"I'll have your hide! I'll have your hide!"
Many times I thought I should die.
And then she debauched herself, to get money with which to buy liquor. At night, every night, low knocks were heard at the door of our house. A sailor entered, filling the room with a strong odor of sea-salt and fish. He lay down, remained an hour, and went away. And another came, after him, lay down also, remained another hour, and went away. There were struggles and terrifying uproars in the darkness of these abominable nights, and several times the police interfered.
Thus years rolled by. I was not wanted anywhere; nor was my sister, or my brother. They avoided us in the streets. The respectable people drove us with stones from their houses, to which we went, sometimes to steal, sometimes to beg. One day my sister Louise, who also had got into bad ways with the sailors, ran away. And then my brother enlisted as a cabin-boy. I was left alone with my mother.
At the age of ten I was no longer chaste. Made familiar with love by the sad example of mamma, perverted by the little boys with whom I associated, my physical development had been very rapid. In spite of deprivations and blows, living continually in the open sea air, free and strong, I had grown so fast that at the age of eleven I experienced the first awakenings of womanhood. Beneath my girlish exterior, I was almost a woman.
At the age of twelve I was a woman quite, and no longer a virgin. Raped? No, not exactly. Consenting? Yes, almost,—at least in the degree in which the artlessness of my vice and the candor of my depravity were consistent with consent. The thing occurred one Sunday, after high mass, near the beach, on the Saint Jean side, in a recess in the cliff, in a dark hole among the rocks where the sea-gulls came to build their nests, and where the sailors sometimes hid the wreckage which they found at sea. The man was the foreman of a sardine-packing establishment,—an old, hairy, ill-smelling man, whose face was nothing but a dirty mass of beard and hair. He gave me an orange. He had a funny name,—M. Cléophas Biscouille.
And here is an incomprehensible thing, of which I have found no explanation in any novel. Ugly, brutal, and repulsive though M. Biscouille was, when I think of him now,—and I often do,—how happens it that it is never with a feeling of detestation for him, never with a disposition to curse him? At this recollection, which I call up with satisfaction, I feel a sort of great gratitude, a sort of great tenderness, and also a sort of real regret at having to say to myself that never shall I see this disgusting personage again.
In this connection may I be permitted to offer here, humble though I am, my personal contribution to the biography of great men.
M. Paul Bourget was the intimate friend and spiritual guide of the Countess Fardin, in whose house last year I served as chambermaid. I had always heard it said that he alone knew, even to its subsoil, the complex soul of woman. And many times I had had the idea of writing to him, in order to submit to him this case of passional psychology. I had not dared. Do not be too much astonished at the gravity of such preoccupations. They are not usual among domestics, I admit. But in thesalonsof the countess they never talked of anything but psychology. It is an admitted fact that our mind is modeled on that of our masters, and that what is said in thesalonis said also in the servants' hall. Unhappily we had not in the servants' hall a Paul Bourget, capable of elucidating and solving the cases of feminism that we discussed there. The explanations of Monsieur Jean himself were not satisfactory to me.
One day my mistress sent me to carry an "urgent" letter to the illustrious master. He handed me the reply himself. Then I made bold to put to him the question that tormented me, pretending, however, that the heroine of this ticklish and obscure story was a friend of mine. M. Paul Bourget asked:
"What is your friend? A woman of the people? A poor woman, undoubtedly?"
"A chambermaid, like myself, illustrious master."
A superior grimace, a look of disdain, appeared on M. Bourget's face. Ah!sapristi!he does not like the poor.
"I do not occupy myself with these souls," said he. "These are too little souls. They are not even souls. They are outside the province of my psychology."
I understood that, in this province, one begins to be a soul only with an income of a hundred thousand francs.
Not so M. Jules Lemaitre, also a familiar of the house. When I asked him the same question, he answered, prettily catching me about the waist:
"Well, charming Célestine, your friend is a good girl, that is all. And, if she resembles you, I would say a couple of words to her, you know,—hey! hey! hey!"
He, at least, with his face of a little humpbacked and merry-making faun, put on no airs; and he was good-natured. What a pity that he has fallen among the priests!
