VII
Decidedly, autumn is here. Frosts which were not expected so soon have browned the last flowers of the garden. The dahlias, the poor dahlias, witnesses of Monsieur's amorous timidity, are dried up; dried up also are the big sunflowers that mounted guard at the kitchen-door. There is nothing left in the devastated flower-beds,—nothing but a few sorry-looking geraniums here and there, and five or six clusters of asters, whose blue flowers—the dull blue of rottenness—are bending toward the ground in anticipation of death. The garden-plots of Captain Mauger, whom I saw just now over the hedge, present a scene of veritable disaster, and everything is of the color of tobacco.
The trees, through the fields, are beginning to turn yellow and to lose their foliage, and the sky is funereal. For four days we have been living in a thick fog, a brown fog that smelt of soot and that did not dissipate even in the afternoon. Now it is raining, an icy, beating rain, which a fierce wind, blowing in squalls from the northwest, occasionally intensifies.
Ah! I am not comfortably situated here. In my room it is bitter cold. The wind blows into it, and the water penetrates the cracks in the roof, principally around the two windows which stingily illuminate this dark hole. And the noise of lifting slates, of shocks that shake the roof, of creaking timbers and of squeaking hinges, is deafening. In spite of the urgent need of repairs, I have had all the difficulty in the world in getting Madame to order the plumber to come to-morrow morning. And I do not dare yet to ask for a stove, although, being very chilly, I feel that I shall not be able to live in this mortal room through the winter. This evening, to stop the wind and the rain, I have had to stuff old skirts into the cracks. And this weather-vane above my head, never ceasing to turn on its rusty pivot, at times shrieks out so sharply in the night that one would take it for Madame's voice in the corridors, after a scene.
My first feelings of revolt having quieted down a little, my life proceeds here monotonously and stupidly; and I am gradually getting accustomed to it, without too great moral suffering. No one ever comes here; one would take it for a cursed house. And, outside of the petty domestic incidents that I have related, never does anything happen. All the days are alike, and all the tasks, and all the faces. It is ennui and death. But I am beginning to be so stupid that I am accommodating myself to this ennui, as if it were a natural thing. Even the deprivation of love does not cause me too much embarrassment, and I endure without too painful struggles this chastity to which I am condemned, or to which, rather, I have condemned myself,—for I have abandoned Monsieur, I have dropped Monsieur finally. Monsieur bores me, and I am angry with him for having, out of cowardice, disparaged me so grossly in talking with Madame. Not that he is becoming resigned, or ceasing to pay attention to me. On the contrary, he persists in revolving about me, with eyes that grow rounder and rounder, and a mouth that grows more and more frothy. According to an expression that I have read in I have forgotten what book, it is always toward my trough that he drives the pigs of his desire to drink.
Now that the days are shortening, Monsieur spends the afternoon at his desk, where he does the devil knows what, occupying his time in moving about old papers without reason, in checking off seed-catalogues and medical advertisements, and in distractedly turning the leaves of old hunting-books. You should see him when I go in at night to close the blinds or attend to his fire. Then he rises, coughs, sneezes, clears his throat, runs against the furniture, upsets objects, and tries in all sorts of stupid ways to attract my attention. It is enough to make one twist with laughter. I make a pretence of hearing nothing, of not understanding his puerile tricks; and I go away, silent and haughty, without looking at him any more than if he were not there.
Last evening, however, we exchanged the following brief remarks:
"Célestine!"
"Monsieur desires something?"
"Célestine, you are unkind to me; why are you unkind to me?"
"Why, Monsieur knows very well that I am a loose creature!" . . .
"Oh! come!"
"A dirty thing!" . . .
"Oh! come, come!"
"And possibly diseased."
"Oh! heavens! Célestine! Come, Célestine, listen to me!"
"Bah!"
Oh! I have enough of him. It no longer amuses me to upset his head and his heart by my coquetries.
In fact, nothing amuses me here. And the worst of it is that nothing bores me, either. Is it the air of this dirty country, the silence of the fields, the heavy, coarse food that I eat? A feeling of torpor is taking possession of me,—a feeling, moreover, which is not without charm. At any rate, it dulls my sensibility, deadens my dreams, and helps me to endure Madame's insolence and scolding. Thanks to it also, I feel a certain content in chattering, at night, for hours, with Marianne and Joseph,—this strange Joseph–who does not go out any more, and seems to find pleasure in remaining with us. The idea that Joseph perhaps is in love with me,—well, that flatters me. Yes, indeed, I have got to that point. And then I read, and read,—novels, novels, and more novels. I have reread Paul Bourget. His books do not excite my enthusiasm as they used to. In fact, they tire me, and I consider them false and superficial. They are conceived in that state of soul which I know well from having experienced it when, dazzled and fascinated, I came in contact with wealth and luxury. I am all over it to-day, and these things no longer astonish me. They still astonish Paul Bourget. Oh! I would not be so silly now as to go to him for psychological explanations, for I know better than he what there is behind a parlor portière and under a lace dress.
A thing to which I cannot get accustomed is the receiving of no letters from Paris. Every morning, when the carrier comes, I feel a sort of laceration in my heart at realizing that I am so abandoned by everybody; and it is in this way that I can best measure the extent of my solitude. In vain have I written to my old comrades, and especially to Monsieur Jean, urgent and disconsolate letters; in vain have I implored them to pay some attention to me, to take me out of my hell, to find me a place in Paris, however humble it maybe. Not one of them answers me. I would never have believed in so much indifference, in so much ingratitude.
And this forces me to cling more tightly to what I have left,—my memories and the past. Memories in which, in spite of everything, joy dominates suffering; a past which renews my hope that all is not over with me, and that it is not true that an accidental fall means irreparable ruin. That is why, alone in my room, while, on the other side of my partition, Marianne's snoring represents to me the distressing present, I try to drown this ridiculous sound in the sound of my old-time joys, and I passionately scrutinize this past, in order to reconstruct from its scattered bits the illusion of a future.
