PRACTICAL ADVICE
This morning, on awaking, I had in me a glimmer of dolorous hope.
The window had remained open, and I was as cold as ice.
I pressed my hands against my forehead; I said to myself that all this
filth could not exist, that I dreamed at will of infamy. I had come out
of a horrible nightmare; still shaken by the vision, I smiled as I
thought it was only an illusion and that I was about to resume my calm
life in the sunshine. I refused to entertain my recollections, I
revolted, I denied. I had the indignation of honor.
No, it was impossible that I should suffer to this point, that life
should be so wretched, so shameful; it was impossible that there existed
such disgraces and such griefs.
I arose softly, and went to the window to breathe the morning air with
all my strength. I saw Jacques below me; he was whistling tranquilly and
gazing out into the courtyard. Then, the idea entered my mind to go
down-stairs, to question him; he was a cold and just man who would calm
my excitement, an honest man who would answer my questions with candor,
who would tell me if he loved Laurence and what were his relations with
her. By adopting this course, I might, perhaps, be cured. I would no
longer feel that terrible warmth which was devouring my breast, I would
trust Laurence, I would decide on a wise line of conduct which should
release both her and myself from the desperate and wounding love into
which circumstances had plunged us.
You see, brothers, that, though near the terrible dénouement, I still
was hopeful. Oh! my poor heart, you are only a big child whom each hurt
makes younger and warmer! As I passed Laurence, on my way to Jacques'
apartment, I gazed for an instant at that slumbering girl, and, after so
many tears, I again hoped to accomplish her reformation.
I found Jacques at work. He offered me his hand loyally, with a bright,
frank smile upon his lips. I looked him straight in the face; I did not
see in his peaceful features the treason I was searching for there. If
this young man were deceiving me, he knew not that he was making my
heart bleed.
"What!" cried he, with a hearty laugh, "are you no longer lazy? It is
good for me, serious man that I am, to get up at six o'clock in the
morning!"
"Listen, Jacques," I answered: "I am sick, and have come here to cure
myself. I have lost consciousness of what surrounds me. I have lost
consciousness of myself. This morning, on awaking, I realized that the
sense of life was escaping from me, I felt myself lost in vertigo and
blindness. This is why I have come down-stairs to grasp your hand, and
to ask aid and advice from you."
I watched Jacques' face narrowly to note the effect of my words. He grew
grave and lowered his eyes. He had not the attitude of a culprit, he had
almost that of a judge.
I added, in a vibrating voice:
"You live beside me, you know the life I lead. I had the misfortune to
meet, at the commencement of my career, a woman who has weighed me down
and crushed me. I have kept this woman with me for a long while out of
pity and justice. To-day, I love Laurence, I keep her beside me because
I am madly, recklessly, devoted to her. I have not come here to ask you
to employ your wisdom to effect a separation between her and me; I wish,
if possible, for you to give me a last ray of hope by calming my fever,
by making me see that everything in me is not shame. Do me the service
of searching my being, of spreading it out bleeding before my eyes. If
nothing good remains in me, if both my heart and my flesh are stained, I
have fully resolved to sink myself, to drown myself, in the mud. If, on
the contrary, you succeed in giving me a hope of redemption, I will make
new efforts to get back to the light."
Jacques listened to me, shaking his head sorrowfully. I continued, after
a brief silence:
"I do not know if you thoroughly understand me. I love Laurence with the
utmost fury, I exact that she shall follow me in the light or in the
mud. I should die of fear, if she left me alone in the depths of shame
and misery; my heart will burst when I learn that, in her abasement, she
has found other kisses than mine. She belongs to me in all her
wretchedness, in all her ugliness. Nobody else would want the poor,
abandoned and unfortunate creature. This thought makes her dearer, more
precious to me; she is unworthy of anybody, I alone accept her; if I
knew that another possessed my sad courage, my jealous rage would be all
the greater because more love, more devotion, would be needed from him
who stole Laurence from me. Therefore, do not argue with me, Jacques; I
have nothing to do with your ideas in regard to life, with your wishes
and your duties. I am too high or too low to follow you in your path.
You have a healthful mind; try only to assure me that Laurence loves me,
that I love Laurence, that I ought to love her."