With all that, I know not what would have become of me in that hell of an Audierne, if the Little Sisters of Pont-Croix, finding me intelligent and pretty, had not taken me in, out of pity. They did not take advantage of my age, of my ignorance, of my trying and despised situation, to make use of me, to secrete me for their benefit, as often happens in such establishments, which carry human exploitation to the point of crime. They were poor, candid, timid, charitable little beings, who were not rich, and who did not even dare to extend their hands to passers-by or to beg at the doors of houses. There was sometimes much poverty among them, but they got along as best they could. And, amid all the difficulties of living, they continued none the less to be gay, and to sing continually like larks. Their ignorance of life had something touching about it, something which brings the tears to my eyes to-day, now that I can better understand their infinite and pure kindness.
They taught me to read, to write, to sew, to do housework; and, when I had become almost expert in these necessary things, they got me a place as a little housemaid in the house of a retired colonel, who came every summer, with his wife and his two daughters, to occupy a sort of dilapidated little château near Comfort. Worthy people, certainly, but so sad, so sad! And maniacs, too! Never a smile on their faces, never a sign of joy in their garments, which were always black. The colonel had had a lathe put in at the top of the house, and there, all day long, he turned egg cups out of box-wood, or else those oval balls, called "eggs," which housewives use in mending stockings. Madame drew up petition after petition, in order to obtain a tobacco-shop. And the two daughters, saying nothing, doing nothing, one with a duck's beak, the other with a rabbit's face, yellow and thin, angular and faded, dried up on the spot, like two plants lacking everything,—soil, water, sunshine. They bored me enormously. At the end of eight months I left them, in a moment of rashness which I have regretted.
But then! I heard Paris breathing and living around me. Its breath filled my heart with new desires. Although I did not go out often, I had admired with a prodigious astonishment the streets, the shop-windows, the crowds, the palaces, the brilliant equipages, the jeweled women. And, when, at night, I went to bed in the sixth story, I envied the other domestics of the house, and their pranks which I found charming, and their stories which left me in a state of marvelous surprise. Though I remained in the house but a short time, I saw there, at night, in the sixth story, all sorts of debaucheries, and took my part in them with the enthusiasm and emulation of a novice. Oh! the vague hopes and the uncertain ambitions that I cherished there, in that fallacious ideal of pleasure and vice!
Alas! yes, one is young, one knows nothing of life, one entertains imaginations and dreams. Oh! the dreams! Stupidities! I have supped on them, in the words of M. Xavier, a prettily perverted boy, of whom I shall have something to say later.
And I have rolled. Oh! how I have rolled! It is frightful when I think of it.
Yet I am not old, but I have had a very close view of things; I have seen people naked. And I have sniffed the odor of their linen, of their skin, of their soul. In spite of perfumes, they do not smell good. All that a respected interior, all that a respectable family, can hide in the way of filth, shameful vices, and base crimes, beneath the appearance of virtue,—ah! I know it well. It makes no difference if they are rich, if they have rags of silk and velvet and gilded furniture; it makes no difference if they wash in silver tubs and make a great show,—I know them. They are not clean. And their heart is more disgusting than was my mother's bed.
Oh! how a poor domestic is to be pitied, and how lonely she is! She may live in houses full of joyous and noisy people, but how lonely she is always! Solitude does not consist in living alone; it consists in living with others, with people who take no interest in you, with whom you count for less than a dog gorged with goodies, or than a flower cared for as tenderly as a rich man's child,—people of whom you have nothing but their cast-off garments or the spoiled remains of their table.
"You may eat this pear; it is rotten. Finish this chicken in the kitchen; it smells bad."
Every word is contemptuous of you, every gesture disparaging of you, placing you on a level lower than that of the beasts. And you must say nothing; you must smile and give thanks; unless you would pass for an ingrate or a wicked heart. Sometimes, when doing my mistresses' hair, I have had a mad desire to tear their neck, to scratch their bosom with my nails.
Fortunately one is not always under the influence of these gloomy ideas. One shakes them off, and arranges matters to get all the fun one can, by himself.
This evening, after dinner, Marianne, seeing that I was utterly sad, was moved to pity, and tried to console me. She went to get a bottle of brandy from the depths of the sideboard, where it stood among a heap of old papers and dirty rags.
"You must not grieve like that," she said to me; "you must shake yourself a little, my poor little one; you must console yourself."
