In these dreams I saw the branches of oak trees reach out their foliage greener than ever, happy to find me again; young staddles greeted me with a joyous rustle as I passed by; they seemed to say to me: "Look how big we grew, how smooth and strong our trunks are, how good the air in which we spread out our slender, swaying boughs, how bountiful the soil in which we sink our roots always full of life—-giving sap." The moss and peat mould called me: "We have prepared a nice bed for you, little fellow, a nice fragrant little bed such as you won't find in the miserably gilded houses of the big cities.... Stretch yourself out, roll on it if you are too warm, the fern will sway its gentle fans over your head, the beech trees will spread their branches open to let through a sunbeam which will gladden your heart." Alas! ever since I fell in love with Juliette—these voices have gradually become silent. These memories no longer came back like guardian angels to lull me to sleep and to gently stir their white wings in the agitated azure of my dreams!... My past had become estranged from me, ashamed of me!...
The train sped on; it had cleared the plains of Beauce, even more melancholy to look at than in the grim days of the war.... And I recognized the small, humpy fields, their hedges of brushwood, the scattered apple trees, the narrow valleys, the poplars with their tops bent in the shape of hoods, which in the fields resembled a strange procession of blue penitents, the farms with high mossgrown roofs, highways deep cut and rough, bordered with girdled trees, which slanted down in the midst of sturdy verdure, the woods down yonder, black against the setting sun.... It was getting dark when I arrived at Saint-Michel. I liked it better so.... To cross the streets in full daylight, under the gaze of all these excellent people who had known me as a child, would have been too painful for me.... It seemed to me that I was laden with so much shame that they would turn away from me with horror as from a mangy dog.... I quickened my pace, rolling up the collar of my overcoat.... The grocery owner, named Madame Henriette, who in the past used to stuff me with cake, was standing in front of her store and talking to her neighbors.... I was afraid they might be talking about me and, leaving the sidewalk I took to the roadway.... Fortunately a cart passed by, the noise of which drowned the words of these women: The Presbytery ... the Convent of the Sisters ... the church ... the Priory!... At this hour the Priory was nothing but a huge black mass in the sky.... My heart failed me.... I had to lean against one of the posts of the gate to catch my breath.... A few steps away the forest murmured, its dull voice growing in amplitude, angry, like the raging roar of breakers....
Marie and Felix were waiting for me.... Marie older and more wrinkled, Felix, more stooping and shaking his head more than ever....
"Ah! Monsieur Jean!... Monsieur Jean!..." And forthwith taking possession of my valise, Marie said:
"You ought to be pretty hungry by this time, Monsieur Jean!... I have some soup for you, the kind you used to like, and then I have put a nice chicken on the spit."
"Thank you!" I said. "I shall not dine."
I would have liked to embrace both of them, to open my arms for them, to cry upon their old, parched faces.... And instead! my voice was harsh, trenchant. I uttered "I shall not dine" in the manner of a threat. They looked at me somewhat frightened, but never stopped repeating:
"Ah! Monsieur Jean!... It has been such a long time!... Ah! Monsieur Jean!... What a handsome young man you are!..."
Then Marie, thinking that she would gain my interest thereby, began telling me the news of the place:
"That poor Monsieur the curé is dead, you know. The new one in his place don't seem to be getting ahead at all, he is too young and anxious.... Baptiste has been crushed to death by a tree."
I interrupted her:
"All right, all right, Marie.... You'll tell me about it tomorrow."
She took me to my bedroom and asked:
"Shall I bring you a bowl of milk, Monsieur Jean?"
"If you please!"
And closing the door, I flung myself on the lounge and sobbed for a long, long time.
The next day I got up at dawn.... The Priory had not changed much: there was only more grass in the alleys, more moss on the steps, and a few trees were dead. Again I saw the gate, the scurfy lawn, the puny looking sorbs, the aged chestnut trees. Again I saw the basin where the little kitten had been shot, the curtain of fir trees which hid the commons from view, the abandoned study; I saw the park, its twisted trees and stone benches that looked like ancient tombs.... In the kitchen garden Felix was digging a border bed for flowers.... Ah! poor man, how battered his frame was!
He showed me a hawthorn and said:
"That is where you used to come with your poor deceased father to lie in wait for the blackbirds.... Do you remember, Monsieur Jean?"
"Yes, yes, Felix!"
"And also the thrush?"
"Yes, yes, Felix!"
I walked away. I could not bear the sight of this old man any longer, this man who thought he was going to live to the end of his days at the Priory and whom I was about to drive out ... and where was he to go?... He had served us faithfully, he was almost one of our family, poor, unable to gain a livelihood otherwise. And I was going to chase him out!... Ah! How could I bring myself to do that?
At breakfast Marie seemed nervous. She walked around my chair, unusually excited.
"Beg pardon!" she said to me at last, "I must clear up all my doubts about this matter.... Is it true that you are selling the Priory?..."
"Yes, Marie."
The old woman opened wide her eyes, stupefied, and, placing her hands on the table, repeated:
"You are selling the Priory?"
"Yes, Marie."
"The Priory where all your family was born?... The Priory where your father and your mother died?... The Priory, Holy Jesus!"
"Yes, Marie."
She recoiled as if frightened.
"Then you are a wicked son, Monsieur Jean!"
I made no reply. Marie left the dining room and did not speak to me any more.
Two days later, my business having been attended to, the deed signed, I left.... My money was hardly enough to last me a month.... I was done for! Overwhelming debts, ignoble debts was all that was left to me!... Ah! if the train could only carry me on and on, always further on, never to arrive anywhere!... It was only in Paris that I reminded myself that I had not even gone to kneel down at the grave of my father and mother.
Juliette received me tenderly. She embraced me passionately.
"Ah! dear, dear!... I thought you would never come back!... Five days, just think of it!... Next time if you have to go again I want to go with you."
She appeared so affectionate, so truly moved, her caresses gave me such confidence, and then the burden on my soul was so heavy, that I did not hesitate to tell her everything. I took her in my arms and put her on my lap.
"Listen to me, my Juliette," I said to her, "listen to me!... I am lost ... ruined ... ruined ... do you hear, ruined!... We have only four thousand francs left!..."
"Poor boy!" Juliette sighed while placing her head on my shoulder, "poor boy!..."
I burst out sobbing, and cried out:
"You understand now that I must leave you.... And I am going to die if I do!"
"Come now, you are silly to talk that way.... Do you believe I could live without you, my dear?... Come now, don't cry, don't grieve so much...."
She dried the tears from my eyes and continued in her voice which grew sweeter with every word.
"First of all we have four thousand francs.... We can live four months on that.... During these four months you'll work.... Let us see if you can't write a good novel in four months!... But don't cry, because if you cry, I won't tell you a great secret ... a great, great secret.... Do you know what your little wifie did, who little suspected that herself—do you know?... Well, for three days she went to the riding school, she took lessons in horsemanship—and next year when she is well trained, Franconi will engage her.... Do you know what a woman rider in a fashionable riding school makes.... Two thousand, three thousand francs a month!... You see now, there isn't much to grieve over, my poor little boy!"
All nonsense, all folly seemed logical to me. I clung to it desperately as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the insecure wreckage tossed by the waves. Provided it kept me afloat for an instant, I did not care toward what dangerous reefs, toward what blacker depths it swept me on. I also cleaved to that absurd hope of one doomed to perish, which even on the slaughter stake, which even under the knife, still expects the impossible to happen: a sudden change, an earthly catastrophe which will deliver him from death. I permitted myself to be deluded by the pretty purring of Juliette's words! A firm resolve to work heroically filled my spirit and threw me into raptures.... I had visions of multitudes of people bending breathlessly over my books, of theatres where grave and painted men were coming forward and uttering my name to the boundless enthusiasm of the audience. Overcome with fatigue, worn out with emotion, I fell asleep.
