She occupied my mind for a week. I resumed my furious walks through the moor, on the strand, and I wished I could conquer my passion. While walking, driven by the wind, carried along by that peculiar exaltation occasioned by rain pelting the sea shore, I imagined all sorts of romantic conversations with demoiselle Landudec and nocturnal adventures which took place in enchanted and lunar places. Like the characters in an opera, we vied with each other in sublime thought, in heroic sacrifices, in wonderful devotion; under the spell of the passionate rhythms and stirring recurrences of the song of the elements, we extended the boundaries of human self-denial. A sobbing orchestra accompanied the anguish of our voices.
"I love you! I love you!"
"No, no! You must not love me!"
She, in a very long white gown, with a bewildered look and outstretched arms ... I, gloomy, inexorable, the calves of my legs swelling under the violet silk tight garment, my hair disheveled by the wind.
"I love you! I love you!"
"No! No! You must not love me!"
And the violins emitted inaudible plaints, the wind instruments moaned, while the double basses and the dulcimers rumbled like tempest and peals of thunder.
Oh, the tragi-comedy of sorrow!
A curious thing! Demoiselle Landudec and Juliette became one; I no longer separated them, I confused them in my dreams, extravagant and melodramatic. Both were too pure for me.
"No! No! I am a leper, leave me alone!"
They passionately kissed my wounds, spoke of death and cried: "I love you! I love you!"
And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms over us and blessed us, the three of us!
This trance did not last long; I soon found myself on the dune, face to face with Juliette.
There were no violins, no wind instruments any longer, only the howl of anguish and revolt, the cry of a captured stag craving the female of its species.
"Juliette! Juliette!"
One evening I returned home more despondent than ever, my mind obsessed with dismal projects, my arms and hands in some manner agitated by a mad desire to kill, to strangle. I would have liked to feel something alive writhing, rattling, dying under the pressure of my fingers. Mother Le Gannec was standing at the threshold, darning the never failing pair of stockings. She said to me:
"How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have prepared some nice sea-crab for you!"
"Leave me alone, you drivelling woman!" I shouted. "I don't want your sea-crab, I don't want anything, do you hear me?"
And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman, stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and moaned.
"Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!"
I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I begged her to come to see me before I died, describing to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping, in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tenderness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.
"What are you doing here?" I shouted. "Why do you spy on me? Go away!"
"Friend Mintié," muttered the sainted woman, "don't be angry. I can see that you are unhappy and I came to know if I can help you!"
"Well, suppose I am unhappy! Does that concern you? Here, take this letter to the post office and leave me in peace."
For four days I did not leave my room. Mother Le Gannec came to make my bed and serve my meal. She was humble, timid, more attentive than ever, sighing:
"Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord, what a misfortune!"
I realized that I was not acting as I should; she had been so kind to me; I wanted to ask forgiveness for my rudeness. Her white coif, her black shawl, her sad figure of an afflicted mother touched me. But a sort of foolish pride threw a damper on this effusion. She walked near me, resigned, with an air of infinite motherly pity; from time to time she repeated:
"Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord! What a misfortune!"
The day drew to a close. While Mother La Gannec, after having mailed the letter, was sweeping the room, I sat at the window, my elbows resting on the ledge. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon line, leaving of its dazzling glory only a reddish transparency on the sky, and the sea, grown dark, dull, no longer reflecting light, assumed a sad hue. Night came, silent and slow, and the air was so calm that one could hear the rhythmic noise of oars striking the water of the wharf and the distant creaking of halliards on the masts tops. The beacon light was turned on, its red light turning in space like some irrational astral body.... And I felt very unhappy!
Juliette did not answer me!... Juliette would not come!... My letter, no doubt, had frightened her. She had recalled furious, savage, strangling scenes. She was afraid and would not come! And besides, were there not races, banquets, dinners, a line of impatient men at her door, waiting for her, claiming her, men who had paid in advance for the promised night? Why should she come, after all? There was no Casino on this desolate beach; in this God-forsaken corner of the coast there was no one to whom she could sell herself.
As for me, she had taken all my money, my brains, my honor, my future, everything! What more could I give her? Nothing. Why then should she come? If I had only told her that I had ten thousand francs left she would have come running. But to what purpose? Ah! Let her not come! My anger subsided, self-disgust replaced it, a frightful disgust! How could it be possible that a man who was not bad, whose past aspirations lacked neither nobility of character nor ardor, should fall so low, in such a short time, into a mire so deep that no human force could lift him out of it!...
What I now suffered from was not so much my own follies, my own disgrace and crimes as the misery which I had caused those around me. Old Marie!... Old Felix!... Oh, the poor couple! Where were they now? What were they doing? Did they have anything to eat, at least? Had I not compelled them to beg their bread when I expelled them—so old, so kind, so confiding, more feeble and desolate than homeless dogs! I saw them bent over their staffs, horribly thin, coughing, harassed, spending nights in chance lodgings. And the sainted Mother Le Gannec who took care of me as a mother her child, who lulled me to sleep with her warm caresses like those bestowed on little ones! Instead of kneeling before her, of thanking her, did I not treat her brutally, did I not almost beat her! Ah, no! Let her not come! Let her not come!
Mother Le Gannec lit the lamp, and I was about to close the window when I heard the tinkling of small bells upon the road, then the trundling of a carriage. I mechanically looked out. Indeed a carriage had ascended the steep hill of this place, it was a sort of stage which appeared very high and loaded with trunks. A fisherman passed by. The postman asked him:
"Will you please tell us where the house of Madame Le Gannec is?" "It is in front of you," answered the fisherman, who indicated the house with a motion of hand and continued on his way.
I grew very pale ... and I saw by the light of the lantern a small gloved hand resting on the handle of the stage door.
"Juliette! Juliette!" I shouted like a madman. "Mother Le Gannec, it's Juliette!... Quick, quick ... it's Juliette!"
Running, tumbling down the stairway, I dashed to the street: "Juliette! My Juliette!"
Arms embraced me, lips pressed against my cheek, a voice breathed in my ears:
"Jean! My dear little Jean!"
And I swooned into the arms of Juliette.
It did not take me long to regain my senses, however. They put me to bed and Juliette, bent over me, embraced me, crying:
"Ah! Poor little thing. How you frightened me! How pale you still are! Is it all over, tell me? Speak to me, my Jean!"
I did nothing but look at her. It seemed as though my whole being, inert and rigid, smitten by a powerful blow, by some great suffering or happiness—I did not know which—had brought back and crowded into my glance all the life forces leaving me, dripping from my limbs, my veins, my heart, my brains.... I was looking at her! She was still beautiful, a little paler than in the past, but on the whole the same as ever, with her beautiful, sweet eyes, her lovely mouth, her deliciously childish voice. In her countenance, her gestures, the movements of her body, her words I wanted to find some sorrowful traces of her unknown existence, some blemish, some evidence of depravity, something new and more withered. But no, she was paler, and that was all. And I burst into tears.
"Sit still, I want to look at you more, my little Juliette!"
She drank in my tears and wept, holding me in a close embrace.
"My Jean! Ah, my adored Jean!"
Mother Le Gannec rapped at the door of the room. She did not speak to Juliette, pretending not to see her.