And, having poured me out a drink, she sat for an hour, with elbows on the table, and, in a drawling and lamenting voice, told me gloomy stories of sickness, of child-birth, of the death of her mother, of her father, and of her sister. With every minute her voice became thicker; her eyes moistened; and she repeated, as she licked her glass:
"You must not grieve like that. The death of your mamma,—oh! it is a great misfortune! But what do you expect? We are all mortal. Oh! my God! Oh! my poor little one!"
Then she suddenly began to weep and weep, and, while she wept and wept, she did not cease to wail:
"You must not grieve; you must not grieve."
At first it was a plaint; but soon it became a sort of frightful bray, which grew louder and louder. And her big belly, and her big breasts, and her triple chin, shaken by her sobs, heaved in enormous surges.
"Be still, then, Marianne," I said to her; "Madame might hear you, and come."
But she did not listen to me, and, crying louder than ever, exclaimed:
"Ah! what a misfortune! what a great misfortune!"
So that I too, my stomach turned by drink, and my heart moved by Marianne's tears, began to sob like a Madeleine. All the same, she is not a bad girl.
But I am getting tired here; I am getting tired; I am getting tired. I should like to get a place in the house of some member of thedemi-monde,or else in America.
October 1.
Poor Monsieur! I believe that I was too sharp with him the other day, in the garden. Perhaps I went further than I should. He is such a simpleton that he imagines that he has given me serious offence, and that my virtue is impregnable. Oh! his humiliated, imploring looks, which never cease to ask my pardon!
Although I have become more teasing and agreeable, he says no more to me about the matter, and cannot make up his mind to try a new direct attack,—not even the classic device of a button to be sewed on a pair of pantaloons. A clumsy device, but one that does not often fail of its effect. My God! how many such buttons have I sewed on!
And yet it is plain that he desires me,—that he is dying of desire, more and more. The least of his words betrays a confession, an indirect confession of his desire; and what a confession! But he is also more and more timid; he is afraid to come to a decision. He fears that it might bring about a definite rupture, and he no longer trusts in my encouraging looks.
On one occasion, approaching me with a strange expression, with a sort of haggard look in his eyes, he said to me:
"Célestine ... you ... you ... black ... my shoes ... very well ... very ... very ... well ... Never ... have ... my ... shoes ... been blacked ... like that."
Then I expected the button trick. But no! Monsieur gasped and slobbered as if he had eaten a pear that was too big and juicy.
Then he whistled for his dog, and started off.
But here is something stronger.
Yesterday Madame had gone to market,—for she does her own marketing. Monsieur had been out since dawn, with his gun and his dog. He came back early, having killed three thrushes, and immediately went up to his dressing-room to take a tub and dress, as usual. Oh, for that matter, Monsieur is very clean, and he is not afraid of water. I thought it a favorable opportunity to try something that might at last put him at his ease with me. Leaving my work, I started for the dressing-room, and for a few seconds I stood there listening, with my ear glued to the door. Monsieur was walking back and forth in his room. He was whistling and singing:
Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!...Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...
A habit that he has of mingling a number of refrains when singing.
I heard chairs moving about, cupboards opening and closing, and then the water streaming into the tub, and the "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Fuuiis" and "Brrrs" which the shock of the cold water wrung from Monsieur. Then, suddenly, I opened the door.
Monsieur stood facing me, shivering, with wet skin, and the sponge in his hands running like a fountain. Oh! his head, his eyes! he seemed to stand transfixed. I think I never saw a man so astounded. Having nothing with which to cover his body, with a gesture instinctively modest and comical he used the sponge as a fig-leaf. It required great strength of will on my part to suppress the laugh which this spectacle loosened within me. I noticed that Monsieur had thick tufts of hair on his shoulders, and that his chest was like a bear's. But my! he is a fine man, all the same.
Naturally, I uttered a cry of alarmed modesty, as was proper, and closed the door again violently. But, once outside the door, I said to myself: "Surely he will call me back; and what is going to happen then?" I waited some minutes. Not a sound,—except the crystalline sound of a drop of water falling, from time to time, into the tub. "He is reflecting," thought I; "he does not dare to come to a decision; but he will call me back." In vain. Soon the water streamed again. Then I heard Monsieur wiping and rubbing himself, and clearing his throat; old slippers dragged over the floor; chairs moved about, and cupboards opened and closed. Finally Monsieur began again to sing:
Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!...Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...
