'Here she is! Mademoiselle is coming!'

Chanteau insisted upon having his chair wheeled on to the terrace, and

the father and son waited there together, while Véronique gave them

particulars of what she had seen.

'It was Malivoire's coach. I could tell it was Mademoiselle Pauline by

her crape ribbons. But what I couldn't understand was that there seemed

to be somebody with her. What can that broken-winded old hack be doing,

I wonder?'

At last the coach drove up to the door. Lazare had stepped towards it,

and had already opened his mouth to question Pauline, who had sprung

down lightly, when he remained as if thunderstruck. Behind his cousin

there appeared another young woman, dressed in striped lilac silk. Both

girls were laughing together in the most friendly fashion. The young

man's surprise was so great that he returned to his father, crying:

'She has brought Louise with her!'

'Louise! Ah, that's a capital idea!' Chanteau exclaimed.

And when the girls stood side by side before him, the one still in her

deep mourning and the other in her gay summer toilette, he continued,

delighted with this new distraction:

'Ah, so you have made peace! Well, I never quite understood what was

the matter--some nonsense, I suppose. How naughty it was of you, my

poor Louisette, to keep estranged from us during all the trouble we've

been through! Well! it's all at an end now, eh?'

A feeling of embarrassment kept the girls silent. They blushed and

avoided looking at each other. Then Louise stepped forward and kissed

Chanteau to hide her confusion. But he wanted some explanations.

'You met each other, I suppose.'

Thereupon Louise turned towards her friend, while her eyes filled with

tears.

'It was Pauline who came to see us. I was just going back into the

house myself when she arrived. You mustn't scold her for staying the

night with us, for it was my fault. I made her stay. And, as the

telegraph goes no further than Arromanches, we thought we should get

here ourselves as soon as any message. Do you forgive me?'

She kissed Chanteau again with all her old caressing manner. He

inquired no further. When what happened contributed to his pleasure, he

had no fault to find with it.

'But there's Lazare,' he added; 'aren't you going to speak to him?'

The young man had kept in the background, with an embarrassed smile

on his face. His father's remark completed his confusion, the more

especially as Louise only blushed again and made no step towards him.

Why was she there, he asked himself? Why had his cousin brought back

this rival, whom she had so violently driven away? He had not yet

recovered from his confusion at the sight of her.

'Kiss her, Lazare!' said Pauline softly, 'since she is too timid to

kiss you.'

Her face was quite white, as she stood there in her deep mourning,

but her expression was perfectly peaceful, and her eyes clear and

untroubled. She looked at them both with the maternal, serious

expression which she assumed in her graver moments of household

responsibility, and only smiled when the young man took courage to let

his lips just touch the cheek which Louise offered him.

When Véronique saw this, she rushed away and shut herself up in

her kitchen, perfectly thunderstruck. It was altogether beyond her

comprehension. After all that had passed, Mademoiselle Pauline could

have very little heart. She was becoming quite ridiculous in her desire

to please others. It wasn't sufficient to bring all the dirty little

drabs of the neighbourhood into the house and put them in the way of

walking off with the silver, but now she must bring sweethearts for

Monsieur Lazare! The house was getting into a nice state indeed!

When she had vented a little of her indignation in this explosion over

her fire, she went out on to the terrace again, exclaiming, 'Don't you

know that lunch has been ready for more than an hour? The potatoes are

fried to cinders!'

They all ate with good appetites, but Chanteau was the only one whose

mirth flowed freely, and fortunately he was too gay to notice the

persistent constraint of the others. Though they showed themselves

very affectionate, still, beneath it all, there lurked a touch of

that uneasy sadness which manifests itself in one who forgives an

irreparable insult, but cannot altogether forget it. The afternoon was

spent in installing the new-comer in her room. She again occupied her

old quarters on the first floor. If Madame Chanteau could only have

come downstairs to dinner, with her quick, short step, nothing would

have appeared changed in the house.

For nearly a week longer this uneasy constraint lasted amongst

the young people. Lazare, who did not dare to question Pauline,

was altogether unable to understand what he considered her most

extraordinary caprice; for any idea of a sacrifice, of a determination

deliberately and magnanimously taken, never occurred to him. He

himself, amidst the desires fanned by his listless idleness, had never

thought of marrying Louise; and so now, on being all three placed

together again, they found themselves in a false position, which

caused them much distress. There were pauses of silent embarrassment,

and sentences that remained half unspoken from fear of conveying any

allusion to the past. Pauline, surprised at this unexpected state of

affairs, was obliged to exaggerate and force her gaiety, in the hope

of bringing back a semblance of the careless merriment of former days.

At first she felt a wave of joy rising in her heart, for she thought

that Lazare was coming back to her. The presence of Louise had calmed

him; he almost avoided her, and shunned being alone with her, horrified

at the thought that he might even yet be weak enough to betray his

cousin's confidence. Tortured by a feverish affection for Pauline, he

attached himself to her, and in tones of emotion proclaimed her to be

the best of girls, a true saint, of whom he was utterly unworthy. And

so she felt very happy, and rejoiced greatly in what she thought was

her victory, when she saw her cousin pay such little attention to

Louise. At the end of the week she even began to reproach him for his

want of amiability towards her rival.

'Why do you always run off and leave us? It really quite vexes me. She

isn't here for us to be rude to her.'

Lazare avoided replying, making only a vague gesture. Then his cousin

ventured to make an allusion to what had previously happened:

'I brought her here so that you might know that I have long ago

forgiven you. I wanted to wipe out every remembrance of it, as though

it were all some horrid dream. It is done with now. I am no longer

afraid, you see. I have perfect confidence in you both.'

At this he caught her in his arms. Then he promised to be courteous and

amiable with Louise.

From that moment they spent their days in delightful intimacy. Lazare

no longer seemed to suffer from _ennui_. Instead of shutting himself

up in his room at the top of the house, like a recluse, and making

himself ill with very loneliness, he invented amusements and arranged

long walks, from which they came back home glowing, invigorated by the

fresh air. And it was now that Louise by slow degrees began to recover

all her old sway over him. The young man grew quite at his ease with

her again, and once more offered his arm, and allowed himself to be

thrilled afresh by that disturbing perfume which every fold of the

girl's lace seemed to exhale. At first he struggled against her growing

influence over him, and tried to escape from her as soon as he found

himself becoming intoxicated with her witchery. But Pauline herself

bade him go to the girl's assistance when they had to leap over a pool

as they skirted the shore. She herself jumped over it boldly, like a

boy, disdaining all help; whereas Louise, with a soft cry like that of

a wounded lark, surrendered herself to the young man's arms. Then, as

they returned home again, and he supported her, all the low laughter

and whispered confidences of former days began anew. But Pauline

was, as yet, in no way distressed by this; she maintained her brave

expression, without guessing that she was risking her happiness by

never feeling weary or requiring the assistance of her cousin's arm.

It was with a kind of smiling bravado that she made the others walk in

front of her, arm-in-arm, as though she wanted to show them how great

was her confidence.

Neither Lazare nor Louise, indeed, had the slightest idea of taking

advantage of the trust she reposed in them. Though the young man

was again bewitched by Louise, he perpetually struggled against her

influence and made a point of showing himself more affectionate than

before to his cousin. In Louise's society, whilst ever finding some

charm by which he allowed himself to be deliciously beguiled, he was

always protesting to himself that this time the game should not go

beyond the limits of permissible flirtation. Why, he asked himself,

should he deny himself some pleasant little amusement, since he was

quite determined to go no further? Louise, too, felt more scruples than

formerly; not that she accused herself of previous coquetry, for she

was naturally of a caressing disposition, but now she would neither

have done nor said anything that she thought might be in the least

degree distasteful to Pauline. Her friend's forgiveness of what had

passed had moved her to tears. She wanted to show that she was worthy

of it, and seemed to regard her with that exuberant feminine adoration

which finds expression in vows and kisses and all kinds of passionate

caresses. She kept a constant watch upon her, so that she might run

up to her at the first appearance of displeasure. At times she would

abruptly leave Lazare's arm for Pauline's, and try to enliven her,

and even pretend to sulk with the young man. Never before had Louise

appeared so charming as she did now in this constant state of emotion,

which arose from the necessity she felt of pleasing both Pauline and

Lazare; and the whole house seemed alive with the rustle of her skirts

and her pretty wheedling ways.

Little by little, however, Pauline became quite wretched again. Her

temporary hope and momentary feeling of triumph only served to increase

her pain. She no longer experienced the violent paroxysms and wild

outbursts of jealousy which had once quite distracted her. Hers was

rather a sensation of having life slowly crushed out of her, as though

some heavy mass had fallen on her with a weight which bore her down

more and more each passing minute. She felt that everything was over,

that hope was no longer possible for her. And yet she had no reasonable

ground of complaint against the two others. They showed the greatest

thoughtfulness and affection for her, and struggled earnestly against

the influences which attracted them towards each other. But it was

this very show of affection which especially tortured her, for she

began to see that they were prompted by a desire to prevent her from

feeling pained by their love for one another. The pity of those young

lovers was unendurable to her. When she left them together, were there

not soft confessions and rapid whisperings, and then, when she joined

them again, a sudden relapse into silence, after which Louise lavished

kisses upon her and Lazare evinced affectionate humility? She would

have preferred to know that they were really in the wrong, for all

those honourable scruples and compensatory caresses, which plainly told

her the real truth, left her quite disarmed, with neither the will nor

the energy to try to win back her own happiness. On the day when she

had brought her rival to Bonneville she had intended to hold her own

against her, if she found any struggle necessary; but what could she

do against a couple of children whose love for each other was such a

source of distress to them? It was her own doing, too; she might have

married Lazare, had she chosen, without troubling herself about his

possible preference for someone else. But, in spite of her jealous

torments, her heart rebelled against the idea of exacting from him the

fulfilment of his promise--a promise which he no doubt now regretted.

Though it should kill her to do so, she would give him up rather than

marry him if he loved another.

Meanwhile she still went on playing the part of mother to her little

family; nursing Chanteau, who was not going on very satisfactorily,

soothing Véronique, whose sense of propriety was seriously offended,

to say nothing of pretending to treat Lazare and Louise as a pair of

disorderly children in order that she might be able to smile at their

escapades. She succeeded in forcing herself to laugh even more loudly

than they did, with that clear, ringing laugh of hers, whose limpid

notes testified to her healthy courage. The whole house seemed gay and

animated. She herself affected a bustling activity from morning till

night, refusing to accompany the young couple in their walks, on the

pretence that she had to undertake a general cleaning of the house,

or see after the washing, or superintend the making of preserves. It

was, however, more particularly Lazare who had now become noisy and

energetic. He went whistling up and down the stairs, drummed on the

doors, and found the days too short and uneventful. Although he did

not actually do anything, his new passion seemed to find him more

occupation than he had either time or strength for. Once more he

intended to conquer the world, and every day at dinner he expounded

fresh extraordinary schemes for the future. He had already grown

disgusted with the idea of literature, and had abandoned all notion of

reading for the examinations which he had intended to pass in order to

enable him to take up a professorship. For a long time he had made this

intention of studying an excuse for shutting himself up in solitude

in his room; but he had there felt so discouraged that he had never

opened a book, and now he began to scoff at his own foolishness in

ever contemplating such a thing. Could anything be more idiotic than

to chain himself down to a life like that in order to be able at some

future time to write a lot of plays and novels? No! Politics alone were

worthy of his ambition; and he had now quite made up his mind. He had

a slight acquaintance with the Deputy for Caen, and he would go with

him to Paris as his secretary, and, doubtless, in a few months' time he

would make his way. The Empire was in great want of intelligent young

men.

