And he added:
"You know. He was ready to fight you.... It was his friend, Monsieur Lirat, who kept him from doing that.... I, too, dissuaded him from it because I believe only in a duel to death."
Juliette listened to all these details silently and with apparent indifference. From time to time she drew her tongue across her lips, and in her eyes there was something resembling a reflection of inner joy. Was she thinking of Malterre? Was she happy to learn that someone was suffering on account of her? Alas! I was no longer in a position to ask myself such questions.
A new life began.
I did riot like the apartment where Juliette lived; there were in her house neighbors whom I did not like, and above all the apartment concealed memories which I thought it more convenient to forget. For fear that my plans might not be agreeable to Juliette I did not dare to reveal them too abruptly, but at the very first words I said about the matter she grew enthusiastic.
"Yes! yes!" she cried out with joy. "I have been thinking of it myself, dearie. And do you know of what else I have been thinking? Guess, guess quickly, what your little wifie has been thinking of?"
She placed both hands on my shoulders, and smiling:
"Don't you know?... Really you don't?... Well! she has been thinking of having you come and live with her.... Oh! It'll be so nice to have a pretty little apartment where we shall be alone, just the two of us, to love each other, isn't that right, my Jean?... You'll work and I'll sit right next to you and do some needle work without making a stir, and from time to time, I'll embrace you to inspire you with great ideas.... You shall see, my dear, whether I am a good housekeeper or not, whether I can take care of all your little matters.... In the first place, I'll arrange your things in the bureau. Every morning you will find a fresh flower on it.... Then Spy will also have a nice little niche, all new, with red top-knots.... And then we shall hardly go out at all.... And we'll sleep as late as we wish.... And then ... and then.... Oh, how wonderful it will be!..."
Then getting serious again, she said in a grave voice:
"Not to mention the fact that it will be a good deal cheaper. Just about half!"
We rented an apartment on the Rue de Balzac and we busily fixed it up. That was an important task. We were shopping the whole day, examining rugs, choosing hangings, discussing arrangements and estimating things. Juliette would have liked to buy everything she saw, but she professed a preference for elaborate furniture, for loud-colored draperies and heavy embroidery. The glitter of new gold, the dazzling effect of harsh colors attracted, fascinated her. Whenever I ventured to remark something to her, she would say at once:
"How do men come to know about these things?... Women know better."
She was obdurate in her desire to buy a kind of Arabian chest, frightfully daubed up, set with mother-of-pearl, ivory imitation stones, and of immense size.
"You can see for yourself that it's too large, that it won't get into our house at all," I said to her.
"Do you really think so? Well how about sawing off the legs, dearie?"
And more than twenty times during the day she stopped in the middle of her conversation to ask me:
"Well, do you really think it is too large?... That beautiful chest I mean."
In the carriage, as soon as she got in, Juliette nestled close to me, offered me her lips, smothered me with caresses, happy, radiant.
"Oh! you naughty boy, who never said a word to me, and who stood just looking at me, with his sad eyes ... yes, your beautiful sad eyes that I love ... you naughty!... I had to start it all myself! ... hadn't I? ... otherwise you would have never dared, would you?... Were you afraid of me, tell me? Do you remember when you took me in your arms, that evening? I did not know where I was, I could no longer see anything.... My throat, my chest felt as though I had swallowed something very hot.... isn't that funny.... I thought I was going to die ... burned by you.... It was so sweet, so sweet!... Why, I have loved you since the first day we met.... No, I was in love with you before.... Ah, you are laughing!... You don't believe then that you can love someone without knowing or seeing him?... Well I do!... I am sure of it!..."
My heart was beating so fast, these words were so new to me, that I could not find anything to say in reply; I was choking with happiness. All I could do was to clasp Juliette in my arms, mutter some inarticulate words and weep with joy. Suddenly she became thoughtful, the furrow on her forehead deepened, she withdrew her hand from mine. I was afraid I had offended her:
"What's the matter, my Juliette?" I asked her. "Why do you look so?... Have I hurt you?"
And Juliette, disconsolate, said with a sigh:
"The corner-buffet, my dear!... The corner-buffet for the parlor which we have entirely forgotten."
She quickly passed from laughter, from kisses to sudden gravity, mingled words of endearment with ceiling measurements, confused love with tapestry.... It was delightful.
In our room, in the evening, all this pretty childishness disappeared. Love stamped upon the face of Juliette something austere, deliberate and ferocious which I could not explain; it changed her entirely. She was not depraved; on the contrary, her passion showed itself to be strong and normal, and in her caresses there was awe-inspiring nobility and courage. Her body trembled as if in terrible labor.
My happiness lasted but a short time.... My happiness!... It is really remarkable that never, never have I been permitted to enjoy anything fully, and that invariably anxiety came to disturb the brief periods of my happiness. Defenseless and powerless against suffering, not sure of myself and timid in the hours of happiness—such I have been all my life. Is it a tendency peculiar to my nature? A strange perversion of my sensibilities?... Or is it rather that happiness in my own case as well as in the case of everybody else is really deceptive, and that it is nothing but a more tormenting and more refined form of universal suffering?...
Now this for example.... The faint glimmer of the night-lamp flickers feebly upon the curtains and the furniture; Juliette is asleep, early in the morning, the morning after our first night. One of her arms, bare, rests upon the sheet; the other, also bare, is gracefully coiled up under her nape. All around her face—which reflects the pallid light of the bed, a face which looks like that of a murdered person, with eyes encircled by dark rings—her loose black hair is scattered, sinuous and flowing like waves! I contemplate her eagerly.... She is sleeping close to me, with a deep calm sleep, like a child. And for the first time possession occasions no regret, no disgust in me; for the first time I am able to look at a woman who has just given herself to me. I cannot express my feelings at this moment. What I feel is something indefinable, something exceedingly sweet and at the same time very grave and holy, a sort of religious ecstasy similar to the one which I experienced at the time of my first communion.... I recognize the same mystic transport, the same great and sacred awe; it is like another revelation of God taking place in the transplendent light of my soul.... It seems to me that God has come down to me for the second time.... She sleeps, in the silence of the room, with her mouth half-open, her nostrils motionless; she sleeps with a sleep so gentle that I cannot even hear her breathing.... A flower on the mantlepiece is there, withering, and a whiff of its dying fragrance reaches me. I can't hear Juliette at all, she is only asleep, she is breathing, she is alive and yet I can't hear her. I move nearer to her and gently bend over her, almost touching her with my lips, and in an almost inaudible voice I call her.
"Juliette!"
Juliette does not stir. But I feel her breath, fainter than that of the flower, her breath always so fresh, with which at this moment there is mingled, like a waft of warmth, her fragrant breath which blends with an imperceptible odor of decay.
"Juliette!"
Juliette does not stir. But the sheet which follows the curves of her body, showing the shape of her limbs, loosens itself into a rigid crease, and the sheet looks to me like a shroud. And the thought of death suddenly comes to my mind and lingers there. I begin to be afraid that Juliette is dead.
"Juliette!"
Juliette does not stir. My whole being is now plunged into a frenzy of fear, and while in my ears the distant knell resounds, around the bed I see the light of a thousand funeral tapers trembling under the vibrations of a de profundis prayer. My hair stands on end, my teeth chatter and I shout, I shout:
"Juliette! Juliette!"
At last Juliette moves her head, heaves a sigh and murmurs, as if in a dream:
"Jean!... My Jean!"
