Saved he was not, and his inability to follow Claude's advice to the letter ought to have convinced him of this. Neither on the Monday nor the following days could he summon up sufficient courage to leave the city that contained the woman from whom he now both wished and thought himself freed. He invented all kinds of shallow pretexts for remaining in Paris. 'I am as far from her in this room as I should be in Rome or Venice; I shall not go to her, and she will not come here.' In reality, he was expecting—he scarce knew what. He only knew that his passion was too intense to die in this way. A meeting would take place between Suzanne and himself. How or where mattered little, but it would certainly take place. He would not confess to this cowardly and secret hope, but it had taken such hold upon him that he remained a prisoner in the Rue Coëtlogon in hourly expectation of receiving another letter or of finding himself the object of some last attempt. No letter came, no attempt was made, and his heart grew heavier within him.
At times this desire to see Suzanne once more—a desire he felt, but would not admit—drove him to his writing-table, where he would sit and indite page after page of the wildest sentiment to the abandoned creature. His pent-up rage found vent in the mad lines in which he both insulted and idolised her, and in which terms of endearment mingled with words of hatred. Then Claude's piteous laments would re-echo in his ears, and he would tear up the paper as he stifled an answering wail that rose within him. He lay down at night with despair in his heart, thinking of death as the only thing to be desired. He rose, and his thoughts were unchanged. The bright days, so glorious in the budding time of Nature, were to him intolerable, and his poetic soul longed for the twilight hour and the darkness that matched so well the black night in his heart. In the gloaming, too, he could find sweet solace in tears. It was the hour that his poor sister feared most for him. They had become reconciled on the very next day after their quarrel.
'Are you still angry with me?' she had asked him, with that gentleness of voice that betokens true affection.
'No,' he replied; 'I was entirely in the wrong; but, unless you wish to see me act so unjustly again, I entreat you never to re-open that subject.'
'Never,' she said, and she kept her word. Meanwhile she saw her brother wasting away, his cheeks growing still thinner and a fierce light that frightened her burning in his sunken eyes. It was for this reason, then, that she generally chose the dangerous hour of twilight to come and sit with him. One day Fresneau had gone to take Constant for a walk in the Luxembourg; she herself had found some pretext for staying at home. She took her darling brother's hand in hers, and this dumb caress made the unhappy fellow feel inexpressibly sad. He returned her pressure without a word, her benign and soothing influence controlling him until thoughts of Desforges suddenly flashed across his brain. 'Leave me,' he said to Emilie, and she obeyed him in the hope of easing his pain. As soon as she was gone he buried his head in the pillows of the bed whilst jealousy gripped his heart with relentless claws. Ah! the agony of it!
How many days had he spent in this fashion? Scarcely seven, but in his present sufferings they appeared to him an eternity. Looking at the almanac on the morning of the eighth day, he saw that May was drawing to an end. Although the pilgrimage he contemplated inspired him with horror, the bourgeois habits of regularity that had animated him throughout his life induced him to turn his steps once more towards the Rue des Dames. There was the landlady's bill to be paid and notice of leaving to be given her. He chose the afternoon for his visit, so as to be sure of not meeting Suzanne. 'Just as if she had not already forgotten me,' he said to himself. What were his feelings on finding not only her handkerchief and gloves, but next to them a note she had left there on a second visit addressed to 'M. d'Albert!' He tore it open, but his hands shook so terribly that it took him quite five minutes to read the few sentences it contained, many of the words, too, being half effaced by tears.
'I came back once more, my love! From the shrine of our passion, and in the name of the memories it must contain for you as well as for me, I entreat you to see me once again. Darling—will you not think of me here without those horrible flashes of hatred I have seen in your eyes? Remember what proofs of affection I have given you on the spot where you are reading these lines. No! I cannot live if you doubt what is the one, the only great truth of my life. I repeat once more that I am not angry nor indignant—I am in despair; if you do not believe me it is because, with my heart full of love and pain, I cannot stoop to artifice to make you believe anything. Good-bye, my love! How often have I repeated these words on the threshold of this room! And then I would add—Au revoir!But I suppose it must really be good-bye now, both on my lips and in my heart—can it be good-bye for ever?'
'Good-bye, my love!' repeated René, trying in vain to steel his heart. The simple, loving words, the sight of the room, the thought that Suzanne had come here without the hope of seeing him, and merely as a pilgrim to the shrine of their past love—all contributed to work him up to a pitch of frenzy, which he did his best to withstand. 'Her love!' he cried, with a sudden outburst of fury, 'and she went to another—for money! What a coward I am!' To escape the painful feelings he could not banish he left the room hurriedly and rang Madame Raulet's bell. The fair-spoken and accommodating landlady soon made her appearance, and led the way into her own little parlour, furnished with the remaining articles she could not get into the other. On his telling her that he was giving up the apartments her face showed signs of real annoyance.
'The bill is not quite ready,' she said.
'I am in no hurry,' replied René, and, fearing a fresh attack of despair if he returned to the room he had left, he added, 'I'll wait here, if you don't mind.'
Although he was in no observant mood, he could not help noticing that in the twenty minutes she kept him waiting Madame Raulet had found time to change her dress. Instead of the striped cotton wrapper in which she had received him, she now wore a becoming evening dress of black grenadine. The corsage consisted of bands of stuff alternating with lace insertions, through which might be seen the fair neck and shoulders of the coquettish widow. There was a brighter look in her eyes and a more vivid colour in her cheeks than usual, and, laying the bill on the table, she said:
'Excuse me for having kept you waiting. I didn't feel very well. I have such palpitations of the heart—feel!' Taking René's hand with a smile that would not have deceived the simplest soul living, she placed it on the spot where her heart should have been.
