THEIR FIRST SUPPER."Now", said Laurent to Thérèse, as he knelt to offer her her cup, "I can understand how one can be a servant and enjoy his profession."
THEIR FIRST SUPPER.
"Now", said Laurent to Thérèse, as he knelt to offer her her cup, "I can understand how one can be a servant and enjoy his profession."
"Now," he said to Thérèse, as he knelt to offer her her cup, "I can understand how one can be a servant and enjoy his profession."
From certain people, even the most trivial attentions have an extraordinary value. There was in Laurent's manners, and even in his attitudes, a certain stiffness which he never laid aside, even with society women. He offered them attentions with the ceremonious coldness of the most rigid etiquette. With Thérèse, who did the honors of her little home like the excellent woman and good-humored artist that she was, he had always been cared for and coddled without having to reciprocate. He would have shown a lack of taste and of tact in assuming to act as the man of the house. Suddenly, as a result of those tears and mutual outpourings of the heart, he found himself, without in the least understanding how it happened, invested with rights which did not belong to him, but which he seized upon as if by inspiration, without opposition on the part of the surprised and deeply moved Thérèse. It seemed to him that he was under his own roof, and that he had won the privilege of looking after the mistress of the house, like a loving brother or an old friend. And Thérèse, without a thought of the danger of this taking possession, watched him with wide-open, wondering eyes, asking herself if she had not been radically mistaken hitherto in regarding that affectionate and devoted child as a reserved and gloomy man.
However, Thérèse reflected during the night; but, in the morning, Laurent, who, although he had no premeditated plan, did not propose to give her time to breathe,—for he had ceased to breathe himself,—sent her magnificent flowers, rare sweetmeats, and a note so loving, so gentle and respectful, that she could not fail to be touched by it. He said that he was the happiest of men, that he desired nothing more except her forgiveness, and that, as soon as he had obtained that, he should be the king of the world. He would accept any deprivation, any harsh decree, provided only that he was not forbidden to see and talk with his friend. That alone would be beyond his strength; all the rest was as nothing. He was well aware that Thérèse could have no love for him; which fact did not deter him from saying, ten lines lower down: "Is not our sanctified love indissoluble?"
And stating thus the pros and the con's, the false and the true, a hundred times a day, with a candor by which he was unquestionably deceived himself, encompassing Thérèse with delicate attentions, striving with all his heart to give her confidence in the chastity of their relations, and at every instant talking to her in a lofty strain of his adoration for her, seeking to divert her when she was disturbed in mind, to cheer her when she was sad, to melt her toward himself when she was stern, he led her insensibly to the point where she had no other will and no other existence than his.
Nothing is so perilous as those intimacies in which the parties have exchanged a promise not to attack each other, when neither of the two inspires a secret physical repulsion in the other. Artists, because of their independent life and the nature of their occupations, which oblige them often to depart from social conventions, are more exposed to these perils than they who live by rule and whose imaginations are less active. We should forgive them, therefore, for more sudden impressions and more feverish impulses. Public opinion realizes this duty, for it is generally more indulgent to those who go astray, perforce, in the tempest than those whose lives are passed in a flat calm. And then the world demands from artists the fire of inspiration, and that fire, which overflows for the enjoyment and enthusiasm of the public, must inevitably consume themselves in time. Then we pity them; and the honest bourgeois, returning to his family at night, after learning of their misfortunes and downfall, says to his excellent and gentle helpmeet:
"You remember that poor girl who sang so well? she is dead of a broken heart. And that famous poet who wrote such fine verses has killed himself. It's a great pity, wife. All those people end badly. We, the simple creatures, are the happy ones."
And the honest bourgeois is right.
Thérèse had lived a long while, however, if not as an honest bourgeois,—for one must have a family for that, and God had denied her a family,—at all events as a hard-working young woman, working from early morning, and not regaling herself with pleasure or sloth at the end of her day's work. She constantly aspired to the joys of a regular, domestic life; she loved order, and, far from displaying the childish contempt which certain artists lavished upon what they called, in those days, the grocer class, she bitterly regretted that she had not married in that safe and modest social circle where she would have found affection and security instead of talent and renown. But we do not choose our own destinies, for fools and ambitious mortals are not the only imprudent wights whom destiny overwhelms.
Thérèse had no weakness for Laurent in the ironical, libertine sense in which that word is commonly used in love. It was by an effort of her will that she said to him, after many nights of painful meditation:
"I wish what you wish, because we have reached the point where the sin still to be committed is the inevitable reparation of a succession of sins already committed. I have been culpable toward you, in not having had the selfish prudence to fly from you; it is better that I should be culpable toward myself by remaining your companion and your consolation, at the price of my peace of mind and my pride.—Listen," she added, grasping his hand with all the strength of which she was capable, "do not withdraw this hand, and, whatever happens, always retain enough honor and courage to remember that before being your mistress I wasyour friend. I said it to myself on the first day of your passion: we loved each other too well thus, not to love each other less well under other circumstances; but that happiness could not last for me, because you no longer share it, and pain has taken the upper hand in that liaison, in which for you pain and pleasure are mingled. I simply ask you, if you become weary of my love, as you become weary of my friendship, to remember that it is not an instant of frenzy that has driven me into your arms, but an impulse of my heart and a more loving and lasting sentiment than voluptuous intoxication. I am not superior to other women, and I do not assume the right to deem myself invulnerable; but I love you so ardently and so purely that I should never have transgressed with you, if you could have been saved by my strength. After I had believed that strength was beneficial to you, that it would teach you to discover your own strength and to purge yourself of an evil past, I found that you were convinced of the contrary, so convinced that to-day the contrary has actually happened: you are becoming bitter, and it seems that, if I resist, you are ready to hate me and to return to your life of debauchery, blaspheming even our poor friendship. And so I offer to God the sacrifice of my life for you. If I am destined to suffer because of your nature or your past, so be it. I shall be amply repaid if I rescue you from the suicide you were in a fair way to commit when I first knew you. If I do not succeed, I shall at least have made the trial, and God, who knows how sincere my devotion is, will pardon me if it is of no avail!"
In the early days of this union, Laurent's enthusiasm, gratitude, and faith were admirable to see. He rose superior to himself, he had outbursts of religious fervor, he blessed his dear mistress for having made known to him at last the true, chaste, and noble love of which he had dreamed so much, and of which he had thought that he was to be deprived forever by his own fault. She dipped him anew, he said, in the waters of his baptism, she wiped out even the memory of his evil days. It was adoration, worship, ecstatic contemplation.
Thérèse ingenuously believed in him. She abandoned herself to the joy of having caused all that happiness and restored all that grandeur of soul to one of God's elect. She forgot all her apprehensions, or smiled at them as meaningless dreams which she had mistaken for arguments. They laughed at them together; they reproached themselves for having misunderstood each other and for not having thrown themselves on each other's neck the very first day, they were so perfectly adapted to understand, appreciate, and cherish each other. There was no more talk of prudence, no more sermons. Thérèse had grown ten years younger. She was a child, more childish than Laurent himself; she devoted all her energies to the task of arranging his existence so that he would not feel the fold of a rose-leaf.
Poor Thérèse! Her intoxication did not last eight whole days.
