AT HOME
The letter posted by René at Saint-Cloud had duly reached its
destination on the morning of the day that was to complete poor
Rosalie's unhappiness. Suzanne had received it with the rest of her
correspondence a few minutes before her husband entered her room to get
his morning cup of tea, and she was just engaged in reading it when
Paul's kind and jovial face appeared in the doorway.
'_Bon jour_, Suzon,' he cried in his deep but cheery voice, adding, as
he sometimes did, 'my fair rose.' This allusion to de Musset's
well-known romance was always accompanied by a kiss. In Paul's eyes de
Musset was the embodiment of youth and love, with just a spice of
suggestiveness, and it was the favourite joke of this simple-hearted
fellow to look upon himself as Suzanne's lover, and not as a lawful
spouse. He was one of those strange husbands who say to you in
confidence, 'I have no secrets from my wife--that is the only way to
cure her of curiosity.' Meanwhile, he was as much in love with his 'fair
rose' as ever, and proved it by the manner in which he tenderly kissed
her on the neck.
But she checked further demonstrations of affection with the words, 'Get
along! See to the tea, and let me finish my letter.'
She knew that Paul would never ask her anything about her
correspondence, and it gave her such intense pleasure to read the poet's
ardent phrases that she was not satisfied with going over them once, but
read them a second time, and then, folding up the letter, slipped it
into her bodice. She looked so supremely happy as she sat down to the
table and took up the fine porcelain cup filled with fragrant tea that
Moraines, wishing to tease her, said, in a voice that was meant to be
gruff, 'If I were a jealous husband, I should think you had received a
letter from your sweetheart, you look so happy, madame. And if you knew
how nice you look like that,' he added, kissing her arm just above the
wrist, where the delicate pink skin, perfumed and warmed by her
luxurious bath, looked so inviting.
'Well, sir, you would be right,' she replied, with a roguish air. Women
take a divine pleasure in saying in fun things which, though true, will
not be believed. It procures them that mild sensation of danger which
titillates their nerves so delightfully.
'I hope this sweetheart of yours is a nice fellow?' asked Paul, quite
amused by what he considered a good joke.
'Very nice.'
'And may I know his name?'
'You are too inquisitive. Guess.'
'Bless me--no!' cried Paul. 'I should have too much to do. Ah! Suzanne,'
he added, suddenly changing his tone to one that betrayed deep feeling,
'what pain it must be to harbour suspicions! Just fancy me being jealous
of you, and having to sit in the office all day whilst my heart was
being torn by doubts! Ah! well,' this with a shrewd look, 'I would set
Desforges to watch you!'
'It's lucky there was no one to hear his "joke,"' thought Suzanne when
she was alone. 'He has a silly way of saying these things, too, when
he's out.' René's letter had, however, put her in such a good temper
that she forgot to get angry, as she would do when she thought her
husband too utterly simple. Such is the logic of these pretty and
light-hearted sinners; they will exercise all their wits in blindfolding
a man, and then blame him for stumbling. The fact of having deceived him
does not satisfy them--he must only be deceived up to a certain point.
If he goes beyond that it is too much--he makes them feel uneasy, and
they hate him for it--sincerely. Suzanne contented herself with a shrug
of her shoulders and a look of sweet pity. Then she took the letter from
its hiding-place and read it for the third time.
'It's quite true,' she said aloud; 'he is not like other men.'
Thereupon she fell into a deep reverie, in which she saw the poet as she
had seen him waiting for her at the Louvre, standing just under the
large Veronese canvas with his face turned a little to the right. How
agitated he had been when his eyes met hers! How young he was! How his
lips had trembled when he told her a little later that he loved
her--those full, fresh lips which she could have bitten like some fruit,
after having caressed his fair cheeks and the soft silken beard that
adorned his manly face. But the fruit was not yet ripe; she must learn
to wait. She sighed. Her calculation that the poet would write that very
letter, and so soon after their meeting, too, had proved correct. She
had made up her mind not to reply to it, nor yet to the second. For this
second letter she waited one, two, three days. Though her confidence in
the strength of the passion with which she had inspired René was
unshaken, she was somewhat startled when, on the afternoon of the third
day, just as her brougham was turning the corner of the Rue Murillo, she
saw him standing where she had seen him once before. She was very
careful to look as though she had not noticed him, and put on her
saddest expression, her most dreamy eyes and an air of sweet resignation
that would have moved a tiger. The comfortable brougham, furnished with
a number of dainty and useful knick-knacks, was immediately transformed
in René's eyes into a prison van containing a martyr--a martyr to her
husband, a martyr to her home, a martyr to her love, and a martyr to her
virtue.