We finished dinner. Juliette was even more affectionate than at the time when I came back. Nevertheless, I noticed a sort of uneasiness, a preoccupied air in her. She was sad and gay at one and the same time: What was going on behind this forehead over which clouds were passing? Did she decide to leave me, in spite of all her protestations, and did she want to make our separation easier by lavishing on me all the treasures of her caresses?
"How annoying, my dear!" she said, "I have to go out."
"What do you mean, you have to go out? Now?"
"Why yes, just think of it. That poor Gabrielle is very ill. She is alone—I have promised to come to see her! Oh! but I won't stay very long.... About an hour...."
Juliette spoke very naturally. But I don't know why, it seemed to me that she was lying, that she was not going to Gabrielle at all. And suspicion, vague, terrifying suspicion pierced my heart. I said to her:
"Can't you wait till tomorrow?"
"Oh, that's impossible! Don't you understand, I have promised."
"Please, do me a favor! Go tomorrow...."
"That's impossible! Poor Gabrielle!"
"All right!... I'll go with you.... I'll wait for you at the door!..."
Cunningly I studied her.... Her face was motionless.... No, really her muscles did not betray the least surprise. She answered gently:
"There is no sense in that!... You are tired.... Go to bed!..."
And forthwith I saw the train of her gown stream behind the drawn door curtain like a snake.... Juliette is in her dressing room.... And with eyes fixed upon the table cloth where the red reflection of a bottle of wine is flitting, I recall that recently some women came to this house, fleshly squint-eyed women, women who had the air of dogs scenting ordure.... I remember I had asked Juliette who those women were. One time Juliette answered: "That's the corset maker." Another time she said: "That's the embroiderer." And I believed her! One day I picked up on the carpet a visiting card which read.... Madame Rabineau, 114 Rue de Sèze. "Who was this Mme. Rabineau?" Juliette answered: "That's nothing ... give it here...." And she tore the card up.... And fool that I was, I did not even go to the Rue de Sèze to find out!... I recall all that.... Ah! how could I ever fail to understand?... Why didn't I seize them by the neck, these vile dealers in human flesh?...
And suddenly a great veil is lifted from my eyes, behind it I see Juliette with defiled body, exhausted and hideous, selling herself to human vultures!... Juliette is there, putting on her gloves, in front of me, in a dark dress with a thick veil which hides her features.... The shadow of her hand dances upon the table cloth, lengthens out, grows broader, shrinks again, disappears and comes back again.... I shall always see this diabolic shadow, always!...
"Kiss me, dearie!"
"Don't go out Juliette, don't go out, I implore you!"
"Embrace me ... closer ... closer yet...."
She is sad.... Through the thick veil I feel on my cheek the moisture of a tear.
"Why do you cry, Juliette.... Juliette, for pity's sake, stay with me!"
"Embrace me.... I adore you, my Jean.... I adore you!..."
She is gone.... Doors open, close again.... She is gone.... Outside I hear the noise of a rolling carriage. The noise grows fainter and fainter and dies out.... She is gone!...
And here I, too, am on the street.... A cab passes by—114, Rue de Sèze!
My mind was made up quickly.... I figured that I would come there before she could.... She perfectly understood that I was not taken in by that story of Gabrielle's illness.... My anxiety, my eagerness no doubt inspired her with the fear of being spied after, followed, and most likely she would not go to the place immediately. But why did just this abominable thought flash through my mind like lightning?... Why only this possibility and no other?... I still hope that my presentiments have deceived me, that Madame Rabineau "is nothing," that Gabrielle is really sick!
Some kind of a small hotel hedged in between two tall buildings, a narrow door hollowed out in the wall at the end of three steps; a dark façade, whose closed windows let no light penetrate.... It's here!... It is here she is going to come, where she already came perhaps!... Rage drives me toward this door.... I should like to set this house on fire; I should like to make all those detestable ladies hidden there shriek and writhe in agony, in some hellish blaze.... Presently a woman enters, singing and swaying her body, her hands in the pockets of her light jacket.... Why did not I spit in her face?... An old man has come out of his coupé. He passed close to me, snorting, panting, supported under his arm by his valet.... His trembling feet are unable to carry him, between his flabby, swollen eyelids there glimmers a light of beastly dissipation.... Why did I not slash the hideous face of this profligate old faun?... Perhaps he is waiting for Juliette!... The door of the Inferno opened before him—and for an instant my eyes plunged into the pits of hell.... I thought I saw red flames, smoke, abominable embraces, the tumbling down of creatures horribly twisted together.... But no, it is only a gloomy deserted hallway, lit by the pale shine of a lamp; then at the end of it there is something black like a dark hole, where one feels impure things are stirring.... And carriages are stopping in front of the building, dumping out their haul of human dung into this sink of love.... A little girl barely ten years old follows me: "Nice violets! Nice violets!" ... I give her a gold piece. "Go away from here, little one, go away!... Don't stay here. They will get you!..."
My mind is over-exerted. A thousand-toothed sorrow gnaws at my heart, a thousand claws sink into it, tears it to pieces in a frenzy of grief.... A desire to kill is kindled in me and makes my arms go through murderous motions.... Ah, to rush, whip in hand, into the midst of this lustful crowd and lash their bodies until ineffaceable marks are left on them, cause their warm blood to spurt, and scatter pieces of their living flesh all over the mirrors, carpets, beds!... And nail that Rabineau woman to the door of this house of ill-fame, like an owl on the doors of farm barns, nail her stripped, disemboweled, with her vitals out!... A hackney coach has stopped: a woman steps out. I recognize the hat, the veil, the dress.
"Juliette!"
On seeing me, she utters a cry.... But she regains her composure quickly.... Her eyes defy me.
"Leave me alone," she cries out to me. "What are you doing here?... Leave me alone!"
I almost crush her wrists, and in a suffocating voice which rattles:
"Listen now.... If you make another step ... if you say another word ... I'll knock you dead right here—on this sidewalk, and tramp you to death under my feet."
With a heavy blow I strike her in the face and with my nails I furiously claw her forehead and cheeks from which blood is gushing.
"Jean! Oh! Jean!... Have mercy, please!... Jean, mercy; Mercy!... Have pity on me!... You are killing me...."
Rudely I drag her toward the carriage ... and we get in.... Huddled up in two, she sits there right close to me, sobbing.... What am I going to do now?... I don't know.... In truth I don't know. I don't ask myself any questions. I don't think of anything.... It seems as though a mountain of stone has descended upon me.... I feel the heavy rocks on which my neck has crashed, against which my flesh has been bruised.... Why, with all the black despair in which I find myself, do these high walls rise up towards heaven? Why these dismal birds flying about in unexpected sunshine?... Why is this thing crouched down beside me crying?... Why?... I don't know....
I am going to kill her.... She is in her bedroom without lights, in bed.... I am in the dressing room pacing up and down ... I am walking back and forth with constrained breath, my head on fire, with clinched fists eager to inflict punishment.... I am going to kill her!... From time to time I stop near the door and listen.... She is crying.... And in a minute I will enter.... I will enter and pull her off the bed, drag her by the hair, knock her senseless, break her neck against the marble edges of the fireplace.... I want the room to be red with her blood.... I want to see her body beaten into lumps of battered flesh which I shall throw out with the rest of the rubbish and which the garbage man will take away tomorrow.... Cry, cry!... In a minute you'll howl, my dearest!... Haven't I been stupid!... To think of everything but that!... To fear everything except that!... To say to myself: "she will leave me" and never, never: "she will deceive me...." To have failed to divine the nature of this den, this old man, all this filth!... Really I had never thought of it before, blind fool that I was. She must have laughed when I implored her not to leave me!... To leave me.... Ah! yes, to leave me!... She did not want to, of course.... Now I understand it.... I inspired her neither with probity of heart nor with decency of conduct; I was to her just a label, a trade mark ... a mark of superior value!... Yes, when they saw her in my arms and therefore priced her more highly, she could sell herself for much more than she would have received if, like a nocturnal ghoul, she had roamed the sidewalks and haunted the obscene shadows of the streets.... She had swallowed my fortune in one gulp.... Her lips had rendered my mentality sterile at the first touch—. Now she is gambling with my honor, that is consistent.... With my honor!... How could she know that I had none left?...