"What shall I do with the trunks, friend Mintié?" she asked.
"Have some one bring them up here, Mother Le Gannec."
"You could not bring them all up here," the old woman harshly replied.
"Have you got many of them, dearie?"
"Many? Why no! There are only six. These people are stupid!"
"Well, Mother Le Gannec," I said, "keep them downstairs tonight. We shall see tomorrow."
I got up, while Juliette examined the room, occasionally exclaiming:
"Why, it's so nice here! There's a lot of fun here, my dear. And you have a bed, too, a real bed. And I thought they slept in wardrobes in Brittany! Ah! What is that? Don't stir, Jean, don't stir."
From the mantlepiece she took a large shell and put it to her ear.
"Wait!" she said with disappointment. "Wait now, it does not make that sh-sh-sh sound. Why is that?"
She suddenly rushed into my arms and covered me with kisses.
"Ah! your beard! You are growing whiskers, you villain! Ah how long your hair is! And how thin you are! And I, have I changed much! Am I still beautiful?"
She placed her arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder:
"Tell me what you have been doing here, how you have spent your time, what you have been thinking about. Tell it all to your little wifie. And don't tell lies. Tell her everything, everything."
Then I described my furious walks, my prostrations on the dune, my sobbing, the fact that I had been seeing her everywhere, calling her like a madman in the wind, in the tempest.
"Poor little thing!" she sighed. "And you probably have not even a raincoat."
"And you? you, my Juliette? Did you ever think of me?"
"Ah! When I found you gone from the house I thought I would die. Celestine told me that a man had come to take you away! Still I waited.... He will come, he will come.... But you did not come back. The next morning I ran to Lirat! Oh, if you only knew how he received me! ... how he treated me! And I asked everybody: 'Do you know where Jean is?' And no one could answer me. Oh, you naughty boy! To leave me like that ... without a word! Don't you love me any more? Then, you understand, I wanted to forget myself. I was suffering too much."
Her words had a sharp, curt ring in them:
"As for Lirat, you may rest assured, my dear, I'll get even with him. You'll see! It'll be a farce! What a mean person your friend Lirat is! But you'll see."
One thing tormented me: how many days or weeks would Juliette stay with me? She had brought six trunks with her; hence she intended to remain at Ploch for a month at least,—perhaps longer. Together with the great anticipated joy of possessing her without fear or obstacle, there mingled a keen uneasiness. I had no money, and I knew Juliette too well not to realize that she would not resign herself to a life like mine, and I foresaw expenditures which I was not in a position to make. What was to be done? Not having enough courage to ask her directly, I answered:
"We have plenty of time to think of it, my dear. In about three months from now when we shall go back to Paris.
"Three months! Why no, my poor little thing, I leave in a week. I am so sorry."
"Stay here, my little Juliette, I implore you, stay here altogether. Stay longer! A fortnight!"
"It is impossible, really. Oh, don't be sad, my dear! Don't cry! If you cry I won't tell you something very nice."
She became more affectionate, nestled and resumed:
"Listen, my dear. I have only one thought, and that is to live with you! We shall leave Paris, we shall move into a small house, hidden so well, you see, that no one will know that we are living. All we need is an income of twenty thousand francs."
"Where do you expect me to get that much now?" I exclaimed discouraged.
"Now, listen to me," continued Juliette. "We need only twenty thousand francs. Well, I have figured it all out! In six months we shall have it."
Juliette looked at me with a mysterious air and repeated:
"We shall have it!"
"Please don't talk like that, my dear. You don't know how you hurt me."
Juliette raised her voice, the wrinkle on her forehead grew rigid.
"Then you want me always to belong to others?"
"Oh! keep still, Juliette! Keep still! Never talk to me like that, never!"
"You are so funny! Come now, be nice and embrace me!"
The next morning, while dressing in the midst of opened trunks and scattered dresses, very much disconcerted by the absence of her chamber maid, she made all sorts of plans for the day. She wanted to take a walk on the jetty, to visit the lighthouse, to fish, to walk to the dune and sit down on the spot where I had cried so much. She said she enjoyed watching the pretty Breton girls in braided and embroidered dresses, like those in the theatre, drinking fresh milk on the farms!
"Are there any boats here?"
"Yes."
"Lot of them?"
"Certainly."
"Ah! What a chance. I like boats so much!"
Then she gave me news of Paris. Gabrielle no longer lived with Robert. Malterre was married. Jesselin was on a trip. He had had several duels. And gossip about everybody. All this bad odor of Paris brought back my melancholy and bitter memories. Seeing me sad, she interrupted herself and embraced me, assuming an air of distress:
"Ah! Perhaps you suppose I like this life!" she said plaintively, "and that I only think of amusing myself, of flirting. If you only knew! There are certain things that I can't tell you. But if you knew what a torture it is to me! You think you are unhappy! How about me? Why, if I did not have the hope of living with my Jean I would kill myself, so often do I feel disgusted with life."
And, dreaming and wheedling, she would revert to the subject of farming, of hidden paths covered with verdure, of the peace and sweetness of a retired life amid flowers, domestic animals and love. Ah! devoted, humble, eternal love, love that was to brighten our life like the dazzling sun!
We went out after the breakfast which Mother Le Gannec sullenly served us, without once opening her mouth. We were hardly out, when the wind freshened; it disheveled Juliette's hair. She wanted to return to the house.
"Ah! The wind, dear! I can't stand the wind. It spoils my hair and makes me sick."
She was bored all day and our kisses could not dispel the feeling of emptiness. Just as in the past, in my study, she spread a napkin on her dress, placed a few small nail brushes and files on the napkin, and gravely began to polish her nails. I suffered cruelly, and the vision of the old man at the window obsessed me.
The next day Juliette announced that she had to leave that very evening.
"Ah! What a misfortune, my dear! I have forgotten! Quick, quick, get me a carriage. Oh! what a misfortune!"
I made no effort to detain her. Sunk in my chair motionless, gloomy, my head buried in my hands, I sat throughout the preparations for her departure without uttering a single word or making a single request. Juliette went out, returned, folding her gowns, arranging her dressing-case, locking her trunks; I heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing. Men came in; their heavy steps caused the floor to creak. I understood that they were taking the trunks away. Juliette sat on my lap.
"My poor little dear," she cried, "you suffer because I leave so soon. You should not feel hurt ... be sensible. Besides, I'll come back shortly and stay a long time. Don't act so. I'll come back. I promise you. I'll bring Spy along. I'll also bring a horse to ride on, yes? You'll see how well your little wifie rides on horseback. Now embrace me, my Jean! Why don't you embrace me? Come on, Jean! Good bye! I adore you! Good bye!"
It was growing dark when Mother Le Gannec came into my bedroom. She lit the lamp and gently approached.
"Friend Mintié! Friend Mintié!"
I lifted my eyes; she was so sad, there breathed such merciful pity from her that I threw myself into her arms.
"Ah! Mother Le Gannec! Mother Le Gannec!" I sobbed. "That is what is killing me!"
Mother Le Gannec murmured:
"Friend Mintié, why don't you pray to the merciful Lord? That will relieve you."
