* * *The word struck terror to my heart—stunned me. I was afraid to take it in. Suddenly the exact words which I had read to her in Rome, after our visit to the tomb of Pauline de Beaumont, came back to me. “She wanted to die, in order not to be a burden to me any longer.” The joy of living had made place in her for the glory of sacrifice. She had offered herself to save me from my faults, to free me from all restraints. My return, which she had ceased to expect, overjoyed her, but her belated happiness seemed so fragile to her that she feared to lose it if it were prolonged. Or she believed it alone well worth her absolute submission to the divine will.Dying, she was regaining my love. But if she recovered, what might not happen to it? Perhaps her confidence had preceded her to the grave.I could only call her by her name. And she listened to that name when I repeated it, as though I took heart of grace to say it for the first time. She was silent, to feel her joy the more keenly. She did not speak, and yet her lips stirred. I believe she was praying.* * *With a thousand precautions, the doctors permitted me to take her to the Sleeping Woods. That painful journey drew from her not a single complaint. My tenderness compensated for all her suffering.As we neared our estate, she asked me to open the windows of the automobile in which she was lying, and to lift her up. The faintest green bloom already covered the forest at the birth of Spring. At the time of our return from Rome we had found it thus. Then all the happiness, which I later spurned, was still before me.“We are home,” she said.She breathed deeply; a little colour came into her cheeks.“You are looking better already,” I said: “that is a good sign.”“Yes,” she murmured, as she fell back, “they must not know at once.”She was thinking of her parents.Her father gave up all hope as soon as he saw her. I could not misunderstand his ravaged face. For a long time he had known that some secret grief had undermined her health, but he did not believe the time had come so soon. The tenacious optimism of Mme. Mairieux relieved the situation of its tragedy.“We are going to diet her,” she said; “in a few months I assure you she will be transformed.”And even when she learned that a specialist was to come expressly from Paris, almost once every week, to take care of our invalid, she could not believe Raymonde beyond recovery. She considered me attentive and generous. The thought of this great doctor that we were putting to so much trouble was agreeable to her, and quieted her anxiety. In the old days her perseverance would have been a precious encouragement to me, but now I saw too clearly the error of it to summon hope.Raymonde, who had been brought into the chateau on a stretcher, would not leave it alive. Reflected in my frightened love, which was no longer deluded, and which nothing could again alter, she watched herself die and pass away as in a mirror.* * *During the pleasant hours of the day, her chair was placed near an open window. I never left her. I attached myself to each moment as if to prevent its flight.The birds were singing, the leaves beginning to come out. One seemed to hear the germination in the earth like a low hum in the clear air. I was tortured by the sight of this silently renewing life while the work of death was going on before me.Nothing of what passed within my heart escaped my wife.“You are mistaken, dear,” she said. “This is not the end.” She was thinking: “This is the beginning. It is not the earth that is calling me.”At that moment, a bell began to toll the Angelus. Other churches took up the burden from a distance.“Listen,” she murmured, inspired by those churchly voices, as she had been in the garden of the Pincio,—“listen—”I wanted to close the window, on account of the evening air. She allowed me to do so, but she was thinking “Of what avail?” Or perhaps she was repeating to herself:“It is so simple.”* * *One morning I found M. Mairieux at the door, having come over for news of the patient.“Won’t you come in?” I asked.He looked at me with his sad eyes, so charged with fatherly affection. He did not know, then, that I was no longer the same man.I led him to his daughter, but he scarcely dared to follow me, remembering my former jealousy.“Father,” Raymonde said to him, “I want you to come and see how happy we are.”His too long restraint before me broke down, and I saw him sobbing. I believe that at that moment he forgave me the wrong which I had done his daughter.* * *On the first of May, in accordance with their charming custom, the children of the neighbouring villages came to sing and dance in the court. They had scarcely begun when I wanted to send them away. In the city one has straw thrown on the street in front of houses where sick people are, to deaden the noise, and I feared their noise here. Raymonde stopped me:“Let them stay, please.”