A WANING MOON
Fixed ideas have the tenacity of incurable maladies. Once entered in the
soul they devour it, leaving it no longer free to think of anything, or
to have a taste for the least thing. Whatever she did, or wherever she
was, alone or surrounded by friends, she could no longer rid herself
of the thought that had seized her in coming home side by side with her
daughter. Could it be that Olivier, seeing them together almost every
day, thought continually of the comparison between them?
Surely he must do it in spite of himself, incessantly, himself haunted
by that unforgettable resemblance, accentuated still further by the
imitation of tone and gesture they had tried to produce. Every time he
entered she thought of that comparison; she read it in his eyes, guessed
it and pondered over it in her heart and in her mind. Then she was
tortured by a desire to hide herself, to disappear, never to show
herself again beside her daughter.
She suffered, too, in all ways, not feeling at home any more in her
own house. That pained feeling of dispossession which she had had
one evening, when all eyes were fixed on Annette under her portrait,
continued, stronger and more exasperating than before. She reproached
herself unceasingly for feeling that yearning need for deliverance,
that unspeakable desire to send her daughter away from her, like
a troublesome and tenacious guest; and she labored against it with
unconscious skill, convinced of the necessity of struggling to retain,
in spite of everything, the man she loved.
Unable to hasten Annette's marriage too urgently, because of their
recent mourning, she feared, with a confused yet dominating fear,
anything that might defeat that plan; and she sought, almost in spite
of herself, to awaken in her daughter's heart some feeling of tenderness
for the Marquis.
All the resourceful diplomacy she had employed so long to hold Olivier
now took with her a new form, shrewder, more secret, exerting itself to
kindle affection between the young people, and to keep the two men from
meeting.
As the painter, who kept regular hours of work, never breakfasted away
from home, and usually gave only his evenings to his friends, she often
invited the Marquis to breakfast. He would arrive, spreading around
him the animation of his ride, a sort of breath of morning air. And he
talked gaily of all those worldly things that seem to float every day
upon the autumnal awakening of brilliant and horse-loving Paris in the
avenues of the Bois. Annette was amused in listening to him, acquired
some taste for those topics of the days that he recounted to her, fresh
and piquant as they were. An intimacy of youth sprang up between them,
a pleasant companionship which a common and passionate love for horses
naturally fostered. When he had gone the Countess and the Count would
artfully praise him, saying everything necessary to let the young girl
know that it depended only upon herself to marry him if he pleased her.
She had understood very quickly, however, and reasoning frankly with
herself, judged it a very simple thing to take for a husband this
handsome fellow, who would give her, besides other satisfactions, that
which she preferred above all others, the pleasure of galloping beside
him every morning on a thoroughbred.
They found themselves betrothed one day, quite naturally, after a clasp
of the hand and a smile, and the marriage was spoken of as something
long decided. Then the Marquis began to bring gifts, and the Duchess
treated Annette like her own daughter. The whole affair, then, had been
fostered by common accord, warmed over the fire of a little intimacy,
during the quiet hours of the day; and the Marquis, having many other
occupations, relatives, obligations and duties, rarely came in the
evening.
That was Olivier's time. He dined regularly every week with his friends,
and also continued to appear without appointment to ask for a cup of tea
between ten o'clock and midnight.
As soon as he entered the Countess watched him, devoured by a desire to
know what was passing in his heart. He gave no glance, made no gesture
that she did not immediately interpret, and she was tortured by this
thought: “It is impossible that he is not in love with her, seeing us so
close together.”
He, too, brought gifts. Not a week passed that he did not appear bearing
two little packages in his hands, offering one to the mother, the other
to the daughter; and the Countess, opening the boxes, which often held
valuable objects, felt again that contraction of the heart. She knew so
well that desire to give which, as a woman, she never had been able to
satisfy--that desire to bring something that would give pleasure,
to purchase for someone, to find in the shops some trifle that would
please.
The painter had already been through this phase, and she had seen him
come in many times with that same smile, that same gesture, a little
packet in his hand. That habit had ceased after awhile, and now it had
begun again. For whom? She had no matter of doubt. It was not for her!
He appeared fatigued and thin. She concluded that he was suffering. She
compared his entrances, his manner, his bearing with the attitude of the
Marquis, who was also beginning to be attracted by Annette's grace. It
was not at all the same thing: Monsieur de Farandal admired her, Olivier
Bertin loved! She believed this at least during her hours of torture;
then, in quieter moments she still hoped that she had deceived herself.
Oh, often she could hardly restrain herself from questioning him when
she was alone with him, praying, entreating him to speak, to confess
all, to hide nothing! She preferred to know and to weep under certainty
than to suffer thus under doubt, not able to read that closed heart,
wherein she felt another love was growing.