I had grown animated while speaking; I trembled, I felt madness growing
upon me. Jacques, becoming graver and graver, sadder and sadder, looked
at me and said, in a low tone:
"Child! poor child!"
Then he took my hands and held them in his, thinking, maintaining
silence. My flesh burned, his was cool; I felt my visage contract, and I
searched vainly in his, which remained grave and strong.
"Claude," said he to me, at last, "you are dreaming; you are beyond
life, my friend, in the realms of nightmare and delusion. You have
fever, delirium; your heart and your body both are sick. Amid your
sufferings, you no longer see the things of this earth as they are. You
give monstrous dimensions to gravel stones, you lessen the size of the
mountains; your horizon is the horizon of vertigo, peopled by terrifying
visions which are but shadows and reflections. I swear to you that your
senses and your soul deceive themselves, that you see, that you love,
what does not exist. My poor friend, I understand your disease, I even
know the cause of it. You were born for a world of purity, of honor; you
came to us without protection, without a guiding rule, your heart open,
your mind free; you took immense pride in believing in the power of your
tenderness, in the justice, the truth of your reasoning. Elsewhere, amid
worthy surroundings, you would have increased in dignity. Among us, your
virtues have hastened your fall. You have loved when you should have
hated; you have been gentle when you should have been cruel; you have
listened to your conscience and your heart when you should have listened
only to your pleasure and your interest. And this is why you are
infamous. The story is painful; you should consider yourself well
punished for your pride, which urged you to live in defiance of the
opinions of the crowd. To-day, your wound is bleeding, increased,
irritated, by your own hands which tear it. You have maintained in your
fall the impetuosity of your character: you desired to lose yourself
utterly as soon as you felt the tip of your foot enter into evil. Now,
you wallow, with holy horror, with the fury of bitter joy, in the
ignoble bed upon which you have thrown yourself. I know you, Claude: you
have been badly beaten, you do not wish to remain half conquered. Will
you permit me, the practical man, the man without a heart, to endeavor
to cure you by cauterizing your wound with a red hot iron?"
I made a gesture of impatience, opening my lips.
"I know what you are going to say to me," resumed Jacques, with more
vivacity. "You are going to say to me that you do not wish to be cured,
and that my red hot iron will not even make your already too much
bruised flesh cry out. I know, besides, what you think, for I see your
anger and your disdain. You think that we are worth less than you, we
who do not love, who do not weep; you think that we have made this
world, this woman who causes you to suffer, that we are cowardly, cruel,
and that our way of being young is more shameful than your love and your
abasement. You are on the point of crying out to me, to me who live
tranquilly in the same mud as yourself, that you are dying of shame,
that I lack soul if I do not die with you. You are, perhaps, right: I
ought to sob, to twist my arms. But I do not feel the need of weeping; I
have not your woman's nerves, your violence or your delicacy of
sensation. I comprehend that you suffer through me, through the rest,
through all those who love without love, and I pity you, poor, grown up
infant, because you appear to me to suffer so much from an affliction I
know nothing about. If I cannot ascend to you, cannot expose myself to
your shame and pain arising from excess of soul and excess of justice, I
wish, at least, in order to cure you, to give you our cowardice and our
cruelty, to tear out your heart and leave your breast empty. Then, you
will walk upright in the path of youth."
He had raised his voice; he grasped my hands strongly, almost with
anger. This must be all Jacques' passion: a soulless passion, made up of
logic and duty. Pale before him, my head half turned away, I smiled in
contempt and anguish.
"Your Laurence," he continued, with energy, "your Laurence is a living
disgrace! She is ugly, she is prematurely old, she is dangerous. Go up
to your room and throw her into the street; she is ripe for expulsion!