When Pauline, whom this wild whirl of ideas made uneasy, tried to calm

his ambitious fever by advising him to look out for some smaller but

safer berth, he scoffed at her prudence and jokingly called her 'an old

grandmother.'

One day, when Lazare and Louise had gone by themselves to Verchemont,

Pauline had need of a recipe for freshening some old velvet; and she

went upstairs to search for it in her cousin's big wardrobe, where she

thought she recollected having seen it on a scrap of paper between

the pages of a book. While she was looking for it she discovered

amongst some pamphlets Louise's old glove, that forgotten glove, the

contemplation of which had so often filled Lazare with intoxication. It

proved a ray of light to Pauline. She recognised in it the object which

her cousin had hidden from her with such emotion that evening when she

had suddenly entered his room to tell him that dinner was ready. She

fell upon a chair, quite overcome by the revelation. Ah! he had been

longing for that girl before ever she had returned to the house; he had

lived on his recollections of her, and he had worn that glove away with

his lips because it retained some scent of her person! Pauline's whole

body was shaken by sobs, while her streaming eyes remained fixed upon

the glove, which she held in her trembling hands.

'Well, Mademoiselle, have you found it yet?' called Véronique, who had

just come upstairs from the landing. 'The best thing you can do is to

rub the stuff with a piece of bacon-rind.'

She came into the room, and seemed quite amazed at finding Pauline in

tears, with her fingers clutching the old glove. But as she glanced

round the room she at last guessed the cause of the girl's despair.

'Well! well!' she said, in the rough way that was becoming more and

more habitual to her, 'you might have expected it! I warned you how it

would be, long ago. You brought them together again, and now they amuse

themselves. And perhaps my mistress was right, after all; that kitten

of a girl brightens him up more than you do.'

Then she shook her head, and added in a grave voice, as though she was

speaking to herself:

'Ah! my mistress had a very clear eyesight, in spite of her faults. For

my part, I can't bring myself to think that she is really dead.'

That evening, when Pauline had locked herself in her room and placed

her candlestick on the chest of drawers, she threw herself upon her

bed, repeating that she must get Louise and Lazare married. All day

long a buzzing sensation had made her head throb and prevented her

from thinking clearly; and it was only now, in the quiet night-time,

when she was able to suffer without witnesses of her trouble, that the

inevitable consequence of what had happened presented itself clearly

to her mind. It was absolutely necessary that Lazare and Louise should

marry. The thought rang through her like an order, like the voice of

reason and justice, to which she could no longer turn a deaf ear. For

a moment she, who was so courageous, gave way to terror, fancying she

heard her dead aunt calling out to her to obey. Then, all dressed as

she was, she turned over and covered herself with the bed-clothes to

drown the sound of her sobs. Oh! to have to surrender him to another!

To know that another's arms would be clasped round him and would keep

him from her for ever! To lose all hope of ever winning him back!

No! she could never have enough courage for it; she would prefer to

continue leading her present life of wretchedness. No one at all should

have him, neither herself nor that other girl; and Lazare should grow

old and withered with waiting! For a long time she lay struggling with

herself, racked by jealous fury. Her impetuous temperament, which

neither years nor reflection had been able to subdue, always asserted

itself at the first moment of a difficulty. Then, however, she became

prostrate, physically exhausted.

Too tired and weary to undress, Pauline lay for a long time on her

back, debating the question. She succeeded in proving to herself

that Louise could do more to secure Lazare's happiness than she ever

could. Had not that girl, so weak and puny, already roused him from

his _ennui_ with her caresses? Doubtless it was necessary for him to

have her continually clinging to his neck, that she might drive away

with kisses all his gloomy thoughts, his terror of death. Then Pauline

fell to depreciating herself, repeating that she was too cold and had

none of the amorous graces of a woman, but only kindliness, which was

not sufficient allurement. One other consideration, too, brought her

complete conviction. She was ruined, and her cousin's plans for the

future, those plans which had caused her so much anxiety, would require

a large amount of money for accomplishment. Would it be right for her

to impose on him the narrow, sordid life which they were now obliged

to lead, condemn him to mediocrity, which she could see was painful

to him? Their life together would be unhappy, poisoned by continual

regret, the querulous bitterness of disappointed ambition. She could

only give him a rancorous life of poverty; whereas Louise, who was

wealthy, could open out to him the great career of which he dreamed. It

was said that the girl's father was keeping some good berth vacant for

his future son-in-law, probably some lucrative position in the bank;

and, though Lazare affected to despise financiers, matters would no

doubt be satisfactorily arranged. She felt that she could hesitate no

longer, now that it seemed clear to her that she would be committing

an unworthy action if she did not marry them together. And as she lay

awake on her bed, that union of Lazare and Louise seemed to her to be

a necessity, which she must hasten if she wanted to preserve her own

self-respect.

The whole night passed while she was thus wrestling with herself. When

the day broke, she at last undressed. She was perfectly calm now, and

enjoyed profound repose, though still unable to sleep. She had never

before felt so easy, so satisfied with herself, so free from all

anxiety. All was ending; she had just severed the bonds of egotism,

she had no hopes now centred in any person or thing, and within her

lurked all the subtle pleasure that comes of self-sacrifice. She did

not even experience any longer her old craving to prove all-sufficient

for the happiness of her people. The pride of abnegation had vanished,

and she was willing that those she loved should be happy through other

instrumentality than her own. It was the loftiest height which love for

others can reach, to suppress one's self, to give up everything and

still think one has not given enough, to love so deeply as to rejoice

in a happiness which one has neither bestowed nor shares. The sun was

rising when she at last dropped off into a deep sleep.

Pauline came downstairs very late that morning. When she awoke, it

made her happy to find that all the resolutions she had taken during

the night remained fixed and unwavering within her. But she began to

reflect that she had forgotten what would become of herself, and that

she must make some plans for her future altered circumstances. Though

she might have the courage to bring about the marriage of Lazare and

Louise, she would certainly never be brave enough to remain with them

and watch their happiness. Self-devotion has its limits, and she was

afraid of some return of her violent outbursts, some terrible scene

which would kill her. Besides, was she not really doing all that

could possibly be demanded of her, and could anyone have the cruelty

to impose useless torture upon her? She came to an immediate and

irrevocable decision. She would go away, leave the house, which was so

full of disquieting associations. This would mean a complete change in

her life, but she did not shrink from it.

At breakfast she showed a calm cheerfulness, which she henceforth

maintained. She bravely endured the sight of Lazare and Louise, sitting

side by side, whispering and smiling, without any other feeling of

weakness than a chilly coldness at her heart. As it was Saturday, she

made up her mind to send them out for a long walk together in order

that she might be alone when Doctor Cazenove came. They went off, and

Pauline then took the precaution of going out into the road to meet the

Doctor. As soon as he caught sight of her he wanted her to get up into

his gig and drive to the house with him. But she begged him to alight,

and they walked along slowly together, while Martin, a hundred yards in

the rear, brought on the empty vehicle.

In a few simple words Pauline unbosomed herself to the Doctor. She

told him everything--her plan of giving Lazare to Louise and her

determination to leave the house. This confession had seemed necessary

to her; she was unwilling to act upon mere inspiration, and the old

doctor was the only person who could understand her.

Cazenove suddenly halted in the middle of the road and clasped the girl

in his long bony arms. He was trembling with emotion, and he kissed her

on the hair, as he said affectionately:

'You are quite right, my dear; you are quite right. And it pleases me

very much to hear it, for matters might have had a much worse ending.

For months past I have been feeling grieved, and I was longing to

come and talk to you, for I knew you were very unhappy. Ah! they have

plundered you and stripped you nicely, those good folks! First your

money, and now your heart!'

The young girl tried to stop him.

'My dear friend, I beg you----You are judging them unfairly.'

'Perhaps so, but that does not prevent me from being glad on your

account. Yes, yes! Give up your Lazare! It is not a very valuable

present that you are making to the other one! I daresay that he is a

very charming fellow, and that he has the best intentions in the world;

but I prefer that the other should be unhappy with him, and not you.

Those fine fellows who grow bored with everything are far too heavy

even for broad shoulders like yours to support. I would rather see you

marry some sturdy butcher-lad--yes, I mean it--some butcher-lad who

would shake his sides day and night with honest, merry laughter.'

Then, as he saw her eyes fill with tears, he added:

'Ah, well! you love him, I suppose, and so I won't say anything more.

Give me a kiss again, since you are brave enough to act so sensibly.

Ah! what a fool he is not to see what he is doing!'

He took her arm and drew her close to his side. Then they began to talk

seriously together as they resumed their walk. The Doctor told her that

she would certainly, do best to leave Bonneville, and he undertook to

find her a situation. He happened, he said, to have a rich old relative

living at Saint-Lô, who was looking for a young lady companion. Pauline

would be perfectly happy with her, and very likely the old lady,

who had no children of her own, would grow much attached to her and

subsequently adopt her. They arranged everything between themselves,

and the Doctor promised Pauline a definite reply from his relative in a

few days' time. Meanwhile it was settled she should say nothing about

her determination to leave the Chanteaus. She was afraid that if she

did it might seem to be in some way a threat, and she was anxious to

bring the marriage to an issue and then immediately leave the house

like one who could no longer be of use there.

On the third day Pauline received a letter from the Doctor. She was

expected at Saint-Lô as soon as she could get away. It was on this

same day, during Lazare's absence, that she led Louise to an old seat

beneath a clump of tamarisks at the bottom of the kitchen garden.

In front of them, above the low wall, they could see nothing but the

sea and sky--a measureless expanse of blue, intersected by the

far-stretching line of the horizon.

'My dear girl,' said Pauline to Louise with her maternal air, 'let us

talk as though we were two sisters. You love me a little, don't you?'

Louise threw one arm round her friend's waist as she exclaimed:

'Indeed I do! You know I do!'

'Well, then, since you love me, it was very wrong of you not to tell me

everything. Why do you keep secrets from me?'

'Indeed, I have no secrets.'

'Ah! yes; think again now. Come, open your heart to me.'

Each looked into the other's face so closely for a moment that they

felt the warmth of one another's breath. And the eyes of one gradually

grew troubled beneath the clear, unruffled gaze of the other. The

silence was growing painful.

'Tell me everything. When things are discussed openly it is possible

to arrange them satisfactorily, but dissimulation is apt to have an

unhappy ending. Isn't that so, eh? It would be very painful for us to

disagree again and to have a repetition of what caused us so much grief

and trouble.'

At this Louise burst into a violent fit of sobbing. She clasped Pauline

round the waist convulsively, and hid her face against her friend's

shoulder while stammering amidst her tears:

'Oh! it is very unkind of you to speak of that again! You ought never

to have mentioned it again, never! Send me away at once, rather than

pain me like this!'

It was in vain that Pauline tried to soothe her.

'No, no!' the weeping girl went on; 'I understand it all. You still

suspect me. Why do you speak to me of secrets? I have no secret at all.

