JACQUES AND MARIE
You remember tall Jacques, that long, pale and quiet lad, do you not? I
see him yet, walking in the shade of the plane trees on the college
green; he walked with a slow and firm step, kicking away the pebbles
with his foot; he laughed tranquilly, was logical in his smiles and
lived in supreme indifference. I remember that, on a day of effusion, he
confided to me the secret of his strength. I understood nothing of his
disclosures, except that he designed to live happily by ripening his
heart and mind.
When fifteen, I dreamed only of tall Jacques. I envied his long blond
hair, his superb indolence. He was, among us, a type of elegance and
aristocratic disdain. I was surprised by his selfish nature, which had
nothing either young or generous about it; I admired the dull and cold
lad who went among us with the indulgent and superior gravity of a man.
I have seen tall Jacques again. He is my neighbor; he lives in the same
house as I, two floors lower down. Yesterday, as I was mounting the
stairway, I met a young man and a young woman who were descending. The
young man, without hesitation and in the most natural manner in the
world, extended me his hand.
"How are you, Claude?" he said to me.
He acted as if he had quitted me only the previous day. He had scarcely
looked at my face, but I looked at his in the partial obscurity of the
landing, without being able to recognize his features. His hand was
cold. I know not by what strange sensation I recognized his calm and
indifferent flesh.
"Is it you, Jacques?" I cried. "Good heavens! you are taller than ever!"
"Yes, yes, it is I," answered he, with a smile. "I lodge there, at the
end of the passage, number 17. Come and see me this evening, between
seven and eight o'clock."
And he went down-stairs, without turning his head, preceded by the young
woman who stared at me with the wide open eyes of a child. I stood still
for an instant, leaning over the railing, and looked after this youth
who was departing with a calm step, while my heart was leaping violently
in my breast.
In the evening, I went down to number 17. The chamber was fitted up with
the false and discouraging luxury of the furnished lodging-houses of
Paris. You cannot imagine, brothers, the wretched and shameful air of
the frayed red hangings, gray with dust, of the dirty and greasy
furniture, of the cracked faïences, of the nameless objects, rags and
wrecks which were spread out along the damp walls. My mansarde is barer,
but not so hideous. Two large and lofty windows, garnished with thin
muslin curtains, threw a raw light over all this rubbish. One saw a
wardrobe with glass doors, which was tarnished and had one side
broken; a bed enveloped by faded curtains; a miserable sofa
and deplorable arm-chairs, yellow from use; besides, the room
contained a toilet-bureau, a desk, a table, chairs, odd pieces of
furniture--furniture which had served in dining-rooms, bed-chambers,
parlors and offices. The general effect had I know not what of
pretentiousness and filth which disgusted me. At the first glance, one
might think he had entered the chamber of the right sort of people; at
the second, one saw the dirt on the mahogany and on the damask, and one
felt that he was amid vice and slovenliness.
I was saddened by the unhealthful aspect of this chamber; I breathed
with disgust the thick and nauseous air, smelling of dust, old varnish
and faded stuffs, a biting and stifling odor which is common to all
furnished lodging-houses.
Jacques, seated at the desk, was toiling away peacefully, a Code open
before him. The young woman I had met on the stairway was lying upon the
sofa, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, silent and grave.
Jacques half turned his chair; his face appeared to me in the full
light. It was still the same visage of other days, a superb and
indifferent visage; one read in it a strong will, made up of selfishness
and coldness. The man had become what the boy promised to be. Our former
comrade must be what the world calls a practical and serious person; he
has an aim: he wishes to be a counselor, a lawyer or a notary, and moves
onward towards his goal with all the power of his tranquillity. With
closed heart and calm flesh, he accepts this world without either thanks
or revolt. Jacques has an honest nature, a just mind; he will live
honorably, according to duty and custom; he will not weaken, because he
will not have to weaken; he will pass on, straight and firm, having
nothing either to hate or to love. In his clear and empty eyes, I do not
find the soul; upon his pale lips I do not see the blood of the heart.
In the presence of this quiet and smiling young man, bending over his
law books and extending to me his cool hand, I thought of myself,
brothers, of my poor being incessantly shaken by the fever of wishes and
regrets. I advance staggeringly; I have not to protect me Jacques'
imperturbable tranquillity, his silence of heart and of soul. I am all
flesh, all love; I feel myself profoundly vibrate at the least
sensation. Events lead me; I can neither conduct nor surmount them.
To-morrow, in my free life, if I should happen to wound the world, the
world will turn from me, because I obeyed my pride and my tenderness.
Jacques will be saluted, having followed the common route. I dare not
say aloud that virtue is a question of temperament; but, brothers, I
think all the same that the Jacqueses upon this earth are basely
virtuous, while the Claudes have the frightful misfortune of having in
them an eternal tempest, an immense desire for the good, which agitates
them and leads them beyond the judgment of the crowd.
