THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL
I am jealous--jealous of Laurence!
That Pâquerette has filled me with the most frightful torment. I have
descended, one by one, all the rounds of the ladder of despair; now, my
infamy and my sufferings are complete.
I know the name of that unknown warmth which filled my breast and
stifled me. That warmth was jealousy, a burning wave of anguish and
terror. This wave has rolled upward, it has invaded my entire being.
Now, there is no portion of me which is not in pain and jealous, which
does not complain of the horrible pressure beneath which all my flesh
cries out.
I know not in what manner others are jealous. As for me, I am jealous
with all my body, with all my heart. When doubt has once entered into
me, it watches, it works pitilessly; it wounds me every second, searches
me, constantly making further encroachments. The pain is physical; my
stomach is convulsed, my limbs grow heavy beneath me, my head feels
hollow, weakness and fever seize upon me. And, above these afflictions
of the nerves and muscles, I feel the anguish of my heart, deep and
terrifying, which weighs me down, burns me incessantly. A single idea
turns upon itself in the immense emptiness of my thoughts: I am no
longer loved, I am deceived; my brain beats like a bell with this one
sound, all my vitals have the same quiver, twisted and torn. Nothing
could be more painful than these hours of jealousy which strike me
doubly, in my body and in my affection. The suffering of the flesh and
the suffering of the heart are united in a sensation of overwhelming
weight, which is inexorable, crushing me constantly. And I hold my
breath, abandoning myself, descending deeper and deeper into my
suspicions, aggravating my wound, withdrawing myself from life, living
only in the thought which is ruthlessly gnawing me.
If I suffered less, I would like to know of what my suffering is
composed. I would take a bitter pleasure in interrogating my body, in
questioning my tenderness. I am curious to see the uttermost depths of
my despair. Without doubt, a thousand wretched things are there--love,
selfishness, self-love, cowardice and evil passions, to say nothing of
the rebellion of the senses, of the vanities of the intelligence. This
woman who is going away from me, weary of my caresses, and who prefers
another to me, wounds me in every portion of my being; she disdains me,
she declares by her acts that she has found a love sweeter, purer, than
mine. Besides, there is, above all, a feeling of immense solitude. I
feel myself forsaken, I quiver with fright; I cannot live without this
creature, whom I have taken pleasure in regarding as an eternal
companion; I am cold, I tremble; I would rather die than remain
deserted.
I exact that Laurence shall be mine. I have only her in the whole world,
and I cling to her as a miser clings to his beloved gold. My heart
bleeds when I think that, perhaps, Pâquerette is right, and that
to-morrow I shall be shorn of love. I do not wish to remain all alone in
my poverty, in the depths of my abjection. I am afraid.
And, nevertheless, I cannot close my eyes to the terrible reality, I
cannot live in ignorance. Certain young men, when they feel that a woman
is necessary to them, accept her such as she is; they do not care to
risk their peace of mind by probing into her past life. So far as I am
concerned, I realize that I have not sufficient strength to ignore
anything. I doubt. My unfortunate mind urges me to disabuse or convince
myself; I must know everything about Laurence, that I may die if she has
resolved to abandon me.
In the evening, I pretend to go out for a walk, and slip furtively into
Marie's apartment. Pâquerette is dozing; the dying girl smiles feebly
upon me, without turning her head. I go to the window and there
establish myself. From the window I keep a close watch, leaning out to
see into the courtyard and into Jacques' chamber. Sometimes, I partly
open the door and listen to the sounds on the stairway. These are cruel
hours. My excited mind toils laboriously, my limbs tremble with anxiety
and prolonged attention. When voices ascend from Jacques' chamber,
emotion stops up my throat. If I hear Laurence leave our mansarde and
she does not appear upon the threshold below, a burning sensation shoots
through my breast: I have counted the steps, and I say to myself that
she has stopped on the fourth floor. Then, I lean over into the
courtyard at the risk of falling; I long to climb in through that window
which opens five mètres below me. I imagine I hear the sound of kisses,
I think I catch my name uttered amid mocking laughter. Then, when
Laurence at last shows herself upon the threshold, in the courtyard, the
burning sensation shoots through me again. I remain leaning out of the
window, panting, broken. She surprises me, for I did not expect to see
her. I commence to doubt: I no longer know if I correctly counted the
steps she had to descend.
