Complete Works of Emile Zola (140 page)

“Wretched woman! wretched woman!” was all William could repeat.

“Oh yes! it was base, but you must understand everything. If you knew how weary I was, what a need of repose I felt — But, I am not pretending to be better than others; only, I know that I did not lose my pride; I gave way out of need for respect, out of a desire to heal the wounds which my self-esteem has sustained. When you gave me your name, it seemed to me that you were cleansing me from every stain. Yet, it appears that filth leaves spots which cannot be washed out — However, I did not yield without a struggle, did I? I passed a whole night asking myself if I should not be committing a base action in accepting your offer. I had made up my mind to refuse in the morning. But you came before I was awake, and took me in your arms; I remember, your clothes had the fresh smell of the morning air: you had walked through the wet grass in order to arrive sooner, and all my courage fled. Yet, James had appeared to me in my sleepless dreams.

The spectre had told me that I was his still, that he would be present at our marriage, and live in our bedroom — I revolted, I wanted to prove that I was free, and I was base, base, base — Oh! how I must wring your heart; how you do right to hate me.”

“Wretched woman, wretched woman!” repeated William in a feeble monotonous tone.

“Later on, I was a fool, and congratulated myself shamelessly on having committed a cowardly action, For four years, Heaven has had the cruel mockery to reward me for my misdeed, wishing to deal the blow in the very midst of my calm, so as to render the wound fatal — I lived at peace in this room, persuading myself at times that I had always lived here, and I thought myself pure when I kissed our little Lucy — What days of genial love, what kind caresses, what rapturous affection and happiness all stolen. Yes, I stole it all; your love, your esteem, your name, the serenity of your life, and my girl’s kisses. I deserved nothing good, nothing worthy. Why could I not see that fate was sporting with me, and that some day or other it would snatch away from me these joys which were not meant for a creature like me? No, I gloried, like a fool, in my bliss, in my theft; and at last I imagined that these happy days were mine by right; I was simple enough to tell myself that they would last for ever. And then the crash came — Well, it is nothing but justice, for I am a wretch. But, William, you must not suffer. I won’t let you suffer, do you hear? — I will go away; you shall forget me, and never hear of me again.”

And then she began to sob, burying herself in her dress, and brushing away the hair that had stuck to her cheeks with the tears. The despair of this strong woman, whose habitual energy had been crushed by a sudden blow, was full of a suppressed undertone of anger. She humbled herself, but she would be seized at times with a sudden attack of fury, and then she would fain have railed at fate itself. She would have become calm all the sooner if her pride had not suffered so much. One gentle thought only really softened her mind: she pitied William. Her knees had given way, and she found herself on the ground: as she spoke in the fitful tones of a delirious dying woman, she raised her eyes to her husband, with a beseeching glance, as if to implore him not to give way so to his anguish.

William, bewildered and stupefied, looked at her with a mournful expression, as she lay on the floor. He had taken her head between his hands, repeating “Wretched woman, wretched woman,” rocking his head like an idiot who could find no words but these in his empty brain. Indeed, there was nothing but this plaint in his poor aching being. He knew not now why he suffered: he was soothing his mind with this mournful litany, with these words whose meaning had escaped him. When his wife’s voice choked with grief, and she ceased to speak, he seemed quite surprised at the profound silence which reigned around him. Then he remembered, and a shudder of unspeakable suffering passed through his body.

“Yet, you knew that James was my friend, my brother,” he said, in a strange voice, a voice no longer like his own.

Madeleine shook her head with an air of supreme disdain. “I knew all,” she replied, “I have been base, I tell you, base and infamous. You remember the day when you came back to the Rue de Boulogne in tears, and brought the news of James’s death? Well, just before you came, I had discovered this man’s portrait. God is witness that I would have fled that day, to spare you the pain of knowing that you shared me with your brother — It was fate that tempted me. Our history has been Heaven’s sinister sport. When I thought that the past was dead, when I learnt that James could not come between us, I grew weak, I had not the courage to sacrifice my affection, and, to excuse myself, I said that I ought not to make you wretched by leaving you. And, from that hour, I have lied, I have lied by my silence — Yet, shame did not choke me. I should have kept the secret for ever, and you would have died perhaps in my arms without knowing that I had clasped your brother to my breast — But to day you would recoil with a shudder at my kisses, and you are thinking now with disgust of our five years of love. And yet, I accepted all this infamy. But then I am wicked.”

