A TROUBLED SOUL
If she dared not frankly ask him this question: Why must we go out? any
more than the others: Why is it proper that I should go to mass to be
seen? Why should I wear gowns that ruin us? Why do you accept
decorations that are valueless in your eyes? Why do you seek the society
of men who have no merit but what they derive from their official
position or from their fortune? Why do we take upon ourselves social
duties that weary both of us, instead of remaining together in a tender
and intelligent intimacy that is sweet to us both? she could not ask
herself.
They all appertained to this order of ideas, that she, without doubt,
found explained them: disposition of character; the exactions of an
ambition in haste to realize its desires; susceptibility or overshadowing
pride; but there were others founded on observation or memory, having no
connection with those, or so it seemed to her.
She began to know her husband the day following their marriage, having
believed that he was always such as he revealed himself to her; but this
was not the case, and the man she had loved was so unlike the man whose
wife she had become, that it might almost be thought there were two.
To tell the truth, it was not marriage that made the change in his temper
that distressed her; but it was not less characteristic by that, that it
dated back to a period anterior to this marriage.
She remembered the commencement with a clearness that left no place for
doubt or hesitation; it was at the time when pursued by creditors he
entered into relations with Caffie. For the first time he, always so
strong that she believed him above weakness, had had a moment of
discouragement on announcing that he would probably be obliged to leave
Paris; but this depression had neither the anger nor weakness that he had
since shown. It was the natural sadness of a man who saw his future
destroyed, nothing more. The only surprise that she then felt was caused
by the idea of strangling Caffie and taking enough money from his safe to
clear himself from debt, and also because he said--as a consequence of
this act--speaking of the remorse of an intelligent man, that his
conscience would not reproach him, since for him conscience did not
exist. But this was evidently a simple philosophical theory, not a trait
of character; a jest or an argument for the sake of discussion.
Relieved from his creditors with the money won at Monaco, he returned to
his usual calm, working harder than ever, passing his 'concours', and
when it seemed excusable that he might be nervous, violent, unjust, he
remained the man that he had been ever since she knew him. Then, all at
once, a short time before Florlentin went to the assizes, occurred these
strange explosions of temper, spasms of anger, and restlessness that she
could not explain, manifesting themselves exactly at the time when, by
Madame Dammauville's intervention, she hoped Florentin would be saved.
She had not forgotten the furious anger, that was inexplicable and
unjustifiable, with which he refused her request to see Madame
Dammauville. He had thrust her away, wishing to break with her, and
until she was a witness of this scene she never imagined that any one
could put such violence into exasperation. Then to this scene succeeded
another, totally opposed, which had not less impressed her, when, at
their little dinner by the fire, he showed such profound desolation on
telling her to keep the memory of this evening when she should judge him,
and announcing to her, in a prophetic sort of way, that the hour would
come when she would know him whom she loved.
And now this hour, the thought of which she had thrown far from her, had
sounded; she sought to combine the elements of this judgment which then
appeared criminal to her, and now forced itself upon her, whatever she
might do to repel it.
How many times this memory returned to her! It could almost be said that
it had never left her, sweet and sad at the same time, less sweet and
more sad, according as new subjects for uneasiness were added to the
others, in deepening the mysterious and troublous impression that it left
with her.
To judge him! Why did he wish that she should judge him? And on what?
And yet with him it was not an insignificant word, but the evidence of a
particular state of conscience, which many times since asserted itself.
Was it not, in effect, to this order of ideas that the cry belonged that
escaped him in the night when, waking suddenly, he asked with emotion,
with fright: "What have I said?" And also to the same appertained the
anger that carried him away when, 'a propos' of their religious marriage,
she spoke of confession: "Why do you think that I should be afraid to go
to confession?"
How could he imagine that she could admit the idea of fear in connection
with him? The idea never occurred to her mind until this moment; and if
now the memory of her astonishment came to her, it was because of other
little things added to those of the past that evoked it.
How numerous and significant they were, these things: his constant
uneasiness on seeing himself watched by her; his invitation when he
thought she was going to question him; his access of passion when,
through heedlessness or forgetfulness, or simply by chance, she asked him
a question on certain subjects, and immediately the tenderness that
followed, so sudden that they appeared rather planned in view of a
determined end than natural or spontaneous.
It was a long time before she admitted the calculation under the sweet
words that made her so happy; but in the end it was well that she should
open her eyes to the evidence, and see that they were with him the
consequences of the same and constant preoccupation, that of not
committing himself.
