CHAPTER XXXIX. CONCESSION TO CONSCIENCE
He asked nothing better than to be a son to this poor woman; in reality he was worth much more than this unfortunate boy, effeminate and incapable. What did this maternal hunger require? A son to love. She would find one in her son-in-law. In seeing her daughter happy, how could she help being happy herself?
Evidently they would be happy, the mother and daughter; and whatever Phillis might think, still under the influence of the shameful blow, they would forget. They would owe him this.
It was a long time since he had worked with so much serenity as on this day; and when in the evening he went to bed, uneasy as usual about the night, he slept as calmly as if Phillis were resting her charming head on his shoulder and he breathed the perfume of it.
Decidedly, to make others happy was the best thing in the world, and as long as one could have this satisfaction there was no fear of being unhappy. To create an atmosphere of happiness for others is to profit by it at the same time.
He waited for Phillis impatiently, for she would bring him an echo of her mother’s joy, and it was a recompense that she owed him.
She arrived happy, smiling, penetrated with tenderness; but he observed that she was keeping something from him, something that embarrassed her, and yet she would not tell him what it was.
He was not disposed to admit that she could conceal anything from him, and he questioned her.
“What are you keeping from me?”
“How can you suppose that I should keep anything from you?”
“Well, what is the matter? You know, do you not, that I read all your thoughts in your eyes? Very well your eyes speak when your lips are silent.”
“I have a request to make of you, a prayer.”
“Why do you not tell me?”
“Because I do not dare.”
“Yet it does not seem to me that I show a disposition to make you believe that I could refuse you anything.”
“It is just that which is the cause of my embarrassment and reserve; I fear to pain you at the moment when I would show you all the gratitude and love in my heart.”
“If you are going to give me pain, it is better not to make me wait.”
She hesitated; then, before an impatient gesture, she decided to speak.
“I wish to ask you how you mean to be married?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“But, like every one else!”
“Every one?” she asked, persistently.
“Is there any other way of being married?”
“Yes.”
“I do not in the least understand this manner of asking conundrums; if you are alluding to a fashionable custom of which I know nothing, say so frankly. That will not wound me, since I am the first to declare that I know nothing of it. What do you wish?”
She felt his irritation increase, and yet she could not decide to say what she wished.
“I have begun badly,” she said. “I should have told you at first that you will always find in me a wife who will respect your ideas and beliefs, who will never permit herself to judge you, and still less to seek to contend with them or to modify them. That you feel, do you not, is neither a part of my nature nor of my love?”
“Conclude!” he said impatiently.
“I think, then,” she said with timid hesitation, “that you will not say that I fail in respect to your ideas in asking that our marriage take place in church.”
“But that was my intention.”
“Truly!” she exclaimed. “O dearest! And I feared to offend you!”
“Why should you think it would offend me?” he asked, smiling.
“You consent to go to confession?”
Instantly the smile in his eyes and on his lips was replaced by a gleam of fury.
“And why should I not go to confession?” he demanded.
“But—”
“Do you suppose that I can be afraid to confess? Why do you suppose that? Tell me why?”
He looked at her with eyes that pierced to her heart, as if they would read her inmost thoughts.
Stupefied by this access of fury, which burst forth without any warning, since he had smilingly replied to her request for a religious marriage, she could find nothing to say, not understanding how the simple word “confess” could so exasperate him. And yet she could not deceive herself: is was indeed this word and no other that put him in this state.
He continued to look at her, and wishing to explain herself, she said: “I supposed only one thing, and that is that I might offend you by asking you to do what is contrary to your beliefs.”
The mad anger that carried him away so stupidly began to lose its first violence; another word added to what had already escaped him would be an avowal.
“Do not let us talk of it anymore,” he said. “Above all, do not let us think of it.”
“Permit me to say one word,” she replied. “Had I been situated like other people I would have asked nothing; my will is yours. But for you, for your future and your honor, you should not appear to marry in secret, as if ashamed, with a pariah.”
“Be easy. I feel as you do, more than you, the necessity of consecrated ceremonies for us.”
She understood that on this path he would go farther than she.
To destroy the impression of this unfortunate word, he proposed that they should visit the apartment he had engaged the previous day.
For the first time they walked together boldly, with heads held high, side by side in the streets of Paris, without fear of meeting others. How proud she was! Her husband! It was on her husband’s arm that she leaned! When they crossed the Tuileries she was almost surprised that people did not turn to see them pass.
