurence's voice; all my being went out towards her, conjured her, begged her with clasped hands, to speak, to utter but a single syllable. I wept at her silence; a sort of vague uneasiness gained upon me as she became more sullen, more impenetrable. I felt myself gliding towards madness, towards a fixed idea; I had imperious need of a response; I made superhuman efforts, uttered prayers and threats, to obtain the satisfaction of this need which was devouring me. I multiplied my questions, emphasized my demands and changed the form of my interrogations, rendering them more urgent; I had recourse to all my gentleness, to all my violence, imploring, ordering, speaking in a caressing and submissive tone, then allowing myself to be carried away by anger, and afterwards making myself more humble, more insinuating still. Laurence, without a quiver, without a glance, seemed to ignore my presence. All my will, all my furious desire, to make her speak broke against the pitiless deafness of this creature who refused to listen to me.
This woman was escaping from me. I saw an insurmountable barrier between her and me. I held her form tightly clasped, I felt that form abandon itself with disdain to my embrace. But I could not open that soul and take possession of it; the heart and the mind had hidden themselves away; I pressed only a lifeless rag, so weary, so dull, that it was as nothing in my arms. And I loved this limp rag, I wished to keep it. I clung with despair to the sole creature who remained to me in the world, I exacted that she should belong to me, I had the fury of a miser when I thought that I was about to be robbed of her and that she was quite willing to allow herself to be stolen. I rebelled, I summoned all my strength to defend my own. And I was pressing a corpse to my bosom, an unknown thing which was a stranger to me and which I could not understand. Oh! brothers, you are ignorant of this suffering, of these bursts of love for an inanimate statue, of this cold resistance on the part of an adored being, of this silence in answer to so many sobs, of this voluntary death which might love, which one supplicates with all his eloquence and which loves not.
When my voice failed me, when I despaired of ever animating Laurence, I laid my head upon her breast, my ear against her heart. There, leaning on this woman, my eyes open, staring at the wick of the candle which was burning to a coal, I spent the night in thinking. I heard the rattle in Marie's throat, broken by fits of coughing, which came to me through the partition, lulling my thoughts.
I thought. I listened to the regular beating of Laurence's heart. I knew that nothing was there but a wave of blood; I said to myself that I was following in their rhythm the sounds of a well regulated machine, and that the voice which reached me was only the ticking of an unconscious clock, obeying a mere spring. And, nevertheless, I was disturbed; I would have liked to take the machine apart, to search out and study its most minute pieces; I thought seriously, in my delirium, of opening the breast upon which my head reposed, of removing the heart that I might see why it beat so gently and so regularly.
Marie's rattle continued, and Laurence's heart beat almost in my head. On hearing these two sounds, which were sometimes mingled together and made but one, I thought of life.
I know not why an insatiable longing for innocence pursues me in my abasement. I have constantly in my brain the thought of immaculate purity, lofty, inaccessible, and this thought awakens more biting in the depths of each of my fits of despair.
While I leaned my head upon Laurence's faded bosom, I said to myself that woman was born for a single love.
There is the truth, the only possible marriage. My soul is so exacting that it wishes all the creature it loves, in her infancy, in her sleep, in her entire life. It goes so far as to accuse dreams, so far as to declare that a sweetheart is guilty who has received in a vision the kiss of a shadowy adorer.
All young girls, even the purest and most sincere, have been the recipients of attentions from the phantom lovers of their dreams; those demons have held them in their arms, have made their innocent flesh quiver, have given them the first caresses. Hence, when they find husbands, they are no longer innocent, they no longer possess holy ignorance.
As for me, I wished my bride to come to me as she had left the hands of God; I wished her spotless, refined, not yet alive, and I would awaken her. She would live in me, she would know me alone, she would have no recollections save those which came to her through me. She would realize the divine dream of an eternal marriage of the soul and body, drawing everything from itself. But when a woman's lips have known other lips, when she has trembled like a leaf at the kisses of others, love can be nothing but daily anguish, hourly jealousy. Laurence does not belong to me, she belongs to her remembrances; she twists in my arms, thinking, perhaps, of former tendernesses; she is constantly escaping from me; she has a whole life which has not been mine; she and I are not one flesh. I love her and tear myself; I sob at the sight of this creature whom I do not possess, whom I can no longer possess in her entirety.
The candle smoked, the chamber was full of thick, yellowish air. I heard the rattling in Marie's throat, now coming to me through the partition in jerky sounds. I listened to Laurence's heart, but could not understand its language. This heart spoke, without doubt, an unknown tongue; I held my breath, I gave my intelligence altogether to it, but I utterly failed to grasp its meaning. Perhaps it was relating to me the past of my wretched and treacherous companion, her story of shame and misery. It beat slowly and ironically, letting the syllables fall from it with an effort; it made no haste to finish, it seemed to take delight in the recital of the horrible tale. I divined at times what it might be saying. I had ignored the past, I had refused to become acquainted with it, I had striven to forget it; but it voluntarily evoked itself, it presented itself to my mind such as it must have been. I knew what infamies it was necessary for me to imagine; but, amid the ignorance in which I had shut myself up, I, without doubt, went beyond the real and fell into a nightmare, exaggerating the evil. At this hour, I wished to know everything, to obtain a complete revelation of the truth in all its horror. I listened with the utmost attention to the cynical and heavy heart, which was narrating to me in a low voice and an unknown language the long and doleful story, but I could not follow the thread of the narrative, I could only imagine a few words which I thought I distinguished amid the unintelligible confusion of sounds.
Then, suddenly, Laurence's heart changed its language. It spoke of the future, and I understood it. It beat distinctly, talking more rapidly, with more violence, more irony. It said that it was going to the gutter and that it was in haste to arrive there. Laurence would quit me on the morrow, she would resume her life of chance; she would belong to the crowd, she would descend the few steps which yet separated her from the bottom of the sewer. Then, she would be a brute, she would no longer feel anything, and she would declare herself perfectly happy and contented. She would die some night upon the sidewalk, drunken and worn out. The heart told me that the body would go to the dissecting-room, and that the physicians would cut it to pieces to discover what bitter and nauseous things it contained. At these accursed words, I saw Laurence turned blue, dragged through the mud, covered with infamous stains, stretched out, cold and stiff, upon the white marble slab of the dissecting-table. The physicians were plunging sharp knives into the bosom of her I loved so much as to be ready to lay down my life for her, into the breast of the woman whom I held in my arms with the clutch of desperation.
The vision enlarged its scope; the chamber became filled with phantoms. A world of dissipation passed before me in a long, desolate procession. Life, with all its horrors and shames, presented itself to my eyes in a succession of frightful pictures. All the wretchedness of humanity arose before me, draped in silk, covered with rags, young and beautiful, old and bony. The parade of these men and these women, going to destruction, lasted a long while and filled me with terror.
The heart beat, beat. It said to me now, in anger:
"I came from the darkness of sin and shall return to it. You love me, but I shall never love you, for I am a dead heart and utterly worthless. You have striven vainly to make yourself infamous; you wish to descend to the mud, but the mud cannot ascend to you. You interrogate the silence, you endeavor to obtain light from darkness; you are trying to resuscitate an unknown corpse, which you would do better to carry immediately to the dissecting-table!"
I knew nothing further. The heart ceased to beat audibly, the burning wick of the candle was extinguished amid a flood of tallow. I remained leaning upon Laurence's bosom, fancying myself in the depths of some great black cavern, damp and deserted.
I still heard the rattle in Marie's throat.
