F
or a week or two nothing occurred at the Rolands'. The father went fishing; Jean, with his mother's help, was furnishing and settling himself; Pierre, very gloomy, never was seen excepting at mealtimes.
His father having asked him one evening:
"Why the deuce do you always come in with a face as cheerful as a funeral? This is not the first time I have remarked it"—the doctor replied:
"The fact is I am terribly conscious of the burden of life."
The old man had not a notion what he meant, andwith an aggrieved look he went on: "It really is too bad. Ever since we had the good luck to come into this legacy, every one seems unhappy. It is as though some accident had befallen us, as if we were in mourning for some one."
"I am in mourning for some one," said Pierre.
"You are? For whom?"
"For some one you never knew, and of whom I was too fond."
Roland imagined that his son alluded to some girl with whom he had had some love passages, and he said:
"A woman, I suppose."
"Yes, a woman."
"Dead?"
"No. Worse. Ruined!"
"Ah!"
Though he was startled by this unexpected confidence, in his wife's presence too, and by his son's strange tone about it, the old man made no further inquiries, for in his opinion such affairs did not concern a third person.
Mme. Roland affected not to hear; she seemed ill and was very pale. Several times already her husband, surprised to see her sit down as if she were dropping into her chair, and to hear her gasp as if she could not draw her breath, had said:
"Really, Louise, you look very ill; you tire yourself too much with helping Jean. Give yourself a little rest. Sacristi! The rascal is in no hurry, as he is a rich man."
She shook her head without a word.
But to-day her pallor was so great that Roland remarked on it again.
"Come, come," said he, "this will not do at all, mydear old woman. You must take care of yourself." Then, addressing his son, "You surely must see that your mother is ill. Have you questioned her, at any rate?"
Pierre replied: "No; I had not noticed that there was anything the matter with her."
At this Roland was angry.
"But it stares you in the face, confound you! What on earth is the good of your being a doctor if you cannot even see that your mother is out of sorts? Why, look at her, just look at her. Really, a man might die under his very eyes and this doctor would never think there was anything the matter!"
Mme. Roland was panting for breath, and so white that her husband exclaimed:
"She is going to faint."
"No, no, it is nothing—I shall get better directly—it is nothing."
Pierre had gone up to her and was looking at her steadily.
"What ails you?" he said. And she repeated in an undertone:
"Nothing, nothing—I assure you, nothing."
Roland had gone to fetch some vinegar; he now returned and handing the bottle to his son he said:
"Here—do something to ease her. Have you felt her heart?"
As Pierre bent over to feel her pulse she pulled away her hand so vehemently that she struck it against a chair which was standing by.
"Come," said he in icy tones, "let me see what I can do for you, as you are ill."
Then she raised her arm and held it out to him.Her skin was burning, the blood throbbing in short irregular leaps.
"You are certainly ill," he murmured. "You must take something to quiet you. I will write you a prescription." And as he wrote, stooping over the paper, a low sound of choked sighs, smothered, quick breathing and suppressed sobs made him suddenly look round at her. She was weeping, her hands covering her face.
Roland, quite distracted, asked her:
"Louise, Louise, what is the matter with you? What on earth ails you?"
She did not answer, but seemed racked by some deep and dreadful grief. Her husband tried to take her hands from her face, but she resisted him, repeating:
"No, no, no."
He appealed to his son.
"But what is the matter with her? I never saw her like this."
"It is nothing," said Pierre, "she is a little hysterical."
And he felt as if it were a comfort to him to see her suffering thus, as if this anguish mitigated his resentment and diminished his mother's load of opprobrium. He looked at her as a judge satisfied with his day's work.
Suddenly she rose, rushed to the door with such a swift impulse that it was impossible to forestall or to stop her, and ran off to lock herself into her room.
Roland and the doctor were left face to face.
"Can you make head or tail of it?" said the father.
"Oh, yes," said the other. "It is a little nervous disturbance, not alarming or surprising; such attacks may very likely recur from time to time."
They did in fact recur, almost every day; and Pierre seemed to bring them on with a word, as if he had the clue to her strange and new disorder. He would discern in her face a lucid interval of peace and with the willingness of a torturer would, with a word, revive the anguish that had been lulled for a moment.
But he, too, was suffering, as cruelly as she. It was dreadful pain to him that he could no longer love her nor respect her, that he must put her on the rack. When he had laid bare the bleeding wound which he had opened in her woman's, her mother's heart, when he felt how wretched and desperate she was, he would go out alone, wander about the town, so torn by remorse, so broken by pity, so grieved to have thus hammered her with his scorn as her son, that he longed to fling himself into the sea and put an end to it all by drowning himself.
Ah! How gladly, now, would he have forgiven her. But he could not, for he was incapable of forgetting. If only he could have desisted from making her suffer; but this again he could not, suffering as he did himself. He went home to his meals, full of relenting resolutions; then, as soon as he saw her, as soon as he met her eye—formerly so clear and frank, now so evasive, frightened, and bewildered—he struck at her in spite of himself, unable to suppress the treacherous words which would rise to his lips.
The disgraceful secret, known to them alone, goaded him up against her. It was as a poison flowing in his veins and giving him an impulse to bite like a mad dog.
And there was no one in the way now to hinder his reading her; Jean lived almost entirely in his new apartments, and only came home to dinner and to sleep every night at his father's.
