I am going at last to see my mother, to recover my curios, my books! I
feel no more the red-hot iron that burns my entrails; I leap like a kid!
I announce to my family the good news. My mother writes me letter after
letter, wondering why I do not come. Alas! my order of absence must be
countersigned at the division headquarters at Rouen. It comes back after
five days; I am “in order”; I go to find Sister Angèle; I beg her to
obtain for me before the time fixed for my departure permission to go
into the city to thank De Fréchêdé, who have been so good to me. She
goes to look for the director and brings me back permission. I run
to the house of those kind people, who force me to accept a silk
handkerchief and fifty francs for the journey. I go in search of my
papers at the commissariat. I return to the hospital, I have but a few
minutes to spare. I go in quest of Sister Angèle, whom I find in the
garden, and I say to her with great emotion:
“Oh, dear Sister, I am leaving; how can I ever repay you for all that
you have done for me?”
I take her hand which she tries to withdraw, and I carry it to my lips.
She grows red. “Adieu!” she murmurs, and, menacing me with her finger,
she adds playfully, “Be good! and above all do not make any wicked
acquaintances on the journey.”
“Oh, do not fear, my Sister, I promise you!”
The hour strikes; the door opens; I hurry off to the station; I jump
into a car; the train moves; I have left Evreux. The coach is half full,
but I occupy, fortunately, one of the corners. I put my nose out of
the window; I see some pollarded trees, the tops of a few hills that
undulate away into the distance, a bridge astride of a great pond that
sparkles in the sun like burnished glass. All this is not very pleasing.
I sink back in my corner, looking now and then at the telegraph wires
that stripe the ultramarine sky with their black lines, when the train
stops, the travellers who are about me descend, the door shuts, then
opens again and makes way for a young woman. While she seats herself and
arranges her dress, I catch a glimpse of her face under the displacing
of her veil. She is charming; with her eyes full of the blue of heaven,
her lips stained with purple, her white teeth, her hair the color of
ripe corn. I engage her in conversation. She is called Reine; embroiders
flowers; we chat like old friends. Suddenly she turns pale, and is about
to faint. I open the windows, I offer her a bottle of salts which I have
carried with me ever since my departure from Paris; she thanks me, it
is nothing, she says, and she leans on my knapsack and tries to sleep.
Fortunately we are alone in the compartment, but the wooden partition
that divides into equal parts the body of the carriage comes up only as
far as the waist, and one can see and above all hear the clamor and the
coarse laughter of the country men and women. I could have thrashed them
with hearty good will, these imbeciles who were troubling her sleep! I
contented myself with listening to the commonplace opinions which they
exchanged on politics. I soon have enough of it; I stop my ears. I too,
try to sleep; but that phrase which was spoken by the station-master of
the last station, “You will not get to Paris, the rails are torn up
at Mantes,” returned in my dreams like an obstinate refrain. I open my
eyes. My neighbor wakes up, too; I do not wish to share my fears with
her; we talk in a low voice. She tells me that she is going to join her
mother at Sèvres. “But,” I say to her, “the train will scarcely enter
Paris before eleven o’clock to-night. You will never have time to reach
the landing on the left bank.”
“What shall I do?” she says, “if my brother is not down at my arrival?”
Oh, misery, I am as dirty as a comb and my stomach burns! I can not
dream of taking her to my bachelor lodgings, and then I wish before all
to see my mother. What to do? I look at Reine with distress. I take
her hand; at that moment the train takes a curve, the jerk throws her
forward; our lips approach, they touch, I press mine; she turns red.
Good heavens, her mouth moves imperceptibly; she returns my kiss; a long
thrill runs up my spine; at contact of those ardent embers my senses
fail. Oh! Sister Angèle, Sister Angèle! a man can not make himself over!
And the train roars and rolls onward, without slackening speed; we are
flying under full steam toward Mantes; my fears are vain; the track is
clear. Reine half shuts her eyes; her head falls on my shoulder; her
little waves of hair tangle with my beard and tickle my lips. I put my
arm about her waist, which yields, and I rock her. Paris is not far; we
pass the freight-depots, by the roundhouses where the engines roar in
red vapor, getting up steam; the train stops; they take up the tickets.
After reflection, I will take Reine to my bachelor rooms, provided her
brother is not waiting her arrival. We descend from the carriage; her
brother is there. “In five days,” she says, with a kiss, and the pretty
bird has flown. Five days after I was in my bed, atrociously sick, and
the Prussians occupy Sèvres. Never since then have I seen her.
My heart is heavy. I heave a deep sigh; this is not, however, the time
to be sad! I am jolting on in a fiacre. I recognize the neighborhood; I
arrive before my mother’s house; I dash up the steps, four at a time. I
pull the bell violently; the maid opens the door. “It’s Monsieur!”
and she runs to tell my mother, who darts out to meet me, turns pale,
embraces me, looks me over from head to foot, steps back a little, looks
at me once more, and hugs me again. Meanwhile the servant has stripped
the buffet. “You must be hungry, M. Eugène?” I should think I was
hungry! I devour everything they give me. I toss off great glasses of
wine; to tell the truth, I do not know what I am eating and what I am
drinking!
At length I go to my rooms to rest, I find my lodging just as I left
it. I run through it, radiant, then I sit down on the divan and I
rest there, ecstatic, beatific, feasting my eyes with the view of my
knickknacks and my books. I undress, however; I splash about in a great
tub, rejoicing that for the first time in many months I am going to get
into a clean bed with white feet and toenails trimmed. I spring onto
the mattress, which rebounds. I dive my head into the feather pillow, my
eyes close; I soar on full wings into the land of dreams.
I seem to see Francis, who is lighting his enormous wooden pipe, and
Sister Angèle, who is contemplating me with her little moue; then Reine
advances toward me, I awake with a start, I behave like an idiot, I
sink back again up to my ears, but the pains in my bowels, calmed for
a moment, awake, now that the nerves become less tense, and I rub my
stomach gently, thinking that the horrors of dysentery are at last over!
I am at home. I have my rooms to myself, and I say to myself that
one must have lived in the promiscuosity of hospitals and camps to
appreciate the value of a basin of water, to appreciate the solitude
where modesty may rest at ease.