Whence comes that terrible chastisement inflicted on those who have abused the forces of youth, a chastisement which consists in making them incapable of appreciating the joys of a harmonious and logical existence? Is the young man a very great criminal who, being launched in the world without a curb and with boundless aspirations, deems himself capable of exterminating all the phantoms that pass, of mastering all the pleasures that beckon to him? Is his sin anything else than ignorance, and could he have learned in his cradle that life should be a constant battle with one's self? There are some of these young men who are really to be pitied, and whom it is difficult to condemn, some who may have been without a guide, a careful mother, a judicious friend, a sincere first mistress. Vertigo has seized them at the outset; corruption has hurled itself upon them as upon its lawful prey, to make brutes of those who have more senses than heart, to make madmen of those who struggle, as Laurent did, between the mire of reality and the ideal of their dreams.
That is what Thérèse said to herself in order to keep on loving that suffering soul, and why she endured the outrages we are about to describe.
The seventh day of their happiness was irrevocably the last. That ill-fated figure was never absent from Thérèse's mind. Fortuitous circumstances combined to prolong that eternity of joy throughout a whole week; no one with whom she was intimate had come to see Thérèse, she had no work that was urgent; Laurent promised to set to work afresh as soon as he could resume possession of his studio, then in the hands of workmen who were making certain repairs. The heat in Paris was most oppressive; he proposed to Thérèse that they should pass forty-eight hours in the country, in the woods. It was the seventh day.
They set off by boat, and arrived at night-fall at a hotel. After dinner, they went out to ride in the forest in the lovely moonlight. They hired horses and a guide, who soon wearied them by his boastful loquacity. They had ridden about two leagues when they came to the foot of a cliff with which Laurent was familiar. He proposed to dismiss the horses and the guide, and to return on foot, even if it were a little late.
"I am sure," said Thérèse, "I don't know why we should not pass the whole night in the forest. There are no wolves or thieves here. Let us stay as long as you choose, and never go back, if you say so."
They were left alone; and thereupon a strange, almost impossible scene occurred, which we must describe just as it happened. They had climbed to the top of the cliff, and were sitting on the thick moss, which was burned and withered by the intense heat. Laurent was gazing at the magnificent spectacle of the sky, where the moon dimmed the brilliancy of the stars. Only two or three of the largest could be distinguished in the zenith. Laurent, lying on his back, gazed at them.
"I would like to know," he said, "the name of this one almost over my head; it seems to be looking at me."
"That is Vega," said Thérèse.
"So you know the names of all the stars, do you, my learned lady?"
"Of almost all. It isn't difficult, and in fifteen minutes you shall know as many as I do, if you choose."
"No, thanks; I much prefer not to know them; I prefer to give them names of my own."
"And you are right."
"I prefer to roam at random among those lines up yonder, and arrange combinations of groups according to my own ideas, rather than walk according to the whims of other people. After all, perhaps I am wrong, Thérèse! You prefer the beaten paths, don't you?"
"They are softer for tender feet. I haven't seven-league boots like you!"
"What sarcasm! you know very well that you are a stronger and better walker than I!"
"That is easily understood: it is because I have no wings to fly."
"See to it that you don't get hold of any and leave me behind! But let us not talk about parting: that word would make the heavens weep!"
"What! who has any idea of such a thing? Don't say that ghastly word again!"
"No, no! let's not think of it!" he cried, springing suddenly to his feet.
"What's the matter, and where are you going?" she said.
"I don't know," he replied. "Ah! by the way——There's an extraordinary echo here, and the last time I came here with little—you don't care to know her name, do you? I enjoyed listening to it here, while she sang on yonder little hillock, just opposite us."
Thérèse made no reply. He saw that this unseasonable evocation of one of his undesirable acquaintances was not a very delicate contribution to the joys of a romantic midnight expedition with the queen of his heart. Why had it come into his head? how was it that the name of some foolish virgin or other had come to his lips? He was mortified by his blunder; but, instead of ingenuously blaming himself for it and wooing oblivion by torrents of loving words which he was quite capable of pouring forth when passion inspired his heart, he determined to brazen it out, and asked Thérèse if she would sing for him.
"I could not do it," she replied, gently. "It is a long while since I have ridden, and it has made me a little oppressed."
"If it is only a little, make an effort, Thérèse; it will give me so much pleasure!"
Thérèse was too proud to be angry, she was only grieved. She turned her face away, and pretended to cough.
"Well, well," said he, laughingly, "you are only a poor weak woman! And then you don't believe in my echo, I can see that. I propose that you shall hear it. Stay here. I will climb up to the top of the hill. You are not afraid to remain alone for five minutes, I trust?"
"No," replied Thérèse, "I am not at all afraid."
To climb to the other height, he had to go down into the little ravine which separated it from that on which they were; but the ravine was deeper than it seemed. When Laurent, having gone down half-way, saw how far he still had to go, he stopped, reluctant to leave Thérèse alone so long, and called to her, asking if she had called him.
"No, indeed I did not!" she shouted, not wishing to thwart his caprice.
It is impossible to describe what took place in Laurent's brain; he took thatindeed I did notfor a rebuke, and continued to descend, but less quickly, and musing as he walked.
"I have wounded her," he said, "and now she is sulky, as in the days when we played at being brother and sister. Is she going to continue to have these moody fits, now that she is my mistress? But why did I wound her? I was wrong, certainly, but it was unintentional. It is impossible that some scrap of my past should not come to my mind now and then. Is it to be an insult to her and a mortification to me every time? What does my past matter to her, since she has accepted me as I am? And yet I was wrong! yes, I was wrong; but will she never happen to mention the wretch whom she loved and thought she had married? In spite of herself, Thérèse when she is with me will remember the days she lived without me, and shall I twist it into a crime?"
He instantly answered his own question:
"Oh! yes, it would be intolerable! So I have done very wrong, and I ought to have asked her pardon at once."
But he had already reached that stage of mental fatigue when the mind is sated with enthusiasm, and when the weak and shrinking creature that every one of us is, to a greater or less extent, feels that he must resume possession of himself.
"Must humble myself again, promise again, persuade again, shed tears again?" he said to himself. "Great God! can't she be happy and trustful for a single week? It's my fault, I agree, but it's hers still more for making so much out of so little, and spoiling this lovely poetic night which I had planned to pass with her in one of the loveliest spots on earth. I have been here before with rakes and wantons, it is true; but to what corner of the outskirts of Paris could I have taken her where I was not likely to run against some such unpleasant reminiscence? Surely they can hardly be said to enchant me, and it is almost cruel to reproach me with them."
As he replied thus in his heart to the reproaches with which Thérèse was probably upbraiding him in hers, he reached the bottom of the ravine, where he felt disturbed and fatigued as after a quarrel, and threw himself on the grass in a fit of annoyance and weariness. For seven whole days he had not belonged to himself; he was conscious of a longing to reconquer his liberty, and to fancy himself alone and unsubdued for a moment.
