He began again, as on the other evening, to clean house and establish a
methodical disorder. He slipped a cushion under the false disarray of
the armchair, then he made roaring fires to have the rooms good and warm
when she came.
But he was without impatience. That silent promise which he had
obtained, that Mme. Chantelouve would not leave him panting this night,
moderated him. Now that his uncertainty was at an end, he no longer
vibrated with the almost painful acuity which hitherto her malignant
delays had provoked. He soothed himself by poking the fire. His mind was
still full of her, but plethoric, content. When his thoughts stirred at
all it was, at the very most, to revolve the question, "How shall I go
about it, when the time comes, so as not to be ridiculous?" This
question, which had so harassed him the other night, left him troubled
but inert. He did not try to solve it, but decided to leave everything
to chance, since the best planned strategy was almost always abortive.
Then he revolted against himself, accused himself of stagnation, and
walked up and down to shake himself out of a torpor which might have
been attributed to the hot fire. Well, well, was it because he had had
to wait so long that his desires had left him, or at least quit
bothering him--no, they had not, why, he was yearning now for the moment
when he might crush that woman! He thought he had the explanation of his
lack of enthusiasm in the stage fright inseparable from any beginning.
"It will not be really exquisite tonight until after the newness wears
off and the grotesque with it. After I know her I shall be able to
consort with her again without feeling solicitous about her and
conscious of myself. I wish we were on that happy basis now."
The cat, sitting on the table, cocked up its ears, gazed at the door
with its black eyes, and fled. The bell rang and Durtal went to let her
in.
Her costume pleased him. He took off her furs. Her skirt was of a plum
colour so dark that it was almost black, the material thick and supple,
outlining her figure, squeezing her arms, making an hourglass of her
waist, accentuating the curve of her hips and the bulge of her corset.
"You are charming," he said, kissing her wrists, and he was pleased to
find that his lips had accelerated her pulse. She did not speak, could
hardly breathe. She was agitated and very pale.
He sat down facing her. She looked at him with her mysterious, half
sleepy eyes. He felt that he was falling in love all over again. He
forgot his reasonings and his fears, and took acute pleasure in
penetrating the mystery of these eyes and studying the vague smile of
this dolorous mouth.
He enlaced her fingers in his, and for the first time, in a low voice,
he called her Hyacinthe.
She listened, her breast heaving, her hands in a fever. Then in a
supplicating voice, "I implore you," she said, "let us have none of
that. Only desire is good. Oh, I am rational, I mean what I say. I
thought it all out on the way here. I left him very sad tonight. If you
knew how I feel--I went to church today and was afraid and hid myself
when I saw my confessor--"
These plaints he had heard before, and he said to himself, "You may sing
whatever tune you want to, but you shall dance tonight." Aloud he
answered in monosyllables as he continued to take possession of her.
He rose, thinking she would do the same, or that if she remained seated
he could better reach her lips by bending over her.
"Your lips, your lips--the kiss you gave me last night--" he murmured,
as his face came close to hers. She put up her lips and stood, and they
embraced, but as his hands went seeking she recoiled.
"Think how ridiculous it all is," she said in a low voice, "to undress,
put on night clothes--and that silly scene, getting into bed!"
He avoided declaring, but attempted, by an embrace which bent her over
backward, to make her understand that she could spare herself those
embarrassments. Tacitly, in his own turn, feeling her body stiffen under
his fingers, he understood that she absolutely would not give herself in
the room here, in front of the fire.
"Oh well," she said, disengaging herself, "if you will have it!"
He made way to allow her to go into the other room, and seeing that she
desired to be alone he drew the portière.
Sitting before the fire he reflected. Perhaps he ought to have pulled
down the bed covers, and not left her the task, but without doubt the
action would have been too direct, too obvious a hint. Ah! and that
water heater! He took it and, keeping away from the bedroom door, went
to the bathroom, placed the heater on the toilet table, and then,
swiftly, he set out the rice powder box, the perfumes, the combs, and,
returning into his study, he listened.
She was making as little noise as possible, walking on tiptoe as if in
the presence of the dead. She blew out the candles, doubtless wishing no
more light than the rosy glow of the hearth.
He felt positively annihilated. The irritating impression of the lips
and eyes of Hyacinthe was far from him now. She was nothing but a woman,
like any other, undressing in a man's room. Memories of similar scenes
overwhelmed him. He remembered girls who like her had crept about on the
carpet so as not to be heard, and who had stopped short, ashamed, for a
whole second, if they bumped against the water pitcher. And then, what
good was this going to do him? Now that she was yielding he no longer
desired her! Disillusion had come even before possession, not waiting,
as usual, till afterward. He was distressed to the point of tears.
