AT MARIE'S BEDSIDE
I take a sad pleasure in being in Marie's chamber. In the morning, I go
there and sit upon the edge of the dying girl's bed; I live there as
much as possible, departing with regret. Everywhere else, I belong to
Laurence, everywhere else, I am feverish, excited and tormented. I
hasten to reach this spot of pacification, I enter it with the feeling
of confidence and comfort experienced by an invalid who is going to
breathe a milder atmosphere, by which he expects to be cured.
I love death. The chamber is lukewarm, damp; the light there is gray and
softened, made up of shadow and white brightness; everything there
floats in a final languor, in a soft and dreamy half transparency. One
does not know how sweet to a bleeding heart is the silence which reigns
in a chamber where a young girl is dying. This silence is a strange,
peculiar silence, full of exquisite mildness, full of restrained tears.
The sounds--the clink of a glass, the crackling of a piece of
furniture--are subdued, drag along like half stifled complaints; the
cries from without enter in murmurs of pity, of compassionate
encouragement. Everything is held in check, noise as well as light;
everything is filled with grief and hope. And, in the shadow, amid the
silence, one hears a vague despair which comes from one knows not where,
and which accompanies the broken breath of the dying girl.
I gaze at Marie. I feel myself penetrated, little by little, by that
invisible breath of consoling pity which fills the chamber. My eyes rest
from their tears in that pale brightness; my ears, amid the quivering
silence, forget for an hour the sound of my sobs. All the gentleness,
all the delicate attentions, all the faintly uttered and caressing
words, intended for Marie, seem as if addressed to me; they subdue the
sound of voices and footsteps; they question, they reply,
affectionately; they avoid sharp and painful sensations; and, as for me,
I believe, at times, that all these considerate precautions are taken
that my poor being, full of suffering, may not burst asunder. I imagine
that I am dying, that they are taking care of me; I seize my share of
the care and consolation; I steal from Marie half of her agony and of
the pity it causes; I go there, beside a dying girl, to profit by the
regrets and tenderness which men accord to the last hours of a soul. I
am curing my love through death.
I feel that it is the need of being pitied, of being caressed, which
pushes me into this chamber. I find here the atmosphere, the pity,
necessary for me. Life is too sharp for my painful flesh and my wounded
heart; the bright sunlight irritates me; I am at ease only in the
restorative seclusion of the tomb. If, some day, I emerge from my
despair, I ought to thank God for having permitted me to live thus,
seated at the foot of a bed of death, for having allowed me to share the
pacification of a dying creature. I will live, because a child expired
at my side.
I gaze at Marie. The fever purifies her flesh from day to day. She is
growing younger, she is becoming a little girl, amid the exhaustion of
her blood. Her deeply sunken face expresses an ardent longing, the
longing for the end, for rest; her eyes are enlarged, her pallid lips
remain half open as if to facilitate the passage of the final breath.
She is waiting, resigned, almost smiling, as ignorant of death as she
has been ignorant of life.
Sometimes, we look each other in the face for long hours. I know not
what thought then arrests the cough upon her lips; she seems filled with
a single idea, which suffices to keep her awake, to give her more life
and more calmness. Her countenance grows tranquil, pink flushes appear
upon her cheeks; her limbs beneath the bed clothes have less stiffness;
Marie, under the influence of my glance, stretches herself out, shakes
off the iron grasp of death. As for me, I am absorbed in her, I share
her sufferings; little by little, it seems to me that I pass in through
her half open lips and that I become a part of this sick creature; I
experience a gentle and bitter sensation at languishing with her, at
slowly sinking away; I feel the inexorable disease take possession of my
entire body, shake me with increasing violence, in proportion as my
glances penetrate deeper and deeper into those of Marie; I say to myself
that I shall die simultaneously with her, and a great flood of joy
sweeps through me.
Oh! what strange fascination and what wonderful pacification I
experience! Death is powerful; it has biting temptations, irresistible
attractions. One must not lean over the eyes of a dying creature, for
they are full of light and so deep that their abysses make one dizzy.
One wishes to see what those enlarged eyes behold, one is seized with
frightful curiosity in regard to the unknown. Every time Marie looks at
me, I desire to die, to leave this world with her, in order that I may
know what she will know; I imagine that she is soliciting me, that she
is begging me not to abandon her, that she is dreaming we will go away
in company, taking the risk of the same annihilation or the same
splendor.
Then, I forget, I forget Laurence. Though I see Laurence in everything,
waking or sleeping--in the objects which surround me, in that which I
eat and in that which I drink--I do not see Laurence in the depths of
Marie's eyes. I see there only that blue glimmer, paler now, which I saw
one night while my lips touched the poor child's lips. That blue glimmer
does not speak to me of my love, does not speak to me of my grief; it is
the only thing at which I can gaze without weeping. This is the reason I
love Marie's chamber, this is the reason I love the dying girl with her
dilated eyes which have more purity, more gentleness, than the sky, for
the sky, when I lift my face towards it, speaks to me of Laurence. I am
about to lose myself in this oblivion, in this clear and serene light
which is so pure. Perhaps, thereby, my heart will be cured.
When the night comes on and I can no longer see the blue glimmer in
Marie's eyes, I open the window, I gaze at the black wall. The square
patch of yellow light is there, empty or peopled, still and sad or
filled with silent movements. I feel a sharp sensation on finding myself
again, after several hours of forgetfulness, face to face with reality,
face to face with my jealousy and my anguish. Every evening, I
recommence the painful and colossal task of giving a meaning to those
dark stains which increase in size and roll in a bewildering way over
the surface of the wall. I have converted this search into a dolorous
recreation. I apply myself to it with an anxious patience, an obstinacy
full of fever, and each night I am drawn back to the window, though I
promise myself daily that I will no longer risk my reason there.