As the heat was very oppressive, and there was not a breath of wind,
after dinner she wanted to go for a drive in the _Bois de Boulogne_ and
we drove in the victoria towards the bridge at Suresne.
It was getting late, and the dark drives looked like deserted
labyrinths, and cool retreats where one would have liked to have stopped
late, where the very rustle of the leaves seems to whisper amorous
temptations, and there was seduction in the softness of the air and in
the infinite music of the silence.
Occasionally, lights were to be seen among the trees, and the crescent
of the new moon shone like a half-opened gold bracelet in the serene
sky, and the green sward, the copses and the small lakes, which gave an
uncertain reflection of the surrounding objects, came into sight
suddenly, out of the shade, and the intoxicating smell of the hay and of
the flower beds rose from the earth as if from a sachet.
We did not speak, but the jolts of the carriage occasionally brought us
quite close together, and as if I were being attracted by some
irresistible force, I turned to Elaine and saw that her eyes were
filled with tears, and that she was very pale, and my whole body
trembled when I looked at her. Suddenly, as if she could not bear this
state of affairs any longer, she threw her arms round my neck, and with
her lips almost touching mine, she said:
"Why do you not love me any longer? Why do you make me so unhappy? What
have I done to you, Jacques?"
She was at my mercy, she was undergoing the influence of the charm of
one of those moonlight nights which unbrace women's nerves, make them
languid, and leave them without a will and without strength, and I
thought that she was going to tell me everything and to confess
everything to me, and I had to master myself, not to kiss her on her
sweet coaxing lips, but I only replied coldly:
"Do you not know, Elaine?... Did you not think that sooner or later I
should discover everything that you have been trying to hide from me?"
She sat up in terror, and repeated as if she were in a profound stupor:
"What have I been trying to hide from you?"
I had said too much, and was bound to go on to the end and to finish,
even though I repented of it ever afterwards, and amidst the noise of
the carriage I said in a hoarse voice:
"Is it not your fault if I have become estranged from you, shall not I
be the only one to be unhappy, I who loved you so dearly, who believed
in you, and whom you have deceived, and condemned to take another man's
mistress?"
Elaine closed my mouth with my fingers, and panting, with dilated eyes
and with such a pale face that I thought she was going to faint, she
said hoarsely:
"Be quiet, be quiet, you are frightening me,... frightening me as if you
were a madman...."
Those words froze me, and I shivered as if some phantoms were appearing
among the trees and showing me the place that had been marked out for me
by Destiny, and I felt inclined to jump from the carriage and to run to
the river, which was calling to me yonder in a maternal voice, and
inviting me to an eternal sleep, eternal repose, but Elaine called out
to the coachman:
"We will go home, Firmin; drive as fast as you can!"
We did not exchange another word, and during the whole drive Elaine
sobbed convulsively, though she tried to hide the sound with her pocket
handkerchief, and I understood that it was all finished _and that I had
killed our love_....