Complete Works of Emile Zola (129 page)

Madeleine heard one day of Lobrichon’s death. She merely remarked:

“He was a bad man.”

She appeared quite unconcerned, and William seemed to take no interest in this news. When he received letters from Véteuil, be threw them into a drawer after reading them; his mistress never asked him what these letters contained. At the end of six months of this life, they knew as little of each other’s history as they did the first day; their love had been bestowed without inquiries.

This dream came to a sudden end.

One morning, when William had gone to his banker’s, Madeleine, not knowing what to do, began to turn over the leaves of an album which was lying in the room, and which had hitherto escaped her notice. Her lover had come across it the night before, at the bottom of a trunk. It only contained three portraits, one of his father, one of Genevieve, and one of his friend James.

When the young woman saw the latter, she uttered a cry of pain. With her hands resting on the open leaves of the album, erect and trembling she gazed at James’s smiling face as if a phantom had risen before her. It was he, the lover of a night that had become the lover of a year, the man whose memory, long dormant in her breast, was awakening and hurting her cruelly, by this sudden apparition.

It was a thunder-bolt in her peaceful sky. She had forgotten this young fellow, she considered herself William’s faithful wife. Why was James coming between them? Why was he here, in the very room where but a minute before her lover was holding her in his arms? Who had brought him to her to disturb her peace for ever? These questions set her distracted head reeling.

James was looking at her with a slightly mocking air. He seemed to be joking her on her softened heart; he was saying to her: “Good gracious! my poor girl, how you must be bored here! Come, let us go to Chatou, let us go to Robinson, let us go, quick! to where there is life and excitement — “ She could fancy that she heard the sound of his voice and his burst of laughter; she thought that he was going to stretch out his arms to her in the old familiar way. Like a flash, she saw the past, the room in the Rue Soufflot, all that life which she thought so far off, and from which a few months only separated her. She had been in a dream then; the bliss of yesterday was not hers by right, she was false and dishonest. All the disgrace she had passed through rose to her heart and stifled her.

The photograph presented James in the careless attitude of his student’s life. He was sitting astride an overturned chair, in his shirt sleeves, his neck and arms hare, and a clay pipe in his mouth. Madeleine could distinguish a mark that he had on his left arm, and she remembered how often she had kissed that mark. Her recollections caused her a hot burning sensation; in her suffering she could detect, as it were, the hitter dregs of the cup of pleasure which he had given her to drink. He was in his own room, half-undressed, and perhaps going to take her to his heart. Then she seemed to feel, around her waist, the clasp, that she knew so well, of her first lover. Fainting, she sank back in her chair, believing that she was prostituting herself, and looking round her with the frightened shudder of an adulterous woman. The little room had an appearance of demure quiet, of soft shade; it was full of that voluptuous peace which six months of love impart to a secluded cot; on a panel, above the sofa, hung William’s portrait smiling tenderly on Madeleine. And Madeleine grew pale beneath this look of love, in the midst of that peaceful air, as she felt James take possession of her heart and fill her with pain.

Then she bethought herself. Before going away, the young doctor had given her his portrait, one exactly like this which a cruel fate had just put under her eyes. But, the day before she came to this house, she had religiously burnt it, unwilling to introduce the likeness of her first lover into William’s home. And this portrait was coming to life again, and James was finding his way, in spite of herself, into her retreat! She got up, and took the album again. Then, behind the photograph, she read this inscription: “To my old comrade, to my brother William.” William, James’s comrade, James’s brother! Madeleine, pale as death, closed the album and sat down again. With stony eyes and drooping hands, she remained a long time absorbed in thought.