This very day, October 6, is a date full of recollections. During the five years that have elapsed since the tragedy which I now desire to relate, all the details have remained deep-rooted within me. There is a dead boy in this tragedy, a poor little dead boy, sweet and pretty, whom I killed by giving him too many caresses and too many joys, by giving him too much of life. And during the five years since he died,—died of me,—this will be the first time that I have not gone, on the sixth of October, to cover his grave with the usual flowers. But of these flowers, which I shall not carry to his grave, I will make a more durable bouquet, which will adorn and perfume his beloved memory better than the graveyard flowers adorn and perfume the bit of earth in which he sleeps. For the flowers of which the bouquet that I shall make will be composed I will gather, one by one, in the garden of my heart,—in the garden of my heart, where not only grow the mortal flowers of debauchery, but where bloom also the great white lilies of love.
I remember that it was on a Saturday. At the employment-bureau in the Rue du Colisée, which I had visited regularly every morning for a week in search of a place, I was introduced to an old lady in mourning. Never had I met a face more engaging, a look more gentle, manners more simple; never had I heard more winning words. She received me with a great politeness that warmed my heart.
"My child," she said to me, "Mme. Paulhat-Durand [that was the name of the woman who kept the employment-bureau] has spoken to me of you in terms of the highest praise. I believe that you deserve it, for you have an intelligent face, frank and gay, which pleases me greatly. I am in need of a person worthy of trust and capable of devotion. Devotion! Ah! I know that I am asking a thing that it is not easy to give; for, after all, you do not know me, and you have no reason to be devoted to me. Let me explain to you my situation. But do not remain standing, my child; come and sit down beside me."
The moment I am spoken to gently, the moment that I am not looked upon as a being outside of others and on the fringe of life, as something between a dog and a parrot, in that moment I am touched, and at once I feel the soul of my childhood reborn within me. All my spite, all my hatred, all my spirit of rebellion, I forget as by a miracle, and toward the people who speak to me in a human fashion I feel no sentiments save those of sacrifice and love. I know also, from experience, that it is only the unfortunate who place the suffering of the humble on a footing with their own. There is always insolence and distance in the kindness of the fortunate.
When I had taken my seat beside this venerable lady in mourning, I already loved her; I really loved her.
She sighed:
"It is not a very gay place that I offer you, my child."
With a sincerity of enthusiasm that did not escape her, I earnestly protested:
"That does not matter, Madame. Anything that Madame may ask of me I will do."
And it was true. I was ready for anything.
She thanked me with a kind and tender look, and continued:
"Well, this is it. I have had many trials in my life. I have lost all of my family, with the exception of a grandson, who now, he also, is threatened with death from the terrible disease of which the others have died."
Fearing to pronounce the name of this terrible disease, she indicated it to me by placing upon her chest her old hand, gloved in black, and then, with a more painful expression, continued:
"Poor little fellow! He is a charming child, an adorable being, in whom I have placed my last hopes. For, when he is gone, I shall be all alone. And, my God! what shall I do upon earth?"
Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with her handkerchief, and went on:
"The doctors assure me that they can save him,—that the disease is not yet deep-seated. They have prescribed a régime from which they expect very good results. Every afternoon Georges must take a sea-bath, or, rather, he must dip himself for a second in the sea. Then his whole body must be rubbed vigorously with a hair-glove, to stimulate the circulation; then he must be obliged to drink a glass of old port; and then he must lie stretched for at least an hour in a very warm bed. That is what I want of you in the first place, my child. But understand me well; what I specially want is youth, grace, gaiety, life. In my house it is these things that are most lacking. I have two very devoted servants, but they are old and sad, and possessed of manias. Georges cannot endure them. And I myself, with my old white head and my perpetual wearing of mourning,—I feel that I am an affliction to him. And, what is worse still, I feel also that I often am unable to hide from him my apprehensions. Oh! I know that this, perhaps, is not exactly the role for a young girl like you, beside so young a boy as Georges; for he is only nineteen! The world undoubtedly will find something to say about it. But I care not for the world; I care only for my sick grandchild, and I have confidence in you. You are a good woman, I suppose?"
"Oh! yes, Madame," I cried, certain in advance of being the sort of saint of whom this disconsolate grandmother was in search, for the salvation of her child.
"And he, the poor little one, my God! In his condition! In his condition, you see, he needs, more than sea-baths perhaps, the continual companionship of a pretty face, a fresh young laugh, something to drive from his mind the idea of death, some one to give him confidence in life. Will you undertake it?"
"I accept, Madame," I answered, moved to the depths of my being. "And Madame may be sure that I will take good care of M. Georges."
It was agreed that I should enter upon my duties that very evening, and that we should start on the next day but one for Houlgate, where the lady in mourning had rented a beautiful villa near the beach.
The grandmother had not lied. M. Georges was a charming, an adorable child. His beardless face had the loveliness of that of a beautiful woman; womanly also were his indolent movements, and his long, white, supple hands, through which could be seen the network of his veins. But what ardent eyes! Pupils consumed by a dull fire, beneath eyelids ringed with blue, and seemingly burned by the flaming gaze! What an intense focus of thought, of passion, of sensibility, of intelligence, of inner life! And to what an extent already had the red flowers of death invaded his cheeks! It seemed as if it were not of disease, as if it were not of death, that he was dying, but of an excess of life, of the fever of life that was in him, gnawing at his organs and withering his flesh. Oh! how pretty and how painful a spectacle! When his grandmother took me to him, he was stretched on a long chair, and holding in his long white hands an odorless rose. He received me, not as a servant, but almost as a friend whom he expected. And from the first moment I became attached to him with all the strength of my soul.