"No, really, he is too stupid!" I murmured, in a low voice, furiously spiteful.
And I went back to the linen-room, firmly resolved to take no further pity on him.
In the afternoon Monsieur kept revolving around me, in an absent-minded way. He joined me in the yard, whither I had gone to throw some refuse on the muck-heap. And as I, for the sake of laughing a little at his embarrassment, apologized for what had happened in the morning, he whispered:
"That is nothing, that is nothing; on the contrary."
He tried to detain me, stammering I know not what. But I dropped him then and there, in the middle of the phrase in which he was floundering; and, in a cutting voice, I said these words:
"I ask Monsieur's pardon. I have no time to talk to Monsieur. Madame is waiting for me."
"Sapristi!Célestine, listen to me a moment."
"No, Monsieur."
When I turned the corner of the path leading to the house, I could see Monsieur. He had not stirred from the spot. With head lowered, and irresolute legs, he was still looking at the muck-heap, scratching his neck.
After dinner, in thesalon, Monsieur and Madame had a hot quarrel.
Madame said:
"I tell you that you are paying attention to this girl."
Monsieur answered:
"I? Well, indeed, that's an idea! Come, my pet; such a loose creature,—a dirty thing, and possibly diseased. Oh! really, that is too much."
Madame resumed:
"Do you think, then, that I don't know your conduct and your tastes?"
"Permit me; oh! permit me."
"And all the dirty creatures whom you meet in the fields!"
I heard the floor creak under Monsieur's feet, as he walked back and forth in thesalon, with feverish animation.
"I? Well, indeed, such ideas as you have! Where did you find them all, my pet?"
Madame was obstinate:
"And the little Jézureau? And only fifteen years old, you wretch! And on whose account I had to pay five hundred francs! But for which, to-day you perhaps would be in prison, like your thief of a father."
Monsieur stopped walking. He sank into a chair. He became silent.
The discussion ended with these words from Madame:
"However, it is all one to me. I am not jealous. You can behave as you like with this Célestine. But it must not cost me any money."
Oh, no! Now I have them both.
This evening we remained longer than usual in the kitchen. I helped Marianne to make up her accounts. She did not succeed in getting them straight. I have noticed that, like all trusted persons, she pinches here, and steals there, all that she can. She even has tricks that astonish me; but she has to make her accounts square with them. Sometimes she gets lost in her figures, which embarrasses her greatly with Madame, who is very quick to find out anything wrong in them. Joseph is becoming a little more human with us. Now, from time to time, he condescends to speak to me. This evening, for instance, he did not go as usual to see the sacristan, his intimate friend. And, while Marianne and I were working, he read the "Libre Parole." That is his newspaper. He does not admit that any other is fit to read. I have noticed that several times, while reading, he looked at me with a new expression in his eyes.
The reading finished, Joseph saw fit to tell me what his political opinions are. He is weary of the republic, which is ruining and disgracing him. He wants a sword.
"As long as we do not have a sword, and a very red one, there will be nothing done," said he.
He is for religion ... because ... in short ... well ... he is for religion.
"Until religion shall have been restored in France, as we used to have it; until everybody is obliged to go to mass and to confession,—there will be nothing done, my God!"
He has hung up in his harness-room portraits of the pope and of Drumont; in his chamber, that of Déroulède; in the little seed-room those of Guérin and General Mercier,—terrible fellows, patriots, real Frenchmen! He preciously collects all the anti-Jewish songs, all the colored portraits of the generals, all the caricatures of the circumcised. For Joseph is violently anti-Semitic. He belongs to all the religious, military, and patriotic societies of the department. He is a member of the "Anti-Semitic Youth" of Rouen, a member of the "Anti-Jewish Old Age" of Louviers, and a member also of an infinite number of groups and sub-groups, such as the "National Cudgel," the "Norman Alarm-Bell," the "Bayados du Vexin," etc. When he speaks of the Jews, there are sinister gleams in his eyes, and his gestures show bloodthirsty ferocity. And he never goes to town without a club.
"As long as there is a Jew left in France, there is nothing done."
And he adds:
"Ah! my God! if I were in Paris, I would kill and burn and gut these cursed sheenies. There is no danger that the traitors will come to live at Mesnil-Roy. They know very well what they are about, these mercenaries!"