She had suspected the rupture between the pseudo-d'Albert and his mistress by the two solitary visits of Madame Moraines. The fact of René giving up the apartments proved her suspicions to be correct, and an idea of taking advantage of the rupture had suddenly entered her head, either because the poet with his manly beauty really pleased her or because she had an eye to pecuniary considerations she could not afford to despise. She was by no means old and thought herself very attractive. But on looking at her lodger as she carried his hand to her side she saw in his eyes a look of such cool contempt and disgust that she immediately loosed her hold of his fingers. She took up the bill, the writing in which showed that it had been prudently made out beforehand, and tried to cover her confusion by entering into profuse explanations of this or that item in a highly inflated account which the poet did not even stoop to verify. He handed her the sum he owed her, half in paper, half in gold. The humiliating defeat of her amorous attempt had not deprived her wits of their sharpness, for she examined the notes by holding each one up to the light, and looked closely at each of the gold pieces as she counted them. She even sounded one of the coins that seemed a little light in weight, and, after a moment's hesitation, said: 'I must ask you to let me have another for this.'
The impressions produced by this shamelessness and sordid greed were so well in keeping with the rest of René's feelings that during the quarter of an hour it took him to carry the few things he had in the three rooms to his cab he—to use the apt and expressive words of a humourist—'was as merry as a mute going to his own funeral.' As the old 'growler' jolted along over the stones, carrying in its musty-smelling interior the emblems of his happiness, his cruel merriment changed to a fit of most abject melancholy. He recognised every inch of the way he had so often trodden in the ecstasy of love, and which he would never tread again. Dark and lowering clouds hung over the city. Since the preceding evening there had been one of those unexpected returns of winter to which Paris is frequently exposed about the middle of spring, and which nip the young verdure with frost. As the cab crossed the Seine, flowing darkly and drearily along, the unhappy man looked down into the water and thought, 'How easy it would be to end it all!'
After this movement of despair he felt in his pocket for Suzanne's letter, as if to convince himself of the reality of his grief. He also took out her handkerchief and inhaled its perfume—for some time; then he gazed at her gloves, and saw in them the shape of the fingers he had loved so well. He felt that he had exhausted all his energy in resisting temptation, and as soon as he was alone in his room after this fresh and painful crisis he cried aloud, 'I cannot bear it any longer!'
Calmly, almost mechanically, he opened a drawer and took out of a leather case a small revolver his sister had given him to carry in his pocket when coming home late from the theatre. It was not loaded, and, taking out a packet of cartridges, he weighed one in the palm of his hand. Poor human machine, how little is required to bring you to a standstill! He loaded the revolver and unbuttoned his shirt; then, feeling for the place where his heart throbbed within him, he pressed the barrel against it.
'No,' he said, in a firm tone, 'not before I have tried.'
These words were the outcome of an idea which had repeatedly entered his mind, and which, repeatedly rejected as a crazy one, now took shape and form with the precision our thoughts assume in moments of important action. He put the revolver back in the drawer, and sitting down in his arm-chair—Suzanne's arm-chair—he plunged into that abyss of tragic thought in which visions stand out in bold relief, arguments follow on each other with lightning rapidity, and desperate resolutions are adopted. 'My love!' he repeated to himself, remembering the words of Suzanne's letter. Yes, in spite of her lies, in spite of the play she had acted—the innumerable scenes of which now passed through his mind—in spite of her base connection with Desforges, she had truly and passionately loved him. If that love were not sincere, then the story of the past few months was perfectly unintelligible! What other motive could have thrown her into his arms? It could not have been an interested one. He was so poor, so humble, so utterly beneath her. Neither was it the glory of enslaving a fashionable author, for she had herself begged that their relations should be kept a secret. It could not be vanity, for she had not stolen him from any rival, nor had she held out long to give her conquest more value. No—monstrous as that love might be, mingled as it was with corruption and deceit, there was no doubt that she had loved him and that she loved him still. That soul whose moral leprosy had struck him with horror was yet capable of some kind of sincerity. There was still something within this woman better than her life, better than her actions. René at length consented to listen to the voice which pleaded for his mistress, and calmly and dispassionately did he now weigh the crime of venality that had at first so disgusted him.
His visits to the Komof mansion and his intimate relations with Suzanne had opened his eyes to a new world and initiated him into the mysteries of the highest forms of luxury and refinement. The false notions of high life which the unsophisticatedbourgeoispoet had at first entertained were soon dispelled by a more correct idea of the frightful extravagance which fashionable existence in Paris involves. Now, whilst his love was struggling for life and attempting to justify Suzanne, or at least to understand her, to discover in her something to save her from utter contempt, he began to see, thanks to his truer knowledge of the world, the tragedy in which this woman had played a leading part. Claude had summed up the situation briefly in these words: 'Seven years ago the Moraines were ruined.' Ruined! That word was now synonymous in René's ears with all the privation and humiliation it generally brings. Suzanne had been brought up in luxury to lead a life of luxury. It was as necessary to her as the air she breathed. Her husband had no doubt been the first to urge her to adopt her sinful expedient—so at least did the poet continue to judge poor Paul. Desforges had presented himself, and she had sinned, but not from love. When at length love did come to her could she break her chains? Yes—she could, by proposing to him, René, that each should give up all that bound them here, and that they two should go and live together for ever!
'Give up all! . . . They two! . . . Live together!' He caught himself uttering these words as in a dream. Was it too late? What if he went to Suzanne now and offered to sacrifice all to their love, to wipe out all the past except that love, and to bind up and identify with it their whole being, their whole present, their whole future? What if he said: 'You swear that you love me, that this love is the one and only truth in your heart. Prove it. You have no children, you are free. Take my life and give me yours. Go with me, and I will forgive you and believe in you. . . . I am going mad,' he said, suddenly bringing his mind to a standstill as this idea presented itself so clearly that he could actually see Suzanne listening to him. Mad? But why? The stories he had read in his youth about the redemption of fallen women by love—an idea of such sublime conception that it has attracted the greatest writers—came back to him. Balzac's Esther, the most divine character of an amorous courtesan ever painted, had often figured in his dreams of long ago, and natures like his, in which literary impressions precede those of life itself, never altogether lose the impress of such dreams.