In her present state of mind she could not but find the house he chose admirable; the street was admirable, the house was admirable, the apartment was admirable.
As it contained three bedrooms opening on a terrace, where he would keep the animals for his experiments, Saniel wished to have her decide which one she would choose; as she would share it with him she wished to take the best, but he would not accept this arrangement.
“I want you to choose between the two little ones,” he said. “The largest and best must be reserved for your mother, who, not being able to go out, needs more space, air, and light than we do.”
She was transported with his kindness, delicacy, and generosity. Never would she be able to love him enough to raise herself up to him.
Fortunately the principal rooms, the parlor and the office, were about the same size as those in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, so there need be but little change in furnishing; and they would bring their furniture from the Rue des Moines.
This feminine talk, interrupted by passionate exclamations and glances, charmed Saniel, who had forgotten the incident of the confession and his anger, thinking only of Phillis, seeing only her, ravished by her gayety, her vivacity, his whole being stirred by the tender caresses of her beautiful dark eyes.
How could he not be happy with this delicious woman who held such sway over him, and who loved him so ardently? For him a single danger henceforth—solitude. She would preserve him from it. With her gayety, good temper, courage, and love, she would not leave him to his thoughts; work would do the rest.
After the question of furniture was decided, they settled that of the marriage ceremony, and she was surprised to find that his ideas were the same as hers.
She decided upon her toilet, a silk gown as simple as possible, and she would make it herself, as she made all her gowns. And then they discussed the witnesses. “We have no friends,” Phillis said.
“You had some formerly; your father had friends and comrades.”
“I am no longer the daughter of my father, I am the sister of my brother; I would not dare to ask them to witness my marriage.”
“It is just because you are the sister of your brother that they cannot refuse you; it would be cruelty added to rudeness. Cruelty may be overlooked, but rudeness! Among the men of talent, who was your father’s best friend?”
“Cintrat.”
“Is he not a bohemian, a drunkard?”
“My father regarded him as the greatest painter of our time, the most original.”
“It is not a question of talent, but of name; I am sure that he is not even decorated. Your father had other friends, more successful, more commonplace, if you wish.”
“Glorient.”
“The member of the Institute?”
“Casparis, the sculptor.”
“An academician, also; that is what we want, and both are ‘archi-decore’. You will write them, and tell them who I am, assistant professor of the school of medicine, and doctor of the hospitals. I promise you they will accept. I will ask my old master Carbonneau, president of the academy of medicine; and Claudet, the ancient minister, who, in his quality of deputy of my department, could not decline any more than the others. And that will give us decorated witnesses, which will look well in the newspapers.”
It was not only in the newspapers they looked well, but also in the church of Sainte-Marie des Batignolles.
“Glorient! Casparis! Carbonneau! Claudet! Art, science, and politics.”
But the beauty and charm of the bride were not eclipsed by these glorious witnesses. She entered on Glorient’s arm, proud in her modesty, radiant with grace.
While the priest celebrated mass at the altar, outside, before the door, a man dressed in a costume of chestnut velvet, and wearing a felt hat, walked up and down, smoking a pipe. It was the Count de Brigard, whose principles forbade him to enter a church for either a wedding or a funeral, and who walked up and down on the sidewalk with his disciples, waiting to congratulate Saniel. When he appeared the Count rushed up to him, and taking his hand pressed it warmly on separating him from his wife, and saying:
“It is good, it is noble. Circumstances made this marriage; without them it would not have taken place. I understand and I excuse it; I do more, I applaud it. My dear friend, you are a man.”
And as it was Wednesday, in the evening at Crozat’s, he publicly expressed his approbation, which, in the conditions in which it had been offered, did not satisfy his conscience.
“Gentlemen, we have assisted to-day at a grand act of reparation, the marriage of our friend Saniel to the sister of this poor boy, victim of an injustice that cries for vengeance. One evening in this same room, I spoke lightly of Saniel, some of you remember, perhaps, in spite of the time that has passed. I wish to make this public reparation to him. To-day he has shown himself a man of duty and of conscience, bravely putting himself above social weaknesses.”
“Is it not a social weakness,” asked Glady, “to have chosen as witnesses of this act of reparation persons who seem to have been selected for the decorative side of their official positions?”
“Profound irony, on the contrary!” said Brigard. “It is a powerful and fruitful lesson, which makes even those who are professional defenders concur in the demolition of the prejudiced. Saniel is a man!”
