Complete Works of Emile Zola (1773 page)

As she stopped for a second, I grasped her hand, which I kissed. She raised her head and gave me a vague smile without seeking to withdraw her fingers. Seeing I remained silent, and that emotion was choking me, she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her rapid walk.

I ran after her, accompanied her, my arm round her waist. She laughed to herself; then shivered and said in a low voice:

“I’m cold: let us walk quick.”

Poor angel, she was cold! Her shoulders trembled beneath the thin black shawl in the fresh night wind. I kissed her on the forehead and inquired softly:

“Do you know me?”

She raised her eyes a third time and answered without hesitation:

“No.”

I know not what rapid reasoning passed through my mind. In my turn I shuddered.

“Where are we going to?” I asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders with an unconcerned little pout, and answered in her childlike voice:

“Wherever you like, to my place, to yours; what does it matter?”

IX

We were still walking, descending the avenue.

On a bench I perceived two soldiers, one of whom was gravely descanting, while the other listened respectfully. It was the sergeant and the conscript The sergeant, who seemed very much affected, made me a mocking bow, murmuring:

“The rich sometimes lend, sir.”

The conscript, who was a tender and simple soul, said to me in a doleful voice:

“I had but her, sir: you are stealing from me ‘She who loves me.’”

I crossed the road and took the other path.

Three boys advanced towards us, holding one another by the arm and singing at the pitch of their voices. I recognised the schoolboys. The unfortunate little fellows no longer needed to feign intoxication. They stopped, bursting with laughter, then followed me for a few paces, each of them shouting after me in an unsteady voice:

“Hi! sir, the lady is deceiving you; the lady is ‘She who loves me!’”

I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hurried along, being anxious to fly, thinking no more of this woman whom I was bearing away in my arms. At the end of the avenue, just as I was stepping from the pavement, at last about to quit this inauspicious neighbourhood, I stumbled over a man lying comfortably in the gutter. With his head resting on the curb-stone and his face turned towards heaven, he was engaged in a very complicated calculation on his fingers.

He moved his eyes, and, without quitting his pillow, spluttered out:

“Ah! It is you, sir. You ought to help me count the stars. I have already found several millions, but I’m afraid of forgetting one of them. The happiness of humanity, sir, depends solely on statistics.”

He was interrupted by a hiccup. Tearfully he continued:

“Do you know what a star costs? Providence must assuredly have made a great outlay up there, and the people are in want of bread, sir! What is the use of those lights? Are they eatable? To what practical purpose are they adaptable, if you please? What need had we of this eternal festival? Ah! Providence never had the least shadow of an idea of social economy.”

He had succeeded in sitting up; and cast a troubled glance around him, shaking his head indignantly. He then caught sight of my companion. He started, and with his countenance all purple, eagerly stretched out his arms towards her.

“Eh! Eh!” he continued, “it’s ‘She who loves me!’”

X

“This is how it is,” she said to me. “I am poor, I do what I can for a living. Last winter, I passed fifteen hours a day bent over an embroidery frame, and I hadn’t always bread. In the spring I threw my needle out of the window. I had found employment which caused me less fatigue and was more lucrative.

“I dress myself up every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of shed, leaning against the back of an arm-chair, all the work I have to do consists in smiling from six o’clock till midnight. From time to time I make a bow, I kiss my hand into space. For that I am paid three francs a sitting.

“Opposite me, behind a small glazed aperture in the partition, I see an eye staring at me ceaselessly. It’s sometimes black, sometimes blue. Without that eye I should be perfectly happy; but that spoils the whole thing. At times, seeing it always there, alone and fixed, I am seized with such frightful terror that I am tempted to scream and fly.

“But one must work to live. I smile, bow, kiss my hand. At midnight I wipe off my paint, and put on my calico gown again. Bah! how many women do the amiable before a wall without being compelled to!”

THE LOVE-FAIRY

Do you hear the December rain beating against our windows, Ninon? The wind moans in the long corridor. It is a nasty evening, one of those on which the poor shiver at the doors of the rich, whom the ball bears away in its dances beneath the gilded chandeliers. Leave your satin shoes where they are, and come and sit on my knee, beside the warm grate. Leave your costly jewels alone; I want to tell you a tale tonight, a beautiful fairy tale.