She was not acting a very great lie, either, as she passed René. As she
saw the pallor on his cheeks, caused by three days' anguish, and the
look of despair in his eyes, she would have given much to be able to
stop the brougham, to get out or to make him get in, and to exclaim as
she carried him off, 'I love you as much as you love me!' Instead of
that she drove on to do her shopping and pay her calls, sure now that
the second letter so impatiently expected would not be long in coming.
It came the same afternoon, but just when its arrival presented most
danger. And for this reason. Having gone home immediately after meeting
Suzanne, René had written her four pages in feverish haste, and in
order that they might reach her sooner and more safely, he had sent them
about five o'clock by a commissionaire; the letter was therefore handed
to Suzanne by her manservant whilst Desforges was with her. He had come,
as he often did at that hour, with a dainty little present; this time it
was a pretty needle-case in old gold which he had picked up at a sale.
No sooner had she recognised the writing on the envelope than she said
to herself, 'The least sign of emotion and the Baron will smell a rat!'
As sometimes happens, the fear of betraying her agitation made it more
difficult for her to conceal it. She took the letter, looked at the
address as we do when trying to guess from whom a communication comes,
tore it open and skimmed its contents, after having first cast a glance
at the signature; then, getting up to place it amongst some others on
her desk, she said:
'Another, begging letter! It's astonishing how many I've had lately. How
do you manage with them, Frédéric?'
'I have a very simple plan,' replied the Baron. 'Fifty francs the first
time of asking, twenty francs the second, nothing the third. My
secretary has orders to that effect. That's one of the fads I don't
believe in--charity! Just as if it were through want of money that the
poor are poor! It's their disposition that has made them so, and that
you'll never change. Look here, take this person who is sponging on you
to-day; I'll bet twenty-five pounds that if you inquire about him you'll
find that fortune, or at least a competency, has been in his grasp ten
times during his life. If you were to set him up afresh he would be in
the same plight in a few years from now. Not that I mind giving, and as
much as people want--but as to believing that money so spent is of the
least use, that's a different thing altogether. And then these
benefactors and lady patronesses--I know them; it's all advertisement--a
means of making their way into Society and of getting hold of good
people.'
'That's enough,' said Suzanne, 'you are a terrible sceptic.' And with
that delicate irony that women sometimes use in avenging themselves upon
the man who compels them to lie, she added, 'You're not one to be easily
duped.'
The Baron accepted this flattery with a smile. Had his suspicions been
aroused, that phrase alone would have lulled them. The most cunning men
have that weak point by which they can always be conquered--vanity. But
suspicion of any kind had been far from the Baron's mind. Suzanne
deceived him as easily as René had deceived his sister. Those who see
us every day are the last to perceive what would be evident to the
merest stranger. That is because the stranger comes to us without any
preconceived idea, whilst our daily associates have formed an opinion
about us which they do not take the trouble to verify or change. The
Baron therefore did not remark that Suzanne was that afternoon a prey to
intense agitation, which lasted during the whole of his visit. He stayed
rather longer than usual, too, telling her all sorts of club stories,
while she pottered about in the room, under some pretence or other, with
one eye on her letter, seizing it once more with delight as soon as
Desforges had at last decided to go.
'He is an excellent fellow,' she said, 'but such a bore!' A fortnight's
passion had sufficed to bring her to this stage of ingratitude, and she
now found compensation for the restraint of the past hour in going over
each phrase and word of the poet's mad letter. This time it was an
ardent prayer--an appeal to a woman's love. He no longer spoke of
friendship. The air of melancholy she had assumed in the brougham had
told.