It is a week since I have been able to sleep. There is a hood of red hot iron upon my head. My blood thickens, one might say that my dilated arteries were bursting, and I have the sensation of tongues of fire licking my loins. Whatever human qualities there still remained in me, what little shame, remorse, self-respect and vague hopes buried under the heap of filth have been left in me by moral suffering, the little that has still held me bound by a thread, be it ever so weak, to thinking creatures—all this has now been destroyed by the madness of a frenzied brute. No longer do I entertain thoughts of Good, Truth, Justice, the inflexible laws of nature. I am no longer conscious of the sexual aversion which exists between the various species in the animal kingdom, keeping the world in constant harmony: everything is in a whirl, everything is confused into one tremendous and sterile carnal essence and, in the delirium of my senses, I rave only of unnatural embraces. Not only does the image of prostituted Juliette no longer torment me, but on the contrary it excites my passions! And in my mind I seek, I cling to her, I try to fix her in my memory by ineffaceable marks, I confound her with things, with beasts, with monstrous creatures and I myself lead her to criminal debauchery, spurred on by burning pains. Juliette is no longer the only image that tempts and haunts me. Gabrielle, the Rabineau woman, Mother Le Gannec, Demoiselle Landudec, pass before my eyes in wanton postures. Neither virtue, nor goodness, nor unhappiness, nor sacred old age holds me back, and for the scene of these frightful frenzies I purposely choose holy and hallowed places, altars in churches, tombs at the cemeteries. I no longer suffer in my soul; I suffer only in my flesh. My soul died in Juliette's last kiss, and now I am nothing but a form of foul, sensuous flesh, into which demons have been furiously at work pouring streams of molten, seething metal. Oh! I could never have forseen such castigation!
The other day I met a fisherwoman on the strand. She was black, dirty, foul-smelling, like a heap of putrified sea wrack. I made advances to her with silly gestures. And suddenly I fled, for I felt a diabolic temptation to rush upon her and throw her down amid the pebbles and small pools of water. I roamed and tramped across the country with dilated nostrils, taking in, like a harrier, the odor of sex.... One night, with burning throat, driven mad by abominable visions, I found my way into the crooked alleys of the village and rapped at the door of a loose woman. And I went into this den. But as soon as I felt the unknown contact I uttered a cry of rage; I wanted to leave; she held me back.
"Let me go!" I shouted.
"Why are you going away?"
"Let me go!"
"Stay here. I'll love you. I often followed you on the beach. I often roamed about the house where you are staying. I wanted you. Stay here!"
"Let me go, I tell you! You don't know how disgusting you are to me!"
And when she hung on my neck, I struck her. She groaned.
"Ah! My God! He is mad!"
Mad! Yes, I am mad! I have looked at myself in the mirror and I am afraid of my own image. My distended eyes shine from the midst of their orbits which are hollow; my bones protrude from under the yellow skin; my mouth is pale, trembling, hanging like the mouths of lascivious old men. My gestures are erratic, and my fingers, constantly agitated by nervous shocks, crack, seeking a prey in the air.
Mad! Yes, I am mad! Whenever Mother Le Gannec is moving about me, when I hear her slippers dragging on the floor, when her dress brushes against me, criminal notions come and take possession of me; they pursue me and I cry:
"Go away, Mother Le Gannec, go away."
Mad! Yes, I am mad! Often at night I stand for hours at the door of her room, my hand upon the knob, ready to plunge into the darkness of the room. I don't know what is holding me back. Fear, no doubt, for I say to myself: "She will struggle, cry, call for help and I shall be compelled to kill her!" Once, alarmed by the noise, she got up, bare-legged; she was dumbfounded for a moment, upon beholding me.
"What is the matter! It's you, friend Mintié? What are you doing here? Are you ill?"
I stammered some incoherent words and went upstairs to my room.
Ah! Let them drive me out, beat me, with forks, stakes, scythes. Is it possible that men will not come in here in a moment, rush upon me, gag and drag me into the eternal night of the dungeon?
I must go away! I must find Juliette again! I must vent this accursed madness upon her!
When dawn came I went downstairs and said to Mother Le Gannec: "I must leave! Let me have some money. I shall pay it back to you later. Let me have some money. I must leave!"
Juliette had chosen a room for me on the second floor of a furnished house in the Faubourg Saint Honoré near the Rue de Balzac. The furniture of the room was rickety, the tapestry worn, the drawers creaked when opened, the pungent odor of decaying wood and accumulated dust filled the window curtains and bedstead hangings; but by placing knick-knacks here and there, she succeeded in imparting an air of intimacy to this banal, cold place, where so many unknown lives had been spent without a trace being left behind. Juliette reserved to herself the task of arranging my things in the hanging-press which she filled with bunches of fragrant flowers.
"You see, my dear, here are your socks, and there are your night shirts. I put your neckties in the drawer; your handkerchiefs are there. I hope your little wifie has put everything in order. And every day I'll bring you a sweet-smelling flower. Now don't be sad. Tell yourself that I love you, that I love no one but you, that I shall come often. Oh, I have forgotten a few things! Well, I'll send them to you with Celestine, together with my pictures in the beautiful red plush frames. Don't feel lonesome, my poor, little thing! You know, if I am not here at half-past twelve tonight don't wait for me. Go to bed. Sleep well. Promise me?"
And casting a last glance about the room, she left. Indeed, Juliette came every day, while going to the Bois and on her way home before dinner. She never remained more than two minutes at a time. Excited, impelled by a feverish desire to be outside, she would stay long enough to embrace me and to open the drawers to see whether my things were in order.
"Well I am going. Don't be sad. I see you have been crying. That is not nice at all! Why cause me aggravation?"
"Juliette! Will I see you tonight? Oh! please, tonight!"
"Tonight?"
She reflected for a minute.
"Tonight, yes, my dear! But still do not wait for me too long. Go to bed. Sleep well. Above all, don't cry. You drive me to despair! Really, I don't know what to do with you!"
And so I lived here, stretched out on the sofa, never going out, counting the minutes which slowly, slowly, drop by drop, vanished into the eternity of waiting.
The frenzied excitement of my senses was succeeded by a period of great depression. I spent whole afternoons apathetically, without stirring, my body lifeless, my limbs hanging, my brains in a state of torpor, like the morrow of a day of drunkenness. My life resembled a heavy slumber disturbed by painful dreams, interrupted by sudden awakenings even more painful than the dreams; and in the annihilation of my will power, in the blotting out of my intellect, I again felt, but more keenly than ever, the horror of my moral decay. In addition, Juliette's life caused me perpetual anguish. As in the past, on the dune of Ploch, I could not dismiss from my mind the loathsome vision which grew, intensified and assumed even more cruel forms.... To lose a person whom you love, a person who has been the source of all your joys, the memory of whom is associated with happiness only, is a heart-rending sorrow. But where there is sorrow there is also consolation, and suffering is eventually put to sleep, lulled in some way by its own tenderness. But here I was losing Juliette, losing her daily, every hour, every minute; and with this chain of successive deaths, with this process of impenitent dying, I could only associate memories of torture and disgrace.