You must know, Ninon, that once upon a time there was a dark and dismal castle on the summit of a mountain. It was naught but towers, ramparts, and drawbridges loaded with chains. Men encased in steel mounted guard night and day on the battlements, and soldiers alone met with courteous welcome from Count Enguerrand, the lord of the manor.

If you had seen the old warrior walking down the long galleries, if you had heard his brief and threatening explosions of voice, you would have trembled with fright, just as his niece Odette, the pious and handsome young lady, trembled. Have you never, of a morning, noticed a daisy opening at the first kisses of the sun among the stinging-nettles and brambles? In a like manner this young girl was blooming among bluff knights. She was a child when, in the midst of play, she perceived her uncle; she stopped, and her eyes filled with tears. Now, she was grown up and handsome; her bosom was always heaving with gentle sighs; and each time Lord Enguerrand appeared her fright became more acute.

She resided in a distant turret, passing her time in embroidering beautiful banners, and resting from her work by praying to the Almighty, whilst contemplating the emerald green country and azure blue sky from her window. How often of a night, rising from her couch, had she gone to gaze at the stars, and, when there, how often had her heart of sixteen summers bounded towards celestial space, inquiring of those radiant sisters what it was that affected it so. After these sleepless nights, after these transports of love, she felt inclined to hang round the old knight’s neck; but a harsh word, a cold look stopped her, and she tremblingly resumed her needle-work. You pity the poor girl, Ninon; she was like the fresh, balmy flower, whose brilliancy and perfume are disdained.

One day Odette, the disconsolate, was dreamily following with her eye the flight of two doves, when she heard a tender voice at the foot of the castle. She leant out of the window, and saw a handsome youth, who, with a song on his lips, was asking for hospitality. She listened, and could not understand the words; but the tender voice weighed upon her heart, and tears coursed down her cheeks, wetting a sprig of sweet majoram that she held in her hand.

The castle gate remained closed, and a warrior, armed cap-à-pie, shouted from the walls:

“Withdraw: there are none but warriors within.”

Odette continued looking. She let the sprig of sweet majoram, wet with tears, which she held in her hand, fall at the singer’s feet. The latter raising his eyes, and seeing that lovely fair head, kissed the sprig and departed, turning round at each step.

When he had disappeared, Odette went to her prayer-desk and said a long prayer. She thanked Heaven without knowing why; she felt happy, without understanding the cause of her joy.

That night she had a beautiful dream. She fancied she saw the sprig of sweet majoram that she had thrown down. Slowly, from amidst the rustling leaves, rose a fairy, but such a charming fairy, with shining wings, a wreath of myosotis and a long green gown, the colour of hope.

“Odette,” she said melodiously, “I am the Love-Fairy. It was I who sent you Lois this morning, the young man with the tender voice; it was I who, seeing your tears, wished to dry them. I wander about the world gleaning hearts and bringing those who sigh together. I visit both the cottage and the manor-house, I have often found pleasure in uniting the shepherd’s crook to the king’s sceptre.

I scatter flowers beneath the footsteps of my favourites, I enchain them with such brilliant and precious thread that their hearts leap with joy. I live among the plants in the lanes, among the bright embers on the hearths in winter, amidst the drapery of the nuptial bed; and wherever my foot alights, come kisses and tender words. Weep no more, Odette: I am the Loving-One, the good fairy, and I have come to dry your tears.”

And she returned into her flower, which closing its leaves became a bud again.

You know very well, Ninon, that the Love-Fairy exists. Look at her dancing on our hearth, and pity the poor people who do not believe in my beautiful fairy.

When Odette awoke, the sun was shining in her room, the song of a bird ascended from the outside, and the morning breeze, perfumed with the first kiss it had just given to the flowers, fondled her flaxen locks. She arose full of happiness, and passed the day singing, having hope in what the good fairy had told her. At times she gazed at the country, smiling at each bird that flew by, and feeling an impulse within her that made her leap and clap her little hands together.