CHAPTER XL. PHILLIS IS SURPRISED
The Sunday following her marriage, Phillis experienced a surprise on which she reflected a long time without finding a satisfactory explanation.
As she was dressing, Saniel entered her room.
“What are you going to do to-day?” he asked.
“That which I do every day.”
“You are not going to mass?”
She looked at him astonished, not being able to control her surprise, and as usual, when she appeared to wish to read his thoughts, he showed temper.
“In what way is my question extraordinary?”
“Mass is not exactly the usual subject of your thoughts, it seems to me.”
“It may become so, especially when I think of others, as is the case just now. Do you not often go to mass?”
“When I can.”
“Very well, you can go to-day if you wish. Listen to what I have to say to you. I have not forgotten the promise you made to respect my ideas and beliefs. I wish to make you the same; it is very simple.”
“All that is good and generous seems simple to you.”
“Well?”
“I will go at once.”
“Now? At once? It is not eight o’clock. Go to high mass, it is more fashionable.”
Fashionable! What a strange word in his mouth! It was not out of respect to fashion that she went to church, but because there was in her a depth of religious sentiment and of piety, a little vague perhaps, which Florentin’s misfortunes had revived.
“I will go to high mass,” she said, without letting it appear that this word had suggested anything to her, and continuing her dressing.
“Are you going to wear this frock?” he asked, pointing to one that lay on a chair.
“Yes; at least if it does not displease you.”
“I find it rather simple.”
In effect it was of extreme simplicity, made of some cheap stuff, its only charm being an originality that Phillis gave it on making it herself.
“Do not forget,” he continued, “that Saint-Francois-Xavier is not a church for working people; when a woman is as charming as you are she is always noticed. People will ask who you are.”
“You are right; I will wear the gown I wore at the distribution of the prices.”
“That is it; and your bonnet, will you not, instead of the round hat? The first impression should be the best.”
This mixture of religious and worldly things was surprising in him. Had she not understood him, then, until now? After all, perhaps it was only an exception.
But these exactions regarding her dress were repeated. Although before her marriage Phillis had only crossed Saniel’s path, she knew him well enough to know that he was entirely given up to work, without thought of anything else, and she believed that after marriage he would continue to work in the same way, not caring for amusements or society. She was correct about his work, but not so regarding society. A short time after their marriage the minister Claudet was cured opportunely of an attack of facial neuralgia by Saniel, for whom he conceived a great friendship. He invited Saniel and his wife to all his reunions and fetes, and Saniel accepted all his invitations.
At first her wedding gown answered very well, but it would not do always. It had to be trimmed, modified, three or four toilets made of one gown; but, however ingenious Phillis might be in arranging several yards of tulle or gauze, she could not make combinations indefinitely.
And besides, they did not please Saniel; they were too simple. He liked lace, beads, flowers, something shining and glittering, such as he saw other women wear.
How could she please him with the small resources at her disposal? In her household expenses she was as economical as possible; Joseph was dismissed, and replaced by a maid who did all the work; the table was extremely simple. But these little economies, saved on one side, were quickly spent on the other in toilets and carriages.
When she expressed a wish to work, to paint menus, he would not consent, and when she insisted he became angry.
He only permitted her to paint pictures. As she had formerly painted for amusement in her father’s studio, she might do so now. If trade were a disgrace, art might be honorable. If she had talent he would be glad of it; and if she should sell her pictures it would be original enough to cause her to be talked about.
The salon was partly transformed into a studio, and Phillis painted several little pictures, which, without having any pretensions to great art, were pleasing and painted with a certain dash. Glorient admired them, and made a picture-dealer buy two of them and order others, at a small price it is true, but it was much more than she expected.
With the courage and constancy that women put into work that pleases them, she would willingly have painted from morning till night; but the connections that Saniel had made did not leave her this liberty. Through Claudet they made many acquaintances and accepted invitations that placed her under social obligations, so that almost every day she had a visit to pay, a funeral or a marriage to attend, besides an occasional charity fair, and her own day at home, when she listened for three hours to feminine gossip of no interest to her.
As for him, what pleasure could he take in dressing after a hard day’s work to go to a reception? He, son of a peasant, and a peasant himself in so many ways, who formerly understood nothing of fashionable life and felt only contempt for it, finding it as dull as it was ridiculous.
