"Ah! Monsieur Georges, do you wish me, then, to kill you? Do you wish
me to suffer all my life from remorse at having killed you?"
All my life! I had already forgotten that I wanted to die with him, to
die of him, to die as he died.
"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges! Have pity on me, I implore you!"
But his lips were on my lips. Death was on my lips.
"Be still!" he exclaimed, gasping. "I have never loved you so much as
to-night."
Suddenly his arms relaxed and fell back, inert, upon the bed; his lips
abandoned mine. And from his mouth, turned upward, there came a cry of
distress, and then a flow of hot blood that spattered my face. With a
bound I was out of bed. A mirror opposite revealed my image, red and
bloody. I was mad, and, running about the room in bewilderment, it was
my impulse to call for aid. But the instinct of self-preservation, the
fear of responsibilities, of the revelation of my crime, and I know not
what else that was cowardly and calculating, closed my mouth, and held
me back at the edge of the abyss over which my reason was tottering.
Very clearly and very speedily I realized that it would not do for any
one to enter the room in its present condition.
O human misery! There was something more spontaneous than my grief,
more powerful than my fear; it was my ignoble prudence and my base
calculations. In my terror I had the presence of mind to open the door
of the _salon_, and then the door of the ante-room, and listen. Not
a sound. Everybody in the house was asleep. Then I returned to the
bedside. I raised Georges's body, as light as a feather, in my arms. I
lifted up his head, maintaining it in an upright position in my hands.
The blood continued to flow from his mouth in pitchy filaments; I
heard his chest discharging itself through his throat, with the sound
of an emptying bottle. His eyes, turned up, showed nothing but their
reddish globes between the swollen eyelids.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
Georges did not answer these calls and cries. He did not hear them. He
heard nothing more of the cries and calls of earth.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
I let go his body; his body sank upon the bed. I let go his head; his
head fell back heavily upon the pillow. I placed my hand upon his
heart; his heart had ceased to beat.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
The horror of this silence, of these mute lips, of this corpse red
and motionless, and of myself, was too much for me. And, crushed with
grief, crushed with the frightful necessity of restraining my grief, I
fell to the floor in a swoon.
How many minutes did this swoon last, or how many centuries? I do not
know. On recovering consciousness, one torturing thought dominated all
others,--that of removing every accusing sign. I washed my face, I
redressed myself, and--yes, I had the frightful courage,--I put the bed
and the room to rights. And, when that was done, I awoke the house; I
cried the terrible news through the house.
Oh! that night! That night I suffered all the tortures that hell
contains.
And this night here at the Priory reminds me of it. The storm is
raging, as it raged there the night when I began my work of destruction
on that poor flesh. And the roaring of the wind through the trees
in the garden sounds to me like the roaring of the sea against the
embankment of the forever-cursed Houlgate villa.
Upon our return to Paris, after M. Georges's funeral, I did not wish
to remain in the poor grandmother's service, in spite of her repeated
entreaties. I was in a hurry to go away, that I might see no more of
that tearful face,--that I might no longer hear the sobs that lacerated
my heart. And, above all, I was in a hurry to get away from her
gratitude, from the necessity which she felt, in her doting distress,
of continually thanking me for my devotion, for my heroism, of calling
me her "daughter, her dear little daughter," and of embracing me with
madly effusive tenderness. Many times during the fortnight in which
I consented to call upon her, in obedience to her request, I had an
intense desire to confess, to accuse myself, to tell her everything
that was lying so heavily on my soul and often stifling me. But what
would have been the use? Would it have given her any relief whatever?
It would simply have added a more bitter affliction to her other
afflictions, and the horrible thought and the inexpiable remorse that,
but for me, her dear child perhaps would not be dead. And then, I must
confess that I had not the courage. I left her house with my secret,
worshipped by her as if I were a saint, overwhelmed with rich presents
and with love.
Now, on the very day of my departure, as I was coming back from Mme.
Paulhat-Durand's employment-bureau, I met in the Champs-Elysées a
former comrade, a valet, with whom I had served for six months in the
same house. It was fully two years since I had seen him. After our
first greetings, I learned that he, as well as I, was looking for a
place. Only, having for the moment some nickel-plated extra jobs, he
was in no hurry to find one.