I do everything quite openly, so that you may have no cause to find

fault with me or reproach me. I am not to blame because things happen

which disturb you--I who am even careful how I laugh, though you don't

know it----But, if you don't believe me, I had better go away at once.

Let me go! Let me go!'

They were quite alone in that far-reaching space. The kitchen-garden,

scorched by the west wind, lay at their feet like a piece of waste

land, while, further away, the calm sea spread out in its immensity.

'But listen to what I have to say,' Pauline cried. 'I am not

reproaching you at all; on the contrary, I want to encourage you.'

Then, taking Louise by the shoulders and forcing her to raise her eyes,

she said to her gently, like a mother questioning her daughter:

'You love Lazare? And he, too, loves you, I am sure.'

The blood surged to Louise's cheeks. She trembled yet more violently,

and tried to liberate herself and escape.

'Good gracious! How clumsily I must express myself if you can't

understand me!' Pauline resumed. 'Do you think I should talk to you on

such a subject only to torture you? You love each other, don't you?

Well, I want to get you married to one another! It's very simple!'

Louise, distracted, ceased to struggle. Stupor checked the flow of her

tears, rendered her motionless, with her hands hanging inertly beside

her.

'What! And yourself?' she gasped.

'I, my dear? Well, I have been questioning myself very seriously for

some weeks past, at night-time especially, during those waking hours

when one's mind sees things in a clearer light. And I have recognised

that I only feel sincere friendship for Lazare. Haven't you been able

to see as much for yourself? We are comrades, chums; like a couple of

boys, in fact. We do not feel those loving transports----'

She hesitated, trying to find some suitable phrase which would give an

appearance of probability to her falsehoods. But her rival still gazed

at her with fixed eyes, as though she had discovered the meaning which

was hidden beneath her words.

'Why do you tell me untruths?' she murmured at last. 'Is it possible

for you to cease to love where you have once loved?'

Pauline grew confused.

'Well! well!' she said; 'what does that matter? You love each other,

and it is quite natural that he should marry you. I--I was brought up

with him, and I shall continue to be a sister to him. One's ideas alter

when one has been waiting so long----And, then, there are several other

reasons----'

She was conscious that she was growing more confused, and, carried away

by her frankness, she went on:

'Oh! my dear, let me have my way. If I still love him sufficiently to

want to see him your husband, it is because I now believe that you are

necessary to his happiness. That doesn't vex you, does it? You would

do the same if you were in my place, would you not? Come, let us talk

it over quietly. Will you join in the little plot? Shall we come to an

understanding together to force him into being happy? Even if he seems

vexed about it and persists in believing that he is yet bound to me,

you must help me to persuade him, for it is you whom he loves, and it

is you who are necessary to him. Be my accomplice, I beg you, and let

us get everything arranged at once, now, while we are alone.'

But Louise, seeing how she trembled, how heart-broken she was in making

those entreaties, persisted in rebelling.

'No, no! I couldn't think of such a thing! It would be abominable. You

still love him; I am sure of it, and you are only planning your own

torment. Instead of helping you, I will tell him everything. Yes, as

soon as he comes back----'

Then Pauline threw her kindly arms round her again to prevent her from

continuing, and drew her face close to her breast.

'Hold your tongue, you wicked child! It must be so. It is he whom we

have to think about.'

Silence fell again, while they lingered in that embrace. Her powers

of resistance already exhausted, Louise gave way, yielded with

affectionate languor, while tears mounted to her eyes--happy tears that

trickled slowly down her cheeks. She spoke no word, but pressed her

friend to her, as though she could find no discreeter or more sincere

way of expressing her gratitude. She recognised that Pauline was so

much above her, so lofty, so self-sacrificing, that she dared not raise

her eyes to meet her gaze. However, after a few minutes, she ventured

to lift her head in smiling confusion, and then, protruding her lips,

gave her friend a silent kiss. In the distance the sea stretched out

beneath the cloudless sky without a single wave breaking on its blue

immensity.

When Lazare returned to the house, Pauline went up to him in his room,

that big and well-loved chamber where they had grown up together. She

was anxious to finish her task that very day. With her cousin she

sought no preliminary remarks, but went straight to the point. The room

teemed with associations of their old life. Pieces of dry seaweed still

lay about there, the models of the stockades littered the piano, and

the table was strewn with scientific treatises and scores of music.

'Lazare,' she began, 'I want to talk to you. I have something serious

to say to you.'

He seemed surprised, and then took his stand before her.

'What is the matter? Is my father threatened with another attack?'

'No, listen. It is necessary that the subject should now be mentioned;

keeping silence about it cannot do any good. You know that my aunt

intended we should be married. We have frequently spoken about it, and

for months past it: has been considered a settled matter. Well, I think

that it would now be better if all thought of it were abandoned.'

The young man had turned pale, but he did not allow his cousin to

finish; he exclaimed excitedly:

'What? What nonsense are you talking? Are you not already my wife?

We will go to-morrow, if you like, and ask the priest to put the

finishing-stroke to the matter. And this is what you call something

serious!'

The girl replied in her tranquil voice:

'It is very serious; and, though it displeases you, I repeat that it is

certainly necessary we should speak about it. We are two old friends

and comrades, but I am afraid we should never be two lovers. So what

is the good of obstinately persisting in an idea which would probably

never result in happiness for either of us?'

Then Lazare burst out into a torrent of ejaculations. Was she trying

to quarrel with him? She couldn't expect him to spend his whole time

clinging round her neck! And, though the marriage had been put off from

month to month, she knew quite well that it wasn't his fault. It was

unjust of her, moreover, to say that he no longer loved her. He had

loved her so warmly, and in that very room too! At this reference to

the past a blush mounted to Pauline's cheeks. Her cousin was right. She

recollected his passing gusts of passion, and his hot breath fanning

her neck. But, ah! how far off were those delicious thrilling moments;

and what an unimpassioned, brotherly friendship he manifested for her

now! So it was with an expression of sadness that she replied to him:

'My poor fellow, if you really loved me, instead of arguing with me as

you are doing, you would be clasping me in your arms and sobbing, and

finding some very different way of persuading me.'

He turned still paler, and threw up his hands with a vague gesture of

protest as he let himself fall upon a chair.

'No!' the girl went on; 'it is quite clear that you love me no longer.

But it can't be helped. We are, no doubt, not suited to each other.

When we were shut up here together, you were driven into thinking about

me. But all your fancy vanished later on; it did not last, because

there was nothing in me that could keep you to me.'

A final paroxysm of exasperation carried him off, and he swayed about

in his chair as he stammered:

'Well! what do you want? What is the meaning of all this? I quietly

return home, and come up here to put on my slippers, and then you

suddenly fall on me, and without the least warning launch out into an

extravagant harangue--"I don't love you any longer"--"We are not made

for one another"--"The wedding must be broken off." Once more I ask

you, what is the meaning of it all?'

Pauline, who had drawn near him, slowly answered:

'It means that you love someone else, and that I advise you to marry

her.'

For a moment Lazare remained silent. Then he began to sneer. Good! They

were going to have the old scenes over again. Everything was going to

be turned topsy-turvy once more by her idiotic jealousy! She couldn't

bear to see him cheerful even for a single day without wanting to

banish everyone away from him.

Pauline listened with an expression of profound grief; then she

suddenly laid her trembling hands upon his shoulders, and an

involuntary cry burst from her heart:

'Oh! my dear, can you believe that I want to distress you? Can't you

see that my only desire is to make you happy? I would endure anything

to win you a single hour's happiness. You love Louise; is that not

so? Well, I tell you to marry her. Understand me. I am in the way no

longer. Marry her; I give her to you!'

Her cousin looked at her in amazement. With his nervous, ill-balanced

nature his feelings rushed to extremes at the slightest impulse. His

eyelids quivered, and he burst into sobs.

'Oh, don't talk like that!' he cried. 'I am utterly worthless! Yes,

indeed, I despise myself bitterly for all that has happened in this

house for years past. I am deeply in your debt. Don't say I am not! We

took your money, I squandered it like a fool, and now I have sunk so

low that you make me alms of my word and promise, and give them back to

me out of sheer pity, as to a man destitute of courage and honour!'

'Lazare! Lazare!' she murmured, quite frightened.

But he sprang furiously to his feet and began striding about the room,

drumming on his breast with his fists.

'Leave me! I should kill myself straight off if I treated myself

as I deserve. Do I not owe you my love? Isn't it a disgrace and an

abomination for me to wish for that other girl, who was not meant

for me and isn't nearly so good or so pretty as you are? When a man

descends to conduct like this, there must be mud in his soul! You see

that I am hiding nothing from you, that I am not attempting to defend

myself. Listen to me! Rather than accept your sacrifice, I would myself

turn Louise out of the house, and then go off to America and never see

either of you again!'

For a long time Pauline tried to calm him and reason with him.

Couldn't he try for once, she asked, to take life as it was, without

any exaggeration? Couldn't he see that the advice she offered him was

good advice, resolved upon after long deliberation? The marriage she

advocated would be good for everyone. She was able to speak of it in

such calm tones because, far from the thought of it paining her, she

now sincerely wished it. Then, carried away by her desire to convince

him, she unfortunately made an allusion to Louise's fortune, and hinted

that Thibaudier, when the marriage had taken place, would certainly

find some post for his son-in-law.

'Ah! that's it!' he broke out violently. 'You want to sell me now!

Say plainly that I can no longer care for you, because I have ruined

you, and that it only remains for me to be base enough to marry a rich

girl. No, no, indeed; that is too mean and degrading! Never will I do

it--never! Do you hear me? Never!'

Pauline, whose strength was exhausted, ceased her entreaties. Silence

reigned. Lazare had thrown himself on the chair again, while the girl

paced slowly up and down the big room, lingering before each piece of

furniture. Those old familiar things, the table which she had worn

away with the pressure of her elbows, the wardrobe where her childish

playthings were still stowed away, all the old souvenirs littered about

the room, made a feeling of hope, which she strove to dismiss, spring

up in her heart--a hope whose sweetness, in spite of herself, gradually

thrilled her. Suppose he did really love her sufficiently to refuse to

take another! But she knew too well the weak morrows that followed his

passionate outbursts of sentiment. Besides, it was very weak of her to

harbour hope, and she must guard against allowing herself to yield to

his nerveless vacillating nature.

'You must think it all over,' she said in conclusion, as she stopped

short before him. 'I won't bother you any more at present. I am sure

you will be more reasonable in the morning.'

The next day, however, was passed in painful constraint. The house

once more seemed to be under the depressing influence of a vague

bitter sorrow. Louise's eyes were red, and Lazare avoided her and

spent whole hours by himself in his room. But again the days went on;

the constraint began to disappear, and laughter and whispering once

more came back. Pauline still waited, indulging in foolish hopes even

against her own convictions. Backed by uncertainty, she thought that

she had never before really known what suffering was. But, at last,

as she was going down to the kitchen one evening in the dusk to get a

candle, she found Lazare and Louise kissing each other in the passage.

Louise made her escape laughing; while Lazare, emboldened by the

darkness, caught hold of Pauline and imprinted two brotherly kisses on

her cheeks.

'I have thought it over,' he murmured. 'You are better and wiser than

she is; and I still love you, but I love you as I loved my mother.'

She had just strength to say:

'It is settled, then. I am very glad.'

