In the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean.
Beausire and Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbor's
shoulder which repelled them with a shove. Then they sat up, ceased to
snore, opened their eyes, muttered "a lovely evening!" and almost
immediately fell over on the other side.
By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that they
had great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to
go to Jean's rooms where tea was waiting for them. He had to be set
down at his own door.
The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; and
he was full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him,
at being able, that very evening to show his betrothed the rooms she
was so soon to inhabit.
The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herself
would boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the
servants to be kept up for fear of fire.
No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and the
workmen, that the surprise might be the greater at their being so
pretty.
Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room. He wanted to
light the lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosémilly in the dark
with his father and brother; then he cried! "Come in!" opening the
double door to its full width.
The glass gallery, lighted by a chandelier and little colored lamps
hidden among palms, india-rubber plants and flowers, was first seen
like a scene on the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland,
dazzled by such luxury, muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap
his hands as if it were a pantomime scene. They then went into the
first drawing-room, a small room hung with dead gold and furnished to
match. The larger drawing-room--the lawyer's consulting-room, very
simple, hung with light salmon-color, was dignified in style.
Jean sat down in his armchair in front of his writing-table loaded
with books, and in a solemn, rather stilted tone, he began:
"Yes, madame, the letter of the law is explicit, and, assuming the
consent I promised you, it affords me absolute certainty that the
matter we discussed will come to a happy conclusion within three
months."
He looked at Mme. Rosémilly, who began to smile and glanced at Mme.
Roland. Madame Roland took her hand and pressed it. Jean, in high
spirits, cut a caper like a schoolboy, exclaiming: "Hah! How well the
voice carries in this room; it would be capital for speaking in."
And he declaimed:
"If humanity alone, if the instinct of natural benevolence which we
feel toward all who suffer, were the motive of the acquittal we expect
of you, I should appeal to your compassion, gentlemen of the jury, to
your hearts as fathers and as men; but we have law on our side, and it
is the point of law only which we shall submit to your judgment."
Pierre was looking at this home which might have been his, and he was
restive under his brother's frolics, thinking him really too silly and
witless.
Mme. Roland opened a door on the right.
"This is the bedroom," said she.
She had devoted herself to its decoration with all her mother's love.
The hangings were of Rouen cretonne imitating old Normandy chintz, and
the Louis XV design--a shepherdess, in a medallion held in the beaks
of a pair of doves--gave the walls, curtains, bed, and armchairs a
festive, rustic style that was extremely pretty!
"Oh, how charming!" Mme. Rosémilly exclaimed, becoming a little
serious as they entered the room.
"Do you like it?" asked Jean.
"Immensely."
"You cannot imagine how glad I am."
They looked at each other for a second, with confiding tenderness in
the depths of their eyes.
She had felt a little awkward, however, a little abashed, in this room
which was to be hers. She noticed as she went in that the bed was a
large one, quite a family bed, chosen by Mme. Roland, who had no doubt
foreseen and hoped that her son should soon marry; and this motherly
foresight pleased her, for it seemed to tell her that she was expected
in the family.
When they had returned to the drawing-room Jean abruptly threw open
the door to the left, showing the circular dining-room with three
windows, and decorated to imitate a Chinese lantern. Mother and son
had here lavished all the fancy of which they were capable, and the
room, with its bamboo furniture, its mandarins, jars, silk hangings
glistening with gold, transparent blinds threaded with beads looking
like drops of water, fans nailed to the wall to drape the hangings
on, screens, swords, masks, cranes made of real feathers, and a myriad
trifles in china, wood, paper, ivory, mother of pearl, and bronze, had
the pretentious and extravagant aspect which unpracticed hands and
uneducated eyes inevitably stamp on things which need the utmost tact,
taste, and artistic education. Nevertheless it was the most admired;
only Pierre made some observations with rather bitter irony which hurt
his brother's feelings.
Pyramids of fruit stood on the table and monuments of cakes. No one
was hungry; they picked at the fruit and nibbled at the cakes rather
than ate them. Then, at the end of about an hour, Mme. Rosémilly
begged to take leave. It was decided that old Roland should accompany
her home and set out with her forthwith; while Madame Roland, in the
maid's absence, should cast a maternal eye over the house and see that
her son had all he needed.
"Shall I come back for you?" asked Roland.
She hesitated a moment and then said: "No, dear old man; go to bed.
Pierre will see me home."
As soon as they were gone she blew out the candles, locked up the
cakes, the sugar, and liqueurs in a cupboard of which she gave the key
to Jean; then she went into the bedroom, turned down the bed, saw that
there was fresh water in the water-bottle, and that the window was
properly closed.