But am I really going to kill her?... When one is dead, everything is forgotten!... One bares one's head before the coffin of a criminal, one bows in sadness before the dead body of a prostitute.... In the churches, believers kneel down and pray for those who have suffered, for those who have sinned.... At the cemeteries reverence watches over the graves and the cross protects them.... To die is to be forgiven!... Yes, death is beautiful, holy, noble!... Death is the beginning of the great eternal light.... Ah, to die!... to stretch oneself out on a mattress softer than the softest moss in birds' nests.... To think no more.... To hear the noise of life no longer!... To feel the infinite sweetness of nothingness!... To be a soul!...
I shall not kill her.... I shall not kill her because she has to suffer ... terribly, always.... Let her suffer in all her beauty, in all her pride, in her exposed carnality of a prostitute!... I shall not kill her, but I shall disfigure her to such an extent, I shall make her look so repulsive that people, frightened, will flee at the sight of her.... And every evening I shall compel her to appear on the streets, at the theatre, everywhere with her nose crushed, her eyes bulging out from under eyelids fringed with black rings, without a veil!...
Suddenly sobs from my throat.... I fling myself on the couch, biting the cushion, and cry and cry!... Minutes, hours pass and I am still crying!... Ah! Juliette, vile Juliette!... Why did you do that?... Why?... Could you not say to me: "Here now, you are not rich any more and all I want of you is money.... Leave me!" That would have been cruel, it might have meant my death.... But what of it?... It would have been better.... How can I look into your face now?... How can our mouths ever touch each other?... There is now between us the thick wall of that wicked place!... Ah! Juliette!... Wretched Juliette!...
I remember her going out.... I recollect everything!... I recall how she was dressed in her gray dress, the shadow of her hand dancing strangely on the back of her neck.... I see her as clearly as if she were before me now, and even more so.... She was sad, she was crying.... I am sure it was not mere imagination on my part ... she was actually crying, for my cheek was wet with her tears! Whom was she crying over, me or herself? Ah! ... who knows?... I remember.... I said to her: "Don't go out, my Juliette!..." She replied: "Embrace me closely, very closely, more closely yet!..." And her caresses had the passion of despair in them, a kind of shrivelling grip, a sort of fear as if she had wanted to cling to me, to seek tremblingly protection in my arms.... I can see her eyes, her beseeching look.... They seemed to implore me: "Something abominable is drawing me on.... Hold me back!... I am close to your heart ... do not let me go!..." And instead of taking her in my arms, carrying her away, hiding her and loving her so as to make her giddy with happiness, I opened up my arms and let her go!... She sought refuge in my love, and I denied it to her.... She cried to me: "I adore you, I adore you!..." And I stood there like a fool, amazed as is a child at the unexpected flapping of the wings of a captive bird that has just escaped.... I did not understand that sadness, those tears, those caresses, those words more tender than usual, that trembling.... It is only now that I hear those silent, melancholy words: "My dear Jean, I am a poor little woman, a little foolish and so weak!... I had no idea of anything big or worth while.... Who was there to teach me what chastity, duty, virtue meant!... When I was a child yet, evil surroundings contaminated me, and vice was taught to me by the very people who were supposed to be my guardians.... Still I am not wicked and I love you.... I love you more than I ever loved you!... My beloved Jean, you are strong, you know many beautiful things which I don't.... Well, protect me!... An overpowering desire draws me there.... The trouble is I have seen too much jewelry, too many gowns and other exquisite and expensive trifles which you can't buy me any longer but which others have promised to get me!... I have an instinctive feeling that it's wrong and that it will cause you suffering.... Well, subdue me!... I ask for no other chance than to be good and virtuous.... Teach me how!... Beat me ... if I resist!..."
Poor Juliette!... It seems to me that she is down on her knees before me, with clasped hands.... Tears are rolling from her eyes, from her big eyes downcast and sweet.... Tears are streaming from her eyes endlessly as they used to stream from the eyes of my mother in the past.... And at the thought that I wanted to kill her, that I wanted to disfigure her delightful and sorrowful face through horrible mutilation, I am seized with remorse and my wrath gives way to pity.... She goes on.... "Forgive me!... Oh! my Jean you must forgive me.... It is not my fault, I assure you.... Try to recall.... Did you ever warn me, even once?... Did you ever show me even once the way which I should follow? Through weakness, through fear of losing me, through excessive and criminal kindness, you have yielded to all my whims, even the most wicked ones.... How could I know that it was wrong, when you have never told me anything?... Instead of stopping me on the brink of the precipice where I was headed, you yourself have pushed me into it.... What example have you placed before my eyes?... Whither have you led me?... Have you ever tried to take me out of this alarming atmosphere of debauchery?... Why didn't you chase Jesselin or Gabrielle out of our house, all those degenerates whose very presence only helped to increase my wickedness?... To breathe into me a particle of your own soul, to send a ray of light into the darkness of my brains—that is what you should have done!... Yes, you should have given me another life, you should have made me over again!... I am guilty, my Jean!... And I am so ashamed of myself that I can never hope to be able to atone for the infamy of this evil hour even with a whole life of sacrifice and repentance.... But you!... Is your conscience satisfied that you have done your duty?... I dread not the expiation of my sins.... On the contrary I welcome it, I want it.... But you?... Can you sit in judgment over a crime which I admit I have committed, but in which you, too, have had a part since you have not done anything to prevent it!... My dear beloved, listen to me.... This body which I have attempted to defile horrifies you; hereafter you will not be able to look at it without rage and anguish.... All right then, let it perish!... Let it rot in the oblivion of a graveyard!... There shall be left to you my soul, it belongs to you, for it has never forsaken you, for it loves you.... See how white and pure it is...."
A knife glistens in Juliette's hands.... She is going to kill herself with it.... I grasp her arms, I shout: "No, no, Juliette, no, I don't want you to!... I love you!... No, no.... I don't want you to!"
My arms are brought together in an embrace, but I enclose nothing but space.... I look around me, frightened, the place is empty!... I look again.... The gas is burning with a yellow flame over the dressing table ... rumpled skirts are strewn all over the carpet ... shoes lie scattered about.... And pale daylight is stealing into the room through the open spaces in the shutters.... I begin to fear in earnest that Juliette may kill herself, for otherwise why should this vision arise before me?... On tiptoe, quietly I walk toward the door and listen.... A feeble sigh reaches my ear, then a wailing, then a sob.... And like a fool I rush into the room.... A voice speaks to me in the darkness, the voice of Juliette:
"Ah! my Jean! My dear little Jean!"
And chastely, as Christ kissed Magdalene, I kissed her on the forehead.
"Lirat! Ah, at last it is you! For a week I have been looking for you, have been writing to you, have been calling you, have been waiting for you.... Lirat, my dear Lirat, save me!"
"What? My God! What's wrong?"
"I want to kill myself."
"Kill yourself! Well, that's an old story. Come, there is no danger."
"I want to kill myself! I want to kill myself!..."
