The sound of their own voices startled them, ringing strangely in this
gloomy room, and they suddenly glanced at the dead man's face as though
they expected to see it move on hearing them, as it had done some hours
before.
Duroy resumed: "Oh! it is a heavy blow for you, and such a complete
change in your existence, a shock to your heart and your whole life."
She gave a long sigh, without replying, and he continued, "It is so
painful for a young woman to find herself alone as you will be."
He paused, but she said nothing, and he again went on, "At all events,
you know the compact entered into between us. You can make what use of
me you will. I belong to you."
She held out her hand, giving him at the same time one of those sweet,
sad looks which stir us to the very marrow.
"Thank you, you are very kind," she said. "If I dared, and if I could do
anything for you, I, too, should say, 'You may count upon me.'"
He had taken the proffered hand and kept it clasped in his, with a
burning desire to kiss it. He made up his mind to this at last, and
slowly raising it to his mouth, held the delicate skin, warm, slightly
feverish and perfumed, to his lips for some time. Then, when he felt
that his friendly caress was on the point of becoming too prolonged, he
let fall the little hand. It sank back gently onto the knee of its
mistress, who said, gravely: "Yes, I shall be very lonely, but I shall
strive to be brave."
He did not know how to give her to understand that he would be happy,
very happy, to have her for his wife in his turn. Certainly he could not
tell her so at that hour, in that place, before that corpse; yet he
might, it seemed to him, hit upon one of those ambiguous, decorous, and
complicated phrases which have a hidden meaning under their words, and
which express all one wants to by their studied reticence. But the
corpse incommoded him, the stiffened corpse stretched out before them,
and which he felt between them. For some time past, too, he fancied he
detected in the close atmosphere of the room a suspicious odor, a
foetid breath exhaling from the decomposing chest, the first whiff of
carrion which the dead lying on their bed throw out to the relatives
watching them, and with which they soon fill the hollow of their
coffin.
"Cannot we open the window a little?" said Duroy. "It seems to me that
the air is tainted."
"Yes," she replied, "I have just noticed it, too."
He went to the window and opened it. All the perfumed freshness of night
flowed in, agitating the flame of the two lighted candles beside the
bed. The moon was shedding, as on the former evening, her full mellow
light upon the white walls of the villas and the broad glittering
expanse of the sea. Duroy, drawing in the air to the full depth of his
lungs, felt himself suddenly seized with hope, and, as it were buoyed up
by the approach of happiness. He turned round, saying: "Come and get a
little fresh air. It is delightful."
She came quietly, and leant on the window-sill beside him. Then he
murmured in a low tone: "Listen to me, and try to understand what I want
to tell you. Above all, do not be indignant at my speaking to you of
such a matter at such a moment, for I shall leave you the day after
to-morrow, and when you return to Paris it may be too late. I am only a
poor devil without fortune, and with a position yet to make, as you
know. But I have a firm will, some brains I believe, and I am well on
the right track. With a man who has made his position, one knows what
one gets; with one who is starting, one never knows where he may finish.
So much the worse, or so much the better. In short, I told you one day
at your house that my brightest dream would have been to have married a
woman like you. I repeat this wish to you now. Do not answer, let me
continue. It is not a proposal I am making to you. The time and place
would render that odious. I wish only not to leave you ignorant that you
can make me happy with a word; that you can make me either a friend and
brother, or a husband, at your will; that my heart and myself are yours.
I do not want you to answer me now. I do not want us to speak any more
about the matter here. When we meet again in Paris you will let me know
what you have resolved upon. Until then, not a word. Is it not so?" He
had uttered all this without looking at her, as though scattering his
words abroad in the night before him. She seemed not to have heard them,
so motionless had she remained, looking also straight before her with a
fixed and vague stare at the vast landscape lit up by the moon. They
remained for some time side by side, elbow touching elbow, silent and
reflecting. Then she murmured: "It is rather cold," and turning round,
returned towards the bed.
He followed her. When he drew near he recognized that Forestier's body
was really beginning to smell, and drew his chair to a distance, for he
could not have stood this odor of putrefaction long. He said: "He must
be put in a coffin the first thing in the morning."
"Yes, yes, it is arranged," she replied. "The undertaker will be here at
eight o'clock."
Duroy having sighed out the words, "Poor fellow," she, too, gave a long
sigh of heartrending resignation.
They did not look at the body so often now, already accustomed to the
idea of it, and beginning to mentally consent to the decease which but a
short time back had shocked and angered them--them who were mortals,
too. They no longer spoke, continuing to keep watch in befitting fashion
without going to sleep. But towards midnight Duroy dozed off the first.
When he woke up he saw that Madame Forestier was also slumbering, and
having shifted to a more comfortable position, he reclosed his eyes,
growling: "Confound it all, it is more comfortable between the sheets
all the same."
A sudden noise made him start up. The nurse was entering the room. It
was broad daylight. The young wife in the armchair in front of him
seemed as surprised as himself. She was somewhat pale, but still pretty,
fresh-looking, and nice, in spite of this night passed in a chair.
Then, having glanced at the corpse, Duroy started and exclaimed: "Oh,
his beard!" The beard had grown in a few hours on this decomposing flesh
as much as it would have in several days on a living face. And they
stood scared by this life continuing in death, as though in presence of
some fearful prodigy, some supernatural threat of resurrection, one of
these startling and abnormal events which upset and confound the mind.
They both went and lay down until eleven o'clock. Then they placed
Charles in his coffin, and at once felt relieved and soothed. They had
sat down face to face at lunch with an aroused desire to speak of the
livelier and more consolatory matters, to return to the things of life
again, since they had done with the dead. Through the wide-open window
the soft warmth of spring flowed in, bearing the perfumed breath of the
bed of pinks in bloom before the door.
Madame Forestier suggested a stroll in the garden to Duroy, and they
began to walk slowly round the little lawn, inhaling with pleasure the
balmy air, laden with the scent of pine and eucalyptus. Suddenly she
began to speak, without turning her head towards him, as he had done
during the night upstairs. She uttered her words slowly, in a low and
serious voice.
"Look here, my dear friend, I have deeply reflected already on what you
proposed to me, and I do not want you to go away without an answer.
Besides, I am neither going to say yes nor no. We will wait, we will
see, we will know one another better. Reflect, too, on your side. Do not
give way to impulse. But if I speak to you of this before even poor
Charles is lowered into the tomb, it is because it is necessary, after
what you have said to me, that you should thoroughly understand what
sort of woman I am, in order that you may no longer cherish the wish you
expressed to me, in case you are not of a--of a--disposition to
comprehend and bear with me. Understand me well. Marriage for me is not
a charm, but a partnership. I mean to be free, perfectly free as to my
ways, my acts, my going and coming. I could neither tolerate
supervision, nor jealousy, nor arguments as to my behavior. I should
undertake, be it understood, never to compromise the name of the man who
takes me as his wife, never to render him hateful and ridiculous. But
this man must also undertake to see in me an equal, an ally, and not an
inferior or an obedient and submissive wife. My notions, I know, are not
those of every one, but I shall not change them. There you are. I will
also add, do not answer me; it would be useless and unsuitable. We shall
see one another again, and shall perhaps speak of all this again later
on. Now, go for a stroll. I shall return to watch beside him. Till this
evening."
He printed a long kiss on her hand, and went away without uttering a
word. That evening they only saw one another at dinnertime. Then they
retired to their rooms, both exhausted with fatigue.
Charles Forestier was buried the next day, without any funeral display,
in the cemetery at Cannes. George Duroy wished to take the Paris
express, which passed through the town at half-past one.
Madame Forestier drove with him to the station. They walked quietly up
and down the platform pending the time for his departure, speaking of
trivial matters.
The train rolled into the station. The journalist took his seat, and
then got out again to have a few more moments' conversation with her,
suddenly seized as he was with sadness and a strong regret at leaving
her, as though he were about to lose her for ever.
A porter shouted, "Take your seats for Marseilles, Lyons, and Paris."
Duroy got in and leant out of the window to say a few more words. The
engine whistled, and the train began to move slowly on.
The young fellow, leaning out of the carriage, watched the woman
standing still on the platform and following him with her eyes.
Suddenly, as he was about to lose sight of her, he put his hand to his
mouth and threw a kiss towards her. She returned it with a discreet and
hesitating gesture.