He frequently observed his brother's bitterness and violence, and attributed them to jealousy. He promised himself that some day he would teach him his place and give him a lesson, for life at home was becoming very painful as a result of these constant scenes. But as he now lived apart he suffered less from this brutal conduct, and his love of peace prompted him to patience. His good fortune, too, had turned his head, and he scarcely paused to think of anything which had no direct interest for himself. He would come in full of fresh little anxieties, full of the cut of a morning-coat, of the shape of a felt hat, of the proper size for his visiting-cards. And he talked incessantly of all the details of his house—the shelves fixed in his bedroom cupboard to keep linen on, the pegs to be put up in the entrance hall, the electric bells contrived to prevent illicit visitors to his lodgings.
It had been settled that on the day when he should take up his abode there they should make an excursion to Saint Jouin, and return after dining there, to drink tea in his rooms. Roland wanted to go by water, but the distance and the uncertainty of reaching it in a sailing-boat if there should be a head-wind, made them reject his plan, and a break was hired for the day.
They started by ten to get there to breakfast. The dusty high road lay across the plain of Normandy, which, by its gentle undulations, dotted with farms embowered in trees, wears the aspect of an endless park. In the vehicle, as it jogged on at the slow trot of a pair of heavy horses, sat the four Rolands, Mme. Rosémilly,and Captain Beausire, all silent, deafened by the rumble of the wheels, and with their eyes shut to keep out the clouds of dust.
It was harvest-time. Alternating with the dark hue of clover and the raw green of beetroot, the yellow corn lighted up the landscape with gleams of pale gold; the fields looked as if they had drunk in the sunshine which poured down on them. Here and there the reapers were at work, and in the plots where the scythe had been put in the men might be seen see-sawing as they swept the level soil with the broad, wing-shaped blade.
After a two-hours' drive the break turned off to the left, past a windmill at work—a melancholy, gray wreck, half rotten and doomed, the last survivor of its ancient race; then it went into a pretty inn yard, and drew up at the door of a smart little house, a hostelry famous in those parts.
The mistress, well known as "La belle Alphonsine," came smiling to the threshold, and held out her hand to the two ladies who hesitated to take the high step.
Some strangers were already at breakfast under a tent by a grass plot shaded by apple trees—Parisians, who had come from Etretat; and from the house came sounds of voices, laughter, and the clatter of plates and pans.
They were eating in a room, as the outer dining halls were all full. Roland suddenly caught sight of some shrimping nets hanging against the wall.
"Ah! ha!" cried he, "you catch prawns here?"
"Yes," replied Beausire. "Indeed it is the place on all the coast where most are taken."
"First rate! Suppose we try to catch some after breakfast."
As it happened it would be low tide at three o'clock, so it was settled that they should all spend the afternoon among the rocks, hunting prawns.
They made a light breakfast, as a precaution against the tendency of blood to the head when they should have their feet in the water. They also wished to reserve an appetite for dinner, which had been ordered on a grand scale and to be ready at six o'clock, when they came in.
Roland could not sit still for impatience. He wanted to buy the nets specially constructed for fishing prawns, not unlike those used for catching butterflies in the country. Their name on the French coast islanets; they are netted bags on a circular wooden frame, at the end of a long pole. Alphonsine, still smiling, was happy to lend them. Then she helped the two ladies to make an impromptu change of toilet, so as not to spoil their dresses. She offered them skirts, coarse worsted stockings and hemp shoes. The men took off their socks and went to the shoemaker's to buy wooden shoes instead.
Then they set out, the nets over their shoulders and creels on their backs. Mme. Rosémilly was quite sweet in this costume, with an unexpected charm of countrified audacity. The skirt which Alphonsine had lent her, coquettishly tucked up and firmly stitched so as to allow of her running and jumping fearlessly on the rocks, displayed her ankle and lower calf—the firm calf of a strong and agile little woman. Her dress was loose to give freedom to her movements, and to cover her head she had found an enormous garden hat of coarse yellow straw with an extravagantly broad brim; and to this, a bunch of tamarisk pinned in to cock it on one side, gave a very dashing and military effect.
Jean, since he had come into his fortune, had asked himself every day whether or no he should marry her. Each time he saw her he made up his mind to ask her to be his wife, and then, as soon as he was alone again, he considered that by waiting he would have time to reflect. She was now less rich than he, for she had but twelve thousand francs a year; but it was in real estate, in farms and lands near the docks in Havre; and this by-and-by might be worth a great deal. Their fortunes were thus approximately equal, and certainly the young widow attracted him greatly.
As he watched her walking in front of him that day he said to himself:
"I must really decide; I cannot do better, I am sure."
They went down a little ravine, sloping from the village to the cliff, and the cliff, at the end of this comb, rose about eighty meters above the sea. Framed between the green slopes to the right and left, a great triangle of silvery blue water could be seen in the distance, and a sail, scarcely visible, looked like an insect out there. The sky, pale with light, was so merged into one with the water that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began; and the two women, walking in front of the men, stood out against this bright background, their shapes clearly defined in their closely-fitting dresses.
Jean, with a sparkle in his eye, watched the smart ankle, the neat leg, the supple waist, and the coquettish broad hat of Mme. Rosémilly as they fled away before him. And this flight fired his ardor, urging him on to the sudden determination which comes to hesitating and timid natures. The warm air, fragrant with seacoastodors—gorse, clover and thyme, mingling with the salt smell of the rocks at low tide—excited him still more, mounting to his brain; and every moment he felt a little more determined, at every step, at every glance he cast at the alert figure; he made up his mind to delay no longer, to tell her that he loved her and hoped to marry her. The prawn-fishing would favor him by affording him an opportunity; and it would be a pretty scene too, a pretty spot for love-making—their feet in a pool of limpid water while they watched the long feelers of the shrimps lurking under the wrack.