She tried to find a cause for this change, and when lightly, in a roundabout way, she brought him to explain himself, she could only draw one answer from him, which was no answer to her:
“We must be of the world.”
Why did he care so much about society? Was it because she was the sister of a criminal that he wished to take her everywhere and make people receive her? She understood this up to a certain point, although the part he made her play was the most cruel that he could give her, and entirely contrary to what she would have chosen if she had been free.
But this was all there was in his desire to be of the world. Because he had married her he was not the brother of a criminal, and on close observation it might be seen that all he desired of these persons in high places whom he sought was their consideration, a part of their importance and honor. But he did not need this; he was some one by himself. The position that he had made was worthy of his merit. His name was honored. His future was envied.
And yet, as if he did not realize this, he sought small satisfactions, unworthy of a serious ambition. One evening she was very much surprised when he told her that the decoration of a Spanish republic was offered to him, and although she had formed a habit of watching over her words she could not help exclaiming:
“What will you do with that?”
“I could not refuse it.”
Not only had he not refused it, but he had accepted others, blue, green, yellow, and tricolored; he wore them in his buttonhole, around his neck, and on his breast. What good could those decorations do that belittled him? And how could a man of his merit hasten to obtain the Legion of Honor before it fell to him naturally?
All this was astonishing, mysterious, and silly, and her mind dwelt upon it when she was alone before her easel; while near her in his laboratory, he continued his experiments, or wrote an article in his office for the Review.
But it was not without a struggle that she permitted herself to judge him in this way. One does not judge those whom one loves, and she loved him. Was it not failing in respect to her love that she did not admire him in every way? When these ideas oppressed her she left her easel and went to him. Close to him they disappeared. At first, in order not to disturb him, she entered on tiptoe, walking softly and leaning over his shoulder, embraced him before he saw or heard her; but he betrayed such horror, such fear, that she gave up this way of greeting him.
She continued to go to his room, but in a different way. Instead of surprising him she announced her presence by rattling the handle of the door, and walking noisily, and instead of receiving her with uneasy manner he welcomed her joyfully.
“You have finished painting?”
“I have come to see you for a little while.”
“Very well, stay with me, do not go away immediately; I am never so happy, I never work so well, as when I have you near me.”
She felt that this was true. When she was with him, whether she spoke or not, her presence made him happy.
And still she must appear not to look at him too attentively, as if with the manifest intention of studying him; for she did this during the first days of their marriage, and angered him so much that he exclaimed:
“Why do you examine me thus? What do you look for in me?”
She learned to watch herself carefully, and when with him to preserve a discreet attitude that should not offend him. No curious looks, and no questions. But this was not always easy, so she asked leave to assist him in his work, and sometimes drew in larger size the designs that he made for his microscopical studies. In this way the time passed rapidly. If he were but willing to pass the evening hours in this sweet intimacy, without a word about going out, how happy she would be! But he never forgot the hour.
“Allons,” he said, interrupting himself, “we must go.”
She had never dared to ask the true reason for this “must.”
CHAPTER XLI. A TROUBLED SOUL
If she dared not frankly ask him this question: Why must we go out? any more than the others: Why is it proper that I should go to mass to be seen? Why should I wear gowns that ruin us? Why do you accept decorations that are valueless in your eyes? Why do you seek the society of men who have no merit but what they derive from their official position or from their fortune? Why do we take upon ourselves social duties that weary both of us, instead of remaining together in a tender and intelligent intimacy that is sweet to us both? she could not ask herself.
They all appertained to this order of ideas, that she, without doubt, found explained them: disposition of character; the exactions of an ambition in haste to realize its desires; susceptibility or overshadowing pride; but there were others founded on observation or memory, having no connection with those, or so it seemed to her.
She began to know her husband the day following their marriage, having believed that he was always such as he revealed himself to her; but this was not the case, and the man she had loved was so unlike the man whose wife she had become, that it might almost be thought there were two.
To tell the truth, it was not marriage that made the change in his temper that distressed her; but it was not less characteristic by that, that it dated back to a period anterior to this marriage.