The young woman had taken her glance from the ceiling and was looking at
me, with partially open lips and curious eyes. Her face had the
transparent whiteness of wax, with dull flushes on the cheeks; her pale
lips, her soft and brown eyelids gave to her visage the air of a sick
and resigned child. She was fifteen, and, at times, when she smiled, one
would have thought her scarcely twelve.
While Jacques was talking to me in his slow voice, I could not take my
eyes from the young girl's touching countenance, so youthful and so
faded. There were upon her frank forehead profound lassitude and
languor; the blood no longer flowed beneath her skin; the shivers of
life no longer made her slumbering flesh tremble. Have you ever seen, in
her cradle, a little girl whom fever has rendered whiter and more
innocent than usual? She sleeps with her eyes wide open; she has the
gentle and peaceful visage of an angel; she suffers and she seems to
smile. The strange little girl whom I had before me, that woman who had
remained a child, resembled her sister in the cradle. Only, in her case,
it was more pitiful to see upon a forehead of fifteen so much purity and
so much pallor, all the innocent graces of a young girl and all the
shameful fatigues of a woman.
She had thrown back her arms and was supporting her languishing head
upon her hands. I was ignorant of her history; I knew not who she was or
what she was doing in this chamber. But, from her entire being, I saw
the innocence of her heart and the disgrace of her life; I recognized
the youthfulness of her glances and the premature age of her blood; I
said to myself that she was dying of decrepitude at fifteen, with a
spotless soul. Emaciated and weakened, she would expire like a fallen
creature, but with the smile of an angel upon her lips.
I sat for two full hours between Jacques and Marie, contemplating these
two beings, studying their countenances. I could not conjecture what had
brought such a man and such a woman together. Then, I thought of
Laurence, and comprehended that unions existed which could not be
avoided.
Jacques seems to me satisfied with the existence he leads. He toils, he
regulates his pleasures and his studies; he lives the life of a student
without impatience, even with a certain tranquil satisfaction. I noticed
that he showed some pride in receiving me in such a beautiful chamber;
he does not see all the ignoble ugliness of the false and wretched
luxury which surrounds him. Besides, he is neither vain nor a coxcomb;
he is a great deal too practical to have such defects. He spoke to me
only of his hopes, of his future position; he is in haste to be no
longer young and to live as becomes a grave man. Meanwhile, in order to
be like the rest of mankind, he consents to inhabit a chamber at fifty
francs per month rent, he wishes to smoke, to drink a little, and even
to have a sweetheart. But he considers all this simply as a custom which
he cannot refuse; he designs, after having passed his final examination,
to disembarrass himself of his cigar, of Marie and of his glass as
pieces of furniture thenceforward useless. He has calculated, nearly to
the minute, the time when he will have a right to the respect of worthy
people.
Marie listened to Jacques' theories with perfect calmness. She did not
appear to comprehend that she was one of those pieces of furniture which
a young man would abandon on removing from one circle of society to
another. The poor girl, doubtless, cares very little who protects her,
provided that she has a sofa upon which she can rest her painful limbs.
Besides, Jacques and Marie talked together with a gentleness which
surprised me. They seemed to accept each other, to take care of each
other. There is not love, not even friendship in their discourse; it is
a polite language which shuns every quarrel and keeps the heart in a
state of complete indifference. Jacques must have been the inventor of
this language.
After an hour had elapsed, Jacques declared that he could not afford to
lose any more time; he resumed his work, begging me to remain, assuring
me that my presence would not annoy him in any way whatever. I drew my
chair up to the sofa, and chatted in a low voice with Marie. This woman
attracted me; I felt for her all the tenderness and pity of a father.
She talked like a child, now in monosyllables, now with volubility,
enthusiastically and without pausing. I had formed a correct opinion of
her: her intelligence and heart have remained those of an infant, while,
physically, she has grown up and strayed from the path which leads to
true happiness. She is exquisitely innocent; horribly so sometimes,
when, with a sweet smile upon her lips and large, astonished eyes, she
allows rude words to escape from her delicate mouth. She does not blush,
being totally ignorant of blushes; she does not seem to realize her
condition, and is slowly dying, without knowing either what she is or
what are the other young girls who turn away their heads when she passes
them on the streets.
Little by little, she told me the story of her life. I was able, phrase
by phrase, to reconstruct this lamentable story. A connected narrative
would not have satisfied me, for I should have hesitated to believe. I
preferred that she should make a confession, without knowing she was
doing so, by partial avowals, in the course of conversation.