CHAPTER XXIII
PRACTICAL ADVICE
This morning, on awaking, I had in me a glimmer of dolorous hope.
The window had remained open, and I was as cold as ice.
I pressed my hands against my forehead; I said to myself that all this filth could not exist, that I dreamed at will of infamy. I had come out of a horrible nightmare; still shaken by the vision, I smiled as I thought it was only an illusion and that I was about to resume my calm life in the sunshine. I refused to entertain my recollections, I revolted, I denied. I had the indignation of honor.
No, it was impossible that I should suffer to this point, that life should be so wretched, so shameful; it was impossible that there existed such disgraces and such griefs.
I arose softly, and went to the window to breathe the morning air with all my strength. I saw Jacques below me; he was whistling tranquilly and gazing out into the courtyard. Then, the idea entered my mind to go down-stairs, to question him; he was a cold and just man who would calm my excitement, an honest man who would answer my questions with candor, who would tell me if he loved Laurence and what were his relations with her. By adopting this course, I might, perhaps, be cured. I would no longer feel that terrible warmth which was devouring my breast, I would trust Laurence, I would decide on a wise line of conduct which should release both her and myself from the desperate and wounding love into which circumstances had plunged us.
You see, brothers, that, though near the terrible dénouement, I still was hopeful. Oh! my poor heart, you are only a big child whom each hurt makes younger and warmer! As I passed Laurence, on my way to Jacques' apartment, I gazed for an instant at that slumbering girl, and, after so many tears, I again hoped to accomplish her reformation.
I found Jacques at work. He offered me his hand loyally, with a bright, frank smile upon his lips. I looked him straight in the face; I did not see in his peaceful features the treason I was searching for there. If this young man were deceiving me, he knew not that he was making my heart bleed.
"What!" cried he, with a hearty laugh, "are you no longer lazy? It is good for me, serious man that I am, to get up at six o'clock in the morning!"
"Listen, Jacques," I answered: "I am sick, and have come here to cure myself. I have lost consciousness of what surrounds me. I have lost consciousness of myself. This morning, on awaking, I realized that the sense of life was escaping from me, I felt myself lost in vertigo and blindness. This is why I have come down-stairs to grasp your hand, and to ask aid and advice from you."
I watched Jacques' face narrowly to note the effect of my words. He grew grave and lowered his eyes. He had not the attitude of a culprit, he had almost that of a judge.
I added, in a vibrating voice:
"You live beside me, you know the life I lead. I had the misfortune to meet, at the commencement of my career, a woman who has weighed me down and crushed me. I have kept this woman with me for a long while out of pity and justice. To-day, I love Laurence, I keep her beside me because I am madly, recklessly, devoted to her. I have not come here to ask you to employ your wisdom to effect a separation between her and me; I wish, if possible, for you to give me a last ray of hope by calming my fever, by making me see that everything in me is not shame. Do me the service of searching my being, of spreading it out bleeding before my eyes. If nothing good remains in me, if both my heart and my flesh are stained, I have fully resolved to sink myself, to drown myself, in the mud. If, on the contrary, you succeed in giving me a hope of redemption, I will make new efforts to get back to the light."
Jacques listened to me, shaking his head sorrowfully. I continued, after a brief silence:
"I do not know if you thoroughly understand me. I love Laurence with the utmost fury, I exact that she shall follow me in the light or in the mud. I should die of fear, if she left me alone in the depths of shame and misery; my heart will burst when I learn that, in her abasement, she has found other kisses than mine. She belongs to me in all her wretchedness, in all her ugliness. Nobody else would want the poor, abandoned and unfortunate creature. This thought makes her dearer, more precious to me; she is unworthy of anybody, I alone accept her; if I knew that another possessed my sad courage, my jealous rage would be all the greater because more love, more devotion, would be needed from him who stole Laurence from me. Therefore, do not argue with me, Jacques; I have nothing to do with your ideas in regard to life, with your wishes and your duties. I am too high or too low to follow you in your path. You have a healthful mind; try only to assure me that Laurence loves me, that I love Laurence, that I ought to love her."
I had grown animated while speaking; I trembled, I felt madness growing upon me. Jacques, becoming graver and graver, sadder and sadder, looked at me and said, in a low tone:
"Child! poor child!"
Then he took my hands and held them in his, thinking, maintaining silence. My flesh burned, his was cool; I felt my visage contract, and I searched vainly in his, which remained grave and strong.
"Claude," said he to me, at last, "you are dreaming; you are beyond life, my friend, in the realms of nightmare and delusion. You have fever, delirium; your heart and your body both are sick. Amid your sufferings, you no longer see the things of this earth as they are. You give monstrous dimensions to gravel stones, you lessen the size of the mountains; your horizon is the horizon of vertigo, peopled by terrifying visions which are but shadows and reflections. I swear to you that your senses and your soul deceive themselves, that you see, that you love, what does not exist. My poor friend, I understand your disease, I even know the cause of it. You were born for a world of purity, of honor; you came to us without protection, without a guiding rule, your heart open, your mind free; you took immense pride in believing in the power of your tenderness, in the justice, the truth of your reasoning. Elsewhere, amid worthy surroundings, you would have increased in dignity. Among us, your virtues have hastened your fall. You have loved when you should have hated; you have been gentle when you should have been cruel; you have listened to your conscience and your heart when you should have listened only to your pleasure and your interest. And this is why you are infamous. The story is painful; you should consider yourself well punished for your pride, which urged you to live in defiance of the opinions of the crowd. To-day, your wound is bleeding, increased, irritated, by your own hands which tear it. You have maintained in your fall the impetuosity of your character: you desired to lose yourself utterly as soon as you felt the tip of your foot enter into evil. Now, you wallow, with holy horror, with the fury of bitter joy, in the ignoble bed upon which you have thrown yourself. I know you, Claude: you have been badly beaten, you do not wish to remain half conquered. Will you permit me, the practical man, the man without a heart, to endeavor to cure you by cauterizing your wound with a red hot iron?"
I made a gesture of impatience, opening my lips.
"I know what you are going to say to me," resumed Jacques, with more vivacity. "You are going to say to me that you do not wish to be cured, and that my red hot iron will not even make your already too much bruised flesh cry out. I know, besides, what you think, for I see your anger and your disdain. You think that we are worth less than you, we who do not love, who do not weep; you think that we have made this world, this woman who causes you to suffer, that we are cowardly, cruel, and that our way of being young is more shameful than your love and your abasement. You are on the point of crying out to me, to me who live tranquilly in the same mud as yourself, that you are dying of shame, that I lack soul if I do not die with you. You are, perhaps, right: I ought to sob, to twist my arms. But I do not feel the need of weeping; I have not your woman's nerves, your violence or your delicacy of sensation. I comprehend that you suffer through me, through the rest, through all those who love without love, and I pity you, poor, grown up infant, because you appear to me to suffer so much from an affliction I know nothing about. If I cannot ascend to you, cannot expose myself to your shame and pain arising from excess of soul and excess of justice, I wish, at least, in order to cure you, to give you our cowardice and our cruelty, to tear out your heart and leave your breast empty. Then, you will walk upright in the path of youth."
He had raised his voice; he grasped my hands strongly, almost with anger. This must be all Jacques' passion: a soulless passion, made up of logic and duty. Pale before him, my head half turned away, I smiled in contempt and anguish.
