Complete Works of Emile Zola (122 page)

This was purely a nervous phenomenon. But it was very like fear, very like cowardice, and William was grieved at appearing a poltroon in presence of Madeleine. He had shaded his eyes with his hand. At last, unable to fight against the rebellion of all his nerves, he shouted to his young companion; he asked her in a voice which he tried to render calm, if it would not be more prudent to go and finish their dessert inside the restaurant.

“Why it hardly rains at all,” replied Madeleine. “We can stay a bit longer.”

“I should prefer to go in,” he answered haltingly, “the sight of the lightning makes me feel bad.”

She looked at him with an air of astonishment.

“Very well,” she said simply.
“
Let us go in, then.”

A maid carried the dinner things into the public room of the inn, a large bare apartment, with blackened walls and no furniture but chairs and benches. William sat down, with his back to the windows, before a plate of strawberries which he left untouched. Madeleine soon finished hers; then she got up and went and opened a window which looked out on the yard. Leaning on the sill, she surveyed the sky now all ablaze. —

The storm was bursting with terrible violence. It had settled over the wood, weighing down the air beneath the blazing canopy of clouds. The rain had ceased, a few sudden gusts of wind were twisting and bending the trees. The flashes of lightning followed each other with such rapidity that it was quite light outside — a bluish kind of light which made the country look like a scene in a melodrama. The peals of thunder were not repeated in the echoes of the valley: they were as clear and sharp as detonations of artillery. The lightning looked as if it must strike the TREES round the inn. Between each peal, the silence was appalling.

William felt extremely uncomfortable at the thought of a window being open behind his back. In spite of himself, a sort of nervous impulse made him turn his head and he saw Madeleine quite pale in the violet light of the flashes. Her golden hair, which had been wetted by the rain in the yard, fell over her shoulders, and now seemed lit up by every sudden blaze.

“Oh! how fine it is,” she exclaimed. “Just come and look, William. There is a tree over there which looks all a-blaze. You might fancy that the flashes of lightning were rushing about in the wood like wild-beasts let loose. And the sky! — Well! it’s a wonderful display of fireworks.”

The young fellow could no longer resist the mad desire he felt of going and closing the shutters. He rose.

“Come now,” he said impatiently, “shut the window. It is quite dangerous for you to stand there like that.”

He stepped forward and touched Madeleine on the arm. She turned half round.

“You are afraid then?” she said to him.

And she burst into a loud laugh, one of those derisive laughs a woman gives when she wishes to scoff at you.

William hung his head. He hesitated for a moment before going to sit down again at the table; then, overcome by his distress, he murmured: “I implore you.”

Just then, the clouds burst and torrents of water came down. A hurricane got up and drove the rain in a stream right into the room. Madeleine was fain to close the window. She came and sat down in front of William.

After a short silence she said:

“When I was a little girl, my father used to take me in his arms, when there was a thunderstorm, and carry me to the window. I recollect how, for the first few times, I used to hide my face against his shoulder; afterwards I used to be amused at watching the lightning — But you are afraid, are you not?”

William raised his head.

“I am not afraid,” he replied gently,
“
I am in pain.” There was another period of silence. The storm continued with terrible flashes. For nearly three hours the thunder never ceased to nimble.

William sat the whole of this time on his chair, crushed and motionless, his face pale and weary. Seeing his nervous shudders, Madeleine was convinced at last that he really did suffer; she watched him with interest and surprise, quite astonished that a man should have more delicate nerves than a woman.

These three hours were desperately long for the young couple. They hardly spoke. Their lovers’ dinner bad had a strange termination. At last the thunder passed away, and the rain became less heavy. Madeleine went and opened the window.

“It is all over,” she said.
“
Come, William, the lightning has stopped.”

The young man feeling relieved and breathing freely once more, came and leaned on the window sill by the side of her. They stood there a minute. Then she put her hand out.

“It hardly rains at all now,” she remarked. “We must be off, if we don’t want to miss the last train.”