“They will tire you,” I remonstrated.“No, no. Do you remember—?”As she was speaking, I recalled that other first of May, ours, when she had run away from me in the forest.The refrain of the old song had not changed. It was still:Awaken, sleeping beauty,Awaken, if you sleep!For the first time I saw my wife’s calmness—that surprising calm to which I was only now growing accustomed—shattered, as if it were a crystal that had been too roughly handled.“Soon,” she whispered.She did not finish her thought, but I completed it myself;—one day, soon, she would awaken no more. And I sent the troop of children away, no longer able to endure their gaiety.* * *That same day she asked for Dilette, whom she no longer kept so much near her, not to affect or sadden her precocious sensibility unduly. The child was loth to leave her again: she looked at her insistently and too closely.“Take her away,” Raymonde begged me.I had almost to take the child away by force. When she had gone, Raymonde drew me down as if to whisper to me.“Promise me,” she said, “that you will always love her, that you will never let any one take her place in your affections.”She stopped, not daring to go on. But I read her meaning in her eyes.“Raymonde,” I answered in despair, “why do you speak to me like that? You do not know, you never will know, that my love is now equal to yours.”She bowed her head as if she had been caught in wrong-doing.“I cannot believe it, dear.” And then in a whisper: “That would be so wonderful.”She had thought to charge me with our daughter’s future, thinking of the time when I should be her sole protector, when I might perhaps be led to betray my tender memories. And in my powerlessness to convince her, I knelt before her, insisting with all my power.“You must believe me, Raymonde.”She laid her hand on my head.“Yes,” she said, “I believe you.”And she smiled ... It was the last time.* * *How can I write what follows?Her weakness increased; she no longer even left her room. Of her own accord she asked for the final sacrament. As she received it, I saw her face, so pale and white, grow bright, like a window behind which some light is shining. It was a transfiguration, in which I had the feeling that God was in her, stronger than she, so frail, whom He was going to take away.The days were growing longer, crowding night between slow twilights and hastening dawns. The morning of the twentieth of May, a little before five o’clock, she called to me. Her room, where I was watching, faced the east, and through the loosely closed shutters a ray of light entered.“Isn’t it daylight yet?” she asked me.She was oppressed. I took her hand, which was damp, in mine. There was no abatement of the fever; yet I was not immediately alarmed.“Yes, dear, don’t you see the sun?”“No,” she said.Her “no” startled me. I looked at her: her eyes were wide open, searching: she could no longer see. I pushed back the shutters, and through the open window a flood of light fell upon the bed, toward which I ran again at once.“And now?”“Now?” she repeated, making an effort, as if to fix her attention.Then she seemed to grow stronger, and replied:“Now, my dear, yes, I see.”She raised her two arms before her, and made as if to point to some spot beyond me, repeating still more distinctly:“Yes, I see.”She fell back then. For a second I thought it was to rest, or perhaps, to sleep. Filled with an inexpressible anguish, I leaned closer over her. And I realised that she was, in fact, sleeping, that it was her eternal sleep.“It is so simple,” she had said.I closed her eyelids, with their long lashes, on that invisible world which she had seen, and her face took on immediately that ineffable serenity with which death stamps the purest things in life, the most divine. Overcome by such calm and peace, I knelt involuntarily and prayed. Her gentleness had entered into me; her force communicated itself to me.It was only a little later that I faced despair, and all that ferment of revolt which rises in us after such misfortune. But there, alone, in her room, for a few moments I was what she would have wished me to be.When Mme. Mairieux and the maid came and told me it was time to dress her, they hesitated between two of her last gowns, the white and gold, or the blue and gold, that she had worn when we went out together.“No, no,” I said to them, “not those.”And I went myself to look for the woollen dress which she had worn the day of our betrothal—which I had one day ridiculed. Luxury had killed her. It should not constrain her in her tomb. She had come to me in all simplicity, and I had not understood her. I myself had crushed her.They were astonished at my choice.“No, please,” I said. “She would have wanted this one. We must do as she would have liked.”* * *Oh, my love, whom I so cruelly tortured, even in Death you bear within you that peace which, living, you held out to me with expiating hands.