Thérèse, for her part, was heart-broken and terrified at the same time. Why had the wordpartingbeen suddenly hurled at her like a shrill cry amid that tranquil atmosphere that they were breathing together? what was the occasion of it? how had she provoked it? She tried in vain to determine. Laurent himself could not have explained it to her. All that had followed was grossly cruel, and how angry he must have been, that man of exquisite breeding, to have said it! But what was the cause of his anger? Had he a serpent within him that gnawed his heart and extorted from him wild and blasphemous words?
She had followed him with her eyes down the slope until he had entered the dark shadow of the ravine. Then she saw him no more, and was surprised at the time that elapsed before he appeared on the slope of the other hill. She was frightened at last—he might have fallen over some precipice. In vain did her eager glances question the grass-grown depths, bristling with huge, dark rocks. She rose, intending to call to him, when an indescribable cry of distress reached her ears, a hoarse, ghastly, desperate shriek, which made her hair stand on end.
She darted away like an arrow in the direction of the voice. If there had really been a precipice, she would have rushed over the edge without reflection; but there was only a steep incline, where she slipped several times on the moss and tore her dress on the bushes. Nothing stopped her; she reached Laurent's side, how, she knew not, and found him on his feet, with haggard eyes and trembling convulsively.
"Ah! here you are," he said, grasping her arm; "you did well to come! I should have died!"
And, like Don Juan after the reply of the statue, he added in a sharp, abrupt tone: "Let us go away from here!"
He led her to the road, walking at random, and unable to tell what had happened to him.
He became calmer at last, after ten or fifteen minutes, and sat down beside her in a clearing. They had no idea where they were; the ground was strewn with flat rocks which resembled tombs, and among them grew juniper-trees, which one might well have mistaken at night for cypresses.
"Mon Dieu!" said Laurent, suddenly, "are we in a cemetery? Why did you bring me here?"
"It is simply a tract of untilled land," she replied. "We passed through many similar ones this evening. If you don't like it, let's not stop here, but go back under the large trees."
"No, let us stay here," he rejoined. "Since chance or destiny brings these thoughts of death into my mind, I may as well face them and exhaust their horror. They have their charm, like everything else, have they not, Thérèse? Everything that moves the imagination powerfully, affords us enjoyment, more or less painful. When a head is to fall on the scaffold, the multitude goes to see, and it is altogether natural. We cannot live upon mild emotions alone; we need terrible emotions to make us realize the intensity of life."
He spoke thus, as if at random, for some moments. Thérèse dared not question him, and strove to divert his thoughts; she saw that he had had an attack of delirium. At last, he recovered sufficiently to desire and to be able to describe it to her.
He had had an hallucination. As he lay on the grass, in the ravine, his brain had become confused. He had heard the echo sing all by itself, and its song was an obscene refrain. Then, as he raised himself on his elbow to seek an explanation of the phenomenon, he had seen a man rush toward him over the grass, a pale-faced man, with torn garments, and his hair flying in the wind.
"I saw him so plainly," he said, "that I had time to say to myself that he was some belated citizen who had been surprised and pursued by robbers, and I even looked for my cane to go to his assistance, but my cane was lost in the grass, and the man was still running toward me. When he was close to me, I saw that he was drunk and that no one was chasing him. As he passed me, he cast a stupid, hideous glance at me, and made a fiendish grimace of hatred and contempt. Then I was afraid, and threw myself face downward on the ground, for that man—was myself!—Yes, it was my ghost, Thérèse. Don't be frightened, don't think me mad, it was a vision. I realized it when I found myself alone in the darkness. I could not have distinguished the features of any human face, I had seen that one only in my imagination; but how distinct, how ghastly, how horrible it was. It was myself twenty years older, with features wasted by debauchery or disease, wild eyes, a brutalized mouth, and, despite the total wiping out of my vitality, there was enough energy remaining in that phantom to insult and defy the creature that I am now. Thereupon, I said to myself: 'O my God! is that what I shall be in my mature years?' This evening, there came into my mind the memory of some miserable past experiences of mine, and I blurted them out involuntarily; is it because I still bear within me that old man from whom I believed that I was free? The spectre of debauchery will not release his victims, and even in Thérèse's arms he will mock at me and cry: 'It is too late!'
"Then I rose to go back to you, my poor Thérèse. I intended to ask your pardon for my vileness and to beg you to save me; but I don't know how many minutes or centuries I should have turned round and round, unable to take a step forward, if you had not come to me at last. I recognized you instantly, Thérèse; I was not afraid of you, and I felt that I was saved."
It was difficult to determine, when Laurent talked thus, whether he was telling of something that had really happened, or whether he had confused in his brain an allegory born of his bitter reflections and a vision which he had seen indistinctly in a sort of half-sleep. He swore, however, that he did not fall asleep on the grass, and that he had not once lost consciousness of the place where he was or of the passage of time; but even that was difficult to decide. Thérèse had lost sight of him, and to her the time had seemed mortally long.
She asked him if he were subject to these hallucinations.
"Yes," he said, "when I am drunk; but I have been drunk with love only, in the fortnight that you have been mine."
"The fortnight!" echoed Thérèse in amazement.
"No, less than that," he replied; "don't split hairs with me about dates; you see that I have not my wits as yet. Let us walk, that will fix me all right."
"But you need rest; we must think of returning to the hotel."
"Well, what are we doing?"
"We are not going in the right direction; our backs are turned to our starting-point."
"Do you want me to go back over that infernal rock?"
"No, but let us go to the right."
"That is just the wrong direction."
Thérèse insisted that she was not mistaken. Laurent refused to yield; he even lost his temper, and spoke in an irritated tone, as if that were a subject for quarrelling. Thérèse yielded at last, and followed where he chose to go. She was completely crushed by emotion and sadness. Laurent had spoken to her in a tone which she had never dreamed of assuming with Catherine, even when the old servant angered her. She forgave him because she felt that he was ill; but his state of painful excitement alarmed her so much the more.
Thanks to Laurent's obstinacy, they lost themselves in the forest, walked about four hours, and did not return to the hotel until daybreak. The walking in the fine, heavy sand of the forest is very fatiguing. Thérèse could hardly drag herself along, and Laurent, revivified by that violent exercise, did not think of slackening his pace out of regard for her. He walked ahead, constantly asserting that he had found the right path, asking her from time to time if she were tired, and never suspecting that, when she answered no, her purpose was to spare him any regret for having caused the misadventure.
The next day, Laurent had forgotten all about it; he had suffered a severe shock, however, from that strange attack, but it is a peculiarity of excessively nervous temperaments that they recover from such shocks as if by magic. Indeed, Thérèse had occasion to notice, that on the day following that lamentable experience it was she who was utterly exhausted, while he seemed to have acquired fresh strength.
She had not slept, expecting to find him suffering from some serious illness; but he took a bath, and felt quite disposed to repeat the excursion. He seemed to have forgotten how disastrous that nocturnal experience had been to the honeymoon! The melancholy impression soon wore away, so far as Thérèse was concerned. When they returned to Paris, she imagined that nothing had changed between them; but that same evening Laurent chose to draw a caricature of Thérèse and himself wandering through the forest by moonlight, he with his wild, distraught look, she with her torn gown and her fatigue-stricken body. Artists are so accustomed to make caricatures of one another, that Thérèse was amused by this one; but, although she, too, had plenty of facility and humor at the end of her pencil, she would not have caricatured Laurent for anything in the world; and when she saw him sketch from a comical standpoint that nocturnal scene which had so tortured her, she was deeply grieved. It seemed to her that there are certain sorrows of the heart which can never have a ridiculous side.