She suddenly stopped, holding her breath and listening: there was an expression of sudden fright on her anxious face. The door of the room leading into the hall had remained half open, and she had fancied she could hear the noise of steps in the staircase.

“Listen,” she whispered, “James is coming down — Do you know that he might come in any moment?”

William looked as if he had woke up with a start. Filled with the same anxious thought, he, too, listened. Thus they remained for a moment, both leaning forward, deafened and stifled by the beating of their hearts. You would have thought an assassin was there, in the darkness of the hall, and that they expected to see him every instant burst open the door, and rush on them, with a knife in his hand William trembled even more than Madeleine. Now that he knew the truth, he could not bear the idea of meeting James face to face, and an immediate explanation made his delicate and feeble mind shrink with revolt. His wife’s supposition, the thought that his friend was going to come downstairs again perhaps, almost made him mad, after the crisis which had just crushed him. When he had listened without hearing anything, he fixed his eyes again on Madeleine and gazed on her at his feet with a feeling of deep dejection and abandonment. His whole being felt a supreme need of consolation.

With an instinctive movement he glided into the arms of his young wife, and she took him and pressed him to her bosom.

Thus they wept for a long time, seeming to wish to unite themselves together in one embrace, to cling so closely to each other that James might never be able to separate them. William had clasped his hands behind Madeleine’s back, and he sobbed like a child, with his head on her shoulder. His tears were a pardon, this sudden loss of control over himself, which had thrown him into her arms, proved his forgiveness. His want of moral force said: “You are not guilty: it is fate which had done all this. You see I love you still, and do not think you unworthy of my affection. Speak no more of parting.” And it said, too: “Comfort me, comfort me: take me to your bosom and lull me so as to soothe my suffering. Oh! how I weep and what a need I feel of finding a refuge in your arms! Do not leave me, I implore you. I should die if I were alone, I could not bear the weight of my grief. I would rather bleed from your blows than lose you. Heal the wounds you are causing me, be kind now and love me.” Madeleine could understand all this in her husband’s silence and stifled sighs. She felt she must take pity on his nervous nature and console it. Besides, her heart was filled with sweet comfort by this absolute pardon, and this mute forgiveness, a forgiveness of tears and kisses. Had her husband said: “I pardon you,” she would have shaken her head in sadness: but he said nothing, but fell into her arms and hid himself on her breast. He trembled with fear as he asked her to protect him with her affection, and she grew calm by degrees, and soothed at feeling him so absorbed in her, and so grateful for her caresses.

Madeleine was the first to tear herself away. It was already an hour past midnight, and they must make up their minds to something.

“We can’t wait till he wakes up,” she said, avoiding the mention of James’s name. “What do you intend to do?”

William looked at her with such an air of consternation that she saw it was hopeless to expect him to take any energetic measures in his present distress. She added, however:

“If we were to tell him everything, he would go away, and leave us in peace. You might go upstairs.”

“No, no,” stammered William, “not now, later on.”

“Would you like me to go up to him?”

“You!”

William pronounced this word with dismayed astonishment. Madeleine had offered to go up herself, urged by her straightforward and courageous nature. But he could not understand the logic of her proposal, and looked upon it as really monstrous. The thought of his wife being alone with her former lover hurt his finer feelings, and tortured him with a vague sensation of jealousy.

“What must we do then?” asked Madeleine.