When they had reached the end of the comb and the edge of cliff, they saw a little footpath slanting down the face of it; and below them, about half-way between the sea and the foot of the precipice, an amazing chaos of enormous boulders tumbled over and piled one above the other on a sort of grassy and undulating plain which extended as far as they could see to the southward, formed by an ancient landslip. On this long shelf of brushwood and grass, disrupted, as it seemed, by the shocks of a volcano, the fallen rocks seemed the wreck of a great ruined city which had once looked out on the ocean, sheltered by the long white wall of the overhanging cliff.
"That is fine!" exclaimed Mme. Rosémilly, standing still. Jean had come up with her, and with a beating heart offered his hand to help her down the narrow steps cut in the rock.
They went on in front, while Beausire, squaring himself on his little legs, gave his arm to Mme. Roland, who felt giddy at the gulf before her.
The two young people who led the way, went fast till on a sudden they saw, by the side of a wooden benchwhich afforded a resting place about half-way down the slope, a thread of clear water, springing from a crevice in the cliff. It fell into a hollow as large as a washing basin which it had worn in the stone; then, falling in a cascade, hardly two feet high, it trickled across the footpath, which it had carpeted with cresses, and was lost among the briars and grass on the raised shelf where the boulders were piled.
"Oh, I am so thirsty!" cried Mme. Rosémilly.
But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water in her hand, but it slipped away between her fingers. Jean had an idea; he placed a stone on the path and on this she knelt down to put her lips to the spring itself, which was thus on the same level.
When she raised her head, covered with myriads of tiny drops, sprinkled all over her face, her hair, her eyelashes, and her dress, Jean bent over her and murmured: "How pretty you look!"
She answered in the tone in which she might have scolded a child:
"Will you be quiet!"
These were the first words of flirtation they had ever exchanged.
"Come," said Jean, much agitated. "Let us go on before they come up with us."
For in fact they could see quite near them now, Captain Beausire's back as he came down, stern foremost, so as to give both hands to Mme. Roland; and further up, further off, Roland still letting himself slip, lowering himself on his hams and clinging on with both his hand and elbows at the speed of a tortoise, Pierre keeping in front of him to watch his movements.
The path, now less steep, was here almost a road,zigzagging between the huge rocks which had at some former time rolled from the hilltop. Mme. Rosémilly and Jean set off at a run and they were soon on the beach. They crossed it and reached the rocks, which stretched in a long and flat expanse covered with seaweed, and broken by endless gleaming pools. The ebbed waters lay beyond, very far away, across this plain of slimy weed, of a black and shining olive-green.
Jean rolled up his trousers above his calf, and his sleeves to his elbows, that he might get wet without caring; then saying: "Forward!" he leaped boldly into the first tidepool they came to.
The lady, more cautious, though fully intending to go in too, presently, made her way round the little pond, stepping timidly, for she slipped on the grassy weed.
"Do you see anything?" she asked.
"Yes, I see your face reflected in the water."
"If that is all you see, you will not have good fishing."
He murmured tenderly in reply:
"Of all fishing it is that I should like best to succeed in."
She laughed: "Try; you will see how it will slip through your net."
"But yet—if you will?"
"I will see you catch prawns—and nothing else—for the moment."
"You are cruel—let us go a little further; there are none here."
He gave her his hand to steady her on the slippery rocks. She leaned on him rather timidly, and he suddenly felt himself overpowered by love and insurgent with passion, as if the fever that had been incubating inhim had waited till to-day to declare its presence.
They soon came to a deeper rift, in which long slender weeds, fantastically tinted, like floating green and rose-colored hair, were swaying under the quivering water as it trickled off to the distant sea through some invisible crevice.
Mme. Rosémilly cried out: "Look, look, I see one, a big one. A very big one, just there!" He saw it too, and stepped boldly into the pool though he got wet up to the waist. But the creature, waving its long whiskers, gently retired in front of the net. Jean drove it toward the seaweed, making sure of his prey. When it found itself blockaded it rose with a dart over the net, shot across the mere, and was gone. The young woman, who was watching the chase in great excitement, could not help exclaiming: "Oh! Clumsy!"
He was vexed, and without a moment's thought dragged his net over a hole full of weed. As he brought it to the surface again he saw in it three large transparent prawns, caught blindfold in their hiding place.
He offered them in triumph to Mme. Rosémilly, who was afraid to touch them, for fear of the sharp, serrated crest which arms their heads. However, she made up her mind to it, and taking them up by the tips of their long whiskers she dropped them one by one into her creel, with a little seaweed to keep them alive. Then, having found a shallower pool of water, she stepped in with some hesitation, for the cold plunge of her feet took her breath away, and began to fish on her own account. She was dextrous and artful, with the light hand and the hunter's instinct, which are indispensable. At almost every dip she caught up someprawns, beguiled and surprised by her ingeniously gentle pursuit.
Jean now caught nothing; but he followed her, step by step, touched her now and again, bent over her, pretended great distress at his own awkwardness, and besought her to teach him.
"Show me," he kept saying. "Show me how."
And then, as their two faces were reflected side by side in water so clear that the black weeds at the bottom made a mirror, Jean smiled at the face which looked up at him from the depth, and now and then from his finger tips blew it a kiss which seemed to light upon it.
"Oh! how tiresome you are!" she exclaimed. "My dear fellow, you should never do two things at once."
He replied: "I am only doing one—loving you."
She drew herself up and said gravely:
"What has come over you these ten minutes; have you lost your wits?"
"No, I have not lost my wits. I love you, and at last I dare to tell you so."
They were at this moment both standing in the salt pool wet half-way up to their knees and with dripping hands, holding their nets. They looked into each other's eyes.