Forcefully I grasp her into my arms as if to defend her against some one; I draw her toward me and trembling, with my blood running cold, I beg her:
"Juliette!... My own Juliette ... don't sleep.... Oh, please don't sleep!... You frighten me!... Let me see your eyes; talk to me, talk to me!... And pinch me, pinch yourself, too, pinch me hard.... But don't sleep any more, please...."
She cuddles into my arms, whispers some unintelligible words and falls asleep again, her head hanging on my shoulder.... But the apparition of death, stronger than the awakening of love, persists, and although I feel the regular beating of Juliette's heart against my own, it does not vanish until day.
How often since that time, when with her, I have felt the frigid touch of death in her fiery kisses!... And how often in the midst of rapture there appeared to me the sudden and capering image of the singer at the Bouffes!... How many times did his lustful laugh drown the ardent words of Juliette!... How often I have heard him say to me, while his image kept leaping above me: "Go ahead, glut yourself upon this imbecile body, upon this unclean body which I defiled!... Go on!... Go on! ... wherever you touch your lips you will breathe the impure odor of my own; wherever your caresses may wander upon this body of a prostitute they will encounter the filthy marks of my own manhandling.... Go ahead, wash her, your Juliette, wash her in the lustral water of your love, cleanse her with the acid of your mouth.... Strip off her skin with your teeth, if you will; you will efface nothing, never, because the mark of infamy with which I have branded her is ineffaceable."
And I often had a passionate desire to question Juliette about this singer whose vision haunted me so much. But I had not the courage. I contented myself with trying to get at the truth in an ingenious, roundabout way: often, in the midst of conversation I would mention a name unexpectedly, hoping, yes hoping that Juliette would be a little put out by it, that she would blush, would feel embarrassed and would say: "Yes, that's the one." I thus exhausted the list of names of all the singers in all the theatres, without gaining the least evidence of perturbation in Juliette's impenetrable attitude.
It took us almost three months to install ourselves completely. The upholsterers could never get through with their work and Juliette's caprices often called for changes that took a long time to accomplish. Every day she would come back from her shopping with new ideas about the decoration of the parlor, or the dressing room. The hangings in the bedroom had to be entirely changed three times because she did not like them.
Finally one nice morning we took possession of our apartment on the Rue de Balzac.... It was high time we did.... All this unsettled existence, this continuous hurry, these open trunks yawning like coffins, this brutal scattering of dear and intimate things, these heaps of linen, these pyramids of boxes turned upside down, these cut-up pieces of string which dragged all over, all this disorder, this chaos, this trampling underfoot of things with which are associated the dearest memories or most tender regrets, and above all this feeling of uncertainty, of terror, and the sad reflections which the act of leaving a place occasions—all this made me uneasy, dejected and, must I say it, remorseful.
While Juliette was moving about, bustling amidst bundles, I was asking myself whether I had not committed some irreparable folly. Of course, I loved her.... Ah! I loved her with all the power of my soul. So far, nothing except this passion which obsessed me more and more every day, interested me at all. Still, I regretted that I had yielded so easily and quickly to an infatuation that was perhaps fraught with the gravest consequences for her and myself. I was dissatisfied with myself for not having been able to resist Juliette's wish, expressed in such delicious fashion, that I live together with her.... Could we not love each other just as well if each of us lived separately and avoid the possible clashes over such sordid things as wall-paper, for example.
And while the splendor of all this plush and the insolence of all these gilt objects in the midst of which we were now going to live frightened me, I felt a sorrowful attachment for my own scanty furniture placed without order, for my little apartment, austere yet tranquil, and now empty—an attachment one has for beloved things that are dead. But Juliette would pass by, busy, agile and charming, would embrace and kiss me on her way, and there was such a life-giving joy in her whole being, a joy so easily mingled with astonishment and childish despair at anything lost, that my morose thoughts vanished as do the night owls at sunrise.
Ah! the happy days that followed our moving from the Rue Saint Petersbourg!... First we had to test every piece of furniture down to the smallest details. Juliette sat on every divan, lounge and sofa, causing the springs to creak.
"You try it also, my dear," she would say to me. She examined every piece of furniture, scrutinized the hangings, tried the strings of the door curtain, moved a chair to a different place, smoothed a crease in the draperies. And every instant cries of admiration, of ecstasy were heard!
Then she wanted to start the inspection of the apartment all over again with the windows closed and the lights burning, in order to see the effect produced at night, never tiring of examining a thing more than once, running from one room to another, marking down every defect on a piece of paper. Then it was the wardrobe where she put her linen and mine with meticulous care and elaborate nicety and the consummate skill of a stall keeper. I chided her for assigning to me the better scentbags.
"No! no! no! I want to have a little husband who uses perfume!"
Of her old furniture and old knick-knacks, Juliette had kept only the terra cotta statue of Love which again took its place of honor on the mantlepiece in the parlor. I, on the other hand, had brought over only my books and two very beautiful sketches by Lirat which I thought it a duty to hang up in my study. Scandalized, Juliette cried with indignation:
"What are you doing there, my dear?... Such horrible things in our new apartment!... Please put these horrible things away somewhere! Oh, put them away!"
"My dear Juliette," I answered somewhat provoked. "You have kept your terra cotta statue of Love, not so?"
"Certainly I have.... But what has that to do with this?... My terra cotta statue is very, very lovely. Whereas that thing there ... why really!... And then it's improper!... Besides, every time I look at the paintings of that fool Lirat I feel a pain in my stomach."
Before that I used to have the courage of my artistic convictions and I defended them with fire. But now it seemed puerile on my part to engage in a discussion of art with Juliette, so I contented myself with hiding the pictures inside a press without much regret.
Finally the day arrived when everything was in admirable order; everything in its place, the smallest objects resting smartly on the tables, console tables, windows; the stands decorated with large leafed plants; the books in the library within reach; Spy in his new niche and flowers everywhere.... Nothing was missing, nothing, not even a rose, whose stem bathed in a long thin glass vase standing on my desk. Juliette was radiant, triumphant; she repeated without end:
"Look, look again how well your little wife has worked!"
And resting her head on my shoulder with a tender look in her eyes and a genuinely agitated voice, she murmured:
"Oh, my adored Jean, at last we are in our own home, our own home, just think of it!... How happy we shall be here, in our pretty nest!..."
The next morning Juliette said to me:
"It has been a long time since you saw Monsieur Lirat. I don't want him to think that I keep you from visiting him."
It was true, nevertheless. It really seemed as if for the last five months, I had forgotten all about poor Lirat. But had I really forgotten him? Alas no!... Shame kept me from going to him.... Shame alone estranged me from him.... I assure you that I would have never hesitated to announce to the whole world: "I am Juliette's lover!"; but I had not the courage to utter these words in Lirat's presence.
At first I had a notion to confess all to him, no matter what happened to our friendship.... I would say to myself: "all right, tomorrow I am going to see Lirat" ... I would make up my mind firmly.... And the next day: "Not now ... there is nothing pressing.... tomorrow!..." Tomorrow, always tomorrow!... And days, weeks, months passed.... Tomorrow!