She felt that she had turned so pale, and her face was so cold, that

she dared not go into the kitchen for fear she should faint. Without

waiting to get a candle, she went upstairs again, saying that she had

forgotten something. When she had shut herself up in the darkness, she

thought she was going to die, for she felt suffocated, and could not

shed a single tear. What had she done, she cried to herself, that he

should have been cruel enough to make her torture still greater? Why

couldn't he have accepted her sacrifice on the day when she proposed

it to him, when she had possessed all her strength, unweakened by any

false hope? Now the sacrifice had become a double one. She had lost him

a second time, and all the more painfully since she had allowed herself

to hope that she was winning him back. Ah, Heaven! She would be brave

and bear it, but it was wicked to make her task such torture.

Everything was speedily arranged. Véronique, quite aghast, could make

nothing out of it. She thought that things had got turned upside down

since her mistress's death. It was, however, Chanteau who was most

surprised by the news. He, who usually took no interest in anything and

just nodded his head in approval of any scheme that was mentioned to

him, as though he were completely absorbed in the selfish enjoyment of

the calm moments which he stole from his tormenting pain, burst into

tears when Pauline herself announced the new arrangement to him. He

gazed at her, and stammered incoherent protests and confessions. It

wasn't his fault: he had wanted to do very differently long ago, both

about the money and about the marriage, but, as she knew, he was too

ill. However, the girl kissed him, protesting that it was she herself

who was making Lazare marry Louise for very good reasons. At first he

could scarcely believe her, and, blinking his eyes sadly, he asked her:

'Is that really the truth? Really?'

Then, when he saw her smile, he quickly consoled himself and grew quite

gay. It was a great relief to have things settled, for the matter had

long been distressing him, though he had never dared to open his mouth

about it. He kissed Louise on the cheeks, and in the evening, over the

dessert, he sang a merry song. Just as he was going to bed, however, he

was troubled by a last disquieting thought.

'You will stay with us, eh?' he asked Pauline.

The girl hesitated for a moment, and then, blushing at her falsehood,

she answered, 'Oh! no doubt.'

A whole month was required for the completion of the necessary

formalities. Thibaudier, Louise's father, had, however, at once

consented to the proposal of Lazare, who was his godson. There was only

one dispute between them, a couple of days before the wedding, when

the young man roundly refused to go to Paris and manage an Insurance

Company, in which the banker was the principal shareholder. He intended

remaining for a year or two longer at Bonneville and writing a novel,

which was to be a masterpiece, before he started off to bring Paris

to his feet. At this Thibaudier just shrugged his shoulders, and in a

friendly way called him a big simpleton.

It was arranged that the marriage should take place at Caen. During

the previous fortnight there were continual comings and goings, a

perfect fever of journeyings. Pauline went about with Louise, seeking

to divert her thoughts with all the bustle, and returning home quite

exhausted. As Chanteau was not able to leave Bonneville, she had

to promise to attend the ceremony, at which she would be the only

representative of her cousin's family. The near approach of the day

filled her with terror. She had arranged that she would not spend the

night at Caen, for she thought she would suffer less if she returned

to sleep at Bonneville. She pretended that her uncle's health made her

very uneasy, and that she was unwilling to remain long away from him.

Chanteau himself vainly pressed her to spend a few days at Caen. He

wasn't ill at all, he urged. On the contrary, he was very much excited

by the idea of the approaching wedding and the thought of the banquet

at which he would not be present; and he was craftily planning to make

Véronique supply him with some forbidden dish, such as a young truffled

partridge, which he could never eat without the absolute certainty of a

fresh attack of gout. However, in spite of all that could be urged, the

girl declared that she would return home in the evening. She thought

that this course would allow her greater facilities for packing her

trunk the next morning and disappearing.

A drizzling rain was falling, and midnight had just struck as

Malivoire's old coach brought Pauline back to Bonneville on the evening

of the wedding. Wearing a blue silk gown, and ill protected by a little

shawl, she was pale and shivering though her hands were hot. In the

kitchen she found Véronique sitting up for her and dozing beside the

table. The tall flame of the candle made the girl's eyes blink, full as

they still were of the darkness of the journey, during which they had

remained wide open all the way from Arromanches. She could only drag a

few incoherent words from the drowsy servant: the master had been very

foolish, but he was asleep now, and nobody had called. Then Pauline

took a candle and went upstairs, chilled by the emptiness of the house,

heart-sick amidst all the gloom and silence which seemed to weigh upon

her shoulders.

When she reached the second floor she wished to take immediate refuge

in her own room, but an irresistible impulse, at which she felt

surprised, led her to open Lazare's door. She raised her candle to

enable her to see, as though she fancied the room was full of smoke.

Nothing was changed. Every piece of furniture was in its accustomed

place, but she felt conscious of calamity, annihilation; it was a vague

terror, as though she were in some chamber of death. She slowly walked

up to the table and looked at the inkstand, the pen, and an unfinished

page of manuscript still lying there. Then she went away. All was over,

and the door closed on the echoing emptiness of the room.

When she reached her own chamber, the same vague sensation of

strangeness that she had felt in Lazare's again affected her. Could

this indeed be her room, with its wall-paper of blue roses and its

little muslin-curtained iron bed? Was it really here that she had

lived so many years? Still keeping her candle in her hand, she, who

was usually so courageous, made a minute inspection of the apartment,

pushed the curtains aside, looked under the bed and behind the

furniture. She felt overcome by a strange kind of stupor, which kept

her standing in front of the different things. She could not have

believed that such keen anguish could ever have possessed her beneath

that ceiling, whose every stain was familiar to her; and she now began

to regret that she had not stayed at Caen. For she felt frightened in

that old house, which was so empty and yet so full of memories of the

past, and so cold, too, and so dark that stormy night. The thought of

going to bed was intolerable to her. She sat down without even taking

off her hat, and for several minutes remained motionless, her eyes

fixed upon the candle-flame, which dazzled them. Suddenly, however,

she started up in astonishment. What was she doing there, with her

head throbbing wildly, with a violence that quite prevented her from

thinking? It was one o'clock. She ought to be in bed. And she began to

undress with slow, feverish hands.

Her orderly habits showed themselves even in this crisis of her life.

She carefully put away her hat, and glanced anxiously at her boots to

see if they had sustained any damage. She had folded her dress and

laid it over the back of a chair, when her glance fell upon her bosom.

Gradually a flush crimsoned her cheeks. In her troubled brain arose the

thought of those two others over yonder. Alas! the harvest of love was

not for her! To another were given the embraces of that husband for

whose coming she herself had looked forward for so many years! Never

would she be a wife or mother; the years would come and go, and she

would age in utter loneliness. Then wild jealousy came upon her. She

yearned to live, to live to the full, to drain the joys of life, she

who loved life so dearly! She was more beautiful than that scraggy,

fair-haired girl; she was stronger and healthier, and yet her cousin

had not chosen her. Never now would he be hers; never, as in the past,

might she again wait for him, expect him. She was tossed aside like an

old rag. It was, no doubt, her own doing; and yet how awful was the

thought of the others being together while she was all alone, shivering

with fever in that cold, gloomy house!

Suddenly she threw herself on her bed. She seized the pillow with

desperate hands, and bit it with her teeth to stifle her sobs. Long

convulsive shivers shook her from head to heels. It was in vain that

she closed her eyelids, seeking to shut out all sight; she saw just the

same, and ever endured torture. Oh! what was she to do? Even if she

were to tear her eyes out she would still see--see perhaps for ever.

The minutes glided on, and she was only conscious of everlasting

torment. A paroxysm of fear made her spring to her feet. Some one must

be in the room, for surely she had heard the sound of laughter. But

she found that it was only her candle, which, having nearly burnt out,

had broken the glass socket. Yet if anyone really had seen her! That

imaginary laugh still coursed through her wildly. Then at last she

slipped on a night-dress and hastily buried herself in bed, pulling

up the clothes to her chin, and drawing her shivering body as closely

together as possible. When the candle died out, she lay perfectly

still, exhausted and overcome with shame for her wild conduct.

In the morning Pauline packed her trunk, but she could not summon up

courage to tell Chanteau of her departure. In the evening, however, she

was obliged to inform him of it, for Doctor Cazenove was to come the

next day and take her to his relative's house. When her uncle grasped

the situation he was quite overcome, and stretched out his poor, weak

hands with a wild gesture as though to detain her, while in broken,

stammering sentences he besought her to stay with him. She could surely

never really think of such a thing, he cried; she could not possibly

desert him; it would be a murder, for it would certainly kill him.

Then, seeing her gently resolute and divining her reasons, he confessed

his wrong-doing of the previous day in eating a partridge. He already

experienced sharp burning pains in his joints. It was always the same

old story. He had yielded once more in the struggle. He knew what the

consequences would be if he ate, but he ate all the same, in a state

of mingled pleasure and terror, quite certain that agony would ensue.

Surely, however, Pauline would never desert him in the midst of one of

his attacks.

And indeed it happened that about six o'clock in the morning Véronique

came upstairs to inform Mademoiselle that she could hear her master

bellowing in his bedroom. The woman was in a very bad temper, and went

growling about the house that if Mademoiselle were going she would

certainly be off as well, as she had grown quite tired of looking after

such an unreasonable old man.

Thus Pauline was once more obliged to take up her position by her

uncle's bedside; and when the Doctor arrived to take her away with him,

she showed him the sick man, who triumphed, bellowing his loudest, and

crying to her to leave him, if she could find it in her heart to do so.

Everything had to be postponed.

Every day the young girl trembled at the thought of seeing Lazare

and Louise come back. Their new room, the former guest-chamber, had

been specially fitted up, and had been waiting ready for them ever

since their marriage. They were lingering on at Caen, however, and

Lazare wrote to say that he was making notes on the financial world

before returning to Bonneville and shutting himself up there to start

on a great novel, in which he should reveal the truth about company

promoters and speculators. At last he arrived one morning without his

wife, and unconcernedly announced that he was going to settle with her

in Paris. His father-in-law, he said, had prevailed upon him to accept

that post in the Insurance Company, on the ground that he would thus

have a good opportunity for making his notes from actual observation.

Later on, he added, he might perhaps, come back and devote himself to

literature.

When Lazare had filled a couple of trunks with the various articles he

required, and Malivoire's coach had come to fetch him and his luggage,

Pauline went back into the house, feeling quite dazed and destitute of

her former energy. Chanteau, still in great pain, turned to her and

exclaimed:

'You will stop now, I hope! Stay and see me buried!'

She was unwilling to make an immediate reply. Her trunk was still

packed in her bedroom. She sat gazing at it for hours. Since the others

were going to Paris, it would be wrong of her, she thought, to desert

her uncle. She had but little confidence in her cousin's resolutions,

but, at any rate, if he and his wife should come back, she would then

be free to take her departure. And when Cazenove angrily told her that

she was throwing away a splendid position for the sake of ruining her

life amongst people who had lived upon her ever since her childhood,

she virtually made up her mind.

'Be off with you!' Chanteau now repeated. 'If you are to gain so much

money and become so happy that way, I won't keep you here bothering

about an old cripple like me. Be off with you!'

One morning, however, she replied to him:

'No, uncle, I am going to stay with you.'

The Doctor, who was present, went off, raising his arms to heaven.

'Ah! there is no doing anything with that child! And what a hornets'

nest she has got into! She will never get free of it--never!'