She went on in a tone of amused annoyance.
"How very ill-advised to tell me so here and now. Could you not wait till another day instead of spoiling my fishing?"
"Forgive me," he murmured, "but I could not longer hold my peace. I have loved you a long time. To-day you have intoxicated me and I lost my reason."
Then suddenly she seemed to have resigned herself to talk business and think no more of pleasure.
"Let us sit down on that stone," said she, "we can talk more comfortably." They scrambled up a rather high boulder, and when they had settled themselves side by side in the bright sunshine, she began again:
"My good friend, you are no longer a child, and I am not a young girl. We both know perfectly well what we are about and we can weigh the consequences of our actions. If you have made up your mind to make love to me to-day I must naturally infer that you wish to marry me."
He was not prepared for this matter-of-fact statement of the case, and he answered blandly:
"Why, yes."
"Have you mentioned it to your father and mother?"
"No; I wanted to know first whether you would accept me."
She held out her hand, which was still wet, and as he eagerly clasped it:
"I am ready and willing," she said. "I believe you to be kind and true-hearted. But remember, I should not like to displease your parents."
"Oh, do you think that my mother has never foreseen it, or that she would be as fond of you as she is if she did not hope that you and I should marry?"
"That is true. I am a little disturbed."
They said no more. He, for his part, was amazed at her being so little disturbed, so rational. He had expected pretty little flirting ways, refusals which meant yes, a whole coquettish comedy of love chequered by prawn-fishing in the splashing water. And it was all over; he was pledged, married with twenty words.They had no more to say about it since they were agreed, and they now sat, both somewhat embarrassed by what had so swiftly passed between them; a little perplexed, indeed, not daring to speak, not daring to fish, not knowing what to do.
Roland's voice rescued them.
"This way, this way, children. Come and watch Beausire. The fellow is positively clearing out the sea!"
The captain had, in fact, had a wonderful haul. Wet above his hips, he waded from pool to pool, recognizing the likeliest spots at a glance, and searching all the hollows hidden under seaweed, with a steady slow sweep of his net. And the beautiful transparent, sandy-gray prawns skipped in his palm as he picked them out of the net with a dry jerk and put them into his creel. Mme. Rosémilly, surprised and delighted, remained at his side, almost forgetful of her promise to Jean, who followed them in a dream, giving herself up entirely to the childish enjoyment of pulling the creatures out from among the waving seagrasses.
Roland suddenly exclaimed:
"Ah, here comes Mme. Roland to join us."
She had remained at first on the beach with Pierre, for they had neither of them any wish to play at running about among the rocks and paddling in the tide-pools; and yet they had felt doubtful about staying together. She was afraid of him, and her son was afraid of her and of himself; afraid of his own cruelty, which he could not control. But they sat down side by side on the stones. And both of them, under the heat of the sun, mitigated by the sea breeze, gazing at thewide, fair horizon of blue water streaked and shot with silver, thought as if in unison: "How delightful this would have been—once."
She did not venture to speak to Pierre, knowing that he would return some hard answer; and he dared not address his mother, knowing that in spite of himself he should speak violently. He sat twitching the water-worn pebbles with the end of his cane, switching them and turning them over. She, with a vague look in her eyes, had picked up three or four little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping them from one hand into the other. Then her unsettled gaze, wandering over the scene before her, discerned, among the weedy rocks, her son Jean fishing with Mme. Rosémilly. She looked at them, watching their movements, dimly understanding, with motherly instinct, that they were talking as they did not talk every day. She saw them leaning over side by side when they looked into the water, standing face to face when they questioned their hearts, then scrambled up the rock and seated themselves to come to an understanding. Their figures stood out very sharply, looking as if they were alone in the middle of the wide horizon, and assuming a sort of symbolic dignity in that vast expanse of sky and sea and cliff.
Pierre, too, was looking at them, and a harsh laugh suddenly broke from his lips. Without turning to him Mme. Roland said:
"What is it?"
He spoke with a sneer.
"I am learning. Learning how a man lays himself out to be cozened by his wife."
She flushed with rage, exasperated by the insinuation she believed was intended.
"In whose name do you say that?"
"In Jean's, by heaven! It is immensely funny to see those two."
She murmured in a low voice, tremulous with feeling: "O Pierre, how cruel you are. That woman is honesty itself. Your brother could not find a better."
He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh:
"Ha! hah! hah! Honesty itself! All wives are honesty itself,—and all husbands are—betrayed." And he shouted with laughter.
She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, and at the risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the seaweed, of breaking a leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging through the pools without looking, straight to her other son.
Seeing her approach, Jean called out:
"Well, mother? So you have made the effort?"
Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say: "Save me, protect me!"
He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said:
"How pale you are; what is the matter?"
She stammered out:
"I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks."
So then Jean guided her, supported her, explained the sport to her that she might take an interest in it. But as she scarcely heeded him, and as he was bursting with the desire to confide in some one, he led her away and in a low voice said to her:
"Guess what I have done!"
"But—what—I don't know."
"Guess."
"I cannot. I don't know."
"Well, I have told Mme. Rosémilly that I wish to marry her."
She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distress that she could scarcely take it in. She echoed: "Marry her?"
"Yes. Have I done well? She is charming, do not you think?"
"Yes, charming. You have done very well."
"Then you approve?"
"Yes, I approve."
"But how strangely you say so. I could fancy that—that you were not glad."
"Yes, indeed, I am—very glad."
"Really and truly?"
"Really and truly."