"Your Laurence," he continued, with energy, "your Laurence is a living disgrace! She is ugly, she is prematurely old, she is dangerous. Go up to your room and throw her into the street; she is ripe for expulsion! For more than a year, this girl has been a crushing burden to you; it is time that you had sent her off, that you had freed yourself, that you had washed your hands of her. I understand the weakness of pity; I might have sheltered Laurence for a time, if she had come to me begging for an asylum; but, on discovering the blackness of her heart, I would have returned to the sidewalk what belonged to the sidewalk, and I would have burned sugar in my chamber. Go up-stairs; throw her out of the window if she does not go quickly enough out of the door. Be cruel, be cowardly, be unjust, commit a crime. But, for the love of God, do not shelter a Laurence any longer. Such women are the cause of nine tenths of all the unhappiness in this world; they are makers of desolation and should be left to the mercy of the crowd; they deserve punishment, and it is not just to shield them from it. Do not persist longer in giving an asylum to this wicked wretch. You see that I am seeking some insult to exasperate you; I would render you worthy of your age by teaching you how to treat a Laurence, how to act like a practical man. For a year past, what have you done, except to weep? You are dead to work, you have lost caste, you do not look forward to the future. Laurence is the evil angel who has killed your intelligence and your hopes. You must kill Laurence. Hold, I have a last infamy to hurl in your face. You have not the right to live in poverty that you may shelter this woman; if you toiled, if you struggled, alone, you might die of hunger, but there would be a certain grandeur about your death. The few friends whom you had have left you; you saw them depart one by one, with coldness. Do you know what they say? They say that they cannot explain to themselves your manner of existence, that they cannot understand how you manage to shelter Laurence amid your poverty; the rich, when they give alms, say the same thing of the poor who have a dog. They say, those friends, that there is a method in what you do, and that you eat the bread which Laurence earns."
I escaped to my feet with a sudden movement, my arms closely locked against my breast. The insult had hit me full in the face; I felt a cold sweat cover my visage; I was stiff and icy; I no longer knew whether I was suffering or not. I had not believed that I had already fallen to this degree of abasement in the opinion of the crowd; I had desired a voluntary shame, but I had not desired insult. I drew back, step by step, towards the door, staring at Jacques, who also had arisen, and who was contemplating me with superb violence. When I stood upon the threshold, he said to me:
"Listen: you are going away without grasping my hand; I see that you will never forgive me for the wound I have just given you. While I am cowardly and cruel, I have something to propose to you. As I have tortured you, as I have excited your disgust, I must cure you. Send Laurence to me. I feel sufficiently courageous to separate her from you; to-morrow, your tenderness will be dead, you will then tell this woman she can no longer remain under the same roof with you. If you must have another love affair to hasten the work of consolation, go up-stairs, kneel beside Marie's bed and love her. She will not long be a burden to you."
He spoke with a cold anger, a lofty and disdainful conviction; he seemed to tread all love under foot, to walk over those women whom he entertained through capriciousness and custom; he looked straight before him, as if he saw his mature age congratulating him upon the logical shames of his youth.
So Jacques, the practical man, agreed with Pâquerette; both of them recommended to me an ignoble exchange, a remedy more distressing, more bitter, than the disease. I closed the door violently, and went up-stairs again, almost calm, stupid with grief.
There is, in the midst of despair, an instant when the intelligence escapes, when the events which succeed each other mingle together in dire confusion and no longer have any meaning. When I found myself once more before Laurence, who was still asleep, I forgot that I had just seen Jacques, I forgot both his advice and his insults; the heart and the mind of this man seemed to me gloomy abysses into which I could not descend. I was alone, face to face with my love, as yesterday, as ever; I had now but a single thought: to awaken Laurence, to clasp her in my arms, to compel her to accept life and kisses.
I awoke her, I took her with fury in my arms, I clasped her with such force as to make her cry out. I had a dumb rage, an implacable will. I was weary of being a stranger to Laurence, of being ignorant of what was passing through her brain; I desired to know the secrets of her soul. I said to myself that then I should no longer be tormented by suspicions, that I would force her to love me by warming her heart with my caresses.
Laurence had not spoken to me for two whole days. Pain unlocked her lips. She struggled and cried out to me, in a sullen tone:
"Let go of me, Claude, you hurt me! What a strange idea to wake people by choking them!"
I knelt upon the floor, at the side of the bed, and stretched out my hands towards my tormentor.
"Laurence," I murmured, in a gentle voice, "speak to me, love me. Why are you so cruel? What have I done that your lips and your heart maintain silence. Be frank; make me suffer all my sufferings in an hour, or cast yourself into my arms and let us live happily. Tell me all, give full scope to your thoughts and your affections. If you do not love me, strike a deadly blow, crush me and depart. If you love me, remain, remain, but remain upon my heart, close, close, and speak to me, speak to me constantly, for I am filled with fear when I see you mute and sad for entire days, staring at me with your dead eyes. I feel madness coming to me in this desert amid which you are dragging me; I grow dizzy as I lean over you, so full of deep obscurity, of silent horror. No, I cannot live another day in ignorance of your love or your indifference; I wish you to explain yourself at once, I wish you, at last, to make yourself known. My mind is weary of searching; it is filled with sad solutions which it has formed of the problem of your being. If you do not desire my heart and my head to burst, name yourself, tell me what you are, assure me that you are not dead, that you still have blood sufficient to love or to hate me. I am reckless. Listen: we will set out to-morrow for Provence. Do you remember the tall trees of Fontenay? In Provence, beneath the glowing sun, the trees are prouder, stronger. We will live a life of love on that ardent soil, which will restore you your youth and give you a dark, passionate beauty. You shall see. I know, in a ravine sown with fine grass, a small, retired house, all green on one side with ivy and honeysuckles; there is a hedge, as tall as a child, which hides the ten leagues of the valley, and one sees only the blue curtains of the sky and the green carpet of the path. It is in this ravine, this nest, that we will love each other; it shall be our universe, and we will forget there the life we have led in the gloomy depths of this miserable chamber. The past shall be obliterated; the present alone, with its broad sunlight, its fruitful nature, its strong and gentle loves, shall exist for our hearts. Oh! Laurence, in pity speak to me, love me, tell me that you wish to follow me!"
She remained sitting up in bed, tranquilly wiping her eyes heavy with sleep, straightening out her hair, stretching her limbs. She yawned. My words seemed to produce upon her only the effect of disagreeable music. I had uttered the last sentences with so many tears, with such desperation, that she ceased to yawn and stared at me with an air at once vexed and friendly. She heaped the covers upon her bare feet; then, she crossed her hands and said:
"My poor Claude, surely you are ill. You behave like a child, you demand things of me which are anything but droll. I wish you only knew how much you fatigue me with your continual embraces, with your strange questions! You nearly strangled me the other day, now you weep, you kneel before me, as if I were the Holy Virgin! I comprehend nothing of all this. I never knew a man in the slightest degree resembling you. You are always stifling me, asking me if I love you. Of course, I love you, but you would do better, instead of making yourself sick here, to look for some work which would enable us to eat a little oftener. Such, at least, is my opinion."
She stretched herself out lazily, and turned her back to me, in order not to have in her eyes the light from the window which prevented her from going to sleep again. I remained on my knees, my forehead against the mattress, broken by the new burst of excitement which had just carried me away; it seemed to me that I had lifted myself too high and that, a hard and cold hand having pushed me, I had fallen headlong from the immensity of the heavens. Then, I remembered Jacques; but the remembrance appeared to me distant and vague: I would have sworn that years had elapsed since I had heard the terrible words of the practical man. My heart silently admitted to itself that this man was, perhaps, right in his selfishness: I felt a sudden temptation to take Laurence in my arms and carry her to the nearest street corner, there to throw her down and leave her.
