Complete Works of Emile Zola (11 page)

This creature was, without doubt, at first only a friend. I finally sat down beside her, talked, and wept without concealing my tears. Laurence, whom my sad situation and extreme poverty must have filled with pity, answered me, wiped away my tears. She also was weary of thus dying by inches; the silence and cold had at last begun to be tiresome to her. Her words seemed to me more refined, her gestures more caressing than usual; she had almost become a woman again.

At this point, brothers, I was suddenly invaded by love. My sphere of life was growing narrower each day. The earth was fleeing from me; Paris, France, yourselves, my thoughts and my acquaintances, all were no more. Laurence represented in my eyes God and mankind, humanity and the Divinity; the chamber in which she was had acquired a horizon out of all proportion. I felt myself beyond the world, almost in the embrace of death; I no longer thought that I might one day descend into the street, the noise of which mounted to my ears, and I had so little comprehension that I was alive that the thought had come to me to live without eating. It seemed to me that Laurence and I were in another part of the celestial system, lost, separated from the living, transported to some unknown corner beyond time and space. We could not have been more alone in the midst of the infinite.

One evening, as twilight came on, filling the chamber with a transparent gloom, I was walking slowly about, still going from the door to the window. In the growing obscurity, I saw Laurence’s pale face, standing out from amid her dishevelled black hair; her sombre eyes had a vague brightness, and she looked at me thus, steadily, beautiful in her sufferings. I stopped in my weary walk and contemplated her. I knew not what had taken place within me; my flesh was shaken, my heart was open and I trembled like a leaf in every limb. All of a quiver, I ran to Laurence and clasped her in my arms. I loved her.

I loved Laurence with all the strength of my abandonment and poverty. I was suffering from hunger and cold, I was clad in a rag of wool, I felt myself forsaken by everybody, and yet I had a sweetheart to fold to my bosom, to love with the love of desperation! In the depths of infamy, I had found the sweetheart who was waiting for me. Now, in the gulf, far removed from the light, we were alone to embrace, to clasp each other, like children who are afraid and who reassure themselves by hiding their heads on each other’s shoulders. What silence was around us, and what gloom! How sweet it is to love in solitude, amid those deserts of despair whither all sounds of life have ceased to penetrate! I plunged to the depths of this supreme felicity; I loved Laurence with the caressing delight with which the dying man must love the existence which is escaping from him.

I passed a week in a sort of dolorous ecstasy. I was tempted to stop up the window, that we might live in the midst of darkness for the balance of our lives; I wished to shut out the entire world and all it contained; I wished that the garret were very much smaller, so small, in fact, that no intruder could ever get into it to remind us that we were mortal like the rest of mankind and womankind. I did not think myself sufficiently miserable; I wanted more wretchedness, an excess of affliction of the most biting and terrible description; I desired the advent of some frightful misfortune that should strip me of all that want had left, that should tear from me every remaining comfort and leave Laurence and myself to live without having to thank this earth for anything whatever! I sighed for perfect independence and complete isolation. Then, my days would sweep by, each in its turn plunging me deeper into my love and my poverty. I was enraptured with cold and hunger, with the dirty mansarde, with the stains upon the walls and the furniture. I was enraptured with the blue silk dress, that lamentable assemblage of soiled tatters. My heart almost burst with pity when I saw Laurence standing before me, with this rag upon her back; I asked myself with the utmost anxiety by what kiss, by what superhuman kindness, I could clearly and unmistakably prove to her that I adored her in her poverty. As for me, I was happy in possessing only my coverlet: I would be colder, I would suffer more. I recall those first days like some strange, bewildering dream; I see the mansarde more in disorder, gloomier than ever, breathe the thick and suffocating atmosphere which the window did not renew; I see Laurence and myself like shadowy ghosts, walking about the miserable garret in our repulsive rags, chatting lovingly together, living in ourselves.

Yes, I love her, I love her desperately. I interrogated myself, and my palpitating heart narrates to me the horrible story, telling me how it came about. I have enlarged my wound; now that I have searched within myself, now that I know the reason and the depth of my love, I feel that I have more fever, that I have become mad and reckless.