For more than a year, this girl has been a crushing burden to you; it is
time that you had sent her off, that you had freed yourself, that you
had washed your hands of her. I understand the weakness of pity; I might
have sheltered Laurence for a time, if she had come to me begging for an
asylum; but, on discovering the blackness of her heart, I would have
returned to the sidewalk what belonged to the sidewalk, and I would have
burned sugar in my chamber. Go up-stairs; throw her out of the window if
she does not go quickly enough out of the door. Be cruel, be cowardly,
be unjust, commit a crime. But, for the love of God, do not shelter a
Laurence any longer. Such women are the cause of nine tenths of all the
unhappiness in this world; they are makers of desolation and should be
left to the mercy of the crowd; they deserve punishment, and it is not
just to shield them from it. Do not persist longer in giving an asylum
to this wicked wretch. You see that I am seeking some insult to
exasperate you; I would render you worthy of your age by teaching you
how to treat a Laurence, how to act like a practical man. For a year
past, what have you done, except to weep? You are dead to work, you have
lost caste, you do not look forward to the future. Laurence is the evil
angel who has killed your intelligence and your hopes. You must kill
Laurence. Hold, I have a last infamy to hurl in your face. You have not
the right to live in poverty that you may shelter this woman; if you
toiled, if you struggled, alone, you might die of hunger, but there
would be a certain grandeur about your death. The few friends whom you
had have left you; you saw them depart one by one, with coldness. Do you
know what they say? They say that they cannot explain to themselves your
manner of existence, that they cannot understand how you manage to
shelter Laurence amid your poverty; the rich, when they give alms, say
the same thing of the poor who have a dog. They say, those friends, that
there is a method in what you do, and that you eat the bread which
Laurence earns."
I escaped to my feet with a sudden movement, my arms closely locked
against my breast. The insult had hit me full in the face; I felt a cold
sweat cover my visage; I was stiff and icy; I no longer knew whether I
was suffering or not. I had not believed that I had already fallen to
this degree of abasement in the opinion of the crowd; I had desired a
voluntary shame, but I had not desired insult. I drew back, step by
step, towards the door, staring at Jacques, who also had arisen, and who
was contemplating me with superb violence. When I stood upon the
threshold, he said to me:
"Listen: you are going away without grasping my hand; I see that you
will never forgive me for the wound I have just given you. While I am
cowardly and cruel, I have something to propose to you. As I have
tortured you, as I have excited your disgust, I must cure you. Send
Laurence to me. I feel sufficiently courageous to separate her from you;
to-morrow, your tenderness will be dead, you will then tell this woman
she can no longer remain under the same roof with you. If you must have
another love affair to hasten the work of consolation, go up-stairs,
kneel beside Marie's bed and love her. She will not long be a burden to
you."
He spoke with a cold anger, a lofty and disdainful conviction; he seemed
to tread all love under foot, to walk over those women whom he
entertained through capriciousness and custom; he looked straight before
him, as if he saw his mature age congratulating him upon the logical
shames of his youth.
So Jacques, the practical man, agreed with Pâquerette; both of them
recommended to me an ignoble exchange, a remedy more distressing, more
bitter, than the disease. I closed the door violently, and went
up-stairs again, almost calm, stupid with grief.
There is, in the midst of despair, an instant when the intelligence
escapes, when the events which succeed each other mingle together in
dire confusion and no longer have any meaning. When I found myself once
more before Laurence, who was still asleep, I forgot that I had just
seen Jacques, I forgot both his advice and his insults; the heart and
the mind of this man seemed to me gloomy abysses into which I could not
descend. I was alone, face to face with my love, as yesterday, as ever;
I had now but a single thought: to awaken Laurence, to clasp her in my
arms, to compel her to accept life and kisses.
I awoke her, I took her with fury in my arms, I clasped her with such
force as to make her cry out. I had a dumb rage, an implacable will. I
was weary of being a stranger to Laurence, of being ignorant of what was
passing through her brain; I desired to know the secrets of her soul. I
said to myself that then I should no longer be tormented by suspicions,
that I would force her to love me by warming her heart with my caresses.
Laurence had not spoken to me for two whole days. Pain unlocked her
lips. She struggled and cried out to me, in a sullen tone:
"Let go of me, Claude, you hurt me! What a strange idea to wake people
by choking them!"
I knelt upon the floor, at the side of the bed, and stretched out my
hands towards my tormentor.
