SHE PROMISED NOT TO TRY AGAIN
Oh! no, she will not try it again. Monsieur le Commissaire need have no
fear. In the first place how could she go as far as the river, now that
she can not stir from her bed? If Monsieur le Commissaire could see her
now, he would not doubt her word. Doubtless the wish, the longing for
death, so unmistakably written on her pale face the other morning, are
still visible there; but they are softened, resigned. The woman
Delobelle knows that by waiting a little, yes, a very little time, she
will have nothing more to wish for.
The doctors declare that she is dying of pneumonia; she must have
contracted it in her wet clothes. The doctors are mistaken; it is not
pneumonia. Is it her love, then, that is killing her? No. Since that
terrible night she no longer thinks of Frantz, she no longer feels that
she is worthy to love or to be loved. Thenceforth there is a stain upon
her spotless life, and it is of the shame of that and of nothing else
that she is dying.
Mamma Delobelle sits by Desiree's bed, working by the light from the
window, and nursing her daughter. From time to time she raises her eyes
to contemplate that mute despair, that mysterious disease, then hastily
resumes her work; for it is one of the hardest trials of the poor that
they can not suffer at their ease.
Mamma Delobelle had to work alone now, and her fingers had not the
marvellous dexterity of Desiree's little hands; medicines were dear, and
she would not for anything in the world have interfered with one of "the
father's" cherished habits. And so, at whatever hour the invalid opened
her eyes, she would see her mother, in the pale light of early morning,
or under her night lamp, working, working without rest.
Between two stitches the mother would look up at her child, whose face
grew paler and paler:
"How do you feel?"
"Very well," the sick girl would reply, with a faint, heartbroken smile,
which illumined her sorrowful face and showed all the ravages that had
been wrought upon it, as a sunbeam, stealing into a poor man's lodging,
instead of brightening it, brings out more clearly its cheerlessness and
nudity.
The illustrious Delobelle was never there. He had not changed in any
respect the habits of a strolling player out of an engagement. And yet
he knew that his daughter was dying: the doctor had told him so.
Moreover, it had been a terrible blow to him, for, at heart, he loved his
child dearly; but in that singular nature the most sincere and the most
genuine feelings adopted a false and unnatural mode of expression, by the
same law which ordains that, when a shelf is placed awry, nothing that
you place upon it seems to stand straight.
Delobelle's natural tendency was, before everything, to air his grief,
to spread it abroad. He played the role of the unhappy father from one
end of the boulevard to the other. He was always to be found in the
neighborhood of the theatres or at the actors' restaurant, with red eyes
and pale cheeks. He loved to invite the question, "Well, my poor old
fellow, how are things going at home?" Thereupon he would shake his head
with a nervous gesture; his grimace held tears in check, his mouth
imprecations, and he would stab heaven with a silent glance, overflowing
with wrath, as when he played the 'Medecin des Enfants;' all of which did
not prevent him, however, from bestowing the most delicate and thoughtful
attentions upon his daughter.
He also maintained an unalterable confidence in himself, no matter what
happened. And yet his eyes came very near being opened to the truth at
last. A hot little hand laid upon that pompous, illusion-ridden head
came very near expelling the bee that had been buzzing there so long.
This is how it came to pass.
One night Desiree awoke with a start, in a very strange state. It should
be said that the doctor, when he came to see her on the preceding
evening, had been greatly surprised to find her suddenly brighter and
calmer, and entirely free from fever. Without attempting to explain this
unhoped-for resurrection, he had gone away, saying, "Let us wait and
see"; he relied upon the power of youth to throw off disease, upon the
resistless force of the life-giving sap, which often engrafts a new life
upon the very symptoms of death. If he had looked under Desiree's
pillow, he would have found there a letter postmarked Cairo, wherein lay
the secret of that happy change. Four pages signed by Frantz, his whole
conduct confessed and explained to his dear little Zizi.
It was the very letter of which the sick girl had dreamed. If she had
dictated it herself, all the phrases likely to touch her heart, all the
delicately worded excuses likely to pour balm into her wounds, would have
been less satisfactorily expressed. Frantz repented, asked forgiveness,
and without making any promises, above all without asking anything from
her, described to his faithful friend his struggles, his remorse, his
sufferings.
What a misfortune that that letter had not arrived a few days earlier.
Now, all those kind words were to Desiree like the dainty dishes that are
brought too late to a man dying of hunger.
Suddenly she awoke, and, as we said a moment since, in an extraordinary
state.