A short time ago, I was shocked at the very thought of loving Laurence. My pride is dead, for I am shocked no longer. I have descended to Laurence’s level; I understand her perfectly now, and do not wish her to be other than she is. I take a savage joy in saying to myself that I am now at the very bottom of the social scale, that I am satisfied there, and that there I will remain. I appreciate Laurence the more because of the gay and careless life she led in the past. There is, I know, despair, a sort of bitter irony, in my love; I have the intoxication of evil, the delirium of abandonment and hunger; I give myself up to the existence which has suddenly welcomed me, in order to insult the light on which my soul dotes and to which I cannot ascend.

Did I not at one time speak of redemption? I wished to reform Laurence, to lead her into better ways, to make her good and useful. What an insane idea! It was much easier for me to become unworthy. To-day, we love each other. Poverty betrothed us, agony married us. I love Laurence in all her ugliness and wretchedness, I love Laurence in her blue silk rag, in her rough degradation. I do not wish another sort of a Laurence, I do not wish a spotless innocent with a white soul and rosy countenance.

I do not know what are my companion’s thoughts, I do not know whether my kisses delight or fatigue her. She is paler and graver than of old. With closed lips, staring eyes and expressionless face, she returns my caresses with a sort of repressed strength. Sometimes, she seems weary, as if she were discouraged at searching for something which she could not find; but soon she appears to resume her task and search anew, looking me in the face, her hands upon my shoulders. Besides, she has still the same weary appearance, the same dull soul; she sleeps constantly with her eyes open, and awakes with a start when I place my lips upon hers. When I told her of my love, she showed considerable astonishment, then, for two weeks, she lived a younger and more active life; a few days ago, she fell back into her eternal sleep.

But what difference does this make to me? I do not as yet feel that I need Laurence to love me. I am at that point of supreme selfishness which, in love, is satisfied with its own tenderness. I love and desire nothing more; I forget myself in the society of this woman and ask no other consolation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

JACQUES’ SUPPER.

LAST evening, there was a grand fête at Jacques’ apartment. Pâquerette came in the afternoon to tell us that our neighbors expected us to supper at. eleven o’clock. Imprisoned as I was for lack of clothing, I did not refuse the invitation, being desirous of procuring some amusement for Laurence.

After Pâquerette’s departure, we debated the important question of pantaloons. It was decided that Laurence should cut me out a pair of short breeches from a piece of green serge, which had long lain about upon the floor. She went to work, and, two hours afterwards, I was costumed like a lighterman in a shirt of doubtful whiteness, with a strip of damask around my waist to support my breeches.

Laurence then cleaned her blue silk dress, as much as possible, with a dampened rag. She brightened it up by stretching the stuff over one of her knees and rubbing it; she even pushed the repairs so far as to sew around the sleeves and corsage a little lace, which had once been white but was now yellow and rumpled.

Our entrance was triumphal. Jacques and Marie pretended to believe that a bit of pleasantry was intended; they applauded us, as actors are applauded who attain the effect they desire to produce. I was
a
trifle ashamed; I did not feel at ease until no one paid any further attention to my short breeches of green serge.

We found Pâquerette installed in an arm-chair. I know not how that little old woman ever managed to get into the apartment of Jacques, who is a cold young man and but little of a talker. She has the suppleness of a serpent and a honeyed and trembling voice which force the best closed doors. She appeared perfectly at home; she spread herself out carefully, passing her dry hands over her skirts, partially throwing back her head, opening and shutting her gray eyes lost among the wrinkles of her face. She seemed to taste in advance the delicacies placed beside her on a table.

Marie, who had arisen on our arrival, seated herself again in a corner of the sofa; the flushes on her cheeks shone more brightly than usual, and she laughed, displaying her white teeth. Jacques, standing before the mantelpiece, politely listened to what she had to say, always grave but affectionate, almost smiling.

They had brought forward chairs for us. The chamber was brilliantly lighted by two candelabra, each containing five candles, placed upon the table. This table, loaded with bottles and plates, had been pushed against the wall to make room, there to await its opportunity to occupy the middle of the apartment. The curtains of the bed were drawn; the floor, the hangings and the furniture seemed to have been brushed and washed with care. We were in the midst of luxury, in the midst of festivity.

I was about to participate, for the first time, in one of those suppers of which I had formerly dreamed in Provence. I was calm and self-possessed. Laurence smiled and I was happy in her joy. There is in the brightness of candles, in the sight of bottles red with wine, of plates full of cakes and cold meats, in the sensation produced by a close chamber, luminous and saturated with indefinable perfumes, a sort of physical comfort which puts thought to sleep. My companion, her lips parted, had, doubtless, again found well-known odors in that apartment. As for me, I felt the blood flow with increased warmth and rapidity in my veins; I experienced an inclination to laugh and drink, urged on by my now thoroughly awakened nature.

Besides, the chamber was quiet, the bursts of gayety softened, the entertainment decent and orderly. We drank a glass of Madeira, talking with the utmost calmness. This tranquility made me impatient, I was tempted to cry out. The two young women had taken places beside Pâquerette, and the trio were conversing in low tones. I heard the broken voice of the old woman like a murmur, while Jacques was explaining to me the reason of the festival. He had just passed an examination successfully and was celebrating the event. He was more expansive and less the practical man than usual; he abandoned his customary gravity further, forgetting to talk of his future position, going even so far as to speak of his youth. Jacques, to tell the plain truth, was intoxicated with joy; he consented to play the fool, because he was a step higher up on the ladder leading to wisdom.

Finally we went to table. I had waited for this moment. I filled my glass and drank. I was exceedingly hungry, as was natural with a man who lived on crusts; but I disdained the cakes and the cold meats; I turned my attention to the wine, white or red. I did not drink from need of intoxication, I drank for the sake of drinking, because it seemed to me that I was there to empty my glass. I acquitted myself of that task most conscientiously, and I experienced a sensation of joy on feeling my limbs grow weaker little by little and my ideas become confused.

At the expiration of half an hour, the flames of the candles paled and spread out, the chamber grew red in every part, a dim and vacillating red. My reason, which had been wavering, was strengthened in a strange fashion; it had acquired a frightful lucidity. I was intoxicated; I must have had upon my countenance the stupid mask and idiotic smile of drunkards; but, within me, in the depths of my intelligence, I felt myself calm and sensible, I reasoned in full liberty. It was a terrible species of drunkenness; I suffered from the weakening of my body, which was greatly overcome, and from the vigor of my mind, which saw and judged.

Amid the clatter of glasses and forks, I looked at the women and Jacques, who were laughing and chatting among themselves. Their visages and their words came to me sharply and clearly, producing
a
sensation painful in its sharpness and penetration. My love was still in me, troubling and transforming my being; but the man of other days, the philosophical reasoner, had been again awakened. I took delight in my intoxication and in Laurence, at the same time thoroughly comprehending the nature of these two disgraces.

Jacques was seated at my left; I know not if he had succeeded in intoxicating himself; however, he feigned to be under the influence of liquor. Seated opposite to me were the three women, Marie on my right, then Pâquerette, then Laurence, who was on Jacques’ left. My looks were fixed upon these women, who seemed to me to possess new visages and tones of voice.

I had not seen Marie since the day I had found her upon the sofa, white and languishing. Then, she looked like a young girl in the last stage of consumption. Now, her flaxen locks hanging loosely, her face flushed with excitement, her cheeks tinged with a pale violet, she agitated her bare arms with the fever of an ignorant child who is marching to her first delight. I was bewildered by the brightness of her youthful countenance.

I cannot describe the painful sensation produced in me by this creature, who had thrown off her agony to laugh and drink, to try to enjoy the delicious anguish of that life which she had unconsciously lived in her childish innocence. As I stared at her, quivering and with her hair thus dishevelled, her eyes flashing and her lips humid, it seemed to me, in the bewilderment of my intoxication, that I was gazing upon some expiring creature, who, on her death bed, suddenly hears the voice of her senses and her heart, and who, hesitating, not knowing what to do at that supreme moment, nevertheless does not wish to die before having satisfied her vague longings.