Now that he had been told all about these things by Malterre, who even before my departure used to come and make his sofa groan, how could I broach the subject to him?... What could I say to him?... How endure his look, his contempt, his anger.... His anger, perhaps!... But his contempt, his terrible silence, the disconcerting sneer which I already saw taking shape at the corner of his mouth.... No, no, really I did not dare!... To try to mollify him, to take his hand, to ask his forgiveness for my lack of confidence in him, to appeal to the generosity of his heart!... No! It would ill become me to assume such a part, and then Lirat with just one word could throw a damper on me and stop my effusion.... What's the use!... Each day that passed separated us further, estranged us from each other more and more ... a few more months and there would no longer be any Lirat to reckon with in my life!... I should prefer that rather than cross his threshold and face him in person.... I replied to Juliette:
"Lirat?... Oh yes.... I think I'll do that some of these days!"
"No, no!" insisted Juliette.... "Today! You know him, you know how mean he is. God knows how many ugly things he must have said about us!"
I had to make up my mind to see him. From the Rue de Balzac to Rodrigue Place is but a short distance. To postpone as long as possible the moment of this painful interview I made a long detour on my way, walking as far as the shop district of the Saint Honoré suburb. And I was thinking to myself: "Suppose I don't go to see Lirat at all. I can tell her, when I come back, that we have quarrelled, and I can invent some sort of a story that will forever relieve me of the necessity of this visit." I felt ashamed of this boyish thought.... Then I hoped that Lirat was not at home! With what joy could I then roll up my card into a tube and slip it through the keyhole! Comforted by this thought I at last turned in the direction of Rodrigue Place and stopped in front of the door of the studio—and this door seemed to fill me with fear. Still I rapped at it and presently a voice, Lirat's voice, called:
"Come in!"
My heart beat furiously, a bar of fire stopped my throat—I wanted to flee....
"Come in!" the voice repeated.
I turned the door knob.
"Ah! Is that you, Mintié," Lirat exclaimed. "Come on in."
Lirat was seated at his table, writing a letter.
"May I finish this?" he said to me. "Just two more minutes and I'll be through."
He resumed writing. It was a relief not to feel upon myself the chill of his look. I took advantage of the fact that his back was turned to unburden my soul to him.
"I have not seen you for such a long time, my good Lirat."
"Why, yes, my dear Mintié!"
"I have moved."
"Ah, is that so!"
"I live on the Rue de Balzac."
"Nice place!"
I was suffocating.... I made a supreme effort to gather all my strength ... but by a strange aberration I thought I would succeed better by adopting a flippant method of approach. Upon my word of honor! I railed, yes, railed at myself.
"I have come to tell you some news which will amuse you.... Ha!... Ha! ... which will amuse you ... I am sure ... I ... I ... live with Juliette. ... Ha! ... Ha! ... with Juliette Roux ... Juliette, you know.... Ha! Ha!"
"Congratulations!" He uttered this word "congratulations" in a perfectly calm, indifferent voice.... Was it possible! No hiss, no anger, no jumping at me!... Just "Congratulations!...." As one might say: "how do you expect that to interest me?" And his back bent over the table remained motionless without straightening up, without stirring!... His pen did not slip from his hand; he continued to write! What I told him just now he had known long ago.... But to hear it out of my own mouth!... I was stupefied—and shall I confess it?—I was wounded by the fact that the matter did not seem to affect him at all!... Lirat rose and rubbing his hands:
"Well! what's new?" he asked.
I could not stand it any longer. I rushed toward him with tears in my eyes.
"Listen to me," I shouted sobbing. "Lirat, for God's sake, listen to me.... I did not act fairly toward you.... I know it ... and I ask your forgiveness.... I should have told you all.... But I did not have the courage to.... You frighten me.... And then ... you remember Juliette, the one you told me about, right here ... you remember ... she is the one who kept me from doing that.... Do you understand?"
"My dear Mintié," interrupted Lirat, "I did not want you to tell me anything. I am neither your father nor your confessor. Do what you please, that does not concern me in the least."
I became excited.
"You are not my father, that is true ... but you are my friend ... and I owe you all the confidence in the world.... Forgive me!... Yes, I live with Juliette, and I love her and she loves me!... Is it a crime to seek a little happiness?... Juliette is not the kind of a woman you thought she was ... she has been calumniated most odiously, Lirat.... She is kind and honest.... Oh, don't smile ... she is honest!... She has some childish ways about her that would touch even you, Lirat. You don't like her because you don't know her.... If you only knew how kind and considerate she is to me! Juliette wants me to work.... She ardently believes in me, in my ability to create.... Why it was she who sent me here to see you. I was ashamed and afraid.... Yes she made me do that! Have a little consideration for her, Lirat. Love her a little, I beg of you!"
Lirat became grave. He put his hand on my shoulder and, looking at me wistfully:
"My dear child!" he said to me in a trembling voice, "why do you tell me all that?"
"Because it is the truth, my dear Lirat! ... because I love you and I want to remain your friend.... Show me that you are my friend no matter what happens... Here now, come to have dinner with us this evening, as we used to in the past, in my own house. Oh, please come!"
"No," he said.
And this "no" was relentless, final, curt, like a gunshot.
Lirat added:
"But you come often!... And whenever you feel like crying ... the sofa is there ... you know.... The tears of poor devils are quite known to it."
When the door was shut behind me, it seemed that something huge and heavy had closed itself upon my past, that walls higher than the sky and darker than the night had separated me forever from my decent life, from my dreams of art. There was anguish in my whole being.... For a minute I stood there, stupefied, with swinging arms, with eyes inordinately distended, staring at that prophetic door behind which something had just come to a close, something had just died.
Juliette was not long in wearying of this beautiful apartment where she had promised herself so much peace and happiness. Having arranged her wardrobes and put her knick-knacks in order, she did not know what to do next and was surprised at this discovery. The tapestry no longer excited her admiration, reading afforded her no distraction. She passed from one room to another, without knowing what to do, what to busy her mind with, yawning, stretching herself. She shut herself up in her room where she spent hours in dressing herself, in trying on new clothes in front of the looking glass, in turning the faucet of the bath tub, which occupation amused her for a while, in combing Spy and in making elaborate bows for him from the bands of her old hats.
Managing the house might have filled the void of her idle days, but I soon realized with chagrin that Juliette was not at all the housekeeper she had boasted she was. She was careless, had no taste, was preoccupied only with her linen underwear and her dog; everything else was of no importance to her, and things took their own course or rather went according to the wishes of the servants. Our renewed staff of domestics consisted of a cook, an old, sloppy woman, grasping and ill-tempered, whose cooking talents did not extend beyond tapioca pudding, hashed veal with white sauce and salad; a chamber maid, Celestine, impudent and depraved, who respected only people who spent large sums of money, and a housekeeper, Mother Sochard, who prayed incessantly and often used to get frightfully drunk in order to forget her troubles, as she said: her husband who beat her and took away her money and her daughter who was good for nothing.
The waste was enormous, our table very bad and the rest correspondingly so. Whenever we happened to have visitors, Juliette would order from Bignon the rarest and most elaborate dishes. I viewed with displeasure the uncommon intimacy, a sort of bond of friendship, which had sprung up between Juliette and Celestine. When dressing her mistress, the maid told her stories which the former enjoyed immensely; she disclosed improper secrets of the homes where she had served and advised Juliette in all matters. "At Mme. K's they do it this way—at Mme. V's they do it that way." That they were "swell places" goes without saying. Juliette often went into the linen room where Celestine was sewing and stayed there for hours, seated on a heap of bed sheets, listening to the inexhaustible gossip of the servant-girl.... From time to time an argument would arise over some stolen thing or some neglected duty. Celestine would get excited, hurling the grossest insults, knocking the furniture, screaming in her squeaky voice:
"Well!... Many thanks to you!... This is some dirty place!... A goose like that has the nerve to accuse one!... Well look here, my pretty one, I am going to shake myself free from you and your boob over there who has the face of a dunce."