In her head, which seemed to her lighter than usual, there suddenly began
a grand procession of thoughts and memories. The most distant periods of
her past seemed to approach her. The most trivial incidents of her
childhood, scenes that she had not then understood, words heard as in a
dream, recurred to her mind.
From her bed she could see her father and mother, one by her side, the
other in the workroom, the door of which had been left open. Mamma
Delobelle was lying back in her chair in the careless attitude of long-
continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre cuts
with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested
themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of
slumber. Desiree would have liked to be strong enough to rise and kiss
that lovely, placid brow, furrowed by wrinkles which did not mar its
beauty.
In striking contrast to that picture, the illustrious Delobelle appeared
to his daughter through the open door in one of his favorite attitudes.
Seated before the little white cloth that bore his supper, with his body
at an angle of sixty-seven and a half degrees, he was eating and at the
same time running through a pamphlet which rested against the carafe in
front of him.
For the first time in her life Desiree noticed the striking lack of
harmony between her emaciated mother, scantily clad in little black
dresses which made her look even thinner and more haggard than she really
was, and her happy, well-fed, idle, placid, thoughtless father. At a
glance she realized the difference between the two lives. What would
become of them when she was no longer there? Either her mother would
work too hard and would kill herself; or else the poor woman would be
obliged to cease working altogether, and that selfish husband, forever
engrossed by his theatrical ambition, would allow them both to drift
gradually into abject poverty, that black hole which widens and deepens
as one goes down into it.
Suppose that, before going away--something told her that she would go
very soon--before going away, she should tear away the thick bandage that
the poor man kept over his eyes wilfully and by force?
Only a hand as light and loving as hers could attempt that operation.
Only she had the right to say to her father:
"Earn your living. Give up the stage."
Thereupon, as time was flying, Desire Delobelle summoned all her courage
and called softly:
"Papa-papa"
At his daughter's first summons the great man hurried to her side. He
entered Desiree's bedroom, radiant and superb, very erect, his lamp in
his hand and a camellia in his buttonhole.
"Good evening, Zizi. Aren't you asleep?"
His voice had a joyous intonation that produced a strange effect amid the
prevailing gloom. Desiree motioned to him not to speak, pointing to her
sleeping mother.
"Put down your lamp--I have something to say to you."
Her voice, broken by emotion, impressed him; and so did her eyes, for
they seemed larger than usual, and were lighted by a piercing glance that
he had never seen in them.
He approached with something like awe.
"Why, what's the matter, Bichette? Do you feel any worse?"
Desiree replied with a movement of her little pale face that she felt
very ill and that she wanted to speak to him very close, very close.
When the great man stood by her pillow, she laid her burning hand on the
great man's arm and whispered in his ear. She was very ill, hopelessly
ill. She realized fully that she had not long to live.
"Then, father, you will be left alone with mamma. Don't tremble like
that. You knew that this thing must come, yes, that it was very near.
But I want to tell you this. When I am gone, I am terribly afraid mamma
won't be strong enough to support the family just see how pale and
exhausted she is."
The actor looked at his "sainted wife," and seemed greatly surprised to
find that she did really look so badly. Then he consoled himself with
the selfish remark:
"She never was very strong."
That remark and the tone in which it was made angered Desiree and
strengthened her determination. She continued, without pity for the
actor's illusions:
"What will become of you two when I am no longer here? Oh! I know that
you have great hopes, but it takes them a long while to come to anything.
The results you have waited for so long may not arrive for a long time to
come; and until then what will you do? Listen! my dear father, I would
not willingly hurt you; but it seems to me that at your age, as
intelligent as you are, it would be easy for you--I am sure Monsieur
Risler Aine would ask nothing better."
She spoke slowly, with an effort, carefully choosing her words, leaving
long pauses between every two sentences, hoping always that they might be
filled by a movement, an exclamation from her father. But the actor did
not understand.
"I think that you would do well," pursued Desiree, timidly, "I think that
you would do well to give up--"
"Eh?--what?--what's that?"
She paused when she saw the effect of her words. The old actor's mobile
features were suddenly contracted under the lash of violent despair; and
tears, genuine tears which he did not even think of concealing behind his
hand as they do on the stage, filled his eyes but did not flow, so
tightly did his agony clutch him by the throat. The poor devil began to
understand.
She murmured twice or thrice:
"To give up--to give up--"
Then her little head fell back upon the pillow, and she died without
having dared to tell him what he would do well to give up.