She remembered the commencement with a clearness that left no place for doubt or hesitation; it was at the time when pursued by creditors he entered into relations with Caffie. For the first time he, always so strong that she believed him above weakness, had had a moment of discouragement on announcing that he would probably be obliged to leave Paris; but this depression had neither the anger nor weakness that he had since shown. It was the natural sadness of a man who saw his future destroyed, nothing more. The only surprise that she then felt was caused by the idea of strangling Caffie and taking enough money from his safe to clear himself from debt, and also because he said—as a consequence of this act—speaking of the remorse of an intelligent man, that his conscience would not reproach him, since for him conscience did not exist. But this was evidently a simple philosophical theory, not a trait of character; a jest or an argument for the sake of discussion.
Relieved from his creditors with the money won at Monaco, he returned to his usual calm, working harder than ever, passing his ‘concours’, and when it seemed excusable that he might be nervous, violent, unjust, he remained the man that he had been ever since she knew him. Then, all at once, a short time before Florlentin went to the assizes, occurred these strange explosions of temper, spasms of anger, and restlessness that she could not explain, manifesting themselves exactly at the time when, by Madame Dammauville’s intervention, she hoped Florentin would be saved. She had not forgotten the furious anger, that was inexplicable and unjustifiable, with which he refused her request to see Madame Dammauville. He had thrust her away, wishing to break with her, and until she was a witness of this scene she never imagined that any one could put such violence into exasperation. Then to this scene succeeded another, totally opposed, which had not less impressed her, when, at their little dinner by the fire, he showed such profound desolation on telling her to keep the memory of this evening when she should judge him, and announcing to her, in a prophetic sort of way, that the hour would come when she would know him whom she loved.
And now this hour, the thought of which she had thrown far from her, had sounded; she sought to combine the elements of this judgment which then appeared criminal to her, and now forced itself upon her, whatever she might do to repel it.
How many times this memory returned to her! It could almost be said that it had never left her, sweet and sad at the same time, less sweet and more sad, according as new subjects for uneasiness were added to the others, in deepening the mysterious and troublous impression that it left with her.
To judge him! Why did he wish that she should judge him? And on what?
And yet with him it was not an insignificant word, but the evidence of a particular state of conscience, which many times since asserted itself. Was it not, in effect, to this order of ideas that the cry belonged that escaped him in the night when, waking suddenly, he asked with emotion, with fright: “What have I said?” And also to the same appertained the anger that carried him away when, ‘a propos’ of their religious marriage, she spoke of confession: “Why do you think that I should be afraid to go to confession?”
How could he imagine that she could admit the idea of fear in connection with him? The idea never occurred to her mind until this moment; and if now the memory of her astonishment came to her, it was because of other little things added to those of the past that evoked it.
How numerous and significant they were, these things: his constant uneasiness on seeing himself watched by her; his invitation when he thought she was going to question him; his access of passion when, through heedlessness or forgetfulness, or simply by chance, she asked him a question on certain subjects, and immediately the tenderness that followed, so sudden that they appeared rather planned in view of a determined end than natural or spontaneous.
It was a long time before she admitted the calculation under the sweet words that made her so happy; but in the end it was well that she should open her eyes to the evidence, and see that they were with him the consequences of the same and constant preoccupation, that of not committing himself.
It was only one step from this to ask him what he did not wish to yield up.
Yet, as short as it was, she resisted for a long time the curiosity that possessed her. It was her duty as a loving and devoted wife not to seek beyond what he showed her, and this duty was in perfect accord with the dispositions of her love; but the power of things seen carried her beyond will and reason. She could not apply her mind to search for that which agonized her, and she could not close her eyes and ears to what she saw and heard.
And what struck them were the same observations, turning always in the same circle, applied to the same subjects and persons:
Caffie’s name irritated him; Madame Dammauville’s angered him; Florentin’s made him positively unhappy.
As for the two former, she might have prevented the pronunciation of them when she saw the effect they infallibly produced on him.
But she could not prevent the utterance of Florentin’s name, even had she wished it. How could she tell her mother never to speak the name of him who was constantly in their thoughts?
In spite of Saniel’s efforts and solicitations, supported by Nougarede’s, Florentin had embarked for New Caledonia, whence he wrote as often as he could. His letters related all his sufferings in the terrible galleys, where he was confined during the voyage, and since his arrival they were a series of long complaints, continued from one to the other, like a story without end, turning always on the same subject, his physical sufferings, his humiliation, his discouragement, and his disgust in the midst of the unfortunates whose companion he was.
The arrival of these letters filled the mother and sister with anguish that lasted for several days; and this anguish, that neither of them could dissimulate, angered Saniel.
“What would you do if he were dead?” he asked Phillis.