The landlady came into the room.

“You are going to spend the night here, are you not?” she asked. “I will go and get your room ready.”

“No, no,” quietly replied Madeleine, “we are not going to stay here, I don’t want to. We only came for dinner, did we not, William? We will start now.”

“Why it s impossible! The roads are quite impassable. You will never get to your destination.”

The young woman seemed very concerned. She fidgeted uneasily and repeated:

“
No, I want to be off; we ought not to stay the night.’’

“Just as you like,” replied the landlady, “only, if you venture out, you will sleep in the fields, instead of under shelter, that’s all.”

William said nothing: he simply looked at Madeleine in an imploring way. The latter avoided his glances; she was walking up and down with an agitated step, a prey to a violent struggle. In spite of her firm determination not to look at her companion, she at last bestowed a glance on him; she saw him so humble, so submissive before her, that her will relented. One mutual look and she gave way. She took a few more steps with stern brow and cold face. Then, in a clear decisive tone, she said to the landlady:

“All right, we will stay here.”

“Then I will go and get the blue room ready.”

Madeleine started suddenly.

“No, not that, another one,” she replied in a strange tone.

“But all the others are taken.”

The young woman hesitated again. There was a fresh struggle in her mind. She murmured:

“We had better leave.”

But she met William’s beseeching look a second time. She yielded. While the bed was being got ready, the young couple went outside the inn. They walked on and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, lying in a meadow at the entrance to the wood.

In the freshness after the rain, the smell of the fields could be felt afar. The air, still warm, was balmy with cool breezes, the verdure and wet soil exhaled a pungent perfume. Strange sounds proceeded from the wood, sounds of dripping leaves and herbage drinking in the fallen rain.

All nature was pervaded with a thrill, that delicious thrill which the fields have when a storm has beaten the dust down. And this thrill, so universal on this gloomy night, robbed the darkness of its mysterious pervading charm.

One half of the sky, exquisitely clear, was studded, with stars; the other half was still veiled with a dark curtain of clouds which were slowly moving away. The young couple, sitting side by side on the tree-trunk, could not distinguish each other’s face; they saw each other indistinctly in the thick shadow cast over them by a clump of tall trees. They sat there for a few minutes without speaking. They were listening to their thoughts. There was no need to tell them aloud.

“
You don’t love me, Madeleine,” murmured William at last.

“You are mistaken, my dear,” slowly answered the young woman, “I think I love you. Only I have not had time to ask and answer myself — I should have liked to wait a little longer.”

There was another spell of silence. The young man’s pride was passing through au ordeal: he would have wished to see his loved one fall into his arms of her own accord, not to be induced to do so by a sort of fatality.

“What distresses me,” he replied in a low tone, “is the thought that it is to chance that I owe your presence here — You would not have consented to stay, would you, if the roads had been passable?”

“Oh! you don’t know me,” exclaimed Madeleine: “if I stay, it is because I want to. I would have gone away when the thunderstorm was at its height, rather than have stayed here against my wish.”

She began to look thoughtful; then, in a half-distinct tone, as if she were talking to herself, she added:

“I don’t know what will happen to me later on. I consider myself quite capable of asserting my wishes, but it is so difficult to regulate one’s life.”

She stopped: she was on the point of confessing to William that it was a strange feeling of compassion only which had induced her to stay. Women yield oftener than is thought, out of pity, out of a need which they feel to be kind. She had seen the young man shudder so during the thunderstorm, he had looked at her with such tearful eyes, that she had not felt able to refuse to put herself in his hands.

William saw that this surrender of herself was almost like a gift of charity. All his susceptibilities were aroused, for he felt that an offer of love of this kind was a blow to his pride.

“
You are right,” he answered, “we ought to wait a bit longer. Would you like us to start? Now, it is I who am asking you to go back to Paris.”

He spoke in a proud tone. Madeleine noticed the change in his voice.