He loved Suzanne, and Suzanne loved him. Why should he not attempt to save her, in the name of that sublime passion, from the infamy that covered her, and try to drag himself away from the dark abyss of death towards which he felt drawn? Why should he not offer her this unique opportunity of repairing the hideous wretchedness of her fate? But she—what answer would she make? 'I shall know then whether she loves me,' continued René. 'Yes—if she loves me, how eagerly will she seize this means of escaping from the horrible luxury to which she is chained! And if she says no?' A thrill of terror shot through him at the thought. 'It will be time enough to act then,' he concluded.
The whirlwind of passion let loose by the sudden conception of this plan raged for nearly three hours. As his thoughts swayed hither and thither the poet seemed unconscious of the fact that his mind was already made up, and that the fluctuations only served to disguise from him the one feeling that dominated all the rest—a furious longing, amounting almost to a necessity, to have his mistress back. Even had this plan of elopement been more irrational, more impracticable, and less likely to succeed, he would have taken it up as the most reasonable, the easiest, and most certain of success, simply because it was the only one that reconciled the irrepressible ardour of his love with that dignity his still unsullied honour would never compromise.
'To action,' he said at last. He sat down to his table and wrote Suzanne a note in which he asked her to be at home the next day at two o'clock. He took the letter to the post himself, and immediately experienced that relief which invariably follows upon some definite resolve. He who for a whole week, and ever since his first wild fit of grief, had felt himself unable to put forth the least energy, and incapable even of opening the manuscript of his 'Savonarola,' at once set about preparing everything, as if there could be no doubt what Suzanne's reply would be. He counted out the money he had in his drawer; there was a little over five thousand francs. That would suffice for the initial expenses. And afterwards? He made a calculation of the amount to which he was entitled out of the patrimony that had never been divided between Emilie and himself. The great thing was to get over the first two years, during which he would finish his play and have it staged. Immediately after that he would publish his novel, which the success of his piece would help on, just as one wave sweeps on another, and then would come his collection of poems. A boundless horizon of work and of triumph seemed to lie before him. Of what efforts would he not be capable, sustained by the divine elixir of happiness and by the desire to provide Suzanne with that luxury she would have sacrificed for him? When his sister entered his room she surprised him arranging his papers, putting his books in order, and sorting some prints.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'You can see that,' he replied, 'I'm getting ready to go.'
'To go!'
'Yes,' he rejoined; 'I think of going to Italy.'
'When?' asked Emilie in astonishment.
'Most probably the day after to-morrow.'
He meant what he said. He had calculated that Suzanne would require about twenty-four hours for her preparations if she decided to go. If she decided to go! The mere possibility of his attempt failing caused him such pain that he did not care to dwell upon it. Since the scene at the Opera, when he had left her pale and crushed in the semi-darkness of the private box, he had imposed almost superhuman restraint upon himself by stemming the torrent of passionate longing within him. The hope so suddenly conceived was a kind of breach through which the torrent swept with such unrestrained and violent fury that it overturned and carried away all before it. In his madness René even went so far as to look at some trunks in two or three shops in the Rue de la Paix. Since the departure from Vouziers no one in the Vincy family had left Paris, even for twenty-four hours. The only articles in the Rue Coëtlogon that could hold anything were two old worm-eaten coffers and three leather portmanteaus falling to pieces from age. These preparations, which lent an appearance of reality to the poet's dreams, cheated the fever of suspense until the hour of his appointment. The illusion in which he had indulged had been so strong that he did not realise his actual position until he stood in the littlesalonin the Rue Murillo. Nothing had yet been achieved.
'Madame will be here in a moment,' the servant had said, leaving him alone in the room. He had not been there since the day when he read his choicest verses to her whom he then regarded as a Madonna. Why did she keep him waiting for full five minutes in this place that must awaken in him so many recollections? Was it yet another ruse on her part? Recollections did indeed rise up before him, but produced an effect totally different from that anticipated by Suzanne. The elegance of these surroundings, once so much admired, now inspired him with horror. An atmosphere of infamy seemed to hang over all these objects, many of which had no doubt been paid for by Desforges. The horror he felt intensified his desire to drag the woman he loved away from her misery, and when she appeared on the threshold it was not love that she read in his eyes, but a fixed and determined look of resolve.
What resolve? Of the two she was undoubtedly the most agitated and least under control. Her long white lace robe lent a sickly hue to her face, already drawn and haggard by the trouble she had lately undergone. There had been no necessity for her to pencil her eyes—a custom practised by actresses of the drawing-room as well as by those of the stage—nor of studying the movement with which, at sight of René, she brought her hand to her heart and leant against the wall for support. At the first glance she saw that she had a hard battle to fight, and she feared the result. There fell upon the two lovers one of those spells of silence so awful in their solemnity that in them we seem to hear the flight of destiny!
The silence became unbearable to the unhappy woman, and she broke it by saying in a low tone, 'René, how you have made me suffer!' Then, rushing forward in her mad state of agitation, she took hold of his two hands, and, throwing herself upon him, sought his lips for a kiss. But he had the strength to shake her off.
'No,' he said, 'I won't.'
Wringing her hands, she cried in distress, 'Then you still believe in those vile suspicions! You did not come, and you condemned me unheard! What proofs had you? That you saw me leave a certain house! Not a single doubt in my favour—not one out of twenty suppositions that might have pleaded for me! What if I tell you that a friend of mine living in that house was ill, and that I had been to call on her? What if I tell you that the presence of the other person whose sight drove you mad was due to the same cause? Shall I swear it by all I hold most sacred, by——'
'Don't swear,' exclaimed René in harsh tones, 'I shouldn't believe you—I don't believe you.'
'He does not believe me even now—my God! What shall I do?' She paced up and down the room, repeating, What shall I do? What shall I do?'
During the whole of that week she had been tormented by the thought that he might be so thoroughly exasperated as not to believe her. If but a single suspicion were left him she was lost. He would follow her again or have her watched. He would know that she met Desforges every time she visited her imaginary friend, and the whole thing would begin over again. What, then, was the use of going on with her lies? She had had enough of it all. Now that her heart was stirred by the sincerest of passions she felt a desire to tell her lover the truth—the whole truth, and, while telling him, to convince him of the depth of her love. He must be made to hear the cry that came from her heart, and made to believe it.