Laurent, instead of understanding her feeling, became still more satirical. He wrote under his own figure:Lost in the forest and in his mistress's heart; and under Thérèse's:Her heart is as sadly rent as her gown. The picture was entitled:Honeymoon in a Cemetery. Thérèse forced herself to smile; she praised the drawing, which, despite its buffoonery, revealed the hand of the master, and she made no reflection on the unfortunate choice of a subject. She made a mistake: she would have done better to demand at the outset that Laurent should not let his hilarity run about at random in long boots. She allowed him to tread on her toes because she was still afraid that he might be ill and might be seized with delirium in the midst of his dismal jesting.
Two or three other incidents of this nature having put her on her guard, she began to wonder whether the unexciting, regular life which she sought to give her friend was the regimen best adapted to that exceptional nature. She had said to him:
"Perhaps you will be bored sometimes; but ennui is a welcome rest from vertigo, and when your mental health has fully returned, you will be amused by trifles and will know what real cheerfulness is."
But matters turned out differently. Laurent did not admit his ennui, but it was impossible for him to endure it, and he vented it in strange and bitter caprices. He lived a life of constant ups and downs. Abrupt transitions from reverie to wild excitement, and from absolute indifference to noisy extravagance, became with him a normal condition, and he could not live without them. The happiness that he had found so delicious for a few days, began to irritate him like the sight of the sea during a flat calm.
"You are lucky," he said to Thérèse, "to wake every morning with your heart in the same place. You see, I lose mine while I am asleep. It is like the night-cap my nurse used to put on my head when I was a baby; sometimes she found it at my feet and sometimes on the floor."
Thérèse said to herself that it was impossible that serenity could come to that troubled soul all at once, and that it must become accustomed to it by degrees. To that end, he must not be prevented from returning sometimes to active life; but how could she arrange it so that activity would not be a blemish, a deadly blow dealt at their ideal? Thérèse could not be jealous of the mistresses Laurent had had previously; but she could not understand how she could kiss his brow on the morrow of a debauch. She must, therefore, since the work, which he had resumed with great ardor, excited him instead of calming him, seek with him a vent for that surplus energy. The natural vent would have been the enthusiasm of love; but that was an additional source of excitement, after which Laurent would fain have scaled the third heaven; lacking the strength for that, he turned his eyes in the direction of hell, and his brain, sometimes his very face, received a diabolical reflection therefrom.
Thérèse studied his tastes and his caprices, and was surprised to find them easy to satisfy. Laurent was greedy of diversion and of surprises; it was not necessary to take him among scenes of enchantment that could never exist in real life; it was enough to take him no matter where, and provide some amusement for him which he did not expect. If, instead of giving him a dinner at home, Thérèse informed him, putting on her hat the while, that they were to dine together at a restaurant, and if she suddenly asked him to take her to an entirely different sort of play from the one to which she had previously asked him to take her, he was overjoyed by that unexpected diversion and took the keenest pleasure in it; whereas, if they simply carried out a plan marked out beforehand, he was certain to feel an insurmountable distaste for it and a disposition to sneer at everything. So Thérèse treated him as a convalescent child, to whom one refuses nothing, and she chose to pay no heed to the resultant inconveniences to which she was subjected.
The first and most serious was the danger of compromising her reputation. She was commonly said to be, and known to be, virtuous. Everybody was not convinced that she had never had any other lover than Laurent; indeed, some person having reported that she had been seen in Italy years before with the Comte de ——, who had a wife in America, she was supposed to have been kept by the man whom she had actually married, and we have seen that Thérèse preferred to endure that blot upon her fame rather than engage in a scandalous contest with the miserable wretch whom she had loved; but every one was agreed in considering her a prudent and sensible woman.
"She keeps up appearances," people said; "there is never any rivalry or scandal about her; all her friends respect her and speak well of her. She is a clever woman, and seeks nothing more than to pass unnoticed; which fact adds to her merit."
When she was seen away from home, on Laurent's arm, people began to be surprised, and the blame was all the more severe because she had kept clear of it so long. Laurent's talent was highly esteemed by artists generally, but he had very few real friends among them. They took it ill of him that he played the gentleman with fashionable young men of another class, and, on the other hand, his friends in that other class could not understand his conversion and did not believe in it. So that Thérèse's fond and devoted love was regarded as a frenzied caprice. Would a chaste woman have chosen for her lover, in preference to all the serious men of her acquaintance, the only one who had led a dissolute life with all the vilest harlots in Paris? And, in the eyes of those who did not choose to condemn Thérèse, Laurent's violent passion seemed to be simply a successful piece of lechery, of which he was shrewd enough to shake himself clear when he was weary of it.
Thus on all sides Mademoiselle Jacques lost caste on account of the choice which she had made and which she seemed desirous to advertise.
Such, unquestionably, was not Thérèse's purpose; but with Laurent, although he had resolved to encompass her with respect, it was hardly possible to conceal her mode of life. He could not renounce the outside world, and she must either let him return thither alone to his destruction or go with him to preserve him from destruction. He was accustomed to see the crowd and to be seen by it. When he had lived in retirement a single day, he fancied that he had fallen into a cellar, and shouted lustily for gas and sunlight.
In addition to this loss of consideration, Thérèse was called upon to make another sacrifice: she was no longer sure of her footing pecuniarily. Hitherto she had earned enough money by her work to live comfortably, but only by observing strict regularity in her habits, by looking carefully after her expenses, and by working faithfully and regularly. Laurent's passion for the unexpected soon straitened her. She concealed her position from him, being unwilling to refuse to sacrifice to him that priceless time which constitutes the larger part of the artist's capital.
But all this was simply the frame of a much gloomier picture, over which Thérèse threw a veil so thick that no one suspected her unhappiness, and her friends, scandalized or distressed by her situation, held aloof from her, saying:
"She is intoxicated. Let us wait until she opens her eyes; that will come very soon."
It had already come. Thérèse acquired more and more thoroughly every day the sad certainty that Laurent no longer loved her, or loved her so little that there was no further hope of happiness, either for him or for her, in their union. It was in Italy that they both became absolutely certain of the fact, and we are now to describe their journey thither.
Laurent had long wanted to see Italy; it had been his dream from childhood, and the unhoped-for sale of certain of his paintings made it possible at last for him to realize that dream. He offered to take Thérèse, proudly displaying his little fortune, and swearing by all he held dear that, if she would not go with him, he would abandon the trip. Thérèse knew well that he would not abandon it without regret and without bitterly reproaching her. So she exerted her utmost ingenuity to obtain some money herself. She succeeded by pledging her future work; and they set out late in the autumn.
Laurent had formed some very erroneous ideas concerning Italy, and expected to find spring in December as soon as he caught sight of the Mediterranean. He had to acknowledge his error, and to suffer from a very sharp attack of frosty weather on the trip from Marseille to Genoa. Genoa pleased him immensely, and as there were many pictures to see there, as it was the principal object of the journey so far as he was concerned, he readily agreed to stay there one or two months, and hired furnished apartments.