For a long while, I have played this cruel game with myself. I placed
myself in ambush, and, the blood mounting to my eyes, I can no longer
recall what I saw. Conviction flees from me; suspicions are born and
die, more devouring each day. I have an infernal aptitude for spying out
and arguing concerning the causes of my suffering; my mind greedily
seizes upon the slightest facts; it masses them together, links them in
a continuous chain, draws marvellous conclusions from them. I execute
this little task with an astonishing lucidity; I compare, I discuss, I
accept, I reject, like a veritable examining magistrate. But, as soon as
I think I have possession of a certainty, my heart bursts out, my flesh
quivers, and I am no more than a child who weeps on feeling the reality
escape from him.
I would like to penetrate into the lives of my companions, to examine
the mysteries; I am curious to analyze all I am ignorant of, I am
strangely delighted by those delicate operations of the intelligence
searching for an unknown solution. There is an exquisite enjoyment in
weighing each word, each breath; one has but a few vague grounds for
suspicion, and one arrives, by a slow, sure and mathematical march, at
the knowledge of the entire truth. I can employ my sagacity in the
service of my brethren. When I am concerned, however, I am agitated by
such deep emotion that I am unable either to see or hear.
Last evening, I remained for two hours in Marie's chamber. The night was
dark and damp. Opposite, upon the bare wall, Jacques' window threw a
great square patch of yellow light. Shadows came and went in this square
patch; they had a fantastic look and extraordinary dimensions.
I had heard Laurence close our door, and she had not gone down into the
courtyard. I recognized Jacques' shadow on the wall, long and straight,
tossing about with sharply defined and precise movements. There was
another shadow, a shorter one, slower and more undecided in its motions;
I thought that I also recognized this shadow, which seemed to me to have
an unruly head increased in size by a woman's chignon.
At times, the square patch of yellow light stretched out, pale and wan,
empty and calm. I leaned out of the window, breathlessly; I stared with
painful attention, suffering from the emptiness and calmness of the
light, wishing with anguish that a black mass would appear, betraying to
me its secret. Then, suddenly, the square was peopled: a shadow passed
over it, two shadows mingled together, out of all proportion and so
strangely confused that I could neither seize the forms nor explain the
movements. My mind sought with despair for the meaning of these dark
stains which lengthened, broadened, sometimes permitting me to catch a
partial glimpse of a head or an arm. The head and the arm instantly lost
shape, melted into one perplexing spot of blackness. I no longer saw
anything but a sort of oscillating wave of ink, spreading in every
direction, smearing the wall. I strove to comprehend, and thought I
distinguished monstrous silhouettes of animals, strange profiles. I lost
myself in this distressing vision, this fearful nightmare; I followed
with terror those masses which danced without noise; I trembled at the
thought of what I was about to discover; I wept with rage on realizing
that all this had no meaning whatever, and that I would learn nothing.
Suddenly, the wave of ink, in a final leap, in a last contortion, flowed
along the wall, along the darkness. The square patch of yellow light was
again deserted and dull. The shadows had passed away, without revealing
anything to me. I leaned forward, overflowing with despair, awaiting the
terrible spectacle, saying to myself that my life depended upon those
black stains which were capering about on the yellowed walls.
A sort of madness finally took possession of me in the presence of this
ironical drama which was being played opposite to me. These strange
personages, these rapid and incomprehensible scenes, mocked me; I wished
to put an end to this lugubrious farce. I felt myself broken by emotion,
devoured by doubt.