Lirat looked at me, blinked his eyes and paced up and down the study with long strides.
"My poor Mintié!" he said, "if you were a statesman, a stockbroker or.... Well, I don't know ... say a grocer, an art critic, or a journalist, I would say to you: 'You are unhappy and you have had enough of life, my boy! Go ahead, kill yourself!' And with these words I would leave you. But here you have that rare opportunity of being an artist, you possess that divine gift of seeing, understanding, feeling things which others can't see, can't understand and can't feel! There are harmonies in nature which exist only for you and which others will never hear ... you have all the real joys of life, the only joys, the noble, grand and pure ones, the joys which make you forget men and which render you almost Godlike. And because some woman has deceived you, you want to renounce all that? She has deceived you; it is evident that she has deceived you.... Well, what else did you expect her to do? And what concern is it of yours, even if she has?..."
"Please don't jeer at me. You don't know anything, Lirat. You don't suspect anything. I am lost, dishonored!"
"Dishonored, my friend? Are you sure of it? Do you have unclean debts? You'll pay them off!"
"It is not a question of that! I am dishonored! dishonored, do you understand? It has been four months since I have given Juliette any money ... four months! And here I live, I eat, have my amusements. Every evening ... before dinner ... late at night.... Juliette re-enters the house. She is worn-out, pale, her hair disheveled. From what dens, what alcoves, what arms is she returning? Upon what pillows has her head reclined! Sometimes I see pieces of bed clothes insolently hanging on the top of her hair.... She no longer feels ashamed of it, she does not even take the trouble to lie about it ... one might think it had been arranged between us. She undresses, and I believe she takes a perverse delight in showing me her ill-fastened skirts, her unlaced corset, all the disorder of her rumpled clothes, of her loosened garments which come off, falling to the ground about her, and lie conspicuously on the floor, filling the bedroom with the breath of other people!
"I tremble with rage and want to sink my teeth into her body; my wrath is kindled to a frenzy and boils within me—I feel like killing her. And I say nothing! Often I even come up to her to embrace her ... but she pushes me away: 'No, leave me alone, I am tired!' At first, when this abominable life started, I used to beat her ... for you must know, Lirat, there isn't a disgraceful act that I have not committed. I have exhausted every form of indecency—yes, I beat her! She bent her back ... and hardly uttered a complaint. One evening I seized her by the throat, I threw her to the ground. Oh! I had quite made up my mind to finish her. While I was strangling her, I turned my head away for fear that I might be moved to pity, fixed my gaze upon a flower design on the carpet, and in order to hear nothing, neither her wailing nor rattling, I shrieked out inarticulate words, like a possessed one. How long did it last? Soon she ceased struggling ... her muscles relaxed.... I felt her vitality giving out under my fingers ... a few more convulsions ... and that was the end.... She did not stir any more. And suddenly I saw her black-blue face, her contracted eyes, her mouth, large and wide open, her rigid body, her motionless arms. And like a madman I rushed into every room of the apartment, calling the servants: 'Help, help, I have killed Madame! I have killed Madame!'
"I fled, tumbling down the stairway, without a hat, dashed into the caretakers: 'Go upstairs quickly, I have killed Madame!' Then I darted out on the street, in a frenzy. The whole night I was running without knowing whither, rushing along the boulevards, crossing bridges, dashing against benches in the parks and mechanically turning back toward the house. It seemed to me that through its closed shutters there penetrated the light of wax tapers; priests' vestments, surplices, eucharists passed before me in confusion; it seemed to me that I could hear funeral chants, the rumble of organs, the noise of ropes rubbing against the wood of the coffin. I pictured Juliette stretched out on the bed, dressed in a white robe, her hands clasped, a crucifix on her breast and flowers about her. And I was surprised not to see black draperies on the door, or a hearse with flowers and wreaths at the entrance outside, or people in mourning fighting for a chance to be sprinkled with holy water.
"Oh, Lirat, what a night that was! How did I ever manage not to throw myself under the wheels of the carriages, crash my head against the housewall, or plunge into the Seine. I don't know!... Day came.... I had a notion to surrender to the police. I wanted to go up to a policeman on the street and say to him: 'I have killed Juliette.... Arrest me!' But thoughts, each wilder than the other, came to my mind, clashed and yielded to others. And I ran and ran as if pursued by a pack of barking hounds.... It was Sunday, I remember. There were many people on the streets flooded with sunshine. I was sure that all looked at me, that these people, seeing me run, cried out in horror: 'Here is Juliette's murderer!'
"Toward evening, worn out, on the verge of collapsing on the sidewalk, I met Jesselin! 'I say,' he exclaimed, 'you have done a nice thing, you have!' 'Do you already know it?' 'Why, all Paris knows it, dear friend. A little while ago, at the races, Juliette showed us her neck and the marks which your fingers had left on it. She said: "Jean did this to me." Why, man you are getting on fine!' And while parting, he added: 'For the rest, she has never been more beautiful. And such a success!' And so you see that while I believed her to be dead, she was promenading at the racetrack. I had left the house and she could have thought that I would never come back again, and yet she went to the races ... prettier than ever!"
Lirat gravely listened to me. He was not pacing about any more; he seated himself and shook his head.
"What do you want me to tell you? You must go away."
"Go away?" I rejoined. "I should go away? But I don't want to! An adhesive force like glue which is getting thicker every day holds me fast to her carpets, a chain growing heavier every day holds me riveted to her walls. I can't leave her! Look, at this very moment I am dreaming of committing all sorts of mad, heroic acts. To cleanse myself of all this baseness, I am ready to throw myself in front of the fire-spitting muzzles of a hundred cannons. I feel myself strong enough to crush whole formidable armies single handed. When I walk on the street I look for runaway horses, fires or any other dangerous adventure where I can sacrifice my life. There is not a perilous or superhuman deed that I have not the courage to perform. But, that! I can not do!
"At first I offered myself the most ridiculous excuses, I gave myself the most illogical reasons for not leaving her. I said to myself that if I left her, Juliette would sink to even lower depths; that my love for her had in some manner been her last vestige of decency which I should finally succeed in restoring by saving her from the mire in which she wallowed. Truly I had been repaid by the luxury of pity and self sacrifice. But I was lying! I simply can't leave her! I can't because I love her, because the more depraved she is the more I love her. Because I want her, do you hear, Lirat? And if you only knew what it means to me, this love, what frenzies, what shame, what tortures? If you only knew to what depths of Hell passion can sink, you would be horrified! At night when she is asleep, I prowl about in her dressing room, opening drawers, digging among the cinders of the fire place, putting together pieces of torn letters, smelling the linens which she has just removed, devoting myself to the vilest spying, to the most shameful searching! It was not enough for me to know; I had to see as well! I have no longer a mind, a heart, or anything. I am just the embodiment of disordered, raving, famished sex, which demands its share of living flesh, like the fallow-deer that howl in their frenzy on rutting nights."
I was exhausted ... the words came out of my throat with a hissing sound ... still I continued.
"Ah! It is beyond all comprehension! Sometimes it happens that Juliette is sick. Her members, overstrained by pleasure, refuse to obey her; her constitution, worn out by nervous shocks, revolts. She takes to her bed. If you could only see her then? A child, Lirat, a sweet and touching child! She dreams only of the country, little brooks, green prairies, simple joys: 'Oh, my dear, she exclaims, 'with ten thousand francs of income, how happy we should be!' She makes all sorts of Virgilian and charming plans. 'We ought to go far, far away, to live in a house surrounded by tall trees. She will raise chickens which will lay eggs she herself will take out of the hatching place every morning; she will make cream, cheese; and she will wear aprons like this and straw hats like that, jogging along pathways astride a donkey that she will call Joseph. Geeho! Joseph, Geeho! Ah, how nice it will be!'