Pierre and Jean had remained in the little outer drawing-room; the
younger still sore under the criticism passed on his taste, and the
elder chafing more and more at seeing his brother in this abode. They
both sat smoking without a word. Pierre suddenly started to his feet.
"Cristi!" he exclaimed. "The widow looked very jaded this evening.
Long excursions do not improve her."
Jean felt his spirit rising with one of those sudden and furious rages
which boil up in easy-going natures when they are wounded to the
quick. He could hardly find breath to speak, so fierce was his
excitement, and he stammered out:
"I forbid you ever again to say 'the widow' when you speak of Mme.
Rosémilly."
Pierre turned on him haughtily:
"You are giving me an order, I believe. Are you gone mad by any
chance?"
Jean had pulled himself up.
"I am not gone mad, but I have had enough of your manners to me."
Pierre sneered: "To you? And are you any part of Mme. Rosémilly?"
"You are to know that Mme. Rosémilly is about to become my wife."
Pierre laughed the louder.
"Ah! ha! Very good. I understand now why I should no longer speak of
her as 'the widow.' But you have taken a strange way of announcing
your engagement."
"I forbid any jesting about it. Do you hear? I forbid it."
Jean had come close up to him, pale, and his voice quivering with
exasperation at this irony leveled at the woman he loved and had
chosen.
But on a sudden Pierre turned equally furious. All the accumulation of
impotent rage, of suppressed malignity, of rebellion choked down for
so long past, all his unspoken despair mounted to his brain,
bewildering it like a fit.
"How dare you? How dare you? I order you to hold your tongue--do you
hear? I order you."
Jean, startled by his violence, was silent for a few seconds, trying
in the confusion of mind which comes of rage to hit on the thing, the
phrase, the word, which might stab his brother to the heart. He went
on, with an effort to control himself that he might aim true, and to
speak slowly that the words might hit more keenly:
"I have known for a long time that you were jealous of me, ever since
the day when you first began to talk of 'the widow' because you knew
it annoyed me."
Pierre broke into one of those strident and scornful laughs which were
common with him:
"Ah! ah! Good Heavens! Jealous of you? I? I? And of what? Good God! Of
your person or your mind?"
But Jean knew full well that he had touched the wound in his soul.
"Yes, jealous of me--jealous from your childhood up. And it became
fury when you saw that this woman liked me best and would have nothing
to say to you."
Pierre, stung to the quick by this assumption, stuttered out:
"I? I? Jealous of you? And for the sake of that goose, that gaby, that
simpleton?"
Jean, seeing that he was aiming true, went on:
"And how about the day when you tried to pull me round in the
_Pearl_? And all you said in her presence to show off? Why you are
bursting with jealousy? And when this money was left to me you were
maddened, you hated me, you showed it in every possible way, and made
every one suffer for it; not an hour passes that you do not spit out
the bile that is choking you."
Pierre clenched his fist in his fury with an almost irresistible
impulse to fly at his brother and seize him by the throat.
"Hold your tongue," he cried. "At least say nothing about that money."
Jean went on:
"Why your jealousy oozes out at every pore. You never say a word to my
father, my mother, or me that does not declare it plainly. You pretend
to despise me because you are jealous. You try to pick a quarrel with
every one because you are jealous. And now that I am rich you can no
longer contain yourself; you have become venomous, you torture our
poor mother as if she were to blame!"
Pierre had retired step by step as far as the fireplace, his mouth
half open, his eyes glaring, a prey to one of those mad fits of
passion in which crime is committed.
He said again in a lower tone, gasping for breath: "Hold your
tongue--for God's sake hold your tongue!"
"No! For a long time I have been wanting to give you my whole mind!
you have given me an opening--so much the worse for you. I love the
woman; you know it, and laugh her to scorn in my presence--so much the
worse for you. But I will break your viper's fangs, I tell you. I
will make you treat me with respect."
"With respect--you?"
"Yes--me."
"Respect you? You who have brought shame on us all by your greed."
"You say--? Say it again--again."
"I say that it does not do to accept one man's fortune when another is
reputed to be your father."
Jean stood rigid, not understanding, dazed by the insinuation he
scented.
"What? Repeat that once more."
"I say--what everybody is muttering, what every gossip is
blabbing--that you are the son of the man who left you his fortune.
Well, then--a decent man does not take money which brings dishonor on
his mother."
"Pierre! Pierre! Pierre! Think what you are saying. You? It is you who
give utterance to this infamous thing?"