I could not remain thus between Jacques and Laurence, between my love and my sufferings. I needed pacification, resolution; I needed to complain and to question, to hear a voice answer me and give me certainty.
I ascended to Pâquerette's room. I had never before entered the apartment of this woman. The chamber is on the eighth floor, immediately under the roof; it is a small mansarde and receives the light through a slanting window, the sash of which is lifted by means of an iron button. The wall paper hangs in blackish strips; the pieces of furniture—a bureau, a table and a bed of spun-yarn—lean one against another, in order not to fall. In a corner, there is a violet wood étagère, with threads of gold along the veneering, loaded with glassware and porcelain. The den is dirty, encumbered with damaged kitchen utensils full of greasy water; it exhales a strong odor of scraps of food and musk, mingled with a thousand other nameless and disgusting smells.
Pâquerette was gravely taking her ease in a red arm-chair, the covering of which, worn thin in spots, showed the wool with which the back and arms were stuffed. She was reading a little yellow book, full of stains, which she closed and placed upon the bureau when I made my appearance.
I took her hands, I wept. I seated myself on a stool, at her feet. In my despair, I was tempted to call her mother. I told her how I had passed the morning; I repeated to her the words of Jacques, those of Laurence; I emptied my heart, avowed my love and my jealousy, asked for advice. With clasped hands, sobbing, supplicating, I addressed myself to Pâquerette as to a good soul who knew life, who could save me from the mud into which I had blindly strayed.
She smiled as she listened to me, tapping me upon the cheeks with her withered and yellow fingers.
"Come, come," said she, when emotion had choked my voice in my throat, "come, you have shed enough tears! I knew that one day or another you would climb up here to ask aid and succor of me. I expected you. You took all this much too seriously; you should have reached sobs gradually. Do you wish me to speak frankly to you?"
"Yes, yes," I cried; "frankly, brutally."
"Well, you fill Laurence with fear! In the past, I would have shown you the door at the second kiss: you embrace too strongly, my son. Laurence remains with you, because she cannot go elsewhere. If you wish to get rid of her, give her a new dress!"
Pâquerette stopped With satisfaction at this phrase. She coughed, then pushed from her forehead a curl of gray hair which had just slipped over it.
"You ask advice from me, my son," added she. "I will give you through friendship the advice which Jacques gave you through interest. He will willingly deliver you from Laurence."
She laughed wickedly, and my pain became more intense.
"Listen," said I, with violence: "I came here to be calmed. Do not overturn my reason. Jacques cannot love Laurence after the words he spoke to me this morning, it is impossible."
"Ah! my son," answered the old woman, "you are very innocent, very young. I know not what you mean by love, and I know not if Jacques loves Laurence. What I do know is that they embrace each other in out-of-the-way corners. In the past, how many kisses I gave without knowing why, how many kisses were given to me which came from I know not where! You are a strange fellow, who do nothing like the rest. You should not have thought of having a sweetheart. If you are wise, this is what you will do: you will accept things as they are, and quietly Laurence will depart. She is no longer young; she may become a charge to you. Think of that. If you retain her, you will repent of it later. You had better let her go, since she herself wishes to take her departure."
I listened with stupor.
"But I love Laurence!" I cried.
"You love Laurence, my son; well, you will love her no longer! That is the whole of it. People unite and people quit each other. Such is life. But, great heavens! whence come you? How could such a man as you conceive the idea of loving anybody? In my time, people loved differently; it was then easier to turn the back than to embrace. You can readily understand that it is henceforward impossible for you to live with Laurence. Separate from her politely. I do not advise you to accept Marie as your sweetheart; that poor girl displeases you, and I think you had better jog on through life alone!"
I no longer heard Pâquerette's voice. The thought that Jacques might have deceived me in the morning had not before occurred to me; now, I plunged into it, not succeeding in believing it, but finding a sort of consolation in saying to myself that he had, perhaps, lied to me. This was a new shadow upon my mind, a new torment added to the torments which were already racking me. I was on the point of losing my senses.
Pâquerette continued, speaking through her nose:
"I wish to form you, Claude, to communicate to you my experience. You do not know how to love. One must be kind to women; one must not beat them, one must give them sweet things. Above all, no jealousy; if you are deceived, allow yourself to be deceived; you will be better loved afterwards. When I think of my adorers, I recall a little flaxen haired fellow who boasted that he had had for sweethearts all the girls of the public balls. Do you see that étagère, the last souvenir which remains to me? It came from him. One evening, he approached me and said to me, with a laugh: 'You are the only one whom I have not adored. Will you accept me after all the rest?' I accepted his homage, he kissed me upon both cheeks, and we supped together. That is the way to love."
I recovered from my stupor; I stared about the place in which I found myself. Then only I saw the filth of the den, then only I perceived the odor of musk and scraps of food. All my excitement had subsided; I realized the shame of my presence at the feet of this old wretch. The words which she had spoken to me, and which my memory had retained, grew clear and frightful in my mind, which before had turned them over without understanding them.
I had not the strength to go down-stairs to my chamber. I seated myself upon a step and wept away all the blood of my heart.
CHAPTER XXIV
SAD REFLECTIONS
I am a coward; I suffer and I dare not cauterize the wound. I feel that Pâquerette and Jacques are right, that I cannot live amid the frightful torment which is rending me. I must, if I do not wish to die of it, tear love from my bosom. But I am like the dying who are frightened by the unknown and the annihilation of the body. I know what is the anguish of my heart, full as it is of Laurence; I know not what would be its pain were this woman to leave it empty. I prefer the sobs of my agony to the death of my love; I recoil before the mysterious horrors of a soul widowed by affection.
It is with despair that I feel Laurence escaping from me. I press her in my arms like a horse hair shirt which brings the blood, which gives me a bitter delight. She tears me, and yet I love her. I love her for all the darts she drives into my flesh; I experience the painful ecstasy of those monks who die beneath the rods with which they strike themselves. I love and I sob. I do not wish to refuse to sob, if I ought to refuse to love.
And yet I realize that this sharp and biting nightmare must come to an end. The crisis is approaching. I do not know which of us is going to die. It seems as if anguish kept me awake, warned me of a coming misfortune. Heaven will take pity on me: it will cure my mind and leave me my heart; it will choose me for death rather than choose my tenderness.
This morning, I met a young man and a young woman, who were walking in the bright sunshine. With arms closely locked, they advanced slowly, forgetting the crowd. The young woman leaned her head upon the young man's shoulder; she gazed at him, moved and smiling, while he, in a glance, returned her emotion, her smile. This youthful couple absolutely sparkled with devotion and happiness, with pure love and genuine delight.
True youthful love then exists. While I live miserably in the deep gloom, torn and devoured by a horrible nightmare, a fearful incubus, there are, amid the sunbeams of May, true lovers who live deliciously. I did not know that people could love each other thus, I believed that kisses must of necessity be biting and poignant.
But, I remember now. Young lovers stroll along, two by two, in the moonlight, amid the first streaks of dawn. They are clad in light garments. They embrace each other at every step in a tender, dreamy fashion; they live amid the grass, among the crowd, and they are always alone. Heaven smiles upon them, the earth is discreet, the universe is their accomplice. Young lovers exchange their hearts, they live in each other's lives.
As for me, I am shut up here. I cannot have everything. I have the tears, the despair, of solitary love; I have the silence, the dead eyes, of Laurence. What need have I of spring and youthful love? I have my grief, if others have their joy.