Our establishment at Houlgate was effected without incident, as our journey had been also. Everything was ready, when we arrived. We had only to take possession of the villa,—a roomy, elegant villa, full of life and gaiety, and separated from the beach by a broad terrace. covered with wicker-chairs and tents of many colors. A stone stairway, cut in the embankment, led to the sea, and against its lower steps sounded the music of the waves when the tide was coming in. M. Georges's room, on the ground floor, commanded an admirable view of the sea from large bay-windows. My own room—not the room of a servant, but that of a master—was opposite M. Georges's, across a passage-way, and was hung with light cretonne. From its windows one looked out into a little garden, where were growing some sorry-looking spindle-trees and some sorrier-looking rose-bushes. To express in words my joy, my pride, my emotion, and the pure and new elevation of mind that I felt at being thus treated and petted, admitted, like a lady, to comfort, to luxury, and to a share in that thing so vainly coveted which is called the family; to explain how, by a simple wave of the wand of that miraculous fairy, kindness, there came instantly an end to the recollection of my past humiliations and a conception of all the duties laid upon me by the dignity that belongs to a human being, and at last vouchsafed to me,—is quite beyond me. But I can say at least that I really perceived the magic of the transfiguration. Not only did the mirror testify that I had suddenly become more beautiful, but my heart assured me that I was really better. I discovered within me sources, sources, sources,—inexhaustible sources, eyer-flowing sources, of devotion, of sacrifice, of heroism; and I had but one thought,—to save, by intelligent care, by watchful fidelity, and by marvellous skill,—to save M. Georges from death.
With a robust faith in my power of cure, I said in positive tones to the poor grandmother, who was in a state of perpetual despair, and often spent her days in weeping in the adjoining room:
"Do not weep, Madame. We will save him. I swear to you that we will save him."
And, in fact, at the end of a fortnight's time, M. Georges was much improved. A great change in his condition had taken place. The fits of coughing had diminished in number and intensity; his sleep and appetite were becoming more regular. He no longer had, in the night, those copious and terrible sweats that left him gasping and exhausted in the morning. His strength was so far recovered that we could take long drives and short walks, without serious fatigue. It was a sort of resurrection. As the weather was very fine, and the air very warm, but tempered by the sea-breeze, on days when we did not leave the premises we spent most of the time on the terrace, in the shelter of the tents, awaiting the bathing hour,—the hour of "the little dip in the sea," as M. Georges gaily called it. For he was gay, always gay; never did he speak of his illness, never of death. I really believe that in all those days he never once uttered the terrible word death. On the other hand, he was much amused by my chatter, provoking it if necessary; and I, confiding in his eyes, reassured by his heart, won by his indulgence and his grace, told him everything that came into my mind,—farces, follies, and songs. My little childhood, my little desires, my little misfortunes, and my dreams, and my rebellions, and my various experiences with ludicrous or infamous masters,—I told him all, without much masking of the truth, for, young though he was, and separated from the world, and shut up as he had always been, he nevertheless, by a sort of prescience, by a marvelous divination which the sick possess, understood life thoroughly. A real friendship, that his nature surely facilitated, and that his solitude caused him to desire, and, above all, that the intimate and constant care with which I delighted his poor moribund flesh brought about, so to speak, automatically, sprang up between us. I was happy to a degree that I cannot picture, and my mind gained in refinement by incessant contact with his.
M. Georges adored poetry. For entire hours, on the terrace, to the music of the waves, or else at night in his room, he asked me to read him the poems of Victor Hugo, of Baudelaire, of Verlaine, of Mæterlinck. Often he closed his eyes, and lay motionless, with his hands folded on his breast, and I, thinking that he was asleep, stopped reading; but he smiled, and said:
"Go on, little one; I am not asleep. I can listen better so. I hear your voice better. And your voice is charming."
Sometimes it was he who interrupted me. After concentrating his thoughts, he slowly recited, with a prolongation of the rhythms, the lines that had excited in him the greatest enthusiasm, and he tried—oh! how I loved him for that!—to make me understand them, to make me feel their beauty. One day he said to me,—and I have kept these words as a relic:
"The sublimity of poetry, you see, lies in the fact that it does not take an educated person to understand it and to love it. On the contrary. The educated do not understand it, and generally they despise it, because they have too much pride. To love poetry it is enough to have a soul,—a little soul, naked, like a flower. Poets speak to the souls of the simple, of the sad, of the sick. And that is why they are eternal. Do you know that, when one has sensibility, one is always something of a poet? And you yourself, little Célestine, have often said to me things that are as beautiful as poetry."
"Oh! Monsieur Georges, you are making fun of me."
"Not in the least. And you are unaware that you have said these beautiful things. And that is the delightful part of it."
For me those were unique hours; whatever destiny may bring me, they will sing in my heart as long as I may live. I felt that indescribably sweet sensation of becoming a new being, of witnessing, so to speak, from minute to minute, the revelation of something unknown in me, and which yet was I. And to-day, in spite of worse falls, thoroughly reconquered as I am by all that is bad and embittered in me, if I have kept this passionate fondness for reading, and sometimes that impulse toward things superior to my social environment and to myself; if, trying to regain confidence in the spontaneity of my nature, I have dared—I who am so ignorant—to write this diary,—it is to M. Georges that I owe it.
Oh! yes, I was happy,—happy especially at seeing the pretty patient gradually reborn, his flesh swelling out and his face blooming again, through the flow of a new sap; happy at the joy, and the hopes, and the certainties, that the rapidity of this resurrection gave to the entire house, of which I was now the queen and the fairy. They attributed to me, they attributed to the intelligence of my care, to the vigilance of my devotion, and, more still perhaps, to my constant gaiety, to my youth so full of charm, to my surprising influence over Georges, this incomparable miracle. And the poor grandmother thanked me, overwhelmed me with gratitude and blessings, and also with presents, like a nurse to whom has been confided a baby almost dead, and who, with her pure and healthy milk, reconstructs his organs, brings back his smile, and restores him to life.