Almost beside herself, she commenced her story.
'It is true—I lied to you. You want to know all—you shall know all.'
She stopped for a moment and passed her hands wildly over her face. No, no! She felt incapable of making this confession. He would despise her; and inventing, as she went on, a kind of incoherent compromise between her desire to unbosom herself and the fear of repelling René, she began again.
'It is a horrible story. My father died. There were letters to get back with which his enemies might have blackened his memory. This required money—a good deal. I had none. My husband stood aloof. Then this man came. I lost my head, and once he had me in his grasp he would not let me go. Ah! can you not understand that I lied only to keep you?'
René had been watching her as these hurried words fell from her lips. The story of rescuing her father's honour he knew to be a fresh lie, but her last cry, uttered with almost savage ardour, had the ring of truth in it What mattered to him all the rest? He would know by her answer whether this love, the only sincerity to which she now laid claim, was strong enough to triumph over all else.
'So much the better!' he replied. 'Yes, so much the better if you are the slave of a wretched past that weighs you down! So much the better if your subjection to this man causes you such horror! You say that you have loved me—that you still love me, and that you lied only to keep me? I now, offer you an opportunity of giving me such proofs of that love as will put an end to all my doubts.
'I ask you to efface the past for ever and with one stroke. I too love you, Suzanne—ah! how tenderly! Do not ask me what my feelings were on learning what I have learnt, on seeing what I have seen. If it has not killed me, it is because we do not die of despair. I am ready to forgive all, to forget all, provided I know of a certainty that you really love me. I am free, and, since you have no children, you too are free. I am ready to give up everything for you, and I have come to ask you whether you are ready to do the same. We will go wherever you like—to Italy, to England, to any country where we shall be sure of finding no traces of your past life. That past I will blot out; my belief in your love will give me strength to do this. I shall say to myself: "She did not know me; but as soon as I bared my heart there was nothing that could withstand her love." To accept the present horrible state of things is impossible. To see you coming to me stained by this man's caresses—or even, if you should break with him, to doubt the reality of the rupture, and to reassume the degradingrôleof a spy I have already played—no, Suzanne, do not ask it of me! We have reached that point when we must be all or nothing to each other—either absolute strangers or lovers who find in their love compensation for the loss of family, country, and the whole world. It is for you to choose.'
He had spoken with the concentrated energy of a man who has sworn to carry out what he has in his mind. Mad as the proposal seemed in the eyes of a woman accustomed only to such forms of passion as are compatible with the laws and usages of social life, Suzanne did not hesitate for a moment. René had spoken in all sincerity, but in doing so had given proofs of such deep-rooted affection that she had no doubt as to her final triumph over the rebellious and mad schemes of the poet.
'How good you are to talk to me like that!' she replied with a thrill of joy. 'How you love me! How you love me!' In uttering these words she hung her head a little, as if the happiness brought her by these proofs were almost too much to bear. 'God! how sweet this is!' she murmured.
Then, approaching him once more, she took his hand, almost timidly this time, and held it tightly clasped in her own.
'Child that you are, what is it you offer me? If it were only a question touching myself, how gladly I would say, "Take all my life," and deserve little praise for doing so! But how can I accept the sacrifice of yours? You are twenty-five years old and I am more than thirty. Close your eyes, and look at us in ten years' time. I shall be an old woman, whilst you will still be a young man. What then? And what about your work—that art to which you are so attached that it makes me quite jealous? Why should I hide it from you now? You must be in Paris to be able to write. I should see you pining away beside me. I should see you, an unwilling slave, bestowing affection upon me out of pity and from a sense of duty. No—I could not bear it! My love, lay aside this mad plan and say that you forgive me without it—say it, René, I implore you!'
Whilst speaking she had nestled closer to the poet, and now hung her arms about his neck, seeking his lips with hers. An intense desire to fold her in his arms came over him, but it was drowned in the disgust he felt at her lasciviousness.
Seizing her by the wrist, he flung her from him, shouting in his fury, 'Then you refuse to come—tell me once more you refuse to come!'
'René, I entreat you,' she went on, with tears in her voice and in her eyes, 'do not cast me off! Since we love each other, let us be happy. Take me as I am, with all the wretchedness of my life. It is true—I love luxury, I love gaiety, I love the Paris you hate. I shall never have the courage to break my bonds and give all this up. Take me for what I am, now that you know all, now that you feel I am speaking the truth when I swear I love you as I have never loved before. Keep me! I will be your slave, your thing! When you call me, I will come. When you drive me away, I will go. Do not look at me with such eyes, I implore you—let your heart be softened! When you came to me, did I ask you whether you had another mistress? No; I had but one wish—to make you happy. Can you reproach me for having kept all the misery of my life from you? Look at me—I kneel before you and beseech you——'
She had, indeed, thrown herself at his feet. She took no heed of prudence now, nor of the possibility of a servant entering the room. Clinging to his garments, she dragged herself about on her knees. Never had she looked so beautiful as when, with eyes aglow and her face burning with all the fire of passion, she at length laid aside the mask and proclaimed herself the sublime courtesan she had always been. René's senses were in a state of wild commotion, but a cruel reminiscence flashed across his brain, and he flung his words at her with an insulting sneer—
'And what about Desforges?'
'Don't speak of him,' she moaned, 'don't think of him! If I could get rid of him or forbid him the house, do you think I should hesitate? Don't you understand what a hold he has upon me? My God! My God! It is not right to torture a woman like this! No,' she added, in a dull, despairing tone, still on her knees, but now immovable and with hanging head, 'no, I can bear it no longer!'
'Then accept my offer,' said René; 'there is still time. Let us fly together.'
'No,' she replied, in accents of still greater despair, 'no; I can't do that either. It would be so easy to make a promise and break it. But I have already lied too much.' She rose. The crisis through which she had passed was beginning to react upon her nerves, and she repeated wearily, 'I can't do that either—I can't.'