That heart, which she prized more highly than her life, over which she
had watched, and which she had warmed and animated with her love for
twelve years, of which she had believed herself sure, which she had
hoped was definitely hers, conquered, submissive, passionately devoted
for the rest of their lives, behold! now that heart was escaping her by
an inconceivable, horrible, and monstrous fatality! Yes, it had suddenly
closed itself, upon a secret. She could no longer penetrate it by
a familiar word, or hide therein her own affection as in a faithful
retreat open for herself alone. What is the use of loving, of giving
oneself without reserve, if suddenly he to whom one has offered her
whole being, her entire existence, all, everything she had in the world,
is to escape thus because another face has pleased him, transforming him
in a few days almost into a stranger?
A stranger! He, Olivier? He spoke to her, as always, with the same
words, the same voice, the same tone. And yet there was something
between them, something inexplicable, intangible, invincible, almost
nothing--that almost nothing that causes a sail to float away when the
wind turns.
He was drifting, in fact, drifting away from her a little more each day,
by all the glances he cast upon Annette. He himself did not attempt
to see clearly into the depths of his heart. He felt, indeed, that
fermentation of love, that irresistible attraction; but he would not
understand, he trusted to events, to the unforeseen chances of life.
He had no longer any other interest than that of his dinners and his
evenings between those two women, separated from the gay world by their
mourning. Meeting only indifferent faces at their house--those of the
Corbelles, and Musadieu oftener--he fancied himself almost alone in the
world with them; and as he now seldom saw the Duchess and the Marquis,
for whom the morning and noontimes were reserved, he wished to forget
them, suspecting that the marriage had been indefinitely postponed.
Besides, Annette never spoke of Monsieur de Farandal before him. Was
this because of a sort of instinctive modesty, or was it perhaps from
one of those secret intuitions of the feminine heart which enable them
to foretell that of which they are ignorant?
Weeks followed weeks, without changing this manner of life, and autumn
came, bringing the reopening of the Chamber, earlier than usual because
of certain political dangers.
On the day of the reopening, the Comte de Guilleroy was to take to the
meeting of Parliament Madame de Mortemain, the Marquis, and Annette,
after a breakfast at his own house. The Countess alone, isolated in
her sorrow, which was steadily increasing, had declared that she would
remain at home.
They had left the table and were drinking coffee in the large
drawing-room, in a merry mood. The Count, happy to resume parliamentary
work, his only pleasure, talked very well concerning the existing
situation and of the embarrassments of the Republic; the Marquis,
unmistakably in love, answered him brightly, while gazing at Annette;
and the Duchess was almost equally pleased with the emotion of her
nephew and the distress of the government. The air of the drawing-room
was warm with that first concentrated heat of newly-lighted furnaces,
the heat of draperies, carpets, and walls, in which the perfumes of
asphyxiated flowers was evaporating. There was in this closely shut
room, filled with the aroma of coffee, an air of comfort, intimate,
familiar, and satisfied, when the door was opened before Olivier Bertin.
He paused at the threshold, so surprised that he hesitated to enter,
surprised as a deceived husband who beholds his wife's crime. A
confusion of anger and mingled emotion suffocated him, revealing to
him the fact that his heart was worm-eaten with love! All that they had
hidden from him, and all that he had concealed from himself appeared
before him as he perceived the Marquis installed in the house, as a
betrothed lover!
He understood, in a transport of exasperation, all that which he would
rather not have known and all that the Countess had not dared to tell
him. He did not ask himself why all those preparations for marriage had
been concealed from him. He guessed it, and his eyes, growing hard, met
those of the Countess, who blushed. They understood each other.
When he was seated, everyone was silent for a few seconds, his
unexpected entrance having paralyzed their flow of spirits; then the
Duchess began to speak to him, and he replied in a brief manner, his
voice suddenly changed.
He looked around at these people who were now chatting again, and said
to himself: “They are making game of me. They shall pay for it.” He
was especially vexed with the Countess and Annette, whose innocent
dissimulation he suddenly understood.
“Oh, oh! it is time to go,” exclaimed the Count, looking at the clock.
Turning to the painter, he added: “We are going to the opening of
Parliament. My wife will remain here, however. Will you accompany us? It
would give me great pleasure.”
“No, thanks,” replied Olivier drily. “Your Chamber does not tempt me.”
Annette approached in a playful way, saying: “Oh, do come, dear master!
I am sure that you would amuse us much more than the deputies.”
“No, indeed. You will amuse yourself very well without me.”
Seeing him discontented and chagrined, she insisted, to show that she
felt kindly toward him.
“Yes, come, sir painter! I assure you that as for myself I cannot do
without you.”
His next words escaped him so quickly that he could nether check them as
he spoke nor soften their tone:
“Bah! You do well enough without me, just as everyone else does!”
A little surprised at his tone, she exclaimed: “Come, now! Here he is
beginning again to leave off his 'tu' to me!”