Sometimes, forgetful of her station, she took my hands, caressed them, kissed them, and, with tears of joy, said to me:
"I knew very well … I … when I saw you … I knew very well!"
And already projects were being formed,—journeys to the land of sunshine, fields full of roses!
"You shall never leave us; never more, my child."
Her enthusiasm often embarrassed me, but I finally came to believe that I deserved it. If, as many others would have done in my place, I had chosen to abuse her generosity … Oh, misfortune!
And what was to happen happened.
On the day of which I speak, the weather had been very warm, very heavy, and very threatening. Across the sky, above the leaden and perfectly fiat sea, rolled stifling clouds, thick red clouds, through which the storm could not break. M. Georges had not gone out, even to the terrace, and we had remained in his room. More nervous than usual, a nervousness due undoubtedly to the electricity in the atmosphere, he had even refused to let me read poetry to him.
"That would tire me," he said. "And, besides, I feel that you would read very badly to-day."
He had gone into the salon, where he had tried to play a little on the piano. The piano having plagued him, he had at once come back into the room, where he had sought to divert himself for a moment by drawing, as it seemed to me, some feminine profiles. But he had not been slow in abandoning paper and pencil, fuming with some impatience:
"I cannot; I am not in the mood. My hand trembles. I don't know what is the matter with me. And you,—there is something the matter with you, too. You are restless."
Finally he had stretched himself on his long chair, near the large bay-window, through which one could see a vast expanse of water. Fishing-boats in the distance, fleeing from the ever-threatening storm, were re-entering the port of Trouville. With a distracted look he followed their manœuvres and their grey sails.
As M. Georges had said, I was restless; I could not keep still; I was continually moving about, to find something with which to occupy his mind. Of course I found nothing, and my agitation did not have a quieting influence on his.
"Why do you move about so? Why do you enervate yourself? Stay beside me."
I had asked him:
"Would you not like to be on one of those little boats yonder? I would."
"Oh! do not talk for the sake of talking. Why say useless things? Stay beside me."
Scarcely had I taken my seat beside him, when, the sight of the sea becoming utterly unendurable to him, he asked me to lower the blind.
"This bad light exasperates me; this sea is horrible. I do not wish to look at it. Everything is horrible to-day. I do not wish to see anything; I wish to see you only."
I had gently chided him.
"Oh! Monsieur Georges, you are not good. You are not behaving well. If your grandmother were to come in and see you in this condition, you would make her cry again."
Having raised himself a little on the cushions:
"In the first place, why do you call me 'Monsieur Georges'? You know that I do not like it."
"But I cannot call you 'Monsieur Gaston'!"
"Call me 'Georges' for short, naughty girl."
"Oh! I could not; I could never do that!"
Then he had sighed:
"Is it not curious? Are you, then, still a poor little slave?"
Then he had lapsed into silence. And the rest of the day passed off, half in enervation, half in silence, which was also an enervation, and more painful.
In the evening, after dinner, the storm at last broke out. The wind began to blow violently, the waves to beat against the embankment with a heavy sullen sound. M. Georges would not go to bed. He felt that it would be impossible for him to sleep, and in a bed sleepless nights are so long! He on his long chair, I sitting near a little table on which, veiled by a shade, was burning a lamp that shed a soft, pink light about us, we said nothing. Although his eyes were more brilliant than usual, M. Georges seemed calmer, and the pink reflection from the lamp heightened his color, and outlined more clearly in the light the features of his delicate and charming face. I was engaged in sewing.
Suddenly he said to me:
"Leave your work for a little while, Célestine, and sit beside me."
I always obeyed his desires, his caprices. At times he manifested an effusive and enthusiastic friendship, which I attributed to gratitude. This time I obeyed as usual.
"Nearer, still nearer," he exclaimed.
Then:
"Now give me your hand."
Without the slightest mistrust I allowed him to take my hand, which he caressed.
"How pretty your hand is! And how pretty your eyes are! And how pretty you are, altogether, altogether, altogether!"
He had often spoken to me of my kindness, but never had he told me that I was pretty; at least, he had never told me so with such an air. Surprised and, in reality, charmed by these words, which he uttered in a grave and somewhat gasping voice, I instinctively drew back.
"No, no, do not go away; stay near me, close to me. You cannot know how much good it does me to have you near me, how it warms me. See, I am no longer nervous, agitated; I am no longer sick; I am content, happy, very happy."
And, having chastely placed his arm about my waist, he obliged me to sit down beside him on the long chair. And he asked:
"Are you uncomfortable so?"
I was not reassured. In his eyes burned a fire more ardent than ever. His voice trembled more—with that trembling which I know,—oh! yes, how I know it!—that trembling which is given to the voice of all men by the violent desire of love. I was very much moved, and I was very cowardly; my head was whirling a little. But, firmly resolved to defend myself against him, and especially to energetically defend him against himself, I answered in a childish way:
"Yes, Monsieur Georges, I am very uncomfortable; let me get up."
His arm did not leave my waist.
"No, no, I beg of you, be nice."
And in a tone the coaxing gentleness of which I cannot describe, he added:
"You are very timid. What are you afraid of, then?"
At the same time he approached his face to mine, and I felt his warm breath with its insipid odor,—something like an incense of death.
My heart seized with an inexpressible anguish, I cried:
"Monsieur Georges! Oh! Monsieur Georges, let me go. You will make yourself sick. I beg of you! Let me go."
I did not dare to struggle, because of his weakness, out of respect for the fragility of his members. I simply tried—and how carefully!—to put away his hand, which, awkward, timid, trembling, was trying to unhook my waist. And I repeated:
"Let me go! You are behaving very badly. Monsieur Georges. Let me go!"
His effort to hold me against him had tired him. His embrace soon weakened. For a few seconds he breathed with greater difficulty, and then a dry cough shook his chest.