“Would it not be better for him?”
“But he will return.”
“In what condition?”
“Are we the masters of fate?”
“We weep, we do not complain.”
But he complained of the weeping faces that surrounded him, the tears they concealed from him, the sighs they stifled. Ordinarily he was tender and affectionate to his mother-in-law, with attention and deference which in some ways seemed affected, as if he were so by will rather than by natural sentiment; but at these times he forgot this tenderness, and treated her with hardness so unjust, that more than once Madame Cormier spoke of it to her daughter.
“How can your husband, who is so good to me, be so merciless regarding Florentin? One would say that our sadness produces on him the effect of a reproach that we would address to him.”
One day when things had gone farther than usual, she had the courage to speak to him plainly: “Forgive me for burdening you with the weariness of our disgrace,” she said to him. “When I complain of everything, of men and things, you should remember that you are the exception, you who have done everything to save him.”
But these few words which she believed would calm the irritation of her son-in-law, had on the contrary exasperated him; he left her, furious.
“I do not understand your husband at all,” she said to her daughter. “Will you not explain to me what the matter is with him?”
How could she give her mother the explanation that she could not give herself? Having reached an unfathomable abyss, she dared not even lean over to look into its depths; and instead of going on in the path where she was pledged in spite of herself, she made every effort to return, or at least to stop.
What good would it do to find out why he was so peculiar, and what it was that he took so much pains to conceal? This could only be idle curiosity on her part, for which she would be punished sooner or later.
Turning these thoughts over continually in her mind she lost her gayety, her power to resist blows of fate, such as the small trials of life, which formerly made her courageous; her vigorous elasticity sunk under the heavy weight with which it was charged, and her smiling eyes now more often expressed anxiety than happiness and confidence.
In spite of her watchfulness over herself she was not able to hide the change from Saniel, for it manifested itself in everything—in her face formerly so open, but which now bore the imprint of a secret sadness; in her concentrated manner, in her silence and abstraction.
What was the matter with her? He questioned her, and she replied with the prudence that she used in all her conversation with him. He examined her medically, but found nothing to indicate a sickly condition which would justify the change in her.
If she did not wish to answer his questions, and he had the proof that she did not wish to; if, on the other hand, she was not ill, and he was convinced that she was not—there must be something serious the matter to make the woman whom but lately he read so easily become an enigma that made him uneasy.
And this thing—if it were that whose crushing weight he himself carried on his bent shoulders? She divined, she understood, if not all, at least a part of the truth.
What an extraordinary situation was hers, and one which might truly destroy her reason.
Nothing to fear from others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the world—on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to awake the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of taking them, and to make spectres of them which he alone saw and heard.
And he believed himself strong. Fool that he was, and still more foolish to have taken such a charge when by the exercise of his will he did not place himself in a condition to carry it! To will! But he had not learned how to will.
CHAPTER XLII. THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM
The relative calm that Saniel had felt since his marriage he owed to Phillis; to the strength, the confidence, the peace that he drew from her. Phillis without strength, without confidence, without interior peace, such as she was now, could not give him what she no longer had herself, and he returned to the distracted condition that preceded his marriage, and felt the same anguish, the same agitation, the same madness. The beautiful relations, worldly consideration, success, decorations, honors, were good for others; but for his happiness he required the tranquillity and serenity of his wife, and her good moral health which passed into him when she slept on his shoulder. In that case there were no sudden awakenings, no sleeplessness; at the sound of her gentle respiration he was reassured, and the spectres remained in their tomb.
But now that this respiration was agitated, and he no longer felt in her this tranquillity and serenity, he was no longer calm; she was weak and uneasy, and she communicated her fever to him, not her sleep.
“You do not sleep. Why do you not sleep?”
“And you?”
He must know.
He persisted in his questions, but she was always on her guard, so that he was unable to draw anything from her, checked as he was by the fear of betraying himself, which seemed easy at the point he believed she had reached. An awkward word, too much persistence, would let a flood of light into her mind.
He also affected to speak as a physician when questioning her, and to look for medical explanations of her condition.
“If you do not sleep it is because you suffer. What is this suffering? From what does it proceed?”
Having no reasons to give to justify it, since she did not even dare to speak of her brother, she denied it obstinately.
“But nothing is the matter with me, I assure you,” she repeated. “What do you think is the matter?”
“That is what I ask you.”