Marie thinks she is fifteen years old. She does not know where she was
born, but vaguely remembers a woman who beat her, her mother without
doubt. Her earliest recollections date from the streets; she recalls
that she played there and that she slept there. In fact, her life has
been a long walk in the thoroughfares. It would be very difficult for
her to tell what she did up to the age of eight; when I questioned her
in regard to her early years, she replied that she had forgotten all
about them, except that she was very hungry and very cold. In her eighth
year, like all the little outcasts, she sold flowers. She slept then at
the Fontainebleau gate, in a large, gloomy garret which was the refuge
of a whole herd of children of the same age as herself, all of whom had
been abandoned by their parents to the cold charity of the world. Until
she was fourteen, she went to this kennel, choosing her corner every
night, sometimes well received by her companions, sometimes beaten by
them, growing up amid wretchedness and want, nobody stretching out a
hand to save her or uttering a word to awaken her heart. She was in the
deepest ignorance, and did not even know that she possessed a mind and a
soul. She acquired evil ways, without suspecting that evil existed; at
present, though she had become a woman of the world, she still had her
childish face and her mind was yet infantile and innocent. She had
strayed too early in life for sin to touch her soul.
I now understood the meaning of her strange visage, made up of
shamelessness and innocence, of beauty at once youthful and faded. I had
the key to the mystery of this cynical girl, this weary woman, who was
dying with the calmness and the whiteness of a martyr. She was the
daughter of the great city, and the great city had made of her a
monstrous creature neither a child nor a woman. In that being, whose
soul no one had awakened, that soul still slumbered. The body itself
had, doubtless, never been aroused. Marie was a creature simple in mind
and flesh, who, while she had trodden muddy paths, had remained pure
amid the mud, knowing nothing and accepting everything. I saw her before
me, already branded, with her sweet smile, talking to me of herself, in
her somewhat hoarse voice, as our little sisters talk to us of their
dolls, and I felt a sickening sensation take possession of my heart.
When Marie reached fourteen, an old woman, who had no right whatever to
her, sold her. She allowed herself to be bought; she almost offered
herself for sale, as she had offered her bouquets of violets. She still
had rosy cheeks, and her laughter rang out gayly. She now had silk
dresses and jewels; she accepted the silk and the gold as she would have
accepted playthings, tearing, wasting everything. But Marie lived thus,
because she did not know that one could live in any other way; she could
not appreciate the value of luxury, and would have accepted with
indifference either a hovel or a hôtel. It pleased her to live in
idleness, to look at the walls; suffering, which had already bent her,
made her love repose, a sort of vague reverie, on coming out of which
she seemed uneasy and agitated. When one interrogated her, asking her
what she had seen, she responded in a bewildered tone: "I do not know!"
She lived thus for nearly a year, running about among the furnished
lodging houses, sometimes living in one, sometimes in another, without
losing anything of her serenity. As I showed some surprise and could not
vanquish all the disgust with which such an existence filled me, she was
greatly amazed and did not in the least understand my feelings.
One evening, poverty returned to her, and Marie was on her way back to
the garret at the Fontainebleau gate, when she met Jacques. She told me
of this meeting in a voice which I shall never forget, with a stony look
in her eyes and noisy laughter upon her lips. It was she who spoke to
Jacques, asking him for his arm because it was dark and the pavement was
slippery. She had no other thought than to obtain his aid for the
moment. Jacques questioned her, drew her story from her and took pity on
her. He offered her a shelter more suitable for her than that to which
she was going, and took her to the house in which he lived. She made no
objection, maintaining her usual calmness. She would not, perhaps, have
asked any one for a bed, for she had thought only of the straw in the
garret at the Fontainebleau gate, but she accepted the feathers and
white sheets, which had fallen from the sky, without either joy or
repugnance. From that time, she had lived as much as possible on the
sofa.
I can easily imagine that Jacques thought he had made a good
acquisition, in offering his protection to Marie. She was in every way
suited to become his companion. She was of a weak and calm nature, and
would not trouble him in his indifference; she was a careless girl of
whom he could easily disembarrass himself, a woman charming in her
pallor, who had all the grace of youth without having either its
caprices or its inconsistency. Besides, Marie, though sometimes
suffering, has her days of life and gayety; she is not yet nailed to a
mattress, and, when she laughs in the sunshine, among her flaxen curls,
she glows with enough beauty to make Jacques himself dream.
It pleases me, brothers, to talk to you of Jacques and Marie.
I remained two or three hours with them, forgetting my sufferings, and I
wished to forget them still longer in describing to you my visit. It
will give you a glimpse of a world of which you are ignorant. That world
is touching; the study of it is biting, full of vertigo. I would
penetrate into its hearts and souls; I am attracted by these women and
men who live around me. Perhaps, when I analyze them, I shall be
discouraged at the result, but I love to analyze, nevertheless. These
people live a life so strange, that I believe myself always to be upon
the point of discovering in them new truths.