"When I hear her say that, I feel hope returning and I let myself be taken in by that impossible dream of a rustic life with Juliette disguised as a shepherdess. Quiet landscapes like places of refuge, enchanting like a paradise, unroll before us ... and we grow exalted and enthusiastic. Juliette cries: 'My poor little thing, I have caused you suffering, but now it's all over. I promise you. And then I am going to have a trained ram, am I not? A beautiful ram, very big, all white, around whom I shall tie a bow of red ribbon, and who will follow me everywhere together with Spy, not so, dear?' She insists that I have my dinner in front of her bed, on a little table, and she coddles me like a nurse and caresses me like a mother; she makes me eat as one does a child, repeating without end and with agitation in her voice: 'My poor little thing!'
"At other moments she becomes thoughtful and grave: 'My dear, I would like to ask you something that has been worrying me for a long time; promise that you'll tell me.' I promise. 'Well, when one is dead, in the coffin, is it true that one's feet rest against the board?' 'What an idea! Why do you speak of it?' 'Tell me, please tell me!' 'But I don't know, my dear Juliette!' 'Don't you know? Although it is true that you never know anything when I am serious ... because ... you see?... I don't want my feet to rest against the board. When I am dead ... you shall put a cushion inside and my white dress ... you know the one with pink flowers ... the dress for which I won the first prize! You'll be very sorry, my poor little thing, won't you? Embrace me! Come over here, closer to me, still closer. I adore you!'
"And I used to wish that Juliette were sick all the time! But as soon as she recovers she does not remember anything; her promises, her resolutions are gone and our life of hell begins again, more violent and exasperating than ever. And from that little bit of heaven to which I have held on for a while, I tumble down again into the filth and crime of this love even more frightfully maimed in spirit! Ah! that is not all, Lirat! I should have stayed in that apartment to brood over my shame, don't you think! I should have withdrawn into obscurity and oblivion sufficient to make people believe that I am dead. And instead of that! Well! Go to the Bois and you see me there every day. At the theatre it is I whom you will find in the stage box, in a dress suit, with a flower in my buttonhole, always I! Juliette is resplendent amidst flowers, plumes and gems. She is exquisite, she has a new dress which everyone admires, a stock of smiles each more modest than the other, and the string of pearls, for which I have not paid, which she toys gracefully with the tips of her fingers and without the least remorse. And here I have not a sou, not a sou! And I am at the end of my rope, having exhausted all my swindling tricks and crooked schemes! Often I tremble. It seems to me that the heavy hand of a gendarme is bearing down upon me. Already I hear the painful whisper, I catch the stealthy looks of contempt.
"Little by little emptiness broadens and recedes all around me as around a pestiferous person. Old friends pass by, turn their heads away, avoid me in order not to greet me.... And unwillingly I assume the sly and servile manner of disreputable people who walk with eyes asquint and cringing back in search of an outstretched hand! The horrible thing about it, you see, is that I am perfectly conscious of the fact that it is Juliette's beauty that protects me. It is the desire which she awakens, it is her mouth, it is the mystery of her nude and defiled body which in this pleasure-seeking world shields me with a false esteem, with a lying semblance of respect. A handshake, a grateful look seems to say: 'I have been with your Juliette, and I owe that to you. Perhaps you prefer money? Do you want it?' Yes, just let me quit Juliette and with one kick I shall even be thrown out of this crowd, this facile, fawning and perverted crowd and shall be reduced to sordid association with gamblers and pimps!"
I burst out sobbing. Lirat did not stir, did not raise his head. Motionless, with clasped hands he was looking at something I knew not what ... nothing, I suppose. After a few moments of silence I continued:
"My good Lirat, do you remember our talks in your studio! I used to listen to you, and what you told me was so beautiful! Without suspecting it, perhaps, you awoke noble desires and sublime raptures in me. You breathed into me a little of the belief, ambition and lofty flights of your soul. You taught me how to read nature, to understand her passionate tongue, to feel the emotions latent in things. You proved to me the existence of immortal beauty. You said to me: 'Love, why it is in the earthenware pitcher, it is in the verminous rags which I paint. To take a feeling, a joy, a moment of suffering, of palpitation, a vision, a shudder—anything, no matter how fugitive an experience of life it may be—and recreate it, fix it in colors, in words or sounds, means to love! Love is a man's yearning to create!'
"And I dreamed of becoming a great artist! Ah! my dreams, my delights in being able to perceive things, my doubts, my sacred agonies, do you remember them? Look what I have done with all that! I wanted to love and I went to a woman who kills love. I started with wings, drunk with the air, with the azure, with light! And now I am nothing but a dirty hog, sunk in its filth, with greedy snout and sides shaking with impure rutting. You can see for yourself, Lirat, that I am lost, lost, lost! ... and that I must kill myself."
Then Lirat approached and put both hands on my shoulders:
"You say you are lost! Let us see now; when one is of your stock, can one say that a man's life is lost? You say you must kill yourself? Does a man who has typhoid fever say: 'I must kill myself?' He says: 'I must cure myself!' You have typhoid fever, my poor child ... cure yourself. Lost! Why, there is not a crime, do you hear me, there is not a crime, no matter how monstrous and vile, that can not be redeemed by forgiveness. I don't mean God's forgiveness or man's forgiveness, but one's own forgiveness, which is much more difficult and more worth while to obtain. Lost! I was listening to you, my dear Mintié, and do you know what I was thinking? I was thinking that you had the noblest and most beautiful soul that I ever knew. No, no ... a man who accuses himself as you do ... who puts into his confession of sin the heart-rending accents which you have put in yours just now ... why no—that man is never lost. On the contrary, he finds himself again and he is near redemption. Love has passed over you and has left all the more filth in its wake because of your extremely delicate nature. Well! You must wash this filth off—and I know where the water is that will wash it off. You are going to leave this place ... leave Paris."
"Lirat!" I entreated, "don't ask me to leave! I have tried it twenty times and I cannot do it."
"You are going away," repeated Lirat, whose face suddenly darkened. "Or else I am mistaken about you, and you are a scamp!"
He resumed:
"In the heart of Brittany there is a fishing village, which is called Le Ploch. The air there is pure, nature is superb, man rugged and kind. It is there that you are going to live three months, six months, a year if necessary. You will walk along the sandy shore, across the heath, through pine forests, over rocks; you will dig the soil, you will catch sea wrack, you will lift logs, you will shout in the wind. There, at last, you will subdue this poisoned body insane with love. In the beginning it will be hard for you and you will perhaps feel homesick ... you will rebel, you will be seized with passionate desires to return. Don't be discouraged, I beseech you. On days especially hard to bear, walk all the more ... spend nights out on the sea with the brave people of the place ... and when your heart is heavy, weep, weep. Above all, keep from leading an indolent life, from dreaming, from reading, from carving your name on the rocks and tracing it on the sand. Don't think of anything, don't think at all! On such occasions, literature and art are poor counsellors, they are apt to bring you back to love again. Incessant activity of your body, hard physical labor, your flesh worn out by crushing fatigue, your head lashed and made giddy by the wind, by the rain, by storms! I tell you, you will come back from that place not only cured but stronger than ever and better armed for struggle. And you shall have paid your debt to that monster. You say, you shall have paid it with your fortune? Well what of it, that's nothing. Why, I envy you and wish I could go with you. Come, my dear Mintié, a little courage! Go!"
"Yes, Lirat, you are right. I must go away."
"Well go then!"
"I am going away tomorrow, I swear!"
"Tomorrow? Ah, tomorrow! She is going to come back, isn't that the idea? And you will throw yourself in her arms again. No, go now!"