Juliette would tell her to get out immediately, not wishing her even to stay out her week.
"Yes, yes! Pack up at once, you nasty girl ... right away!"
She would come to sulk in my presence, pale and trembling:
"Ah! my dear, that vile creature, that wretched woman!... And I who was so kind to her!..."
In the evening they would make up again, and amidst laughter which resounded louder than ever, Celestine's voice would bawl out:
"I should say the Countess was a rude slut!"
One day Juliette said to me:
"Your little wifie has nothing to put on. She is as naked as a new born child, the poor thing!"
And so there were new visits to the dressmaker's, to the milliner's, to the linen shop; and she again became gay, vivacious, affectionate. The shadow of boredom which had crossed her countenance disappeared.... In the midst of materials, laces, among plumes and gewgaws, her whole being expanded and shone forth. Her tender fingers experienced a physical delight in handling satin, in touching crepe, in stroking velvet, in losing themselves in the milky white waves of fine batiste. The smallest piece of silk, when she draped it into something, at once assumed the pretty appearance of a living thing; out of braid and lace trimmings she could draw the most exquisite harmonies. Although I was very much alarmed by these expensive whims, I could not refuse Juliette anything, and I abandoned myself to the joy of seeing her so happy, to the delight of seeing her so charming—her, whose beauty rendered all inanimate objects about her beautiful, her, who put the breath of gracious life into everything she touched!
For more than a month packages and strange cases were being delivered to us every evening.... Dresses followed dresses, hats followed cloaks, umbrellas and embroidered chemises; the most expensive linens accumulated in heaps and filled all the drawers, presses, wardrobes.
"You see, my dear," Juliette explained to me, discerning amazement in my glance. "You see I did not have anything.... This is all I need. From now on, all I'll have to do is to receive people.... Ah don't be afraid!... I am very economical. See here, I have had a high body made in all my gowns for every day use on the street, and a décolleté to wear at the Opera! Just figure out how many dresses that will save me.... One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... dresses, my dear!... You see now!"
For the first appearance at the theatre she put on a gown that was the sensation of the evening. As long as the tormenting affair lasted I was the most miserable man in the world.... I felt the covetous glances of the entire audience directed on Juliette, glances that devoured her, that disrobed her, glances that defile the woman one adores. I would have liked to hide Juliette deep in the loge and throw a thick dark woolen cloak on her shoulders, and with heart clawed by hatred I wished the theatre had sunk into the ground through some sudden cataclysm, that by a sudden collapse of its ceiling and chandeliers it had crushed to a powder all these men, each of whom was stealing a little of Juliette's chastity, a little of her love from me. She, on the other hand, triumphant, seemed to say: "I love you all, gentlemen, for thinking me beautiful. You are nice people."
Scarcely did we enter our house when I drew Juliette toward me and for a long, long time held her pressed to my heart, repeating without end: "You love me, Juliette, don't you?" but the heart of Juliette was no longer listening to me. Seeing that I was sad, noticing that from my eyelids tears were about to fall upon her cheek, she freed herself from my embrace and said somewhat angrily:
"What! I was the prettiest, the most beautiful of them all!... And you are not satisfied yet?... And you are crying yet!... That is not nice at all!... What more do you want?"
Our first disagreeable quarrel arose over Juliette's friends. Gabrielle Bernier, Jesselin and some other people, formerly brought over to our house at the Rue de Saint Petersbourg by Malterre, again began to pursue us at the Rue de Balzac. I frankly told her so; she seemed very much surprised.
"What have you against Monsieur Jesselin?" she asked me. She used to call the others by their Christian names ... but she pronounced the name Monsieur Jesselin with great respect.
"I certainly have nothing against him, my dear.... But I don't like him, he gets on my nerves ... he is ridiculous. Here, then, I think are good reasons for not wishing to see that idiot."
Juliette was shocked. That I should have called a man of Monsieur Jesselin's importance and reputation an idiot was quite incomprehensible to her. She looked at me with fear as if I had just uttered a terrible blasphemy.
"Monsieur Jesselin, an idiot!... He ... such a gentleman, so serious minded, and who has been to India!... Don't you know that he is a member of the Geographical Society?"
"What about Gabrielle Bernier?... Is she also a member of the Geographical Society?"
As a rule Juliette never lost her temper. When she was angry her look became severe, the wrinkle on her forehead deepened, her voice lost a little of its sweet sonorousness. She answered simply:
"Gabrielle is my friend."
"That's just what I object to."
There was a moment of silence. Juliette, seated in an armchair, was fingering the lace of her morning gown, thinking. An ironic smile wandered on her lips.
"Do you mean to say that I must not see anyone?... Is that what you want?... Well that's going to be very amusing.... We shall never go out any more ... we shall live like beasts!..."
"That's not the question at all, my dear.... I have some friends.... I'll ask them to come...."
"Oh yes, I know your friends.... I can see them right before me, writers, painters ... people whom one doesn't understand when they talk ... and who borrow money from us.... Thank you very much!..."
I felt offended and quickly replied:
"My friends are honest people, do you hear, with talent, whereas that idiot and that nasty woman!..."
"I think we have had enough of this," Juliette imperiously said. "Is that your wish?... All right. I shall close my door to them. Only when you insisted on my living with you, you should have told me that you wanted to bury me alive. I would have known what to do then...."
She rose. I was not even thinking of telling her that, on the contrary, it was she who had wished that we keep house together. Realizing that it was useless to argue any further I took her hand:
"Juliette," I entreated her.
"Well, what do you want?"
"Are you angry?"
"I, on the contrary, I am very much contented...."
"Juliette!"
"Come, let go of me ... quit ... you hurt me."
Juliette was sulky all day; when I said something to her she did not answer or contented herself with articulating monosyllables curtly and with irritation. I was unhappy and angry at the same time; I would have liked to embrace her and to beat her, to shower kisses and kicks on her. At dinner she still kept the air of an offended woman, with her lips firmly closed and a disdainful look in her eyes. In vain did I try to appease her by humble conduct and sad repentant looks; her assumed sullenness remained unchanged, on her brow there was still that dark furrow which made me uneasy. At night, in bed, she took a book and turned her back to me. And the back of her perfumed neck to which my lips loved to cling with rapturous joy, now seemed to me harder than a stone wall.... Within me deep resentment was stirring, but I forced myself not to betray it. In the measure that I was filled with rage, my voice sought sweeter accents, it grew gentler and more beseeching.
"Juliette! my Juliette!... Speak to me, please!... Speak to me! Did I offend you, was I too harsh with you? I know I was.... Well, I am sorry and I ask your forgiveness.... But only speak to me."
My impression was that Juliette was not listening to me at all. She was cutting the pages of the book, and the noise of the friction of the knife against the paper annoyed me terribly.
"My Juliette.... Please understand me.... It is because I love you that I said that.... It is because I wish to see you pure, respected, and because it seems to me that all those are unworthy of you.... If I did not love you, would that make any difference to me?... And you think that I don't want you to go out!... Why no.... We shall go out often, every evening.... Ah, please don't be like that!... I was wrong!... Scold me, strike me.... But only speak to me, please speak to me!"