Oh! my God, have pity! Do not deprive me of my suffering. Prevent this woman from curing me by killing my love. Let her remain where she is, at my side; let her remain there, cold and indifferent, to prolong my torment. I no longer know why I love her; I love her, setting aside all justice and all truth; I love her for the delight of loving her, and I do not wish to be disturbed amid the reckless madness of my devotion. My entire being is crushed by the idea that she may quit me; I am afraid of the dire desolation into which her absence would surely plunge me. In losing her, I would lose my family, all my affection, everything which yet binds me to this earth. My God, do not permit her to abandon me!
CHAPTER XXV
THE FAIR
Last evening, in order to obtain partial relief from my sufferings, I strolled upon a fair ground. The faubourg was all gayety, and the people in their Sunday clothes were noisily passing through the streets.
The lamps had just been lighted. The avenue, at regular distances, was ornamented with yellow and blue posts, which were garnished with small, colored pots, and in these pots were burning smoky wicks, the flame and smoke being whirled about by the wind. In the trees Venetian lanterns swung. Canvas booths bordered the sidewalks, allowing the fringe of their red curtains to trail in the gutters. The gilded faïences, the freshly painted bonbons and the tinsel everywhere displayed shone in the raw light of the lamps.
There was in the atmosphere an odor of dust, of spiced cake and of greasy waffles; the powdered girls who led reckless lives laughed and wept beneath a hailstorm of kisses, blows and kicks. A hot and stifling mist hung over and weighed down upon this scene of riotous joy.
Above this mist, above these noises, spread out a cloudless sky, with pure and melancholy depths. An angel had lighted up the azure fields of the heavens for some divine fête, some majestically calm fête of the infinite.
Lost amid the crowd, I felt the solitude of my heart. I walked on, following with my glances the giddy young girls who smiled upon me as they went by, and I said to myself that I should never again see their smiles. This thought of so many loving lips, dimly seen for an instant and then lost forever, gave my sad soul, already tortured by my uncertainty in regard to Laurence, an additional pang of anguish.
In this wretched frame of mind, I reached a point where a street crossed the avenue. To the left, supported by an elm tree, stood an isolated booth. In front of it, a few badly joined planks formed a species of staging, and two lanterns illuminated the door, which was simply a bit of canvas raised like a curtain. As I came to a stop, a man wearing a magician's costume, a flowing black robe and a pointed hat sown with stars, was haranguing the crowd from the plank platform.
"Enter," cried he, "enter my fine Messieurs, enter my beautiful Demoiselles! I have come in hot haste from the furthest extremity of India to make young hearts rejoice. It was there that I conquered, at the peril of my life, the Mirror of Love, which was watched over by a horrible dragon. My fine Messieurs, my beautiful Demoiselles, I have brought you the realization of your dreams. Enter, enter, and see the person who loves you! For two sous you can behold the person who loves you!"
An old woman, clad like a bayadère, lifted the canvas door. She looked around upon the crowd with a stupid glance; then, she cried out, in a thick voice:
"For two sous, for two sous, you can behold the person who loves you! Enter and see the person who loves you!"
The magician beat a furious fantaisie upon a huge drum. The bayadère bent over a bell and accompanied him.
The people hesitated. A learned ass playing cards excited lively interest; a Hercules lifting weights of a hundred livres each was a spectacle of which no one would ever weary; neither is it to be denied that a half-clad giant was made to agreeably amuse those of all ages. But to see the person who loves you appeared to be the thing of which the crowd thought the least, and which they imagined did not promise them the slightest emotion.
As for me, I had eagerly listened to the summons of the man with the flowing robe. His promises responded to the desire of my heart; I saw a Providence in the chance which had directed my steps hither. The miserable mountebank had acquired a singular importance in my eyes, from the astonishment which I felt at hearing him read my most secret thoughts. It seemed to me that I saw him fix flaming glances upon me, beating the huge drum with a diabolical fury, crying out to me to enter in a voice which rose above the clash of the bell.
I had placed my foot upon the first plank step when I felt myself stopped. Turning around, I saw in front of the platform a man who had grasped me by the coat. This man was tall and thin; he had large hands covered by thread gloves larger still, and wore a hat which had grown rusty, a black coat whitened at the elbows, and deplorable cashmere pantaloons, yellow with grease and mud. He bowed almost to the ground, in a long and exquisite reverence; then, in a soft, sweet voice, he addressed to me this discourse:
"I am very sorry, Monsieur, that a well-bred young man like you should set the crowd such a bad example. It is a great shame to encourage in his impudence that wretch there, who is speculating upon our evil instincts, for I find profoundly immoral those words screamed out in the open air which summon the girls and the lads to mental and visual dissipation. Ah! Monsieur, the people are weak. We, the men whom instruction has made strong, have, believe me, grave and imperious duties to perform. Let us not yield to culpable curiosity, let us be worthy in all things. The morality of society depends upon us, Monsieur."
I listened to his speech. He had not released my coat and could not decide to finish his reverence. With his hat in his hand, he spoke with such polite calmness that I could not think of getting angry with him. I contented myself, when he paused, with staring him in the face without replying. He saw a question in this silence.
"Monsieur," resumed he, with a new bow, "I am the friend of the people and my mission is the well-being of humanity."
He uttered these words with a modest pride, suddenly lifting himself to his full height. I turned my back upon him and mounted the platform. Before entering, as I lifted up the canvas curtain, I looked at him again. He had delicately taken in his right hand the fingers of his left, striving to efface the folds of his gloves which seemed upon the point of slipping off.
Then, folding his arms, the friend of the people tenderly contemplated the bayadère.
I let the curtain fall and found myself within the temple. It was a sort of long and narrow chamber, without a single chair, with walls of canvas, lighted by a single lamp. A few persons—curious girls and lads making a great noise—were already assembled there. Setting aside the noise, the utmost propriety was observed: a rope, stretched across the middle of the apartment, separated the men from the women.
The Mirror of Love, to tell the truth, consisted simply of two looking-glasses without amalgam, one on each side of the rope, small round glasses through which could be seen the interior of the booth. The promised miracle was accomplished with admirable simplicity: it sufficed to apply the right eye to one of the glasses, and beyond, without either thunder or sulphur, appeared the loving person. Who could refuse to believe in a vision so natural!
I did not feel the strength to try the power of the Mirror of Love immediately after entering. I had a vague fear that I would see Marie. As I passed into the booth, the bayadère threw a glance at me which froze my heart. What awaited me behind that glass? Should I see Laurence, who on the instant would change to some horrible monster, with sunken eyes and violet lips, a terrible vampire thirsting for youthful blood, one of those frightful creatures which I see at night in my evil dreams?
I was afraid, brothers; I retired into a corner. To recover courage, I looked at those who, bolder than myself, consulted destiny without so much hesitation. I experienced a singular pleasure at the sight of those different faces, the right eye wide open and the left closed with two fingers, having each its smile according as the vision pleased more or less. The glass was placed a little low; it was necessary to bend slightly, in order to look through it. I could not imagine anything more grotesque than the men coming up in single file to see the mates of their souls through a circular glass a few centimètres in circumference.
First, two soldiers advanced: a sergeant, browned by the sun of Africa, and a young conscript, having still the odor of the fields about him, his arms embarrassed by a cloak three times too large for him. The sergeant gave a skeptical laugh. The conscript remained bent for a long while, singularly flattered by having a sweetheart.
Then came a fat man in a white vest, with a red and bloated face, who gazed tranquilly without a grimace either of joy or displeasure, as if he thought it altogether natural that he should be loved by some one.