'What, then, do you want?' he cried in tones of fury. 'Why were you on your knees just now? A toy—a plaything—is that what you want me to be? A young man whose caresses would compensate you for those of theother!' His anger carried him away, and the brutal words almost led to deeds. He strode towards her with uplifted fist and with an expression so terrible that she thought he was going to kill her. She drew back, pale with fear, and with outstretched hands.
'Forgive me, forgive me!' she cried in her distraction. 'Don't hurt me!'
She had taken shelter behind a table upon which, amongst other trifles, there stood the photograph of the Baron in a plush frame. In struggling with the horrible temptation to strike this defenceless woman René had turned his eyes from her. As they fell upon the portrait he broke out into a hideous laugh. Taking up the frame, he seized Suzanne by the hair and rubbed the portrait violently over her lips and face, at the risk of cutting her, continuing his frantic laughter all the time.
'Here,' he cried, 'here is your lover! Look at him—your lover!'
He threw the frame upon the floor, and crushed it with his heel. But no sooner had he committed this mad action than he was ashamed of it. For the last time he looked at Suzanne as, with dishevelled hair and staring eyes, she stood in a corner overcome with fear—then without a word he left the room, and she had not the strength to utter a syllable to retain him.
Two days after this terrible scene Claude Larcher was standing on the balcony of Colette's rooms, which overlooked the Tuileries gardens. It was about two in the afternoon, and there had been a return of glorious spring weather, bringing a bright blue sky and warm May breezes. Claude had spent several days with Colette. The two lovers had been seized with one of those revivals of passion which are all the more ardent and vehement on account of the memories of past quarrels and the certainty of others to come. Larcher was reflecting upon this curious law of love as he watched the smoke of his cigar curling up in thin blue wreaths in the sunshine. Then he looked down upon the line of carriages in the street and the crowd of promenaders under the scanty foliage of the gardens.
He was astonished at the state of perfect felicity into which these few days of indulgence had plunged him. His painful jealousy, his legitimate anger, his feelings of degradation—all had passed away since Colette had acted in accordance with his wishes and closed her door to Salvaney. This would not last, he knew full well, but the presence of this woman was to him such complete happiness that it allayed his fears for the future as it effaced his rancour for the past. He smoked his cigar slowly and peacefully, turning round every now and then to look at Colette through the open window as she sat in a cane rocking-chair, dressed in a Chinese gown of pink satin embroidered with gold—a duplicate of the one in her dressing-room at the theatre. Swinging herself to and fro, she slipped her dainty feet in and out of her embroidered morocco leather slippers, displaying, as she did so, a pair of pink silk stockings to match her dress.
The room in which she sat was filled with flowers. The walls were covered with souvenirs of an artist's life—water-colour drawings of scenes in the green-room, tambourines won in cotillons, photographs, and wreaths. A small white Angora kitten, with one eye blue and the other black, was lying on its back playing with a ball whilst Colette continued rocking herself—now smiling at Claude between the puffs at her Russian cigarette, now reading a newspaper she held in her hand, and all the time humming a charming ballad of Richepin's recently set to music by a foreign composer named Cabaner.
'One month flies by, another comes,And time runs like a hare——'
'One month flies by, another comes,And time runs like a hare——'
'Mon Dieu!' murmured the writer as he listened to the couplets of the only poet of our time who has been able to compete successfully with the divineChansons populaires—'these lines are very fine, the sky is very blue, my mistress is very pretty. To the deuce with analysis!'
The actress interrupted this placid soliloquy of her contented lover with a cry of alarm. She had risen from her chair and was holding the paper with a trembling hand. After having, according to her wont, looked over the contents of the third page, where the theatrical news are chronicled, she had turned to the second and then to the first. It was there she had just read what had so upset her, for she stammered, as she handed Claude the paper—
'It is horrible!'
Claude, terrified by her sudden and intense agitation, took the paper and read the following lines under the heading, 'Echos de Paris:'
'As we go to press we hear of an event that will cause much grief and consternation in the literary world. M. René Vincy, the successful author of the "Sigisbée," has made an attempt to commit suicide in his rooms in the Rue Coëtlogon by discharging a revolver in the region of his heart. In order to remove the fears of M. Vincy's numerous admirers, we hasten to add that the attempt will have no fatal results. Our sympatheticconfrèreis indeed grievously wounded, but the ball has been extracted, and the latest news are most reassuring. Much speculation is indulged in concerning the motive of this desperate act.'
'Colette!' cried Claude, 'it is you who killed him!'
'No, no!' moaned the actress wildly; 'it can't be. He won't die. You see, the paper says he is better. Don't say that! I should never forgive myself. How was I to know? I was so mad with you—you had behaved so cruelly that I would have done anything to be revenged. But you must go to him—run! Here is your hat, your gloves, your stick. Poor little René! I will send him some flowers; he was so fond of them. And do you think it is on account of that woman?'
As she spoke—her incoherent sentences betraying both her customary puerility and the real good feeling she possessed in spite of all—she had dressed Larcher and pushed him towards the door.
'And where shall I find you?' he asked.
'Fetch me here at six o'clock to go and dine in the Bois.Mon Dieu!' she added, 'if I hadn't these two appointments with the milliner and the dressmaker, I would go with you. But I must see them.'
'Do you still want to go and dine in the Bois?' said Claude.
'Don't be unkind,' she replied, giving him a kiss; 'it is such fine weather, and I do so want to dine out in the open.' With these words closed a scene which described the actress to a nicety, with her sudden transitions from sincerest grief to a most passionate love of pleasure.
Larcher kissed her in return, though despising himself in a vague kind of way for being so indulgent to her least whims even now after hearing of a catastrophe that touched him so closely. Rushing out of the room, he flew down the stairs four at a time, jumped into a cab, and at the end of fifteen minutes found himself before the gate in the Rue Coëtlogon through which he had passed but a few months since.