I quietly left Marie's chamber; I removed my shoes and placed them upon
the landing; then, oppressed, anxious, I began to descend the stairway,
pausing upon every step, hearing the very silence, frightened by the
slightest sounds that mounted to me. Arrived in front of Jacques' door,
after five long minutes of fear and hesitation, I bent down slowly,
painfully, and heard the bones of my neck crack. I applied my right eye
to the keyhole, but saw only darkness. Then, I glued my ear against the
wood of the door: the silence seemed filled with buzzing sounds, but
there was in my head a great murmur which prevented me from hearing
distinctly. Flames passed before my eyes, a hollow and increasing
rumbling filled the corridor. The wood of the door burned my ear, it
appeared to me to be vibrating in every part. Behind that door I thought
I caught at times half stifled sighs; then, death seemed to me to have
passed through that chamber and left there intense and terrible silence.
And I knew no more. I could tear nothing definite from the frightful
stillness, from the oppressive gloom. I do not know how long I remained
bent down against the door; I remember only that the icy coldness of the
floor froze my feet and that a tremendous quaking shook my body, which
was covered with a cold perspiration. Anguish and terror held me nailed
to the spot, shrinking within myself, not daring to move, twisted by
jealousy, quivering as if I had just committed a crime.
At last, I reascended the stairway, staggering, bruising myself against
the walls. I again opened Marie's window, still having need of
suffering, unable to withdraw myself from the biting delight of my
torments. The wall opposite was a sheet of blackness; the curtain had
fallen upon the drama, and night reigned. As I went out of the room, I
gazed at Marie who was slumbering peacefully, with clasped hands. I
believe that I knelt before the bed, addressing to I know not what
divinity a prayer, the words of which came spontaneously to my lips.
I went to bed, shivering, and closed my eyes. I saw, through my eyelids,
the glimmer of the candle, placed upon a little table opposite me, and I
thus had a broad pink horizon which I peopled with lamentable figures. I
possess the sad power of dreaming, the faculty of creating from
fragments of every kind personages who almost breathe the breath of
actual life; I see them, I touch them; they play like living actors the
scenes which are passing through my mind. I suffer and I enjoy with
greater intensity as my ideas materialize themselves and as I perceive
them, my eyes closed, with all my senses, with all my flesh.
Amid the pink glimmer, I saw Laurence and Jacques. I saw the chamber
which had appeared to me dark, silent, and now it was full of laughter,
of brilliancy. My companion and my friend, in a flood of sparkling
light, were chatting lovingly together; they sat there before my eyes,
playing their rôles in the miserable drama which my dismayed mind
dreamed. It was no longer a simple thought, an idea arising from heart
jealousy, but a series of horrible, living pictures of frightful
distinctness. I was shocked and cried out; I felt that the drama was
being enacted within me, that I could veil these images, but I took a
morbid delight in bringing them into bold relief, in giving their
outlines greater clearness, in bestowing upon them the hues of actual
life; I plunged at will into the horrible spectacle I had called up,
that I might suffer further torture. My doubts were transformed into
flesh and blood; I knew and I saw at last; I had found in my imagination
the full certainty for which I had vainly searched at Marie's window and
Jacques' door.
Laurence entered and shut the door roughly. She brought in with her from
without an indescribable odor of tobacco and liquor. I did not open my
eyes, listening to the sound of her footsteps and the rustling of her
garments while she was disrobing. I looked at the pink glimmer, and,
beyond it, it seemed to me that I saw this woman, when she passed before
me, laugh in scornful pity and mock me with a gesture, believing that I
was asleep.
She sat down in a chair, uttering a slight sigh, and leisurely concluded
her preparations for the night. Then, all the pain I had experienced
during that terrible evening returned and mounted to my throat. An
utterly boundless rage took entire possession of me at the sight of this
cold and treacherous creature calmly taking her ease, and seeming to
have wholly forgotten me. I sat up in bed, clenching my fists.