"Let me write to her. I can't leave her like this, without a word, without saying good bye to her. Lirat just think! In spite of all this suffering, in spite of all this shame, there still are happy memories, blissful hours. She is not wicked ... she simply does not know ... that's all ... but she loves me. I shall go away, I promise you I shall. But give me just one more day! One more day! One day is not much, especially since I shall not see her any more! Ah, one more day!"
"No, go now!"
"Lirat! My good Lirat!"
"No!"
"But I have no money! How do you expect me to go without money?"
"I have enough left to last you over the trip; I'll send it to you there. Go!"
"At least let me get my things ready!"
"I have some wool stockings and caps; that's what you need. Go!"
He hurried me away. Without seeing anything, without realizing anything, I went through the apartment, bumping into pieces of furniture. I did not feel any pain, for I was insensible to everything; I was walking behind Lirat with the heavy step and the passive gait of a beast led to slaughter.
"Well where is your hat?"
"That's right! I went out without a hat. I did not think that I was abandoning, that I was leaving behind anything that was a part of me; that the things which I saw, in the midst of which I lived, were dying one after another as soon as I passed by them."
The train left at eight o'clock in the evening. Lirat did not leave me all day. Wishing, no doubt, to occupy my mind and to keep my will power at its highest pitch, he spoke to me with broad gestures; but I did not hear anything except a confused noise, annoying me and buzzing about my ears like pestering flies. We dined in a restaurant near the Mont Parnasse railroad station. Lirat continued to talk, stupefying me with gestures and words, tracing strange geographic lines with his knife on the table.
"Look, there's where it is! Then you will follow this side ... and ..."
I believe he was giving me instructions about my trip to the place of exile I was bound for ... told me the names of villages, persons. The word 'sea' recurred again and again with the rumble of pebbles, washed by the waves and rubbing against one another.
"Will you remember?"
And without knowing exactly what he referred to, I answered:
"Yes, yes, I'll remember."
It was only at the station, this vast building, filled with noise and bustle, that I realized my situation. I felt terribly downhearted. And so I was going away! It's all over then! Never again shall I see Juliette, never again! At this moment I forgot all my suffering, my shame, my ruin, the irreparable conduct of Juliette and remembered only our brief moments of happiness, and I rebelled against the injustice of being separated from my well-beloved. Lirat meantime was saying:
"And then, if you only knew what a bliss it is to live among the lowly, to study their poor but worthy life, their resignation of martyrs, their...."
I had a notion to escape his surveillance, to flee then and there. A foolish hope kept me from doing that. I said to myself: 'Celestine will no doubt bring word to Juliette that Lirat has been at the house, that he has led me away by force; she will understand at once that something horrible is happening, that I am at this station, that I am going to leave. And she will come running.' I really believed she would. So strong was my faith that through the large open windows, I watched the people who were entering; I searched among the various groups, examined closely the dense crowd of passengers standing in front of the track gate. And whenever some elegant lady appeared I gave a start, ready to dart toward her. Lirat went on:
"And to think that there are some people who consider them brutes, these heroes! Ah! you will see those magnificent brutes with their horny hands, their eyes full of infinitude, and their backs which make one weep."
Even on the platform I was still hoping for Juliette's arrival. Surely in a second she will be here, pale, vanquished, suppliant, with outstretched arms: "My Jean, my Jean, I was a bad woman, forgive me! Don't bear me ill-will on account of that, don't forsake me. What do you expect me to become, without you? Oh, come back, my Jean, or else take me along!" And silhouettes flitted and disappeared in the cars; fantastic shadows crept along and split against the walls; long whitish columns of smoke spread out under the vaulted roof....
"Embrace me, my dear Mintié. Embrace me!"
Lirat drew me close to his breast. He was crying. "Write to me as soon as you get there. Good bye!"
He pushed me into a car and drew the door curtain.
"Good bye!"
A whistle, then a dull rolling ... then lights chasing one another ... things receding somewhere ... then nothing ... except black night. Why did Juliette not come? Why? And in the midst of rumpled skirts on the carpets, in her dressing room, in front of her looking glass, I clearly see her, bare-shouldered, applying rice powder to her face. Celestine with her soft flaccid fingers is sewing on a band of crepe at the bottom of the low cut waist, and a man whom I don't know, reclining on the sofa, with crossed legs, watches Juliette with eyes in which desire is gleaming. The gas is burning, candle lights are blazing, a bouquet of roses which someone has just brought, mingles its more delicate perfume with the violent odors of dresses! And Juliette takes a rose, twists its stem, straightens out its petals and sticks it in the buttonhole of the man with a tender smile. A bonnet with hanging strings is perched on top of a chandelier....
And the train is moving on, puffing, panting. The night is ever black, and I am plunging into nothingness....
Lying flat upon the dune, face downward, my elbows sunk in the sand with head buried in my hands, and staring into the space before me, I dream.... The sea is in front of me, immense and glaucous, streaked with violet shadows, plowed by mighty billows whose crests, rising and falling back and forth, are white in the sun. The reefs of la Gamelle from time to time uncover the dark points of their rocks and send forth a dull noise like a distant cannonade. Yesterday the tempest broke loose; today the wind has subsided, but the sea still refuses to quiet down. The waves come up, swell, roll, rise, toss up their manes of swirling foam, break into ripples and fall back upon the pebbles, flat and broken, with a frightful roar of rage. But the sky no longer threatens, streaks of blue appear between the rifts of clouds swiftly borne away, and the seagulls are soaring high in the air. The fishing boats have just left the harbor, they are receding in the distance, diminishing, separating, becoming indistinct and finally vanishing. To my right, dominated by sinking dunes, is the strand extending as far as Ploch, which one can see behind a rise in the ground in the midst of dreary verdure, the roofs of the nearest houses, the belfry of granite stone at the end of which there rises a lighthouse. Beyond the pier the eye can see limitless expanses of pink shores, silvery bays, soft-blue cliffs covered with mist, so faint in the distance that they look like columns of vapor, and the ever present sea and the ever present sky which blend together yonder into a sort of mysterious and poignant elimination of all things.... To my left the dune, where the broomrape spreads its corymbs of purple flowers, ends abruptly. The ground rises, becomes steep and the rocks pile up, topple over, form openings of roaring abysses or plunge into the sea, cleaving its body like the prows of giant vessels. Further on there is the beach again.
The sea, held back by the shore, ever turbulent and white with foam, leaps and beats impetuously against the side of the cliffs. And the shore continues jagged, indented and worn away by the eternal onrush of the waves crumbling into a chaotic mass or rising and shaping themselves into awesome shadows against the sky. Over my head flocks of linnets are flying, and above the rage of the waves the wind brings to me the plaint of cock-pigeons and curlews.
It is here that I come every day. Whether it be windy or rainy, whether the sea howl or hum peacefully, whether it be clear or dark, I always come to this place.... It is not, however, because the sight impresses and moves me or that the terrible or charming aspect of nature consoles me. I hate this nature; I hate the sea, I hate the sky, the cloud that passes, the wind that blows, the birds that circle in the air; I hate everything that surrounds me, everything that I see, everything that I hear. I come here by force of habit, impelled by an animal instinct which calls animals back to the place that is familiar to them. Like the hare, I have dug my seat in the sand and I always come back to it. Whether it is upon the sand or on the moss, in the shadow of the woods, in the depths of the caves or in the sun of the solitary strand—does not matter!
Where can a man who suffers find refuge? Where look for the voice that soothes! Where can he find compassion which dries the eyes that weep? Oh! I know these chaste dawns, these gay noon hours, these pensive evenings and starry nights!... These endless distances where the soul expands, where sorrows dissolve... Ah! I know them!... Beyond this horizon line, beyond this sea, are there no countries like the rest? Are there no people, no trees, no noises?