All that had struck him so forcibly then suddenly came back to him now—the frowning sky, the pale moon sailing amid the swift-scudding clouds, and the strange presentiment that had chilled his heart. Now the bright May sunshine filled the heavens with light, and the narrow strip of garden in front of the house was decked with green. The air of spring that hung over the peaceful abode was an excellent presentment of what René's life had long been, and what it would have remained if he had never met Suzanne. Who had been the indirect author of that meeting? In vain did Claude try to shake off his remorse by saying, 'Could I foresee this catastrophe?' He had foreseen it. Nothing but evil could result from the poet's sudden transplantation to a world of luxury in which both his vanity and sensuality had been drawn to the surface. The worst had come to pass—by a terrible run of ill luck, it is true. But who had provoked that ill luck? The answer to that question was a cruel one for a true friend, and it was with a heavy heart that Claude walked up to the house in which formerly there had dwelt naught but simplicity, honest labour, and a pure and noble love.
How many deadly stings had entered it since then, and what an infinity of grief! This came home to him once more on seeing the maid's agitated face and on hearing the sobs which burst from her as she opened the door and recognised the visitor. Wiping her eyes with the corner of her blue apron, she let loose a flow of words thickly sprinkled with her ownpatois.
'Ah! l'la faut-i! Mon bon monsieur!To try and kill himself like that—a child I've known as tender and as gentle as a girl!Jésus, Marie, Joseph!Come in, Monsieur Claude, you will find Madame Fresneau and Mademoiselle Rosalie in thesalle-à-manger.Monsieur l'Abbé Taconet is withhim!
Emilie and Rosalie were together in the room in which Claude had so often been welcomed by a charming family picture. The doctor had evidently just gone, for there was a strong smell of carbolic acid, like that left by rebandaging. A bottle bearing a red label was standing on the table with a saucer beside it, and close by lay a small heap of square pieces of cotton. A packet of linen bandages, some strips of plaster, a pot of ointment labelled red like the bottle and covered with tinfoil, some nursery pins, and a stamped prescription gave the room the appearance of a hospital ward. Emilie's pallor revealed more than words what she had gone through during the past forty-eight hours. The sight of Claude produced the same effect upon her as upon Françoise. His mere presence recalled to her the old days when she had been so proud of her René.
She burst into tears, and, giving him her hand, said: 'You were right!'
Rosalie had darted a look at the visitor charging him as plainly as possible with René's attempted suicide. Her eyes expressed such deep hatred and their meaning was so fully in keeping with Claude's secret remorse that he turned his own eyes away, and asked, after a moment's silence, 'Can I see him?'
'Not to-day,' replied Emilie, 'he is so weak. The doctor fears the least excitement.' She added, 'My uncle will tell you how he is now.'
'When did this happen? I only heard of it from the papers.'
'Has it got into the papers?' said Emilie. 'I tried so hard that it should not.'
'A few lines of no importance,' replied Claude, guessing the truth from Rosalie's sudden change of colour. Old Offarel had a young man under him in the War Office who was connected with the Press, and whom Larcher knew. Thesous-chefhad no doubt been gossiping, and his daughter had already got to hear of it. Larcher made an attempt to gain fresh favour in Rosalie's eyes by allaying Madame Fresneau's suspicions. 'The reporters ferret out everything,' he said; 'no one who is the least bit known can escape them. But,' he continued, 'what are the details?'
'He came home the day before yesterday about four o'clock, and I saw at once by his face that there was something wrong with him. I had, however, been so accustomed to see him look sad of late that it did not strike me very much. He had told me that he was going to Italy on a long tour. I said to him: "Do you still intend going to-morrow?" "No," he replied, and, taking me in his arms, held me there for some time, whilst he sobbed like a child. I asked him what was the matter. "Nothing," he said; "where is Constant?" His question surprised me. He knew that the boy never comes home from school before six o'clock. "And Fresneau?" he added. Then he drew a deep sigh and went into his room. I stood there for five minutes debating with myself—I thought that perhaps I ought not to leave him alone. At last I began to get frightened—he is so easily led away in his fits of despair. And then I heard the report—I shall hear it all my life!'
She stopped, too agitated to go on, and, after another storm of tears had spent itself, Claude asked, 'What does the doctor say?'
'That he is out of danger, unless some unforeseen complication sets in,' replied Emilie; 'he has explained to us that the trigger of the revolver—it was I who gave it him!—was somewhat hard to pull. The pressure that he brought to bear upon it must have altered the direction of the ball; it passed through the lung without touching the heart, and came out on the other side. At twenty-five!Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!What a terrible thing! No—he does not love us; he has never loved us!'
Whilst she was thus lamenting and laying bare a heart suffering from those pangs of unrequited affection that mothers know so well the Abbé Taconet appeared on the threshold of the sick-room. He shook hands with Claude, whom he had long since forgiven for having run away from the Ecole Saint-André, and replied to the inquiring looks of his niece and Rosalie:
'He is going to sleep, and I must get back to my school.'
'Will you allow me to walk with you?' said Claude.
'I was going to ask you to do so,' replied the priest.
For some minutes the two men walked side by side in silence. The Abbé Taconet had always inspired Larcher with respect. His was one of those spotless natures which form such a contrast to the ordinary low standard of morality that their mere existence is a standing reproach to a man of the period like the writer, given up to vice though craving for the ideal. Even now, as the Abbé walked beside him with his somewhat heavy tread, Claude looked at him and thought of the moral gulf that separated them. The director of the Ecole Saint-André was a tall, strong-looking man of about fifty. At first sight there was nothing in his robust corpulence to betray the asceticism of his life. His rounded cheeks and ruddy complexion might even have lent him an air of joviality had not the serious lines of his mouth and the usually serene look in his eyes corrected this impression. The sort of imagination found in true artists, and which, elaborated by heredity, had produced the morbid melancholy of René's mother, the poet's own talent, his delight in all things brilliant, and even Emilie's inordinate affection for her brother—that imagination which will not allow the mind to be satisfied with the present and the positive, but which paints all objects in too bright or too dark a colour—this dangerous yet all-powerful faculty had also its reflex in the eyes of the priest. But Catholic discipline had corrected its excesses as deep faith had sanctified its use. The serenity of his piercing glance was that of a man who has lain down at night and risen each morning for years together with but one idea, and that—of self-sacrifice.