"Where have you been?" I asked Laurence, in a hollow voice, trembling
with anger.
She slowly opened her eyes, which were already half-closed, and stared
at me for an instant, astonished, without replying. Then, with a shrug
of her shoulders, she answered:
"I have been to the fruit-woman's up the street. She invited me
yesterday to visit her, this evening, and drink coffee with her."
I saw her face from forehead to chin: her weary eyelids hung down, so
heavy with sleep were they; her features wore an expression of satiety
and satisfaction. I felt the blood blind me to see her so contented,
caring so little for having forsaken me. Her neck, broad and puffed up,
was extended towards me, soliciting me to commit a crime; it was thick
and short, impudent and shameless; it shone insolently, mocking and
defying me. Everything which surrounded me had disappeared; I no longer
saw anything but that neck.
"You lie!" I cried.
And I seized the neck with my bent fingers, red flashes passing before
my eyes. I shook Laurence violently, grasping her with all my strength.
She did not offer the slightest resistance, but swayed to and fro
beneath my hands, without a complaint, flabby and brutalized. I know not
what pleasure I experienced on feeling her warm and supple body bend,
yield to the force of my mad rage. Then, an icy shiver penetrated me and
I was filled with fear: I thought I saw blood trickle along my fingers;
I threw myself back upon the pillow, sobbing, intoxicated with grief.
Laurence put her hand to her neck. She took three long breaths; then,
she sat down again, turning her back to me, without a word, without a
tear.
I had shaken her hair loose. Upon the nape of her neck I perceived a
bluish trace, made darker by the shadow of her locks which half
concealed her shoulders. My tears blinded me, my heart was full of
strong and tender compassion. I wept over myself who had just ill
treated a woman, I wept over Laurence whose bones I had heard cry out
beneath my fingers. My entire being was a prey to keen remorse; my
tortured soul despairingly sought to repair what could never be
forgotten. I recoiled, in disgust and fright, from the wild beast which
I had felt awaken and die within me; I suffered from terror, shame and
pity.
I approached Laurence; I clasped my arms around her, whispering in her
ear, in a doleful and caressing tone. I know not what I said to her. My
heart was full and I emptied it. My words were a long prayer, ardent and
humble, meek and violent, overflowing with pride and baseness. I spoke
of the past, of the present, of the future; I told the story of my
heart, without the least reserve; I probed the utmost depths of my
being, in order that I might hide nothing. I had need of pardon, I had
also need of pardoning my companion. I accused Laurence, I demanded
loyalty and frankness of her. I told her how much she had made me weep.
I did not address reproaches to her the better to excuse myself; my lips
opened in spite of me, all the present filled me, my daily thoughts
united in a single tender and resigned complaint, free from even the
least trace of anger, the least trace of animosity. My reproaches and
confessions were mingled with sudden outpourings of love and tenderness;
I spoke the puerile and indescribable language of excitement, soaring to
the very sky, dragging myself along the ground; I made use of the
adorable and ridiculous poesy of children and lovers; I was mad,
passionate, intoxicated. And I went on thus, as in a dream, questioning,
answering, speaking in a deep and regular voice, pressing Laurence
against my bosom. For a whole hour I heard the words which, of
themselves, flowed from my mouth, gentle, touching; I solaced myself by
listening to this penetrating music; it seemed to me that my poor,
wounded heart was rocking itself and putting itself to sleep.
Laurence, impassible, her eyes open, stared at the wall. My voice did
not appear to reach her. She sat there as mute, as dead, as if she had
been in the midst of thick darkness, in the midst of profound silence.
Her hard forehead, her cold and tightly closed lips, announced her firm
resolution not to listen, not to reply.