No matter how eagerly I searched in the stirred-up depths of our two hearts for a flower bud, for a tiny blossom whose fragrance it would have been so sweet to inhale, I could not find it. And yet I could not conceive anything dissociated from Juliette. All my thoughts had Juliette for their starting point and for their final goal, and the more she escaped me the more fiercely obdurate I grew in my absurd desire to win her back. I had no hope at all that she would ever stop, carried away as she was by this life of evil pleasure; yet, in spite of myself, in spite of her, I was planning for a better future. I said to myself: "It is impossible that some day disgust will not seize her, that some day sorrow will not awaken remorse and pity in her heart. Then she will return to me. Then we will move into a plain workman's house and I shall work like a galley-slave. I'll enter journalism, I'll publish novels, I'll ask for a job as a plain copyist." Alas! I forced myself to believe all this so as to accentuate the state of misery into which I had fallen. With the proceeds from the sale of two sketches by Lirat, of a few jewels I still had, of my books, I had realized a sum of four thousand francs, which I was saving like a treasure for that chimeric eventuality.
One day when Juliette was pensive and tenderer than usual, I ventured to lay my project before her. She clasped her hands.
"Yes! Yes! Ah! Won't that be nice! A little bit of an apartment, a tiny one. I'll do the housekeeping. I'll have pretty bonnets, a pretty apron! But with you it'll be impossible! What a pity! It's impossible!"
"Why is it impossible?"
"Because you won't work and we'll starve. That's your nature! Did you work at Ploch. Are you working now? Why, you have never worked!"
"How can I? Don't you know that the thought of you never leaves me for a moment? It is the uncertainty of your life, it is the cruel anguish of everything I feel, of everything I suspect about you that gnaws at my heart, devours me, sucks my brains! When you are not here, I don't know where you are! And still I am always with you wherever you are! Ah! if you only wished! To know that you are near me, loving and tranquil, far from everything that besmirches, from everything that torments. Why, I could then have the strength of a God in me! Money! Money! Why, I'll make it for you by the shovelful, by the cartful! Ah! Juliette if you only wished...."
She looked at me, excited by the great noise of gold which my words caused to ring in her ears.
"Well! Make it right away, dearie. Yes, make a lot of it, piles of it! And don't think about those vile things which make you suffer! Men are so funny! They don't want to understand anything!"
Tenderly, she sat down on my lap.
"Why, I adore you, my dear little thing! Why, I detest the others and I give them nothing of myself, do you hear, nothing. I am very unhappy!"
With tear-filled eyes, she tried to nestle near me, repeating: "Yes very, very unhappy!"
I was seized with fear and pity.
"Ah! He thinks it is a pleasure!" she cried sobbing, "he thinks so! But if I did not have my Jean to console me, my Jean to lull me to sleep, my Jean to give me courage, I could not stand it any longer. I could not stand it any longer.... I would rather die."
Suddenly, changing the subject, and with a voice in which I seemed to hear a plaint of regret:
"First of all, you need money for that,—for the little apartment, I mean ... and you haven't got it!"
"Why yes, yes, my dear," I exclaimed triumphantly, "I have some money. We have enough to live on for two months, three months while I make my fortune!"
"You have money? Let me see it."
I showed her four one thousand franc bills. Juliette greedily snatched them one after another, counted them, examined them. Her eyes shone, surprised and delighted.
"Four thousand francs, dear! you really have four thousand francs! Why, you are rich! Well, well!"
She hung on my neck, caressed me.
"Well now," she resumed, "since you are so rich, I should like to have a little traveling dressing case that I saw at the Rue de Paix. You will buy it for me, won't you, dearie?"
I felt a tug at my heart so painful that I nearly fell to the floor, and a well of tears blinded me. Still I had the courage to ask:
"How much does your dressing case cost?"
"Two thousand francs, my dear."
"All right! Take two thousand francs out of that. You'll buy it yourself."
Juliette kissed my forehead, took the two bills which she quickly hid in her coat pocket, and her gaze fixed on the two bills which still remained and for which she no doubt regretted she had not asked, she said:
"Really? Do you want me to? Ah! that's nice! That will give me a chance to come to see you with my new dressing case, if you should return to Ploch."
When she was gone, I abandoned myself to an outburst of anger against her, above all against myself, and when the anger subsided I suddenly realized to my astonishment that I no longer suffered. Yes, I breathed more freely, I was able to stretch out my arms with greater vigor, I felt a new buoyancy in my limbs; at last, one might say, some one had removed the crushing weight which for so long a time I had borne on my shoulders. I experienced a keen joy in moving my limbs, in exercising my muscles and joints, in setting my nerves into vibration, when it thus came upon me one morning, in a leap from my bed. Was I not really awakening from a slumber as deep as death? Was I not recovering from a sort of catalepsy, in which my whole being, sunk in torpor, had known the horrible nightmare of non-existence? I was like one buried who finds the light of day again, like one famished who is given a piece of bread, like one sentenced to death who receives his pardon.... I went to the window and looked out into the street. The slanting rays, of the sun were flooding the houses in front of me with a golden mist; on the sidewalk people were hurriedly passing, preoccupied, with a happy gait; carriages joyously crossed each other's path. The hustle and bustle and noise of life intoxicated, stirred, carried me away, and I cried out:
"I don't love you any more! I don't love you any more!"
In the space of a second I had a very clear vision of a new life of work and happiness. I was to cleanse myself of this filth, to seize my interrupted dreams; not only did I want to redeem my honor, but I wanted also to achieve a glory so great, so undisputed, so universal, that Juliette would burst with spite for having lost a man like me. I already saw myself perpetuated in bronze and marble by posterity, placed upon columns and symbolic pedestals, filling the centuries to come with my immortalized image. And what gave me particular pleasure was the thought that Juliette would not share a particle of this glory, and that I pitilessly pushed her off my lofty plane entirely.
I went down, and for the first time in two years felt a delicious pleasure in being on the street. I walked fast, with supple movements, a victorious gait, interested in the simplest things about me which seemed so new. And I asked myself with amazement how in the world I could have been unhappy so long, why my eyes had not opened to the truth much sooner than they did.... Ah, that despicable Juliette! How she must have laughed at my submission, my blindness, my pitifulness, my inconceivable folly! No doubt, she told her casual lovers of my idiotic grief. But I was going to have my revenge and it would be terrible! Juliette would soon lie prostrate at my feet begging my pardon.
"No, no, you miserable creature, never!... When I cried, did you comfort me?... Did you spare me a single suffering, a single one? Did you ever for a moment consent to share my misery, to live my life with me? You don't deserve to share my glory. No ... go!"
And to show my absolute contempt for her, I would throw millions in her face.
"Here are your millions! You said you wanted millions? Here are some more!"
Juliette would wring her arms in despair.
"Have mercy, Jean! Have pity on me! I don't want your money! What I want is to live in obscurity and humbly in your shadow, happy if a single ray of light surrounding you will some day come to rest upon your poor Juliette. Have pity on me!"
"Did you have pity on me when I asked for it! No! Women like you should be killed with blows of gold. Here! Have some more! Here! Some more still!"
I was walking with long strides, talking aloud, moving my hands as if throwing millions into space. "Here, wretch, here!"