The frightened cat glided under the curtain, ran from one room to the
other, and finally came back to his master and jumped onto his knees.
Caressing him, Durtal said to himself, "Decidedly, she was right when
she refused. It will be grotesque, atrocious. I was wrong to insist, but
no, it's her fault, too. She must have wanted to do this or she wouldn't
have come. What a fool to think she could aggravate passion by delay.
She is fearfully clumsy. A moment ago when I was embracing her and
really was aroused, it would perhaps have been delicious, but now! And
what do I look like? A young bridegroom waiting--or a green country boy.
Oh God, how stupid! Well," he said, straining his ears and hearing no
sound from the other room, "she's in bed. I must go in.
"I suppose it took her all this time to unharness herself from her
corset. She was a fool to wear one," he concluded, when, drawing the
curtain, he stepped into the other room.
Mme. Chantelouve was buried under the thick coverlet, her mouth
half-open and her eyes closed; but he saw that she was peering at him
through the fringe of her blonde eyelashes. He sat down on the edge of
the bed. She huddled up, drawing the cover over her chin.
"Cold, dear?"
"No," and she opened wide her eyes, which flashed sparks.
He undressed, casting a rapid glance at Hyacinthe's face. It was hidden
in the darkness, but was sometimes revealed by a flare of the red hot
fire, as a stick, half consumed and smouldering, would suddenly burst
into flame. Swiftly he slipped between the covers. He clasped a corpse;
a body so cold that it froze him, but the woman's lips were burning as
she silently gnawed his features. He lay stupified in the grip of this
body wound around his own, supple as the ... and hard! He could not
move; he could not speak for the shower of kisses traveling over his
face. Finally, he succeeded in disengaging himself, and, with his free
arm he sought her; then suddenly, while she devoured his lips he felt a
nervous inhibition, and, naturally, without profit, he withdrew.
"I detest you!" she exclaimed.
"Why?"
"I detest you!"
He wanted to cry out, "And I you!" He was exasperated, and would have
given all he owned to get her to dress and go home.
The fire was burning low, unflickering. Appeased, now, he sat up and
looked into the darkness. He would have liked to get up and find another
nightshirt, because the one he had on was tearing and getting in his
way. But Hyacinthe was lying on top of it--then he reflected that the
bed was deranged and the thought affected him, because he liked to be
snug in winter, and knowing himself incapable of respreading the covers,
he foresaw a cold night.
Once more, he was enlaced; the gripe of the woman's on his own was
renewed; rational, this time, he attended to her and crushed her with
mighty caresses. In a changed voice, lower, more guttural, she uttered
ignoble things and silly cries which gave him pain--"My dear!--oh,
hon!--oh I can't stand it!"--aroused nevertheless, he took this body
which creaked as it writhed, and he experienced the extraordinary
sensation of a spasmodic burning within a swaddle of ice-packs.
He finally jumped over her, out of bed, and lighted the candles. On the
dresser the cat sat motionless, considering Durtal and Mme. Chantelouve
alternately. Durtal saw an inexpressible mockery in those black eyes
and, irritated, chased the beast away.
He put some more wood on the fire, dressed, and started to leave the
room. Hyacinthe called him gently, in her usual voice. He approached the
bed. She threw her arms around his neck and hung there, kissing him
hungrily. Then sinking back and putting her arms under the cover, she
said, "The deed is done. Now will you love me any better?"
He did not have the heart to answer. Ah yes, his disillusion was
complete. The satiety following justified his lack of appetite
preceding. She revolted him, horrified him. Was it possible to have so
desired a woman, only to come to--that? He had idealized her in his
transports, he had dreamed in her eyes--he knew not what! He had wished
to exalt himself with her, to rise higher than the delirious ravenings
of the senses, to soar out of the world into joys supernal and
unexplored. And his dream had been shattered. He remained fettered to
earth. Was there no means of escaping out of one's self, out of earthly
limitations, and attaining an upper ether where the soul, ravished,
would glory in its giddy flight?
Ah, the lesson was hard and decisive. For having one time hoped so much,
what regrets, what a tumble! Decidedly, Reality does not pardon him who
despises her; she avenges herself by shattering the dream and trampling
it and casting the fragments into a cesspool.
"Don't be vexed, dear, because it is taking me so long," said Mme.
Chantelouve behind the curtain.
He thought crudely, "I wish you would get to hell out of here," and
aloud he asked politely if she had need of his services.