And to prove it she threw her arms round him and kissed him heartily with warm motherly kisses. Then, when she had wiped her eyes, which were full of tears, she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at full length like a dead body, his face hidden against the stones; it was the other one, Pierre, sunk in thought and desperation.
At this she led her little Jean further away, quite to the edge of the waves, and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on which he had set his heart.
The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then they all made their way to the shore. They roused Pierre, who pretended to be sleeping; and then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds of wine.
I
n the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean. Beausire and Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbor's shoulder which repelled them with a shove. Then they sat up, ceased to snore, opened their eyes, muttered "a lovely evening!" and almost immediately fell over on the other side.
By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that they had great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to go to Jean's rooms where tea was waiting for them. He had to be set down at his own door.
The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; and he was full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him, at being able, that very evening to show his betrothed the rooms she was so soon to inhabit.
The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herself would boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the servants to be kept up for fear of fire.
No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and the workmen, that the surprise might be the greater at their being so pretty.
Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room. He wanted to light the lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosémilly in the dark with his father and brother; then he cried! "Come in!" opening the double door to its full width.
The glass gallery, lighted by a chandelier and little colored lamps hidden among palms, india-rubber plants and flowers, was first seen like a scene on the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland, dazzled by such luxury, muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap his hands as if it were a pantomime scene. They then went into the first drawing-room, a small room hung with dead gold and furnished to match. The larger drawing-room—the lawyer's consulting-room, very simple, hung with light salmon-color, was dignified in style.
Jean sat down in his armchair in front of his writing-table loaded with books, and in a solemn, rather stilted tone, he began:
"Yes, madame, the letter of the law is explicit, and, assuming the consent I promised you, it affords me absolute certainty that the matter we discussed will come to a happy conclusion within three months."
He looked at Mme. Rosémilly, who began to smile and glanced at Mme. Roland. Madame Roland took her hand and pressed it. Jean, in high spirits, cut a caper like a schoolboy, exclaiming: "Hah! How well the voice carries in this room; it would be capital for speaking in."
And he declaimed:
"If humanity alone, if the instinct of natural benevolence which we feel toward all who suffer, were the motive of the acquittal we expect of you, I should appeal to your compassion, gentlemen of the jury, to your hearts as fathers and as men; but we have law on our side, and it is the point of law only which we shall submit to your judgment."
Pierre was looking at this home which might havebeen his, and he was restive under his brother's frolics, thinking him really too silly and witless.
Mme. Roland opened a door on the right.
"This is the bedroom," said she.
She had devoted herself to its decoration with all her mother's love. The hangings were of Rouen cretonne imitating old Normandy chintz, and the Louis XV design—a shepherdess, in a medallion held in the beaks of a pair of doves—gave the walls, curtains, bed, and armchairs a festive, rustic style that was extremely pretty!
"Oh, how charming!" Mme. Rosémilly exclaimed, becoming a little serious as they entered the room.
"Do you like it?" asked Jean.
"Immensely."
"You cannot imagine how glad I am."
They looked at each other for a second, with confiding tenderness in the depths of their eyes.
She had felt a little awkward, however, a little abashed, in this room which was to be hers. She noticed as she went in that the bed was a large one, quite a family bed, chosen by Mme. Roland, who had no doubt foreseen and hoped that her son should soon marry; and this motherly foresight pleased her, for it seemed to tell her that she was expected in the family.
When they had returned to the drawing-room Jean abruptly threw open the door to the left, showing the circular dining-room with three windows, and decorated to imitate a Chinese lantern. Mother and son had here lavished all the fancy of which they were capable, and the room, with its bamboo furniture, its mandarins, jars, silk hangings glistening with gold, transparent blinds threaded with beads looking like dropsof water, fans nailed to the wall to drape the hangings on, screens, swords, masks, cranes made of real feathers, and a myriad trifles in china, wood, paper, ivory, mother of pearl, and bronze, had the pretentious and extravagant aspect which unpracticed hands and uneducated eyes inevitably stamp on things which need the utmost tact, taste, and artistic education. Nevertheless it was the most admired; only Pierre made some observations with rather bitter irony which hurt his brother's feelings.
Pyramids of fruit stood on the table and monuments of cakes. No one was hungry; they picked at the fruit and nibbled at the cakes rather than ate them. Then, at the end of about an hour, Mme. Rosémilly begged to take leave. It was decided that old Roland should accompany her home and set out with her forthwith; while Madame Roland, in the maid's absence, should cast a maternal eye over the house and see that her son had all he needed.
"Shall I come back for you?" asked Roland.
She hesitated a moment and then said: "No, dear old man; go to bed. Pierre will see me home."
As soon as they were gone she blew out the candles, locked up the cakes, the sugar, and liqueurs in a cupboard of which she gave the key to Jean; then she went into the bedroom, turned down the bed, saw that there was fresh water in the water-bottle, and that the window was properly closed.
Pierre and Jean had remained in the little outer drawing-room; the younger still sore under the criticism passed on his taste, and the elder chafing more and more at seeing his brother in this abode. They both satsmoking without a word. Pierre suddenly started to his feet.
"Cristi!" he exclaimed. "The widow looked very jaded this evening. Long excursions do not improve her."
Jean felt his spirit rising with one of those sudden and furious rages which boil up in easy-going natures when they are wounded to the quick. He could hardly find breath to speak, so fierce was his excitement, and he stammered out:
"I forbid you ever again to say 'the widow' when you speak of Mme. Rosémilly."
Pierre turned on him haughtily:
"You are giving me an order, I believe. Are you gone mad by any chance?"
Jean had pulled himself up.
"I am not gone mad, but I have had enough of your manners to me."
