LAURENCE'S DEPARTURE
Laurence and Jacques, confused and frightened, appeared upon the
threshold of the door.
Jacques, on seeing Marie's corpse, clasped his hands in terror and
astonishment. He had not expected such a sudden death. He hurried to the
bed, knelt down at its foot, and buried his face in the sheet which was
on the point of falling to the floor. Deep anguish seemed to be crushing
him. He did not stir. I could not tell whether he was weeping or not.
Laurence, pale, her eyes dry, remained upon the threshold, not daring to
advance. She quivered and turned away her glances.
"Dead! dead!" she murmured, in a low voice.
And she took two or three steps, as if to see the better. Then, she
stood still in the middle of the chamber, alone.
As for me, I yet held the corpse in my arms, I covered myself with it, I
protected myself against Laurence who was approaching.
"Do not advance," cried I to her, harshly, "do not come here to soil
this child who is sleeping. Remain where you are. I have to judge and
condemn you."
"Claude," she answered, in a meek voice, "let me kiss her."
"No, no, your lips are all bruised with Jacques' kisses. You would
profane the dead."
Jacques seemed to be asleep, his head in the sheet. Laurence fell upon
her knees.
"Listen, Claude," she said, stretching out her hands towards me: "I know
not what you see upon my lips, but do not speak to me with such
harshness. I have need of gentleness."
I stared at this woman, who was humbly complaining, and I failed to
recognize Laurence. I clasped Marie closer, fearing some weakness.
"Arise and listen to me," I cried out to Laurence: "I wish to make an
end of this. You come from Jacques' room. You should not have come here.
You opened the wrong door."
Laurence arose.
"Then, it is your intention to drive me away, is it?" asked she.
"It is not I who drive you away. You have driven yourself away by
accepting another asylum. Remain in that asylum."
"I have not chosen another asylum. You are deceived, Claude. There are
no strange kisses upon my lips. I love you."
She advanced timidly, fascinating, her arms outstretched.
"Do not approach, do not approach," I cried again, with a movement of
fright. "I do not wish you to touch me, I do not wish you to touch
Marie. The poor dead girl protects me against you; she is here, upon my
breast, asleep; she calms my heart. I feel myself terribly torn. I
should, perhaps, have had the baseness to pardon you, if you had come
into our chamber and there dragged yourself at my feet, for there you
would have been all-powerful over me, by reason of that infamous love
with which misery and abandonment have inspired me. Here, you can exert
no influence over my heart, no influence over my body. I still have upon
my lips Marie's soul, her last breath and her last kiss. I do not wish
your soiled mouth to take that soul from me."
Laurence paused, sobbing, gazing at me through her tears.
"Claude," murmured she, "you do not understand me, you have never
understood me. I love you. I never knew what you wanted of me; I gave
myself as I knew how to give myself. Why do you drive me away? I have
done no evil; if you think I have done evil, you can beat me and we will
still live in company."
I was weary, I felt my heart bleed; I was in haste to see this woman
depart, I implored her in my turn.
"Laurence," said I, more gently, "in pity go away. If you have ever had
any love for me, spare me further suffering. Our tenderness for each
other is dead, we must separate. Go forth into life, where you will, but
take the path that leads to goodness and happiness, if you can. Let me
recover my hope and my gayety."
She folded her arms in despair, repeating several times, in a wild tone:
"All is over, all is over!"
"Yes, all is over," answered I, with emphasis.
Then, Laurence fell upon the floor in a mass, and burst into violent
sobs.
Pâquerette, who had tranquilly resumed possession of her arm-chair,
looked at her with curiosity. The old wretch was filled with
astonishment, chewing some lozenges which she had just found, Marie not
having lived long enough to finish the box.
"Ah! my child," said she to Laurence, "have you also lost your senses?
Great heavens! what fools lovers are in these days! In my time, people
quitted each other gayly. Do you not see that it is greatly to your
advantage to separate from Claude. He consents. Thank him, and depart at
once."
Laurence did not hear her, she was striking the floor with her feet and
with her fists, a prey to a sort of nervous crisis. Lightly clad, she
twisted, panting, full of quivers which shook her all over. She bit her
hair which had fallen over her face, she uttered half stifled cries,
confused words which were lost amid her sobs.
I saw her from head to foot, crushed and quivering; I felt neither pity
nor anger.
Then, she got upon her knees, and, her face convulsed, her flesh
reddened and blued by tears, dragging herself towards me in her twisted
and hanging skirts, she cried out:
"You are right, Claude, I am bad. I prefer to speak the truth, to tell
you everything. You will, perhaps, pardon me afterwards. Your eyes have
rightly seen: my lips should be red with Jacques' kisses. I went to him,
I forced him to treason. I am a wicked wretch!"
