He replied, sadly: "It is no use howling. He has run away with her, he
has dishonored her. The best thing is to give her to him. By setting to
work in the right way no one will be aware of this escapade."
She repeated, shaken by terrible emotion: "Never, never; he shall never
have Susan. I will never consent."
Walter murmured, dejectedly: "But he has got her. It is done. And he
will keep her and hide her as long as we do not yield. So, to avoid
scandal, we must give in at once."
His wife, torn by pangs she could not acknowledge, repeated: "No, no, I
will never consent."
He said, growing impatient: "But there is no disputing about it. It must
be done. Ah, the rascal, how he has done us! He is a sharp one. All the
same, we might have made a far better choice as regards position, but
not as regards intelligence and prospects. He will be a deputy and a
minister."
Madame Walter declared, with savage energy: "I will never allow him to
marry Susan. You understand--never."
He ended by getting angry and taking up, as a practical man, the cudgels
on behalf of Pretty-boy. "Hold your tongue," said he. "I tell you again
that it must be so; it absolutely must. And who knows? Perhaps we shall
not regret it. With men of that stamp one never knows what may happen.
You saw how he overthrew in three articles that fool of a
Laroche-Mathieu, and how he did it with dignity, which was infernally
difficult in his position as the husband. At all events, we shall see.
It always comes to this, that we are nailed. We cannot get out of it."
She felt a longing to scream, to roll on the ground, to tear her hair
out. She said at length, in exasperated tones: "He shall not have her. I
won't have it."
Walter rose, picked up his lamp, and remarked: "There, you are stupid,
just like all women. You never do anything except from passion. You do
not know how to bend yourself to circumstances. You are stupid. I will
tell you that he shall marry her. It must be."
He went out, shuffling along in his slippers. He traversed--a comical
phantom in his nightshirt--the broad corridor of the huge slumbering
house, and noiselessly re-entered his room.
Madame Walter remained standing, torn by intolerable grief. She did not
yet quite understand it. She was only conscious of suffering. Then it
seemed to her that she could not remain there motionless till daylight.
She felt within her a violent necessity of fleeing, of running away, of
seeking help, of being succored. She sought whom she could summon to
her. What man? She could not find one. A priest; yes, a priest! She
would throw herself at his feet, acknowledge everything, confess her
fault and her despair. He would understand that this wretch must not
marry Susan, and would prevent it. She must have a priest at once. But
where could she find one? Whither could she go? Yet she could not remain
like that.
Then there passed before her eyes, like a vision, the calm figure of
Jesus walking on the waters. She saw it as she saw it in the picture. So
he was calling her. He was saying: "Come to me; come and kneel at my
feet. I will console you, and inspire you with what should be done."
She took her candle, left the room, and went downstairs to the
conservatory. The picture of Jesus was right at the end of it in a small
drawing-room, shut off by a glass door, in order that the dampness of
the soil should not damage the canvas. It formed a kind of chapel in a
forest of strange trees. When Madame Walter entered the winter garden,
never having seen it before save full of light, she was struck by its
obscure profundity. The dense plants of the tropics made the atmosphere
thick with their heavy breath; and the doors no longer being open, the
air of this strange wood, enclosed beneath a glass roof, entered the
chest with difficulty; intoxicated, caused pleasure and pain, and
imparted a confused sensation of enervation, pleasure, and death. The
poor woman walked slowly, oppressed by the shadows, amidst which
appeared, by the flickering light of her candle, extravagant plants,
recalling monsters, living creatures, hideous deformities. All at once
she caught sight of the picture of Christ. She opened the door
separating her from it, and fell on her knees. She prayed to him,
wildly, at first, stammering forth words of true, passionate, and
despairing invocations. Then, the ardor of her appeal slackening, she
raised her eyes towards him, and was struck with anguish. He resembled
Pretty-boy so strongly, in the trembling light of this solitary candle,
lighting the picture from below, that it was no longer Christ--it was
her lover who was looking at her. They were his eyes, his forehead, the
expression of his face, his cold and haughty air.
She stammered: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" and the name "George" rose to her
lips. All at once she thought that at that very moment, perhaps, George
had her daughter. He was alone with her somewhere. He with Susan! She
repeated: "Jesus, Jesus!" but she was thinking of them--her daughter and
her lover. They were alone in a room, and at night. She saw them. She
saw them so plainly that they rose up before her in place of the
picture. They were smiling at one another. They were embracing. She rose
to go towards them, to take her daughter by the hair and tear her from
his clasp. She would seize her by the throat and strangle her, this
daughter whom she hated--this daughter who was joining herself to this
man. She touched her; her hands encountered the canvas; she was pressing
the feet of Christ. She uttered a loud cry and fell on her back. Her
candle, overturned, went out.
What took place then? She dreamed for a long time wild, frightful
dreams. George and Susan continually passed before her eyes, with Christ
blessing their horrible loves. She felt vaguely that she was not in her
room. She wished to rise and flee; she could not. A torpor had seized
upon her, which fettered her limbs, and only left her mind on the alert,
tortured by frightful and fantastic visions, lost in an unhealthy
dream--the strange and sometimes fatal dream engendered in human minds
by the soporific plants of the tropics, with their strange and
oppressive perfumes.
The next morning Madame Walter was found stretched out senseless, almost
asphyxiated before "Jesus Walking on the Waters." She was so ill that
her life was feared for. She only fully recovered the use of her senses
the following day. Then she began to weep. The disappearance of Susan
was explained to the servants as due to her being suddenly sent back to
the convent. And Monsieur Walter replied to a long letter of Du Roy by
granting him his daughter's hand.
Pretty-boy had posted this letter at the moment of leaving Paris, for he
had prepared it in advance the evening of his departure. He said in it,
in respectful terms, that he had long loved the young girl; that there
had never been any agreement between them; but that finding her come
freely to him to say, "I wish to be your wife," he considered himself
authorized in keeping her, even in hiding her, until he had obtained an
answer from her parents, whose legal power had for him less weight than
the wish of his betrothed. He demanded that Monsieur Walter should
reply, "post restante," a friend being charged to forward the letter to
him.
When he had obtained what he wished he brought back Susan to Paris, and
sent her on to her parents, abstaining himself from appearing for some
little time.
They had spent six days on the banks of the Seine at La Roche-Guyon.
The young girl had never enjoyed herself so much. She had played at
pastoral life. As he passed her off as his sister, they lived in a free
and chaste intimacy--a kind of loving friendship. He thought it a clever
stroke to respect her. On the day after their arrival she had purchased
some linen and some country-girl's clothes, and set to work fishing,
with a huge straw hat, ornamented with wild flowers, on her head. She
thought the country there delightful. There was an old tower and an old
chateau, in which beautiful tapestry was shown.
George, dressed in a boating jersey, bought ready-made from a local
tradesman, escorted Susan, now on foot along the banks of the river, now
in a boat. They kissed at every moment, she in all innocence, and he
ready to succumb to temptation. But he was able to restrain himself; and
when he said to her, "We will go back to Paris to-morrow; your father
has granted me your hand," she murmured simply, "Already? It was so nice
being your wife here."