Then I rushed to her husband, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I
cried: “Monsieur Chantal, my friend Chantal, listen to me; your wife is
calling; pull yourself together, we must go downstairs.”
He stammered: “Yes--yes--I am coming--poor girl! I am coming--tell her
that I am coming.”
He began conscientiously to wipe his face on the cloth which, for the
last two or three years, had been used for marking off the chalk from
the slate; then he appeared, half white and half red, his forehead,
nose, cheeks and chin covered with chalk, and his eyes swollen, still
full of tears.
I caught him by the hands and dragged him into his bedroom, muttering:
“I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, Monsieur Chantal, for having
caused you such sorrow--but--I did not know--you--you understand.”
He squeezed my hand, saying: “Yes--yes--there are difficult moments.”
Then he plunged his face into a bowl of water. When he emerged from it
he did not yet seem to me to be presentable; but I thought of a little
stratagem. As he was growing worried, looking at himself in the mirror,
I said to him: “All you have to do is to say that a little dust flew
into your eye and you can cry before everybody to your heart's content.”
He went downstairs rubbing his eyes with his handkerchief. All were
worried; each one wished to look for the speck, which could not
be found; and stories were told of similar cases where it had been
necessary to call in a physician.
I went over to Mademoiselle Pearl and watched her, tormented by an
ardent curiosity, which was turning to positive suffering. She must
indeed have been pretty, with her gentle, calm eyes, so large that it
looked as though she never closed them like other mortals. Her gown
was a little ridiculous, a real old maid's gown, which was unbecoming
without appearing clumsy.
It seemed to me as though I were looking into her soul, just as I had
into Monsieur Chantal's; that I was looking right from one end to the
other of this humble life, so simple and devoted. I felt an irresistible
longing to question her, to find out whether she, too, had loved him;
whether she also had suffered, as he had, from this long, secret,
poignant grief, which one cannot see, know, or guess, but which breaks
forth at night in the loneliness of the dark room. I was watching her,
and I could observe her heart beating under her waist, and I wondered
whether this sweet, candid face had wept on the soft pillow and she had
sobbed, her whole body shaken by the violence of her anguish.
I said to her in a low voice, like a child who is breaking a toy to see
what is inside: “If you could have seen Monsieur Chantal crying a while
ago it would have moved you.”
She started, asking: “What? He was weeping?”
“Ah, yes, he was indeed weeping!”
“Why?”
She seemed deeply moved. I answered:
“On your account.”
“On my account?”
“Yes. He was telling me how much he had loved you in the days gone by;
and what a pang it had given him to marry his cousin instead of you.”
Her pale face seemed to grow a little longer; her calm eyes, which
always remained open, suddenly closed so quickly that they seemed shut
forever. She slipped from her chair to the floor, and slowly, gently
sank down as would a fallen garment.