“Then I ask you: What do you think I conceal from you?”
He could not say that he suspected her of concealing anything from him.
“You do not watch yourself properly.”
“I can do nothing.”
“I will force you to watch yourself and to speak.”
“How?”
“By putting you to sleep.”
The threat was so terrible that she was beside herself.
“Do not do that!” she cried.
They looked at each other for a few moments in silence, both equally frightened, she at the threat, he at what he would learn from her. But to show this fright was on his side to let loose another proof even more grave.
“Why should I not seek to discover in every way the cause of this uneasiness which escapes my examination as well as yours? For that somnambulism offers us an excellent way.”
“But since I am not ill, what more could I tell you when I am asleep than when I am awake?”
“We shall see.”
“It is an experiment that I ask you not to attempt. Would you try a poison on me?”
“Somnambulism is not a poison.”
“Who knows?”
“Those who have made use of it.”
“But you have not.”
“Still I know enough to know that you will run no danger in my hands.”
She believed that he opened a door of escape to her.
“Never mind, I am too much afraid. If you ever want to make me talk in a state of forced somnambulism, ask one of your ‘confreres’ in whom you have confidence to put me to sleep.”
Before a ‘confrere’ she was certain he would not ask her dangerous questions.
He understood that she wished to escape him.
“Afraid of what?” he asked. “That I shall ask you questions about the past, concerning your life before we knew each other, and demand a confession that would wound my love?”
“O Victor!” she cried, distracted. “What more cruel wound could you give me than these words? My confession! It comprises three words: I love you; I have never loved any one but you; I shall never love any one but you. I have no past; my life began with my love.”
He could not press it without showing the importance that he attached to it.
“I do not insist,” he said; “it is a way like any other, but better. You do not wish it, and we will not talk of it.”
But he yielded too quickly for her to hope that he renounced his project, and she remained under the influence of a stupefying terror. What would she say if he made her talk? Everything, possibly. She did not even know what thoughts were hidden in the depths of her brain, and she knew absolutely nothing of this forced somnambulism with which she was threatened.
At this time the works of the school of Nancy on sleep, hypnotism, and suggestion, had not yet been published, or at least the book which served as their starting-point was not known, and she knew nothing of processes that were employed to provoke the hypnotic sleep. As soon as her husband left the house she looked for some book in the library that would enlighten her. But the dictionary that she found gave only obscure or confused instructions in which she floundered. The only exact point that struck her was the method employed to produce sleep; to make the subject look at a brilliant object placed from fifteen to twenty centimetres in front of the eyes. If this were true she had no fear of ever being put to sleep.
However, she was not reassured; and when a few days later at a dinner she found herself seated next to one of her husband’s ‘confreres’, who she knew interested himself in somnambulism, she had the courage to conquer her usual timidity concerning medicine, and questioned him.
“Are there not persons with certain diseases who can be put into a state of somnambulism?”
“It was formerly believed by the public and by many physicians that only persons afflicted with hysteria and nervous troubles could be put to sleep in this way, but it was a mistake; artificial somnambulism may be produced on many subjects who are perfectly healthy.”
“Is the will preserved in sleep?”
“The subject only preserves the spontaneity and will that his hypnotizer leaves him, who at his pleasure makes him sad, gay, angry, or tender, and plays with his soul as with an instrument.”
“But that is frightful.”
“Curious, at least. It is certain that there is a local paralysis of such or such a cell, the study of which is the starting-point of many interesting discoveries.”
“When he wakes, does the subject remember what he has said?”
“There is a difference of opinion on this point. Some say yes, and others no. As for me, I believe the memory depends upon the degree of sleep: with a light sleep there is remembrance, but with a profound sleep the subject does not remember what he has said or heard or done.”
She would have liked to continue, and her companion, glad to talk of what interested him, would willingly have said more, but she saw her husband at the other end of the table watching them by fits and starts, and fearing that he would suspect the subject of their conversation she remained silent.
What she had just learned seemed to her frightful. But, at least, as she would not let herself be hypnotized she had nothing to fear; and remembering what she had read, she promised herself that she would never let him place her in a position where he could put her to sleep. It was during the sleep that the will of the hypnotizer controlled that of the subject, not before.
Resting on this belief, and also on his not having again spoken of sending her to sleep, she was reassured. Was not this a sign that he accepted her opposition and renounced his idea of provoked somnambulism?
But she deceived herself.