He was followed by three schoolboys, youths from fifteen to sixteen years old, with brazen mien, pushing each other to make people think that they had the honor to be intoxicated. All three of them swore that they saw their aunts in the Mirror of Love.
Thus, brothers, the curious followed each other before the mirror, and I cannot now recall the different expressions of countenance which struck me then. Oh! oh! vision of the well-beloved! what rude truths you spoke to those wide open eyes! They were the true Mirrors of Love, mirrors in which woman's grace was reflected in a dubious light, where luxury spread out into folly.
The girls, on the other side of the rope, amused themselves in a most genuine fashion. I read only intense curiosity upon their faces, I did not see the indication of the least wicked thought. They came, turn by turn, to throw an astonished glance upon the mirror and retired, some a trifle thoughtful, others laughing like so many fools.
To speak the truth, I know not what business I had there. If I were a woman, provided I was pretty, I would never entertain the foolish idea of putting myself out to go see the man who loved me. The days when my heart should weep at being alone, if those days were days of spring and golden sunlight, I would go into a flowery path that each passer-by might gaze at and adore me. In the evening, I would return rich with love.
The curious girls before me were not all equally pretty. The handsome ones derided the science of the magician; for a long time past they had had no need of him. The ugly ones, on the contrary, had never found themselves at such a fête as this. There came one of these, with thin hair and large mouth, who could not tear herself away from the magic mirror; she kept upon her lips the joyous and heart-rending smile of a poor wretch satisfying her hunger after a long fast.
I asked myself what fine ideas had been awakened in these foolish heads. This was not an easy problem to solve. All of them had, without doubt, seen in their dreams princes cast themselves at their feet; all of them desired to become better acquainted with the lovers whom they remembered so confusedly on awaking. There were, certainly, many deceptions; princes are becoming rare, and the eyes of our souls, which open at night upon a better world, are eyes much more accommodating than those we employ during the day. There were also great delights: the dream was realized; the lover had the handsome moustache and the black hair seen in the vision.
Thus each one, in a few seconds, lived a life of love, innocent romances, swift as hope, which one guessed from the blushes on the cheeks and the quivers of the corsages.
After all, these girls were, perhaps, fools, and I was a fool myself to have seen so many things where there was, doubtless, nothing whatever visible. Nevertheless, I completely reassured myself by studying them. I noticed that both men and women seemed in general thoroughly satisfied with the apparition. The magician, certainly, had never been malicious enough to give the least displeasure to these good folks who had paid him two sous.
I approached, brothers; I applied, without too much emotion, my right eye to the Mirror of Love. I perceived, between two huge red curtains, a woman leaning against the back of an arm-chair. She was brilliantly illuminated by lamps which I could not see, and stood out in relief against a piece of painted canvas, stretched across the end of the booth; this canvas, cut in places, must formerly have represented a fine grove of blue trees!
Brothers, I saw neither Marie nor Laurence. She who loved me, according to the magician's glass, wore, like a well-bred vision, a long white robe slightly fastened at the waist, flowing upon the floor like a cloud. She had across her forehead a wide veil, also white, held in place by a crown of hawthorn flowers. Thus clad, the dear angel was all whiteness, all innocence.
She leaned coquettishly against the back of the arm-chair, turning towards me large, caressing blue eyes. She seemed to me superb beneath the veil: she had flaxen tresses which were lost amid the muslin, a frank and pure forehead, delicate lips, dimples which were nests for kisses. At the first glance, brothers, I took her for a saint; at the second, I saw she had the air of a good girl and was not in the least conceited.
She lifted three fingers to her lips, and sent me a kiss, with a courtesy which did not in the least suggest the realm of shadows. Observing that she was not disposed to fly away, I fixed her features in my memory and retired from the mirror.
As I was quitting the booth, I saw my acquaintance, the friend of the people, enter. This grave moralist, who seemed to shun me, hastened to set the bad example of culpable curiosity. His long spine, bent in a semi-circle, shook with emotion; then, being unable to get nearer, he kissed the magic glass.
I descended the three plank steps of the platform; I found myself again in the crowd, decided to seek the girl who loved me now that I knew her smile.
The lamps smoked, the tumult was increasing, the people pushed along with such reckless haste that they nearly overturned the booths. The fête was at that hour of ideal joy in which, in order to be happy, one risks being suffocated.
On straightening myself up, I had before me a horizon of linen caps and silk hats. I advanced, pushing the men, cautiously getting around the great skirts of the women. Perhaps the girl who loved me was wrapped in that pink cloak; perhaps her head was beneath that tulle hood ornamented with mauve ribbons; perhaps she wore that delicious straw hat with an ostrich feather in it. Alas! the owner of the cloak was sixty; the hood, which concealed an abominably ugly face, leaned lovingly upon the shoulder of a sapper; she who wore the hat was laughing heartily, opening widely the most beautiful eyes in the world—but I did not recognize those beautiful eyes.
Brothers, above crowds hover I know not what anguish and what sorrow, as if the multitude had sent up a breath of terror and pity. Never do I find myself amid a great assemblage of people without experiencing a vague uneasiness. It seems to me that some frightful misfortune menaces these assembled men, that a single flash of lightning will suffice, amid the excitement of their gestures and voices, to strike them with motionlessness, with eternal silence.
Little by little, I decreased my pace, looking at this joy which wounded me. At the foot of a tree, in the full yellow light of the lamps, an old beggar was standing, his body stiffened, horribly twisted by paralysis. He lifted towards the passers-by his pale face, winking his eyes in a lamentable fashion the better to excite pity. He gave to his limbs sudden quivers of fever which shook him like a withered branch. The young girls, fresh and blushing, passed laughingly before this hideous spectacle.
Further away, at the door of an inn, two workmen were fighting. In the struggle, the glasses had been overturned, and to see the wine flowing over the pavement one might have thought it blood from great wounds.
The laughter seemed to me to be changed into sobs, the lights became a vast conflagration, the crowd whirled as if stricken with terror. I walked on, with a feeling of horrible sadness at my heart, staring at the faces of the young girls but never finding the person who loved me.
I saw a man standing before one of the posts which bore the lamps, considering it with a profoundly absorbed air. From his disturbed looks, I thought he was seeking the solution of some grave problem. This man was the friend of the people.
Having turned his head, he noticed me.
"Monsieur," said he to me, "the oil employed in fêtes like this costs twenty sous a litre. In a litre is enough to fill twenty lamps like those which you see there: hence each lamp consumes a sou's worth of oil. Now, this post has sixteen rows of eight lamps each: a hundred and twenty-eight lamps in all. Besides—follow my calculations closely—I have counted sixty similar posts in the avenue, which makes seven thousand six hundred and eighty lamps and, consequently, seven thousand six hundred and eighty sous, or, in other words, three hundred and eighty-four francs."
While speaking thus, the friend of the people gesticulated, emphasizing the figures, bending down his tall body as if to bring himself within the reach of my feeble understanding. When he paused, he threw himself back triumphantly; then, he folded his arms, looking me in the face with a penetrating air.
"Three hundred and eighty-four francs' worth of oil," cried he, putting a pause between each syllable, "and the poor people are without bread, Monsieur! I ask of you, and I ask it of you with tears in my eyes, if it would not be more honorable for humanity to distribute these three hundred and eighty-four francs among the three thousand indigent people contained in this faubourg? Such a charitable measure would give to each one of them about two sous and a half's worth of bread. This thought is well calculated to make tender souls reflect, Monsieur."