IX

Once more did the days glide by in the house at Bonneville. After a

very cold winter there had come a rainy spring, and the sea, beaten by

the downpour, looked like a huge lake of mud. Then the tardy summer had

lasted into the middle of autumn, with heavy, oppressive suns, beneath

whose overwhelming heat the blue immensity slumbered. And then the

winter came round again, and another spring, and yet another summer,

slipping away minute by minute, ever at the same speed, as the hours

pursued their rhythmical march.

Pauline, as if her heart were regulated by that clock-like motion, had

recovered all her old calmness. The placid sameness of her days, which

were passed in the same unvarying occupations, lulled the keenness

of her sorrow. She came downstairs in the morning and kissed her

uncle, said much the same things to the servant as she had said the

day before, sat down twice at table, spent the afternoon in sewing,

and then, early in the evening, went to bed. The next day the same

programme was gone through, without ever any unexpected incident

breaking the monotony of her life. Chanteau, who was becoming more

and more disfigured by gout, which had puffed out his legs and warped

and deformed his hands, sat silent, when he was not bellowing, quite

absorbed in the delight of being free from pain. Véronique, who seemed

almost to have lost her tongue, had fallen into a state of gloomy

surliness. Only the Saturday dinners brought any relief. Cazenove and

Abbé Horteur dined there with great regularity, and chatter was heard

till ten o'clock or so, when the priest's wooden shoes clattered away

over the stones of the yard, and the Doctor's gig started off at the

slow trot of the old horse. Pauline's gaiety--that gaiety which she had

so bravely maintained during all her troubles--had assumed a subdued

character. Her ringing laughter no longer echoed through the rooms and

the staircase, though she still remained all kindliness and activity,

and every morning displayed fresh courage and zest for life. By the end

of a year her heart had fallen asleep, and she had come to believe that

the days would now flow on in that peaceful monotony, without anything

ever happening to awake her slumbering sorrow.

For some time after Lazare's departure every letter from him had

troubled the girl, though it was only for his letters that she lived,

looking out for them with impatience, reading them over and over again,

and even adding to them something from her own imagination beyond

what they actually contained. For three months Lazare had written

very regularly, sending, every fortnight, a very long letter, full

of detail and breathing the liveliest hopes. Once more he was wildly

enthusiastic. He had launched out into business and was dreaming of a

colossal fortune in the immediate future. According to his account,

the Insurance Company could not fail to return enormous profits. He

was not, however, confining himself to that venture, but was engaging

in all kinds of speculations. He appeared to have become quite charmed

with the financial and mercantile world, which he now reproached

himself for having judged so absurdly. All his literary schemes seemed

quite abandoned. Then, too, he was never tired of writing about his

domestic joys, and related all sorts of things about his wife--the

kisses he had given her, and the life they led together--setting forth

at length all his happiness by way of expressing his gratitude to her,

whom he called his 'dear sister.' It was those details, those familiar

passages, which made Pauline's fingers tremble feverishly.--The

odour of love which the paper diffused, the perfume of heliotrope,

Louise's favourite scent, which clung to it, seemed to stupefy her.

But the letters gradually became fewer and shorter. Lazare ceased

to write about business, and in other respects confined himself to

sending his wife's love to Pauline. He offered no explanations, but

simply ceased to tell her everything. Was he discontented with his

position and already sick of finance? Was his domestic happiness

compromised by misunderstandings? Pauline was afraid it must be so,

and she was saddened by the evidence of her cousin's weariness, which

she thought she could detect in certain passages that seemed to have

been reluctantly written. About the end of April, after a six weeks'

silence, she received a short note of four lines, in which her cousin

told her that Louise was _enceinte_. Then silence fell again, and she

had no further news.

May and June passed away. A heavy tide swept away one of the stockades,

an incident which for a long time afforded subject for talk. All the

Bonneville folk jeered and grinned, and the fishermen stole the broken

timbers. Then came another scandalous affair. The Gonin girl, young

as she was, had a baby. And afterwards all the old monotony returned,

and the village vegetated at the foot of the cliffs as lifelessly

as a tract of seaweed. In July it became necessary to repair the

terrace-wall and one of the gable ends of the house. As soon as the

workmen began to remove the first stones, the rest threatened to fall,

and they were kept at work for an entire month, an expense of nearly

ten thousand francs being incurred.

It was still Pauline who had to find the money. Thus another big hole

was made in her little hoard in the chest of drawers, her little

fortune being reduced to about forty thousand francs. She made the

family's few hundred francs a month go as far as possible by economical

housekeeping, but she was obliged to sell some of her own stock, in

order to avoid encroaching upon her uncle's capital. The latter told

his niece, as his wife had done before, that it would all be paid back

to her some day. The girl would not have hesitated to part with all

she had, for the gradual crumbling away of her fortune had destroyed

all tendency to cupidity in her, and her only effort now was to keep a

sufficient sum in hand for her charities. The thought that she might

possibly be compelled to discontinue her Saturday distributions greatly

distressed her, for they constituted her chief pleasure of the week.

Since the previous winter she had begun to knit stockings, and all the

young urchins in the neighbourhood now went about with warm feet.

One morning towards the end of July, as Véronique was sweeping up the

rubbish left by the workmen, Pauline received a letter which quite

upset her. It was written from Caen, and contained only a few words.

In it Lazare informed her that he should arrive at Bonneville on the

evening of the next day, but gave no explanation of his coming. She

ran off to tell the news to her uncle. They both looked at each other.

Chanteau's eyes expressed the fear that his niece would leave him

should Lazare and his wife contemplate a long stay in the house. He

dare not question her on the subject, for he could read in her face her

firm resolution to go. In the afternoon she even went upstairs to look

over her clothes; still, she did not wish to have the air of taking

flight.

It was about five o'clock, and lovely weather, when Lazare stepped out

of a trap at the door of the yard. Pauline hastened to meet him, but,

before even kissing him, she stopped short in astonishment.

'What! Have you come alone?'

'Yes,' he replied quietly.

And then he kissed her on both cheeks.

'But where is Louise?'

'At Clermont, with her sister-in-law. The doctor has recommended her

to go to a mountainous neighbourhood. Her state of health has made her

weak and languid.'

As he spoke he walked on to the house, casting long glances about the

yard. He scrutinised his cousin, too, and his lips quivered with an

emotion which he struggled to restrain. He showed great surprise as a

dog rushed out of the kitchen and barked round his legs.

'What dog is that?' he asked.

'Oh! that's Loulou,' Pauline replied. 'He doesn't know you yet, you

see. Down! Loulou! You mustn't bite your master.'

The dog went on growling.

'He is dreadfully ugly, my dear. Where did you pick up such a fright?'

The dog was indeed a wretched mongrel, undersized and mangy. And he

had, too, an abominable temper, and was perpetually snarling, and

melancholy like an outcast.

'Oh! when he was given me I was told that he would grow up into a huge,

magnificent animal, but he has always kept like that. It is the fifth

one that we have tried to rear, All the others have died, and this is

the only one that has managed to go on living.'

Loulou by this time had sulkily made up his mind to lie down in the

sun, and turned his back upon Pauline and her cousin. Then Lazare

thought of the old days and of the dog that was dead and of the new and

ugly one that now occupied his place. He glanced round the yard once

more.

'My poor old Matthew!' he murmured very softly.

On the steps of the house Véronique received him with a nod of her

head, without ceasing to pare carrots. Then he walked straight on to

the dining-room, where his father, excited by the sound of voices, was

anxiously waiting. Pauline called from the threshold:

'You know he has come by himself? Louise is at Clermont.'

Chanteau, whose anxious eyes brightened, began to question his son even

before he had kissed him.

'Are you expecting her to follow you? When will she join you here?'

'Oh no! She's not coming here at all,' Lazare replied. 'I'm going to

join her at her sister-in-law's before I return to Paris. I shall stay

a fortnight with you, and then I shall be off.'

Chanteau's eyes expressed his extreme satisfaction at what he heard,

and when at last Lazare embraced him he returned the salute with two

hearty kisses. However, he considered that it behoved him to express

some regret.

'It is a great pity that your wife could not come. We should have been

delighted to have her here. However, I hope we shall see her some other

time. You must certainly bring her.'

Pauline kept silent, and concealed her feeling of uneasiness beneath

an affectionate smile of welcome. For the second time were her plans

being altered; she would not have to go away. She scarcely knew whether

she was glad or sorry, so entirely had she now become the property of

others. Whatever pleasure she felt in seeing Lazare was tinged with

sadness as she noticed his aged appearance. His eyes were dull, and a

bitter expression rested on his lips. The lines across his brow and

cheeks had been there before, but they were deeper wrinkles now, and

she guessed that his _ennui_ and terror had increased. The young man

scrutinized his cousin with equal care. She appeared to him to have

developed, to have gained additional beauty and vigour, and with a

smile he muttered:

'Well, you certainly don't seem to have been any the worse for my

absence. You are, all of you, looking quite plump. Father is growing

young again, and Pauline is superb. And, really, it is very funny, but

the house certainly seems bigger than it used to be.'

He glanced round the dining-room, as he had previously done round the

yard, with an appearance of surprise and emotion. His eyes at last

rested upon Minouche, who lay upon the table, with her feet tucked

under her, in such a state of restful beatitude that she had not moved.

'Even Minouche doesn't seem to have grown any older,' the young man

resumed. 'Well, you ungrateful animal, you might rouse yourself to

welcome me!'

He stroked her as he spoke, and she began to purr, but still without

moving.

'Oh! Minouche is only interested in herself,' Pauline said merrily.

'The day before yesterday five more of her kittens were drowned, and,

you see, she doesn't seem to mind it at all.'

The dinner was hastened, as Lazare had made an early breakfast. In

spite of all the girl's attempts, the evening proved a gloomy one.

The efforts they made to avoid certain subjects interfered with the

conversation, and there were awkward intervals of silence. Pauline

and Chanteau refrained from questioning Lazare, as they saw that it

embarrassed him to reply; they made no attempt to ascertain either

how his business at Paris was getting on, or how it came about that

his letter to them had been written from Caen. With a vague gesture

he put aside all direct questions, as though he meant to reply to

them later on. When the tea was brought into the room, a great sigh of

satisfaction escaped him. How happy and peaceful they must all be here,

said he, and what an amount of work one could get through when all was

so quiet! He dropped a word or two about a drama in verse upon which he

had been engaged for the last six months. His cousin felt amazed when

he added that he intended finishing it at Bonneville. Twelve days would

be sufficient, said he.

At ten o'clock Véronique entered to say that Monsieur Lazare's room

was ready. But when they had reached the first floor, and she wanted

to instal him in the former guest-chamber, which had been subsequently

fitted up for the occupation of himself and his wife, he flew into a

tantrum.

'You're quite mistaken,' said he, 'if you suppose that I am going

to sleep there! I'm going up to the top of the house to my old iron

bedstead.'

Véronique began to grumble and growl. Why couldn't he sleep there? The

bed had been got ready for him, and, surely, he wasn't going to give

her the trouble of preparing another.

'Very well,' he said, 'I will sleep in an easy-chair.'

While Véronique angrily tore off the sheets and carried them up to the

top floor, Pauline experienced a sudden delight which impelled her

to throw her arms round her cousin's neck, in an outburst of the old

chummish feeling of their youth, as she wished him good-night. He was

occupying his big room once more, and he was so close to her that for a

long time she could hear him pacing about, as though brooding over the

recollections which were keeping her awake also.

