Complete Works of Emile Zola (160 page)

The old woman shook her head, never ceasing to mutter her indistinct words. Madeleine then remembered the red light that she had seen from the gate and which lit up so strangely the window of the laboratory. She guessed instinctively. She left the room, and ran up the steps.

In fact, William was in the laboratory. As he had escaped from the room in which Lucy had just died, he had fled into the park and walked about there till night, mad with grief. When the twilight fell, like a fine ash, giving to the country a uniform grey tinge of painful melancholy, he felt seized with dejection without bounds, and a bitter desire came over him to flee into some mournful corner where he might satisfy the wish for annihilation that filled him. Then, instinctively obeying the fatal force that led him on, he went and searched in a drawer where he remembered he had hidden the key of the room in which Monsieur de Viargue had poisoned himself. Since the time of the suicide he had never set foot in it. He could not have explained to himself the irresistible desire which impelled him to go in now: it was a sort of thirst after horror, or an uncontrollable impulse to fathom, at once, all fear and suffering. When he entered, the huge room, indistinctly lighted by the candle which he held in his hands, seemed dirtier and in greater confusion than before. In the corners lay piled heaps of nasty rubbish, and the stove and planks were still falling to pieces. Nothing had been touched; but the dust of five years had accumulated on the broken utensils; the spiders had spun webs from the ceiling which reached in dirty black masses down to the ground, and the close air of this forbidding place lay thick and offensive. William placed the candlestick on the table and stood up, looking round with a searching glance. He felt a sudden shiver as he saw at his feet the dark spot, that his father’s blood had left. Then he listened. A presentiment warned him that some final blow was going to fall on him here, in the midst of this filthy debris. This room, into which no one had entered and which he found calm and forbidding, seemed to have been waiting for him during the five years of his delusive dreams. And, now, it was opening its door and enticing him in, as a victim which had, doubtless, long been promised it.

As he stood waiting in dread, William called to mind his suffering, that continual weight of sorrow that had crashed his body and mind ever since his birth. Once more he saw his terrified childhood, his sad school days, and the last few months of distraction and anguish through which he had just passed. In everything he saw the persistent persecution of fate which was now bringing him to some terrible final event that must be near. Now that the logical and implacable chain of facts, whose course he could follow so clearly, had brought him into this room that was stained with his father’s blood, he could see himself ripe for the sickle of death, and he guessed that fate was going to have done with him in one final cruel catastrophe.

He had been listening like this for nearly half an hour, warned by a voice within him that some one would come to deal him the last blow, when he heard the noise of footsteps in the passage, and Madeleine appeared on the threshold of the door. She was still wrapped in her shawl, and she had not even stopped to take off her hat or her gloves. In a rapid glance, her eyes took in every detail of this laboratory into which she had never entered. From time to time mention had been made in her presence of this locked-up room, and she knew the mournful story connected with it. When she had noticed the horrible filth of the place, a curious smile passed over her lips. It was fitting that she should end her life among this decay and desolation. Like William, she could fancy that it had been waiting for her for years.

She walked straight up to her husband.

“I have come to have a talk with you, William,” she said.

Her voice was clear and cool. All her feverishness had calmed down, and she stood with head erect and steady eyes; she seemed to have the inexorable attitude of a judge.

“A few months ago, as we were leaving the inn at Mantes, I asked this favour of you, to let me die the day when the life of torture we are leading should become unbearable. I have neither been able to calm my thoughts nor to appease my heart, and I have come to remind you of the promise which you then made me.”

William did not answer. He guessed the reasons which his wife was going to give him, and he awaited them, ready to accept them, no longer thinking of defending her against herself.

“See what we have come to,” pursued Madeleine. “We are both driven into a corner, and tracked into this room where fate has at last driven us. Every day we have lost a little ground and felt the iron circle which surrounds us contract and lessen our standing-room. One after another, every place has become uninhabitable for our poor disordered brains: our neighbouring retreat, the little house in Paris, even the dining-room at La Noiraude and the room in which our daughter has just died. Now, we are shut up here, in this gloomy laboratory, in this last asylum so fitting for our madness. If we both leave it, it will only be to sink deeper still, and to lead a more infamous and cowardly life — Is not that so?”

“That is so,” replied William.

“We have reached this point now, that we cannot exchange a word or a look without distressing each other.

I am yours no longer, for I am at the mercy of the memories which come at night to torment me with horrible dreams. You know all about it, for you woke me up once as I was falling into the embraces of a dream. Thus you do not dare now to clasp me to your breast, do you, William? I am too devoted to another man. I can see you jealous and desperate, and at your wits’ end like myself — Is not that so?”

“That is so.”

“Our love then would now be a degradation. In vain should we try to shut our eyes, for, at times, I should see your weariness and disgust, and you would read my thoughts arid shameful pleasures. We cannot live together any longer — Is not that so?”

“That is so.”

William replied like an echo, and each of his answers fell clear and sharp like a steel blade. The firm, calm attitude of his wife had aroused all the pride of his blood. His weakness had all passed away, and he wished to atone for all his want of moral courage by accepting bravely the fatal catastrophe which he fancied he could see coming.

“Unless,” continued Madeleine, bitterly, “you are willing to live apart from me, you in one room, and myself in another, like certain couples who only acknowledge each other in public, for the sake of appearances. We have just seen arrangements of this sort in Paris; would you like to try a life like that?”

“No,” exclaimed William, “I love you still, Madeleine. We love each other, and this is what is killing us, is it not? You have seen, in Paris, that we could not reconcile ourselves to this selfish existence. We must either live in each other’s arms, or not at all.”

“Very well, then! let us be consistent, for everything is over. You have said that it is our love which is killing us. If we did not love each other, we should live peacefully.

But to love each other and yet defile our affection; to desire to embrace and yet not dare to touch with the tip of the finger; to spend the nights by your side, and yet in the embraces of another, when I would give my life-blood to be able to draw you to me, this would drive us mad — All is over.”

“Yes, all is over,” repeated William, slowly.

There was a short silence, and the young couple looked in each other’s eyes with a feeling of assurance. Madeleine, still preserving her terrible, Calm attitude, reflected whether she had not forgotten any of the causes which were urging her on to her suicide. She wished to proceed coolly, to prove clearly that all hope was dead, not to throw herself into the clutches of death in a fit of madness, but to meet her end, on the contrary, after having shown the impossibility of any escape from her troubles. She laid stress once more on the motives which were urging her to this step.

“Let us do nothing contrary to reason,’’ she continued,” call to mind what has happened — I wanted to die in that inn. But though I did not say so to you, the thought of my daughter deterred me. Now Lucy is dead, and I can take my departure — I have your promise.”

“Yes,” replied William, “we will die together.’’

She looked at him with an air of astonishment and fright.

“What do you say?” she exclaimed in a rapid tone. “You must not die, William. That has never been a part of my plan. I won’t let you die. It would be a useless crime.”

William protested with a despairing shake of the head.

“Surely you have not thought,” he said, “that I should remain alone to suffer.”

“Who is speaking to you of suffering?” she answered, disdainfully. “Would you lose your courage again? would you be afraid of weeping? — If it were only a question of suffering, I would stay and struggle on. But it is myself who cause your suffering and keep your wounds always open. I am going because I distress you.”

“
You shall not die by yourself.”

“I implore you, William, spare me, and do not increase my fault. If I were to involve you in my fall, I shall be more guilty still, and depart from life more desperate than before — My body is accursed, and it embitters everything around you. When I am dead you will become calm, and seek for happiness again.”

William lost his cold tranquillity, for the thought of suffering by himself terrified him.

“And what would you have me do without you?” he exclaimed. “When you are dead nothing remains for me but to die too. Besides, I want to punish myself — to punish myself for my weakness which has not been able to save you. You are not the only guilty one — You know, Madeleine, I am a timid child whom you ought to take with in your arms, if you do not wish to leave me to stay behind in cowardly nervousness and dejection.”

Madeleine felt the truth of these words. But the thought of inflicting another blow on her husband, by inflicting a blow on herself, became unbearable. She did not reply, hoping that his excitement would pass away and that he would conform afterwards to her wishes.

But William had now lost his feeling of resignation, and he was fighting against the project of suicide.

“Let us try, let us try once more,” he stammered. “Let us wait, I beseech you.”

“
Wait for what, and how long?” said Madeleine, bitterly. “Is not everything over? you said so just now. Do you think that I cannot read in your eyes? Do you dare to say that my death is not essential to your happiness?”

“
Let us try, let us try some other means,” he added, excitedly.

“
Why do your lips utter those empty words? It is useless to try, for we should find no escape from our woes. And you know that, and you are only talking to deafen your thoughts, which are declaring to you the truth.

William wrung his hands.

“No, never!” he exclaimed. “You cannot die like that, I love you, and I will not let you commit suicide before my eyes.”

“It is not suicide,” replied his young wife, seriously; “it is an execution. I have judged myself and passed sentence. Let me execute justice on myself.”

She saw that her husband was giving way, and she continued, in a stern tone of authority:

“I would have killed myself in the Rue de Boulogne, this morning, as I really felt inclined to for a moment, if I had thought I should find you so faint-hearted. But I came to the conclusion, that I ought not to put myself away before explaining to you the reasons for my death. You see I know what I am doing.”

William raised a terrible cry
of
despair.

“You ought to have killed yourself without saying anything to me, and I should have killed myself afterwards. You are cruel with your calculations.”

He had sat down on the edge of the table, unable to hold up. Madeleine was determined to have it all over, for she felt weary and she was eager to repose in death. A secret feeling of selfishness was compelling her to leave her husband to his fate. Now that she had exerted every effort to save him, she would sleep in peace. She did not feel that she had the courage to live even to keep him alive.

“Do not oppose me like that,” she said, looking rapidly round her. “I must die, must I not? Do not say no. Let me do what I want to.”

She had just noticed the little inlaid piece of furniture where M. de Viargue had put the new poisons that he had discovered. A few minutes before, she had said to herself, on coming up. the steps:
“
I will throw myself out of the window. The room is three stories high, and I shall be dashed to pieces on the pavement.’’ But the sight of the cupboard, with the word” Poisons” written in large letters by the fingers of the count on the glass-door, had made her choose another mode of death. She gave a spring of delight and rushed towards it.

“Madeleine! Madeleine!” exclaimed William, in terror But she had already broken a pane in the door with her fist. The glass made a deep gash in her fingers. She seized hold of the first bottle she found. Then her husband sprang towards her, and caught her by the wrists, thus completely preventing her from putting the bottle to her lips. He felt the warm blood from the cuts on her fingers trickling over his hands.

“I will break your wrists sooner than let you drink,” he said. “I want you to live.”

Madeleine looked at him straight in the face.

“You know very well that it is impossible for me to live,” she replied.

She was struggling quietly all the time, and giving little sudden jerks to free her hands. But her husband kept them tightly clasped in his: he was panting and repeating:
“
Give me this bottle, give me this bottle.”

“
Come now,” replied Madeleine, in a hoarse voice. “Don’t be a child. Let me go.”

He gave no reply. He was trying to move her fingers one by one from the bottle so as to snatch it from her. His hands were quite red with the blood from her cuts. As Madeleine felt her strength failing, she seemed to make one last resolve.

“Has not all this that I have just told you,” she went on, “convinced you that I must die, and that it is cruelty to prevent me from putting an end to myself?”