Claude was well acquainted with the precise terms in which this idea was couched, and to which the Abbé Taconet always reverted in his conversation—the salvation of France by the aid of Christianity. Such was, according to this robust worker in moral spheres, the task laid down in our day for all Frenchmen who were willing to undertake it. Claude was also aware of the hopes this truly eminent priest had cherished concerning his nephew. How often had he heard him say 'France has need of Christian talent'! He therefore looked at him with particular curiosity, discovering in his usually calm face a trace of anxiety—he would almost have called it an expression of doubt. They were walking along the Rue d'Assas, and were just about to cross the Rue de Rennes, when the Abbé stopped and turned to his companion.
'My niece tells me you know the woman who has driven my nephew to this desperate act. God has not permitted the poor boy to disappear in this fashion. The body will be healed, but the soul must not be allowed to relapse. What is she?'
'What all women are,' replied the writer, unable to resist the pleasure of displaying before the priest his pretended knowledge of the human heart.
'If you had ever sat in the confessional you would not say all women,' remarked the Abbé. 'You do not know what a Christian woman is, and of what sacrifices she is capable.'
'What almost all women are,' repeated Claude, with a touch of irony, and began to relate what he knew of René's story, drawing a fairly exact portrait of Suzanne with the aid of many psychological expressions, and speaking of the multiplicity of her person—of a first and a second condition of her 'I.' 'There is in her,' he said, 'a woman who is fond of luxury, and she therefore keeps a lover who can give it her; then there is a woman who is fond of love, and so she takes a young lover; a woman who is fond of respect, and so she lives with a husband whom she treats with consideration. And I will wager that she loves all three—the paying lover, the loving lover, and the protecting husband—but in a different way. Certain natures are so constructed, like the Chinese boxes which contain six or seven others. She is a very complicated animal!'
'Complicated?' said the Abbé, throwing back his head. 'I know you use these words to avoid uttering more simple ones. She is merely an unhappy woman who allows herself to be governed by her senses. All this is filth.'
There was a look of profound disgust on his noble face as he uttered these words of brutal simplicity. It was plain that the thought of matters concerning the flesh provoked in him that peculiar repugnance found in priests who have had to struggle hard against a natural inclination for love. His disgust soon made way for a deep melancholy, and he continued his remarks.
'It is not this woman who causes me alarm in René's case. According to what you tell me, she would have left him when once her whim was gratified. In his present state she will not give him a thought. It is the moral condition of the poor lad, as shown by this affair, which troubles me. Here is a young man of twenty-five, brought up as he has been, knowing how indispensable he is to the best of sisters, possessing that divine and incomparable gift called talent—a gift which, if properly directed, can produce such great things—and possessing it, too, at a tragic moment in the history of our country; here is one, I say, who knows that to-morrow his country may be lost for ever in another hurricane, that its safety is entrusted to every one of us—to you and me and each of these passers-by—and yet all this does not outweight the grief of being deceived by a wretched woman! But,' he continued, as if his remarks applied to Claude as much as to the wounded man he had just quitted, 'what is it you hope to find in that troubled sea of sensuality into which you plunge on a pretext of love, except sin with its endless misery? You speak of complication. Human life is very simple. It is all comprised in God's Ten Commandments. Find me a case, a single one, which is not provided for there. Has a blindness fallen upon the men of this generation that a lad, whom I knew to be pure, has sunk so low in so short a time, and only through breathing the vapours of the age? Ah, sir,' he added in the accents of a father deceived in his son, 'I was so proud of him! I expected so much of him!'
'You talk as if he were dead,' said Claude, feeling both moved and irritated by the Abbé's words. On the one hand, he pitied him for his evident distress; but, on the other hand, he could not bear to hear the priest enunciate such ideas, although they were also his own in his fits of remorse. Like many modern sceptics, he was incessantly sighing for a simpler faith, and yet his taste for intellectual or sentimental complexities was incessantly leading him to look upon any and every faith he examined as a mutilation. There suddenly came over him an irresistible desire to contradict the Abbé Taconet and to defend the very youth whose fate he had himself so bewailed on reaching the Rue Coëtlogon that afternoon.
'Do you think,' he said, 'that René will not be all the stronger for this trial—more able to exercise and to develop that talent in which you at least believe, Monsieur l'Abbé? If we writers could evolve our ideas as easily as a mathematician solves his problems on the black-board, and enunciate them, coolly and calmly, in well-chosen and precise terms—why, every one would set up as an author instead of turning engineer or lawyer. They would only require patience, method, and leisure. But writing is a different thing altogether.' He was getting more excited as he went on. 'To begin with, one must live, and, to know life, in every one of its peculiar phases, become acquainted with every possible sensation. We must experiment upon ourselves. What Claude Bernard used to do with his dogs, what Pasteur does with his rabbits, we must do with our heart, inoculating it with every form of virus that attacks humanity. We must have felt, if only for an hour, each of the thousand emotions of which our fellow-man is capable, and all in order that some obscure reader in ten, a hundred, or two hundred years' time may stop at some phrase in one of our books and, recognising the disease from which he is suffering, say, 'This is true.' It is indeed a terrible game, and we run a terrible risk in playing it. Greater even than that incurred by doctors, for they run no risk of cutting themselves with the dissecting knife nor of being struck down when visiting a cholera hospital. It was nearly all over with poor René, but when he next writes of love, jealousy, or woman's treachery, his words will be tinged with blood—the red blood that has coursed through his veins—and not with ink borrowed from another's pen. And it will make a fine page, too, one that will swell the literary treasures of that France you accuse us of forgetting. We serve our country in our own fashion. That fashion may not be yours, but it has its greatness. Do you know what a martyrdom of suffering has to be endured before anAdolpheor aManoncan be dragged from the soul?'