Then, I felt a keen desire to obtain a word from this woman. I would
have given my blood to hear the sound of Laurence's voice; all my being
went out towards her, conjured her, begged her with clasped hands, to
speak, to utter but a single syllable. I wept at her silence; a sort of
vague uneasiness gained upon me as she became more sullen, more
impenetrable. I felt myself gliding towards madness, towards a fixed
idea; I had imperious need of a response; I made superhuman efforts,
uttered prayers and threats, to obtain the satisfaction of this need
which was devouring me. I multiplied my questions, emphasized my demands
and changed the form of my interrogations, rendering them more urgent; I
had recourse to all my gentleness, to all my violence, imploring,
ordering, speaking in a caressing and submissive tone, then allowing
myself to be carried away by anger, and afterwards making myself more
humble, more insinuating still. Laurence, without a quiver, without a
glance, seemed to ignore my presence. All my will, all my furious
desire, to make her speak broke against the pitiless deafness of this
creature who refused to listen to me.
This woman was escaping from me. I saw an insurmountable barrier between
her and me. I held her form tightly clasped, I felt that form abandon
itself with disdain to my embrace. But I could not open that soul and
take possession of it; the heart and the mind had hidden themselves
away; I pressed only a lifeless rag, so weary, so dull, that it was as
nothing in my arms. And I loved this limp rag, I wished to keep it. I
clung with despair to the sole creature who remained to me in the world,
I exacted that she should belong to me, I had the fury of a miser when I
thought that I was about to be robbed of her and that she was quite
willing to allow herself to be stolen. I rebelled, I summoned all my
strength to defend my own. And I was pressing a corpse to my bosom, an
unknown thing which was a stranger to me and which I could not
understand. Oh! brothers, you are ignorant of this suffering, of these
bursts of love for an inanimate statue, of this cold resistance on the
part of an adored being, of this silence in answer to so many sobs, of
this voluntary death which might love, which one supplicates with all
his eloquence and which loves not.
When my voice failed me, when I despaired of ever animating Laurence, I
laid my head upon her breast, my ear against her heart. There, leaning
on this woman, my eyes open, staring at the wick of the candle which was
burning to a coal, I spent the night in thinking. I heard the rattle in
Marie's throat, broken by fits of coughing, which came to me through the
partition, lulling my thoughts.
I thought. I listened to the regular beating of Laurence's heart. I knew
that nothing was there but a wave of blood; I said to myself that I was
following in their rhythm the sounds of a well regulated machine, and
that the voice which reached me was only the ticking of an unconscious
clock, obeying a mere spring. And, nevertheless, I was disturbed; I
would have liked to take the machine apart, to search out and study its
most minute pieces; I thought seriously, in my delirium, of opening the
breast upon which my head reposed, of removing the heart that I might
see why it beat so gently and so regularly.
Marie's rattle continued, and Laurence's heart beat almost in my head.
On hearing these two sounds, which were sometimes mingled together and
made but one, I thought of life.
I know not why an insatiable longing for innocence pursues me in my
abasement. I have constantly in my brain the thought of immaculate
purity, lofty, inaccessible, and this thought awakens more biting in the
depths of each of my fits of despair.
While I leaned my head upon Laurence's faded bosom, I said to myself
that woman was born for a single love.
There is the truth, the only possible marriage. My soul is so exacting
that it wishes all the creature it loves, in her infancy, in her sleep,
in her entire life. It goes so far as to accuse dreams, so far as to
declare that a sweetheart is guilty who has received in a vision the
kiss of a shadowy adorer.
All young girls, even the purest and most sincere, have been the
recipients of attentions from the phantom lovers of their dreams; those
demons have held them in their arms, have made their innocent flesh
quiver, have given them the first caresses. Hence, when they find
husbands, they are no longer innocent, they no longer possess holy
ignorance.