She continued turning the pages of the book. The words were throttled in my throat.
"It is not fair to act the way you do, Juliette. It is not nice at all to be like that.... Since I admitted my guilt! Ah, what pleasure do you get out of torturing me like this?... Didn't I say I was sorry? Come on, Juliette, I admit I was wrong!"
Not a muscle in her body moved in response to my supplication. Her nape exasperated me more than ever. Amidst locks of silky hair I now saw eyes which railed at me and a mouth which mocked me. And I had an impulse to strike her, to belabor her with my fists, to beat her till she bled.
"Juliette!" I shouted.
And my fingers, shriveled, spread apart and hooked like talons of a bird of prey, came close to her, in spite of myself, ready to claw this nape, impatient to tear it to pieces.
"Juliette!"
Juliette slowly turned her head, looked at me with contempt, without fear.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"What do I want?... What do I want?"
I was going to threaten her.... I half arose in bed, I was gesticulating violently.... And suddenly my rage subsided, I came close to Juliette, crouched before her, filled with repentance, and kissing that perfumed and beautiful nape:
"What I want, my dear, is that you should be happy.... That you shall receive your friends.... It was so foolish on my part to demand of you what I did!... Aren't you the best of women?... Don't I love you?... Ah, hereafter I shall have no other wish than yours, I promise you!... And you'll see how nice I am going to be to them!... Wait.... Why should you not invite Gabrielle for dinner?... And Jesselin also?"
"No! No! You say it now, but tomorrow you'll reproach me for it.... No! No!... I don't want to force upon you people whom you despise—nasty women and idiots!"
"I don't know where my head was when I said that.... I don't despise them at all ... on the contrary I like them very much.... Invite both of them.... And I'll go and get a box at the Vaudeville."
"No!"
"I implore you!"
Her voice became less harsh, she closed the book.
"Well! We'll see tomorrow."
Really, at that moment I loved Gabrielle, Jesselin, Celestine—I even thought I loved Malterre.
I no longer worked. Not that love of work deserted me, but I no longer had the creative faculty in me. I used to sit down at my desk every day, with blank sheets of paper before me, searching for ideas, and failing to find them, I would again relapse into anxieties of the present, which meant Juliette, into dread of the future, which again meant Juliette!... Just as a drunkard clutches and turns his empty bottle to get the last drop of liquor out of it, so I searched my brains in the hope of squeezing the least bit of an idea out of it.... Alas! My head was empty!
It was empty and weighed upon my shoulders like an enormous ball of lead!... My mentality was always slow in getting started: it required stimulation, it had to be lashed with a whip. Because of my ill-balanced sensibility, my passive nature, I easily yielded to intellectual or moral influences, whether good or bad. And again, Lirat's friendship was quite useful to me in the past. My own ideas melted in the warmth of his spirit; his conversation opened for me new horizons hitherto unsuspected; whatever confused ideas I had were cleared up, they assumed a more definite form which I endeavored to express; he taught me how to see, to understand things and made me delve with him into the mysteries of life.
Now, the clear horizons toward which I was led shrunk and were shut off before me daily, almost hourly, and night was coming, black night, which to me was not only visible but tangible, for I could actually touch this monstrous night, I felt its darkness stuck fast in my hair, glued to my fingers, coiled around my body in clammy rings....
My study room opened into a yard, or rather a little garden shaded by two large plane-trees and bounded by a wall that had lattice work and was covered with ivy. Behind this wall, in the midst of another garden, the grey and very high façade of a house rose, accosting me with five rows of windows. On the third floor an old man sat near the window opening which encased him like a picture frame. He wore a cap of black velvet, a checkered morning robe, and he never stirred. Shrunk into himself, his head drooping on his chest, he seemed asleep. Of his face I could see only wrinkles of yellowish, wrinkled flesh, dark cavities and locks which looked like tufts of a soiled beard, resembling some strange vegetation sprouting on the trunks of dead trees. Sometimes the profile of a woman would bend over him sinisterly, and this profile had the appearance of an owl perched upon the aged man's shoulder; I could discern its hooked bill and round eyes, cruel, avaricious and bloodthirsty. When the sun shone into the garden, the window opened and I heard a shrill, piercing, angry voice which never ceased screaming reproaches. Then the old man would shrink into himself still farther, his head would begin to oscillate slightly, then he would become motionless again, still more buried in the folds of his morning robe, still deeper sunk in his armchair.
I used to sit for hours and watch the unhappy man, and I fancied terrible tragedies, some fatal love affair, a noble life bungled, crushed and ruined by that woman with the owl face. I pictured to myself this living corpse as beautiful, young and strong.... Perhaps he had been an artist once upon a time, a scientist, or simply a happy and kind-hearted man. And tall and upright, with a gaze full of hope, he marched towards glory or happiness.... One day he met that woman at the house of a friend ... and that woman, too, wore a perfumed veil, a small muff, an otter skin cap, a heavenly smile, and an air of angelic sweetness.... And forthwith he fell in love with her.... I followed step by step the development of his love affair, I counted up his weaknesses, his moments of cowardice, his growing downfalls up to the time of his sinking into this armchair for cripples and paralytics.
And what I imagined his life was to him, my own life was to me, those were my own feelings, it was my own dread of the future, my own anguish.... Little by little my hallucination took on a singular physical form, and it was myself that I saw in this velvet cap, in this morning robe with this battered body, this murky beard, and Juliette who stood over my shoulder like an owl....
Juliette!... She walked about in the study, weary of body, her whole figure betraying boredom, yawning and sighing. She could not think of anything to distract her. Most often she would place the card table not far from me and lose herself in the card combinations of a complicated "patience," or she would stretch herself out on the sofa, spread a napkin over her dress, place upon it some tiny instruments of tortoise shell, microscopic containers of ointment, and begin polishing her nails, fiercely filing them and making them shine more lustrously than agate. She would examine them every five minutes, looking for the reflection of her image in the polished surfaces:
"Look my dear! Aren't they beautiful! And you, too, Spy, look at your mistress' pretty nails."
The light friction of the nail brush, the imperceptible creaking of the sofa, Juliette's remarks, her conversation with Spy—all this was sufficient to put to rout the few ideas which I strove to bring together. My thoughts would turn immediately to ordinary matters, and I meditated upon painful things and lived sorrowful things over again.... Juliette.... Did I love her? Many times this question arose in my mind, pregnant with horrible doubt.... Had I not been deceived by the stupefaction of my senses?... Was not this thing which I took for love, the ephemeral and fleeting manifestation of a pleasure as yet untasted?... Juliette!... Of course I loved her....
But this Juliette whom I loved, was she not altogether different, was she not the Juliette that I had myself created, that had been born of my own imagination, that had originated in my own brains, whom I had endowed with a soul, with a spark of divinity, whom I had fashioned into being with the ideal essence of angels?... And did I not still love her as one does a beautiful book, a beautiful verse, a beautiful statue, a visible and tangible realization of an artist's dream!... But this other Juliette!... This one here?... This pretty, senseless, ignorant animal, this knick-knack, this piece of cloth, this nothing?...