'Beati pauperes spirtu,' replied the priest. 'I remember having heard something of the kind in the Ecole Normale thirty years ago as I walked in the courtyard with some of my comrades who have since distinguished themselves. They possessed fewer metaphors, but greater powers of abstraction than you have, and they called it the antinomy of art and morality. Words are but words, and facts remain facts. Since you talk of science, what would you think of a physician who, under pretence of studying an infectious disease, gave it to himself and so to all the town? Do you ever think of the terrible responsibility that rests upon those great writers whom you envy for having been able to give the world their own wretched experiences? I have not read the two novels you mention, but I well remember Goethe's "Werther" and de Musset's "Rolla." Don't you think that the pistol-shot René fired at himself was somewhat influenced by these two apologies of suicide? Do you know that it is awful to think that both Goethe and de Musset are dead, but that their work can still place a weapon in the hand of a heart-broken lad? The sufferings of the soul should be laid bare only to be relieved, and a cold, pitiless interest in human woe inspires me with horror whenever I meet with it. Believe me,' he added, pointing to the crucifix that adorned the gateway of the Couvent des Carmes, 'no one can say more than He has said about sufferings and passions, and you will find a remedy nowhere else.'
Irritated by the priest's air of conviction, Claude replied, 'You brought René up in His name, and you yourself admit that your hopes have been deceived.'
'The ways of God are inscrutable,' replied the Abbé, with a look of mute reproach that made Claude blush. In attacking René's uncle in a painful spot, simply because the argument was going against him, he had yielded to an evil impulse of which he was now ashamed. The two men passed the corner of the Rue de Vaugirard and the Rue Cassette in silence, and reached the door of the Ecole Saint-André just as a class of boys was entering. There were about forty of them—lads of about fifteen or sixteen years old, all looking very well and happy. As they passed theDirecteurthey saluted him so deferentially and with such evident heartiness that this act alone would have shown what rare influence their excellent instructor possessed. Claude, however, also knew from experience how conscientiously the Abbé discharged his duty; he knew that each of these boys was followed daily, almost hourly, by the serene but vigilant eyes of the worthy priest.
A sudden rush of feeling prompted him to seize the latter by the hand and to exclaim, 'You are an upright man, Monsieur l'Abbé, and that is the best and finest talent one can have!'
'He will save René,' he said, as he saw the good Christian's robe disappear across the threshold that he had himself so often crossed in less happy days. His thoughts became singularly serious and sad, and as his steps wandered almost mechanically towards his rooms in the Rue de Varenne, where he had not put in an appearance for several days, he allowed his mind to dwell upon the ideas awakened by the conversation and the life of the priest. The feeling of physical beatitude experienced two hours ago on Colette's balcony had fled. All the wretchedness of the undignified life he had been leading for the past two years came home to him, and looked still more wretched when compared with the hidden glory of the perfect life of duty he had been privileged to behold.
His disgust grew stronger when he found himself in his own rooms, recalling, as they did, the memories of so many hours of shame and pain. A score of visions rose up before him illustrating the drama in which he had played a part—René reading the manuscript of the 'Sigisbée,' the first performance at the Comédie Française, thesoiréeat Madame Komof's, Suzanne's appearance in her red gown, and Colette in his rooms on the day after thesoirée; then René telling him of his visit to Madame Moraines, his own departure for Venice, his return, the scenes to which it had led, and the two parallel passions that had sprung up in his heart and René's, ending with the attempted suicide of the one and the abasement of the other. 'The Abbé is right,' he thought; 'all this is filth.' He went on with his soliloquy. 'Yes, the Abbé will save René; he will compel him to go for a tour of six months or a year as soon as he is better, and he will come back rid of this horrible nightmare. He is young—a heart of twenty-five is such a vigorous and hardy plant. Who knows? He may perhaps be moved by Rosalie's love and marry her. Anyhow, he will triumph. He has suffered, but he has not debased himself. But I?'
In a few moments he had drawn up a statement of his actual position—well over thirty-five years of age, not a single reason for remaining alive, disorder within and disorder without, in his health and in his thoughts, in his money matters and in his love affairs, an absolute conviction of the emptiness of literature and the degrading power of passion, coupled with sheer inability to turn aside from the profession of letters or to give up his libertine life.
'Is it really too late?' he asked himself, as he paced up and down his room. He could see, like a port in the distance, the country home of his old aunt, his father's sister, to whom he wrote two or three times a year, and nearly always to ask for money. He saw before him the little room that awaited his coming, its window looking out upon a meadow. The meadow, through which ran a stream bordered with willows, was closed in by some rising ground. Why not take refuge there and try to commence over again? Why not make one more attempt to escape the misery of an existence in which there was not a single illusion left? Why not go at once, without again beholding the woman who had exercised a more baneful influence upon him than Suzanne had had upon René?
The agitation brought on by this sudden prospect of a still possible salvation drove him from his rooms, but not before he had told Ferdinand to pack his trunk. He went out and wandered aimlessly as far as the entrance to the Champs-Elysées. On this bright May evening the roadway was crowded with an interminable line of carriages. The contrast between the moving panorama of Paris at its gayest, once his delight, and the quiet scene he had evoked for his complete reform, charmed his artistic soul. He sat down upon a chair and watched the string of vehicles, recognising a face here and there, and recalling the rumours, true or false, he had heard about each. Suddenly a carriage came in view that attracted his particular attention—no, he was not mistaken! It was an elegant victoria, in which sat Madame Moraines with Desforges by her side, and Paul Moraines facing them. Suzanne was smiling at the Baron, who was evidently taking his mistress and her husband to the Bois—probably to dine there. She did not see René's friend, who gazed after her shapely blonde head, half turned to her protector, until it was lost to view.
He laughed.
'What a comedy life is, and how silly we are to turn it into a drama!'
He took out his watch and rose hurriedly.
'Half-past six—I shall be late for Colette.' And he hailed a passing cab in order to get to the Rue de Rivoli—five minutes sooner!