It was only the next morning that Lazare began to take Pauline into his

confidence. Even then he made no clear statement; she had to guess what

she could from a few short sentences which he let slip in the course

of conversation. By-and-by she took courage and questioned him with an

expression of affectionate concern. Were he and Louise still getting

on as happily as ever? He replied in the affirmative, but complained

about certain little domestic disagreements and other trifling matters

which had led to quarrels. Without having come to a definite rupture,

they were suffering from the perpetual jarring of two highly-strung

temperaments, which were incapable of equilibrium either in joy or

sorrow. There existed between them a sort of unconfessed bitterness,

as though they were surprised and angry at having mistaken each other,

at having discovered each other's real feelings so soon, after all the

passionate love of the first days. For a moment Pauline thought she

could discover that it was pecuniary troubles that had embittered them;

but in this she was mistaken, for their income of ten thousand francs

a year had remained almost undiminished. Lazare had simply become

disgusted with business, just as he had previously grown disgusted

with music and medicine and industrial enterprise; and on this subject

he launched out in strong language. Never, he said, never had he come

across such a stupid, rotten sphere as that of the financial world. He

would prefer anything, the dulness of country life and the mediocrity

of small means, to perpetual worries about money, the brain-softening

tangle of figures. He had just retired from the Insurance Company, he

said, and he was going to try what he could do as a play-writer when he

returned to Paris in the following winter. His drama would avenge him;

he would portray money in it as a festering sore eating away modern

society.

Pauline did not distress herself much about this new failure, which

she had already inferred from Lazare's embarrassed expressions in

his last letters. What grieved her most was the gradually increasing

misunderstanding between her cousin and his wife. She strove to find

out the real cause of it, how it happened that those young people of

ample means and with nothing to do but to be happy had so quickly

reached discomfort. She returned to the subject again, and only ceased

to question her cousin about it when she saw the embarrassment she was

causing him. He stammered and grew pale, and turned his face away from

her as she interrogated him. She well knew that expression of shame and

fear, that terror of the idea of death, which he had formerly struggled

to conceal as though it were some disgraceful disease; but could it be

possible, she asked herself, that the cold shadow of nothingness had

already fallen between the young couple so soon after their nuptials?

For several days she lingered in a state of doubt, and then, without

any further confession from him on the subject, she one evening read

the truth in his eyes as he rushed downstairs from his room in the

dark, as though he were pursued by ghosts.

In Paris, amidst his love-fever, Lazare had at first forgotten all

about death. He had found a refuge in Louise's embraces. But satiety

came at last, and then in that wife of his, for whom life centred in

caressing endearments, he found no sustaining, no courage-prompting

influence whatever. Passion was fugitive and deceitful--powerless, he

found, to give a semblance of happiness to life. One night he awoke

with a start, chilled by an icy breath that made his hair stand on end.

He shivered and wailed out his cry of bitter anguish: 'O God! God! oh!

to have to die!' Louise was sleeping by his side. It was death that he

had found again at the end of their kisses.

Other nights followed, and all his old torture came on him again. It

seized him suddenly as he lay sleepless in bed, without ability on

his part to foresee or prevent it. All at once, while he was lying

there perfectly calm, a fearful shudder would convulse him; whereas,

on the other hand, when he was irritable and weary, he perhaps escaped

altogether. It was more than the mere shock of earlier times that

he experienced now; his nervous excitement increased, and his whole

being was shaken by each fresh attack. He could not sleep without a

night-light, for the darkness increased his anxiety, in spite of his

constant fear that his wife might discover his secret suffering. This

very fear, indeed, increased his distress and aggravated the effects of

his attacks; for in the old days, when he lay alone, he had been able

to vent his dread, but now the presence of another at his side was a

source of additional disquietude. When he started in terror from his

pillow, his eyes heavy with sleep, he instinctively glanced at her,

fearing he might find her eyes wide open and fixed upon his own. But

she never moved, and by the glimmer of the night-light he could watch

her quiet slumber, her placid face, thick lips, and little, blue-veined

eyelids. And as she never awoke, he at last grew less disturbed on her

account, until one night what he had so long feared really happened,

and he saw her staring at him. But she said not a word when she saw him

all pale and trembling. She, like himself, must have been thrilled by

the horror of death, for she seemed to understand what was passing in

his mind, and threw herself against him like a frightened woman seeking

protection. Then, still desiring to deceive each other, they pretended

that they had heard the sound of footsteps, and got out of bed to look

under the furniture and behind the curtains.

Thenceforward they were both haunted with nervous fear. Never a word

of confession escaped the lips of either. They felt that it was a

shameful secret of which they must not speak; but as they lay in bed,

with their eyes staring widely into space, they knew quite well what

each was thinking of. Louise had become as nervous as Lazare; they

must have infected each other with this dread, even as two lovers

are sometimes carried off by the same fever. If he awoke, while she

continued to sleep, he grew alarmed at her very slumber. Was she still

breathing? He could not hear the sound of any respiration. Perhaps she

had suddenly died! He would then peer into her face for a moment and

touch her hands; but, even when he had satisfied himself that she was

alive and well, he could not get to sleep again. The thought that she

would certainly die some day plunged him into a mournful reverie. Which

of them would go first, he or she? Then his mind dwelt at length on the

alternative suppositions; and scenes of death, with the last torturing

throes, the hideous shrouding and laying-out, the final heart-breaking

separation, presented themselves to his mind. That thought of never

seeing each other again, when they had lived together thus as man and

wife, drove him to distraction, filled him with revolt; he could not

endure the thought of such horror. His very fear made him wish that

he himself might be the first to go. Then his heart ached with bitter

grief for Louise, as he pictured her as a widow, still carrying on the

old routine of life, doing this and that, when he should no longer be

there. Sometimes, to free himself from those haunting thoughts, he

would gently pass his arms about her without awaking her; but this he

could not long endure, for he became still more terrified as he felt

the pulsations of her life within his embrace. If he rested his head

upon her breast and listened to her heart, he could not hear it beating

without alarm, without feeling that all action might suddenly cease.

And even love was powerless to drive away that great dread which still

hovered around their curtains after every transport.

About this time Lazare began to grow weary of business. He fell back

into his old state, and spent whole days in idleness, excusing himself

on the ground of the contempt and dislike he felt for money-grubbing.

The real truth was that constant brooding over the thought of death was

daily depriving him of the desire, the strength to live. He came back

to his old question, 'What was the good of it all?' Since it would

all end in complete extinction sooner or later, perhaps to-morrow, or

even to-day, or a single hour hence, what was the use of troubling and

exciting one's self and bothering about one thing more than another?

It was all quite purposeless. His existence itself had become a slow,

lingering death, continuing day after day, and he strained his ears

to listen to the sounds of its progress, even as he had done before

in earlier times, and thought that he could detect the mechanism of

his life quickly running down. His heart, he fancied, no longer beat

so strongly as before, the action of every other organ was becoming

feebler, and all would doubtless soon come to a dead-stop. He noted

with a shudder that gradual diminution of vitality which growing age

was bringing in its train. His very frame was perishing; its component

parts were constantly disappearing. His hair was falling off, he had

lost several teeth, and he could feel his muscles and sinews shrinking

away, as though they were already returning to dust. The approach of

his fortieth year filled him with gloomy melancholy; old age would soon

be upon him now and make a speedy end of him. He had already begun

to believe that his system was quite deranged, and that some vital

part would very soon give way. Thus his days were spent in a morbid

expectation of some catastrophe. He took anxious note of those who died

around him, and every time he heard of the death of an acquaintance

he received a fresh shock. Could it be possible that such an one was

really dead? Why, he was three years younger than himself and had

seemed likely to last a hundred years! And then that other man he knew

so well, had he, too, really gone? A man who was so careful of himself,

and who even weighed the very food he ate! For a couple of days after

occurrences like these he could think of nothing else, but remained

stupefied by what had happened; feeling his pulse, carefully observing

all his own symptoms, and then falling foul of the poor fellows who had

gone. He felt a craving to reassure himself, and accused the departed

of having died from their own fault. One had been guilty of inexcusable

imprudence, while another had succumbed to so rare a disease that the

doctors did not even know its name.

But it was in vain that he tried to banish the importunate spectre; he

never ceased to hear within himself the grating of the wheels which

he fancied had so nearly run down; he felt that he was helplessly

descending the slope of years, and the thought of the deep, black pit

that lay at the bottom of it threw him into an icy perspiration and

made his hair stand on end with horror.

When Lazare ceased going to his office, quarrels broke out at home. He

manifested excessive irritability, which flared up at the slightest

opposition. His increasing mental disorder, which he tried so carefully

to conceal, revealed itself in angry snappishness, fits of moody

sulking, and wild, mad actions. At one time he was so possessed by the

fear of fire that he removed from a third-floor flat to one on the

ground floor, in order that he might more easily escape whenever the

house should burn. A perpetual anticipation of coming evil completely

poisoned the present, and prevented him from deriving any enjoyment

from it. Every time a door was opened rather noisily he started up in

fear; and his heart throbbed violently whenever a letter was put into

his hand. He suspected everybody. His money was hidden in small sums

in all sorts of places, and he kept his simplest plans and intentions

secret. He felt embittered, too, against the world, thinking that

he was misunderstood and underrated, and that all his successive

failures were the result of a general conspiracy against him. But

ever-growing boredom dominated everything else--the _ennui_ of a man

whose mind was unhinged and to whom the incessant idea of death made

all action distasteful, so that he dragged himself idly through life

on the plea of its nothingness and worthlessness. What was the use

of troubling? The powers of science were miserably limited; it could

neither prevent nor foresee. He was possessed by the sceptical _ennui_

of his generation, not the romantic _ennui_ of Werther or René, who

regretfully wept over the old beliefs, but the _ennui_ of the new

doubters, the young scientists who worry themselves and declare that

the world is unendurable because they have not immediately found the

secret of life in their retorts.

In Lazare the unavowed terror of ceasing to be was, by a logical

contradiction, blended with a ceaseless braggart insistence upon the

nothingness of things. It was his very terror, the want of equilibrium

in his morbid temperament, that drove him into pessimistic ideas and

a mad hatred of life. As it could not last for ever, he looked upon

it as a mere fraud and delusion. Was not the first half of one's days

spent in dreaming of happiness and the latter half in regrets and

fears? He fell back again upon the theories of 'the old one,' as he

called Schopenhauer, whose most violent passages he used to recite from

memory. He expatiated on the desirability of destroying the wish to

live, and so bringing to an end the barbarous and imbecile exhibition

of existence, with the spectacle of which the master force of the

world, prompted by some incomprehensible egotistical reason, amused

itself. He wanted to do away with life in order to do away with fear.

He always harped upon the great deliverance; one must wish nothing

for fear of evil, avoid all action since it meant pain, and thus

sink entirely into death. He occupied himself in trying to discover

some practical method of general suicide, some sudden and complete

disappearance to which all living creatures would consent. This was

perpetually recurring to his mind, even in the midst of ordinary

conversation, when he freely and roughly gave vent to it. The slightest

worry was sufficient to make him cry that he was sorry he was not yet

annihilated; a mere headache set him raging furiously at his body.