Nevertheless, my insusceptibility to everything else when preoccupied with the thought of Juliette was not so complete as to preclude my getting uneasy at the sight of any woman, and scrutinizing with an impatient glance the inside of the carriages which endlessly passed by on the street. On the boulevard my assurance left me, and anguish again seized my whole being. I felt an unbearable burden upon my shoulders, and the devouring beast driven off but a moment ago, rushed on me more ferociously than ever, sinking its fangs into my flesh deeper than ever. It was enough for me to see the theatres, the restaurants, those evil places full of the mystery of Juliette's life, to make me feel this. The theatres were saying to me: "She was here that night; while you were moaning, calling her, waiting for her—she was promenading in her stage box, with flowers on her bosom, happy, without the slightest thought of you." The restaurants were saying: "That night your Juliette was here.... With eyes drunk with lust she was rolling on our broken sofas, and men who smelled of wine and cigars possessed her." And all the agile, handsome young men I met on the street seemed to say to me: "We know your Juliette. Does she give you any of the money she charges us?" Every house, every object, every manifestation of life cried with a frightful chuckle: "Juliette! Juliette!" The sight of roses at the florist's was painful, and I felt rage boil within me each time I looked at the shop windows with their display of inviting things. It seemed to me that Paris was spending all its power, using all its seduction, to rob me of Juliette, and I wished to see it perish in some catastrophe; I regretted that the rigorous days of the Commune were over, when one could pour petroleum and scatter death upon the streets! I returned home.
"Did anyone call?" I asked the caretaker.
"No, Monsieur Mintié."
"No letters either?"
"No, Monsieur Mintié."
"Are you sure nobody went up to my room while I was away?"
"The key was not touched."
I scribbled the following words on my card: "I want to see you."
"Take this over to the Rue de Balzac."
I waited in the street, impatient, nervous; the caretaker was not long in returning.
"The maid told me that Madame had not yet come back."
It was seven o'clock. I went to my room and stretched out on the sofa.
"She won't come. Where is she? What is she doing?"
I did not light the candles. The window, illuminated by the street, shone in the room with a dark glimmer, reflected a yellow shine upon the ceiling, where appeared the trembling shadow of the curtains. And the hours passed, slow and endless, so endless and so slow that one might say the flow of time had suddenly stopped.
"She won't come!"
From the street, the intermittent noise of vehicles reached me; the buses rolled heavily, the closed carriages passed by lightly and rapidly. When one of them passed close to the sidewalk or slowed down I would rush to the window, which I had left half-open, to look into the street.... No one alighted.
"She won't come!"
And while saying to myself: "She won't come," I hoped that Juliette would be in shortly. Oh, how many times I had rolled on the sofa, crying: "She won't come!" And Juliette always came. Always at the moment when I most despaired, I heard a carriage stop, then steps on the stairway, a creaking noise in the hallway, and Juliette would appear smiling, adorned with plumes, filling the room with a strong odor of perfume and the rustling of silk in motion.
"Come on, get your hat, my dear."
Irritated by her smile, by her dress, by the perfume, exasperated by the long waiting, I used to upbraid her severely:
"Where have you been? In what joints have you been? Yes, tell me, in what joints?"
"Ah! You are trying to make a scene. Well, thanks! I am leaving. Good night! And here I have taken all the pains in the world to snatch a moment to look you up!"
Then pointing my finger to the door, my muscles contracted, I would burst out:
"Well, go ahead! Go to the devil! And never come back again, never!"
With the door scarcely shut behind Juliette, I would run after her.
"Juliette! Come back, please! Juliette! Wait.... I am going with you."
She would still be descending the stairs, without turning her head. I would catch up with her.
Near her, near this dress, these plumes, these flowers, these jewels, fury would again seize me:
"Come right up with me or I'll crack your head against these steps!"
And when in the room I would throw myself at her feet.
"Ah, my little Juliette, I am wrong, I know I am wrong. But I suffer so much! Have pity on me! If you only knew in what a hell I am living! If you could only tear my breast open and see what is going on in my heart! Juliette! Oh, I can't, I can't go on living like this any more! Even a beast would have pity on me. Yes, a wretched beast would have pity on me!"
I would press her arms, cling to her dress.
"My Juliette! I have not killed you, though I have a perfect right to, I swear. I have not killed you! You should have given an account of yourself. I must make inhuman efforts to control myself, for you don't know what terrible and vengeful things a man who suffers and is lonely can conceive. I have not killed you! I have been hoping!—I am still hoping! Come back to me. I'll forget everything, I'll erase everything from my memory, my sorrow and my shame.... You will be to me the purest, the most radiant of virgins. We'll go away, far, far away from here. Wherever you wish. I shall marry you! Don't you want me to? Do you think I am telling you this in order to have you with me again? Swear to me that you will change your mode of life and I'll kill myself here in front of you! Listen, I have sacrificed everything for you! I am not talking of my fortune, but of what was formerly the pride of my life, my manly honor, my dream of an artist, all this I have given up for you, without the least regret. You should make some sacrifice for me in turn. And pray, what is it I ask of you? Nothing ... except the gladness of being honest and good. To devote, to consecrate oneself to something, why that's so grand, so noble! Oh, if you only knew the infinite pleasure of sacrifice? Look now ... Malterre is rich. He is a good fellow, better than the others, he loved you! I'll go to him, I'll say to him: 'You alone can save Juliette, you alone can save Juliette, you alone can bring her back from the life she is living. Go back to her, and don't be afraid of me. I am going out of her life.' Do you want me to do that?"
Juliette would look at me, greatly astonished. An uneasy smile would play on her lips. She would murmur:
"Come, my dear, you say silly things. Don't cry, come!"
While going out, I would continue to lament: "A beast would have pity on me! Yes, a beast!"
At other times, she would send Celestine for me, and I would find her in bed, cold, sad and tired. I could see that some one had been there just a moment ago, some one who had just left; I could see it in everything that surrounded me—in the bed just made, in the toilette articles arranged with overscrupulous care, in all the carefully removed traces which in my imagination reappeared again in all their hidden and sorrowful reality. I would linger in the dressing room, rummage among the drawers, examine objects, even lower myself to a shameful scrutiny of her personal belongings.... Juliette would call me:
"Come over here, my dear! What are you doing there?"
Oh! If I could only reconstruct his image, find the least trace of that man! I inhaled the air, inflated my nostrils, hoping to come upon the strong male scent, and it seemed to me that the shadow of a mighty torso spread itself over the hangings, that I distinguished huge, athletic arms, quivering thighs with bulging muscles.
"Are you coming?" Juliette would repeat.
On those nights Juliette would talk of nothing but the soul, the sky, the birds, telling me that she was in need of an ideal, of celestial dreams. Huddled in my arms, chaste as a child, she would say, with a sigh:
"Oh, how nice it is to sit like this! Tell me something beautiful, my Jean, some such thing as one reads about in poetry. I love your voice so much; it is so musical ... speak to me long. You are so good, you comfort me so well! I would like to live all my life like this, always in your arms, without stirring, listening to you! Do you know what else I would like to have? Ah, I am dreaming of it all the time! I would like to have a nice little baby girl who should be like a cherub, all pink and blonde! I would nurse her myself and you would sing her some pretty little songs to put her to sleep! My Jean, when I am dead you will find in my jewelry case a little pink writing book with gold ornaments. That's for you. Take it. There I have written down my thoughts, and you'll see whether I loved you or not! You'll see! Ah! Tomorrow one must get up again, go out ... how annoying! Rock me, speak to me, tell me that you love my soul ... my soul!..."