In the evening she went down into the large hall of the castle. Beside Count Enguerrand was a knight listening to the old man’s stories. She took her distaff, seated herself in front of the hearth, where a cricket was singing, and the ivory spindle spun round rapidly between her fingers.

Whilst busy at her work, she cast a glance at the knight, and perceived that he had her sprig of sweet majoram in his hands, and then she recognised Lois of the tender voice. She almost shrieked with joy. To conceal her blushes she bent down towards the fire; stirring up the embers with a long iron rod. The burning wood crackled, burst into flames, gave out reports and threw up sheaves of sparks; and suddenly in the midst of the latter appeared the Loving-One, smiling and ardent. She shook from her green silk gown the pieces of live charcoal, which were sprinkled over it like golden spangles; and springing into the room, went, invisible to the count, and placed herself behind the young people. There, whilst the old knight was relating a frightful battle with the infidels, she softly said to them:

“Love one another, my children. Leave remembrances to austere old age, leave to it the long stories beside the burning embers. Let naught but the sound of your kisses be mingled with the crackling of the fire. Later on it will be time enough to soothe your sorrow by recalling these happy moments. When one is in love at sixteen, there is no need for the voice; a single look says more than a long speech. Love one another, my children; let old age talk.”

Then she enveloped them so thoroughly with her wings, that the count, who was explaining how the giant Buch-Iron-Head was slain by a terrific blow from Giralda-the-Heavy-Sword, did not notice Loïs imprinting his first kiss on Odette’s quivering forehead.

I must tell you, Ninon, about those beautiful wings of my Love-Fairy. They were as transparent as glass, and as thin as the wings of gnats. But, when the sweethearts were in danger of being seen, they enlarged, enlarged and became so obscure, so thick that they stopped the look and smothered the sound of kisses. And so the old man went on with the prodigious story for a long time, and for a long time did Lois fondle Odette the fair, under the wicked suzerain’s nose.

Good heavens! good heavens! what lovely wings they were! Young girls, they tell me, sometimes find them again; and it is thus that more than one of them is able to hide herself from the eyes of her parents. Is it true, Ninon?

When the count had got to the end of his protracted story, the Love-Fairy disappeared in the flame, and Loïs went off, thanking his host, and sending Odette a final kiss. The young girl slept so happy that night, that she dreamt of mountains of flowers lighted by thousands of stars, each of which was a thousand times more brilliant than the sun.

The next day she went down to the garden, searching in the most obscure arbours. She met a warrior, bowed to him, and was about to withdraw when she noticed in his hands the sprig of sweet majoram bathed in tears. And so she again recognised Loïs of the tender voice, who had just succeeded in re-entering the castle under a new form of disguise. He made her sit down on a turfy seat beside a spring. They gazed at one another, delighted at seeing each other in broad daylight. The fauvettes were singing, and there was something in the air which indicated that the good fairy must be wandering in the neighbourhood. I will not repeat to you all the things that the discreet old oak-trees heard; it was a pleasure to listen to the lovers chattering together so long, so long that a fauvette which happened to be in a neighbouring bush had time to build a nest.

All at once the heavy tread of Count Enguerrand resounded along the walk. The two poor lovers trembled. But the water at the spring sang more softly, and the Loving-One emerged, laughing and ardent, from the clear stream of the source. She surrounded the lovers with her wings, then lightly tripped along with them, passing beside the count, who was astonished at having heard voices and finding no one.

She soothes her cherished ones, she walks on, saying to them in a very low voice:

“I am she who protects love-making, she who closes the eyes and ears of those who love no more. Fear nothing, handsome lovers; love one another in broad daylight, in the lanes, beside the springs, wherever you may be. I am there, and I watch over you. Providence has placed me here below so that men, those mockers of all righteousness, may never come and trouble your feelings. It gave me my beautiful wings and said to me, ‘Go, and may young hearts rejoice.’ Love one another; I am there, and I watch over you.”

And she walked on, imbibing the dew which was her only food, leading along Odette and Loïs, whose hands were interlaced, in a joyful roundabout dance.