"Laurence," I murmured, in a gentle voice, "speak to me, love me. Why
are you so cruel? What have I done that your lips and your heart
maintain silence. Be frank; make me suffer all my sufferings in an hour,
or cast yourself into my arms and let us live happily. Tell me all, give
full scope to your thoughts and your affections. If you do not love me,
strike a deadly blow, crush me and depart. If you love me, remain,
remain, but remain upon my heart, close, close, and speak to me, speak
to me constantly, for I am filled with fear when I see you mute and sad
for entire days, staring at me with your dead eyes. I feel madness
coming to me in this desert amid which you are dragging me; I grow dizzy
as I lean over you, so full of deep obscurity, of silent horror. No, I
cannot live another day in ignorance of your love or your indifference;
I wish you to explain yourself at once, I wish you, at last, to make
yourself known. My mind is weary of searching; it is filled with sad
solutions which it has formed of the problem of your being. If you do
not desire my heart and my head to burst, name yourself, tell me what
you are, assure me that you are not dead, that you still have blood
sufficient to love or to hate me. I am reckless. Listen: we will set out
to-morrow for Provence. Do you remember the tall trees of Fontenay? In
Provence, beneath the glowing sun, the trees are prouder, stronger. We
will live a life of love on that ardent soil, which will restore you
your youth and give you a dark, passionate beauty. You shall see. I
know, in a ravine sown with fine grass, a small, retired house, all
green on one side with ivy and honeysuckles; there is a hedge, as tall
as a child, which hides the ten leagues of the valley, and one sees only
the blue curtains of the sky and the green carpet of the path. It is in
this ravine, this nest, that we will love each other; it shall be our
universe, and we will forget there the life we have led in the gloomy
depths of this miserable chamber. The past shall be obliterated; the
present alone, with its broad sunlight, its fruitful nature, its strong
and gentle loves, shall exist for our hearts. Oh! Laurence, in pity
speak to me, love me, tell me that you wish to follow me!"
She remained sitting up in bed, tranquilly wiping her eyes heavy with
sleep, straightening out her hair, stretching her limbs. She yawned. My
words seemed to produce upon her only the effect of disagreeable music.
I had uttered the last sentences with so many tears, with such
desperation, that she ceased to yawn and stared at me with an air at
once vexed and friendly. She heaped the covers upon her bare feet; then,
she crossed her hands and said:
"My poor Claude, surely you are ill. You behave like a child, you demand
things of me which are anything but droll. I wish you only knew how much
you fatigue me with your continual embraces, with your strange
questions! You nearly strangled me the other day, now you weep, you
kneel before me, as if I were the Holy Virgin! I comprehend nothing of
all this. I never knew a man in the slightest degree resembling you. You
are always stifling me, asking me if I love you. Of course, I love you,
but you would do better, instead of making yourself sick here, to look
for some work which would enable us to eat a little oftener. Such, at
least, is my opinion."
She stretched herself out lazily, and turned her back to me, in order
not to have in her eyes the light from the window which prevented her
from going to sleep again. I remained on my knees, my forehead against
the mattress, broken by the new burst of excitement which had just
carried me away; it seemed to me that I had lifted myself too high and
that, a hard and cold hand having pushed me, I had fallen headlong from
the immensity of the heavens. Then, I remembered Jacques; but the
remembrance appeared to me distant and vague: I would have sworn that
years had elapsed since I had heard the terrible words of the practical
man. My heart silently admitted to itself that this man was, perhaps,
right in his selfishness: I felt a sudden temptation to take Laurence in
my arms and carry her to the nearest street corner, there to throw her
down and leave her.
I could not remain thus between Jacques and Laurence, between my love
and my sufferings. I needed pacification, resolution; I needed to
complain and to question, to hear a voice answer me and give me
certainty.
I ascended to Pâquerette's room. I had never before entered the
apartment of this woman. The chamber is on the eighth floor, immediately
under the roof; it is a small mansarde and receives the light through a
slanting window, the sash of which is lifted by means of an iron button.
The wall paper hangs in blackish strips; the pieces of furniture--a
bureau, a table and a bed of spun-yarn--lean one against another, in
order not to fall. In a corner, there is a violet wood étagère, with
threads of gold along the veneering, loaded with glassware and
porcelain. The den is dirty, encumbered with damaged kitchen utensils
full of greasy water; it exhales a strong odor of scraps of food and
musk, mingled with a thousand other nameless and disgusting smells.
Pâquerette was gravely taking her ease in a red arm-chair, the covering
of which, worn thin in spots, showed the wool with which the back and
arms were stuffed. She was reading a little yellow book, full of stains,
which she closed and placed upon the bureau when I made my appearance.