If he talked with a friend, his conversation immediately turned upon

the woes of life, and the luck of those who were already fattening

the dandelions in the cemeteries. He had a perfect mania for mournful

subjects, and he was much interested in an article by a fanciful

astronomer who announced the arrival of a comet with a tail which would

sweep the earth away like a grain of sand. Would not this indeed prove

the expected cosmical catastrophe, the colossal cartridge destined to

blow the world to bits like a rotten old boat? And this desire of his

for death, this constant theorizing about universal annihilation, was

but the expression of his desperate struggle with his terror, a mere

vain hubbub of words, by which he tried to veil the awful fear which

the expectation of his end caused him.

The knowledge that his wife was _enceinte_ gave him a fresh shock. It

caused him an indefinable sensation, compounded of joy and an increase

of disquietude. Notwithstanding the contrary views of 'the old one,'

the thought of becoming a father thrilled him with pride--indeed, a

vain wonder, as though he were the first person whom such a thing had

befallen. But his joy quickly became poisoned; he tormented himself

with forebodings of a disastrous issue; already making up his mind

that his wife would die, and that the child would never be born. And,

indeed, it happened that Louise's health became very bad, for she

was far from strong; and then the confusion of the household and

the upsetting of their usual habits, together with their frequent

bickerings, soon made them both thoroughly miserable. The expectation

of a child, which ought to have brought the husband and wife more

closely together, only served, indeed, to increase the misunderstanding

between them. Thus, when Louise's doctor suggested a visit to the

mountains, Lazare was delighted to take her to her sister-in-law's

and secure a fortnight's freedom for himself on the plea of going to

see his father at Bonneville. At the bottom of his heart he really

felt ashamed of this flight; but, after arguing the matter with his

conscience, he persuaded himself that a short separation would have a

tranquillising effect upon both of them, and that it would be quite

sufficient if he joined his wife before the expected event.

On the evening when Pauline at last learned the whole history of the

past eighteen months she remained for a moment unable to speak--quite

overcome, indeed, by the pitiable story. They were sitting in the

dining-room; she had put Chanteau to bed, and Lazare had just finished

making his confession in front of the cold tea-pot, beneath the lamp

which was now burning dimly.

After an interval of silence Pauline at last exclaimed:

'Why, you don't love each other any longer!'

Her cousin rose to go upstairs, and replied, with an uneasy smile:

'We love each other as much as is possible, my dear girl. You don't

understand things, shut up here in this hole. Why should love fare

better than anything else?'

As soon as she had closed the door of her own room Pauline fell into

one of those fits of despondency which had so often tortured her and

kept her awake, on the very same chair, while all the rest of them were

sleeping. Was there going to be a renewal of trouble? She had hoped it

was all done with, both for others and herself, when she had torn her

heart asunder and given Lazare to Louise; and now she found how useless

her sacrifice had been. They had already ceased to love each other;

it was all to no purpose that she had wept bitter tears and martyred

herself. To this wretched result had she come, to fresh trouble and

strife, the thought of which added to her grief. There seemed to be no

end to suffering!

Then as, with her arms hanging listlessly in front of her, she sat

watching her candle burn away, the oppressive thought arose from her

conscience that she alone was guilty. She tried, but in vain, to

struggle against the facts. It was she alone who had brought about that

marriage, without understanding that Louise would never prove the wife

that her cousin needed. She saw it now clearly enough. She recognised

that the other was much too nervously inclined herself to be able to

steady him, for she lost her head at the merest trifle, and her only

charm lay in her caressing nature--a charm of which Lazare had already

tired. Why did all this only occur to her now? Were not these, indeed,

the very reasons which had determined her to let Louise take her place?

She had thought that Louise possessed a more loving nature than her

own; she had believed that Louise, with her kisses and caresses, would

be able to free Lazare from his gloomy despondency. Ah! the pity of

it all! To have brought about evil when she had striven to accomplish

good, and to have shown such ignorance of life as to have brought

ruin upon those she yearned to save! Yet she had felt so sure that

she was right and was perfecting her good work on the day when their

happiness had cost her such bitter tears! Now she felt contempt for her

kindliness, since kindliness did not always create happiness.

The house was wrapped in sleep. In the quiet of her room she could hear

nothing but the throbbing of her temples. Within her was gradually

surging a rebellious regret. Why had she not married Lazare herself?

He had been hers; she had had no right to give him to another. Perhaps

he might have been wretched and despondent at first, but by-and-by

she would have restored his courage and protected him from his insane

fancies. She had always felt foolishly doubtful of herself, and from

that alone all the unhappiness had arisen. The consciousness of her own

robust health and strength and all her power of affection forced itself

upon her again. Was she not superior in every way to that other girl?

How foolish she had been in weakly effacing herself! She loved her

cousin sufficiently well to disappear if the other girl could make him

happy; but since she knew not how to keep his love, was it not her duty

to act and break that wicked union? And her anger grew apace; she felt

that she was both braver and more beautiful than the other. Conviction

flashed upon her mind; it was she who ought to have married Lazare.

Then she was overwhelmed with regret. The hours of the night passed,

one by one, yet she did not think of seeking her bed. She sat there,

staring at the tall flame of the candle without seeing it, in a vivid

waking dream. She was no longer in her old bedroom. She thought she

had married Lazare, and their life unrolled itself before her eyes in

a series of pictures of love and delight. They were at Bonneville, by

the edge of the blue sea, or in Paris, in some busy street. They were

in a peaceful little room, with books lying about it and sweet roses

on the table; the lamp gave out a soft, clear light, while the ceiling

was steeped in shadow. Every moment their hands sought each other.

Lazare had recovered all the careless gaiety of his early youth, and

she loved him so much that he had again come to believe in the eternity

of existence. Just now they were sitting at table; now they were going

out together; to-morrow she would go over the week's accounts with him.

She loved those little domestic details; she made them the foundation

of their happiness, which knew no break from the laughing toilet in the

morning until the last kiss at night. In the summer they travelled.

Then one day she discovered that she was likely to become a mother.

But just then a shivering shudder dissipated her dream, and she was

no longer far away, but in her own room at Bonneville, staring at her

expiring candle. A mother! Ah! the misery of it! It was that other

who would be one; never would any of those things happen to herself,

never would those joys be hers! The shock was so painful that tears

gushed from her eyes, and she wept distractedly, sobbing like one

heart-broken. At last the candle burnt out, and she had to seek her bed

in darkness.

That feverish night left Pauline with a feeling of deep emotion and

charitable pity for the disunited husband and wife, and for herself.

Her grief melted into a kind of affectionate hope. She could not have

told on what she was reckoning; she dared not analyse the confused

sentiments which agitated her heart. But, after all, why should she

trouble herself in this way? Hadn't she at least ten days before her?

It would be time enough to think of matters by-and-by. What was of

immediate importance was to tranquillise Lazare, so that he might

derive some benefit from his stay at Bonneville. And she assumed her

old gaiety of demeanour, and soon they plunged afresh into their life

of former days.

At first it seemed a renewal of the old comradeship of early youth.

'Don't bother about that tiresome play of yours. It will only get

hissed. Come and help me to look whether Minouche has carried my ball

of thread on to the top of the cupboard,' said Pauline.

He held a chair for her, while she mounted upon it, and, standing on

tip-toes, looked for the missing thread. The rain had been falling for

the last two days and they could not leave the big room. Their laughter

rang out as they kept on unearthing some relic of old days.

'Oh, see! here is the doll which you made out of two of my old collars.

Ah! and this--don't you remember?--is the portrait of you that I drew

the day when you made yourself so frightfully ugly by getting into a

rage and crying, because I wouldn't lend you my razor.'

Then Pauline wagered that she could still jump at a single bound on

to the table; Lazare, too, jumped, quite glad at being drawn out of

himself. His play was already lying neglected in a drawer. One morning

when they came across the great symphony on Grief she played portions

of it to him, accentuating the rhythm in a comical fashion. He made fun

of his composition and sang the notes to support the piano, whose weak

tones could scarcely be heard. But one little bit, the famous March

of Death, made them both serious; it was really not bad, and must be

preserved. Everything pleased them and struck a chord of tenderness

in their hearts: a collection of _floridæ_ which Pauline had once

mounted, and which they now discovered behind some books; a forgotten

jar containing a sample of the bromide of potassium which they had

extracted from the seaweed; a small broken model of a stockade, which

looked as though it had been wrecked by a storm in a tea-cup. Then they

romped over the house, chasing each other like schoolboys at play. They

were perpetually rushing up and down the stairs and scampering through

the rooms, banging the doors noisily. It seemed as if the old days had

come back again. She was ten years old once more, and he was nineteen;

and she again felt for him all the enthusiastic friendship of a little

girl. Nothing was changed. In the dining-room there still remained

the sideboard of bright walnut, the polished brass hanging-lamp, the

view of Vesuvius, and the four lithographs of the Seasons, while the

grandfather's masterpiece still slumbered in its old place. There was

only one room which they entered with silent emotion--that which

Madame Chanteau had occupied, and which had been unused since her

death. The secrétaire was never opened now, but the hangings of yellow

cretonne, with their pattern of flower-work, were fading from the

bright sunlight which was occasionally allowed to enter the room. It

so happened that the anniversary of Madame Chanteau's birth came round

about this time, and they decked the room with big bunches of flowers.

Soon, however, as the wind rose and dispersed the rain-clouds,

they betook themselves out of doors on to the terrace, into the

kitchen-garden and along the cliffs, and their youth began anew.

'Shall we go shrimping?' Pauline cried to her cousin one morning,

through the partition, as she sprang out of bed. 'The tide is going

down.'

They set off in bathing costumes, and once more found the old familiar

rocks on which the sea had wrought no perceptible change during the

past weeks and months. They could have fancied that they had been

exploring that part of the coast only the day before.

'Take care!' cried Lazare; 'there is a hole there, you know, and the

bottom of it is full of big stones.'

'Oh, yes, I know; don't be frightened----Oh! do come and look at this

huge crab I have just caught!'

The cool waves splashed round their legs and the fresh salt breezes

from the sea intoxicated them. All their old rambles were resumed--the

long walks, the pleasant rests on the sands, the hasty refuge sought in

some hollow of the cliffs at the approach of sudden showers, and the

return home at nightfall along the dusky paths. Nothing seemed changed;

the sea, with its ceaselessly varying aspect, still stretched out into

the boundless distance. Little forgotten incidents returned to their

memory with all the vividness of present facts. Lazare seemed to be

still six-and-twenty and Pauline sixteen. When he casually happened to

pull her about with his old playful familiarity, she seemed greatly

embarrassed, however, and was thrilled with delicious confusion.

But she in no way tried to avoid him, for she had no thought of the

possibility of evil. Fresh life began to animate them; there were

whispered words, causeless laughter, long intervals of silence which

left them quivering. The most trivial incidents--a request for some

bread, a remark about the weather, the good-nights they wished each

other as they went to bed--seemed full of a new and strange meaning.

All their past life was reviving within them and thrilling them with

the tenderness that comes of the remembrance of former happiness. Why

should they have felt anxious? They did not resist the spell; the sea,

with its ceaseless monotonous voice, seemed to lull and fill them with

pleasant languor.