"She was so mysterious, so enticing," he resumed to himself. "Her eyes,
remote, deep as space, and reflecting cemeteries and festivals at the
same time. And she has shown herself up for all she is, within an hour.
I have seen a new Hyacinthe, talking like a silly little milliner in
heat. All the nastinesses of women unite in her to exasperate me."
After a thoughtful silence he concluded, "I must be young indeed to have
lost my head the way I did."
As if echoing his thought, Mme. Chantelouve, coming out through the
portière, laughed nervously and said, "A woman of my age doing a mad
thing like that!" She looked at him, and though he forced a smile she
understood.
"You will sleep tonight," she said, sadly, alluding to Durtal's former
complaints of sleeplessness on her account.
He begged her to sit down and warm herself, but she said she was not
cold.
"Why, in spite of the warmth of the room you were cold as ice!"
"Oh, I am always that way. Winter and summer my flesh is chilly."
He thought that in August this frigid body might be agreeable, but now!
He offered her some bonbons, which she refused, then she said she would
take a sip of the alkermes, which he poured into a tiny silver goblet.
She took just a drop, and amicably they discussed the taste of this
preparation, in which she recognized an aroma of clove, tempered by
flower of cinnamon moistened with distillate of rose water.
Then he became silent.
"My poor dear," she said, "how I should love him if he were more
confiding and not always on his guard."
He asked her to explain herself.
"Why, I mean that you can't forget yourself and simply let yourself be
loved. Alas, you were reasoning all the time--"
"I was not!"
She kissed him tenderly. "You see I love you, anyway." And he was
surprised to see how sad and moved she looked, and he observed a sort of
frightened gratitude in her eyes.
"She is easily satisfied," he said to himself.
"What are you thinking about?"
"You!"
She sighed. Then, "What time is it?"
"Half past ten."
"I must go. He is waiting for me. No, don't say anything--"
She passed her hands over her cheeks. He seized her gently by the waist
and kissed her, holding her thus enlaced until they were at the door.
"You will come again soon, won't you?"
"Yes.... Yes."
He returned to the fireside.
"Oof! it's done," he thought, in a whirl of confused emotions. His
vanity was satisfied, his selfesteem was no longer bleeding, he had
attained his ends and possessed this woman. Moreover, her spell over him
had lost its force. He was regaining his entire liberty of mind, but who
could tell what trouble this liaison had yet in store for him? Then, in
spite of everything, he softened.
After all, what could he reproach her with? She loved as well as she
could. She was, indeed, ardent and plaintive. Even this dualism of a
mistress who was a low cocotte in bed and a fine lady when dressed--or
no, too intelligent to be called a fine lady--was a delectable pimento.
Her carnal appetites were excessive and bizarre. What, then, was the
matter with him?
And at last he quite justly accused himself. It was his own fault if
everything was spoiled. He lacked appetite. He was not really tormented
except by a cerebral erethism. He was used up in body, filed away in
soul, inept at love, weary of tendernesses even before he received them
and disgusted when he had. His heart was dead and could not be revived.
And his mania for thinking, thinking! previsualizing an incident so
vividly that actual enactment was an anticlimax--but probably would not
be if his mind would leave him alone and not be always jeering at his
efforts. For a man in his state of spiritual impoverishment all, save
art, was but a recreation more or less boring, a diversion more or less
vain. "Ah, poor woman, I am afraid she is going to get pretty sick of
me. If only she would consent to come no more! But no, she doesn't
deserve to be treated in that fashion," and, seized by pity, he swore to
himself that the next time she visited him he would caress her and try
to persuade her that the disillusion which he had so ill concealed did
not exist.
He tried to spread up the bed, get the tousled blankets together, and
plump the pillows, then he lay down.
He put out his lamp. In the darkness his distress increased. With death
in his heart he said to himself, "Yes, I was right in declaring that the
only women you can continue to love are those you lose.
"To learn, three years later, when the woman is inaccessible, chaste and
married, dead, perhaps, or out of France--to learn that she loved you,
though you had not dared believe it while she was near you, ah, that's
the dream! These real and intangible loves, these loves made up of
melancholy and distant regrets, are the only ones that count. Because
there is no flesh in them, no earthly leaven.
"To love at a distance and without hope; never to possess; to dream
chastely of pale charms and impossible kisses extinguished on the waxen
brow of death: ah, that is something like it. A delicious straying away
from the world, and never the return. As only the unreal is not ignoble
and empty, existence must be admitted to be abominable. Yes, imagination
is the only good thing which heaven vouchsafes to the skeptic and
pessimist, alarmed by the eternal abjectness of life."