I studied her carefully while she was polishing her nails.... Oh, how I would have liked to break this neck and sound its emptiness, to open this heart and probe its nothingness! And I said to myself: "What sort of a life will mine be with this woman whose tastes are only for pleasure, who is happy only when she is dressed up, whose every wish costs a fortune, who in spite of her chaste appearance, has an instinctive predilection for vice; who used to leave unhappy Malterre every evening, without a single regret, without a single thought; who will leave me tomorrow, perhaps; this woman who is a living denial of my aspirations, of my ideals; who will never, never enter into my intellectual life; and lastly this woman who already weighs upon my intelligence like folly, upon my whole being like a crime."
I had a notion to flee, to tell Juliette: "I am going out, I'll be back in an hour," and never to return to this house where the very ceiling was more oppressive to me than the lid of a coffin, where the air stifled me, where the very furniture seemed to say to me: "Leave this place" ... But no!... I loved her, and it was this very Juliette that I loved, not the other one who has gone the way of all dreams!... I loved her with all her qualities which made me suffer, I loved her in spite of all her lack of understanding, I loved her with all her frivolity, with all her suspected perversions; I loved her with that tormenting love which a mother has for her afflicted child.
Have you ever met a poor creature huddled up behind the door on some wintry day, a wretched human being with chapped lips and chattering teeth, shivering in his tattered rags?... And when you met him, were you not carried away by a feeling of keen pity, and did you not have a desire to take him and warm him against your breast, give him something to eat, cover his shivering body with warm clothes?... That is how I loved Juliette; I loved her with an immense pity ... ah, don't laugh, with a mother's pity, with an endless pity!...
"Aren't we going out, my dear? It would be so nice to take a stroll through the Bois."
And casting her eyes on the blank sheet of paper on which I had not written a line:
"Is that all you wrote?... Well!... You do not seem to have worked very hard.... And here I have been sitting around all this time to inspire you to work!... Oh, well, I know you won't get anywhere.... You are too lazy!"
Ere long we began going out every day and every evening. I did not resist any longer, almost happy to escape from the deadly aversion and despondent thoughts with which our apartment inspired me, escape from the symbolic vision of the old man, from myself.... Ah, above all from myself. In a crowd, in the tumult, in this feverish haste of a pleasure-hunting life I hoped to find forgetfulness, to be able to dull my feeling, to subdue my rebellious spirit, to suppress the voice of my past which I heard grumbling within me. And since I could not raise Juliette to my level I lowered myself down to her own.
Ah, those serene heights where the sun was reigning and toward which I had been climbing slowly with such terrific effort!... I must descend into the pit at one dash, in a single, instantaneous, inevitable downfall, even if I crushed my head against the rocks or disappeared in the bottomless mire. With me it was no longer a question of escape. If occasionally the idea did pierce the haze of my mind, if, in the errings of my will-power, I sometimes did perceive a distant way out where duty seemed to call me, I, in order to break away from the idea, in order not to rush hastily toward that end, clung tenaciously to the false pretenses of honor.... Could I leave Juliette! I who insisted that she leave Malterre!... What will become of her when I am gone?... Why no, no!—I was lying to myself.... I did not want to leave her because I loved her, because I pitied her, because.... But was it not myself that I loved, myself that I pitied?... Ah, I no longer knew! I no longer knew!
And then again you should not think that the abyss into which I had fallen was a sudden revelation to me.... Don't you believe it! I saw it from afar, I saw its black opening yawning fearfully, and I ran toward it. I leaned over the edge to inhale the infected odor of its filth, I said to myself: "There is where wasted lives and corrupted beings are dashed and swallowed up.... Here one can never come up again, never!" And I plunged into it....
Despite the threatening sky overcast with clouds, the balcony of the café is crowded with people. There is not a vacant table, the cabarets, the circus shows, the theatres have poured forth the scum of their habitues here. Everywhere are bright-colored dresses and black frock coats, ladies adorned with plumes like horses in a parade, weary, sick looking and sallow; flurried fops with heads drooped upon their button holes without flowers, and nibbling the ends of their canes with ape-like gestures. Some of them with legs crossed in order to show their black silk socks embroidered with red flowerets, hats pushed over slightly toward the back, are whistling the latest hit—the air which has just now been sung at the Ambassadeur, to the accompaniment of the creaking of seats, the clatter of glasses and bottles.
The last of the lights in front of the opera has been extinguished. But all around it the windows of the club-houses and brothels are a red blaze, like openings into hell. On the street, parked near the curb, are worn-out and dilapidated open coaches strung out in triple file. Some of the drivers are drowsing in their seats; others gathering into small groups which present a comical appearance in their ill-fitting liveries, are munching cigar stubs, and talking with loud bursts of laughter, telling salacious stories about their clients. One incessantly hears the shrill voice of the newspaper vendors who run back and forth shouting, in the midst of their crisp outcries, the name of some well-known woman, or some scandalous piece of news, while street arabs, gliding between the tables, cunning as cats, are selling obscene pictures, half revealed, to awaken dormant passions, to stir up curiosities gone to sleep. And little girls whose premature depravity has already blighted their gaunt, childish faces are offering for sale bouquets of flowers, smiling with a dubious smile, charging their glances with the ripe and hideous immodesty of old prostitutes. Inside the cabaret all the tables are taken.... There is not a single vacant place.... People are drinking champagne without really wanting it and munching sandwiches without in the least caring for them. Occasionally curious people enter the place, before going to their clubs or to bed, by force of habit or from a mere desire to show off or to see if there is "anything doing" there. Slowly and slouching in their walk, they slink about the groups of guests, stopping to chat with their friends here and there and, waving their hands in greeting to some one at a distance, look at themselves in the mirrors, fix their white cravats which stick out from under their light overcoats, then leave, their minds enriched with a few new slang expressions of the underworld, with a few more scandals picked up here and upon which their idleness will thrive for a whole day.
The women with elbows resting on the table, an ice cream soda in front of them, their weak faces, hatched with fine pink lines, supported by long gloved hands, assume a languid air, a suffering mien and a sort of consumptive dreaminess. They exchange mysterious winks and imperceptible smiles with their neighbors at nearby tables, while the gentleman accompanying them, silent and affectedly courteous, strikes the point of his shoes with the tip of his cane. The gathering presents a brilliant spectacle variegated with lace and baubles, bright trimmings and pompons, tinged plumes and flowers in full bloom, curls of blond hair, tresses of dark hair and the glitter of diamonds. Every one is at his fighting post, the young and the old, beginners with beardless faces, grey-haired veterans, naïve gulls and crafty spongers, here were social scandals, false situations, riotous vice, base covetousness, shameful barter—all the flowers of corruption which sprout—mingle, grow and thrive in the dunghill warmth of Paris.
It was into this atmosphere charged with ennui, restlessness and heavy odors that we used thereafter to come every evening. During the day, visits to the dressmakers, the Bois, the races; in the evening, restaurants, theatres and fashionable gatherings. Wherever this special brand of society people came together, one was certain to see us; we were even made much of because of Juliette's beauty which began to be the subject of people's talk, and her dresses which called forth the envy and emulation of other women. We no longer dined at home. Our apartment served us as hardly anything more than a place to dress. When Juliette was dressing she grew harsh, even cruel. The wrinkle on her forehead cut into her skin like a scar. She uttered disjointed words, grew angry, seemed to be incensed to the point of breaking up things.