Her sobs convulsed her bosom. They mounted from the depths of her being
in enormous and painful breaths, swelled her throat horribly, made her
whole body undulate, burst from her lips in hollow and heart-rending
cries.
"Have mercy upon me," murmured she. "I did not know that Jacques' kisses
would separate us. I acted without reflection, without thinking of you.
I grew weary sometimes, in the evening, when you came to this chamber.
Then, I sought to amuse myself. That is the true state of the case; it
admits of no other explanation. I do not wish to quit you. Pardon me,
pardon me!"
At this last hour, this woman was more impenetrable than ever. I could
not understand this creature, cold and weighed down, nervous and
suppliant. For a year I had lived beside her, and yet she was as much a
stranger to me as on the first day of our acquaintance. I had seen her
turn by turn old and young, active and sluggish, cold and loving,
cynical and humble; I could not reconstruct a soul with these diverse
elements, I stood dumb before her dull and grimacing visage which hid
from me an unknown heart. She loved me, perhaps; she yielded to that
craving for love and esteem which is found in the depths of the most
depraved natures. But I no longer sought to understand her; I realized
that Laurence would always remain a mystery to me, a woman made up of
gloom and vertigo; I knew that she would remain in my life like an
inexplicable nightmare, like a feverish night full of monstrous and
incomprehensible visions. I did not wish to listen to her, I felt myself
still in a dream; I was afraid of yielding to the madness of the
darkness, I yearned with all my strength for the light.
I made a movement of impatience, refusing with a gesture, firmly closing
my lips. Laurence, fatigued, pushed her hair from her face; she looked
straight at me, silent, disheartened, she no longer supplicated, for
words had failed her. She begged me by her attitude, by her glance, by
her disturbed countenance.
I turned away my head. Laurence then arose painfully, and went to the
door without taking her eyes from me. She stood for an instant,
straight, upon the threshold. She seemed to me to have grown taller, and
I almost weakened, almost threw myself into her arms, on seeing that she
wore, at this last hour, the ragged remains of her blue silk dress. I
loved that dress, I would have liked to tear a rag from it to keep in
remembrance of my youth.
Laurence, walking backwards, passed into the darkness of the stairway,
addressing to me a final prayer, and the dress was now only a black
flood which quiveringly glided over the steps.
I was free.
I placed my hand upon my heart: it was beating feebly and calmly. I was
cold. Deep silence reigned within my being, it seemed to me that I had
awakened from a dream.
I had forgotten Marie, whose head still peacefully reposed upon my
breast. Pâquerette, who had been dozing, suddenly arose and laid the
body upon the bed, saying to me as she did so:
"Look at the poor child! You have not even closed her eyes. She seems to
gaze at you and smile."
Marie was gazing at me. She had an infant's sleep, a supreme peace, the
forehead of a pure and sainted martyr. She seemed happy at what she had
understood before her death, when she had said that we were alone, that
we could love each other. I closed her eyes that she might slumber in
this thought of love, and kissed her eyelids.
Pâquerette placed two candles upon a little table near the corpse; then
she resumed her doze, curled up in her arm-chair. Jacques had not
stirred; all my words, all those of Laurence, had passed over him
without making him start. On his knees, his face buried in the sheet, he
was absorbed in some harsh and terrible thought which overwhelmed him
and deprived him of speech.
The chamber was now silent. The two candles sent forth a pale light,
which whitened the bed clothes and Marie's uncovered face. Beyond this
narrow circle of brightness, all was but uncertain gloom. Amid this
gloom, I vaguely perceived Pâquerette asleep and Jacques kneeling. I
went to the window.
I passed the night standing there, with a narrow bit of sky above me. I
looked at Marie and I looked within myself; I towered above Jacques, I
distinguished Laurence far off, very far off, in my memory. My mind was
healthy, I explained everything to myself, I comprehended my being and
the creatures who surrounded me. It was thus that I was enabled to see
the truth.
Yes, Jacques had not been deceived. I was ill. I had fever, delirium. I
feel to-day, from the fatigue of my heart, what must have been the
violence of my disease. I am proud of my sufferings, I understand that I
have not been infamous, that my despair was but the rebellion of my
heart incensed at the society into which I had unwittingly brought it. I
am awkward before shame, I cannot accept common love; I have not the
tranquil indifference necessary to live in this corner of Paris, where
beautiful youth wallows in the midst of the mud. I need the pure
mountain summits, the broad country. If I had encountered a spotless
girl, I would have knelt before her and given myself entirely to her; I
would have been as pure as she, and, without struggle, without effort,
we would have united our fortunes, we would have become husband and
wife. Life has its fatalities. One night, I met Laurence with her throat
uncovered; I was imprudent enough to shelter this woman, and at length I
loved her, loved her as if she had been a spotless angel, with all my
heart, all my purity. She repayed my affection with suffering and
despair; she had had the baseness to allow herself to be loved without
ever having once loved on her side. I tore myself, before this dead
soul, in a vain attempt to make myself understood. I wept like a child
who wishes to kiss his mother, standing on the tips of his little feet,
but unable to reach the visage of her in whom all his hope is centred.