* * *
The word struck terror to my heart—stunned me. I was afraid to take it in. Suddenly the exact words which I had read to her in Rome, after our visit to the tomb of Pauline de Beaumont, came back to me. “She wanted to die, in order not to be a burden to me any longer.” The joy of living had made place in her for the glory of sacrifice. She had offered herself to save me from my faults, to free me from all restraints. My return, which she had ceased to expect, overjoyed her, but her belated happiness seemed so fragile to her that she feared to lose it if it were prolonged. Or she believed it alone well worth her absolute submission to the divine will.
Dying, she was regaining my love. But if she recovered, what might not happen to it? Perhaps her confidence had preceded her to the grave.
I could only call her by her name. And she listened to that name when I repeated it, as though I took heart of grace to say it for the first time. She was silent, to feel her joy the more keenly. She did not speak, and yet her lips stirred. I believe she was praying.
* * *
With a thousand precautions, the doctors permitted me to take her to the Sleeping Woods. That painful journey drew from her not a single complaint. My tenderness compensated for all her suffering.
As we neared our estate, she asked me to open the windows of the automobile in which she was lying, and to lift her up. The faintest green bloom already covered the forest at the birth of Spring. At the time of our return from Rome we had found it thus. Then all the happiness, which I later spurned, was still before me.
“We are home,” she said.
She breathed deeply; a little colour came into her cheeks.
“You are looking better already,” I said: “that is a good sign.”
“Yes,” she murmured, as she fell back, “they must not know at once.”
She was thinking of her parents.
Her father gave up all hope as soon as he saw her. I could not misunderstand his ravaged face. For a long time he had known that some secret grief had undermined her health, but he did not believe the time had come so soon. The tenacious optimism of Mme. Mairieux relieved the situation of its tragedy.
“We are going to diet her,” she said; “in a few months I assure you she will be transformed.”
And even when she learned that a specialist was to come expressly from Paris, almost once every week, to take care of our invalid, she could not believe Raymonde beyond recovery. She considered me attentive and generous. The thought of this great doctor that we were putting to so much trouble was agreeable to her, and quieted her anxiety. In the old days her perseverance would have been a precious encouragement to me, but now I saw too clearly the error of it to summon hope.
Raymonde, who had been brought into the chateau on a stretcher, would not leave it alive. Reflected in my frightened love, which was no longer deluded, and which nothing could again alter, she watched herself die and pass away as in a mirror.
* * *
During the pleasant hours of the day, her chair was placed near an open window. I never left her. I attached myself to each moment as if to prevent its flight.
The birds were singing, the leaves beginning to come out. One seemed to hear the germination in the earth like a low hum in the clear air. I was tortured by the sight of this silently renewing life while the work of death was going on before me.
Nothing of what passed within my heart escaped my wife.
“You are mistaken, dear,” she said. “This is not the end.” She was thinking: “This is the beginning. It is not the earth that is calling me.”
At that moment, a bell began to toll the Angelus. Other churches took up the burden from a distance.
“Listen,” she murmured, inspired by those churchly voices, as she had been in the garden of the Pincio,—“listen—”
I wanted to close the window, on account of the evening air. She allowed me to do so, but she was thinking “Of what avail?” Or perhaps she was repeating to herself:
“It is so simple.”
* * *
One morning I found M. Mairieux at the door, having come over for news of the patient.
“Won’t you come in?” I asked.
He looked at me with his sad eyes, so charged with fatherly affection. He did not know, then, that I was no longer the same man.
I led him to his daughter, but he scarcely dared to follow me, remembering my former jealousy.
“Father,” Raymonde said to him, “I want you to come and see how happy we are.”
His too long restraint before me broke down, and I saw him sobbing. I believe that at that moment he forgave me the wrong which I had done his daughter.
* * *
On the first of May, in accordance with their charming custom, the children of the neighbouring villages came to sing and dance in the court. They had scarcely begun when I wanted to send them away. In the city one has straw thrown on the street in front of houses where sick people are, to deaden the noise, and I feared their noise here. Raymonde stopped me:
“Let them stay, please.”
“They will tire you,” I remonstrated.
“No, no. Do you remember—?”
As she was speaking, I recalled that other first of May, ours, when she had run away from me in the forest.
The refrain of the old song had not changed. It was still:
Awaken, sleeping beauty,Awaken, if you sleep!