After a week, Laurent had seen everything, and Thérèse was just beginning to settle down to painting; for it should be said here that she was obliged to work. In order to obtain a few thousand-franc notes, she had made an agreement with a dealer in pictures to bring him copies of several unpublished portraits, which he proposed to have engraved. It was not an unpleasant task; the dealer, being a man of taste, had specified a number of portraits by Van Dyck, one at Genoa, one at Florence, etc. The copying of that master required a special gift, by virtue of which Thérèse had developed her own talent and earned a livelihood before she undertook to paint portraits on her own account; but she must needs begin by obtaining permission from the owners of those masterpieces; and, although she exerted herself to the utmost, a whole week passed before she was able to begin to copy the portrait at Genoa.
Laurent felt in nowise disposed to copy anything under heaven. His individuality was too pronounced and too fiery for that sort of work. He was benefited in other ways by the sight of great works. That was his right. And yet, many a great master, having so excellent an opportunity, would have been likely to take advantage of it. Laurent was not yet twenty-five years of age, and might still learn. That was Thérèse's opinion, who also saw an opportunity for him to increase his pecuniary resources. If he would have condescended to copy a Titian,—who was his favorite among the masters,—there was no doubt that the same dealer who had commissioned Thérèse would have bought it or found a purchaser for it. Laurent considered that an absurd idea. So long as he had money in his pocket, he could not conceive how one could descend from the lofty realms of art so far as to think of gain. He left Thérèse absorbed in contemplation of her model, joking her a little in anticipation on the Van Dyck she was going to paint, and trying to dishearten her with the terrible task she had the courage to undertake. Then he roamed about the city, sorely perplexed as to how he should employ the six weeks which Thérèse had asked for the completion of her work.
Certainly, she had no time to spare with the short, dark, December days, and facilities for working not to be compared with those of her own studio in Paris: a wretched light, an enormous room heated very slightly or not at all, and swarms of chattering tourists who, on the pretext of looking at her work, planted themselves in front of her, or annoyed her with their absurd or impertinent reflections. Ill with a severe cold, depressed, and, above all, alarmed by the traces of ennui which she spied in Laurent's eyes, she returned to their apartments at night to find him out of temper, or to wait for him until hunger drove him home. Two days did not pass without his reproaching her for having accepted a degrading task, and urging her to abandon it. Had not he money enough for both, and why should his mistress refuse to share it with him?
Thérèse held firm; she knew that money would not last in Laurent's hands, and that he very likely would not have enough to return home when he was tired of Italy. She begged him to let her work, and to work himself according to his own ideas, but as every artist can and should work when he has his future to build.
He agreed that she was right, and resolved to set to work. He unpacked his boxes, found a studio, and made several sketches; but, whether because of the change of air and of habits, or because of the too recent sight of so many chefs-d'œuvres which had moved him deeply and which he required time to digest, he was conscious of a temporary impotence, and fell into one of those fits of the blues which he could not throw off alone. It would have required some excitement coming from without, superb music descending from the ceiling, an Arabian steed coming through the key-hole, an unfamiliar literary masterpiece at his hand, or, still better, a naval engagement in the harbor of Genoa, an earthquake, or any other exciting event, pleasurable or terrible, which would take him out of himself, and under the spell of which he would feel lifted up and revivified.
Suddenly, amid his vague and confused aspirations, an evil idea sought him out in spite of himself.
"When I think," he reflected, "thatformerly" (that was the way he referred to the time when he did not love Thérèse) "the slightest pleasure was enough to restore me to life! I have to-day many things of which I used to dream—money, that is to say, six months of leisure and liberty, Italy under my feet, the sea at my door, a mistress as loving as a mother, and at the same time a serious and intelligent friend; and all these are not enough to rekindle my energy! Whose fault is it? Not mine, surely. I was not spoiled, and formerly it did not require so much to divert me. When I think that the lightest wine used to go to my head as quickly as the most generous vintage; that any saucy minx, with a provoking glance and a problematical costume, was enough to raise my spirits and to persuade me that such a conquest made me like one of the heroes of the Regency! Did I need an ideal creature like Thérèse? How in the devil did I ever persuade myself that both moral and physical beauty were necessary to me in love? I used to be able to content myself with theleast; therefore themostwas certain to crush me, since better is the enemy of good. And then, too, is there such a thing as true beauty to the passions? The true is that which pleases. That with which one is sated is as if it had never been. And then there is the pleasure of changing, and therein, perhaps, lies the whole secret of life. To change is to renew one's self; to be able to change is to be free. Is the artist born to be a slave, and is it not slavery to remain faithful, or simply to pledge one's faith?"
Laurent allowed himself to be persuaded by these old sophistries, always new to minds that are adrift. He soon felt that he must express them to some one, and that some one was Thérèse. So much the worse for her, since Laurent saw no one else.
The evening conversation always began in about the same way:
"What a frightfully stupid place this is!"
One evening, he added:
"It must be a ghastly bore to be in a picture. I shouldn't like to be that model you are copying. That poor lovely countess in the black and gold dress, who has been hanging there two hundred years, must have damned herself in heaven—if her soft eyes didn't damn her here—to see her image buried in this dismal country."
"And yet," Thérèse replied, "she still has the privilege of beauty, the triumph which survives death and which the hand of a master perpetuates. Although she has crumbled to dust in her grave, she still has lovers; every day I see young men, utterly insensible to the merits of the painting, stand in ecstatic contemplation before that beauty which seems to breathe and smile with triumphant tranquillity."
"She resembles you, Thérèse, do you know it? She has a little of the sphinx, and I am not surprised at your admiration of her mysterious smile. They say that artists always create after their own nature; it was perfectly natural that you should select Van Dyck's portraits for your apprenticeship. He made women tall and slender and elegant and proud, like your figure."
"You have reached the stage of compliment! Stop there, for I know that mockery will come next."
"No, I am in no mood for jesting. You know well enough that I no longer jest. With you one must take everything seriously, and I follow the prescription. I simply have one depressing remark to make. It is that your dead and gone countess must be tired of being beautiful always in the same way.—An idea, Thérèse! a fantastic vision suggested by what you said just now. Listen."
A FANTASTIC VISION."A young man, who presumably had some idea of sculpture, conceived a passion for a marble statue on a tomb. He went mad over it, and one day the poor devil raised the stone to see what was left of that lovely creature in the sarcophagus."
A FANTASTIC VISION.
"A young man, who presumably had some idea of sculpture, conceived a passion for a marble statue on a tomb. He went mad over it, and one day the poor devil raised the stone to see what was left of that lovely creature in the sarcophagus."
"A young man, who presumably had some idea of sculpture, conceived a passion for a marble statue on a tomb. He went mad over it, and one day the poor devil raised the stone to see what was left of that lovely creature in the sarcophagus. He found there—what he was certain to find there, the idiot!—a mummy! Thereupon, his reason returned, and he kissed the mummy, saying: 'I love you better so; at least, you are something that has lived, while I was enamored of a stone that has never been aware of its own existence.'"
"I don't understand," said Thérèse.