And she would fall asleep, and in her sleep look so white, so pure, that the bed curtains would seem like wings attached to her.
Night came on, the suburb grew quiet. From afar, belated carriages were returning, and on the sidewalk two policemen paced with heavy, dragging strides, keeping in step.... Several times the door of the furnished house opened and closed; I heard some creaky noise, the rustling of a woman's dress, whispering voices in the hallway. But it was not Juliette. The silent house seemed to have been asleep a long while. I left the sofa, lit my lamp, looked at the clock; it was three o'clock.
"She won't come! Now it's all over. She won't come!"
I stood at the window. The street was deserted, the dark sky hung over the houses like a leaden lid. Over yonder in the direction of Boulevard Haussman large vehicles were coming down hill, shaking the night with their loud jolting.... A rat darted from one sidewalk to the other and disappeared into a hole in the gutter.... I saw a homeless dog with hanging head and tail between its hind legs passing, stopping at the doors, smelling the gutter, dolefully walking away.
I shook with fever, my brain was inflamed, my hands were moist and again I felt a stifling sensation in my chest.
"She won't come! Where is she? Did she go back to her house? Where, in what filthy hole of this great impure night is she wallowing?"
What made me particularly angry was that she did not let me know ahead of time. She had received my card. She knew she was not coming. And she did not send me a single word! I had cried, implored, begged her on my knees ... and not a word from her! How many tears, how much blood must one shed to soften that heart of flint? How could she run after pleasure with her ears still full of the echoes of my sobs, her mouth still moist with my entreating kisses? The most wretched women, the most detestable creatures at some time or other call a temporary halt to their life of dissipation and prey; there are moments when they permit the sun to penetrate their chilled hearts, when turning their eyes to heaven they pray for love that pardons and redeems! But Juliette ... never! Something more insensible than fate, something more relentless than death was driving her, was eternally drawing and spurring her on without respite, without pause, from impure to criminal love, from that which dishonors to that which kills! The more days passed, the more marks of infamy debauchery left on her. With her passion, formerly so normal and healthy, were now mingled a depraved inquisitiveness and that savage unsatiableness, that over-stimulation of irrepressible lust which comes as result of excessive and sterile pleasures. Except on the nights when exhaustion invested the sordid reality of her existence with unexpected forms of the purest ideal, one could see upon her the imprints of a thousand different and refined corruptions, of a thousand grotesque perversions practiced upon her by those palled by vice and age. Words and cries often escaped her which suddenly lit up her whole life and opened up vistas of frenzied sensuality, and although she would thereby communicate to me the consuming passion of her depravity, although I myself relished in all this a sort of infernal criminal voluptuousness, I could not look at Juliette without a shudder!... And when leaving her embrace, ashamed and disgusted, I felt the need, often experienced by reprobates, of looking at tranquil, restful sights, and I envied,—oh, with what keen regret!—the superior beings who had made purity and virtue the inflexible laws of their life!... I dreamed of convents where one spent one's life in prayer, of hospitals where one devoted oneself to others.... I was seized with a mad desire to enter the disreputable joints and preach the gospel to the unfortunate people who wallow in vice there, never hearing a single word of kindness; I promised myself to follow the prostitutes at night, into the shadow of public squares, to console them, to speak to them of virtue with such passionate earnestness, in accents so touching that they would be moved, would burst into tears and would say to me: "Yes, save us...." I liked to spend hours in the Monceau park, watching the children play, discovering a paradise of goodness in the glances of young mothers; I was moved to reconstruct their lives so remote from my own; to live through, while near them, their sacred joys forever lost to me.... On Sundays I used to loiter at the railway stations where I mingled with the merry crowds, among petty officials and workingmen leaving town with their families to get a little fresh air for their affected lungs, to gather a little strength to be able to withstand the fatigue of their work during the week. I followed the steps of some laborer whose face interested me; I would have liked to possess his bent back, his deformed hands turned brown through hard work, his stiff walk, his trusting eyes of a house dog.... Alas!... I would have liked to have everything I did not have, to be everybody that I was not! ... These wanderings which rendered the realization of my downfall even more painful, did me some good, however, and I used to come home each time with all sorts of courageous resolutions.... But in the evening I would see Juliette again, and Juliette was to me the oblivion of all honor and all duty.
Above the houses the sky was brightened by a feeble light announcing the approaching dawn, and at the end of the street, in the shadow, I noticed two glaring points, the two lights of a carriage, vacillating, swerving, approaching, which resembled two errant gas lamps.... Hope revived in me for a moment ... the carriage came nearer, dancing on the pavement, the lights grew larger, the rattling quickened.... I thought I recognized the familiar trundling of Juliette's brougham!... But no!... Suddenly the carriage turned to the left and disappeared.... Within an hour it would already be day!
"She won't come!... This time it is all over, she won't come!"
I closed the window, lay down again on the sofa, blood surging in my temples, all my members aching.... In vain I tried to sleep.... I could not do anything but weep, cry out:
"Oh! Juliette! Juliette!"
My chest was burning, I felt the sensation of boiling lava swirling in my head. My thoughts were in confusion, turning into hallucinations. Along the walls of my bedroom weasels were chasing one another, jumping, abandoning themselves to obscene frolics. I was hoping that I would succumb to fever, that it would chain me to my bed, that it would cause my death. To be sick! Ah! ... yes, to be sick, long, forever! I had visions of Juliette installing herself in my room. She nursed me, she lifted my head to make me take medicine, she saw the doctor to the door, while talking to him in a low voice, and the doctor had a grave air.
"No! No! Madame, not all is lost yet. Calm yourself."
"Ah! Doctor, save him, save my Jean!"
"Only you can save him, because it is on account of you that he is dying!"
"Ah! What can I do?... Tell me, doctor, please!"
"You must love him, you must be good to him."
And Juliette threw herself into the arms of the physician:
"No! It's you I love!... Come!"
She dragged him, clinging to his lips ... and in the bedroom they danced and jumped to the ceiling and fell on my bed, enlaced.
"Die, my Jean, please die! Ah! Why does it take you so long to die?"
I fell into a slumber. When I awoke it was broad daylight. Buses were again rolling on the street, hawkers were screaming out their morning yells; I heard the scratching of a broom sweeping against my door in the hallway where people were passing.