As for me, I wished my bride to come to me as she had left the hands of
God; I wished her spotless, refined, not yet alive, and I would awaken
her. She would live in me, she would know me alone, she would have no
recollections save those which came to her through me. She would realize
the divine dream of an eternal marriage of the soul and body, drawing
everything from itself. But when a woman's lips have known other lips,
when she has trembled like a leaf at the kisses of others, love can be
nothing but daily anguish, hourly jealousy. Laurence does not belong to
me, she belongs to her remembrances; she twists in my arms, thinking,
perhaps, of former tendernesses; she is constantly escaping from me; she
has a whole life which has not been mine; she and I are not one flesh.
I love her and tear myself; I sob at the sight of this creature whom I
do not possess, whom I can no longer possess in her entirety.
The candle smoked, the chamber was full of thick, yellowish air. I heard
the rattling in Marie's throat, now coming to me through the partition
in jerky sounds. I listened to Laurence's heart, but could not
understand its language. This heart spoke, without doubt, an unknown
tongue; I held my breath, I gave my intelligence altogether to it, but I
utterly failed to grasp its meaning. Perhaps it was relating to me the
past of my wretched and treacherous companion, her story of shame and
misery. It beat slowly and ironically, letting the syllables fall from
it with an effort; it made no haste to finish, it seemed to take delight
in the recital of the horrible tale. I divined at times what it might be
saying. I had ignored the past, I had refused to become acquainted with
it, I had striven to forget it; but it voluntarily evoked itself, it
presented itself to my mind such as it must have been. I knew what
infamies it was necessary for me to imagine; but, amid the ignorance in
which I had shut myself up, I, without doubt, went beyond the real and
fell into a nightmare, exaggerating the evil. At this hour, I wished to
know everything, to obtain a complete revelation of the truth in all its
horror. I listened with the utmost attention to the cynical and heavy
heart, which was narrating to me in a low voice and an unknown language
the long and doleful story, but I could not follow the thread of the
narrative, I could only imagine a few words which I thought I
distinguished amid the unintelligible confusion of sounds.
Then, suddenly, Laurence's heart changed its language. It spoke of the
future, and I understood it. It beat distinctly, talking more rapidly,
with more violence, more irony. It said that it was going to the gutter
and that it was in haste to arrive there. Laurence would quit me on the
morrow, she would resume her life of chance; she would belong to the
crowd, she would descend the few steps which yet separated her from the
bottom of the sewer. Then, she would be a brute, she would no longer
feel anything, and she would declare herself perfectly happy and
contented. She would die some night upon the sidewalk, drunken and worn
out. The heart told me that the body would go to the dissecting-room,
and that the physicians would cut it to pieces to discover what bitter
and nauseous things it contained. At these accursed words, I saw
Laurence turned blue, dragged through the mud, covered with infamous
stains, stretched out, cold and stiff, upon the white marble slab of the
dissecting-table. The physicians were plunging sharp knives into the
bosom of her I loved so much as to be ready to lay down my life for her,
into the breast of the woman whom I held in my arms with the clutch of
desperation.
The vision enlarged its scope; the chamber became filled with phantoms.
A world of dissipation passed before me in a long, desolate procession.
Life, with all its horrors and shames, presented itself to my eyes in a
succession of frightful pictures. All the wretchedness of humanity arose
before me, draped in silk, covered with rags, young and beautiful, old
and bony. The parade of these men and these women, going to destruction,
lasted a long while and filled me with terror.
The heart beat, beat. It said to me now, in anger:
"I came from the darkness of sin and shall return to it. You love me,
but I shall never love you, for I am a dead heart and utterly worthless.
You have striven vainly to make yourself infamous; you wish to descend
to the mud, but the mud cannot ascend to you. You interrogate the
silence, you endeavor to obtain light from darkness; you are trying to
resuscitate an unknown corpse, which you would do better to carry
immediately to the dissecting-table!"
I knew nothing further. The heart ceased to beat audibly, the burning
wick of the candle was extinguished amid a flood of tallow. I remained
leaning upon Laurence's bosom, fancying myself in the depths of some
great black cavern, damp and deserted.
I still heard the rattle in Marie's throat.