There is no rest, no silence for me!... To die!... But who can assure me that the thought of Juliette will not come to mingle with the worms to eat me up?... One stormy day I was face to face with Death and I prayed to be taken by him. But Death turned away from me.... He spared me, me who am useless for anything or to anybody, to whom life is more of a torture than the carcass of a condemned criminal or the chain-shot of a galley-slave, and he took another instead—a strong, brave and kindly man for whom poor creatures were waiting! Yes, one time the sea snatched me, rolled me on its waves and then cast me up alive again upon the seashore, as if I were unworthy to perish in it.
The solid mass of clouds breaks up, becomes whiter. The sun showers the sea with rays of brilliant light, the changing green of the sea grows softer, becomes golden in some places and opalescent in others, and near the shore above, the bubbling line is variegated with all the shades of pink and white. The reflections of the sky which the waves endlessly divide, which they break up into a multitude of small fragments of light, glitter upon the agitated surface. Behind the harbor the slender mast of a cutter, which men are towing on the bowline, glides along slowly, then the hull appears, the hauled-up sails swell out, and gradually the vessel moves aways, dancing on the waves. Along the beach which the ebb tide uncovers, an angler is walking hastily, and ship-boys come running to the shore bare-legged, wade in the mud puddles, pick up rocks covered with seaweed, in search of loaches and crabs.... Pretty soon the vessel is nothing but a greyish speck on the horizon line which grows thinner, enveloped in a vacuous fog.... One can see that the sea is getting calm.
It is already two months that I have been here!... two months!... I have walked on the roads, in the fields, through the heaths; I know all the grass blades, all the rocks, all the crosses watching over the crossroads.... Like a tramp I have slept in the ditches, my limbs made numb by the cold, and I have crawled to the foot of the rocks, upon beds of humid foliage; I have wandered over the beach and the cliffs, blinded by the sand, lashed by the spray, deafened by the wind; with bleeding hands and bruised knees I have climbed rocks inaccessible to men, haunted only by sea ravens; I have spent sorrowful nights on the sea and I have seen sailors crossing themselves in the terror of death; I have rolled from the tops of huge boulders, and with the water up to my neck, swept by dangerous currents, I have fished sea weeds; I have climbed trees and I have dug the earth with a mattock.
The people here thought that I was out of my mind. My arms are broken. My flesh is bruised. And yet not for a minute, not for a second has my passion deserted me, it has possessed me even more than in the past. I feel how it strangles me, how it squashes my brains, crunches my chest, gnaws my heart, dries up my veins.... I am like a small animal attacked by a polecat; no matter how much I roll on the ground desperately struggling with its teeth, the polecat holds me and won't let me go. Why did I go away?... Couldn't I hide myself away in a room at some furnished house?... Juliette would come to see me from time to time, nobody would know that I existed, and in my obscurity I could enjoy my heavenly as well as abominable bliss.... Lirat had spoken to me of honor, of duty, and I believed him!... He had said to me: "Nature will console you." And I believed him! Lirat had lied to me. Nature has no soul. Entirely given over to her eternal labor of destruction, she whispers to me nothing but thoughts of death and crime. Never has she bent over my burning forehead to cool it or stooped over my panting breast to calm it. And infinitude has only brought sorrow closer to me! Now I can no longer resist, and vanquished, I abandon myself to grief, without even making an effort to drive it away occasionally.
Though the sun rise in the splendor of silver gilt dawns, though it go down in purple glory, though the sea display its gems, though everything glitter, sing and emit sweet odors, I don't want to see anything, I don't want to hear anything.... I only want to see Juliette in the fugitive outline of the clouds; I only want to hear Juliette in the errant plaint of the wind, and I am ready to kill myself just to grasp her elusive image in the things about me!... I see her at the Bois smiling, happy with her freedom. I see her promenading in the stage boxes; I see her especially at night, in her bedroom. Men enter and go out, others come in and leave, all sated with love! By the glimmer of the night lamp, obscene shadows dance and grimace around her bed; laughter, kisses and dull spasms are stifled in the pillows, and with a swooning look, with trembling mouth, she offers everyone her luxurious body which never tires of pleasure. With my brains on fire, sinking my nails into my throat, I shriek: "Juliette! Juliette!" as if it were possible for Juliette to hear me across the space: "Juliette! Juliette!" Alas! the cry of the sea-gulls and the rumbling noise of the waves beating against the rocks are the only things that answer: "Juliette! Juliette!"
And evening comes.... The fogs float up, pink and weightless, enveloping the shore, the village, while the jetty, almost black, assumes the appearance of the hull of a huge vessel without masts; the sun inclines its copper-colored ball toward the sea, tracing a path of rippling, crimson light upon its limitless extent. Near the shore the water grows darker, and sparkles flare up on the crests of the waves. At this sad hour I return through the fields, meeting again the same carts pulled by oxen covered with cloths of grey flax, seeing the same silhouettes of peasants who, bent over the niggardly soil, struggle grimly with the heath and the rocks. And upon the heights of Saint-Jean where the windmills rotate their sails in the blue of the sky, the same calvary stretches out its supplicating arms....
I lived at the end of the village with Mother Le Gannec, an excellent woman who took care of me as well as she could. The house which opened on the main road was clean, well-kept, furnished with new and shining furniture. The poor woman strove to please me, worked desperately to invent something that would smooth my brow, that would bring a smile upon my lips. She was really touching. Every time I came down in the morning I would find her, knitting stockings or spinning, finished with her housework, alive, alert, almost pretty in her flat cap, her short black shawl, and her apron of green serge.
"Friend Mintié!" she would exclaim, "I have cooked some nice shell-fish fricassee for supper for you.... If you like sea-eel soup better, I'll make you some sea-eel soup."
"Just as you please, Mother Le Gannec."
"But you always say the same thing. Ah! by Jesus! Friend Lirat was not like you at all. 'Mother Le Gannec, I want some oysters and some periwinkles.' To be sure I gave him some oysters and some periwinkles!... But he was never as sad as you are. Why no, indeed!"
And Mother Le Gannec told me some stories about Lirat who stayed with her a whole autumn.
"And he was so lively and so intrepid!... He would go out in the rain 'to take some views.' It did not hurt him a bit. He would come back drenched to the bones but always gay, always singing!... You ought to have seen that fellow eat! Ah, he could swallow the sea in the morning!"
Sometimes, to distract me, she told me her misfortunes, simply, without complaining, repeating with sublime resignation:
"Whatever the good Lord wishes, we must wish also. To cry over it all the time won't help matters a bit."
And in a musical voice which all Bretons possess, she used to say:
"Le Gannec was the best fisherman in Ploch and the most daring seaman on the entire coast. There was none whose fishing boat was better equipped, none who better knew reefs abounding with fish. Whenever a fishing boat dared out in stormy weather it was sure be the Marie Joseph. Everybody held him in high esteem not only because he was courageous but because his conduct was beyond reproach and worthy. He shunned the cabarets like a pest, detested drunkards, and it was an honor to be of the same mind as he was. I must also tell you that he was the commander of a life boat. We had two boys, friend Mintié, strong, well-built and able, one was eighteen years old and the other twenty, and the father expected both to be brave seamen as he was.... Ah! If you had only seen my two handsome boys, friend Mintié! Things were coming along nicely, in fact so nicely that with our savings we were able to build this house and buy this furniture. And so we were contented! One night, it was two years ago, the father and the boys did not return! I was not alarmed at all. It often happened that he had gone out far, as far as Croisic, Sables or Herbaudière. Was it not his business to follow the fish? But days passed and none showed up! And the days were still passing.... And not one came back! Every morning and every evening I used to go to the harbor and look at the sea.... I used to ask the fishermen whom I happened to meet: 'Have you seen the Marie Joseph yet?' 'No,' someone would answer, 'I wonder why they haven't come back?' 'I don't know.' 'Do you think some misfortune happened to them?' 'It's quite possible!' And while saying this the fisherman would cross himself. Then I burned three candles at the Notre Dame du Bon Voyage!... Finally one day, they came back, all three of them, in a big cart, black, swollen, half devoured by crabs and starfishes.... Dead.... Dead ... all three of them, my man and my two handsome boys. The keeper of the Penmarch lighthouse had found them washed upon the rocks."