She said to herself that she must be guilty of some great crime, to be punished so cruelly for her six months’ bliss. She had surrendered herself to two men, and these two men loved one another with brotherly love. She pictured a sort of incest in her double affection. Formerly, in the Latin quarter, she had known a girl who was shared by two friends, and who went quietly from one friend’s bed to the other’s. She suddenly thought of this poor wretch, telling herself with disgust that she was as shameless as she was. Now she felt for certain that she would be haunted by the phantom as she devoted herself to William. Perhaps she would enjoy a horrid pleasure in the embraces of these lovers whom she would confound with each other. The anguish of her future seemed to her then so clearly defined, that she had an idea of fleeing, of disappearing for ever.

But her cowardice restrained her. The very night before, she had felt so happy in the genial, pleasant warmth of William’s adoration. Could she not grow calm beneath the young man’s caresses, forget again, and think herself worthy and faithful? Then she asked herself if it would not be better to tell her lover everything, to confide to him her past, and to get his absolution. The thought of such a disclosure terrified her. How could she dare to confess to William that she had been his comrade’s, his brother’s former mistress? He would drive her away, he would banish her from his bed, he would never put up with the shame of such a partnership. She reasoned as if she were still James’s mistress, so strong did she feel his influence over her even now.

She would say nothing, she would keep all the shame to herself. But she could not yet make up her mind to this decision; her straightforward nature revolted at the idea of an eternal falsehood, she felt that she would not have strength for long to live in her shame and anguish. It were better to confess at once, or flee. These agitating thoughts passed through her reeling head with painful noisy shocks. She examined her feelings without being able to come to a decision. Suddenly she heard the street door open. A rapid step mounted the staircase and William entered.

His face was quite agitated. He threw himself on the sofa and burst out sobbing. Madeleine, surprised and terrified, thought that he had got to know all. She rose up in a tremble.

The young man was still weeping, with his face buried in his hands, and shaking with the paroxysms of despair. At last, he held out his arms to his mistress, and said to her in a choking voice:

“Comfort me, comfort me. Oh! how I suffer!” Madeleine went and sat down by his side, not daring to understand him, and asking herself if it was she who was making him weep like that. She forgot her own sufferings in the presence of a grief like his.

“Tell me, what is the matter with you,” she asked her lover, as she took his hands in hers.

He looked at her like one distracted.

“I did not like to sob in the street,” he stammered through his tears. “I ran, I was choking — I wanted to get here — Let me be, it does me good, it comforts me — “ He wiped his tears, then he almost choked afresh and burst out weeping again.

“My God! my God! I shall never see him again,” he murmured.

The young woman thought she understood and was touched with pity. She drew William into her arms, kissed his forehead, wiped his tears, and soothed him with her broken-hearted gaze.

“You have lost your father?” she asked him again.

He made a sign of denial. Then he clasped his hands and in the meek voice of despair:

“My poor James,” he said, seeming to address himself to a shadow seen only by himself; “my poor James, you will never love me more as you used to love me — I had forgotten you, I was not even thinking of you when you died.” At the name of James, Madeleine, who was still drying her lover’s tears, jumped up with a shudder. James dead! The news fell with a dull thud on her heart. She stood stunned, asking herself if it was not she who, without knowing it, had killed this young fellow to get rid of him.

“You did not know him,” William went on, “I have never spoken to you of him, I think. I was ungrateful, our happiness made me forgetful — He was a jewel, he had a nature full of devotion. He was the only friend I had in this world. Before meeting you, I had only known one affection, it was his. You were the only beings that had opened your hearts to me. And I have lost him — “

Here he was interrupted by a sob. He went on:

“At school, they used to beat me, and it was he who came to my aid. He saved me from tears, he held out to me his friendship and protection, to me, who lived like a pariah in the contempt, in the derision of everybody. When I was a child, I worshipped him like a god; I would have fallen on my knees before him, had he asked for my prayers, I owed him so much. I would ask myself with such fervour how I could pay him, some day, my debt of gratitude? And I have let him die far away. I have not loved him enough, I feel it.”