"Nor do I; but it may be that in love the statue is what one builds in his head, and the mummy what he takes into his heart."
Another day, he sketched Thérèse, in a pensive, melancholy attitude, in an album which she then looked through, finding there a dozen sketches of women whose insolent attitudes and shameless expressions made her blush. They were phantoms of the past which had passed through Laurent's memory, and had clung to those white pages, perhaps, in spite of him. Thérèse, without a word, tore out the leaf upon which she was given a place in that vile company, threw it into the fire, closed the album, and placed it on the table; then she sat down by the fire, put her foot on the andiron, and attempted to talk of something else.
Laurent did not reply, but said to her:
"You are too proud, my dear! If you had burned all the leaves that offended you and left only your own image in the album, I should have understood, and I should have said: 'You do well;' but to withdraw and leave the others there, signifies that you will never dispute possession of me with any one."
"I disputed possession of you with debauchery," Thérèse replied; "I shall never do so much with any of those creatures."
"Well, that is pride, I say again; it is not love. Now, I disputed possession of you with Virtue, and I would do the same with any one of her monks."
"Why should you? Aren't you tired of loving the statue? is not the mummy in your heart?"
"Ah! you have a marvellous memory! Great God! what does a word amount to? Every one interprets it as he pleases. An innocent man may be hanged for a word. I see that I must be careful what I say with you; perhaps the most prudent way would be never to talk together."
"Mon Dieu! have we reached that point?" said Thérèse, bursting into tears.
They had reached that point. To no purpose did Laurent melt with her tears and beg her pardon for having caused them to flow: the trouble broke out afresh the next day.
"What do you suppose will become of me in this detestable city?" he said to her. "You want me to work; I have tried it and I can't do it. I was not born like you, with a little steel spring in my brain, so that I have only to press the button to set the will at work. I am a creator! Great or small, weak or powerful, a creator is a machine which obeys nobody and which God sets in motion, when it seems good to Him, with His breath or with the passing breeze. I am incapable of doing anything whatsoever when I am bored, or when I do not like my surroundings."
"How is it possible for an intellectual man to be bored," said Thérèse, "unless he is in a dungeon, deprived of light and air? Are there no beautiful things to see in this city which enchanted you so the first day, no interesting excursions to take in the neighborhood, no good book to consult, no intelligent people to talk with?"
"I have been buried in beautiful things up to my eyes; I don't like to drive alone; the best books irritate me when they tell me what I am not in the mood to believe. As for making acquaintances—I have letters of recommendation which you know very well that I can't use!"
"No, I don't know it; why not?"
"Because my friends in society naturally gave me letters to society people here; but society people don't live shut up within four walls, without ever thinking of amusing themselves; and as you are not in society, Thérèse, you can't go with me, so I should have to go alone!"
"Why not in the day-time, as I have to work all day in that old palace?"
"In the day-time, people make calls, and form plans for the evening. The evening is the time for amusement in all countries; don't you know that?"
"Very well, go out sometimes in the evening, since it must be so: go to balls andconversazioni. Don't gamble, that is all I ask."
"And that is just what I cannot promise. In society, one must devote one's self to play or to the ladies."
"So that all men in society either ruin themselves at play, or are involved in love-affairs?"
"Those who don't do one or the other are terribly bored in society, or bore other people terribly. I am not a salon conversationalist myself. I am not yet so hollow that I can procure a hearing without saying anything. Tell me, Thérèse, do you want me to take a plunge into society at our risk?"
"Not yet," said Thérèse; "be patient a little longer. Alas! I was not prepared to lose you so soon!"
The sorrowful accent and heart-broken glance irritated Laurent more than usual.
"You know," he said, "that you always bring me around to your wishes with the slightest complaint, and you abuse your power, my poor Thérèse. Don't you think you will be sorry for it some day, when you find me ill and exasperated?"
"I am sorry for it already, since I weary you," she replied. "So do what you choose!"
"Then you abandon me to my fate? Are you already weary of the struggle? Look you, my dear, it is you who no longer love me!"
"From the tone in which you say that, it seems to me that you wish that it should be so!"
He answeredno, but, a moment later, his every word saidyes. Thérèse was too serious, too proud, too modest. She was unwilling to descend with him from the heights of the empyrean. A hasty word seemed to her an insult, a trivial reminiscence incurred her censure. She was sober in everything, and had no comprehension of capricious appetites, of extravagant fancies. She was the better of the two, unquestionably, and if compliments were what she must have, he was ready with them; but was it a matter of compliments between them? Was not the important thing to devise some means of living together? Formerly, she was more cheerfully inclined, she had beencoquettishwith him, and she was no longer willing to be; now, she was like a sick bird on its perch, with feathers rumpled, head between its shoulders, and lifeless eye. Her pale, dismal face was enough to frighten one sometimes. In that huge, dark room, made depressing by the remains of former splendor, she produced the effect of a ghost upon him. At times, he was really afraid of her. Could she not fill that gloomy void with strange songs and joyous peals of laughter?
"Come; what shall we do to shake off this deathly chill that freezes one's shoulders? Sit down at the piano and play me a waltz. I will waltz all by myself. Do you know how to waltz? I'll wager that you don't. You don't know anything that isn't lugubrious!"
"Come," said Thérèse, rising, "let us leave this place at once, let come what may! You will go mad here. It may be worse elsewhere; but I will go through with my task to the end."
At that, Laurent lost his temper. So it was a task that she had imposed on herself? So she was simply performing a duty in cold blood? Perhaps she had taken a vow to the Virgin to consecrate her lover to her! All that she lacked now was to turn nun!
He took his hat with that air of supreme disdain and of a definitive rupture of relations which was natural to him. He went out without saying where he was going. It was ten o'clock at night. Thérèse passed the night in horrible distress of mind. He returned at daylight, and locked himself into his room, closing the doors noisily. She dared not show herself for fear of irritating him, and went softly to her own room. It was the first time that they had gone to sleep without a word of affection or pardon.
The next day, instead of returning to her work, she packed her boxes and made all her preparations for departure. He woke at three in the afternoon, and asked her laughingly what she was thinking about. He had recovered his senses, and made up his mind what to do. He had walked alone by the seashore during the night; he had reflected, and had become calm once more.
"That great, roaring, monotonous sea irritated me," he said, gaily. "First of all, I wrote some poetry. I compared myself to it. I was tempted to throw myself into its greenish bosom! Then it seemed to me tiresome and absurd on the part of the waves to be forever complaining because there are cliffs along the shore. If they are not strong enough to destroy them, let them hold their peace! Let them do like me, who do not propose to complain any more. See how charming I am this morning; I have determined to work, I shall remain here. I have shaved with great care. Kiss me, Thérèse, and let us not refer again to that idiotic last evening. Unpack these trunks and take them away quickly! don't let me see them again! They seem like a reproach, and I no longer deserve it."
There was a long interval between this off-hand way of making peace with himself and the time when an anxious glance from Thérèse was enough to make him bend both knees, and yet it was no more than three months.