'Since you love me,' he said, 'have pity on yourself, if you have no
pity on me.' What would have appeared to Suzanne an intolerable piece of
conceit in anyone else touched her deeply as a mark of absolute
confidence in her love. She recognised it for what it really
was--worship so devout that it did not harbour a shadow of doubt. It
would have been so natural if René had accused her of having cruelly
trifled with his feelings, but such an hypothesis was far from the
poet's thoughts. 'Poor boy!' she said to herself, 'how he loves me!'
Then, thinking of Desforges by way of comparison, she added, 'It is the
best way to make sure of not being deceived!' She took the letter out
once more. Its language was so touching, and it was full of such sincere
grief; then, again, the cosy _salon_, just at that hour, reminded her so
forcibly of the poet and of his first visit, and she asked herself
whether she had not put him sufficiently to the proof. 'No,' she
concluded, 'not yet.'
This burning letter could, indeed, have but one reply--to tell René to
come and see her there, and it was in his own home that she wanted to
see him, in the little room he had described to her. She would appear
before him in a state of distraction, and under pretence of saving him
from suicide. The third letter would undoubtedly furnish her with that
pretence, and she decided to await its coming, already enjoying in
anticipation the delight of seeing René once more. Amidst the whirl of
excitement that her sudden and unexpected appearance would cause the
poet there would be no room for reflection. All the hateful
preliminaries of a false step, impossible to discuss with a man so
inexperienced as he, would be dispensed with. It was true there was the
presence of the rest of the family to consider. Suzanne would not have
been the depraved woman she was, even in this crisis of true passion, if
this detail had not given her plans the charm of doubly forbidden fruit.
She waited for that third letter with intense longing. The time slipped
rapidly by. She dined out, went to the theatre, and paid calls, her mind
entirely absorbed in that one thought. As luck would have it, Desforges,
having no doubt been lectured by Doctor Noirot, had not asked for any
appointments in the Rue du Mont-Thabor that week. She knew that this was
merely a postponement. Even after becoming René's mistress she would
still have to continue her relations with the man who supplied so many
of her luxurious wants. This seemed to her as natural as the fact of
being Paul's wife. 'What does that matter, since you know I love only
you?' is what such a wife will say to her lover when he gets into one of
those ridiculous fits of jealousy that so ill become a man in that
position. And these women are never more sincere than in uttering that
phrase. They know full well that love is totally different from duty,
interest, or even pleasure. Though Suzanne saw nothing particularly
shocking in the plural life she was leading, she was glad that the
opportunity was afforded her of devoting herself entirely to her new
passion for a day or two. In all this, however, she was still the
courtesan, one of those creatures who, when they do fall in love, become
real artists of sentiment, feeling as delicately on certain points as
they are abominably wanton in others.
'What if he should really have taken it into his head to go away!' This
was the thought that struck her when she at last received the much
desired third letter, consisting of one long, heartrending
farewell--without a word of reproach.
She trembled lest René might have had recourse to the proceeding
counselled by Napoleon, who, with his imperial good sense, said, 'In
love the only victory is flight.' In behaving as she had done she had
staked all. Would she win? What she had foreseen had come to pass with a
precision that both delighted and frightened her. The third letter bore
the imprint of such deep despair that, on reading it a second time, this
subtle actress, with all her experience, was seized by a fresh fear more
terrible than the first--the fear that René might really have destroyed
himself. In vain did she argue with herself that if the poet had had
real intentions of going away he would have mentioned it in the letter,
and that a handsome young man of twenty-five does not kill himself on
account of the silence of a woman he believes to be in love with
him--her anguish was none the less real and intense when she reached the
Rue Coëtlogon a few hours after having received the letter.
It was two o'clock. She stopped for a moment at the corner of the
street, gazing in wonderment at this provincial corner of Paris, whose
picturesqueness had so charmed Claude Larcher on the evening our story
opens. The grey clouds hung low in the wintry sky, and the bare branches
of the trees stood out drearily against them. The cries of a few
children playing at soldiers amongst the ruins at the back alone broke
the silence. The strange appearance of the peaceful little street, the
perils attending the step she was about to take, and the uncertainty of
the result, all combined to bring Suzanne's excitement to its highest
pitch, though she smiled as she thought to herself that there was no
reason for believing René to be at home unless he were hopelessly
waiting for a reply to his last letter. But when the _concierge_ had
told her that M. René was in, and had pointed out the door, her wits at
once came back to her.