"You see, Monsieur Georges," I said to him, with all the gentleness of a maternal reproach, "you are wilfully making yourself sick. You will listen to nothing. And all will have to be begun over again. Great progress we shall make in this way! Be good, I beg of you! And, if you were very nice, do you know what you would do? You would go to bed directly."
He withdrew his hand, stretched out on the long chair, and, as I replaced beneath his head the cushions that had slipped down, he sadly sighed:
"After all, you are right; I ask your pardon."
"You have not to ask my pardon. Monsieur Georges; you have to be quiet."
"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, his eyes fixed on the spot in the ceiling where the lamp made a circle of moving light. "I was a little mad … to have dreamed for a moment that you could love me,—me who have never had love,—me who have never had anything but suffering. Why should you love me? It would cure me to love you. Since you have been here beside me, and since the beginning of my desire for you; since you have been here with your youth, and your freshness, and your eyes, and your hands,—your little silky hands, whose attentions are the gentlest of caresses; since the time I began to dream of you alone,—I have felt boiling within me, in my soul and in my body, new vigor, a wholly unknown life. That is to say, I did feel that,—for now … In short, what do you expect? I was mad! And you, you are right."
I was greatly embarrassed. I knew not what to say; I knew not what to do. Powerful and opposite feelings pulled me in all directions. An impulse rushed me toward him, a sacred duty held me back. And in a silly fashion, because I was not sincere, because I could not be sincere in a struggle where these desires and this duty combatted with equal force, I stammered:
"Monsieur Georges, be good. Do not think of these ugly things. It makes you sick. Come, Monsieur Georges, be very nice."
But he repeated:
"Why should you love me? Truly, you are right in not loving me. You think me ill. You fear to poison your mouth with the poisons of mine; you are afraid of contracting my disease—the disease of which I am dying, am I not?—from one of my kisses. You are right."
The cruel injustice of these words struck me to the heart.
"Do not say that. Monsieur Georges," I cried, wildly; "what you say is horrible and wicked. And you really give me too much pain, too much pain."
I seized his hands; they were moist and burning. I bent over him; his breath had the raucous ardor of a forge.
"It is horrible, horrible!"
He continued:
"A kiss from you,—why! that meant my resurrection, my complete restoration to life. Oh! you have believed seriously in your baths, in your port wine, in your hair-glove. Poor little one! It is in your love that I have bathed, it is the wine of your love that I have drunk, it is the revulsion of your life that has set a new blood flowing beneath my skin. It is because I have so hoped and longed and waited for your kiss that I have begun to live again, to be strong,—for I am strong now. But I am not angry with you for refusing me; you are right in refusing. I understand; I understand. You are a timid little soul, without courage; a little bird that sings on one branch, and then on another, and flies away at the slightest noise … frroutt! "
"These are frightful things which you are saying. Monsieur Georges."
He still went on, while I wrung my hands:
"Why are they frightful? No, indeed, they are not frightful; they are true. You think me sick. You think that one is sick when one has love. You do not know that love is life,—eternal life. Yes, yes, I understand, since your kiss, which is life for me, might, you fancy, be death for you. Let us say no more about it."
I could not listen further. Was it pity? Was it the bleeding reproach and bitter challenge that these atrocious and sacrilegious words conveyed? Was it simply the impulsive and savage love that suddenly took possession of me? I do not know. Perhaps it was all of these together. What I know is that I allowed myself to fall, like a mass, on the long chair, and that, lifting in my hands the child's adorable head, I wildly cried:
"There, naughty boy, see how afraid I am of you! See, then, how afraid I am of you!"
I glued my lips to his lips, I pressed my teeth against his, with such quivering fury that my tongue seemed to penetrate the deepest sores of his chest, to lick them, to drink from them, to draw out of them all the poisoned blood and all the mortal pus. His arms opened, and closed again about me, in an embrace.
And what was to happen happened.
Well, no. The more I think about it, the surer I am that what threw me into Georges's arms, what fastened my lips to his, was, first and only, an imperative, spontaneous movement of protest against the base sentiments that Georges—through strategy, perhaps—attributed to my refusal. It was, above all, an act of fervent, disinterested, and very pure piety, which meant to say:
"No, I do not think that you are sick; no, you are not sick. And the proof is that I do not hesitate to mingle my breath with yours, to breathe it, to drink it in, to impregnate my lungs with it, to saturate with it all my flesh. And, even though you were really sick, even though your disease were contagious and fatal to any one approaching it, I do not wish you to entertain concerning me this monstrous idea that I am afraid of contracting it, of suffering from it, and ot dying from it."
Nor had I foreseen and calculated the inevitable result of this kiss, and that I would not have the strength, once in my friend's arms, once my lips on his, to tear myself from this embrace and put away this kiss. But there it is, you see! When a man holds me in his arms, my skin at once begins to burn, and my head to turn and turn. I become drunk; I become mad; I become savage. I have no other will than that of my desire. I see only him; I think only of him; and I suffer myself to be led by him, docile and terrible, even to crime!
Oh! that first kiss of M. Georges, his awkward and delicious caresses, the passionate artlessness of all his movements, and the wondering expression of his eyes in presence of the mystery, at last unveiled, of woman and of love! But, the intoxication passed, when I saw the poor and fragile child, panting, almost swooning in my arms, I felt a frightful remorse,—at least the terrifying sensation that I had just committed a murder.
"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges! I have made you ill. Oh! poor little one!"
But he,—with what feline, tender, and trusting grace, with what dazzled gratitude, he rolled against me, as if in search of protection. And he said to me, his eyes filled with ecstasy:
"I am happy. Now I can die."
And, as I cursed my weakness in my despair, he repeated:
"I am happy. Oh! stay with me; do not leave me. It seems to me, you see, that, if I were left alone, I could not endure the violence of my happiness, although it is so sweet."
While I was helping him to go to bed, he had a fit of coughing. Fortunately it was short. But, short though it was, it lacerated my soul. After having relieved and cured him, was I going to kill him now? I thought that I should be unable to keep the tears back. And I detested myself.