I said these things to myself during that supreme night, and I said to
myself, besides, that some day I would speak and show the truth to my
brethren, the hearts of twenty years. I found a great lesson in my
wasted youth, in my broken love; my entire being cried out: Why did you
not remain at home, in Provence, among the tall grass, beneath the
glowing sunbeams? There you would have increased in honor, in strength.
But, when you came here to seek life and glory, why did you not keep
from the mud and pollution of this great city? Did you not know that man
has neither two youths nor two loves? You should have lived like a
well-ordered young man amid your work, and you should have loved some
pure and spotless creature, not Laurence.
Those who accept without tears the life which I have led for a year past
have no heart, those who weep as I have wept come out of that life with
broken body and dying soul. The Laurences must be killed, then, as
Jacques said, since they kill our flesh and our love. I am only a child
who has suffered, I do not wish to preach here. But I show my empty
breast, my wounded and bleeding body; I desire that my wounds may make
the young men of my age tremble, and may arrest them on the edge of the
gulf. To those who delight in brightness and purity I will say: "Take
care, you are about to enter the gloom, the realm of temptation." To
those whose hearts are asleep and who are indifferent in regard to evil
I will say: "Since you cannot love, try at least to remain worthy and
honest."
The night was clear, I saw far into the blue sky. Marie, now stiffened,
slept heavily; the sheet thrown over her had long folds, sharp and hard.
I thought of the annihilation of the flesh, I thought that we had great
need of faith, we who live in the hope of to-morrow and who know not
what to-morrow may bring forth. If I had had a God in Heaven, whose
protecting arm I had felt about me, I should not, perhaps, have yielded
to the vertigo of a wretched passion. I should always have had
consolations, even in the midst of my tears; I should have employed my
excessive love in prayer, instead of not being able to bestow it upon
any one and feeling it stifle me. I had abandoned myself, because I had
faith in myself only and had lost all my strength. I do not regret
having obeyed my reason, having lived in freedom, having had respect
only for the true and the just. But, nevertheless, when the fever seizes
upon me, when I tremble with weakness, I am filled with fear, I become a
child; I would prefer to be controlled by the Divine will, to efface
myself, to allow God to act in me and for me.
Then, I thought of Marie, asking myself where was her soul at this hour.
In the great realm of nature, without doubt. I indulged in the dream
that each soul is merged in the grand whole, that dead humanity is but
an immense breath, a single spirit. Upon earth we are separated, we are
ignorant of each other, we weep at our inability to unite ourselves;
beyond life there is a complete penetration, a marriage of all with all,
a single and universal love. I looked at the sky. I seemed to see in the
calm and quiet stretch of blue the soul of the world, the eternal soul
made up of all the others. Then, I experienced a great delight, I had
shot ahead of my cure, I had arrived at pardon and faith. Brothers, my
youth still smiled upon me. I thought that some day we would be reunited
all four--Marie and Jacques, Laurence and myself; we will understand
each other, we will pardon each other; we will love each other without
having to hear the sobs of our bodies, and we will experience a supreme
peace in exchanging those tendernesses which we could not give each
other when we lived in the flesh.
The thought that there is a misunderstanding upon earth, and that
everything is explained in the other world, consoled me. I said to
myself that I would wait for death in order to love. I stood near the
window, in the presence of the sky, in the presence of Marie's corpse,
and, little by little, a gentle coolness, a limitless hope, came to me
from that dead young girl and the dreamy space.
The candles had burned out. The silence in the chamber grew heavier and
heavier, and the darkness increased. Pâquerette still slept. Jacques
had not moved.
Suddenly he arose, he stared around him in terror. I saw him lean over
the corpse and kiss it on the forehead. The cold flesh sent a shiver
through him. Then, he noticed me. He came to me, hesitated, and then
offered me his hand.
I looked at this man whom I could not comprehend, who seemed to me as
obscure as Laurence. I did not know whether he had lied to me or whether
he had wished to save me. This man had struck my heart a heavy blow. But
I had recovered hope, I had pardoned. I took his hand and pressed it.
Then, he went away, thanking me with a look.
In the morning, I found myself beside Marie's bed, on my knees, still
weeping, but my tears were mild, softened. I wept over this poor girl
whom death had carried off in her spring, ignorant of the kisses of
love.