Their thoughts were diverted by a surprise. Monsieur Palmer, who had arrived in Genoa that morning, came to ask them to dine with him. Laurent was enchanted by this diversion. Although he was always cold in his manners toward other men, he leaped on the American's neck, saying that he was sent by Heaven. Palmer was more surprised than flattered by this cordial welcome. A single glance at Thérèse had sufficed to show him that it was not the effusion of happiness. However, Laurent said nothing of his ennui, and Thérèse was surprised to hear him praise the city and the country. He even declared that the women were charming. How did he know them?
At eight o'clock, he called for his overcoat and went out. Palmer would have taken his leave at the same time.
"Why don't you stay a little longer with Thérèse?" said Laurent. "It will please her. We are altogether alone here. I am going out for an hour. Wait till I return before you have your tea."
At eleven, Laurent had not returned. Thérèse was very much depressed. She made vain efforts to conceal her despair. She was no longer anxious simply, she felt that she was lost. Palmer saw it all, and pretended to see nothing; he talked constantly to her to try to distract her thoughts; but, as Laurent did not come, and it was not proper to wait for him after midnight, he took his leave after pressing Thérèse's hand. Involuntarily he told her by that pressure that he was not deceived by her courage, and that he realized the extent of her disaster.
Laurent arrived at that moment, and saw Thérèse's emotion. He was no sooner alone with her, than he began to jest with her in a tone which affected not to descend to jealousy.
"Come," said she, "do not impose unnecessary pain upon me. Do you think that Palmer is paying court to me? Let us go, I have already suggested it."
"No, my dear, I am not so absurd as that. Now that you have somebody for company, and allow me to go out a little on my own account, everything is all right, and I feel just in the mood to work."
"God grant it!" said Thérèse. "I will do whatever you wish; but, if you rejoice because I have somebody to talk with, have the good taste not to refer to it as you did just now; for I cannot stand it."
"What the devil are you angry about now? what did I say that hurt you so, pray tell me? You are becoming far too sensitive and suspicious, my dear friend! What harm would be done if the excellent Palmer should fall in love with you?"
"It would be very wrong in you to leave me alone with him, if you think what you say."
"Ah! it would be wrong—to expose you to danger? You see that there is danger, according to your own story, and that I was not mistaken!"
"Very good! then let us pass our evenings together and receive no one. I am perfectly content. Is it a bargain?"
"You are very good, my dear Thérèse. Forgive me. I will stay with you, and we will see whomever you choose; that will be the best and pleasantest arrangement."
In truth, Laurent seemed to have come to his senses. He began a serious study in his studio, and invited Thérèse to come to see it. Several days passed without a storm. Palmer had not reappeared. But Laurent soon wearied of that regular life and went in search of him, reproaching him for his desertion of his friends. No sooner did he come to pass the evening with them than Laurent invented a pretext for going out, and remained away until midnight.
One week passed in this way, then another. Laurent gave Thérèse one evening out of three or four, and such an evening! she would have preferred solitude.
Where did he go? She never knew. He did not appear in society: the damp, cold weather precluded the idea that he went on the water for pleasure. However, he often said that he had been on a boat, and his clothes smelt of tar. He was learning to row, taking lessons of a fisherman in the harbor. He pretended that the fatigue calmed the excitement of his nerves, and put him in good condition for the next day's labor. Thérèse no longer dared to go to his studio. He seemed annoyed when she expressed a wish to see his work. He did not want her reflections when he was working out his own idea, nor did he wish to have her come there and say nothing, which would make him feel as if she were inclined to find fault. She was not to see his work until he deemed it worthy to be seen. Formerly, he never began anything without explaining his idea to her; now, he treated her likethe public.
Two or three times he passed the whole night abroad. Thérèse did not become accustomed to the anxiety these prolonged absences caused her. She would have exasperated him by giving any sign that she noticed them; but, as may be imagined, she watched him and tried to learn the truth. It was impossible for her to follow him herself at night in a city full of sailors and adventurers of all nations. Not for anything in the world would she have stooped to have him followed by any one. She stole noiselessly into his room and looked at him as he lay asleep. He seemed utterly exhausted. Perhaps he had, in reality, undertaken a desperate struggle against himself, to deaden by physical exercise the excessive activity of his thought.
One night she noticed that his clothes were muddy and torn, as if he had actually been in a fight, or as if he had had a fall. Alarmed beyond measure, she approached him, and discovered blood on his pillow; he had a slight wound on the forehead. He was sleeping so soundly that she thought that she could, without rousing him, partly uncover his breast to see if there was any other wound; but he woke, and flew into a rage which was thecoup de grâceto her. She tried to fly, but he detained her by force, put on a dressing-gown, locked the door, and then, striding excitedly up and down the room which was dimly lighted by a small night-lamp, he poured forth at last all the suffering that was heaped up in his heart.
"Enough of this," he said; "let us be frank with each other. We no longer love each other, we have never loved each other! We have deceived each other; you meant to take a lover; perhaps I was not the first nor the second, but no matter! you wanted a servant, a slave; you thought that my unhappy disposition, my debts, my ennui, my weariness of a life of debauchery, my illusions concerning true love, would put me at your mercy, and that I could never recover possession of myself. To carry such an enterprise to a successful issue, you needed to have a happier disposition yourself, and more patience, more flexibility, and, above all, more spirit! You have no spirit at all, Thérèse, be it said without offence. You are all of a piece, monotonous, pig-headed, and excessively vain of your pretended moderation, which is simply the philosophy of short-sighted people with limited faculties. As for myself, I am a madman, fickle, ungrateful, whatever you choose; but I am sincere, I am no selfish schemer; I give myself, heart and soul, without reservation: that is why I resume possession of myself in the same way. My moral liberty is a sacred thing, and I allow no one to seize it. I simply entrusted it, not gave it to you; it was for you to make a good use of it and to succeed in making me happy. Oh! do not try to say that you did not want me! I know all about these tricks of modesty and these evolutions of the female conscience. On the day that you yielded to me, I realized that you thought you had conquered me, and that all that feigned resistance, those tears of distress, and that constant pardoning of my temerity were simply the old commonplace way of throwing a line, and luring the poor fish, dazzled by the artificial fly, to nibble at the hook. I deceived you, Thérèse, by pretending to be deceived by that fly; it was my privilege. You wished adoration: I lavished it upon you without effort and without hypocrisy; you are beautiful, and I desired you! But a woman is only a woman, and the lowest of them all affords us as much pleasure as the greatest queen. You were simple enough not to know it, and now you must depend upon yourself. You must understand that monotony does not suit me, you must leave me to my instincts, which are not always sublime, but which I cannot destroy without destroying myself with them. Where is the harm, and why should we tear our hair? We have been partners, and we separate, that is the whole of it. There is no need of our hating and abusing each other just for that. Avenge yourself by granting the prayers of the excellent Palmer, who is languishing for love of you; I shall rejoice in his joy, and we three will continue to be the best friends in the world. You will recover your charms of other days, which you have lost, and the brilliancy of your lovely eyes, which are growing haggard and dull by dint of spying upon my acts. I shall become once more the jolly fellow that I used to be, and we will forget this nightmare that we are passing through together. Is it a bargain? You don't answer. Do you prefer hatred? Beware! I have never hated, but I can learn how; I learn quickly, you know! See, I clinched to-night with a drunken sailor twice as tall and strong as I; I thrashed him soundly, and received only a scratch. Beware lest I prove to be as strong mentally as physically on occasion, and lest, in a contest of hatred and vengeance, I crush the devil in person without leaving one of my hairs in his claws!"