"It is nothing; it is nothing," he exclaimed, with a smile; "you must not grieve, since I am so happy. And besides, I am not sick, I am not sick. You will see how soundly I shall sleep against you. For I wish to sleep upon your breast, as if I were your little child,—my head upon your breast."
"And if your grandmother should ring for me to-night. Monsieur Georges?"
"Oh no! Oh no! Grandmother will not ring. I wish to sleep against you."
During the fortnight that followed that memorable night, that delicious and tragic night, a sort of fury took possession of us, mingling our kisses, our bodies, our souls, in an embrace, in an endless possession. We were in haste to enjoy, in compensation for the lost past; we desired to live, almost without rest, the love of which we felt that death, now near at hand, was to be the climax.
A sudden change had taken place in me. In my kiss there was something sinister and madly criminal. Knowing that I was killing Georges, I was furiously bent upon killing myself also, of the same joy and of the same disease. Deliberately I sacrificed his life and mine. With a wild and bitter exaltation I breathed and drank in death, all the death, from his mouth; and I besmeared my lips with his poison. Once, when he was coughing, seized, in my arms, with a more violent attack than usual, I saw, foaming on his lips, a huge and unclean clot of blood-streaked phlegm.
"Give! give! give!"
And I swallowed the phlegm with murderous avidity, as I would have swallowed a life-giving cordial.
Monsieur Georges was not slow in wasting away. His crises became more frequent, more painful. He spat blood, and had long periods of swooning, during which he was thought to be dead. His body grew thin, hollow, and emaciated, until it really resembled an anatomical specimen. And the joy that had regained possession of the house changed very speedily into dismal sorrow. The grandmother began again to pass her days in the salon, crying, praying, on the alert for sounds, and, with her ear glued to the door that separated her from her child, undergoing the frightful and continual anguish of hearing a cry,—a rattle,—a sigh, the last,—the end of everything dear and still living that was left to her here below. When I went out of the room, she followed me, step by step, about the house, wailing:
"Why, my God, why? And what then has happened?"
She said to me also:
"You are killing yourself, my poor little one. But you cannot pass all your nights by Georges's side. I am going to send for a sister to take your place."
But I refused. And she cherished me all the more for this refusal, seeming to think that, having already worked one miracle, I could now work another. Is it not frightful? I was her last hope.
As for the doctors, summoned from Paris, they were astonished at the progress of the disease, and that it had worked such ravages in so short a time. Not for a moment did they or anyone suspect the terrible truth. Their intervention was confined to the prescribing of quieting potions.
Monsieur Georges alone remained gay, happy,—steadily gay, unalterably happy. Not only did he never complain, but his soul continually poured itself out in effusions of gratitude. He spoke only to express his joy. Sometimes, at night, in his room, after terrible crises, he said to me:
"I am happy. Why grieve and weep? Your tears do something to spoil my joy, the ardent joy with which I am filled. Oh! I assure you that death is not a high price to pay for the superhuman happiness which you have given me. I was lost; death was in me; nothing could prevent it from being in me. You have rendered it radiant and pleasant. Then do not weep, dear little one. I adore you, and I thank you."
My fever of destruction had entirely vanished now. I lived in a condition of frightful disgust with myself, in an unspeakable horror of my crime, of my murder. There was nothing left me but the hope, the consolation, or the excuse that I had contracted my friend's disease, and would die with him, and at the same time.
And what was to happen happened.
We were then in the month of October, precisely the sixth of October. The autumn having remained mild and warm that year, the doctors had counselled a prolongation of the patient's stay at the seaside, pending the time when he could be taken to the south. All day long, on that sixth of October, Monsieur Georges had been quieter. I had opened wide the large bay-window in his room, and there, lying on his long chair, beside the window, protected from the air by warm coverings, he had breathed for at least four hours, and deliciously, the iodic emanations from the offing. The life-giving sun, the good sea odors, the deserted beach, now occupied again by the shell-fishermen, delighted him. Never had I seen him gayer. And this gaiety on his emaciated face, where the skin, growing thinner from week to week, covered the bones like a transparent film, had something funereal about it, and so painful to witness that several times I had to leave the room in order to weep freely. He refused to let me read poetry to him. When I opened the book, he said:
"No; you are my poem; you are all my poems, and far the most beautiful of all."
He was forbidden to talk. The slightest conversation fatigued him, and often brought on a fit of coughing. Moreover, he had hardly strength enough to talk. What was left to him of life, of thought, of will to express, of sensibility, was concentrated in his gaze, which had become a glowing fireplace, in which the soul continually kindled a flame of surprising and supernatural intensity. That evening, the evening of the sixth of October, he seemed no longer to be suffering. Oh! I see him still, stretched upon his bed, his head high upon his pillow, his long thin hands playing tranquilly with the blue fringe of the curtain, his lips smiling at me, and his eyes, which, in the shade of the bed, shone and burned like a lamp, following all my goings and comings.
They had placed a couch in the room for me, a nurse's couch and—oh! irony, in order doubtless to spare his modesty and mine—a screen behind which I could, undress. But often I did not lie upon the couch; Monsieur Georges wanted me always by his side. He was really comfortable, really happy, only when I was near him.
After having slept two hours, almost peacefully, he awoke toward midnight. He was a little feverish; the spots at the points of his cheek-bones were a little redder. Seeing me sitting at the head of his bed, my cheeks damp with tears, he said to me, in a tone of gentle reproach:
"What, weeping again? You wish, then, to make me sad, and to give me pain? Why do you not lie down? Come and lie down beside me."
I cried, shaken by sobs:
"Ah! Monsieur Georges, do you wish me, then, to kill you? Do you wish me to suffer all my life from remorse at having killed you? "
All my life! I had already forgotten that I wanted to die with him, to die of him, to die as he died.
"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges! Have pity on me, I implore you!"