I took her hands, I wept. I seated myself on a stool, at her feet. In my
despair, I was tempted to call her mother. I told her how I had passed
the morning; I repeated to her the words of Jacques, those of Laurence;
I emptied my heart, avowed my love and my jealousy, asked for advice.
With clasped hands, sobbing, supplicating, I addressed myself to
Pâquerette as to a good soul who knew life, who could save me from the
mud into which I had blindly strayed.
She smiled as she listened to me, tapping me upon the cheeks with her
withered and yellow fingers.
"Come, come," said she, when emotion had choked my voice in my throat,
"come, you have shed enough tears! I knew that one day or another you
would climb up here to ask aid and succor of me. I expected you. You
took all this much too seriously; you should have reached sobs
gradually. Do you wish me to speak frankly to you?"
"Yes, yes," I cried; "frankly, brutally."
"Well, you fill Laurence with fear! In the past, I would have shown you
the door at the second kiss: you embrace too strongly, my son. Laurence
remains with you, because she cannot go elsewhere. If you wish to get
rid of her, give her a new dress!"
Pâquerette stopped With satisfaction at this phrase. She coughed, then
pushed from her forehead a curl of gray hair which had just slipped over
it.
"You ask advice from me, my son," added she. "I will give you through
friendship the advice which Jacques gave you through interest. He will
willingly deliver you from Laurence."
She laughed wickedly, and my pain became more intense.
"Listen," said I, with violence: "I came here to be calmed. Do not
overturn my reason. Jacques cannot love Laurence after the words he
spoke to me this morning, it is impossible."
"Ah! my son," answered the old woman, "you are very innocent, very
young. I know not what you mean by love, and I know not if Jacques loves
Laurence. What I do know is that they embrace each other in
out-of-the-way corners. In the past, how many kisses I gave without
knowing why, how many kisses were given to me which came from I know not
where! You are a strange fellow, who do nothing like the rest. You
should not have thought of having a sweetheart. If you are wise, this is
what you will do: you will accept things as they are, and quietly
Laurence will depart. She is no longer young; she may become a charge to
you. Think of that. If you retain her, you will repent of it later. You
had better let her go, since she herself wishes to take her departure."
I listened with stupor.
"But I love Laurence!" I cried.
"You love Laurence, my son; well, you will love her no longer! That is
the whole of it. People unite and people quit each other. Such is life.
But, great heavens! whence come you? How could such a man as you
conceive the idea of loving anybody? In my time, people loved
differently; it was then easier to turn the back than to embrace. You
can readily understand that it is henceforward impossible for you to
live with Laurence. Separate from her politely. I do not advise you to
accept Marie as your sweetheart; that poor girl displeases you, and I
think you had better jog on through life alone!"
I no longer heard Pâquerette's voice. The thought that Jacques might
have deceived me in the morning had not before occurred to me; now, I
plunged into it, not succeeding in believing it, but finding a sort of
consolation in saying to myself that he had, perhaps, lied to me. This
was a new shadow upon my mind, a new torment added to the torments which
were already racking me. I was on the point of losing my senses.
Pâquerette continued, speaking through her nose:
"I wish to form you, Claude, to communicate to you my experience. You do
not know how to love. One must be kind to women; one must not beat them,
one must give them sweet things. Above all, no jealousy; if you are
deceived, allow yourself to be deceived; you will be better loved
afterwards. When I think of my adorers, I recall a little flaxen haired
fellow who boasted that he had had for sweethearts all the girls of the
public balls. Do you see that étagère, the last souvenir which remains
to me? It came from him. One evening, he approached me and said to me,
with a laugh: 'You are the only one whom I have not adored. Will you
accept me after all the rest?' I accepted his homage, he kissed me upon
both cheeks, and we supped together. That is the way to love."
I recovered from my stupor; I stared about the place in which I found
myself. Then only I saw the filth of the den, then only I perceived the
odor of musk and scraps of food. All my excitement had subsided; I
realized the shame of my presence at the feet of this old wretch. The
words which she had spoken to me, and which my memory had retained, grew
clear and frightful in my mind, which before had turned them over
without understanding them.
I had not the strength to go down-stairs to my chamber. I seated myself
upon a step and wept away all the blood of my heart.