I was not listening and was thinking of Juliette. Where is she? Why does she keep silent? Eternal questions!
Mother Le Gannec continued:
"I don't know your affairs, friend Mintié, and I don't know why you are so unhappy, but you have not lost your man and your two boys at one stroke as I have! And even if I don't cry, friend Mintié, that does not keep me from feeling sad, you see!"
And when the wind howled, when the sea rumbled from afar, she would add with a grave voice:
"Holy Virgin, have pity on our poor children over yonder on the sea."
While I was thinking:
"Perhaps she is dressing now. Maybe she is still sleeping, worn out during the night."
I used to go out, walk through the village and seat myself on a stump on the Quimper road, at the foot of a long acclivity, waiting for the postman to arrive. The road, laid out in the midst of rocks, is flanked on one side by a long embankment topped by fir trees, on the other side it dominates a small arm of the sea, which winds round the heath, bare and flat, in the midst of which puddles are shining. Here and there cones of grey rock rise up in the air; a few pines spread their blue crowns in the foggy atmosphere. Over my head, ravens never cease flying, strung out in a black and endless line, hastening toward I know not what voracious feasts, and the wind brings the sad tinkling of bells hung on the necks of the scattered cows, grazing upon the niggardly grass of the heath.
As soon as I would see two little white horses and a coach with a yellow body descending the hillside in the clatter of old iron and bells, my heart would start beating faster.... "There is perhaps a letter from her in that coach!" I would say to myself. And that old, dilapidated vehicle creaking on its springs appeared to me more splendid than a royal carriage, and the driver with his crush hat and his red face looked to me like a deliverer of some kind. How could Juliette write to me when she did not know where I was? But I was still hoping for a miracle! Then I would go back to the village, walking hastily, assuring myself by a succession of irrefutable arguments, that on that day I was going to get a long letter, in which Juliette would let me know of her coming to me, and I was reading in advance, her tender words, her passionate phrases, her repentance; on the paper I saw traces of tears wet as yet, for all this while, I thought, Juliette was passing her time in crying. Alas! Nothing came from her. Sometimes there was a letter from Lirat, admirable, fatherly in its contents, which bored me. With heavy heart, feeling more than ever the crushing weight of loneliness, my mind excited by a thousand projects, one more foolish than the other, I would return to my dune. From this short-lived hope I would pass to keenest sorrow, and the day would pass in invoking Juliette, in calling her, in begging for her from the pale flowers on the sands, from the foam of the waves, from all this insensible nature about me which denied her to me and which ever revealed her indistinct image, marred by the kisses of everybody.
"Juliette! Juliette!"
One day, on the jetty, I met a young lady in the company of an old gentleman. Tall, slender, she looked pretty under her veil of white gauze which covered her face and whose ends, tied at the back of her grey felt hat, fluttered in the wind. Her graceful and supple movements resembled those of Juliette. Indeed in the way she carried her head, in the delicate curves of her waist line, in the way her arms fell, in the ruffling of her dress in the air, I recognized something of Juliette. I looked at her with emotion and two tears rolled down my cheeks. She walked to the end of the pier. I sat down on the parapet and, pensive and fascinated, followed the silhouette of the young lady. As she was moving away, I felt affected more and more.... Why had I not known her before I met the other one? I would have loved her perhaps! A young girl who has never felt the impure breath of man upon her, whose ears are chaste, whose lips have never known lewd kisses, what a joy it would be to love her, to love her as angels do!
The white veil was fluttering above her like the wings of a sea-gull. And suddenly she disappeared behind the lighthouse. At the bottom of the jetty the sea splashed back and forth like a child's cradle rocked by a nurse who hums a lullaby, and the sky was cloudless; it was stretched above the motionless surface of the water like a huge flowing curtain of light muslin.
The young lady was not long in coming back. She passed so near that her dress almost brushed against me. She was blonde; I should have liked it better if she were dark as Juliette was. She walked away, left the jetty, took to the village road and pretty soon I saw only a white veil which seemed to say: "Good-bye, goodbye! Don't be sad, I shall come back."
In the evening I asked Mother Le Gannec about her.
"That's demoiselle Landudec," she replied, "a very excellent and well deserving girl, friend Mintié. The old gentleman is her father.... They live in the big château on the Saint Jean road. You know which one I mean.... You have been there several times."
"How is it that I have never seen them?"
"Ah! Lord!... That's because the old man is always sick and the girl stays at home to take care of him, the poor thing! Undoubtedly he must have felt better today and she took him out for a walk."
"Hasn't she got a mother?"
"No. Her mother has been dead for quite some time."
"Are they rich?"
"Rich? Not so very! But they help everybody.... If you only went to mass on Sunday you would see the kind young lady."
That evening I remained to talk with Mother Le Gannec much longer. I saw the kindly lady again several times on the jetty, and on those days the thought of Juliette was less oppressive. I wandered in the neighborhood of the château which looked to me as desolate as the Priory. Grass was sprouting in the courtyard, the lawns were not well kept, the alleys of the park were broken up by the heavy carts of nearby farmers. The grey stone façade, turned green by rain, was as gloomy as the large granite rocks that one saw on the waste land.... The following Sunday I went to mass, and I saw demoiselle Landudec praying among the peasants and fishermen. Kneeling on her prayer stool, her slim body bent like a primitive virgin, her head over a book, she prayed with fervor. Who knows? Perhaps she understood that I was unhappy and mentioned my name in her prayers? And while the priest was chanting his orison in a tremulous voice, while the nave of the church was being filled with the noise of wooden shoes beating against the slabs and with the whisper of lips in prayer, while the incense in the censer rose to the ceiling together with the shrill voices of the children in the choir, while the young lady prayed as Juliette would have done had she prayed at all, I was dreaming.... I was in the park, and the young lady approached, bathed in moonlight. She took my hand, and we walked on the lawns and in the shadow of rustling trees.
"Jean," she said to me, "you are suffering and I have come to you. I have asked God if I could love you. God permits. I love you!"
"You are too beautiful, too pure, too holy to love me! You must not love me!"
"I love you! Put your arm in mine, rest your head on my shoulder and let us walk together, always!"
"No, no! Is it possible for the lark to love the owl? Is it possible for the dove that flies in heaven to love the toad which hides itself in the mud of stagnant waters?"
"You are not an owl, and you are not a toad, for I have chosen you! The love which God has permitted me to bear blots out all sin and assuages all sorrow. Come with me and I shall give you happiness."
"No, no! My heart is cankered, and my lips have drunk the poison which kills souls, the poison which damns angels like you; don't look at me so, for my eyes will defile you and you will be like Juliette!..."
The mass was over, the vision disappeared. There arose a noise of moved chairs and heavy steps in the church, and the children of the choir put out the tapers on the altar.... Still kneeling, the girl was praying. Of her face I could distinguish only a profile lost in the shadow of the white veil. She got up, after making the sign of the cross. I had to move my chair to let her pass. She passed ... and I felt a real joy, as though in refusing the love which she offered me in thought I had just now fulfilled a great duty.