But his lips were on my lips. Death was on my lips.
"Be still!" he exclaimed, gasping. "I have never loved you so much as to-night."
Suddenly his arms relaxed and fell back, inert, upon the bed; his lips abandoned mine. And from his mouth, turned upward, there came a cry of distress, and then a flow of hot blood that spattered my face. With a bound I was out of bed. A mirror opposite revealed my image, red and bloody. I was mad, and, running about the room in bewilderment, it was my impulse to call for aid. But the instinct of self-preservation, the fear of responsibilities, of the revelation of my crime, and I know not what else that was cowardly and calculating, closed my mouth, and held me back at the edge of the abyss over which my reason was tottering. Very clearly and very speedily I realized that it would not do for any one to enter the room in its present condition.
O human misery! There was something more spontaneous than my grief, more powerful than my fear; it was my ignoble prudence and my base calculations. In my terror I had the presence of mind to open the door of the salon, and then the door of the ante-room, and listen. Not a sound. Everybody in the house was asleep. Then I returned to the bedside. I raised Georges's body, as light as a feather, in my arms. I lifted up his head, maintaining it in an upright position in my hands. The blood continued to flow from his mouth in pitchy filaments ; I heard his chest discharging itself through his throat, with the sound of an emptying bottle. His eyes, turned up, showed nothing but their reddish globes between the swollen eyelids.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
Georges did not answer these calls and cries. He did not hear them. He heard nothing more of the cries and calls of earth.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
I let go his body; his body sank upon the bed. I let go his head; his head fell back heavily upon the pillow. I placed my hand upon his heart; his heart had ceased to beat.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
The horror of this silence, of these mute lips, of this corpse red and motionless, and of myself, was too much for me. And, crushed with grief, crushed with the frightful necessity of restraining my grief, I fell to the floor in a swoon.
How many minutes did this swoon last, or how many centuries? I do not know. On recovering consciousness, one torturing thought dominated all others,—that of removing every accusing sign. I washed my face, I redressed myself, and—yes, I had the frightful courage,—I put the bed and the room to rights. And, when that was done, I awoke the house; I cried the terrible news through the house.
Oh! that night! That night I suffered all the tortures that hell contains.
And this night here at the Priory reminds me of it. The storm is raging, as it raged there the night when I began my work of destruction on that poor flesh. And the roaring of the wind through the trees in the garden sounds to me like the roaring of the sea against the embankment of the forever-cursed Houlgate villa.
Upon our return to Paris, after M. Georges's funeral, I did not wish to remain in the poor grandmother's service, in spite of her repeated entreaties. I was in a hurry to go away, that I might see no more of that tearful face,—that I might no longer hear the sobs that lacerated my heart. And, above all, I was in a hurry to get away from her gratitude, from the necessity which she felt, in her doting distress, of continually thanking me for my devotion, for my heroism, of calling me her "daughter, her dear little daughter," and of embracing me with madly effusive tenderness. Many times during the fortnight in which I consented to call upon her, in obedience to her request, I had an intense desire to confess, to accuse myself, to tell her everything that was lying so heavily on my soul and often stifling me. But what would have been the use? Would it have given her any relief whatever? It would simply have added a more bitter affliction to her other afflictions, and the horrible thought and the inexpiable remorse that, but for me, her dear child perhaps would not be dead. And then, I must confess that I had not the courage. I left her house with my secret, worshipped by her as if I were a saint, overwhelmed with rich presents and with love.
Now, on the very day of my departure, as I was coming back from Mme. Paulhat-Durand's employment-bureau, I met in the Champs-Elysees a former comrade, a valet, with whom I had served for six months in the same house. It was fully two years since I had seen him. After our first greetings, I learned that he, as well as I, was looking for a place. Only, having for the moment some nickel- plated extra jobs, he was in no hurry to find one.
"This jolly Célestine!" he exclaimed, happy at seeing me again; "as astonishing as ever!"
He was a good fellow, gay, full of fun, and fond of a good time. He proposed:
"Suppose we dine together, eh?"
I needed to divert myself, to drive far away from me a multitude of sad images, a multitude of obsessing thoughts. I accepted.
"Good!" he exclaimed.
He took my arm, and led me to a wine-shop in the Rue Cambon. His heavy gaiety, his coarse jokes, his vulgar obscenity, I keenly appreciated. They did not shock me. On the contrary, I felt a certain rascally joy, a sort of crapulous security, as if I were resuming a lost habit. To tell the truth, I recognized myself, I recognized my own life and my own soul in those dissipated eyelids, in that smooth face, in those shaven lips, which betray the same servile grimace, the same furrow of falsehood, the same taste for passional filth, in the actor, the judge, and the valet.
After dinner we strolled for a time on the boulevards; then he took me to see a cinematograph exhibition. My will was a little weak from having drunk too much Saumur wine. In the darkness of the hall, as the French army was marching across the illuminated screen amid the applause of the spectators, he caught me about the waist, and imprinted a kiss upon the back of my neck which came near loosening my hair.
"You are astonishing!" he whispered. "Oh! how good you smell!"
He accompanied me to my hotel, and we stood for a few minutes on the sidewalk, silent and a little stupid. He was tapping his shoes with the end of his cane; I, with head lowered, my elbows pressed closely against my body, and my hands in my muff, was crushing a bit of orange-peel beneath my feet.
"Well, au revoir!" I said to him.
"Oh! no," he exclaimed, "let me go up with you. Come, Célestine."
I defended myself, in an uncertain fashion, for the sake of form. He insisted.
"Come, what is the matter with you? Heart troubles? Now is the very time" …
He followed me. In this hotel they did not look too closely at the guests who returned at night. With its dark and narrow staircase, its slimy banister, its vile atmosphere, its fetid odors, it seemed like a house for the accommodation of transients and cut-throats. My companion coughed, to give himself assurance. And I, with my soul full of disgust, reflected:
"Oh! indeed! this is not equal to the Houlgate villas or to the warm and richly-adorned mansions in the Rue Lincoln."