One night when she had gone to bed at her usual hour while he remained at his work, she awoke suddenly and saw him standing near her, looking at her with eyes whose fixed stare frightened her.
“What is the matter? What do you want?”
“Nothing, I want nothing; I am going to bed.”
In spite of the strangeness of his glance she did not persist; questions would have taught her nothing. And besides, now that he no longer went to bed at the same time as she did, there was nothing extraordinary in his attitude.
But a few days from that she woke again in the night with a feeling of distress, and saw him leaning over her as if he would envelop her in his arms.
This time, frightened as she was, she had the strength to say nothing, but her anguish was the more intense. Did he then wish to hypnotize her while she slept? Was it possible? Then the dictionary had deceived her?
In truth it was while she slept that Saniel tried to transform her natural into an artificial sleep. Would he succeed? He knew nothing about it, for the experience was new. But he risked it.
The first time, instead of putting her into a state of somnambulism, he awoke her; the second, he succeeded no better; the third, when he saw that after a certain time she did not open her eyes, he supposed that she was asleep. To assure himself, he raised her arm, which remained in the air until he placed it on the bed. Then taking her two hands, he turned them backward, and withdrawing his own, the impulsion which he gave lasted until he checked it. Her face had an expression of calmness and tranquillity that it had not had for a long time; she was the pretty Phillis of other days, with the sprightly glance.
“To-morrow I will make you sleep at the same time,” he said, “and you will talk.”
The next night he put her to sleep even more easily, but when he questioned her she resisted.
“No,” she said, “I will not speak; it is horrible. I will not, I cannot.”
He insisted, but she would not.
“Very well, so be it,” he said; “not to-day, to-morrow. But to-morrow I wish you to speak, and you shall not resist me; I will it!”
If he did not insist it was not only because he knew that habit was necessary to make her submit to his will without being able to defend herself, but because he was ignorant whether, when she awoke, she had any memory of what happened in her sleep, which was an important point.
The next night she was the same as she had been the previous evening, and nothing indicated that she was conscious of her provoked sleep, any more than what she said in this sleep. He could then continue.
This time she went to sleep sooner and more easily than usual, and her face took the expression of tranquillity and repose he had seen the night before. Would she answer? And if she consented, would she speak sincerely, without attempting to weaken or falsify the truth? Emotion made his voice tremble when he put the first question; it was his life, his peace, the happiness of both which decided him.
“Where do you suffer?” he asked.
“I do not suffer.”
“Yet you are agitated, often melancholy or uneasy; you do not sleep well. What troubles you?”
“I am afraid.”
“Afraid of what? Of whom?”
“Of you!”
He trembled.
“Afraid of me! Do you think that I could hurt you?”
“No.”
His tightened heart relaxed.
“Then why are you afraid?”
“Because there are things in you that frighten me.”
“What things? Be exact.”
“The change that has taken place in your temper, your character, and your habits.”
“And how do these changes make you uneasy?”
“They indicate a serious situation.”
“What situation?”
“I do not know; I have never stated exactly.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was afraid; and I closed my eyes so that I might not see.”
“See what?”
“The explanation of all that is mysterious in your life.”
“When did you notice the mystery in my life?”
“At the time of Caffie’s death; and before, when you told me that you could kill him without any remorse.”
“Do you know who killed Caffie?”
“No.”
His relief was so great that for several moments he forgot to continue his interrogations. Then he went on: “And after?”
“A little before Madame Dammauville’s death, when you became irritable and furious without cause; when you told me to go because you did not wish to see Madame Dammauville; when, the night before her death, you were so tender, and asked me not to judge you without recalling that hour.”
“Yet you have judged me.”
“Never. When worry urged me, my love checked me.”
“What provoked this uneasiness outside of these facts?”
“Your manner of living since our marriage; your accesses of anger and of tenderness; your fear of being observed; your agitation at night; your complaints—”
“I talked?” he cried.
“Never distinctly; you groan often, and moan, pronouncing broken words without sense, unintelligible—”
His anguish was violent; when he recovered he continued:
“What is it in this way of living that has made you uneasy?”
“Your constant care not to commit yourself—”
“Commit myself how?”
“I do not know—”
“What else?”
“The anger that you show, or the embarrassment, when the name of Caffie is pronounced, Madame Dammauville’s, and Florentin’s—”
“And you conclude that my anger on hearing these three names—”
“Nothing—I am afraid—”