Seeing that I stared at him curiously, he continued, in a drawling voice, the while securing his gloves on his hands:
"The poor man should not laugh, Monsieur. He is altogether dishonest if he forgets his poverty for an hour. Who then will weep over the misfortunes of the people, if the government often gives such saturnalias as this?"
He wiped away a tear and left me. I saw him enter the shop of a wine merchant, where he drowned his emotion in five or six glasses of claret, taking one after the other over the counter.
The last light of the fair had just been extinguished; the crowd had dispersed. In the vacillating brightness of the street lamps, I now saw wandering beneath the trees only a few dark forms, couples of belated lovers, drunkards and sergents de ville airing their melancholy. The booths stretched away, gray and silent, on both borders of the avenue, like the tents of a deserted encampment.
Brothers, the morning breeze, damp with dew, imparted a quiver to the leaves of the elm trees. The biting emanations of the evening had given place to a delicious coolness. The softened silence, the transparent gloom of the infinite, fell slowly from the depths of the sky, and the fête of the stars followed the fête of the lamps. Honest people, at last, could amuse themselves a little.
I felt myself thoroughly rejuvenated, brothers, the hour of solitude having arrived. I walked with a firm step, ascending and descending the neighboring streets; then, I saw a gray shadow glide along the houses. This shadow came rapidly towards me, without seeming to see me; from the lightness of the step and the rhythmical rustle of the garments, I recognized a woman. She was about to run against me, when she instinctively raised her eyes. Her visage was revealed to me by the glimmer of a neighboring lantern, and I recognized it immediately as belonging to the girl who loved me: she was not the immortal in the white muslin cloud as I had seen her in the booth, but a poor daughter of this earth clad in faded calico. In her poverty, she seemed to me more charming than before, though pale and fatigued. I could not doubt the evidence of my senses: I saw before me the large eyes, the caressing lips of the vision, and, besides, I distinguished, on inspecting her thus closely, that sweetness of the features imparted by suffering.
As she stopped for a second, brothers, I seized her hand and kissed it, forgetting Laurence. She raised her head and smiled vaguely upon me, without seeking to withdraw her fingers. Seeing me remain silent, emotion having choked the words in my throat, she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her rapid walk.
I ran after her, caught her by the arm, and walked beside her. She laughed almost silently; then, she shivered and said, in a low voice:
"I am cold: let us hasten along."
Poor child, she was cold! Beneath her thin black shawl, her shoulders trembled in the cool morning breeze. I said to her, gently:
"Do you know me?"
Again she raised her eyes, and, without hesitating, replied: "No."
I know not what rapid thought shot through my mind. In my turn, I shivered.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, and said to me, in a childish voice, with a little, careless pout:
"I am going home."
We walked along down the avenue.
I saw upon a bench two soldiers, one of whom was discoursing gravely, while the other listened with respect. These soldiers were the sergeant and the conscript. The sergeant, who seemed to me greatly moved, made me a mocking salute, murmuring:
"The rich lend, sometimes, Monsieur."
The conscript, a tender and innocent soul, said to me, in a tone full of grief:
"I had only her, Monsieur: you are stealing from me the girl who loves me!"
I crossed the thoroughfare, and took another street.
Three youths came towards us, holding each other by the arm and singing very loudly. I recognized the schoolboys. The little wretches had no further need to feign intoxication. They stopped, almost bursting with laughter; then, they followed me a few steps, crying after me, each one in an uncertain voice:
"Ho! Monsieur, Madame is deceiving you: Madame is the person who loves me!"
I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hastened my steps in my eagerness to flee, thinking no more of the woman I was dragging along on my arm. At the end of the avenue, as I was about at last to quit this accursed spot, on stepping down from the sidewalk, I ran against a man who was sitting at his ease upon the curbstone. He was leaning his head against a lamp-post, his face turned towards the sky, and was executing with the aid of his fingers a very complicated calculation.
He turned his eyes, and, without moving his head from his pillow, stammered out:
"Ah! it is you, Monsieur! You must help me to count the stars. I have already found several millions of them, but I am afraid I have forgotten one somewhere. The welfare of humanity, Monsieur, depends upon statistics alone!"
A hiccough interrupted him. He resumed, with tears in his eyes:
"Do you know what a star costs? Surely, the great God has gone to vast expense on high, and the people lack bread, Monsieur! Of what good are those lamps up there? Can they be eaten? What is the practical application of them, I beg of you? We have no need whatever of this eternal fête!"
He had succeeded in turning his body around; he gazed about him with perplexed looks, tossing his head with an indignant air. It was then that he noticed my companion. He gave a start, and, with purple visage, greedily stretched out his arms.
"Ah! ah!" he stuttered, "it is the person who loves me!"
The girl and I walked on a short distance.
"Listen," said she: "I am poor; I do what I can to get something to eat. Last winter, I spent fifteen hours a day bent over my work, an honest trade, and yet I was sometimes without bread. In the spring, I threw my needle out of the window. I had found an occupation less fatiguing and more lucrative.
"I dress myself every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of nook, leaning against the back of an arm-chair, I have nothing to do but smile from six o'clock until midnight. From time to time, I make a courtesy, I send a kiss into space. For this I am paid three francs a sitting.
"Opposite me, behind a little glass enclosed in the partition, I incessantly see an eye looking at me. Sometimes it is black, sometimes blue. Without this eye, I should be perfectly happy; it spoils the business for me. At times, from always finding it alone and steadily fixed there, I am filled with wild terror, I am tempted to cry out and flee!
"But one must work for one's living. I smile, I courtesy, I send my kiss. At midnight, I wash off my rouge and resume my calico dress. Bah! how many women, without being forced to do so, air their graces before a mirror!"
By this time, we had reached the wretched abode in which this girl dwelt. I left her at the door, and returned to my mansarde and my misery.
CHAPTER XXVI
AT MARIE'S BEDSIDE
I take a sad pleasure in being in Marie's chamber. In the morning, I go there and sit upon the edge of the dying girl's bed; I live there as much as possible, departing with regret. Everywhere else, I belong to Laurence, everywhere else, I am feverish, excited and tormented. I hasten to reach this spot of pacification, I enter it with the feeling of confidence and comfort experienced by an invalid who is going to breathe a milder atmosphere, by which he expects to be cured.
I love death. The chamber is lukewarm, damp; the light there is gray and softened, made up of shadow and white brightness; everything there floats in a final languor, in a soft and dreamy half transparency. One does not know how sweet to a bleeding heart is the silence which reigns in a chamber where a young girl is dying. This silence is a strange, peculiar silence, full of exquisite mildness, full of restrained tears. The sounds—the clink of a glass, the crackling of a piece of furniture—are subdued, drag along like half stifled complaints; the cries from without enter in murmurs of pity, of compassionate encouragement. Everything is held in check, noise as well as light; everything is filled with grief and hope. And, in the shadow, amid the silence, one hears a vague despair which comes from one knows not where, and which accompanies the broken breath of the dying girl.
I gaze at Marie. I feel myself penetrated, little by little, by that invisible breath of consoling pity which fills the chamber. My eyes rest from their tears in that pale brightness; my ears, amid the quivering silence, forget for an hour the sound of my sobs. All the gentleness, all the delicate attentions, all the faintly uttered and caressing words, intended for Marie, seem as if addressed to me; they subdue the sound of voices and footsteps; they question, they reply, affectionately; they avoid sharp and painful sensations; and, as for me, I believe, at times, that all these considerate precautions are taken that my poor being, full of suffering, may not burst asunder. I imagine that I am dying, that they are taking care of me; I seize my share of the care and consolation; I steal from Marie half of her agony and of the pity it causes; I go there, beside a dying girl, to profit by the regrets and tenderness which men accord to the last hours of a soul. I am curing my love through death.