It was only one step from this to ask him what he did not wish to yield
up.
Yet, as short as it was, she resisted for a long time the curiosity that
possessed her. It was her duty as a loving and devoted wife not to seek
beyond what he showed her, and this duty was in perfect accord with the
dispositions of her love; but the power of things seen carried her beyond
will and reason. She could not apply her mind to search for that which
agonized her, and she could not close her eyes and ears to what she saw
and heard.
And what struck them were the same observations, turning always in the
same circle, applied to the same subjects and persons:
Caffie's name irritated him; Madame Dammauville's angered him;
Florentin's made him positively unhappy.
As for the two former, she might have prevented the pronunciation of them
when she saw the effect they infallibly produced on him.
But she could not prevent the utterance of Florentin's name, even had she
wished it. How could she tell her mother never to speak the name of him
who was constantly in their thoughts?
In spite of Saniel's efforts and solicitations, supported by Nougarede's,
Florentin had embarked for New Caledonia, whence he wrote as often as he
could. His letters related all his sufferings in the terrible galleys,
where he was confined during the voyage, and since his arrival they were
a series of long complaints, continued from one to the other, like a
story without end, turning always on the same subject, his physical
sufferings, his humiliation, his discouragement, and his disgust in the
midst of the unfortunates whose companion he was.
The arrival of these letters filled the mother and sister with anguish
that lasted for several days; and this anguish, that neither of them
could dissimulate, angered Saniel.
"What would you do if he were dead?" he asked Phillis.
"Would it not be better for him?"
"But he will return."
"In what condition?"
"Are we the masters of fate?"
"We weep, we do not complain."
But he complained of the weeping faces that surrounded him, the tears
they concealed from him, the sighs they stifled. Ordinarily he was
tender and affectionate to his mother-in-law, with attention and
deference which in some ways seemed affected, as if he were so by will
rather than by natural sentiment; but at these times he forgot this
tenderness, and treated her with hardness so unjust, that more than once
Madame Cormier spoke of it to her daughter.
"How can your husband, who is so good to me, be so merciless regarding
Florentin? One would say that our sadness produces on him the effect of
a reproach that we would address to him."
One day when things had gone farther than usual, she had the courage to
speak to him plainly: "Forgive me for burdening you with the weariness of
our disgrace," she said to him. "When I complain of everything, of men
and things, you should remember that you are the exception, you who have
done everything to save him."
But these few words which she believed would calm the irritation of her
son-in-law, had on the contrary exasperated him; he left her, furious.
"I do not understand your husband at all," she said to her daughter.
"Will you not explain to me what the matter is with him?"
How could she give her mother the explanation that she could not give
herself? Having reached an unfathomable abyss, she dared not even lean
over to look into its depths; and instead of going on in the path where
she was pledged in spite of herself, she made every effort to return, or
at least to stop.
What good would it do to find out why he was so peculiar, and what it was
that he took so much pains to conceal? This could only be idle curiosity
on her part, for which she would be punished sooner or later.
Turning these thoughts over continually in her mind she lost her gayety,
her power to resist blows of fate, such as the small trials of life,
which formerly made her courageous; her vigorous elasticity sunk under
the heavy weight with which it was charged, and her smiling eyes now more
often expressed anxiety than happiness and confidence.
In spite of her watchfulness over herself she was not able to hide the
change from Saniel, for it manifested itself in everything--in her face
formerly so open, but which now bore the imprint of a secret sadness; in
her concentrated manner, in her silence and abstraction.
What was the matter with her? He questioned her, and she replied with
the prudence that she used in all her conversation with him. He examined
her medically, but found nothing to indicate a sickly condition which
would justify the change in her.
If she did not wish to answer his questions, and he had the proof that
she did not wish to; if, on the other hand, she was not ill, and he was
convinced that she was not--there must be something serious the matter to
make the woman whom but lately he read so easily become an enigma that
made him uneasy.
And this thing--if it were that whose crushing weight he himself carried
on his bent shoulders? She divined, she understood, if not all, at least
a part of the truth.
What an extraordinary situation was hers, and one which might truly
destroy her reason.
Nothing to fear from others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the
world--on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that
which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to awake
the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of taking
them, and to make spectres of them which he alone saw and heard.
And he believed himself strong. Fool that he was, and still more foolish
to have taken such a charge when by the exercise of his will he did not
place himself in a condition to carry it! To will! But he had not
learned how to will.