I went out, and proceeded in the direction of the Rue de Balzac. As a matter of fact I had no other intention than to see Juliette's house, to look into its windows and perhaps come across Celestine or Mother Souchard..... More than twenty times I passed back and forth on the sidewalk, in front of it. The windows of the dining room were open, and I could see the copper plates which were shining in the shadow. A rug was hanging from the balcony. The windows of the bedroom were closed. What was there behind these closed shutters, behind this white impenetrable wall? A disarranged, untidy bed, the heavy odor of carnal passion, and two outstretched bodies asleep. The body of Juliette ... and who else? The body of Mr. Everybody.... A body that Juliette had picked up casually under a cabaret table or on the street! They were asleep, sated with lust! The caretaker came to shake the rug on the sidewalk. I walked away, for ever since I had left the apartment I avoided the mocking glance of this old woman, I blushed every time my eyes met hers, bulging and vicious, seeming to jeer at my misfortune.... When she was finished I returned to the place and stood there for a long time to fret against this wall behind which something horrible was going on and which guarded the cruel mystery of a sphinx crouched upon the sky. Suddenly, as if struck by thunder, a mad fury shook me from head to foot and, without realizing what I was going to do, without even thinking of it, I entered the house, went up the stairway and rang at Juliette's door. It was Mother Souchard who opened the door for me.
"Tell Madame," I shouted, "tell Madame that I want to see her immediately, I want to speak to her. Also tell her that if she does not come out I'll go and find her myself, I'll drag her out of her bed, do you hear! Tell her...."
Mother Souchard, pale and trembling, stammered out:
"Why, my poor Monsieur Mintié, Madame isn't in there. Madame has not come back...."
"Take care, you old sorceress! Don't try to make a fool out of me! And do as I tell you or I'll kill and smash everybody and everything—Juliette, you, the furniture, the house."
The old servant raised her arms to the ceiling in bewilderment.
"I swear to you by the Lord! She has not come back yet, Monsieur Mintié! Go into her bedroom and see for yourself! I am telling you!"
In two bounds I was in the bedroom ... the bedroom was empty ... the bed had not been touched. Mother Souchard followed every step I made, repeating:
"See, Monsieur Mintié! See! Because you are no longer together. At this hour!..."
I passed into the dressing room. Everything was in order just as it had been when we used to come home late at night. Juliette's things were lying on the sofa, a boiler full of water was on the gas stove.
"And where is she?" I asked.
"Ah! Monsieur," Mother Souchard replied, "does anybody know where Madame goes? There was a man here this morning who looked like some kind of a valet and spoke to Celestine, and then Celestine went out taking with her a change of clothes for Madame.... That's all I know!"
While prowling in the study I found the card which I had sent her the day before.
"Did Madame read this?"
"Probably not."
"And you don't know where she is?"
"Why, I am sure I don't know. Madame never tells me her affairs."
I went back to the bedroom, seated myself on a long couch.
"All right, Madame Souchard. I am going to wait here. And let me tell you that something funny is going to happen! Ha! Ha! In the end, you see, Mother Souchard, this thing is bound to come to a head. I have been patient long enough. I have been.... Well, that's enough!"
I shook my fist in the air.
"And it is going to be very funny, Mother Souchard!... and you'll be able to brag about having taken part in something very funny, something you'll never forget, never! You'll dream about it at night with terror, so help me God!"
"Oh! Monsieur Mintié! Monsieur Mintié," the old woman implored. "For the love of God calm yourself. Go away! You'll commit a crime as sure as I live! And what is it you are going to do, Monsieur Mintié? What are you going to do?"
At this moment, Spy, having come out of his corner, was advancing toward me, shaking his back, dancing on his hind legs like those of a spider. And I looked at Spy persistently. I was thinking that Spy was the only creature that Juliette loved, that to kill Spy would be to inflict the greatest sorrow on Juliette! The dog raised its paws toward me and tried to get on my lap. He seemed to say:
"Even if you do suffer so much, I am not to blame for it. To avenge yourself on me—so small, so feeble, so trustful, would be cowardly. And then you think she really loves me so much! I amuse her as a plaything, I serve as a distraction for her for a moment and that is all. If you kill me now she will get another little dog like me this very evening, one whom she will call Spy as she did me and whom she will overwhelm with caresses as she did me, and nothing will be changed!"
I did not heed Spy any more than I heeded any of the voices that spoke within me whenever evil was drawing me on to commit some reprehensible deed.
Brutally, ferociously I seized the little dog by his hind legs.
"Here is what I am going to do, Mother Souchard!" I shouted. "Look!"
And hurling Spy into the air with all my force so that he turned over several times, I crashed his head against the corner of the fireplace. Blood streamed all over the looking-glass and the hangings, bits of brains stuck to the candlesticks and a torn-out eye fell on the carpet.
"What am I going to do, Mother Souchard?" I repeated, flinging the cadaver into the middle of the bed upon which a pool of blood appeared. "What am I going to do? Ha, Ha! You see this blood, this eye, these brains, this cadaver, this bed! Ha, Ha! Well, that's what I am going to do to Juliette, Mother Souchard! That's what I am going to do to Juliette, do you hear me, you old drunkard!"
"Ah! for the life of me!" Mother Souchard stammered out, terrified. "For the life of the good Lord, I...."
She did not finish. With bulging eyes, her mouth wide open and distorted into a horrible grimace, she was staring at the black body on the bed and at the blood absorbed by the bed clothes, the red stain on which was becoming purple and larger.
When I regained my senses, the killing of Spy appeared to me a monstrous crime. I was as horrified as if I had killed a child. Of all the cowardly acts committed I thought that was the most cowardly and loathsome! To kill Juliette! That would have been a crime, of course, but perhaps there could be found, if not an excuse, at least a reason for that crime in the revolt of my anguish. But to kill Spy! A dog ... a poor, inoffensive creature! Why? For no other reason than that I was a brute, that I had in me the savage and irresistible instinct of a murderer! During the war I had killed a man who was kindly, young and strong, and I had killed him just at the moment when, fascinated, with beating heart, he was rapturously watching the rising sun! I had killed him while hidden behind a tree, concealed by the shadow, like a coward! He was a Prussian? What difference does it make! He, too, was a human being, a man like myself, better than myself. Upon his life were depending the feeble lives of women and children; a portion of suffering humanity was praying for him, waiting for him; perhaps in that virile youth, in that robust body that was his, he had the germs of those superior beings for whom humanity had been living in hope? And with one shot from an idiotic, trembling gun I had destroyed all that. And now I killed a dog! ... and killed it when it was coming toward me, when it was trying with its little paws to climb on my lap! Verily, I was an assassin! That small cadaver haunted me, I always saw that head hideously crushed, the blood squirting all over the white clothes of the bedroom, and the bed indelibly stained with blood.
What was also tormenting was the thought that Juliette would never forgive me the loss of Spy. She would be horrified at the mere sight of me. I wrote her letters of repentance, assured her that from now on I was going to be satisfied with what little attention she might give me, that I would never again complain, that I was not going to reproach her for her behavior; my letters were so humble, so self-degrading, so vilely submissive that a person other than Juliette would feel disgusted on reading them. I sent them with a messenger whose return I would anxiously await on the corner of the Rue de Balzac.
"No answer!"
"Are you sure you did not give it to the wrong person? Did you deliver it to the party on the first floor?"
"Yes, Monsieur. The maid even said to me: 'No answer!'"
I went to her house. The door was opened only to the extent allowed by the chain lock which Juliette, fearing me, had ordered put on, since the evening of that terrible scene; and through the half-opened space I could see the mocking and cynical face of Celestine.
"Madame is not in!"
"Celestine, my good Celestine, let me in, please!"