"Yes, I. It is I. Have you not seen me crushed with woe this month
past, spending my nights without sleep and my days in lurking out of
sight like an animal? I hardly know what I am doing or what will
become of me, so miserable am I, so crazed with shame and grief; for
first I guessed--and now I know it."
"Pierre! Be silent. Mother is in the next room. Remember she may
hear--she must hear."
But Pierre felt that he must unburden his heart. He told Jean all his
suspicions, his arguments, his struggles, his assurance, and the
history of the portrait--which had again disappeared. He spoke in
short broken sentences almost without coherence--the language of a
sleep-walker.
He seemed to have quite forgotten Jean, and his mother in the
adjoining room. He talked as if no one were listening, because he must
talk, because he had suffered too much and smothered and closed the
wound too tightly. It had festered like an abscess and the abscess had
burst, splashing every one. He was pacing the room in the way he
almost always did, his eyes fixed on vacancy, gesticulating in a
frenzy of despair, his voice choked with tearless sobs and revulsions
of self-loathing; he spoke as if he were making a confession of his
own misery and that of his nearest kin, as though he were casting his
woes to the deaf, invisible winds which bore away his words.
Jean, distracted and almost convinced on a sudden by his brother's
blind vehemence, was leaning against the door behind which, as he
guessed, their mother had heard them.
She could not get out, she must come through this room. She had not
come; then it was because she dared not.
Suddenly Pierre stamped his foot:
"I am a brute," he cried, "to have told you this."
And he fled, bare-headed, down the stairs.
The noise of the front-door closing with a slam roused Jean from the
deep stupor into which he had fallen. Some seconds had elapsed, longer
than hours, and his spirit had sunk into the numb torpor of idiocy. He
was conscious, indeed, that he must presently think and act, but he
would wait, refusing to understand, to know, to remember, out of fear,
weakness, cowardice. He was one of those procrastinators who put
everything off till the morrow; and when he was compelled to come to a
decision then and there, still he instinctively tried to gain a few
minutes.
But the perfect silence which now reigned, after Pierre's
vociferations, the sudden stillness of walls and furniture, with the
bright light of six wax candles and two lamps, terrified him so
greatly that he suddenly longed to make his escape too.
Then he roused his brain, roused his heart, and tried to reflect.
Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who
let themselves glide onward like running water. He had been duteous
over his tasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal
studies with credit because his existence was tranquil. Everything in
the world seemed to him quite natural and never aroused his particular
attention. He loved order, steadiness, and peace, by temperament, his
nature having no complications; and face to face with this
catastrophe, he found himself like a man who has fallen into the water
and cannot swim.
At first he tried to be incredulous. His brother had told a lie, out
of hatred and jealousy. But yet, how could he have been so vile as to
say such a thing of their mother if he had not himself been distraught
by despair? Besides, stamped on Jean's ear, on his sight, on his
nerves, on the inmost fibers of his flesh, were certain words, certain
tones of anguish, certain gestures of Pierre's, so full of suffering
that they were irresistibly convincing; as incontrovertible as
certainty itself.
He was too much crushed to stir or even to will. His distress became
unbearable; and he knew that behind the door was his mother who had
heard everything and was waiting.
What was she doing? Not a movement, not a shudder, not a breath, not a
sigh revealed the presence of a living creature behind that panel.
Could she have run away? But how? If she had run away--she must have
jumped out of the window into the street. A shock of terror roused
him--so violent and imperious that he drove the door in rather than
opened it, and flung himself into the bedroom.
It was apparently empty, lighted by a single candle standing on the
chest of drawers.
Jean flew to the window, it was shut and the shutters bolted. He
looked about him, peering into the dark corners with anxious eyes, and
he then noticed that the bed-curtains were drawn. He ran forward and
opened them. His mother was lying on the bed, her face buried in the
pillow which she had pulled up over her ears that she might hear no
more.
At first he thought she had smothered herself. Then taking her by the
shoulders, he turned her over without her leaving go of the pillow,
which covered her face, and in which she had set her teeth to keep
herself from crying out.
But the mere touch of this rigid form, of those arms so convulsively
clenched, communicated to him the shock of her unspeakable torture.
The strength and determination with which she clutched the linen case
full of feathers with her hands and teeth, over her mouth and eyes and
ears, that he might neither see her nor speak to her, gave him an
idea, by the turmoil it roused in him, of the pitch suffering may rise
to, and his heart, his simple heart, was torn with pity. He was no
judge, not he; not even a merciful judge; he was a man full of
weakness and a son full of love. He remembered nothing of what his
brother had told him; he neither reasoned nor argued, he merely laid
his two hands on his mother's inert body, and not being able to pull
the pillow away, he exclaimed, kissing her dress:
"Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me."
She would have seemed to be dead but that an almost imperceptible
shudder ran through all her limbs, the vibration of a strained cord.
And he repeated:
"Mother, mother, listen to me. It is not true. I know that it is not
true."
A spasm seemed to come over her, a fit of suffocation; then she
suddenly began to sob into the pillow. Her sinews relaxed, her rigid
muscles yielded, her fingers gave way and left go of the linen; and he
uncovered her face.
She was pale, quite colorless; and from under her closed lids tears
were stealing. He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her eyes,
slowly, with long heart-broken kisses, wet with her tears; and he said
again and again:
"Mother, my dear mother, I know it is not true. Do not cry; I know it.
It is not true."
She raised herself, she sat up, looked in his face, and with an effort
of courage such as it must cost in some cases to kill one's self, she
said:
"No, my child; it is true."
And they remained speechless, each in the presence of the other. For
some minutes she seemed again to be suffocating, craning her throat
and throwing back her head to get breath; then she once more mastered
herself and went on:
"It is true, my child. Why lie about it? It is true. You would not
believe me if I denied it."
She looked like a crazy creature. Overcome by alarm, he fell on his
knees by the bedside murmuring:
"Hush, mother, be silent." She stood up with terrible determination
and energy.
"I have nothing more to say, my child. Good-by." And she went toward
the door.
He threw his arms about her exclaiming:
"What are you doing, mother; where are you going?"
"I do not know. How should I know--There is nothing left for me to do,
now that I am alone."
She struggled to be released. Holding her firmly, he could find only
words to say again and again:
"Mother, mother, mother!" And through all her efforts to free herself
she was saying:
"No, no. I am not your mother now. I am nothing to you, to
anybody--nothing, nothing. You have neither father nor mother now,
poor boy--good-by."
It struck him clearly that if he let her go now he should never see
her again; lifting her up in his arms he carried her to an armchair,
forced her into it, and kneeling down in front of her barred her in
with his arms.
"You shall not quit this spot, mother. I love you and I will keep you!
I will keep you always--I love you and you are mine."
She murmured in a dejected tone:
"No, my poor boy, it is impossible. You weep to-night, but to-morrow
you would turn me out of the house. You, even you, could not forgive
me."
He replied: "I? I? How little you know me!" with such a burst of
genuine affection that with a cry, she seized his head by the hair
with both hands, and dragging him violently to her kissed him
distractedly all over the face.
Then she sat still, her cheek against his, feeling the warmth of his
skin through his beard, and she whispered in his ear: "No, my little
Jean, you would not forgive me to-morrow. You think so, but you
deceive yourself. You have forgiven me this evening, and that
forgiveness has saved my life; but you must never see me again."
And he repeated, clasping her in his arms:
"Mother, do not say that."
"Yes, my child, I must go away. I do not know where, nor how I shall
set about it, nor what I shall do; but it must be done. I could never
look at you, nor kiss you, do you understand?"
Then he in his turn spoke into her ear:
"My little mother, you are to stay, because I insist, because I want
you. And you must pledge your word to obey me, now at once."
"No, my child."
"Yes, mother, you must; do you hear? You must."
"No, my child, it is impossible. It would be condemning us all to the
tortures of hell. I know what that torment is; I have known it this
month past. Your feelings are touched now, but when that is over, when
you look on me as Pierre does, when you remember what I have told
you--oh, my Jean, think--think--I am your mother!"
"I will not let you leave me, mother. I have no one but you."
"But think, my son, we can never see each other again without both of
us blushing, without my feeling that I must die of shame, without my
eyes falling before yours."
"But it is not so mother."
"Yes, yes, yes, it is so! Oh, I have understood all your poor
brother's struggles, believe me! All--from the very first day. Now
when I hear his step in the house my heart beats as if it would burst,
when I hear his voice I am ready to faint. I still had you; now I have
you no longer. Oh, my little Jean! Do you think I could live between
you two?"
"Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of it."
"As if that were possible!"
"But it is possible!"
"How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your
brother and you on each hand? Would you cease to think of it, I ask
you?"
"I? I swear I should."
"Why you would think of it at every hour of the day."
"No, I swear it. Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and get
killed."
This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a
passionate and tender embrace. He went on:
"I love you more than you think--ah much more, much more. Come, be
reasonable. Try to stay for only one week. Will you promise me one
week? You cannot refuse me that?"
She laid her two hands on Jean's shoulders, and holding him at arm's
length she said:
"My child, let us try and be calm and not give way to emotions. First,
listen to me. If I were ever to hear from your lips what I have heard
for this month past from your brother, if I were once to see in your
eyes what I read in his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that I
was as odious to you as I am to him--within one hour, mark me--within
one hour I should be gone forever."