Pierre sneered: "To you? And are you any part of Mme. Rosémilly?"
"You are to know that Mme. Rosémilly is about to become my wife."
Pierre laughed the louder.
"Ah! ha! Very good. I understand now why I should no longer speak of her as 'the widow.' But you have taken a strange way of announcing your engagement."
"I forbid any jesting about it. Do you hear? I forbid it."
Jean had come close up to him, pale, and his voice quivering with exasperation at this irony leveled at the woman he loved and had chosen.
But on a sudden Pierre turned equally furious. All the accumulation of impotent rage, of suppressed malignity, of rebellion choked down for so long past, all his unspoken despair mounted to his brain, bewildering it like a fit.
"How dare you? How dare you? I order you to hold your tongue—do you hear? I order you."
Jean, startled by his violence, was silent for a few seconds, trying in the confusion of mind which comes of rage to hit on the thing, the phrase, the word, which might stab his brother to the heart. He went on, with an effort to control himself that he might aim true, and to speak slowly that the words might hit more keenly:
"I have known for a long time that you were jealous of me, ever since the day when you first began to talk of 'the widow' because you knew it annoyed me."
Pierre broke into one of those strident and scornful laughs which were common with him:
"Ah! ah! Good Heavens! Jealous of you? I? I? And of what? Good God! Of your person or your mind?"
But Jean knew full well that he had touched the wound in his soul.
"Yes, jealous of me—jealous from your childhood up. And it became fury when you saw that this woman liked me best and would have nothing to say to you."
Pierre, stung to the quick by this assumption, stuttered out:
"I? I? Jealous of you? And for the sake of that goose, that gaby, that simpleton?"
Jean, seeing that he was aiming true, went on:
"And how about the day when you tried to pull meround in thePearl? And all you said in her presence to show off? Why you are bursting with jealousy? And when this money was left to me you were maddened, you hated me, you showed it in every possible way, and made every one suffer for it; not an hour passes that you do not spit out the bile that is choking you."
Pierre clenched his fist in his fury with an almost irresistible impulse to fly at his brother and seize him by the throat.
"Hold your tongue," he cried. "At least say nothing about that money."
Jean went on:
"Why your jealousy oozes out at every pore. You never say a word to my father, my mother, or me that does not declare it plainly. You pretend to despise me because you are jealous. You try to pick a quarrel with every one because you are jealous. And now that I am rich you can no longer contain yourself; you have become venomous, you torture our poor mother as if she were to blame!"
Pierre had retired step by step as far as the fireplace, his mouth half open, his eyes glaring, a prey to one of those mad fits of passion in which crime is committed.
He said again in a lower tone, gasping for breath: "Hold your tongue—for God's sake hold your tongue!"
"No! For a long time I have been wanting to give you my whole mind! you have given me an opening—so much the worse for you. I love the woman; you know it, and laugh her to scorn in my presence—so much the worse for you. But I will break your viper'sfangs, I tell you. I will make you treat me with respect."
"With respect—you?"
"Yes—me."
"Respect you? You who have brought shame on us all by your greed."
"You say—? Say it again—again."
"I say that it does not do to accept one man's fortune when another is reputed to be your father."
Jean stood rigid, not understanding, dazed by the insinuation he scented.
"What? Repeat that once more."
"I say—what everybody is muttering, what every gossip is blabbing—that you are the son of the man who left you his fortune. Well, then—a decent man does not take money which brings dishonor on his mother."
"Pierre! Pierre! Pierre! Think what you are saying. You? It is you who give utterance to this infamous thing?"
"Yes, I. It is I. Have you not seen me crushed with woe this month past, spending my nights without sleep and my days in lurking out of sight like an animal? I hardly know what I am doing or what will become of me, so miserable am I, so crazed with shame and grief; for first I guessed—and now I know it."
"Pierre! Be silent. Mother is in the next room. Remember she may hear—she must hear."
But Pierre felt that he must unburden his heart. He told Jean all his suspicions, his arguments, his struggles, his assurance, and the history of the portrait—which had again disappeared. He spoke in short brokensentences almost without coherence—the language of a sleep-walker.
He seemed to have quite forgotten Jean, and his mother in the adjoining room. He talked as if no one were listening, because he must talk, because he had suffered too much and smothered and closed the wound too tightly. It had festered like an abscess and the abscess had burst, splashing every one. He was pacing the room in the way he almost always did, his eyes fixed on vacancy, gesticulating in a frenzy of despair, his voice choked with tearless sobs and revulsions of self-loathing; he spoke as if he were making a confession of his own misery and that of his nearest kin, as though he were casting his woes to the deaf, invisible winds which bore away his words.
Jean, distracted and almost convinced on a sudden by his brother's blind vehemence, was leaning against the door behind which, as he guessed, their mother had heard them.
She could not get out, she must come through this room. She had not come; then it was because she dared not.
Suddenly Pierre stamped his foot:
"I am a brute," he cried, "to have told you this."
And he fled, bare-headed, down the stairs.
The noise of the front-door closing with a slam roused Jean from the deep stupor into which he had fallen. Some seconds had elapsed, longer than hours, and his spirit had sunk into the numb torpor of idiocy. He was conscious, indeed, that he must presently think and act, but he would wait, refusing to understand, to know, to remember, out of fear, weakness, cowardice.He was one of those procrastinators who put everything off till the morrow; and when he was compelled to come to a decision then and there, still he instinctively tried to gain a few minutes.
But the perfect silence which now reigned, after Pierre's vociferations, the sudden stillness of walls and furniture, with the bright light of six wax candles and two lamps, terrified him so greatly that he suddenly longed to make his escape too.
