Complete Works of Emile Zola (141 page)

“The woman is right,” said Madeleine, “we must explain our absence.”

“Well! let her say what she likes — I really don’t know — Let her pretend that one of your relatives is dead, or that some unexpected bad news has obliged us to set out immediately.”

Geneviève looked at him full of sadness. She answered: “I will tell a lie for your sake, my child. But my falsehood will not save you from the torments which you are bringing on yourself. Take care! hell is opening, I have just seen the abyss yawning before you, and you will fall into it if you give yourself up to the impure — “

“Silence, madwoman,” shouted William again.

Madeleine recoiled beneath the fanatic’s searching glance. “She is not mad,” she stammered, “and you would do well to listen to her voice. William — Let me go alone; it is I who ought to tramp along the roads this winter’s night. Listen to the howling of the wind — Stay, forget me, and do not vex Heaven by wishing to share my infamy.”

“No, I will not leave you,” replied the young man, with sudden energy. “We will suffer together, if we are to suffer. But I am hopeful, and I love you. Come, we will console each other and we shall be pardoned.”

Then Geneviève’s voice rose, in its brief damnatory tone: “God the Father never pardons!” she said.

These words which she had heard, like a presage of calamity, before James’s arrival, and which she now was hearing again, at the moment when she was going to seek for oblivion, froze Madeleine to the soul with a shudder of terror. All the force which had hitherto kept her up, now fled. She staggered and leaned on her husband’s shoulders.

“Do you hear,” she murmured, “God never pardons, never — We shall not escape the punishment.”

“Don’t listen to that woman,” said William, dragging her along; “she lies; Heaven is kind, and has pardon for those who love and weep.”

She shook her head and repeated:

“Never, never — “

Then with a deep cry of anguish she exclaimed:

“Oh! the memories are let loose, I feel them pursuing me.”

They crossed the entrance hall, and left La Noiraude with a vague sensation of the cruel folly of such a flight. But in their fright at the sudden blow which had just crushed them, they could not resist the instinctive movement of wounded animals, of going and hiding themselves in some corner. They were no longer led by reason. They were escaping from James and leaving him their home.

CHAPTER VIII.

The night was as black as ink. It was cold, wet and dirty. The wind which had risen was driving along torrents of rain in blinding showers; far away in the gloomy darkness, it howled mournfully as it twisted the trees in the park, and its sighs resembled the lamentations of human voices, the death-rattle in a thousand throats. The soaked ground, covered with pools of water, yielded beneath the feet like a carpet of decaying filth.

William and Madeleine, huddling together, struggling against the wind which blew in their faces with its piercing breath, slipped in the pools and fell into the holes. When they were out of the park, they instinctively turned their heads, and looked towards La Noiraude; they were both anxious to assure themselves if James was sleeping, and that the windows of the blue room were not lit up. They saw nothing but the darkness, nothing but the black impenetrable mass of gloom; La Noiraude seemed to have been carried away in their rear by the storm. Then they began to walk on, painfully and in silence. They could not distinguish the ground, they were entering into fields where they sank up to their ankles in the soil. The road to the little house was quite familiar to them, but the darkness was so complete that it took them nearly half-an-hour to cover a distance of at most three quarters of a mile. They lost their way twice over. Just when they were reaching the door, they were caught in a downpour which wet them to the skin and nearly blinded them. In this state they entered their retreat, muddy and shivering, half poisoned by the odour of that sea of dirt through which they had just passed.

They had the greatest difficulty in lighting their candle. Then they shut themselves in, and went up to their bedroom, on the first floor. It was here that they had spent so many happy nights, here that they hoped to recover the genial calm of their love. But when they had opened the door of this room they stood almost heart-broken on the threshold, for they had forgotten the previous day to close the window, and the rain had been driven in by the wind, forming a large pool of water in the middle of the floor. This they had to mop up with a sponge, and yet the wood remained wet. Winter had taken up its quarters in this room into which it had been entering at will since the previous day; the walls, the furniture, and all the nick-nacks that lay about were oozing with damp. William went down to look for some wood. At last they had a bright fire burning in the grate, and then the young couple hoped they would get dry and comforted again in the warm and silent atmosphere of their solitude.