“Why, what is the matter with you, my dear?” she asked in surprise.

“Let us go,” he repeated, “let us go, I implore you.”

She gave a despondent shrug.

“What is the good now?” she said. “We shall have to come to it sooner or later. Since the day we first met, I have felt myself yours. I had dreamed of burying myself in a convent, I had sworn not to commit a second fault. So long as I only had one lover, I kept my pride. To-day, I feel that I am prostrate in shame. Don’t be angry with me for speaking so frankly.”

She pronounced these words with such sadness that the young man’s pride softened. He became meek and cringing.

“You don’t know who I am,” he said. “Trust yourself to me. I am not like other men. I will love you as my wife, and I will make you happy, I swear to you.”

Madeleine did not answer. She thought she had some experience of life: she said to herself that William would leave her some day, and that shame would come. Still she was strong, and she knew that she could resist; but she felt no inclination for resistance, in spite of the reasonings of her own mind. All her resolutions were giving way in a fatal hour. She was astonished herself at accepting, so easily, what, the day before even, she would have resented with cold energy.

William was thinking. For the first time, the young woman had just spoken to him of her past, had confessed to him that she had had a lover; this lover, the remembrance of whom, living and indelible, he could trace in each gesture, in each word that his companion uttered, this lover seemed to him to set himself between them, now that his spirit had been evoked.

The two remained silent for a long time, resolved to be united and waiting the hour for retiring to rest with singular mistrust. They felt weighed down with oppressive and uneasy thoughts; not a word of love, not a term of endearment rose to their lips; if they had spoken, they would have told one another of their disquietude. William was holding Madeleine’s hand; but it lay cold and motionless in his. He could never have thought that his first love-prattle would have been so full of anxiety. Night was encircling him and his loved one with its shade and its mystery; they were alone, separated from the world, buried in the weird charm of a night of storm, and nothing touched their heart-strings but the fear and uncertainty of the morrow.

And around them, nature, steeped in rain, was tardily going to rest, trembling still with a last thrill of delight. The cool air was pervading everything; the pungent odour of wet mould and leaves was wafted along laden with overpowering intoxicating strength, like the vinous smell from a vat. Every cloud had now disappeared from the sky; the expanse of sombre blue was peopled with a living swarm of stars.

Madeleine gave a sudden shudder.

“I am cold,” she said, “let us go in.’’

They entered the inn without exchanging a word. The landlady showed them up to their room, and left them, leaving on the corner of the table a candle which cast a flickering light on the walls. It was a small room, hung with a vile paper with big blue flowers, faded in big patches by the damp. A large deal bedstead, painted a dull red, took up nearly the whole floor. A chilly air fell from the ceiling, there was a lurking odour of mustiness in the corners. —

The young couple shivered as they entered. They felt as if wet sheets were being put on their shoulders. They remained silent walking about the room. William wanted to close the shutters and fumbled a long time without succeeding; there was something in the way somewhere.

“There is a catch at the top,” said Madeleine in spite of herself.

William looked her in the face, with an instinctive movement. They both turned quite pale. Both suffered from this involuntary confession; the young woman knew of the catch, she had slept in this room.

Next morning Madeleine woke first. She got quietly out of bed and dressed herself watching William who was still sleeping. There was a touch almost of anger in her gaze. An indefinable expression of regret passed over her hard serious brow, which the smile of her lips was powerless to soften. At times she raised her eyes; from her lover’s face she would pass to the inspection of the walls of the room, of certain stains on the ceiling which she knew again. She felt alone, she did not fear to indulge in her memories of the past. At one moment, as she cast her eyes on the pillow where William’s head was reposing, she shuddered as if she had expected to find another head there.

When she was dressed, she went and opened the window and leaned with her elbows on the sill, gazing on the fields now yellow in the sun-light. She had mused there nearly half an hour, her brow refreshed, her face relaxed by calmer thoughts, by distant hopes, when a slight noise made her turn round.