Then he roused his brain, roused his heart, and tried to reflect.
Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who let themselves glide onward like running water. He had been duteous over his tasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studies with credit because his existence was tranquil. Everything in the world seemed to him quite natural and never aroused his particular attention. He loved order, steadiness, and peace, by temperament, his nature having no complications; and face to face with this catastrophe, he found himself like a man who has fallen into the water and cannot swim.
At first he tried to be incredulous. His brother had told a lie, out of hatred and jealousy. But yet, how could he have been so vile as to say such a thing of their mother if he had not himself been distraught by despair? Besides, stamped on Jean's ear, on his sight, on his nerves, on the inmost fibers of his flesh, were certain words, certain tones of anguish, certain gestures of Pierre's, so full of suffering that they were irresistibly convincing; as incontrovertible as certainty itself.
He was too much crushed to stir or even to will. His distress became unbearable; and he knew that behind the door was his mother who had heard everything and was waiting.
What was she doing? Not a movement, not a shudder, not a breath, not a sigh revealed the presence of a living creature behind that panel. Could she have run away? But how? If she had run away—she must have jumped out of the window into the street. A shock of terror roused him—so violent and imperious that he drove the door in rather than opened it, and flung himself into the bedroom.
It was apparently empty, lighted by a single candle standing on the chest of drawers.
Jean flew to the window, it was shut and the shutters bolted. He looked about him, peering into the dark corners with anxious eyes, and he then noticed that the bed-curtains were drawn. He ran forward and opened them. His mother was lying on the bed, her face buried in the pillow which she had pulled up over her ears that she might hear no more.
At first he thought she had smothered herself. Then taking her by the shoulders, he turned her over without her leaving go of the pillow, which covered her face, and in which she had set her teeth to keep herself from crying out.
But the mere touch of this rigid form, of those arms so convulsively clenched, communicated to him the shock of her unspeakable torture. The strength and determination with which she clutched the linen case full of feathers with her hands and teeth, over her mouth and eyes and ears, that he might neither see her nor speak to her, gave him an idea, by the turmoil it roused in him, of the pitch suffering may rise to, and his heart, his simple heart, was torn with pity. Hewas no judge, not he; not even a merciful judge; he was a man full of weakness and a son full of love. He remembered nothing of what his brother had told him; he neither reasoned nor argued, he merely laid his two hands on his mother's inert body, and not being able to pull the pillow away, he exclaimed, kissing her dress:
"Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me."
She would have seemed to be dead but that an almost imperceptible shudder ran through all her limbs, the vibration of a strained cord. And he repeated:
"Mother, mother, listen to me. It is not true. I know that it is not true."
A spasm seemed to come over her, a fit of suffocation; then she suddenly began to sob into the pillow. Her sinews relaxed, her rigid muscles yielded, her fingers gave way and left go of the linen; and he uncovered her face.
She was pale, quite colorless; and from under her closed lids tears were stealing. He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her eyes, slowly, with long heart-broken kisses, wet with her tears; and he said again and again:
"Mother, my dear mother, I know it is not true. Do not cry; I know it. It is not true."
She raised herself, she sat up, looked in his face, and with an effort of courage such as it must cost in some cases to kill one's self, she said:
"No, my child; it is true."
And they remained speechless, each in the presence of the other. For some minutes she seemed again to be suffocating, craning her throat and throwing back her head to get breath; then she once more mastered herself and went on:
"It is true, my child. Why lie about it? It is true. You would not believe me if I denied it."
She looked like a crazy creature. Overcome by alarm, he fell on his knees by the bedside murmuring:
"Hush, mother, be silent." She stood up with terrible determination and energy.
"I have nothing more to say, my child. Good-by." And she went toward the door.
He threw his arms about her exclaiming:
"What are you doing, mother; where are you going?"
"I do not know. How should I know—There is nothing left for me to do, now that I am alone."
She struggled to be released. Holding her firmly, he could find only words to say again and again:
"Mother, mother, mother!" And through all her efforts to free herself she was saying:
"No, no. I am not your mother now. I am nothing to you, to anybody—nothing, nothing. You have neither father nor mother now, poor boy—good-by."
It struck him clearly that if he let her go now he should never see her again; lifting her up in his arms he carried her to an armchair, forced her into it, and kneeling down in front of her barred her in with his arms.
"You shall not quit this spot, mother. I love you and I will keep you! I will keep you always—I love you and you are mine."
She murmured in a dejected tone:
"No, my poor boy, it is impossible. You weep to-night, but to-morrow you would turn me out of the house. You, even you, could not forgive me."
He replied: "I? I? How little you know me!"with such a burst of genuine affection that with a cry, she seized his head by the hair with both hands, and dragging him violently to her kissed him distractedly all over the face.
Then she sat still, her cheek against his, feeling the warmth of his skin through his beard, and she whispered in his ear: "No, my little Jean, you would not forgive me to-morrow. You think so, but you deceive yourself. You have forgiven me this evening, and that forgiveness has saved my life; but you must never see me again."
And he repeated, clasping her in his arms:
"Mother, do not say that."
"Yes, my child, I must go away. I do not know where, nor how I shall set about it, nor what I shall do; but it must be done. I could never look at you, nor kiss you, do you understand?"
Then he in his turn spoke into her ear:
"My little mother, you are to stay, because I insist, because I want you. And you must pledge your word to obey me, now at once."
"No, my child."
"Yes, mother, you must; do you hear? You must."
"No, my child, it is impossible. It would be condemning us all to the tortures of hell. I know what that torment is; I have known it this month past. Your feelings are touched now, but when that is over, when you look on me as Pierre does, when you remember what I have told you—oh, my Jean, think—think—I am your mother!"