"This jolly Célestine!" he exclaimed, happy at seeing me again; "as
astonishing as ever!"
He was a good fellow, gay, full of fun, and fond of a good time. He
proposed:
"Suppose we dine together, eh?"
I needed to divert myself, to drive far away from me a multitude of sad
images, a multitude of obsessing thoughts. I accepted.
"Good!" he exclaimed.
He took my arm, and led me to a wine-shop in the Rue Cambon. His heavy
gaiety, his coarse jokes, his vulgar obscenity, I keenly appreciated.
They did not shock me. On the contrary, I felt a certain rascally joy,
a sort of crapulous security, as if I were resuming a lost habit. To
tell the truth, I recognized myself, I recognized my own life and my
own soul in those dissipated eyelids, in that smooth face, in those
shaven lips, which betray the same servile grimace, the same furrow of
falsehood, the same taste for passional filth, in the actor, the judge,
and the valet.
After dinner we strolled for a time on the boulevards; then he took
me to see a cinematograph exhibition. My will was a little weak from
having drunk too much Saumur wine. In the darkness of the hall, as
the French army was marching across the illuminated screen amid the
applause of the spectators, he caught me about the waist, and imprinted
a kiss upon the back of my neck which came near loosening my hair.
"You are astonishing!" he whispered. "Oh! how good you smell!"
He accompanied me to my hotel, and we stood for a few minutes on the
sidewalk, silent and a little stupid. He was tapping his shoes with
the end of his cane; I, with head lowered, my elbows pressed closely
against my body, and my hands in my muff, was crushing a bit of
orange-peel beneath my feet.
"Well, _au revoir!_" I said to him.
"Oh! no," he exclaimed, "let me go up with you. Come, Célestine."
I defended myself, in an uncertain fashion, for the sake of form. He
insisted.
"Come, what is the matter with you? Heart troubles? Now is the very
time...."
He followed me. In this hotel they did not look too closely at the
guests who returned at night. With its dark and narrow staircase,
its slimy banister, its vile atmosphere, its fetid odors, it seemed
like a house for the accommodation of transients and cut-throats. My
companion coughed, to give himself assurance. And I, with my soul full
of disgust, reflected:
"Oh! indeed! this is not equal to the Houlgate villas or to the warm
and richly-adorned mansions in the Rue Lincoln."
What a hussy one is sometimes! Oh, misery me!
And my life began again, with its ups and downs, its changes of front,
its _liaisons_ as quickly ended as begun, and its sudden leaps from
opulent interiors into the street, just as of old.
Singular thing! I, who in my amorous exaltation, my ardent thirst for
sacrifice, had sincerely and passionately wished to die, was haunted
for long months by the fear of having contracted Monsieur Georges's
disease from his kisses. The slightest indisposition, the most fleeting
pain, filled me with real terror. Often at night I awoke with mad
frights and icy sweats. I felt of my chest, where, by suggestion, I
suffered from pains and lacerations; I examined the discharges from
my throat, in which I saw red streaks; and I gave myself a fever,
by frequent counting of my pulse. It seemed to me, as I looked in
the glass, that my eyes were growing hollow, and that my cheeks were
growing pinker, with that mortal pink that colored Monsieur Georges's
face. One night, as I was leaving a public ball, I took cold, and I
coughed for a week. I thought that it was all over with me. I covered
my back with plasters, and swallowed all sorts of queer medicines; I
even sent a pious offering to Saint Anthony of Padua. Then, as, in
spite of my fear, my health remained good, showing that I had equal
power to endure the fatigues of toil and of pleasure, it all passed
away.
Last year, on the sixth of October, I went to lay flowers on M.
Georges's grave, as I had done every year when that sad date came
round. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. In the main path I
saw, a few steps ahead of me, the poor grandmother. Oh! how old she
was, and how old also were the two old servants who accompanied her!
Arched, bent, tottering, she walked heavily, sustained at the arm-pits
by her two old servants, as arched, as bent, as tottering, as their
mistress. A porter followed them, carrying a large bunch of red and
white roses. I slackened my pace, not wishing to pass them and be
recognized. Hidden behind the wall of a high monument, I waited until
the poor and sorrowful old woman had placed her flowers, told her
beads, and dropped her tears upon her grandson's grave. They came
back with the same feeble steps, through the smaller path, brushing
against the wall of the vault on the other side of which I was hiding.