And so the days quietly passed by. The third week of Lazare's visit

was already commencing. He still stayed on, though he had received

several letters from Louise, who felt very lonely, but whom her

sister-in-law wished to keep with her some time longer. In his replies

he had strongly advised her to stay where she was, even telling her

that Doctor Cazenove, whom he had consulted on the matter, recommended

her to do so. Gradually he fell again into the quiet routine of the

house, accustoming himself once more to the old times for meals, for

getting up and going to bed, which he had changed in Paris, as well as

to Véronique's grumpy humour and the incessant suffering of his father,

who remained immutable, ever racked by pain, while everything around

him altered. Lazare was confronted, too, by the Saturday dinners, and

the familiar faces of the Doctor and the Abbé, with their eternal talk

of the last gale or the visitors at Arromanches. Minouche still jumped

upon the table at dessert as lightly as a feather, or rubbed her head

caressingly against his chin, and the gentle scratching of her teeth

seemed to carry him back long years. There was nothing new amongst

all those old familiar things save Loulou, who lay rolled up under

the table, looking mournful and hideous, and growling at everyone who

came near him. It was in vain that Lazare gave him sugar; when he had

swallowed it, the wretched beast only showed his teeth more surlily

than before. They were obliged to leave him entirely to himself; he led

quite a lonely life in the house, like an unsociable being who only

asks of men and gods to be allowed to spend his time in quiet boredom.

However, Pauline and Lazare sometimes had adventures when they were

out walking. One day, when they had quitted the path along the cliffs

to avoid passing the works at Golden Bay, they came across Boutigny

at a bend of the road. He was now a person of some importance, for he

had grown rich by the manufacture of soda. He had married the woman

who had shown herself so devoted as to follow him into that deserted

region, and she had recently given birth to her third child. The

whole family, attended by a manservant and a nurse, were driving in

a handsome break, drawn by a pair of big white horses, and the two

pedestrians had to squeeze themselves against the bank to escape being

caught by the wheels. Boutigny, who was driving, checked the horses

into a walking pace. There was a moment's embarrassment. They had not

spoken for years, and the presence of the woman and the children made

the embarrassment still more painful. At last, as their eyes met, they

just bowed to each other, without a word.

When the carriage had passed on, Lazare, who had turned pale, said with

an effort:

'So he's living like a prince now!'

Pauline, whom the sight of the children had affected, answered gently:

'Yes; it seems he has made some enormous profits lately. He has begun

to try your old experiments again.'

That, indeed, was the sore point with Lazare. The Bonneville fishermen,

who with their pertinacious banter seemed bent on making themselves

disagreeable to him, had informed him of what had taken place.

Boutigny, assisted by a young chemist in his employment, was again

applying the freezing treatment to seaweed ashes, and, by practical and

prudent perseverance, had obtained marvellous results.

'Of course!' Lazare growled, in a low voice; 'every time that science

takes a step forward, it is some fool that helps her on through sheer

accident.'

Their walk was spoilt by that meeting, and they went on in silence,

gazing into the distance and watching the grey vapour rise from the sea

and spread palely over the sky. When they returned home at nightfall,

they were shivering; however, the cheerful light of the hanging-lamp

streaming down upon the white cloth warmed them again.

Another day, as they were following a path through a field of beet in

the neighbourhood of Verchemont, they stopped in surprise at seeing

some smoke rising from a thatched roof. The place was on fire, but

the brilliance of the sun's rays streaming from overhead prevented

the blaze from being seen. The house, which had its doors and windows

closed, was apparently deserted, its peasant owners doubtless being at

work in the neighbourhood. Pauline and Lazare at once left the path,

and ran up shouting, but with no other effect than that of disturbing

some magpies who were chattering in the apple-trees. At last a woman

with a handkerchief round her head appeared from a distant field of

carrots, glanced about her for a moment, and then rushed on over the

ploughed land as fast as her legs could carry her. She gesticulated

and shouted something which the others could not catch, for flight

interfered with her utterance. After tripping and falling she got up,

then fell again, and started off once more, with her hands torn and

bleeding. Her kerchief had slipped off her head, and her hair streamed

in the sunlight.

'What was it she said?' asked Pauline, feeling frightened.

The woman was rushing up to them, and at last they heard her hoarse

scream, like the wail of an animal:

'The child! the child! the child!'

Her husband and son had been at work since the morning some couple of

miles away in an oat-field which they had inherited. She herself had

only lately gone out to get a basketful of carrots, leaving the child

asleep, and, contrary to her habit, fastening up the house. The fire

had probably been smouldering some time, for the woman was stupefied,

and swore she had extinguished every ember before going out. At all

events the thatched roof was now aglow, and flames shot up athwart the

golden sunlight.

'Is the door locked, then?' cried Lazare.

The woman did not hear him. She was quite distraught, and rushed

without any apparent reason round the house, as though she were trying

to discover some opening, some means of entrance which she must have

known did not exist. Then she fell again. Her legs no longer had the

strength to support her, and her ashy face showed all the agony of

despair and terror, while she continued screaming:

'The child! the child!'

Big tears rose to Pauline's eyes; but Lazare was even more painfully

affected by the woman's cry, which completely unnerved him. It was

becoming more than he could bear, and he suddenly exclaimed:

'I'll go and fetch your child!'

His cousin looked at him in wild alarm. She grasped his hands and tried

to hold him back.

'You! you mustn't go! The roof will fall in!'

'We'll see about that,' he replied quietly.

Then he shouted in the woman's face:

'Your key! You've got your key with you, haven't you?'

The woman still remained agape, but Lazare hustled her and at last

wrung from her the key. Then, while the woman remained screaming on the

ground, he stepped quietly towards the house. Pauline followed him with

her eyes, rooted to the ground with fear and astonishment, but making

no further attempt to detain him, for it seemed by his demeanour as

though he were about to attend to some very ordinary business. A shower

of sparks rained on him, and he had to squeeze himself closely against

the door, for handfuls of burning straw fell from the roof, like water

streaming down during a storm. Moreover, he found himself hindered by

an annoying obstacle. The rusty key would not turn in the lock. But he

manifested no irritation; coolly taking his time, he at last succeeded

in opening the door. Then he lingered for a moment longer on the

threshold, in order to let out the first rush of smoke, which blew in

his face. Never before had he known such calmness; he moved as though

he were in a dream, with all the assurance, skilfulness, and prudence

which the danger he was encountering inspired. At last he lowered his

head and disappeared within the cottage.

'O God! O God!' stammered Pauline, who was choking with anguish.

She clasped her hands involuntarily, almost crushing them together as

she moved them up and down, like one racked by great agony. The roof

was cracking, and was already collapsing in places. Never would Lazare

have time to make his escape. It seemed an eternity to her since he had

entered. The woman on the ground had ceased crying; the sight of the

gentleman rushing into the fire seemed to have stupefied her.

But a piercing cry broke through the air. It had come involuntarily

from Pauline, from the very depths of her being, as she saw the thatch

fall in between the smoking walls:

'Lazare!'

He was at the door, his hair scarcely singed and his hands but slightly

scorched; and when he had tossed the child, who was struggling and

crying, into the woman's arms, he almost became angry with his cousin:

'What's the matter with you? What are you going on like this for?'

She threw her arms round his neck and burst out sobbing in such a state

of nervous excitement that, fearing she might faint, he made her sit

down on an old moss-covered stone by the side of the house well. He

himself was now beginning to feel faint. There was a trough full of

water there, and he steeped his hands in it with a sensation of acute

relief. The coldness restored him to himself, and he then began to

experience great surprise at what he had done. Was it possible that

he had gone into the midst of those flames? It was as if he had had a

double; he could distinctly see himself showing incredible agility and

presence of mind amidst the smoke, as though he were looking at some

wonderful feat performed by a stranger. A remnant of mental exaltation

filled him with a subtle joy which he had never known before.

Pauline had recovered a little, and examined his hands, saying:

'No! there's no great harm done. The burns are only slight ones. But

we must go home at once, and I will attend to them. Oh! how you did

frighten me!'

She dipped her handkerchief in the water and bound it round his right

hand, which was the more severely burnt of the two. Then they rose and

tried to console the woman, who, after showering wild kisses on the

child, had laid it down near her, and was now not even looking at it.

She had begun to grieve about the house, wailing pitiably as she asked

what would her men say and do when they came back and found their home

in ruins. The walls were still standing, and black smoke was pouring

out of the brazier within them, amidst a loud crackling of sparks which

could not be seen.

'Come! my poor woman,' Pauline said to her; 'don't be so down-hearted.

Come and see us to-morrow.'

Some neighbours, attracted by the smoke, now ran up, and Pauline

led Lazare away. Their return home was a very pleasant one. Though

Lazare suffered but little pain, his cousin insisted upon giving him

her arm to support him. They still felt too much emotion to speak,

and they looked at each other smiling. Pauline felt a kind of happy

pride. He must really be brave, then, in spite of his pallor at the

thought of death! As they made their way along she became absorbed

in astonishment at the inconsistencies of the only man whom she knew

well. She had seen him spend whole nights at his work, and then give

himself up to idleness for months. She had known him exhibit the most

uncompromising truthfulness after lying unblushingly. She had received

a brotherly kiss from him on her brow, and she had felt his hands, hot

and feverish with passion, burn her wrists with their grasp; and now

to-day he had proved himself a hero. She had done right, then, in not

despairing of life, in not judging that everyone must be altogether

good or altogether bad. When they arrived at Bonneville their emotion

and silence found relief in a torrent of rapid talk. They went over

every little detail again, recounting the story a score of times, and

remembering at each repetition some little incident that had been

previously forgotten. The affair was indeed talked about for a long

time afterwards, and help was sent to the burnt-out peasants.

Lazare had been nearly a month at Bonneville when a letter arrived from

Louise, complaining that she was utterly overwhelmed with _ennui_. In

his reply to it he told her that he would fetch her at the beginning

of the following week. There had been some tremendous falls of rain,

those violent deluges which so frequently swept down upon the district,

and shrouded earth, sea, and sky beneath a pall of grey vapour. Lazare

had spoken seriously of finishing his play, and Pauline, whom he wished

to have near him that she might encourage him, took her knitting--the

little stockings which she distributed among the village children--into

her cousin's room. But it was very little work he did when she had

taken her place by the table. They were constantly talking to each

other in low tones, repeating the same things over and over again,

without ever seeming to weary of them, while their eyes never strayed

from one another. Nothing seemed to them more delightful than that

languid quiet, that feeling of drowsiness which glided over them, while

the rain pattered down upon the slates of the roof. An interval of

silence would at times make them flush, and they unconsciously put a

caress in every word they addressed to each other, impelled thereto by

that influence which had brought a renewal of those old days which they

had thought had passed away for ever.

One evening Pauline had sat up knitting in Lazare's room till nearly

midnight, while her cousin, whose pen had dropped idly from his

fingers, slowly told her about what he intended to write in the

future--dramas peopled with colossal characters. The whole house was

asleep. Véronique had gone to bed long ago, and the deep stillness of

the night, through which only broke the familiar wail of the high tide,

gradually permeated them with tenderness. Lazare, unbosoming himself,

confessed that his life hitherto had been a failure; if literature also

failed him, he had made up his mind to retire to some secluded spot and

live the life of a recluse.

'Do you know,' he added with a smile, 'I often think that we ought to

have emigrated after my mother's death?'

'Emigrated! Why?'

'Yes; have taken ourselves very far away--to Oceania, for instance, to

one of those islands where life is so sweet and pleasant.'

'But your father? Should we have taken him with us?'