I feel that it is the need of being pitied, of being caressed, which pushes me into this chamber. I find here the atmosphere, the pity, necessary for me. Life is too sharp for my painful flesh and my wounded heart; the bright sunlight irritates me; I am at ease only in the restorative seclusion of the tomb. If, some day, I emerge from my despair, I ought to thank God for having permitted me to live thus, seated at the foot of a bed of death, for having allowed me to share the pacification of a dying creature. I will live, because a child expired at my side.
I gaze at Marie. The fever purifies her flesh from day to day. She is growing younger, she is becoming a little girl, amid the exhaustion of her blood. Her deeply sunken face expresses an ardent longing, the longing for the end, for rest; her eyes are enlarged, her pallid lips remain half open as if to facilitate the passage of the final breath. She is waiting, resigned, almost smiling, as ignorant of death as she has been ignorant of life.
Sometimes, we look each other in the face for long hours. I know not what thought then arrests the cough upon her lips; she seems filled with a single idea, which suffices to keep her awake, to give her more life and more calmness. Her countenance grows tranquil, pink flushes appear upon her cheeks; her limbs beneath the bed clothes have less stiffness; Marie, under the influence of my glance, stretches herself out, shakes off the iron grasp of death. As for me, I am absorbed in her, I share her sufferings; little by little, it seems to me that I pass in through her half open lips and that I become a part of this sick creature; I experience a gentle and bitter sensation at languishing with her, at slowly sinking away; I feel the inexorable disease take possession of my entire body, shake me with increasing violence, in proportion as my glances penetrate deeper and deeper into those of Marie; I say to myself that I shall die simultaneously with her, and a great flood of joy sweeps through me.
Oh! what strange fascination and what wonderful pacification I experience! Death is powerful; it has biting temptations, irresistible attractions. One must not lean over the eyes of a dying creature, for they are full of light and so deep that their abysses make one dizzy. One wishes to see what those enlarged eyes behold, one is seized with frightful curiosity in regard to the unknown. Every time Marie looks at me, I desire to die, to leave this world with her, in order that I may know what she will know; I imagine that she is soliciting me, that she is begging me not to abandon her, that she is dreaming we will go away in company, taking the risk of the same annihilation or the same splendor.
Then, I forget, I forget Laurence. Though I see Laurence in everything, waking or sleeping—in the objects which surround me, in that which I eat and in that which I drink—I do not see Laurence in the depths of Marie's eyes. I see there only that blue glimmer, paler now, which I saw one night while my lips touched the poor child's lips. That blue glimmer does not speak to me of my love, does not speak to me of my grief; it is the only thing at which I can gaze without weeping. This is the reason I love Marie's chamber, this is the reason I love the dying girl with her dilated eyes which have more purity, more gentleness, than the sky, for the sky, when I lift my face towards it, speaks to me of Laurence. I am about to lose myself in this oblivion, in this clear and serene light which is so pure. Perhaps, thereby, my heart will be cured.
When the night comes on and I can no longer see the blue glimmer in Marie's eyes, I open the window, I gaze at the black wall. The square patch of yellow light is there, empty or peopled, still and sad or filled with silent movements. I feel a sharp sensation on finding myself again, after several hours of forgetfulness, face to face with reality, face to face with my jealousy and my anguish. Every evening, I recommence the painful and colossal task of giving a meaning to those dark stains which increase in size and roll in a bewildering way over the surface of the wall. I have converted this search into a dolorous recreation. I apply myself to it with an anxious patience, an obstinacy full of fever, and each night I am drawn back to the window, though I promise myself daily that I will no longer risk my reason there.
CHAPTER XXVII
MARIE'S DEATH
I have reached that plenitude of despair which is almost rest. I cannot suffer additionally; this certainty that nothing can augment my tears is a solace. My being has torn itself to such an extent that it has stopped in pity. To-day, I can only wipe away my tears.
And yet I feel that I have need of Heaven to be cured. I have the brutishness of pain, I have not the tranquil joy of health. If my wounds cannot be enlarged, they cannot remain open, bleeding drop by drop, with inexorable suffering.
Brothers, the hand which is to close them is a terrible hand, the hand of death and truth.
Yesterday, when night came on, Marie's chamber was filled with gloom and silence. A candle, half hidden behind a vase on the mantelpiece, lighted a corner of the ceiling; the walls and the floor were in darkness; the bed was white amid the transparent shadows. Marie, paler, more broken, had closed her eyes. I knew that she could not last through the night. Pâquerette was asleep in her arm-chair, her hands crossed in her lap, smiling in a dream at some imaginary gluttony; her chin resting on her corsage, she was snoring softly, and the sound of her breath mingled with the weakened rattle in Marie's throat. I felt myself suffocating between this dying young girl and this old woman gorged with food. I hastened to the window. I opened it. The weather was clear.
I leaned my elbows upon the sill, and gazed at the square patch of yellow light on the wall opposite. The stains came and went with rapidity, fading away to re-appear of greater dimensions than before. Never had the shadows been so nimble, so ironical; they seemed to be indulging with delight in a jeering dance, in an inexplicable confusion of shapes, wishing to entirely overthrow my reason. It was an indescribable pell-mell, a mass of heads, necks and shoulders, which rolled upon itself as if beaten and flattened by the strokes of a flail. Then, suddenly, at the very instant when I was smiling bitterly, no longer seeking to understand, supreme quietness settled down upon the sombre and agile shadows; the stains gave a final leap, two profiles were thrown upon the wall, enormous, full of energy, standing out with sharpness and vigor. It seemed as if, weary of tormenting me, the shadows had at last decided to reveal themselves; they were there, black, powerful, full of superb truth and insolence. I recognized Laurence and Jacques, out of all proportion, disdainful. The two profiles approached each other slowly and united with a kiss.
I had not ceased to smile. I felt in myself a sort of tearing sensation, followed by a sudden feeling of satisfaction. My heart, with an enormous pulsation, had driven out all the love which was stifling it, and that love had gone out through my veins, giving me a final burn. I felt that sensation of anguish which the patient experiences beneath the hands of the surgeon: I suffered in order that I might cease to suffer.
At last, the shadows had spoken, they had given me a certainty. I had the truth written there, before me, upon the wall; I knew that which I had sought to guess for so many long days; I stared fixedly at those two black heads, which were kissing in the square patch of yellow light.
I was astonished at suffering so little. I had thought I should die on learning the truth, and I felt only an extreme lassitude, a benumbing of all my being. For a long while, I remained leaning upon my elbows, staring at the two shadows which were agitating themselves in a curious fashion, and I thought of the terrible episode which was finished by the kisses of two dark stains upon an illuminated wall. The conversation which I had had with Jacques then returned forcibly to my memory; in the gulf which had opened within me I heard, repeated one by one, gravely and slowly, the words of the practical man, and those words, which I imagined I was listening to for the first time, astonished me strangely, uttered in the presence of the kisses which the shadow of Jacques was giving to the shadow of Laurence. Who was deceived in all this? Was Pâquerette right, or was I staring at one of those inexplicable caprices of the mind, which urge people to lie to themselves? Could it be possible that Jacques was devoting himself to save me, going as far as deceptive caresses? Singular devotedness, which could strike me in my flesh, in my heart, and cure me of an evil by an evil more terrible still!