They always left a few articles of clothing there, and when they had had a change of linen, they sat down by the fire. The thought of going to lie down side by side, still shivering and terrified, in the cold bed where they had formerly passed so many nights of burning love, caused them a secret repugnance. When three o’clock struck, William said:

“I feel that I could not sleep. I shall wait in this chair till the day breaks — But you must be worn out, Madeleine, so go to bed.”

His young wife shook her head slightly to signify her unwillingness, and then they relapsed into silence.

Outside the tempest was howling more violent and fiercer than ever. Gusts of wind beat against the house with the roar of a wild beast, rattling the windows and the doors; you might have thought that a pack of wolves was besieging the little cot and shaking it from top to bottom with their furious claws. At each fresh gust it seemed as if the frail dwelling must be carried away. Then the clouds would burst, discharging torrents of rain which appeased for a moment the clamour of the wind and fell on the roof with the dull continued beat of the muffled drums at a funeral. The young couple suffered from the crashes of the storm; each shock, each howl filled them with a vague sensation of distress; they were seized with sudden anxiety, and listened as if they had heard the moan of human voices down below on the road. When a more than usually violent blast made every bit of wood-work in the house creak, they looked up with a start and gazed round with alarmed surprise. Could this be their beloved retreat, which used to be so warm, so fragrant? It seemed to them that the furniture, the hangings, even the building itself had been changed. They cast looks of distrust on each object, recognising nothing. If a memory of the past came back to them, this memory hurt them; they thought that they had tasted in this room delightful pleasures, yet the sensation they felt of the far-off distance of these pleasures assumed the shape of poignant bitterness. William used to say formerly, as he spoke of the little house: “If any calamity ever falls on ns, we will go and forget it in this solitude.” And to-day when a terrible blow was crushing them and they had hurried to take refuge in this retreat, they found in it only the mournful spectre of their love, and they sat overwhelmed beneath the weight of the present and the painful regret for the past.

Little by little, a gloomy prostration pervaded their whole beings. The tramp through the mud, in the wind and rain, had calmed their excitement, and cleared their heads of the feverish feeling that had filled them. Their hair, drenched with rain, had hung almost like pieces of ice on their burning brows. Now, the heat of the fire made their tired limbs feel quite heavy. As the warmth from the hearth penetrated their flesh, which a minute before had been quite numb with cold, it seemed as if their blood became thicker and flowed with greater difficulty. Their sufferings, now less acute, revolved in their minds like slow-moving millstones. They felt nothing but a continual crushing; the keen burning sensations, and the sharp excruciating pains had passed, and they abandoned themselves to this torpor, as a weary man gives way to his feeling of sleep. Yet, they were not sleeping; their thoughts were drowned in their stupor, but they were still floating, confused and heavy, turning over, and filling their brain with vague pangs of pain.

They could not have uttered a word without incredible fatigue. Seated before the fire, they had sunk down in their chairs, as silent as if they had been a thousand miles from each other.

Madeleine, when she had changed her clothes, had taken off her skirts and muddy stockings. Then she had put on a dry chemise, and simply wrapped herself up in a long dressing-gown of blue cashmere. The lappets of this dressing-gown had fallen back on the arms of the easy-chair where she sat, and disclosed her naked limbs on which the flame cast a ruddy glow. She had just slipped her toes into her little slippers, and her feet reflected the rosy tints of the bright fire. The dressing-gown had fallen open higher up too, disclosing her bosom beneath the half-open chemise. Thus she sat staring at the blazing logs, and dreaming. You would have thought she was not aware of her nudity, and that she could not feel the burning caresses of the fire on her skin.