Like all strong-minded women, she possessed the characteristics of a man
of action. A plain and circumscribed course of events inspired her with
determination and courage to carry out her plans. She rang the bell.
Heavy footsteps were heard approaching, and the face of Françoise
appeared in the doorway. At any other time she would have smiled at the
look of amazement which the simple maid did not even try to conceal.
Colette Rigaud had once called upon the poet to get him to make some
slight alteration in her part, and Françoise, recovering somewhat from
her surprise, no doubt thought that this was a similar visit, for
Suzanne could hear her say, as she opened the last door on the right:
'Monsieur René, there's a lady asking for you. . . . A very pretty
woman--probably some actress.'
She saw the poet come out of his room and turn as pale as death on
recognising her. She glided quietly, along the passage which Raffet's
prints had turned into a small Napoleonic museum and entered René's
room. He was obliged to get out of the way to let her pass; the door
closed, and they were alone.
'You--you here!' cried René. He could only gaze at her as she stood
before him looking so slim and elegant in the dark costume she had
chosen for this visit, for he was in that state of speechless agitation
caused by some unexpected event that suddenly raises us from the depths
of despair to the height of bliss. At such moments we are assailed by a
whirlwind of ideas and sensations that threatens to turn our brain. Our
legs give way beneath us and our hands tremble. It is happiness, and it
gives pain. René was obliged to support himself against the wall, his
eyes still fixed upon that handsome face that he had despaired of ever
seeing again. A small detail completed the madness of his joy. He
noticed that Suzanne's hands trembled a little too, and, as it happened,
her emotion was sincere.
To the passionate feelings that inspired her there was now added the
fear of displeasing the man she was resolved to win. On entering this
chamber, where she was sure no woman had ever been before her, her plan
of action was as clearly traced as plans of that kind can be. Room must
always be left for the unforeseen. Suzanne felt that with René there
would be many difficulties which with others might have been lightly and
safely glided over. His simplicity both charmed and frightened her. In
him she could rely, it was true, upon the impulse of the passions--more
daring than cool calculation--but to arouse unnoticed that impulse in
the poet when she was herself suffering its tortures was no easy matter.
Whilst he stood gazing at her after the door had closed she felt a
momentary hesitation; then, almost forgetting her plans and her part,
she threw herself upon his neck and stammered out, 'I was in such
terrible fear. Your letter frightened me so that I could not help
coming. I have had an awful struggle, and could not hold out any longer.
My God, my God! What will you think of me?'
He held her in his arms, and a thrill ran through her. Then he lifted
her lovely head and commenced to kiss her, first on her eyes, those eyes
whose sadness had so touched him as she passed him in her brougham--next
on her cheeks, those cheeks whose ideal form had so charmed him from the
first--finally on her sweet mouth, which gave his kisses back. What did
he think of her? How could any idea shape itself in his mind, absorbed
as it was by that union of the lips which is in itself complete and
intoxicating possession? What delight, too, that embrace was to Suzanne!
Through all the horrible complexities of her feminine diplomacy one
sincere desire had grown stronger and stronger within her--that of
meeting with a fresh and spontaneous, natural and thrilling passion.
This passion she found in René's breath; it stirred the very depths of
her soul and made her almost faint with emotion. Ah! this was youth,
with its complete and absolute abandonment, expressing neither thought
nor word; oblivious of all, except the immediate present; effacing all,
except the fleeting sensation whose sweetness and whose very outlines
seem to lie in a kiss.
This woman, corrupted by the influence of a Parisian cynic of fifty and
degraded by that horrible venality which has not the excuse of
necessity--this Machiavelian courtesan, who had regulated her passion
for René like a game of chess--tasted for one second that divine joy.
The punishment of those who let calculation enter into their love lies
in the remembrance of their calculation in the moment of ecstasy. Though
intoxicated by the mad kisses she had given and received, Suzanne
clearly saw that she could not abandon herself at once to her lover's
arms. She therefore broke away from him and said, 'Let me go now that I
have seen you and now that I know you are alive. I beg you to let me go.