"I will not let you leave me, mother. I have no one but you."
"But think, my son, we can never see each otheragain without both of us blushing, without my feeling that I must die of shame, without my eyes falling before yours."
"But it is not so mother."
"Yes, yes, yes, it is so! Oh, I have understood all your poor brother's struggles, believe me! All—from the very first day. Now when I hear his step in the house my heart beats as if it would burst, when I hear his voice I am ready to faint. I still had you; now I have you no longer. Oh, my little Jean! Do you think I could live between you two?"
"Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of it."
"As if that were possible!"
"But it is possible!"
"How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your brother and you on each hand? Would you cease to think of it, I ask you?"
"I? I swear I should."
"Why you would think of it at every hour of the day."
"No, I swear it. Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and get killed."
This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a passionate and tender embrace. He went on:
"I love you more than you think—ah much more, much more. Come, be reasonable. Try to stay for only one week. Will you promise me one week? You cannot refuse me that?"
She laid her two hands on Jean's shoulders, and holding him at arm's length she said:
"My child, let us try and be calm and not give way to emotions. First, listen to me. If I were ever tohear from your lips what I have heard for this month past from your brother, if I were once to see in your eyes what I read in his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that I was as odious to you as I am to him—within one hour, mark me—within one hour I should be gone forever."
"Mother, I swear to you—"
"Let me speak. For a month past I have suffered all that any creature can suffer. From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my other son, suspected me, that as the minutes went by, he guessed the truth, every moment of my life has been a martyrdom which no words could tell you."
Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery brought the tears to Jean's eyes.
He tried to kiss her, but she held him off.
"Leave me—listen; I still have so much to say to make you understand. But you never can understand. You see, if I stayed—I must—no, no. I cannot."
"Speak on, mother, speak."
"Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you. You want me to stay with you? For what—for us to be able to see each other, speak to each other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dare open a door for fear of finding your brother behind it. If we are to do that, you must not forgive me—nothing is so wounding as forgiveness—but you must owe me no grudge for what I have done. You must feel yourself strong enough, and so far unlike the rest of the world, as to be able to say to yourself that you are not Roland's son without blushing for the fact or despising me. I have suffered enough—I have suffered too much; I can bear no more, no indeed, nomore! And it is not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, long years. But you could never understand that, how should you! If you and I are to live together and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe that though I was your father's mistress I was yet more truly his wife, his real wife; that at the bottom of my heart, I cannot be ashamed of it; that I have no regrets; that I love him still even in death; that I shall always love him and never loved any other man; that he was my life, my joy, my hope, my comfort, everything—everything in the world to me for so long! Listen, my boy, before God, who hears me, I should never have had a joy in my existence if I had not met him; never anything—not a touch of tenderness or kindness, not one of those hours which make us regret growing old,—nothing. I owe everything to him! I had but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother and you. But for you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. I should never have loved, or known, or cared for anything—I should not even have wept—for I have wept, my little Jean; oh yes, and bitter tears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for ten years I was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who created us for each other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He was always kind and courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. It was all over! Oh, how I have cried! How dreadful and delusive life is! Nothing lasts. Then we came here—I never saw him again; he never came. He promised it in every letter. I was always expecting him, and I never saw him again—and now he is dead! But he still cared for us since he remembered you. Ishall love him to my latest breath, and I never will deny him, and I love you because you are his child, and I could never be ashamed of him before you. Do you understand? I could not. So if you wish me to remain you must accept the situation as his son, and we will talk of him sometimes; and you must love him a little and we must think of him when we look at each other. If you will not do this—if you cannot—then good-by, my child; it is impossible that we should live together. Now, I will act by your decision."
Jean replied gently:
"Stay, mother."
She clasped him in her arms, and her tears flowed again; then, with her face against his, she went on:
"Well, but Pierre. What can we do about Pierre?"
Jean murmured:
"We will find some plan! You cannot live with him any longer."
At the thought of her elder son she was convulsed with terror.
"No, I cannot; no, no!" And throwing herself on Jean's breast she cried in distress of mind:
"Save me from him, you my little one. Save me; do something—I don't know what. Think of something. Save me."
"Yes, mother, I will think of something."
"And at once. You must, this minute. Do not leave me. I am so afraid of him—so afraid."
"Yes, yes; I will hit on some plan. I promise you I will."
"But at once; quick, quick! You cannot imagine what I feel when I see him."
Then she murmured softly in his ear: "Keep me here, with you."
He paused, reflected, and with his blunt good-sense saw at once the dangers of such an arrangement. But he had to argue for a long time, combatting her scared, terror-stricken insistence.
"Only for to-night," she said. "Only for to-night. And to-morrow morning you can send word to Roland that I was taken ill."
"That is out of the question, as Pierre left you here. Come take courage. I will arrange everything, I promise you, to-morrow; I will be with you by nine o'clock. Come, put on your bonnet. I will take you home."
"I will do just what you desire," she said with a childlike impulse of timidity and gratitude.
She tried to rise, but the shock had been too much for her, she could not stand.
He made her drink some sugared water and smell at some salts, while he bathed her temples with vinegar. She let him do what he would, exhausted but comforted, as after the pains of child-birth. At last she could walk and she took his arm. The town hall clock struck three as they went past.
Outside their own door Jean kissed her, saying:
"Good-night, mother, keep up your courage."
She stealthily crept up the silent stairs, and into her room, undressed quickly, and slipped into bed with a long-forgotten sense of guilt. Roland was snoring. In all the house Pierre alone was awake, and had heard her come in.