Awaken, sleeping beauty,Awaken, if you sleep!
Awaken, sleeping beauty,Awaken, if you sleep!
Awaken, sleeping beauty,
Awaken, if you sleep!
For the first time I saw my wife’s calmness—that surprising calm to which I was only now growing accustomed—shattered, as if it were a crystal that had been too roughly handled.
“Soon,” she whispered.
She did not finish her thought, but I completed it myself;—one day, soon, she would awaken no more. And I sent the troop of children away, no longer able to endure their gaiety.
* * *
That same day she asked for Dilette, whom she no longer kept so much near her, not to affect or sadden her precocious sensibility unduly. The child was loth to leave her again: she looked at her insistently and too closely.
“Take her away,” Raymonde begged me.
I had almost to take the child away by force. When she had gone, Raymonde drew me down as if to whisper to me.
“Promise me,” she said, “that you will always love her, that you will never let any one take her place in your affections.”
She stopped, not daring to go on. But I read her meaning in her eyes.
“Raymonde,” I answered in despair, “why do you speak to me like that? You do not know, you never will know, that my love is now equal to yours.”
She bowed her head as if she had been caught in wrong-doing.
“I cannot believe it, dear.” And then in a whisper: “That would be so wonderful.”
She had thought to charge me with our daughter’s future, thinking of the time when I should be her sole protector, when I might perhaps be led to betray my tender memories. And in my powerlessness to convince her, I knelt before her, insisting with all my power.
“You must believe me, Raymonde.”
She laid her hand on my head.
“Yes,” she said, “I believe you.”
And she smiled ... It was the last time.
* * *
How can I write what follows?
Her weakness increased; she no longer even left her room. Of her own accord she asked for the final sacrament. As she received it, I saw her face, so pale and white, grow bright, like a window behind which some light is shining. It was a transfiguration, in which I had the feeling that God was in her, stronger than she, so frail, whom He was going to take away.
The days were growing longer, crowding night between slow twilights and hastening dawns. The morning of the twentieth of May, a little before five o’clock, she called to me. Her room, where I was watching, faced the east, and through the loosely closed shutters a ray of light entered.
“Isn’t it daylight yet?” she asked me.
She was oppressed. I took her hand, which was damp, in mine. There was no abatement of the fever; yet I was not immediately alarmed.
“Yes, dear, don’t you see the sun?”
“No,” she said.
Her “no” startled me. I looked at her: her eyes were wide open, searching: she could no longer see. I pushed back the shutters, and through the open window a flood of light fell upon the bed, toward which I ran again at once.
“And now?”
“Now?” she repeated, making an effort, as if to fix her attention.
Then she seemed to grow stronger, and replied:
“Now, my dear, yes, I see.”
She raised her two arms before her, and made as if to point to some spot beyond me, repeating still more distinctly:
“Yes, I see.”
She fell back then. For a second I thought it was to rest, or perhaps, to sleep. Filled with an inexpressible anguish, I leaned closer over her. And I realised that she was, in fact, sleeping, that it was her eternal sleep.
“It is so simple,” she had said.
I closed her eyelids, with their long lashes, on that invisible world which she had seen, and her face took on immediately that ineffable serenity with which death stamps the purest things in life, the most divine. Overcome by such calm and peace, I knelt involuntarily and prayed. Her gentleness had entered into me; her force communicated itself to me.
It was only a little later that I faced despair, and all that ferment of revolt which rises in us after such misfortune. But there, alone, in her room, for a few moments I was what she would have wished me to be.
When Mme. Mairieux and the maid came and told me it was time to dress her, they hesitated between two of her last gowns, the white and gold, or the blue and gold, that she had worn when we went out together.
“No, no,” I said to them, “not those.”
And I went myself to look for the woollen dress which she had worn the day of our betrothal—which I had one day ridiculed. Luxury had killed her. It should not constrain her in her tomb. She had come to me in all simplicity, and I had not understood her. I myself had crushed her.
They were astonished at my choice.
“No, please,” I said. “She would have wanted this one. We must do as she would have liked.”
* * *
Oh, my love, whom I so cruelly tortured, even in Death you bear within you that peace which, living, you held out to me with expiating hands.