He did not reply at once. He fancied he had heard the sound of footsteps again on the staircase, and he listened, pale with anxiety, as he had done at the previous scare. James’s near presence, the idea of his coming and holding out his baud, caused him an anguish which became more and more violent. One thought only filled his bead, to flee, and avoid an explanation, and to take refuge in some solitude where he could grow calm. It was always his nature, in painful situations, to seek to gain time and go further away in order to resume his dream of peace. When he raised his head, he said in a whisper:

“Let us go away; my head is splitting, and I can’t possibly make up my mind to do anything just now-He is only going to spend a day here. When he is gone, we shall have a month before us to recover and establish our happiness.”

This proposal of flight was repugnant to Madeleine’s straightforward nature. She saw that it would settle nothing and leave them as agitated as before.

“It would be better to have it all over,” she replied.

“No, no, come; I beg of you,” whispered William, earnestly — “We will go and sleep in our little house; we will spend the day there to-morrow, and wait till he has gone — You know bow happy we have been in this secluded nook: the warm air of this retreat will soothe us: we will forget everything, and make love to one another as we did in the days when I used to pay you my secret visits. — If either of us sees him again, I feel that our happiness is gone.”

Madeleine gave a movement of resignation. She was quite upset herself, and she saw her husband was so agitated that she did not dare to demand any courageous decision from him.

“Very good,” she said, “let us start. Let us go wherever you like.”

They looked round them. The fire had gone out, and the lamp only gave a yellowish flickering light. This vast room, where they had spent so many comfortable evenings, appeared gloomy, cold, and mournful. Outside, a strong wind had got up, and was blowing hard against the rattling windows. It seemed as if a winter hurricane was passing through the place, carrying away with it all the joy, all the peace of the old home. As William and Madeleine were making towards the door, in the shade they perceived Geneviève, erect and motionless, following them with her gleaming eyes.

During the long scene of despair which she had just witnessed, the old woman had never relaxed her rigid and implacable attitude. She felt a savage delight in listening to these sobs and these cries of the flesh. Madeleine’s confession had opened to her a world of desires and regrets, of sorrows and griefs which had never touched her virgin heart, and this picture made her think of the cruel joys of the damned. She said to herself that they would have to laugh and weep like those who were licked by the flames and caressed by their flaming tongues. And yet, with her horror there was mingled an ardent curiosity, the curiosity of a woman who has grown old in household duties, without ever knowing a man, and suddenly hears the story of a life of passion. Perhaps even for a moment she envied the bitter pleasures of sin, and the burnings of hell with which Madeleine’s breast was racked. She had not been mistaken; this woman was one of Satan’s creatures, and Heaven had placed her on this earth for the damnation of men. She watched her writhe and cringe as she would have watched the pieces of a mutilated serpent wriggle in the dust; the tears that she shed seemed to her the tears of rage of a demon who sees himself unmasked; her dishevelled red hair, her sleek white neck swollen with sighs, and her limbs. sprawling on the ground seemed to her to reek with carnal and nauseous odour. This was Lubrica, the monster with the plump breasts, and the enticing arms, the infamous courtesan concealing a heap of infectious filth beneath the satiny exterior of her pearly voluptuous skin.

When Madeleine advanced towards the door, she stepped back to avoid touching her.

“Lubrica, Lubrica,” she muttered between her teeth — “Hell has belched you forth, and you are tempting the saint by exposing your impure nakedness. Your red hair and your red lips are still burning with the eternal fire. You have bleached your body and your teeth in the flames of the abyss. You have become fat on the blood of your victims. You are lovely, you are strong, you are lewd because you feed on flesh — But a breath of God will bring you to the dust, Lubrica, cursed woman, and you will rot like a dead dog by the roadside — “

William and Madeleine could only catch a few of these words which she mumbled with feverish excitement, as if they were a prayer of exorcism to protect her against the attacks of the demon. They thought that everybody in the house was in bed, and they were surprised and terrified to find her there.

She must have heard everything. William was going to beg her not to say a word, when she anticipated him, asking him in her cold sermonizing tone:

“What shall I say to-morrow to your friend? Shall I tell him of your shame?”

“Silence, madwoman,” shouted William with secret irritation.