What a hussy one is sometimes! Oh, misery me!
And my life began again, with its ups and downs, its changes of front, its liaisons as quickly ended as begun, and its sudden leaps from opulent interiors into the street, just as of old.
Singular thing! I, who in my amorous exaltation, my ardent thirst for sacrifice, had sincerely and passionately wished to die, was haunted for long months by the fear of having contracted Monsieur Georges's disease from his kisses. The slightest indisposition, the most fleeting pain, filled me with real terror. Often at night I awoke with mad frights and icy sweats. I felt of my chest, where, by suggestion, I suffered from pains and lacerations; I examined the discharges from my throat, in which I saw red streaks; and I gave myself a fever, by frequent counting of my pulse. It seemed to me, as I looked in the glass, that my eyes were growing hollow, and that my cheeks were growing pinker, with that mortal pink that colored Monsieur Georges's face. One night, as I was leaving a public ball, I took cold, and I coughed for a week. I thought that it was all over with me. I covered my back with plasters, and swallowed all sorts of queer medicines; I even sent a pious offering to Saint Anthony of Padua. Then, as, in spite of my fear, my health remained good, showing that I had equal power to endure the fatigues of toil and of pleasure, it all passed away.
Last year, on the sixth of October, I went to lay flowers on M. Georges's grave, as I had done every year when that sad date came round. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. In the main path I saw, a few steps ahead of me, the poor grandmother. Oh! how old she was, and how old also were the two old servants who accompanied her! Arched, bent, tottering, she walked heavily, sustained at the arm-pits by her two old servants, as arched, as bent, as tottering, as their mistress. A porter followed them, carrying a large bunch of red and white roses. I slackened my pace, not wishing to pass them and be recognized. Hidden behind the wall of a high monument, I waited until the poor and sorrowful old woman had placed her flowers, told her beads, and dropped her tears upon her grandson's grave. They came back with the same feeble steps, through the smaller path, brushing against the wall of the vault on the other side of which I was hiding. I concealed myself still more, that I might not see them, for it seemed to me that it was my remorse, the phantoms of my remorse, that were filing by me. Would she have recognized me? Ah! I do not think so. They walked without looking at anything, without seeing even the ground about them. Their eyes had the fixity of the eyes of the blind; their lips moved and moved, and not a word came from them. One would have said that they were three old dead souls, lost in the labyrinth of the cemetery, and looking for their graves. I saw again that tragic night, and my red face, and the blood flowing from Georges's mouth. It sent a shiver to my heart. At last they disappeared.
Where are they to-day, those three lamentable shades? Perhaps they are a little more dead; perhaps they are dead quite. After having wandered on for days and nights, perhaps they have found the hole of silence and of rest of which they were in search.
All the same, it is a queer idea that the unfortunate grandmother had, in choosing me as a nurse for a young and pretty boy like Monsieur Georges. And really, when I think of the matter again, and realize that she never suspected anything, that she never saw anything, that she never understood anything, this seems to me the most astonishing feature of the matter. Ah! one can say it now; they were not very sharp, the three of them. They had an abundance of confidence.
I have seen Captain Mauger again, over the hedge. Crouching before a freshly-dug bed, he was transplanting pansies and gilly-flowers. As soon as he saw me, he left his work, and came to the hedge to talk. He is no longer angry with me for the murder of his ferret. He even seems very gay. Bursting with laughter, he confides to me that this morning he has wrung the neck of the Lanlaires' white cat. Probably the cat avenges the ferret.
"It is the tenth that I have gently killed for them," he cries, with ferocious joy, slapping his thigh, and then rubbing his grimy hands. "Ah! the dirty thing will scratch no more compost from my garden-frames; it will no longer ravage my seed-plots, the camel! And, if I could also wring the necks of your Lanlaire and his female! Oh! the pigs! Oh! oh! oh! that's an idea."
This idea makes him twist with laughter for a moment. And suddenly, his eyes sparkling with a stealthy malice, he asks:
"Why don't you put some smart-weed in their bed? The dirty creatures! Oh! I would give you a package of it for the purpose. That's an idea!"
Then:
"By the way, you know? Kléber? my little ferret?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I ate him. Alas! alas!"
"He was not very good, was he?"
"Alas! he tasted like bad rabbit."
And that was all the funeral sermon that the poor animal got.
The captain tells me also that a week or two ago he caught a hedge-hog under a wood-pile. He is engaged in taming him. He calls him Bourbaki. Ah! that's an idea! An intelligent, comical, extraordinary beast that eats everything!
"Yes, indeed!" he exclaims. "In the same day this confounded hedge-hog has eaten beefsteak, mutton stew, salt bacon, gruyère cheese, and preserves. He is astonishing. It is impossible to satisfy him. He is like me; he eats everything!"
Just then the little domestic passes the path, with a wheelbarrow full of stones, old sardine-boxes, and a heap of dếbris, which he is carrying to the refuse-heap.
"Come here!" calls the captain.
And, as, in answer to his question, I tell him that Monsieur has gone hunting, that Madame has gone to town, and that Joseph has gone on an errand, he takes from the wheelbarrow each of the stones, each bit of the débris, and, one after another, throws them into the garden, crying in a loud voice:
"There, pig! Take that, you wretch!"
The stones fly, the bits of debris fall upon a freshly-worked bed, where Joseph the day before had planted peas.
"Take that! And this, too! And here is another, in the bargain!"
The bed, soon covered with debris, becomes a confused heap. The captain's joy finds expression in a sort of hooting and disorderly gestures. Then, turning up his old grey moustache, he says to me," with a triumphant and rakish air:
"Mademoiselle Célestine, you are a fine girl, for sure! You must come and see me, when Rose is no longer here, eh? Ah! that's an idea!"
Well, indeed! He has no cheek!