William was surveying her. Bit by bit, he let his head fall on the back of his chair, and in this position he half closed his eyes, appearing to slumber, hut never taking his looks from Madeleine. He was absorbed in the spectacle of this half naked creature, whose plump firm frame awoke in his mind but a painful sensation of uneasiness: he felt no pangs of desire, her attitude seemed to him that of a courtesan, and her hard heavy look that of a woman cloyed with pleasure. The flame which fell askant on her face, formed deep shadows, rendered all the blacker by the shining outlines of the nose and forehead; her features stood out harshly, and her whole countenance, mute and curdled, so to speak, had an appearance of cruelty. And down the cheeks right to the chin, her red hair, still matted with the rain, fell in heavy masses, forming a setting of stiff lines to her face. This cold mask, this corpse-like forehead, these grey eyes and red lips over which passed no brightening smile, caused William an uncomfortable sensation of astonishment. He hardly knew this face which he had seen so smiling, and so childlike. It was as if a new being were before him, and he questioned each feature so as to read the thoughts which were producing such a transformation in his young wife. When he allowed his eyes to wander lower down, on the breast and naked limbs, the yellow gleam from the hearth that played on them, caused him a sort of fright. The skin was fair; and at certain moments, you would have said that it was covered with stains of blood, which flowed rapidly over the curves of the breasts and knees, disappearing, and then re-appearing again to speckle this tender and delicate exterior with red’ spots.

Madeleine leaned forward, and began to poke the fire, still absorbed in thought, and hardly knowing what she was doing. In this attitude she remained some time, with her face almost in the flames. Her flowing dressing-gown which had nothing to keep it up, had slipped down her shoulders, to the middle of her back.

And William then felt an oppression at his heart, at the sight of this majestic nudity. He followed the supple strong movement of the exposed bust, and the flexible lines of the bent neck, and falling shoulders; thus his eyes went on down the curve of the spine, and passed around the body and under the arm, till they caught a glimpse of the pink nipple of the breast through the shade of the arm-pit. The whiteness of the skin, that milky whiteness, peculiar to the skin of red-haired women, set off a little black mark which Madeleine had at the bottom of the neck. And he stopped with pain as his eyes fell on this mark, which he had so often kissed. All this lovely bust, this pearly white flesh, with its delicate curves of exquisite tints, tortured his heart with unspeakable anguish. The fact, was, that in spite of his stupor, his recollections were awakening, not like the quick flashes of memory, but like heavy masses which moved slowly in his brain. He was half asleep, and this semi-conscious state made him mentally repeat a hundred times the same phrase. His waking dream was a crushing nightmare of which he was unable to rid himself. He thought of the five years that he had passed, with Madeleine in his possession, of the happy nights he had spent sleeping warmly on her white bosom, and he called to mind the rapture of their mutual embraces and kisses. In the old days he had given himself up to her entirely, and his tenderness and faith were absolute; never had the thought occurred to him that he might not be all in all to this woman, for he judged of her by himself, and he felt that she was all-sufficient for him, and that the world disappeared, when he was sleeping on her breast. And now a horrible doubt preyed upon his mind; he saw himself kissing those soft shoulders, he felt beneath his lips the quiver of that skin, and he asked himself with anguish, if it was his lips alone, which made her quiver, and if she was not still warm and panting with the caresses of another. His heart was free when he (surrendered himself to her, and he could never confound with his present pleasure, the ever-living sensation of pleasures that were past; but Madeleine’s heart was not free like his; when their lips met, she felt again, doubtless, the rapturous excitement which her first lover had caused her to know. Certainly, she must be thinking of this man when she was in his arms, and he even said to himself, that she might perhaps feel a monstrous pleasure in evoking the delights of the past, so as to double those of the present. What infamous and cruel dupery! While he had thought himself the husband, the only being that she loved, he was no doubt only a passing lover whose mouth simply gave a new zest to the sweet burning sensation of the old kisses that had hardly become cool. Who knows? perhaps this woman played him false every hour with a phantom? or made use of him as of an instrument whose amorous sighs reminded her of melodies that she had known long ago; no doubt he faded from her mind, and she lived in thought with the absent one, and showed her gratitude to him for so many hours of pleasure. This vile comedy had gone on for four years; fur four years he had acted, unknown to himself, au odious part, and had allowed himself to be robbed of his heart, and his flesh. As he thought of these things, as he was led away by this horrible reverie, with which the nightmare was filling his brain, he gazed on the nudity of his young wife with supreme disgust; he fancied he could see on her bosom, and her white shoulders, impure spots, and ineffaceable bruises all bleeding: