The night was falling. From the grey heaven, where the first of the
stars were gleaming, a fine ashy dust seemed to be raining down on the
great city, raining down without cessation and slowly burying it. The
hollows were already hidden deep in gloom, and a line of cloud, like a
stream of ink, rose upon the horizon, engulfing the last streaks of
daylight, the wavering gleams which were retreating towards the west.
Below Passy but a few stretches of roofs remained visible; and as the
wave rolled on, darkness soon covered all.
“What a warm evening!” ejaculated Hélène, as she sat at the window,
overcome by the heated breeze which was wafted upwards from Paris.
“A grateful night for the poor,” exclaimed the Abbé, who stood behind
her. “The autumn will be mild.”
That Tuesday Jeanne had fallen into a doze at dessert, and her mother,
perceiving that she was rather tired, had put her to bed. She was
already fast asleep in her cot, while Monsieur Rambaud sat at the table
gravely mending a toy—a mechanical doll, a present from himself, which
both spoke and walked, and which Jeanne had broken. He excelled in such
work as this. Hélène on her side feeling the want of fresh air—for the
lingering heats of September were oppressive—had thrown the window wide
open, and gazed with relief on the vast gloomy ocean of darkness that
rolled before her. She had pushed an easy-chair to the window in order
to be alone, but was suddenly surprised to hear the Abbé speaking to
her. “Is the little one warmly covered?” he gently asked. “On these
heights the air is always keen.”
She made no reply, however; her heart was craving for silence. She was
tasting the delights of the twilight hour, the vanishing of all
surrounding objects, the hushing of every sound. Gleams, like those of
night-lights, tipped the steeples and towers; that on Saint-Augustin
died out first, the Panthéon for a moment retained a bluish light, and
then the glittering dome of the Invalides faded away, similar to a moon
setting in a rising sea of clouds. The night was like the ocean, its
extent seemingly increased by the gloom, a dark abyss wherein you
divined that a world lay hid. From the unseen city blew a mighty yet
gentle wind. There was still a hum; sounds ascended faint yet clear to
Hélène’s ears—the sharp rattle of an omnibus rolling along the quay,
the whistle of a train crossing the bridge of the Point-du-Jour; and
the Seine, swollen by the recent storms, and pulsing with the life of a
breathing soul, wound with increased breadth through the shadows far
below. A warm odor steamed upwards from the scorched roofs, while the
river, amidst this exhalation of the daytime heat, seemed to give forth
a cooling breeze. Paris had vanished, sunk in the dreamy repose of a
colossus whose limbs the night has enveloped, and who lies motionless
for a time, but with eyes wide open.
Nothing affected Hélène more than this momentary pause in the great
city’s life. For the three months during which she had been a close
prisoner, riveted to Jeanne’s bedside, she had had no other companion
in her vigil than the huge mass of Paris spreading out towards the
horizon. During the summer heats of July and August the windows had
almost always been left open; she could not cross the room, could not
stir or turn her head, without catching a glimpse of the ever-present
panorama. It was there, whatever the weather, always sharing in her
griefs and hopes, like some friend who would never leave her side. She
was still quite ignorant respecting it; never had it seemed farther
away, never had she given less thought to its streets and its citizens,
and yet it peopled her solitude. The sick-room, whose door was kept
shut to the outside world, looked out through its two windows upon this
city. Often, with her eyes fixed on its expanse, Hélène had wept,
leaning on the window-rail in order to hide her tears from her ailing
child. One day, too—the very day when she had imagined her daughter to
be at the point of death—she had remained for a long time, overcome and
choked with grief, watching the smoke which curled up from the Army
Bakehouse. Frequently, moreover, in hours of hopefulness she had here
confided the gladsome feelings of her heart to the dim and distant
suburbs. There was not a single monument which did not recall to her
some sensation of joy or sorrow. Paris shared in her own existence; and
never did she love it better than when the twilight came, and its day’s
work over, it surrendered itself to an hour’s quietude, forgetfulness,
and reverie, whilst waiting for the lighting of its gas.
“What a multitude of stars!” murmured Abbé Jouve. “There are thousands
of them gleaming.”
He had just taken a chair and sat down at her side. On hearing him, she
gazed upwards into the summer night. The heaven was studded with golden
lights. On the very verge of the horizon a constellation was sparkling
like a carbuncle, while a dust of almost invisible stars sprinkled the
vault above as though with glittering sand. Charles’s-Wain was slowly
turning its shaft in the night.
“Look!” said Hélène in her turn, “look at that tiny bluish star!
See—far away up there. I recognize it night after night. But it dies
and fades as the night rolls on.”
The Abbé’s presence no longer annoyed her. With him by her side, she
imagined the quiet was deepening around. A few words passed between
them after long intervals of silence. Twice she questioned him on the
names of the stars—the sight of the heavens had always interested
her—but he was doubtful and pleaded ignorance.
“Do you see,” she asked, “that lovely star yonder whose lustre is so
exquisitely clear?”
“On the left, eh?” he replied, “near another smaller, greenish one? Ah!
there are so many of them that my memory fails me.”
They again lapsed into silence, their eyes still turned upwards,
dazzled, quivering slightly at the sight of that stupendous swarming of
luminaries. In the vast depths of the heavens, behind thousands of
stars, thousands of others twinkled in ever-increasing multitudes, with
the clear brilliancy of gems. The Milky Way was already whitening,
displaying its solar specks, so innumerable and so distant that in the
vault of the firmament they form but a trailing scarf of light.
“It fills me with fear,” said Hélène in a whisper; and that she might
see it all no more she bent her head and glanced down on the gaping
abyss in which Paris seemed to be engulfed. In its depths not a light
could yet be seen; night had rolled over it and plunged it into
impenetrable darkness. Its mighty, continuous rumble seemed to have
sunk into a softer key.
“Are you weeping?” asked the Abbé, who had heard a sound of sobbing.
“Yes,” simply answered Hélène.
They could not see each other. For a long time she continued weeping,
her whole being exhaling a plaintive murmur. Behind them, meantime,
Jeanne lay at rest in innocent sleep, and Monsieur Rambaud, his whole
attention engrossed, bent his grizzled head over the doll which he had
dismembered. At times he could not prevent the loosened springs from
giving out a creaking noise, a childlike squeaking which his big
fingers, though plied with the utmost gentleness, drew from the
disordered mechanism. If the doll vented too loud a sound, however, he
at once stopped working, distressed and vexed with himself, and turning
towards Jeanne to see if he had roused her. Then once more he would
resume his repairing, with great precautions, his only tools being a
pair of scissors and a bodkin.
“Why do you weep, my daughter?” again asked the Abbé. “Can I not afford
you some relief?”
“Ah! let me be,” said Hélène; “these tears do me good. By-and-by,
by-and-by—”
A stifling sensation checked any further words. Once before, in this
very place, she had been convulsed by a storm of tears; but then she
had been alone, free to sob in the darkness till the emotion that wrung
her was dried up at its source. However, she knew of no cause of
sorrow; her daughter was well once more, and she had resumed the old
monotonous delightful life. But it was as though a keen sense of awful
grief had abruptly come upon her; it seemed as if she were rolling into
a bottomless abyss which she could not fathom, sinking with all who
were dear to her in a limitless sea of despair. She knew not what
misfortune hung over her head; but she was without hope, and could only
weep.
Similar waves of feeling had swept over her during the month of the
Virgin in the church laden with the perfume of flowers. And, as
twilight fell, the vastness of Paris filled her with a deep religious
impression. The stretch of plain seemed to expand, and a sadness rose
up from the two millions of living beings who were being engulfed in
darkness. And when it was night, and the city with its subdued rumbling
had vanished from view, her oppressed heart poured forth its sorrow,
and her tears overflowed, in presence of that sovereign peace. She
could have clasped her hands and prayed. She was filled with an intense
craving for faith, love, and a lapse into heavenly forgetfulness; and
the first glinting of the stars overwhelmed her with sacred terror and
enjoyment.
A lengthy interval of silence ensued, and then the Abbé spoke once
more, this time more pressingly.
“My daughter, you must confide in me. Why do you hesitate?”
She was still weeping, but more gently, like a wearied and powerless
child.
“The Church frightens you,” he continued. “For a time I thought you had
yielded your heart to God. But it has been willed otherwise. Heaven has
its own purposes. Well, since you mistrust the priest, why should you
refuse to confide in the friend?”
“You are right,” she faltered. “Yes, I am sad at heart, and need your
consolation. I must tell you of it all. When I was a child I seldom, if
ever, entered a church; now I cannot be present at a service without
feeling touched to the very depths of my being. Yes; and what drew
tears from me just now was that voice of Paris, sounding like a mighty
organ, that immeasurable night, and those beauteous heavens. Oh! I
would fain believe. Help me; teach me.”
Abbé Jouve calmed her somewhat by lightly placing his hand on her own.
“Tell me everything,” he merely said.
She struggled for a time, her heart wrung with anguish.
“There’s nothing to tell, I assure you. I’m hiding nothing from you. I
weep without cause, because I feel stifled, because my tears gush out
of their own accord. You know what my life has been. No sorrow, no sin,
no remorse could I find in it to this hour. I do not know—I do not
know—”
Her voice died away, and from the priest’s lips slowly came the words,
“You love, my daughter!”
She started; she dared not protest. Silence fell on them once more. In
the sea of shadows that slumbered before them a light had glimmered
forth. It seemed at their feet, somewhere in the abyss, but at what
precise spot they would have been unable to specify. And then, one by
one, other lights broke through the darkness, shooting into instant
life, and remaining stationary, scintillating like stars. It seemed as
though thousands of fresh planets were rising on the surface of a
gloomy lake. Soon they stretched out in double file, starting from the
Trocadero, and nimbly leaping towards Paris. Then these files were
intersected by others, curves were described, and a huge, strange,
magnificent constellation spread out. Hélène never breathed a word, but
gazed on these gleams of light, which made the heavens seemingly
descend below the line of the horizon, as though indeed the earth had
vanished and the vault of heaven were on every side. And Hélène’s heart
was again flooded with emotion, as a few minutes before when
Charles’s-Wain had slowly begun to revolve round the Polar axis, its
shaft in the air. Paris, studded with lights, stretched out, deep and
sad, prompting fearful thoughts of a firmament swarming with unknown
worlds.
Meanwhile the priest, in the monotonous, gentle voice which he had
acquired by years of duty in the confessional, continued whispering in
her ear. One evening in the past he had warned her; solitude, he had
said, would be harmful to her welfare. No one could with impunity live
outside the pale of life. She had imprisoned herself too closely, and
the door had opened to perilous thoughts.
“I am very old now, my daughter,” he murmured, “and I have frequently
seen women come to us weeping and praying, with a craving to find faith
and religion. Thus it is that I cannot be deceiving myself to-day.
These women, who seem to seek God in so zealous a manner, are but souls
rendered miserable by passion. It is a man whom they worship in our
churches.”
She was not listening; a strife was raging in her bosom, amidst her
efforts to read her innermost thoughts aright. And at last confession
came from her in a broken whisper:
“Oh! yes, I love, and that is all! Beyond that I know nothing—nothing!”
He now forbore to interrupt her; she spoke in short feverish sentences,
taking a mournful pleasure in thus confessing her love, in sharing with
that venerable priest the secret which had so long burdened her.
“I swear I cannot read my thoughts. This has come to me without my
knowing its presence. Perhaps it came in a moment. Only in time did I
realize its sweetness. Besides, why should I deem myself stronger than
I am? I have made no effort to flee from it; I was only too happy, and
to-day I have yet less power of resistance. My daughter was ill; I
almost lost her. Well! my love has been as intense as my sorrow; it
came back with sovereign power after those days of terror—and it
possesses me, I feel transported—”
She shivered and drew a breath.
“In short, my strength fails me. You were right, my friend, in thinking
it would be a relief to confide in you. But, I beseech you, tell me
what is happening in the depths of my heart. My life was once so
peaceful; I was so happy. A thunderbolt has fallen on me. Why on me?
Why not on another? I had done nothing to bring it on; I imagined
myself well protected. Ah, if you only knew—I know myself no longer!
Help me, save me!”
Then as she became silent, the priest, with the wonted freedom of the
confessor, mechanically asked the question:
“The name? tell me his name?”
She was hesitating, when a peculiar noise prompted her to turn her
head. It came from the doll which, in Monsieur Rambaud’s hands, was by
degrees renewing its mechanical life, and had just taken three steps on
the table, with a creaking of wheels and springs which showed that
there was still something faulty in its works. Then it had fallen on
its back, and but for the worthy man would have rebounded onto the
ground. He followed all its movements with outstretched hands, ready to
support it, and full of paternal anxiety. The moment he perceived
Hélène turn, he smiled confidently towards her, as if to give her an
assurance that the doll would recover its walking powers. And then he
once more dived with scissors and bodkin into the toy. Jeanne still
slept on.
Thereupon Hélène, her nerves relaxing under the influence of the
universal quiet, whispered a name in the priest’s ear. He never
stirred; in the darkness his face could not be seen. A silence ensued,
and he responded:
“I knew it, but I wanted to hear it from your own lips. My daughter,
yours must be terrible suffering.”
He gave utterance to no truisms on the subject of duty. Hélène,
overcome, saddened to the heart by this unemotional pity, gazed once
more on the lights which spangled the gloomy veil enshrouding Paris.
They were flashing everywhere in myriads, like the sparks that dart
over the blackened refuse of burnt paper. At first these twinkling dots
had started from the Trocadero towards the heart of the city. Soon
another coruscation had appeared on the left in the direction of
Montmartre; then another had burst into view on the right behind the
Invalides, and still another, more distant near the Panthéon. From all
these centres flights of flames were simultaneously descending.
“You remember our conversation,” slowly resumed the Abbé. “My opinion
has not changed. My daughter, you must marry.”
“I!” she exclaimed, overwhelmed with amazement. “But I have just
confessed to you—Oh, you know well I cannot—”
“You must marry,” he repeated with greater decision. “You will wed an
honest man.”
Within the folds of his old cassock he seemed to have grown more
commanding. His large comical-looking head, which, with eyes
half-closed, was usually inclined towards one shoulder, was now raised
erect, and his eyes beamed with such intensity that she saw them
sparkling in the darkness.
“You will marry an honest man, who will be a father to Jeanne, and will
lead you back to the path of goodness.”
“But I do not love him. Gracious Heaven! I do not love him!”
“You will love him, my daughter. He loves you, and he is good in
heart.”
Hélène struggled, and her voice sank to a whisper as she heard the
slight noise that Monsieur Rambaud made behind them. He was so patient
and so strong in his hope, that for six months he had not once intruded
his love on her. Disposed by nature to the most heroic self-sacrifice,
he waited in serene confidence. The Abbé stirred, as though about to
turn round.
“Would you like me to tell him everything? He would stretch out his
hand and save you. And you would fill him with joy beyond compare.”
She checked him, utterly distracted. Her heart revolted. Both of these
peaceful, affectionate men, whose judgment retained perfect equilibrium
in presence of her feverish passion, were sources of terror to her.
What world could they abide in to be able to set at naught that which
caused her so much agony? The priest, however, waved his hand with an
all-comprehensive gesture.
“My daughter,” said he, “look on this lovely night, so supremely still
in presence of your troubled spirit. Why do you refuse happiness?”
All Paris was now illumined. The tiny dancing flames had speckled the
sea of shadows from one end of the horizon to the other, and now, as in
a summer night, millions of fixed stars seemed to be serenely gleaming
there. Not a puff of air, not a quiver of the atmosphere stirred these
lights, to all appearance suspended in space. Paris, now invisible, had
fallen into the depths of an abyss as vast as a firmament. At times, at
the base of the Trocadero, a light—the lamp of a passing cab or
omnibus—would dart across the gloom, sparkling like a shooting star;
and here amidst the radiance of the gas-jets, from which streamed a
yellow haze, a confused jumble of house-fronts and clustering
trees—green like the trees in stage scenery—could be vaguely discerned.
To and fro, across the Pont des Invalides, gleaming lights flashed
without ceasing; far below, across a band of denser gloom, appeared a
marvellous train of comet-like coruscations, from whose lustrous tails
fell a rain of gold. These were the reflections in the Seine’s black
waters of the lamps on the bridge. From this point, however, the
unknown began. The long curve of the river was merely described by a
double line of lights, which ever and anon were coupled to other
transverse lines, so that the whole looked like some glittering ladder,
thrown across Paris, with its ends on the verge of the heavens among
the stars.
To the left there was another trench excavated athwart the gloom; an
unbroken chain of stars shone forth down the Champs-Elysees from the
Arc-de-Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, where a new cluster of
Pleiades was flashing; next came the gloomy stretches of the Tuileries
and the Louvre, the blocks of houses on the brink of the water, and the
Hotel-de-Ville away at the extreme end—all these masses of darkness
being parted here and there by bursts of light from some large square
or other; and farther and farther away, amidst the endless confusion of
roofs, appeared scattered gleams, affording faint glimpses of the
hollow of a street below, the corner of some boulevard, or the
brilliantly illuminated meeting-place of several thoroughfares. On the
opposite bank, on the right, the Esplanade alone could be discerned
with any distinctness, its rectangle marked out in flame, like an Orion
of a winter’s night bereft of his baldrick. The long streets of the
Saint-Germain district seemed gloomy with their fringe of infrequent
lamps; but the thickly populated quarters beyond were speckled with a
multitude of tiny flames, clustering like nebulae. Away towards the
outskirts, girdling the whole of the horizon, swarmed street-lamps and
lighted windows, filling these distant parts with a dust, as it were,
of those myriads of suns, those planetary atoms which the naked eye
cannot discover. The public edifices had vanished into the depths of
the darkness; not a lamp marked out their spires and towers. At times
you might have imagined you were gazing on some gigantic festival, some
illuminated cyclopean monument, with staircases, balusters, windows,
pediments, and terraces—a veritable cosmos of stone, whose wondrous
architecture was outlined by the gleaming lights of a myriad lamps. But
there was always a speedy return of the feeling that new constellations
were springing into being, and that the heavens were spreading both
above and below.
Hélène, in compliance with the all-embracing sweep of the priest’s
hand, cast a lingering look over illumined Paris. Here too she knew not
the names of those seeming stars. She would have liked to ask what the
blaze far below on the left betokened, for she saw it night after
night. There were others also which roused her curiosity, and some of
them she loved, whilst some inspired her with uneasiness or vexation.
“Father,” said she, for the first time employing that appellation of
affection and respect, “let me live as I am. The loveliness of the
night has agitated me. You are wrong; you would not know how to console
me, for you cannot understand my feelings.”
The priest stretched out his arms, then slowly dropped them to his side
resignedly. And after a pause he said in a whisper:
“Doubtless that was bound to be the case. You call for succor and
reject salvation. How many despairing confessions I have received! What
tears I have been unable to prevent! Listen, my daughter, promise me
one thing only; if ever life should become too heavy a burden for you,
think that one honest man loves you and is waiting for you. To regain
content you will only have to place your hand in his.”
“I promise you,” answered Hélène gravely.
As she made the avowal a ripple of laughter burst through the room.
Jeanne had just awoke, and her eyes were riveted on her doll pacing up
and down the table. Monsieur Rambaud, enthusiastic over the success of
his tinkering, still kept his hands stretched out for fear lest any
accident should happen. But the doll retained its stability, strutted
about on its tiny feet, and turned its head, whilst at every step
repeating the same words after the fashion of a parrot.
“Oh! it’s some trick or other!” murmured Jeanne, who was still half
asleep. “What have you done to it—tell me? It was all smashed, and now
it’s walking. Give it me a moment; let me see. Oh, you _are_ a
darling!”
Meanwhile over the gleaming expanse of Paris a rosy cloud was ascending
higher and higher. It might have been thought the fiery breath of a
furnace. At first it was shadowy-pale in the darkness—a reflected glow
scarcely seen. Then slowly, as the evening progressed, it assumed a
ruddier hue; and, hanging in the air, motionless above the city,
deriving its being from all the lights and noisy life which breathed
from below, it seemed like one of those clouds, charged with flame and
lightning, which crown the craters of volcanoes.