Complete Works of Emile Zola (149 page)

“You are mistaken,” she replied, vehemently. “I am married — Don’t interfere with me.”

But the madwoman continued:.

“You have been really lucky. Such things don’t happen to me — When I saw you in the carriage with a man, I thought that you had a millionaire in tow — Then he is your husband, that gentleman who threw me a five franc piece?”

Madeleine did not reply; she was in terrible agony. Meantime Verdigris was cudgelling her brains and debating a scruple which had just seized her. At last she fumbled about in one of her pockets, and stammered:

“Wait a minute, I am going to give you back your five francs — It is a husband’s money and sacred — I thought this gentleman was your lover, and there was no harm, was there, in accepting five francs from an old friend’s lover?”

The young wife shook her head with a gesture of refusal. “Keep the money,” she said “it is my gift — What do you want with me yet?”

“What do I want? nothing,” replied Louise with a vacant stare. Then she suddenly bethought herself and began to chuckle.

“Ah, yes,’ she exclaimed,” I remember now — But, on my soul, Madeleine, you are very unkind. My head is not over strong, and you are upsetting me with your fine airs. I wanted to chat and be merry, and talk about the good old times — I was delighted when I saw you in that gig. I followed you, because I did not dare to shake hands with you before the gentleman who was there, and I was very wishful to be with you by yourself, you may be sure. For, in this part of the world, I never see any of our old friends. I am delighted to see you looking so well and happy.’’

She had taken a chair, and was whining out her words in her husky voice, chatting away with a familiarity that grated on Madeleine’s finer nature. Her gesticulations were without animation, and she sat huddling in her rags, fixing on her old friend a dull vacant stare enlivened now and again by the maudlin smile of a drunkard. Her harsh accent, into which she strove to infuse a little warmth of endearment, and the cordial attitude of her enervated body, made her a disgusting, unbearable object.

“You see,” she continued, “I have had no luck — I fell ill in Paris, I had taken too much absinthe, it seems: my head felt empty, and I trembled all over like a leaf. Look at my hands, they are always trembling — In the hospital I was afraid of the young saw-bones, for I heard them saying that it was all over with me and that I had not much more life left. Then I asked for my discharge, and they let me leave. I wanted to come back to Forgues, a little village about three miles from here, where my father was a wheelwright. One of my old lovers paid my railway fare.”

She stopped to take breath, for she could only speak in short sentences now.

“Just fancy,” she proceeded, “my father was dead. His business had gone badly. In his place I found another wheelwright who showed me the door. It will soon be six months since. I should have liked to get back to Paris, but I had not a penny left, and my clothes would hardly hold together — I was used up as they had said at the hospital. The men would not have touched me with the tongs. Then I stayed in the neighbourhood. The people are not bad, for they give me something to eat — Sometimes, on the roads, the urchins run after me throwing stones at me.”

Her voice had become melancholy. Madeleine stood listening to her, chilled to the soul, with the heart no longer to send her away. Verdigris recovered and tossed her head with a careless air; the chuckle which usually showed her yellow teeth came back to her lips and she continued:

“But no matter, I have had my day, my dear — Do you remember how the men used to run after me? We have had some jolly parties together at Verrières. I was very fond of you, because you never used to abuse me. I remember, however, one day when I made you sulky out in the country; my lover had kissed you, and I pretended to be jealous. You know, I rather made fun of him.”

Madeleine grew frightfully pale, for the memories evoked by this creature nearly choked her.

“By-the-bye,” asked Verdigris suddenly, “your lover, that fine young fellow, Peter, James, or something or other, what have you done with him? He was a jolly man, if you like. I must tell you something, he used to come after me, for he thought me rather a brick. You cannot feel annoyed now when you hear of this — Do you ever see him?”

Madeleine was losing all patience, finding it impossible to bear any longer the anguish that this woman’s presence caused her. Her anger was coming back again, and she felt thoroughly exasperated.

“I have told you that I am married,” she replied. “Do go away, do go away.”

The mad-woman became afraid, and she jumped up as if she had heard the shouts of the boys throwing stones at her in the fields.

“
Why do you tell me to go away?” she stammered. “I have never done you any harm, I have been your friend, and we did not part on bad terms.”

“Go away,” Madeleine was still repeating. “I am a different woman from what I was when you knew me. I have a little girl.”

“So have I, or at least I had. I don’t know now whether I have or not, I forgot to give the nurse her monthly pay, and she has been taken away from me. You are not kind you receive me like a dog. I was right when I used to say that you were a minx, with your finical airs.”

And as Madeleine in drawing nearer her made her retreat slowly towards the door, her madness declared itself openly and she shouted in a shrill voice:

“You ought not to despise others because you have been lucky yourself. You were no better off than myself once, I give you to understand, when we were both living in the same neighbourhood. If your fine gentleman had come across me, it would have been my luck to be wearing your silk dresses to-day, and you would be wandering about barefoot. Just think of that, my dear girl.”

Just at this moment, Madeleine heard William’s footsteps in the passage. Seized with sudden passion, she grasped Louise by the wrist and dragged her forcibly into the middle of the room, exclaiming:

“Stop, you are right. Here is my husband coming up. Stay and tell him that I am a wretch.”

“Oh, no!” replied the other freeing herself. “The fact is that you made me angry at last. You are too proud, you know — I am going. I don’t wish to cause you any bother.”

But as she was going to leave the room, William entered. He stood still in surprise at the sight of the beggar, and cast an inquiring glance on his wife. Madeleine stood leaning against the big wardrobe, where her exasperation had drawn her up erect and firm. There was no blush on her brow, no agitation of shame in her expression; cold, resolute, her face contracted with threatening look of energy, she seemed to be getting ready for a struggle.

“This is one of my old friends, William,” she said in a brief tone. “She has come up to have a talk with me. Invite her to come and see us at La Noiraude.’’

These words fell painfully on William’s ears. He could see, by the sound of Madeleine’s voice, that their peace was gone again. An expression of mute anguish passed over his gentle face, and approaching Louise he asked her in a low tone of emotion:

“Did you use to know Madeleine!
”

“
Yes, sir,” replied the poor woman “But don’t listen to her. If I had known, I should not have come up.”

“
Do you want money?”

She shook her head disdainfully in refusal.

“No, thank you. If you were my lover, I don’t say — I am going, good-night.”

When she had shut the door, the young couple looked at each other for a moment in silence. They felt that an inevitable blow was going to fall on them, and that they could not open their lips without inflicting a fatal wound on each other; they would have wished not to speak, and yet, in spite of themselves, they were going to be compelled to meet the new sorrows that were threatening them. There was a cruel moment of distrust and anxious suspense. In the painful surprise which this unforeseen calamity caused him, William stood waiting in a resignation full of terror. He had left Madeleine, peaceful, smiling, and dreaming of a future teeming with affection, and he. found her trembling and irritated, with her eyes fixed on him with a hard implacable expression; the difficulty he felt in explaining this sudden change redoubled his uneasiness, and made him anticipate some terrible blow whose rebound he could not avoid. He moved nearer to his wife, seeking to make her relent, and throwing into his gaze all the pitying tenderness that still existed within him. But she stood exasperated by the two rapid scenes which, one after the other, had just crushed her: ten minutes had been enough to bring before her all her past history, and now the only sensations she felt were those of unconcern and alarm produced on her by the apparitions of James and Verdigris. Since her former lover had left the room, she had not felt ‘concerned about the misery that her husband would endure, she simply tried to find an outlet for the revolt of her whole being. The visit of Verdigris had produced in her the fierce selfishness of suffering. One thought alone throbbed in the tumult of her anger. “Since I am a wretch, since there is no pardon for me, and everything seeks to crush me, I will be what Heaven wishes me to be.”

She was the first to speak “We have been cowards,” she said to William, bluntly.

“
Why do you say so?” he asked.

She shook her head disdainfully.

“We ought not to have run away like guilty criminals. We should have been strong in our right, in our five years of affection. Now the time has gone by to make any resistance, we are overcome, and our peace is gone.”

William wished to know all, and replied:

“Why, what has happened, Madeleine?”

“Can’t you guess?” exclaimed his young wife; “did you not see that poor wretch? She has reminded me of that past which stifles me and which I strive in vain to forget.”

“But she has gone now; calm yourself. There is nothing in common between this creature and you. Don’t I love you?”

Madeleine gave a short laugh and shrugged her shoulders as she replied:

“Nothing in common! I should like you to have been here. She would have told yon that I should be walking the streets of Paris at this very moment, if you had not picked me up.”

“Silence, Madeleine, don’t speak like that. You are forgetting yourself; you ought not to sully our affection.”

But his young wife grew excited by the hard words she felt rising to her lips. She was irritated to see her husband defend their love, and sought, in a feeling of anger, for crushing proofs of her shame, in order to cast them in his face and prevent him from trying again to calm her. Yet all she could say was:

“I have seen James.”

William did not understand. He looked at her with a stupefied expression.

“He was here just now,” she continued, “he spoke to me familiarly as he used to do, and wanted to kiss me.”

And she looked straight at her husband who was turning pale. — ‘

He sat down on the table and stammered:

“But James has gone.”

“Oh! no, he is sleeping in an adjoining room. I have seen him.”

“
Is this man everywhere, then?” said William, in an outburst of anger and alarm.

“Good heavens!” replied Madeleine, with a supercilious gesture of certainty. “Do you really hope to kill the past? Ah! indeed, this room seemed to you a secluded nook, a quiet retreat where nobody could come to stand between us; you told me that we were alone, out of the world, and elevated above the crowd, and that here we were going to spend a night of peaceful love. But, after all, the shade and silence of this room were false, and anguish awaited us in this strange inn where we were only to remain a few hours.”

Her husband was listening in an attitude of utter dejection. His eyes were fixed on the ground and he despaired of arresting the furious torrent of her words.

“And I, poor fool,” she continued, “was credulous enough to believe that there are places where oblivion can be found. I lulled myself with your dreams. But you see, William, that there is not a spot where we can be alone. It is vain for us to flee, and hide ourselves in the most secret retreats, for fate can reach us, and even there we should find my shame to drive us mad. The fact is, I carry sorrow with me, and a breath of air will be enough now to open my wounds. You must confess that we are tracked like wounded beasts which from thicket to thicket seek in vain for shelter, and die at last in some ditch.”

She stopped for a moment, and then resumed, in a more irritated tone:

“It is our own fault, I say so again. We ought not to have been so cowardly as to run away. As we left La Noiraude, the night this man came, bear in mind, I told you that the memories of the past had been let loose and that they would pursue me. They are the howling pack that is on our track. I heard them running furiously behind me, and now I feel them worrying me and digging their claws into my flesh. Oh! how I suffer; these memories are tearing me limb from limb.”

As she uttered this cry, she put her hands to her breast as if she had really felt the teeth of the dogs entering her flesh. William was weary of suffering: the cruel words of his wife were beginning to cause him a sort of nervous impatience. The bitter pleasure that she took in crying out against fate wounded his inert nature and his need of tranquillity. He was becoming irritated himself, and would have wished to silence her. Still he thought that he ought to try once more to calm her; but the attempt he made was very feeble.

“
We will forget everything,” he said, “and we will go farther away and seek for happiness.”

Madeleine began to laugh. She clasped her hands and stretched forward her pale face.

“Ah! you think,” she exclaimed, “that I shall be able to get hurt at every step and yet keep my head cool and sound. I don’t feel that I have strength enough for that. I must have peace, or I cannot answer for my reason.”

“Come now, don’t stand out against me like that,” replied her husband, coming nearer and trying to take her by the hands. “You see how I suffer. Spare me, and let us put an end to this cruel scene — To-morrow, when we are calm, we shall perhaps find some remedy — It is late, let us go to bed.”