"Madame is not in!"
"Celestine! My dear little Celestine. Let me go in and wait for her. I'll give you a lot of money."
"Madame is not in!"
"Celestine, I beg of you! Go and tell Madame that I am here, that I am all right now ... that I am very sick ... that I am going to die! And you shall have a hundred francs, Celestine ... two hundred francs!"
Celestine looked at me slyly, with a mocking air, happy to see me suffer, happy above all to see a man reduced to her own level, begging servilely to her.
"For just one minute, Celestine. I'll just look at her and go away!"
"No, no, Monsieur! She'll scold me!"
The ringing of a bell was heard. I heard the noise of it quicken.
"You see, Monsieur, she is calling me!"
"Well, now! Celestine, tell her that if she does not come to my house by six o'clock, if she does not write to me by six o'clock ... tell her that I am going to kill myself! Six o'clock, Celestine! Don't forget now ... tell her that I am going to kill myself!"
"All right, Monsieur!"
The door was shut behind me with the clang of a chained lock.
It occurred to me to see Gabrielle Bernier, to tell her my troubles, to ask her advice, and use her offices for a reconciliation with Juliette. Gabrielle was finishing breakfast with a friend of hers, a short, skinny woman of dark complexion, with a pointed chin like a mouse which when speaking seemed always to be nibbling at something. In a morning robe of white silk, soiled and rumpled, her hair kept from falling by a comb stuck across it on top of her head, her elbows resting on the table, Gabrielle was smoking a cigarette and sipping chartreuse from a glass.
"Why, Jean! And so you have come back?"
She showed me into her dressing room which was very untidy. At the very first words which I spoke of Juliette, she exclaimed:
"Why ... don't you know? We have not been on speaking terms for two months since the time she beat me out of a consul, my dear, an American Consul, who paid me five thousand a month! Yes, she beat me out of it, that skinflint did! And how about you? You have made her come down a peg lower, I hope."
"Ah! I!" I answered, "I am very unhappy! And so a consul is her lover now!"
Gabrielle relit her extinguished cigarette and shrugged her shoulders.
"Her lover! Do you think women like that can keep a lover! She could not keep the Lord himself, my dear! Ah, men don't stick to her very long, I tell you. They come one day and then the next they pitch camp somewhere else. Well, thanks very much! It's all right to fleece them but you must do it with your gloves on, don't you think? And you are still in love with her, poor boy."
"Still—why I am more so than ever! I have done everything to cure myself of this shameful infatuation which makes me the lowest of men, which kills me, but I can't. Well now, she is leading a loathsome life, isn't she?"
"Ah! Well ... that's true," Gabrielle exclaimed, blowing a cloud of smoke in the air. "You know that I myself don't play the prude. I am enjoying myself just like everybody else ... but honestly ... I can swear.... I'd feel ashamed to do what she does!"
With head turned, she was emitting coils of smoke which rose tremblingly toward the ceiling. And to emphasize what she had just said:
"That's the truth I am telling you," she repeated.
Although I suffered cruelly, although every word of Gabrielle cut my heart as with a knife, I came up to her and coaxingly:
"Come, my little Gabrielle," I begged her, "tell me all about her!"
"Tell you! ... tell you! Wait now! You know the two Borgsheim brothers ... those two dirty Germans! Well, Juliette, was with both of them at the same time. I saw that myself, you know! At the same time, mind you, my dear! One night she said to one of them: 'Ah well! It is you that I love!' And she led him away. The next day she said to the other: 'No, it is positively you!' And she led him away. And you should have seen them! Two wretched Prussians who haggled over the bill! And a lot of other things. But I don't want to tell you anything because I see I hurt you."
"No!" I exclaimed, "no, Gabrielle, go on, because ... you understand. After all the disgust ... the disgust...."
I was choking. I burst into sobs.
Gabrielle was trying to console me.
"Come! Come now.... Poor Jean! Don't cry! She does not deserve all this grief! Such a nice boy as you are! I can't see how that is possible! I always used to tell her: 'You don't understand him, my dear, you never did understand him, a man like that is a jewel!' Ah! I know some women who would be mighty glad to have a man like you ... and who would love you very much!"
She sat down on my lap and wanted to dry the tears from my eyes. Her voice became soft and her eyes luminous:
"Have a little courage. Cut loose from her! Get another one, one who is kind and gentle, one who would understand you. Can't you see?"
And suddenly, she threw her arms around me and fastened her mouth upon my own. Her bare breast which rolled out from under the lace of her peignoir was pressing against my chest. This kiss, this exposed portion of her body horrified me. I freed myself from her embrace, I rudely pushed Gabrielle away, she straightened up again somewhat abashed, fixed her dress and said to me:
"Yes, I understand! I have had the same feeling. But, you know, dear. Whenever you want to ... come to see me."
I left. My legs were shaking, around my head I felt rings of lead; a cold sweat covered my face and rolled in titillating drops down my back. In order to walk I had to hold on to the house walls, as I was on the verge of fainting. I walked into a café and avidly gulped down a few draughts of rum. I could not say that I suffered much. It was a sort of stupor that rendered my members inactive, a kind of physical and mental prostration in which from time to time the thought of Juliette brought with it the sensation of a sharp, lancinating odor. And in my disordered mind Juliette was losing her identity; it was no longer a woman who had an individual existence that I saw, it was prostitution itself with its immense, outstretched body covering the entire world; it was lust personified, eternally defiled, toward which panting multitudes were rushing across the shadow of woeful nights, pierced by torches carried by monstrous idols.... I remained there a long time, my elbows on the table, my head buried in my hands, with gaze fixed between two mirrors upon a panel on which flowers were painted.
At last I left the café and walked and walked ahead, without knowing where I was going. After a long course and without the least intention of getting there, I found myself in the Avenue Bois-de-Boulogne, near the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was beginning to set. Above the hills of Saint Cloud which took on a violet tinge, the sky was a glorious purple, and little pink clouds were wandering upon the pallid blue expanse. The woods stood out as a solid mass, grown darker, a fine dust reddened by the reflection of a setting sun rose from the avenue black with carriages. And the dense mass of carriages, congested into interminable lines, were passing without end, carrying human birds of prey to nocturnal carnages. Reclining on their cushions, indolent and disdainful, with stupid countenances and flabby flesh, exhaling a putrid odor, they were all there, so nearly alike that I recognized Juliette in each one of them. The line of vehicles appeared to me more lugubrious than ever. As I looked at these horses, this diversity of colors, this crimson sun which made the glass panes of the carriages shine like breastplates, all this intense intermingling of colors—red, yellow, blue—all these plumes that swayed in the wind, I had the impression of looking at some enemy regiments, regiments of an army of conquest ready to fall upon vanquished foes, drunk foes, drunk with a desire for pillage. And quite seriously I was indignant over the fact that I did not hear the roar of cannons, did not hear the mitrailleuses spitting death and sweeping the avenue with fire. A laborer who was returning from work stopped at the end of the sidewalk. With tools on his shoulder and crooked back, he was watching the street. Not only did he have no hatred in his eyes but there was a sort of ecstasy in them. Anger seized me. I wanted to come up to him, grab him by the collar and cry out: