ATTEMPTED REPARATION
Because he felt calm when with Phillis, Saniel wished that she might
never leave him.
But, as happy as she was in her sorrow to see that instead of avoiding
her--which a less generous man would have done, perhaps--he sought to
draw nearer each day, she could not give up her lessons and her work,
which was her daily bread, to give all her time to her love, any more
than she could leave her mother entirely alone, crushed with shame, who
had never needed so much as now to be cheered and sustained.
She did not let a day pass without going to see Saniel; but in spite of
her desire she could not remain with him as long as she wished and he
asked. When she rose to go and he detained her, she remained, but it was
only for a few minutes; they were short, and the time soon came when,
after ten attempts, she was obliged to leave him.
At all times these separations had been full of despair to her, the
apprehension of which, from the moment of her arrival, paralyzed her;
but now they were still more cruel. Formerly, on leaving him, she often
saw him deep in his work before she opened the door; now, on the
contrary, he conducted her to the vestibule, detained her, and only let
her leave him when she tore herself from his embrace, after promising and
repeating her promise to come early the next day and stay longer.
Formerly, also, she was calm when she left him, not thinking of his
health, nor asking herself how she would find him at their next meeting,
strong and powerful, as sound in body as in mind. On the contrary, now
she worried herself, wondering how she would find him on the occasion of
each visit. Would the sadness, melancholy, and dejection still remain?
Would he be thinner and paler? It was her care, her anguish, to try to
divine the causes of the change in him, which manifested itself as
strongly in his sentiments as in his person. Was it not truly
extraordinary that he was more grave and uneasy now that his life was
assured than during the hard times when he was so worried that he never
knew what the morrow would bring? He had obtained the position that his
ambition coveted; he had sufficient money for his wants; he admitted that
his experiments had succeeded beyond his expectations; the essays that he
published on his experiments were loudly discussed, praised by some,
contested by others; it seemed that he had attained his object; and he
was sad, discontented, unhappy, more tormented than when he exhausted
himself with efforts, without other support than his will. At last, when
frightened to see him thus, she questioned him as to how he felt, he
became angry, and answered brutally
"Ill? Why do you think that I am--ill? Am I not better able than any
one to know how I am? I am overworked, that is all; and as my life of
privation does not permit me to repair my forces, I have become anaemic;
it is not serious. It is strange, truly, that you ask for explanations
of what is natural. Count the teeth of the polytechnicians and look at
their hair after their examinations, and tell me what you think of them.
Why do you think anything else is the matter with me? One cannot expend
one's self with impunity; that would be too good. Everything must be
paid for in this world."
She was obliged to believe that he was right and understood his
condition; however, she could not help worrying. She knew nothing of
medicine; she did not know the meaning of the medical terms he used,
but she found that this was not sufficient to explain all--neither his
roughness of temper and excess of anger without reason, any more than his
sudden tenderness, his weakness and dejection, his preoccupation and
absence of mind.
She discovered the effect she produced on him, and how, merely by her
presence, she cheered this gloomy fancy and raised this depression by not
asking him stupid questions on certain subjects which she had not yet
determined on, but which she hoped to avoid. Also, she did not wish to
leave him, and ingeniously invented excuses to go to see him twice a day;
in the morning on going to her lessons, and in the afternoon or evening.
Late one evening she rang his bell with a hand made nervous with joy.
"I have come to stay till to-morrow," she said, in triumphant tones.
She expected that he would express his joy by an embrace, but he did
nothing.
"Are you going out?"
"Not at all; I am not thinking of myself, but of your mother."
"Do you think that I would have left her alone in her weak and nervous
state? A cousin of ours arrived from the country, who will occupy my
bed, and I profited by it quick enough, saying that I would remain at the
school. And here I am."
In spite of his desire for it, he had never dared ask her to pass the
night with him. During the day he would only betray himself by his sad
or fantastic temper; but at night, with such dreams as came to him, might
not some word escape that would betray him?
However, since she was come it was impossible to send her away; he could
not do it for her nor for himself. What pretext could he find to say,
"Go! I do not want you?" He wanted her above all; he wanted to look at
her, to listen to her, to hear her voice that soothed and lulled his
anguish, to feel her near him--only to have her there, and not be face
to face with his thoughts.
She examined him secretly, asking herself the cause of this singular
reception, standing at the entrance of the office, not daring to remove
her hat. How could her arrival produce an effect so different from what
she expected?
"You do not take off your hat?" he said.
"I was asking myself if you had to work."
"Why do you ask yourself that?"
"For fear of disturbing you."
"What a madness you have for always asking something!" he exclaimed
violently. "What do you expect me to say? What astonishes you? Why
should you disturb me? In what? 'Voyons', speak, explain yourself!"
The time was far distant when these explosions surprised her, though they
always pained her.
"I speak stupidly," she said. "What will you? I am stupid; forgive me."
These words, "forgive me," were more cruel than numberless reproaches,
for he well knew that he had nothing to forgive in her, since she was the
victim and he the criminal. Should he never be able to master these
explosions, as imprudent as they were unjust?
He took her in his arms and made her sit by him.
"It is for you to forgive," he said.
And he was as tender and caressing as he had been brutal. He was a fool
to imagine that she could have suspicions, and the surest way to give
birth to them was to show fear that she had them. To betray himself by
such awkwardness was as serious as to let a cry escape him while
sleeping.
But for this night he had a way which was in reality not difficult, that
would not expose him to the danger of talking in his sleep-he would not
sleep. After having passed so many nights without closing his eyes,
without doubt he could keep them open this entire night.
But he deceived himself; when he heard the calm and regular respiration
of Phillis with her head on his shoulder, and felt the mild warmth of her
body penetrate his, in the quiet imposed upon him, without being
conscious of it, believing himself far from sleep, and convinced that he
required no effort to keep awake, he suddenly slept. When he awoke a ray
of pale sunlight filled the room, and leaning her elbow on the bolster,
Phillis was watching him. He made a brusque movement, throwing himself
backward. "What is the matter?" he cried. "What have I said?"
Instantly his face paled, his lips quivered; he felt his heart beat
tumultuously and his throat pressed by painful constriction. "But
nothing is the matter," she answered, looking at him tenderly. "You have
said nothing." To come to the point, why should he have spoken? During
his frightful dreams, his nights of disturbed sleep, he might have cried
out, but he did not know if he had ever done so. And besides, he had not
just waked from an agitated sleep. All this passed through his mind in
an instant, in spite of his alarm. "What time is it?" he asked.
"Nearly six o'clock." "Six o'clock!" "Do you not hear the vehicles in
the street? The street-venders are calling their wares." It must have
been about one o'clock when he closed his eyes; he had then slept five
hours, profoundly, and he felt calm, rested, refreshed, his body active
and his mind tranquil, the man of former times, in the days of his happy
youth, and not the half-insane man of these last frightful months.
He breathed a sigh.
"Ah, if I could have you always!" he murmured, as much to himself as to
her.
And he gave her a long look mingled with a sad smile; then, placing his
arm around her shoulders, he pressed her to him.
"Dear little wife!"
She had never heard so profound, so vibrating, a tenderness in his voice;
never had she been able, until hearing these words, to measure the depth
of the love that she had inspired in him; and it even seemed that this
was the declaration of a new love.
Pressing her passionately to him, he repeated:
"Dear little wife!"
Distracted, lost in her happiness, she did not reply.
All at once he held her from him gently, and looking at her with the same
smile:
"Does this word tell you nothing?"
"It tells me that you love me."
"And is that all?"
"What more can I wish? You say it, I feel it. You give me the greatest
joy of which I can dream."
"It is enough for you?"
"It would be enough if it need never be interrupted. But it is the
misfortune of our life that we are obliged to separate at the time when
the ties that unite us are the most strongly bound."
"Why should we separate?"
"Alas! Mamma? And daily bread?"
"If you did not leave your mother. If you need no longer worry about
your life?"
She looked at him, not daring to question him, not betraying the
direction of her thoughts except by a trembling that she could not
control in spite of her efforts.
"I mean if you become my wife."
"Oh, my beloved!"
"Will you not?"
She threw herself in his arms, fainting; but after a moment she
recovered.
"Alas! It is impossible," she murmured.
"Why impossible?"
"Do not ask me; do not oblige me to say it."
"But, on the contrary, I wish you to tell me."
She turned her head away, and in a voice that was scarcely perceptible,
in a stifled sigh:
"My brother--"
"It is greatly on account of your brother that I wish this marriage."
Then, suddenly: "Do you think me the man to submit to prejudiced
blockheads?"