O René!'--she had never called him by this name before--'don't come
near me!'
'Suzanne,' replied the poet, maddened by the burning nectar he had found
on those lips--the certainty of being loved--'don't be afraid of me.
When shall we have another hour like this to ourselves? Let me beg of
you to stop. See,' he added, receding still farther from her, 'I will
obey you. I obeyed you even when I found it so very hard. Ah! you
believe me now!' he exclaimed, seeing that Suzanne's face no longer
expressed such intense fear. 'Will you be very nice?' he continued, in
that playful tone which takes so well with women, and which will make
any one of them, be she a lady of high degree or a simple girl, call a
man a 'darling.' 'Sit down there in that arm-chair, where I have so
often sat at work, and then be nicer still, and try to look as though
you were not on a visit.'
He had again come closer and had forced her into the chair; then he took
away her muff and began to unbutton her coat. She submitted to this with
a sad smile, like one who yields against her will. This smile was the
death agony of the Madonna, the last act in the comedy of the Ideal
performed by Suzanne. He also took off her bonnet, a _toque_ that
matched her coat. He was now kneeling before her and gazing at her with
that look of idolatry a woman is sure to provoke in her lover if she but
give him one of those proofs of affection that flatter a man's vanity
and love--the lower passions and the higher passions of the heart. The
poet said to, himself: 'How she must love me to have come here, she whom
I know to be so pure, so pious, and so devoted to her duty!'
All the lies she had so carefully told him came back to his mind like
further proofs of her sincerity as he said: 'How delighted I am to have
you here, and just now, too! Don't be afraid--we are quite alone. My
sister has gone out for the whole afternoon, and the slave'--this was
the name he gave Françoise, in order to amuse Suzanne--'the slave is
busy in the kitchen. And I have you here! You see, this is my own little
kingdom, this room--the place in which I have endured so much! There is
not one of these corners, not one of these objects that could not tell
you what I have suffered these past few days. My poor books'--and he
pointed to his low bookcase--'were left unopened. These dear old
engravings I scarcely looked at. The pen with which I had written to you
I never touched. I sat just where you are sitting now counting the hours
as they passed. God! what a week I have spent! But what does it all
matter now that you are here and I can gaze at you? It is happiness to
me to tell you even my troubles!'
She listened with half-closed eyes, giving herself up to the music of
his words, and following out her plan in spite of the passions that
welled up within her. Does the knowledge of danger as he faces his
adversary drive from the mind of a skilful swordsman the lessons he
learnt in the school? René's assurance that they were alone in the
house had sent a thrill of joy through Suzanne, and the glance she had
thrown round the little room, so neatly and carefully kept, had proved,
to her delight and satisfaction, that she had not been mistaken
concerning her lover's past. Everything here spoke of a studious and
secluded life, the pure and noble life of an artist who surrounds
himself with an atmosphere of beautiful dreams. Above all, the poet
himself pleased her, with his love-lit eyes and the playful way in which
he treated her, and she began to see that this exchange of confidences
respecting their mutual sufferings would lead her to her goal without
the least risk of diminishing her prestige in his eyes.
'And don't you think that I have suffered too?' she replied. 'Why should
I deny it? You speak of your letters--God knows that I did not want to
read them! I kept the first one in my pocket a whole day, having neither
the courage to tear it open nor to burn it. To read your words was to
hear you speak once more, and I had determined that it should not be! I
had prayed to my guardian angel so long and so fervently for strength to
forget you. How I struggled to do so!' Here the Madonna appeared for the
last time. She lifted her eyes to heaven--or rather to the ceiling, from
which hung two or three little Japanese dolls--and in her glorious orbs
were reflected the wings of her guardian angel as he flew far, far
away. . . .
Fixing her blue eyes once more on René, she sighed in that tone of
abandonment that proves a conquered heart: 'I am lost now, but what of
that? I love you so dearly that I do not care what happens--only I
cannot bear to picture you in distress.'
Here she broke down, her bosom racked with convulsive sobs, and as the
poet tenderly kissed her tears away her head once more fell upon his
breast. She lay there for a few moments listening to the wild beating of
his heart--then, like a tired child, she entwined her arms about his
neck, and heaved a sigh of peace.