Laurent, pale-faced and bitter, by turns ironical and frantic, with his hair in disorder, his shirt torn, and his forehead smeared with blood, was so ghastly to look at and to hear, that Thérèse felt all her love change into disgust. She was in such despair at that moment that it did not occur to her to be afraid. Silent and motionless in the chair in which she had seated herself, she allowed this torrent of blasphemous words to roll forth unchecked, and, saying to herself that that madman was quite capable of killing her, she awaited with frigid disdain and absolute indifference the climax of his frenzy.
He held his peace when he no longer had the strength to speak. Thereupon, she rose and left the room, without answering him by a single syllable, without casting a single glance at him.
Laurent was not so contemptible as his words implied; he did not really believe a syllable of all the atrocious things he said to Thérèse during that horrible night. He believed them at the moment, or, rather, he spoke without heeding what he said. He remembered nothing of it after sleeping upon it, and if he had been reminded of it, would have denied every word.
But one fact was undeniably true, that he was weary, for the moment, of dignified love, and craved, with his whole heart, the degrading excitements of the past. It was his punishment for following the evil path he had chosen early in life,—a very harsh punishment, no doubt, of which we can readily imagine that he complained bitterly, since he had not sinned with premeditation, but had plunged laughingly into an abyss from which he supposed that he could easily escape when he chose. But love is regulated by a code which seems to rest, like all social codes, upon that terrible formula:No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law! So much the worse for those who are ignorant of it! Let the child go within reach of the claws of the panther, thinking to pat it: the panther will make no allowance for such ignorance; it will devour the child because it is not in its nature to spare him. And so with poison, with the lightning and with vice, blind agents of the fatal law which man must study, or take the consequences.
On the morrow of that explosion, naught remained in Laurent's memory save a vague idea that he had had a decisive explanation with Thérèse, and that she had seemed resigned.
"Perhaps everything is for the best," he thought, finding her as calm as when he had parted from her.
And yet he was terrified by her pallor.
"That is nothing," she said, tranquilly; "this cold tires me a good deal, but it is nothing more than a cold. It will have to run its course."
"Well, Thérèse," he said, "what is the present state of our relations? Have you reflected? It is for you to decide. Are we to part in anger, or remain on the footing of friendship asformerly?"
"I am not angry," she replied; "let us remain friends. Remain here, if you please. I propose to finish my work and return to France in about a fortnight."
"But should I not go and live in some other house for the next fortnight? aren't you afraid that people will talk?"
"Do whatever you think best. We have our own apartments here, entirely independent of each other; we use nothing but the salon in common; I have no use for it, and I give it up to you."
"No: on the other hand, I beg you to keep it. You will not hear me go out and come in; I will never put my foot inside it if you forbid me."
"I forbid you nothing," replied Thérèse, "unless it be to think for a single instant that your mistress can forgive you. As for your friend, she is superior to a certain order of disappointment. She hopes that she can still be useful to you, and you will always find her when you need any proof of friendship."
She offered him her hand, and went away to her work. Laurent did not understand her. Such perfect self-control was something which he could not comprehend, unfamiliar as he was with passive courage and silent resolution. He believed that she expected to resume her influence over him, and that she proposed to bring him back to love through friendship. He promised to yield to no attack of weakness, and, in order to be more certain of himself, he resolved to call some one to witness the fact of the rupture. He went to Palmer, confided to him the wretched story of his love, and added:
"If you love Thérèse, as I think you do, my dear friend, make Thérèse love you. I cannot be jealous of you, far from it. As I have made her unhappy enough, and as I am convinced that you will be exceedingly kind to her, you will relieve me of a subject of remorse which I am most anxious not to retain."
Laurent was surprised that Palmer made no reply.
"Do I offend you by speaking as I do?" he said. "Such is not my purpose. I entertain friendship and esteem for you, yes, and respect, if you choose. If you blame my conduct in this matter, tell me so; that will be preferable to this air of indifference or disdain."
"I am indifferent neither to Thérèse's sorrows nor to yours," replied Palmer. "But I spare you advice or reproaches which come too late. I believed that you were made for each other; I am persuaded, now, that the greatest, yes, the only happiness that you can confer upon each other is to part. As to my personal feelings for Thérèse, I do not admit your right to question me, and as for those sentiments which, in your judgment, I might succeed in arousing in her, you no longer have the right, after what you have said, to express such a supposition in my presence, much less in hers."
"That is true," rejoined Laurent, nonchalantly, "and I understand very well what it means. I see that I shall be in the way here now, and I think that I shall do as well to leave Genoa, in order not to embarrass any one."
He did, in fact, carry out his threat, after a very cold farewell to Thérèse, and went straight to Florence, with the intention of plunging into society or work, according to his caprice. It was exceedingly pleasant to him to say to himself:
"I will do whatever comes into my head, and there will be no one to suffer and be anxious about me. It is the worst of tortures, when a man is no more evilly disposed than I am, to have a victim constantly before one's eyes. Come, I am free at last, and the evil that I may do will fall on myself alone!"
Doubtless, Thérèse was wrong not to let him see the depth of the wound he had inflicted on her. She was too brave and too proud. Since she had undertaken the cure of a desperately diseased nature, she should not have recoiled from heroic remedies and painful operations. She should have made that frenzied heart bleed freely, have overwhelmed him with reproaches, and repaid insult with insult and stab with stab. If he had seen the suffering he had caused, perhaps Laurent would have done justice to himself. Perhaps shame and repentance would have saved his soul from the crime of murdering love in cold blood.
But, after three months of fruitless efforts, Thérèse was disheartened. Did she owe such absolute devotion to a man whom she had never desired to enslave, who had forced himself upon her despite her grief and her melancholy forebodings, who had clung to her steps like an abandoned child, and had cried to her: "Take me under your wing, protect me, or I shall die here by the roadside!"
And now that child cursed her for yielding to his outcries and his tears. He accused her of having taken advantage of his weakness to deprive him of the joys of liberty. He turned his back upon her, drawing a long breath, and exclaiming: "At last, at last!"
"Since he is incurable," she thought, "what is the use of making him suffer? Have I not proved that I could do nothing? Has he not told me, and, alas! almost proved it to me, that I was stifling his genius by seeking to cure his fever? When I thought that I had succeeded in disgusting him with dissipation, did I not discover that he was more greedy of it than ever? When I said to him: 'Go back into the world,' he dreaded my jealousy, and plunged into mysterious and degrading debauchery; he returned home drunk, with torn clothes, and blood on his face!"
On the day of Laurent's departure, Palmer asked Thérèse:
"Well, my friend, what do you propose to do? Shall I go after him?"
"No, certainly not!" she replied.
"Perhaps I could bring him back."
"I should be in despair if you did."
"Then you no longer love him?"
"No, not in the least."
There was a pause, after which Palmer continued in a thoughtful tone:
"Thérèse, I have some very important news for you. I hesitate, because I fear to cause you additional emotion, and you are hardly in condition——"