All around her the room seemed as if it had been pillaged: trunks were opened, skirts thrown on the carpet, fans taken out of their cases and scattered on the chairs, opera glasses left on the furniture; muslin gowns were lying in heaps in the corners, the floor was strewn with flowers, towels, soiled with rouge, gloves, stockings, veils were hanging on the branches of the candlesticks. And in the midst of this confusion, Celestine, agile, brazen-faced, cynical, was going through all sorts of evolutions, jumping, sliding, kneeling at the feet of her mistress, sticking a pin here, adjusting the pleats there, knotting threads, her soft, flabby hands, made to handle filthy things, gliding all over Juliette's body with affection. She was happy, she no longer replied to insinuating remarks, to bitter reproaches, and her eyes, persistently ironical, shining with a flame of vulgar depravity were riveted on me.
It was only in public, in the glare of lights, under the cross fire of men's gazes that Juliette again found her smile and expression of joy mixed with a little wonderment and frankness which she reserved only for this repugnant crowd of debauchées. And we used to come to this cabaret accompanied by Gabrielle, by Jesselin, by people met I don't know where, and presented to us by I don't know whom, by idiots and princes, by the whole batch of international and street-corner crooks whom we dragged along with us.
"What are you going to do tonight?"
"I am going with the Mintié crowd."
Jesselin gave us information about the people in the place; he knew all the inside facts of high society life and spoke of it with a sort of admiration in spite of all the shameful or tragic details which he told us.
"That man there, who has a crowd of people around him and who is listened to respectfully, used to be a valet-de-chambre. His master fired him for theft. But he became the keeper of a gambling house, conducted all kinds of illegitimate joints, became cashier of the Club, then skilfully disappeared for a few years. At the present time he is part owner of many gambling houses, has an interest in the race track, has unlimited credit with the stock-brokers, owns horses and a mansion where he receives people. He used to loan money secretly at one hundred percent interest to ladies in financial straits whose gullible natures he would first test. Ostentatiously generous, buying pictures of the most expensive kind, he passes for an honorable man and patron of the arts. In the papers they speak of him with great respect.
"And that other big, stout fellow whose fleshy, wrinkled face is eternally split by an idiotic laugh? He is but a child!... Hardly eighteen years old. He has a mistress known to all, with whom he appears in public every Monday at the Bois, and also has a teacher, an Abbot whom he takes to the lake every Tuesday in the same carriage. His mother has thus conceived of the education of her son, wishing him to lead a life of religious saintliness on the one hand and of gallant adventures on the other. Aside from that he gets drunk every evening, and horse-whips his old fool of a mother. A real type!" Jesselin summed up.
"That duke over there, who bears one of the most illustrious names in France! Ah! that swell duke! the king of spongers! He comes in timidly like a frightened dog, looks through his monocle, takes in the smell of supper, sits down and devours some ham and minced liver pie. Perhaps he has not dined yet, this duke; undoubtedly he has just come back from an unsuccessful daily visit to the café Anglais, or the Maison Doré or Bignon's, in quest of some friend who will treat him to a meal. Being on very good terms with women and horse dealers, he runs errands for the former and rides the horses for the latter. Instructed to say wherever he goes: 'Oh! What a charming woman!' ... 'Oh! what a wonderful horse!' he receives a few louis for this service with which he pays his valet.
"Here is another great nobleman who is gradually and hopelessly sinking into the mire of illicit business and secret promotion of vice. Once upon a time that fellow was quite the rage of society. Despite his stoutness which is now evident, despite the puffiness of his flesh, he still has an elegant way of carrying himself, and the air of a gentleman. In the disreputable places and questionable circles which he frequents he plays the remunerative role which was played fifty years ago by head waiters at table d'hôtes. His courteousness and education were an asset to him, which he made use of to perfection. He knew how to take advantage of the dishonesty of others as well as of his own, for no one was as skilful in composing matrimonial difficulties of his patrons to the satisfaction of all concerned as he was.
"That livid face there, set in a frame of whiskers turning grey, that miniature mouth, that lustreless eye? No one knows who he really is! For a long time sinister rumors have been current about his person, rumors of bloody affairs. At first people were afraid of him and tried to keep away from him. It's nothing but an old memory after all! For the rest, he spends a lot of money. What does it matter if a few drops of blood do roll on top of piles of gold! Women are crazy about it.
"That young handsome man with mustache gracefully turned up? One day when he did not have a sou to his name, his parents having stopped his allowance, the ingenious notion occurred to him to pretend that he was repentant. He demonstratively quit an old mistress he had and returned to his parents. A young lady, his playmate when he was a child, adored him. She was rich. He married her. But on the very evening of his wedding day he left her, taking the dowry with him, and went back to his old mistress. She is an excellent woman," added Jesselin, "she really is!
"And all those pimps and those who have been chased out of the clubs, expelled from universities, ruined at the stock exchange; and foreigners coming from the devil knows where, whom one scandal attracts to one place and another scandal draws off to another, and those living outside the pale of the law and bourgeois esteem, who claim to be the royalty of Paris, before whom everybody bows down—they all swarm here, arrogant, free, disreputable!"
Juliette was listening, amused by the stories, attracted by this filth and crime, flattered by this ignoble homage which she felt the glances of these fools and criminals were paying her. But she preserved her modest bearing, her maiden charm, all her graces, self-conscious and inviting at one and the same time, for the sake of which, one day at Lirat's, I earned damnation!
Faces grow more pallid now, features become drawn out. Fatigue swells and colors the eyelids. One after another they leave the cabaret, tired and worried. Do they know what the next day has in store for them, what troubles await them, what disasters lie in ambush for them? Once in a while the report of a pistol shot creates a void in the ranks of this gang! Perhaps tomorrow will be their turn? Tomorrow! Perhaps it will be my turn, too? Ah! Tomorrow! The ever present menace of tomorrow! And we go home again, without saying a word to one another, sad and weary.
The boulevard was deserted. An immense silence was weighing heavily over the city. Only the windows of the brothel houses were aglare, like the eyes of some huge beasts crouching in the depth of night.
Without knowing exactly the state of my financial affairs, I felt that ruin was ahead of me. I had paid out considerable sums of money, debts were accumulating and, far from decreasing, Juliette's whims became even more numerous and more expensive: money flowed like water from her hands, like a fountain, in one continuous stream. "She evidently thinks me richer than I am," I thought to myself, in an effort to deceive myself. "I ought to warn her, perhaps show myself a little more reserved in yielding to her desires." The truth was that I deliberately dismissed from my mind every notion of this kind, that I dreaded the probable consequences of such a challenge even more than the greatest possible misfortune in the world.
In my rare moments of clear-mindedness, of frankness with myself, I understood that beneath her air of sweetness, beneath her naïveté of a spoiled child, beneath the robust and vibrant passions of her flesh Juliette concealed a powerful desire to be always beautiful, adored, paid court to, concealed a fierce selfishness which would not flinch before any cruelty, before any moral crime!... I realized that she loved me less than the last piece of cloth, that she would have sacrificed me for a cloak or a cravat or a pair of gloves.... Once drawn into such a life she could not stop.... And then what?... Cold shivers passed up and down my frame from head to heels.... That she should leave me, no, no, that I did not want!
The most painful moment to me was in the morning when I woke up. With eyes closed, pulling the cover over my head, my body huddled up into a ball, I used to ponder over my situation with terrible anguish. And the more faulty she appeared to me, the more desperately I clung to Juliette. No matter how often I said to myself that my money would soon be gone, that the credit on which I could dishonestly prolong the agony of hope against hope for another week or two, would eventually be denied to me; I clung to the present and rabidly evolved all sorts of impossible plans. I pictured myself accomplishing superhuman tasks in the course of one week. I dreamed of finding millions in some hackney coach, Fabulous inheritances dropped down from the skies for me. The idea of stealing haunted me....
Gradually all these insane notions took hold of my distracted mind. I was presenting Juliette with palaces and castles; I overwhelmed her with diamonds and pearls; gold streamed and glittered all around her, and I raised her high above the earth, upon dizzy, royal heights. Then the sense of reality would suddenly return. I buried myself deeper in the bed. I sought realms of non-existence in whose depth I could disappear. I forced myself to sleep. And suddenly, out of breath, with sweat on my forehead and a haggard look in my eyes, I would snuggle up to Juliette, press her in my arms with all my strength, sobbing:
"You'll never leave me, will you, my Juliette! Tell me, tell me that you'll never leave me. Because, you see.... I'll die ... if you do—I'll go crazy. I'll kill myself! Juliette, I swear to you that I'll kill myself!"
"Why, what has come over you? Why do you tremble so? No, my dear, I'll never leave you. Are we not happy together? Besides, I love you so much! When you are nice as you are now!"
"Yes, yes! I'll kill myself! I'll kill myself!"
"You are so funny, my dear! Why do you tell me that?"
"Because."
I was going to tell her everything.... But I had not the courage. And I said:
"Because I love you! Because I don't want you to leave me! Because I don't want to."
Nevertheless I finally had to bring this matter to a head. Juliette had seen in the window of a jewelry store on the Rue de la Paix, a string of pearls of which she spoke without end. One day when we were in that neighborhood:
"Let's go and see that beautiful jewel," she said to me.
With her nose pressed against the window pane and eyes shining, she looked at the string arranged in a triple circular row of pink pearls upon the velvet of the jewel case. I saw a tremor passing up and down her skin.
"Isn't that beautiful? And it isn't expensive at all! I have asked about the price ... fifty thousand francs.... That's an exceptional bargain."
I tried to draw her further on. But coaxingly, hanging on my arm, she held me back. And she sighed:
"Ah, how nice that would look on the neck of your little wifie!"
She added with an air of profound grief:
"Really! All the women have lots of jewels. Only I have none. If you were really nice, really kind to me, you would give them to your poor little Juliette.... There now!"
I stammered out:
"Certainly. I want to—very much ... but later ... next week!"
Juliette's face grew dark:
"Why next week? Can't you do it now, right now!"
"Well you see ... now ... I am short of money.... I am a little hard up."
"What? Already? You haven't got a sou? Is that a fact? Where did all your money go? You have not a sou left?"
"Why yes, I have! Only I am a little short of cash temporarily."
"Well if that's the case it doesn't matter. I have also made inquiries about the terms. They would agree to accept promissory notes. Five notes of six thousand francs each. That is not such a mighty matter!"
"Undoubtedly. But a little later! I promise you. Is that all right?"
"Ah!" Juliette said simply.
I looked at her, the wrinkle on her forehead terrified me; I saw a hidden glimmer flare up in her eyes, and in the space of a second a world of extraordinary sensations hitherto unknown to me, took hold of me. Very clearly, with perfect understanding, with cruel indifference, with a startling conciseness of judgment I put the following question to myself: "Juliette and dishonor; Juliette and prison?" I did not hesitate.
"Let's go in," I said.
She took the string of pearls away with her.
In the evening, wearing her pearls, she sat down on my lap, radiant, with her arms closed around my neck. She sat so for a long time, lulling me with her sweet voice.
"Ah, my poor sweetie," she said, "I am not always sensible! Yes, I realize. I am a little foolish sometimes. But I am through now! I want to be a good, a serious-minded woman. And you shall work undisturbed, you'll write a good novel—a nice play. Then we shall be rich, very rich. And then if you should happen to be very much short of money we could sell this beautiful string of pearls! Because jewels are not like dresses, they are just as good as money. Press me in your arms strongly."
Ah! how fast that night was gone! How the hours sped by, no doubt frightened to hear love shrieking with a horrible voice of one who is damned.
Disasters followed one another and soon reached their climax. The promissory notes that I had given Juliette's jeweler remained unpaid. I had a hard time borrowing enough money to satisfy our everyday needs. My father had left some uncollected debts at Saint-Michel. Generous and kind-hearted, he liked to help out small farmers in a pinch. Pitilessly I started the process servers after these poor devils, causing them to sell their hovels, their piece of land, the things with the aid of which they made a miserable living, depriving themselves of everything. In the shops where I still had credit I bought things which I immediately resold at a very low price. I stooped to putting through the most questionable deals. My brains teemed with original plans of blackmail, and I tired Jesselin with my endless requests of money. Finally one day I went to see Lirat. I needed five hundred francs that evening, and I went to Lirat, deliberately, boldly! In his presence, however, in that studio full of painful memories, my self-assurance deserted me and I felt a sense of belated shame. I was with Lirat a quarter of an hour, without venturing to explain to him the thing that I expected of his friendship.... Of his friendship!... At last I made up my mind to go.
"Well, good bye, Lirat!"
"Good bye, my friend."
"Ah! I forgot. Could you lend me five hundred francs? I am expecting my farm rents. They are overdue."
And I added rapidly:
"I'll give them back to you tomorrow—tomorrow morning."
Lirat fixed his glance on me for a moment. I can still see that glance. It was truly sorrowful.
"Five hundred francs!" he said. "Where in the devil do you expect me to get them? Have I ever had five hundred francs?"
I insisted, repeating:
"I'll give them back to you tomorrow ... tomorrow morning."
"But I haven't got them, my poor Mintié. I have only two hundred francs left. Would that do you any good?"
I was thinking that these two hundred francs which he offered meant to him a whole month's subsistence. I answered with a bleeding heart:
"Well, all right! All the same! I'll give them back to you tomorrow ... tomorrow morning."
"That is all right!"
At that moment I would have wished to throw myself on Lirat's neck, to beg his pardon, to shout: "No, no I don't want this money!" And like a thief I took it away with me.
My properties, the Priory itself, the old familiar house mortgaged several times, were sold!... Ah! the sad journey which I made on that occasion!... It was a long time since I had been to Saint-Michel! And yet in my hours of disgust and weariness, in the evil excitement of Paris, the thought of this peaceful little place was sweet and calming. The pure wafts of air which came to me from there had a refreshing effect upon my congested brains, they soothed my heart burned by the corrosive acids which are carried along by the infected air of cities, and I often promised myself that whenever I got tired of always chasing dreams, I would seek refuge there amid the peace and serenity of native objects.... Saint-Michel!... Never was the place so dear to me as after I had left it; it seemed to me that it contained riches and beauty such as I had never known how to enjoy and which I now suddenly discovered ... I loved to direct my memories there, best of all I loved to recall the forest, the beautiful forest where, as a restless, dreamy child, I had lost my way so many times.... Inhaling with keen delight the aroma of the rich sap of trees, the ear enchanted by the harmonies of the wind which caused the underwood and forest trees to vibrate like harps and violin cellos, I lost myself in the large alleys overhung with trembling foliage, large, straight alleys which far, far away ended abruptly and opened up like a church bay upon the light of a pane of sky, arched and luminous....