I concealed myself still more, that I might not see them, for it seemed
to me that it was my remorse, the phantoms of my remorse, that were
filing by me. Would she have recognized me? Ah! I do not think so. They
walked without looking at anything, without seeing even the ground
about them. Their eyes had the fixity of the eyes of the blind; their
lips moved and moved, and not a word came from them. One would have
said that they were three old dead souls, lost in the labyrinth of the
cemetery, and looking for their graves. I saw again that tragic night,
and my red face, and the blood flowing from Georges's mouth. It sent a
shiver to my heart. At last they disappeared.
Where are they to-day, those three lamentable shades? Perhaps they are
a little more dead; perhaps they are dead quite. After having wandered
on for days and nights, perhaps they have found the hole of silence and
of rest of which they were in search.
All the same, it is a queer idea that the unfortunate grandmother had,
in choosing me as a nurse for a young and pretty boy like Monsieur
Georges. And really, when I think of the matter again, and realize
that she never suspected anything, that she never saw anything, that
she never understood anything, this seems to me the most astonishing
feature of the matter. Ah! one can say it now; they were not very
sharp, the three of them. They had an abundance of confidence.
I have seen Captain Mauger again, over the hedge. Crouching before a
freshly-dug bed, he was transplanting pansies and gilly-flowers. As
soon as he saw me, he left his work, and came to the hedge to talk. He
is no longer angry with me for the murder of his ferret. He even seems
very gay. Bursting with laughter, he confides to me that this morning
he has wrung the neck of the Lanlaires' white cat. Probably the cat
avenges the ferret.
"It is the tenth that I have gently killed for them," he cries,
with ferocious joy, slapping his thigh, and then rubbing his grimy
hands. "Ah! the dirty thing will scratch no more compost from my
garden-frames; it will no longer ravage my seed-plots, the camel! And,
if I could also wring the necks of your Lanlaire and his female! Oh!
the pigs! Oh! oh! oh! that's an idea."
This idea makes him twist with laughter for a moment. And suddenly, his
eyes sparkling with a stealthy malice, he asks:
"Why don't you put some smart-weed in their bed? The dirty creatures!
Oh! I would give you a package of it for the purpose. That's an idea!"
Then:
"By the way, you know? Kléber? my little ferret?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I ate him. Alas! alas!"
"He was not very good, was he?"
"Alas! he tasted like bad rabbit."
And that was all the funeral sermon that the poor animal got.
The captain tells me also that a week or two ago he caught a hedge-hog
under a wood-pile. He is engaged in taming him. He calls him Bourbaki.
Ah! that's an idea! An intelligent, comical, extraordinary beast that
eats everything!
"Yes, indeed!" he exclaims. "In the same day this confounded hedge-hog
has eaten beefsteak, mutton stew, salt bacon, gruyère cheese, and
preserves. He is astonishing. It is impossible to satisfy him. He is
like me; he eats everything!"
Just then the little domestic passes the path, with a wheelbarrow full
of stones, old sardine-boxes, and a heap of _débris_, which he is
carrying to the refuse-heap.
"Come here!" calls the captain.
And, as, in answer to his question, I tell him that Monsieur has gone
hunting, that Madame has gone to town, and that Joseph has gone on
an errand, he takes from the wheelbarrow each of the stones, each bit
of the _débris_, and, one after another, throws them into the garden,
crying in a loud voice:
"There, pig! Take that, you wretch!"
The stones fly, the bits of _débris_ fall upon a freshly-worked bed,
where Joseph the day before had planted peas.
"Take that! And this, too! And here is another, in the bargain!"
The bed, soon covered with _débris_, becomes a confused heap. The
captain's joy finds expression in a sort of hooting and disorderly
gestures. Then, turning up his old grey moustache, he says to me, with
a triumphant and rakish air:
"Mademoiselle Célestine, you are a fine girl, for sure! You must come
and see me, when Rose is no longer here, eh? Ah! that's an idea!"
Well, indeed! He has no cheek!