His lips were curled in one of those smiles that reveal the suffering of
a soul, and he said with a slight bow: “It will be necessary for me to
accustom myself to it one day or another.”
“Why, pray?”
“Because you will marry, and your husband, whoever he may be, would have
the right to find that word rather out of place coming from me.”
“It will be time enough then to think about that,” the Countess hastened
to say. “But I trust that Annette will not marry a man so susceptible as
to object to such familiarity from so old a friend.”
“Come, come!” cried the Count; “let us go. We shall be late.”
Those who were to accompany him, having risen, went out after him, after
the usual handshakes and kisses which the Duchess, the Countess, and her
daughter exchanged at every meeting as at every parting.
They remained alone, She and He, standing, behind the draperies over the
closed door.
“Sit down, my friend,” said she softly.
But he answered, almost violently: “No, thanks! I am going, too.”
“Oh, why?” she murmured, entreatingly.
“Because this is not my hour, it appears. I ask pardon for having come
without warning.”
“Olivier, what is the matter with you?”
“Nothing. I only regret having disturbed an organized pleasure party.”
She seized his hand.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “They were just about to set out, since
they were going to be present at the opening of the session. I intended
to stay at home. Contrary to what you said just now, you were really
inspired in coming to-day when I am alone.”
He sneered.
“Inspired? Yes, I was inspired!”
She seized his wrists, and looking deep into his eyes she murmured very
low:
“Confess to me that you love her!”
He withdrew his hands, unable to control his impatience any longer.
“But you are simply insane with that idea!”
She seized him again by the arm and, tightening her hold on his sleeve,
she implored:
“Olivier! Confess, confess! I would rather know. I am certain of it, but
I would rather know. I would rather--Oh, you do not comprehend what my
life has become!”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“What would you have me do? Is it my fault if you lose your head?”
She held him, drawing him toward the other salon at the back, where
they could not be heard. She drew him by his coat, clinging to him and
panting. When she had led him as far as the little circular divan, she
made him let himself fall upon it; then she sat down beside him.
“Olivier, my friend, my only friend, I pray you to tell me that you love
her. I know it, I feel it from all that you do. I cannot doubt it. I am
dying of it, but I wish to know it from your own lips.”
As he still resisted, she fell on her knees at his feet. Her voice
shook.
“Oh, my friend, my only friend! Is it true that you love her?”
“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, as he tried to make her rise. “I swear to
you that I do not.”
She reached up her hand to his mouth and pressed it there tight,
stammering: “Oh, do not lie! I suffer too much!”
Then, letting her head fall on this man's knees, she sobbed.
He could see only the back of her neck, a mass of blond hair, mingled
with many white threads, and he was filled with immense pity, immense
grief.
Seizing that heavy hair in both hands he raised her head violently,
turning toward himself two bewildered eyes, from which tears were
flowing. And then on those tearful eyes he pressed his lips many times,
repeating:
“Any! Any! My dear, my dear Any!”
Then she, attempting to smile, and speaking in that hesitating voice of
children when choking with grief, said:
“Oh, my friend, only tell me that you still love me a little.”
He embraced her again, even more tenderly than before.
“Yes, I love you, my dear Any.”
She arose, sat down beside him again, seized his hands, looked at him,
and said tenderly:
“It is such a long time that we have loved each other. It should not end
like this.”
He pressed her close to him, asking:
“Why should it end?”
“Because I am old, and because Annette resembles too much what I was
when you first knew me.”
Now it was his turn to close her sad lips with his fingers, saying:
“Again! I beg that you will speak no more of that. I swear to you that
you deceive yourself.”
“Oh, if you will only love me a little,” she repeated.
“Yes, I love you,” he said again.
They remained a long time without speaking, hands clasped in hands,
deeply moved and very sad. At last she broke the silence, murmuring:
“Oh, the hours that remain for me to live will not be gay!”
“I will try to make them sweet to you.”
The shadow of the clouded sky that precedes the twilight by two hours
was darkening the drawing-room, burying them little by little in the
gray dimness of an autumn evening.
The clock struck.
“It is a long time since we came in here,” said she. “You must go, for
someone might come, and we are not calm.”
He arose, clasped her close, kissing her half-open lips, as he used
to do; then they crossed the two drawing-rooms, arm in arm, like a
newly-married pair.
“Good-by, my friend.”
“Good-by, my friend.”
And the portiere fell behind him.
He went downstairs, turned toward the Madeleine, and began to walk
without knowing what he was doing, dazed as if from a blow, his legs
weak, his heart hot and palpitating as if something burning shook within
his breast. For two or three hours, perhaps four, he walked straight
before him, in a sort of moral stupor and physical prostration which
left him only just strength enough to put one foot before the other.
Then he went home to reflect.
He loved this little girl, then. He comprehended now all that he had
felt near her since that walk in the Parc Monceau, when he found in her
mouth the call from a voice hardly recognized, the voice that long ago
had awakened his heart; then all that slow, irresistible renewal of
a love not yet extinct, not yet frozen, which he persisted in not
acknowledging to himself.
What should he do? But what could he do? When she was married he would
avoid seeing her often, that was all. Meantime, he would continue to
return to the house, so that no one should suspect anything, and he
would hide his secret from everyone.
He dined at home, which he very seldom did. Then he had a fire made in
the large stove in his studio, for the night promised to be very cold.
He even ordered the chandeliers to be lighted, as if he disliked
the dark corners, and then he shut himself in. What strange emotion,
profound, physical, frightfully sad, had seized him! He felt it in his
throat, in his breast, in all his relaxed muscles as well as in his
fainting soul. The walls of the apartment oppressed him; all his life
was inclosed therein--his life as an artist, his life as a man. Every
painted study hanging there recalled a success, each piece of furniture
spoke of some memory. But successes and memories were things of the
past. His life? How short, how empty it seemed to him, yet full. He had
made pictures, and more pictures, and always pictures, and had loved one
woman. He recalled the evenings of exaltation, after their meetings, in
this same studio. He had walked whole nights with his being on fire with
fever. The joy of happy love, the joy of worldly success, the unique
intoxication of glory, had caused him to taste unforgettable hours of
inward triumph.
He had loved a woman, and that woman had loved him. Through her he
had received that baptism which reveals to man the mysterious world of
emotions and of love. She had opened his heart almost by force, and now
he could no longer close it. Another love had entered, in spite of him,
through this opening--another, or rather the same relighted by a new
face; the same, stronger by all the force which this need to adore takes
on in old age. So he loved this little girl! He need no longer struggle,
resist, or deny; he loved her with the despairing knowledge that he
should not even gain a little pity from her, that she would always be
ignorant of his terrible torment, and that another would marry her!
At this thought constantly recurring, impossible to drive away, he was
seized with an animal-like desire to howl like chained dogs, for like
them he felt powerless, enslaved, imprisoned. Becoming more and more
nervous, the longer he thought, he walked with long strides through
the vast room, lighted up as if for a celebration. At last, unable to
tolerate longer the pain of that reopened wound, he wished to try to
calm it with the recollection of his early love, to drown it in evoking
his first and great passion. From the closet where he kept it he took
the copy of the Countess's portrait that he had made formerly for
himself, then he put it on his easel, and sitting down in front of it,
gazed at it. He tried to see her again, to find her living again, such
as he had loved her before. But it was always Annette that rose upon the
canvas. The mother had disappeared, vanished, leaving in her place that
other face which resembled hers so strangely. It was the little one,
with her hair a little lighter, her smile a little more mischievous, her
air a little more mocking; and he felt that he belonged body and soul
to that young being, as he never had belonged to the other, as a sinking
vessel belongs to the waves!
Then he arose, and in order to see this apparition no more he turned the
painting around; then, as he felt his heart full of sadness, he went
to his chamber to bring into the studio the drawer of his desk, wherein
were sleeping all the letters of the mistress of his heart. There they
lay, as if in a bed, one upon the other, forming a thick layer of little
thin papers. He thrust his hands among the mass, among all that which
spoke of both of them, deep into that bath of their long intimacy. He
looked at that narrow board coffin in which lay the mass of piled-up
envelopes, on which his name, his name alone, was always written. He
reflected that the love, the tender attachment of two beings, one for
the other, were recounted therein, among that yellowish wave of papers
spotted by red seals, and he inhaled, in bending over it, the old
melancholy odor of letters that have been packed away.
He wished to re-read them, and feeling in the bottom of the drawer, he
drew out a handful of the earlier ones. As soon as he opened them vivid
memories emerged from them, which stirred his soul. He recognized many
that he had carried about on his person for whole weeks, and found
again, throughout the delicate handwriting that said such sweet things
to him, the forgotten emotions of early days. Suddenly he found under
his fingers a fine embroidered handkerchief. What was that? He pondered
a few minutes, then he remembered! One day, at his house, she had
wept because she was a little jealous, and he had stolen and kept her
handkerchief, moist with her tears!
Ah, what sad things! What sad things! The poor woman!
From the depths of that drawer, from the depths of his past, all these
reminiscences rose like a vapor, but it was only the impalpable vapor of
a reality now dead. Nevertheless, he suffered and wept over the letters,
as one weeps over the dead because they are no more.
But the remembrance of all his early love awakened in him a new and
youthful ardor, a wave of irresistible tenderness which called up in
his mind the radiant face of Annette. He had loved the mother, through a
passionate impulse of voluntary servitude; he was beginning to love
this little girl like a slave, a trembling old slave on whom fetters
are riveted that he never can break. He felt this in the depths of
his being, and was terrified. He tried to understand how and why she
possessed him thus. He knew her so little! She was hardly a woman as
yet; her heart and soul still slept with the sleep of youth.
He, on the other hand, was now almost at the end of his life. How, then,
had this child been able to capture him with a few smiles and locks of
her hair? Ah, the smiles, the hair of that little blonde maiden made him
long to fall on his knees and strike the dust with his head!
Does one know, does one ever know why a woman's face has suddenly the
power of poison upon us? It seems as if one had been drinking her with
the eyes, that she had become one's mind and body. We are intoxicated
with her, mad over her; we live of that absorbed image and would die of
it!
How one suffers sometimes from this ferocious and incomprehensible power
of a certain face on a man's heart!
Olivier Bertin began to pace his room again; night was advancing, his
fire had gone out. Through the window-panes the cold air penetrated
from outside. Then he went back to bed, where he continued to think and
suffer until daylight.
He rose early, without knowing why, nor what he was going to do,
agitated by his nervousness, irresolute as a whirling weather-vane.
In seeking some distraction for his mind, some occupation for his body,
he recollected that on that particular day of the week certain members
of his club had the habit of meeting regularly at the Moorish Baths,
where they breakfasted after the massage. So he dressed quickly, hoping
that the hot room and the shower would calm him, and he went out.
As soon as he found himself in the street, he felt the cold air, that
first crisp cold of the early frost, which destroys in a single night
the last trances of summer.
All along the Boulevards fell a thick shower of large yellow leaves
which rustled down with a dry sound. As far as could be seen, they fell
from one end of the broad avenue to the other, between the facades of
the houses, as if all their stems had just been cut from the branches
by a thin blade of ice. The road and the sidewalks were already covered
with them, resembling for a few hours the paths in the woods at the
beginning of winter. All that dead foliage crackled under the feet,
and massed itself, from time to time, in light waves under the gusts of
wind.
This was one of those days of transition which mark the end of one
season and the beginning of another, which have a savor or a special
sadness--the sadness of the death-struggle or the savor of rising sap.
In crossing the threshold of the Moorish Baths, the thought of the heat
that would soon penetrate his flesh after his walk in the cold air gave
a feeling of satisfaction to Olivier's sad heart.
He undressed quickly, wrapping around his body the light scarf the
attendant handed to him, and disappeared behind the padded door open
before him.
A warm, oppressive breath, which seemed to come from a distant furnace,
made him pant as if he needed air while traversing a Moorish gallery
lighted by two Oriental lanterns. Then a negro with woolly head, attired
only in a girdle, with shining body and muscular limbs, ran before
him to raise a curtain at the other end; and Bertin entered the large
hot-air room, round, high-studded, silent, almost as mystic as a temple.
Daylight fell from above through a cupola and through trefoils of
colored glass into the immense circular room, with paved floor and walls
covered with pottery decorated after the Arab fashion.
Men of all ages, almost naked, walked slowly about, grave and silent;
others were seated on marble benches, with arms crossed; others still
chatted in low tones.
The burning air made one pant at the very entrance. There was, within
that stifling and decorated circular room, where human flesh was heated,
where black and yellow attendants with copper-colored legs moved about,
something antique and mysterious.
The first face the painter saw was that of the Comte de Landa. He was
promenading around like a Roman wrestler, proud of his enormous chest
and of his great arms crossed over it. A frequenter of the hot baths,
he felt when there like an admired actor on the stage, and he criticised
like an expert the muscles of all the strong men in Paris.
“Good-morning, Bertin,” said he.
They shook hands; then Landa continued: “Splendid weather for sweating!”
“Yes, magnificent.”
“Have you seen Rocdiane? He is down there. I was at his house just as he
was getting out of bed. Oh, look at that anatomy!”
A little gentleman was passing, bow-legged, with thin arms and flanks,
the sight of whom caused the two old models of human vigor to smile
disdainfully.
Rocdiane approached them, having perceived the painter. They sat down
on a long marble table and began to chat quite as if they were in a
drawing-room. The attendants moved about, offering drinks. One could
hear the clapping of the masseurs' hands on bare flesh and the sudden
flow of the shower-baths. A continuous pattering of water, coming from
all corners of the great amphitheater, filled it also with a sound like
rain.
At every instant some newcomer saluted the three friends, or approached
them to shake hands. Among them were the big Duke of Harrison, the
little Prince Epilati, Baron Flach, and others.
Suddenly Rocdiane said: “How are you, Farandal?”
The Marquis entered, his hands on his hips, with the easy air of
well-made men, who never feel embarrassed at anything.
“He is a gladiator, that chap!” Landa murmured.
Rocdiane resumed, turning toward Bertin: “Is it true that he is to marry
the daughter of your friend?”
“I think so,” said the painter.
But the question, before that man, in that place, gave to Olivier's
heart a frightful shock of despair and revolt. The horror of all
the realities he had foreseen appeared to him for a second with such
acuteness that he struggled an instant or so against an animal-like
desire to fling himself on Farandal.
He arose.
“I am tired,” said he. “I am going to the massage now.”
An Arab was passing.
“Ahmed, are you at liberty?”
“Yes, Monsieur Bertin.”
And he went away quickly in order to avoid shaking hands with Farandal,
who was approaching slowly in making the rounds of the Hammam.
He remained barely a quarter of an hour in the large quiet resting-room,
in the center of a row of cells containing the beds, with a _parterre_
of African plants and a little fountain in the center. He had a feeling
of being pursued, menaced, that the Marquis would join him, and that he
should be compelled, with extended hand, to treat him as a friend, when
he longed to kill him.
He soon found himself again on the Boulevard, covered with dead leaves.
They fell no more, the last ones having been detached by a long blast of
wind. Their red and yellow carpet shivered, stirred, undulated from one
sidewalk to another, blown by puffs of the rising wind.
Suddenly a sort of roaring noise glided over the roofs, the animal-like
sound of a passing tempest, and at the same time a furious gust of wind
that seemed to come from the Madeleine swept through the Boulevard.
All the fallen leaves, which appeared to have been waiting for it, rose
at its approach. They ran before it, massing themselves, whirling, and
rising in spirals up to the tops of the buildings. The wind chased them
like a flock, a mad flock that fled before it, flying toward the gates
of Paris and the free sky of the suburbs. And when the great cloud
of leaves and dust had disappeared on the heights of the Quartier
Malesherbes, the sidewalks and roads remained bare, strangely clean and
swept.
Bertin was thinking: “What will become of me? What shall I do? Where
shall I go?” And he returned home, unable to think of anything.
A news-stand attracted his eye. He bought seven or eight newspapers,
hoping that he might find in them something to read for an hour or two.
“I will breakfast here,” said he, as he entered, and went up to his
studio.
But as he sat down he felt that he could not stay there, for throughout
his body surged the excitement of an angry beast.
The newspapers, which he glanced through, could not distract his mind
for a minute, and the news he read met his eye without reaching his
brain. In the midst of an article which he was not trying to comprehend,
the name of Guilleroy made him start. It was about the session of the
Chamber, where the Count had spoken a few words.
His attention, aroused by that call, was now arrested by the name of the
celebrated tenor Montrose, who was to give, about the end of December, a
single performance at the Opera. This would be, the newspaper stated,
a magnificent musical solemnity, for the tenor Montrose, who had
been absent six years from Paris, had just won, throughout Europe and
America, a success without precedent; moreover, he would be supported by
the illustrious Swedish singer, Helsson, who had not been heard in Paris
for five years.
Suddenly Olivier had an idea, which seemed to spring from the depths
of his heart--he would give Annette the pleasure of seeing this
performance. Then he remembered that the Countess's mourning might be an
obstacle to this scheme, and he sought some way to realize it in spite
of the difficulty. Only one method presented itself. He must take a
stage-box where one may be almost invisible, and if the Countess should
still not wish to go, he would have Annette accompanied by her father
and the Duchess. In that case, he would have to offer his box to the
Duchess. But then he would be obliged to invite the Marquis!
He hesitated and reflected a long time.
Certainly, the marriage was decided upon; no doubt the date was settled.
He guessed the reason for his friend's haste in having it finished soon;
he understood that in the shortest time possible she would give her
daughter to Farandal. He could not help it. He could neither prevent,
nor modify, nor delay this frightful thing. Since he must bear it,
would it not be better for him to try to master his soul, to hide his
suffering, to appear content, and no longer allow himself to be carried
away by his rage, as he had done?
Yes, he would invite the Marquis, and so allay the Countess's
suspicions, and keep for himself a friendly door in the new
establishment.
As soon as he had breakfasted, he went down to the Opera to engage one
of the boxes hidden by the curtain. It was promised to him. Then he
hastened to the Guilleroys'.
The Countess appeared almost immediately, apparently still a little
moved by their tender interview of the day before.
“How kind of you to come again to-day!” said she.
“I am bringing you something,” he faltered.
“What is it?”
“A stage-box at the Opera for the single performance of Helsson and
Montrose.”
“Oh, my friend, what a pity! And my mourning?”
“Your mourning has lasted for almost four months.”
“I assure you that I cannot.”
“And Annette? Remember that she may never have such an opportunity
again.”
“With whom could she go?”
“With her father and the Duchess, whom I am about to invite. I intend
also to offer a seat to the Marquis.”
She gazed deep into his eyes, and a wild desire to kiss him rose to her
lips. Hardly believing her ears, she repeated: “To the Marquis?”
“Why, yes.”
She consented at once to this arrangement.
He continued, in an indifferent tone: “Have you fixed the date of their
marriage?”
“Oh, yes, almost. We have reasons for hastening it very much, especially
as it was decided upon before my mother's death. You remember that?”
“Yes, perfectly. And when will it take place?”
“About the beginning of January. I ask your pardon for not having told
you of it sooner.”
Annette entered. He felt his heart leap within him as if on springs,
and all the tenderness that drew him toward her suddenly became bitter,
arousing in his heart that strange, passionate animosity into which love
changes when lashed by jealousy.
“I have brought you something,” he said.
“So we have decided to say 'you'?” she replied.
He assumed a paternal tone.
“Listen, my child, I know all about the event that is soon to occur. I
assure you that then it will be indispensable. Better say 'you' now than
later.”
She shrugged her shoulders with an air of discontent, while the Countess
remained silent, looking afar off, her thoughts preoccupied.
“Well, what have you brought me?” inquired Annette.
He told her about the performance, and the invitations he intended to
give. She was delighted, and, throwing her arms around his neck with the
manner of a little girl, she kissed him on both cheeks.
He felt ready to sink, and understood, when he felt the light caresses
of that little mouth with its sweet breath, that he never should be
cured of his passion.
The Countess, annoyed, said to her daughter: “You know that your father
is waiting for you.”
“Yes, mamma, I am going.”
She ran away, still throwing kisses from the tips of her fingers.
As soon as she had gone, Olivier asked: “Will they travel?”
“Yes, for three months.”
“So much the better,” he murmured in spite of himself.
“We will resume our former life,” said the Countess.
“Yes, I hope so,” said he, hesitatingly.
“But do not neglect me meanwhile.”
“No, my friend.”
The impulse he had shown the evening before, when seeing her weep, and
the intention which he had just expressed of inviting the Marquis to the
performance at the Opera, had given new hope to the Countess.
But it was short. A week had not passed ere she was again following
the expression of this man's face with tortured and jealous attention,
watching every stage of his suffering. She could ignore nothing, herself
enduring all the pain that she guessed at in him; and Annette's constant
presence reminded her at every moment of the day of the hopelessness of
her efforts.
Everything oppressed her at the same time--her age and her mourning.
Her active, intelligent, and ingenious coquetry, which all her life had
given her triumph, found itself paralyzed by that black uniform which
marked her pallor and the change in her features, while it rendered the
adolescence of her daughter absolutely dazzling. The time seemed far
away, though it was quite recent, when, on Annette's return to Paris,
she had proudly sought similar toilets which at that time were favorable
to her. Now she had a furious longing to tear from her body those
vestments of death which made her ugly and tortured her.
If she had felt that all the resources of elegance were at her service,
if she had been able to choose and use delicately shaded stuffs, in
harmony with her coloring, which would have lent a studied power to her
fading charms, as captivating as the inert grace of her daughter, she
would no doubt have known how to remain still the more charming.
She knew so well the influences of the fever-giving costume of
evening, and the soft sensuousness of morning attire, of the disturbing
_deshabille_ worn at breakfast with intimate friends, which lend to a
woman until noontime a sort of reminiscence of her rising, the material
and warm impression of the bed and of her perfumed room!
But what could she attempt under that sepulchral robe, that convict's
dress, which must cover her for a whole year? A year! She must remain
a year imprisoned in that black attire, inactive and vanquished. For a
whole year she would feel herself growing old, day by day, hour by hour,
minute by minute, under that sheath of crape! What would she be in a
year if her poor ailing body continued to alter thus under the anguish
of her soul?
These thoughts never left her, and spoiled for her everything she might
have enjoyed, turned into sadness things that would have given her joy,
leaving her not a pleasure, a contentment, or a gaiety intact. She was
agitated incessantly by an exasperating need to shake off this weight of
misery that crushed her, for without this tormenting obsession she would
still have been so happy, alert, and healthy! She felt that her soul was
still fresh and bright, her heart still young, the ardor of a being
that is beginning to live, an insatiable appetite for happiness, more
voracious even than before, and a devouring desire to love.
And now, all good things, all things sweet, delicious and poetic, which
embellish life and make it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her, because
she was growing old! It was all finished! Yet she still found within
her the tenderness of the young girl and the passionate impulses of the
young woman. Nothing had grown old but her body, that miserable skin,
that stuff over the bones, fading little by little like the covering
of a piece of furniture. The curse of this decay had attached itself
to her, and had become almost a physical suffering. This fixed idea
had created a sensation of the epidermis, the sensation of growing old,
continuous and imperceptible, like that of cold or of heat. She really
believed that she felt an indescribable sort of itching, the slow march
of wrinkles upon her forehead, the weakening of the tissues of the
cheeks and throat, and the multiplication of those innumerable little
marks that wear out the tired skin. Like some one afflicted with
a consuming disease, whom a continual prurience induces to scratch
himself, the perception and terror of that abominable, swift and secret
work of time filled her soul with an irresistible need of verifying
it in her mirrors. They called her, drew her, forced her to come, with
fixed eyes, to see, to look again, to recognize incessantly, to touch
with her finger, as if to assure herself, the indelible mark of the
years. At first this was an intermittent thought, returning whenever she
saw the polished surface of the dreaded crystal, at home or abroad. She
paused in the street to gaze at herself in the shop-windows, hanging
as if by one hand to all the glass plates with which merchants ornament
their facades. It became a disease, an obsession. She carried in her
pocket a dainty little ivory powder-box, as large as a nut, the interior
of which contained a tiny mirror; and often, while walking, she held it
open in her hand and raised it to her eyes.
When she sat down to read or write in the tapestried drawing-room, her
mind, distracted for the time by a new occupation, would soon return
to its obsession. She struggled, tried to amuse herself, to have
other ideas, to continue her work. It was in vain; the prick of desire
tormented her, and soon dropping her book or her pen, her hand would
steal out, by an irresistible impulse, toward the little hand-glass
mounted in antique silver that lay upon her desk. In this oval, chiseled
frame her whole face was inclosed, like a face of days gone by, a
portrait of the last century, or a once fresh pastel now tarnished by
the sun. Then after gazing at herself a long time, she laid, with a
weary movement, the little glass upon the desk and tried to resume her
work; but ere she had read two pages or written twenty lines, she
was again seized with the invincible and torturing need of looking at
herself, and once more would extend her hand to take up the mirror.
She now handled it like an irritating and familiar toy that the hand
cannot let alone, used it continually even when receiving her friends,
and made herself nervous enough to cry out, hating it as if it were a
sentient thing while turning it in her fingers.
One day, exasperated by this struggle between herself and this bit of
glass, she threw it against the wall, where it was broken to pieces.
But after a time her husband, who had it repaired, brought it back to
her, clearer than ever; and she was compelled to take it, to thank him,
and resign herself to keep it.
Every evening, too, and every morning, shut up in her own room, she
resumed, in spite of herself, that minute and patient examination of the
quiet, odious havoc.
When she was in bed she could not sleep; she would light a candle again
and lie, wide-eyed, thinking how insomnia and grief hasten irremediably
the horrible work of fleeting time. She listened in the silence of
the night to the ticking of the clock, which seemed to murmur, in its
monotonous and regular tic-tac: “It goes, it goes, it goes!” and her
heart shrank with such suffering that, with the sheet gripped between
her teeth, she groaned in despair.
Once, like everyone else, she had some notion of the passing years and
of the changes they bring. Like everyone else, she had said to herself
every winter, every spring, and every summer, “I have changed very much
since last year.” But, always beautiful, with a changing beauty, she
was never uneasy about it. Now, however, suddenly, instead of admitting
peacefully the slow march of the seasons, she had just discovered and
understood the formidable flight of the minutes. She had had a sudden
revelation of the gliding of the hour, of that imperceptible race,
maddening when we think of it--of that infinite defile of little
hurrying seconds, which nibble at the body and the life of men.
After these miserable nights, she had long periods of somnolence that
made her more tranquil, in the warmth of her bed, when her maid had
opened the curtains and lighted the morning fire. She lay there tired,
drowsy, neither awake nor asleep, in the torpor of thought which brings
about the revival of that instinctive and providential hope which gives
light and life to the hearts of men up to their last days.
Every morning now, as soon as she had risen from her bed, she felt moved
by a powerful desire to pray to God, to obtain from Him a little relief
and consolation.
She would kneel, then, before a large figure of Christ carved in oak, a
gift from Olivier, a rare work he had discovered; and, with lips
closed, but imploring with that voice of the soul with which we speak to
ourselves, she lifted toward the Divine martyr a sorrowful supplication.
Distracted by the need of being heard and succored, naïve in her
distress, as are all faithful ones on their knees, she could not doubt
that He heard her, that He was attentive to her request, and was perhaps
touched at her grief. She did not ask Him to do for her that which He
never had done for anyone--to leave her until death all her charm, her
freshness and grace; she begged only a little repose, a little respite.
She must grow old, of course, just as she must die. But why so soon?
Some women remain beautiful so long! Could He not grant that she should
be one of these? How good He would be, He who had also suffered so much,
if only He would let her keep for two or three years still the little
charm she needed in order to be pleasing.
She did not say these things to Him, of course, but she sighed them
forth, in the confused plaint of her being.
Then, having risen, she would sit before her toilet-table, and with
a tension of thought as ardent as in her prayer, she would handle the
powders, the pastes, the pencils, the puffs and brushes, which gave her
once more a plaster-like beauty, fragile, lasting only for a day.