"Mother, I swear to you--"
"Let me speak. For a month past I have suffered all that any creature
can suffer. From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my
other son, suspected me, that as the minutes went by, he guessed the
truth, every moment of my life has been a martyrdom which no words
could tell you."
Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery brought
the tears to Jean's eyes.
He tried to kiss her, but she held him off.
"Leave me--listen; I still have so much to say to make you understand.
But you never can understand. You see, if I stayed--I must--no, no. I
cannot."
"Speak on, mother, speak."
"Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you. You want me to
stay with you? For what--for us to be able to see each other, speak to
each other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dare
open a door for fear of finding your brother behind it. If we are to do
that, you must not forgive me--nothing is so wounding as
forgiveness--but you must owe me no grudge for what I have done. You
must feel yourself strong enough, and so far unlike the rest of the
world, as to be able to say to yourself that you are not Roland's son
without blushing for the fact or despising me. I have suffered enough--I
have suffered too much; I can bear no more, no indeed, no more! And it
is not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, long years. But you
could never understand that, how should you! If you and I are to live
together and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe that
though I was your father's mistress I was yet more truly his wife, his
real wife; that at the bottom of my heart, I cannot be ashamed of it;
that I have no regrets; that I love him still even in death; that I
shall always love him and never loved any other man; that he was my
life, my joy, my hope, my comfort, everything--everything in the world
to me for so long! Listen, my boy, before God, who hears me, I should
never have had a joy in my existence if I had not met him; never
anything--not a touch of tenderness or kindness, not one of those hours
which make us regret growing old,--nothing. I owe everything to him! I
had but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother and you. But
for you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. I
should never have loved, or known, or cared for anything--I should not
even have wept--for I have wept, my little Jean; oh yes, and bitter
tears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for ten
years I was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who created
us for each other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He was
always kind and courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. It was
all over! Oh, how I have cried! How dreadful and delusive life is!
Nothing lasts. Then we came here--I never saw him again; he never came.
He promised it in every letter. I was always expecting him, and I never
saw him again--and now he is dead! But he still cared for us since he
remembered you. I shall love him to my latest breath, and I never will
deny him, and I love you because you are his child, and I could never be
ashamed of him before you. Do you understand? I could not. So if you
wish me to remain you must accept the situation as his son, and we will
talk of him sometimes; and you must love him a little and we must think
of him when we look at each other. If you will not do this--if you
cannot--then good-by, my child; it is impossible that we should live
together. Now, I will act by your decision."
Jean replied gently:
"Stay, mother."
She clasped him in her arms, and her tears flowed again; then, with
her face against his, she went on:
"Well, but Pierre. What can we do about Pierre?"
Jean murmured:
"We will find some plan! You cannot live with him any longer."
At the thought of her elder son she was convulsed with terror.
"No, I cannot; no, no!" And throwing herself on Jean's breast she
cried in distress of mind:
"Save me from him, you my little one. Save me; do something--I don't
know what. Think of something. Save me."
"Yes, mother, I will think of something."
"And at once. You must, this minute. Do not leave me. I am so afraid
of him--so afraid."
"Yes, yes; I will hit on some plan. I promise you I will."
"But at once; quick, quick! You cannot imagine what I feel when I see
him."
Then she murmured softly in his ear: "Keep me here, with you."
He paused, reflected, and with his blunt good-sense saw at once the
dangers of such an arrangement. But he had to argue for a long time,
combatting her scared, terror-stricken insistence.
"Only for to-night," she said. "Only for to-night. And to-morrow
morning you can send word to Roland that I was taken ill."
"That is out of the question, as Pierre left you here. Come take
courage. I will arrange everything, I promise you, to-morrow; I will
be with you by nine o'clock. Come, put on your bonnet. I will take you
home."
"I will do just what you desire," she said with a childlike impulse of
timidity and gratitude.
She tried to rise, but the shock had been too much for her, she could
not stand.
He made her drink some sugared water and smell at some salts, while he
bathed her temples with vinegar. She let him do what he would,
exhausted but comforted, as after the pains of child-birth. At last
she could walk and she took his arm. The town hall clock struck three
as they went past.
Outside their own door Jean kissed her, saying:
"Good-night, mother, keep up your courage."
She stealthily crept up the silent stairs, and into her room,
undressed quickly, and slipped into bed with a long-forgotten sense of
guilt. Roland was snoring. In all the house Pierre alone was awake,
and had heard her come in.