His emotion choked him again. After a short silence he continued:

“And later on, what long days we passed together. We roamed the fields, hand in hand. I remember one morning we were searching for craw-fish under the willows; he said to me, ‘William, there is only one good thing in this world, and it is friendship. Let us be devoted to one another, it will soothe us in after life.’ Poor dear fellow, he is gone, and I am alone. But he will live always in my soul — I have nobody but you left, Madeleine, I have lost my brother.” He sobbed again, and again held out his arms to the young woman, with a gesture of utter despair.

She was in pain. The grief, the poignant regrets of William were causing her a singular feeling of rebellion; she could not hear from his month his passionate praise of James, without being tempted to exclaim: “Silence! this man has robbed you of your happiness, you owe him nothing.’’ She had thus far escaped the anguish of being brought face to face with her past by the very man whose love compelled her to forget it. And she did not dare to close his lips, or to confess all to him, terrified by what she had just learnt, by that strong bond of friendship and gratitude which had united her two lovers. She listened to William’s despair, as she would have listened to the threatening roar of a wave which was rushing towards her to swallow her up. Motionless and silent, her impassiveness was remarkable. She felt that her only sensation was one of anger. James’s death irritated her. She had at first felt a sort of dull pang, and then she had revolted as she saw that his memory could not fade from her mind. By what right, since he was dead, did he come to disturb her peace?

William was still holding out his arms to her, and repeating: “My poor Madeleine, console me — You are the only one left to me in the world.”

Console him for James’s death; it seemed ridiculous and cruel to her. She was obliged to take him in her arms again, and dry the tears which he was shedding for her first lover. The strange part she was acting at this moment, would have made her weep too, could she have found tears. She was truly unfeeling and pitiless; no regret, no tenderness for him whom she had loved, nothing but a secret irritation at William’s grief. She was still the daughter of Férat the workman.

“He loved him more than he does me,” she thought; “he would cast me off if I were to declare what I think.”

Then, for the sake of saying something, prompted too by bitter curiosity, she asked in a brief tone, how he had met with his death?

Then William told her how. having to wait at his banker’s he had mechanically taken up a newspaper. His eyes had fallen on a paragraph which announced the wreck of the frigate Prophet which had been caught in a gale on nearing the Cape. The vessel had been dashed to pieces on the rocks and not a man had been saved. James, who was going out to Cochin China on this steamer, did not even repose in a grave where his friends could go to pray for him. The news was officially confirmed.

When the anguish of the lovers was allayed, during the night that followed, Madeleine meditated more calmly on the unexpected events of the day. Her anger had gone, and she felt herself dejected and sad. Had she heard of James’s death under other circumstances, no doubt she would have had a choking sensation in her throat and the tears would have come. Now, alone in the recess where the bed stood, at the sound of the fitful breathing of her lover who was sleeping the heavy sleep of the wretched, she thought of him who was dead, of the corpse rolled and beaten against the rocks by the waves. Perhaps, as he had fallen into the sea, he had uttered her name. She remembered bow one day he had cut himself rather severely, in the Rue Soufflot, and how she had nearly fainted at the sight of the blood trickling along his hand. She loved him then, she would have sat up with him for months to rescue him from an illness. And now he was drowned, and she was feeling angry with him. Yet he had not become so indifferent to her as all that; she had him still, on the contrary, always in her breast, in every member; he had such hold on her that she thought she could feel his breath on her face. Then she felt the quiver which thrilled her in the old days, when the young fellow wound his arms round her body. She felt an inexpressible pang, as if a part of her being had been torn away from her. She began to weep, burying her head in the pillow, so that William might not hear. All her woman’s weakness had come back to her; it seemed to her that she was more alone than ever in the world.

This crisis lasted for a long time. Madeleine prolonged it involuntarily as she called to mind the days of James’s love; at each touching detail which came back to her from the past, she became more distressed, and she reproached herself with her petulant indifference during the day, as if it had been a crime. William himself, had he known her history, would have told her to fall on her knees and weep with him. She clasped her hands, she asked pardon of him who was dead, of him whom she evoked, of him whose cries of agony she fancied she could hear mingled with the roaring of the sea.