He joins in one and the same hatred Protestants, Free Masons, freethinkers, all the brigands who never set foot in the churches, and who are, moreover, nothing but Jews in disguise. But he does not belong to the Clerical party; he is for religion, that's all!
As for the ignoble Dreyfus, he had better not think of coming back to France from Devil's Island. Oh, no! And Joseph strongly advises the unclean Zola not to come to Louviers to give a lecture, as it is reported that he intends to do. His hash would be settled, and Joseph himself would settle it. This miserable traitor of a Zola, who, for six hundred thousand francs, has delivered the entire French army, and also the entire Russian army, to the Germans and the English? And this is no humbug, no gossip, no lightly-spoken word; no, Joseph is sure of it. Joseph has it from the sacristan, who has it from the priest, who has it from the bishop, who has it from the pope, who has it from Drumont. Ah! the Jews may visit the Priory. They will find, written by Joseph, in the cellar, in the attic, in the stable, in the coach-house, under the lining of the harnesses, and even on the broom-handles, and everywhere, these words: "Long Live the Army! Death to the Jews!"
From time to time Marianne approves these violent remarks with nods of her head and silent gestures. She, too, undoubtedly is being ruined and disgraced by the republic. She, too, is for the sword, for the priests, and against the Jews,—about whom she knows nothing, by the way, except that they are lacking something somewhere.
And certainly I, too, am for the army, for the country, for religion, and against the Jews. Who, then, among us house-servants, from the lowest to the highest, does not profess these nickel-plated doctrines? Say what you will of the domestics,—it is possible that they have many faults,—but it cannot be denied that they are patriots. Take myself, for instance; politics is not in my line, and it bores me. But, a week before I started for this place, I squarely refused to serve as chambermaid in the house of Labori; and all the comrades who were at the employment-bureau that day refused also.
"Work for that dirty creature? Oh, no, indeed! Never!"
Yet, when I seriously question myself, I do not know why I am against the Jews, for I used to serve in their houses in the days when one could still do so with dignity. I find that at bottom the Jews and the Catholics are very much alike. They are equally vicious, have equally vile characters, equally ugly souls. They all belong to the same world, you see, and the difference in religion counts for nothing. Perhaps the Jews make more show, more noise; perhaps they make a greater display of the money that they spend. But, in spite of what you hear about their management and their avarice, I maintain that it is not bad to be in their houses, where there is even more leakage than in Catholic houses.
But Joseph will hear nothing of all this. He reproached me with being a bogus patriot and a bad Frenchwoman, and, with prophecies of massacre on his lips, and with bloody visions of broken heads and gashed bellies before his eyes, he went off to bed.
Straightway Marianne took the bottle of brandy from the sideboard. We needed to recover ourselves, and we talked of something else. Marianne, who every day becomes more confiding, told me of her childhood, of the hard time that she had in her youth, and how, when in the employ, as a servant, of a woman who kept a tobacco-shop at Caen, she was seduced by a hospital-surgeon,—a delicate, slender, blonde young fellow, who had blue eyes and a pointed, short, and silky beard,—oh! how silky! She became pregnant, and the tobacco merchant, who herself was intimate with any number of people, including all the sub-officers of the garrison, turned her out. So young, on the pavements of a great city, and carrying a child! Ah! the poverty that she experienced, her friend having no money. And surely she would have died of hunger, if the surgeon had not found her a queer place in the medical school.
"My God! yes," she said, "at the Boratory I killed rabbits and guinea-pigs. It was very nice."
And the recollection brought to Marianne's thick lips a smile that seemed to me strangely melancholy.
After a silence, I asked her:
"And the kid! What became of it?"
Marianne made a vague and far-away gesture,—a gesture that seemed to pull aside the heavy veils from the limbos where her child was sleeping. She answered in that harsh voice which alcohol produces:
"Oh! well, you can imagine. What should I have done with it, my God!"
"Like the little guinea-pigs, then?"
"That's it."
And she poured herself out a drink.
We went up to our rooms somewhat intoxicated.
October 6.
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 may be. 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 arégimefrom 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 therolefor 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, ever-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 flat 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 thesalon, 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 manoeuvres 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 of 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 thesalon, 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.