Complete Works of Emile Zola (24 page)

The spring following the dreadful cold of February was often very chilly and sharp. The evenings of May frequently retain some of the freshness of winter in the air. Cold breezes stirred the curtains now, and bore to the ear the distant rumble of carriages.

Within the house all was gloom. The various articles of furniture, barely perceptible in the obscurity, looked like black spots against the bright paper wall, while the blue carpet grew, little by little, darker and darker. Night had already crept over the ceiling and the comers of the room. Soon, as the darkness fell, scarcely anything was to be seen but a long white streak which, starting from one of the windows, lighted with a pale glimmer the bed on which Madame de Rionne lay in the agony of death.

At that last hour, in that newly-born sweetness of spring, in this room where a young woman lay dying, there was engendered a mournful feeling of pity. The obscurity became transparent, the stillness assumed an unspeakable sadness, the sounds from without changed into murmurs of regret, and one seemed to hear lamenting voices in the air.

Blanche de Rionne, sitting propped up by pillows on her bed, was gazing into the gloom with wide-open eyes. The dim light shone on her poor face, wasted by illness; her arms were stretched out on the sheets; her hands, nervously restless, were unconsciously twisting them. Her lips were parted, yet she said nothing, while her body shook with prolonged shivering fits, and she lay and meditated whilst waiting for death, slowly rolling her head from side to side, as dying people do.

She was barely thirty years of age. Ever a frail creature, her illness had made her still more delicate. This woman undoubtedly possessed courage of a high order; she must have been good-hearted, kind, and sensitive to a supreme degree. Death is the great test, and only in the last agony can one judge truly of men’s courage. And yet one felt there was some spirit of rebellion in her still. At moments her lips quivered, and her hands twisted the sheets more violently than ever. Anguish contracted her face, and big tears trickled down her cheeks, which, however, were immediately dried by the fever raging within her. She seemed to be waging a fierce battle with death, striving to stave it off with all the force of her determined will.

Then, bending over the bedside, she gazed earnestly at a little girl of six sitting on the carpet and playing with the fringe of the bed-covering. From time to time the child raised her head, seized with a sudden fear and ready to cry without knowing why; then, when about to cry, she changed in a moment and laughed, when she saw her mother smiling sweetly upon her, she then turned again to her play, prattling to one of the corners of the sheet of which she had made a doll.

Nothing could be more sad than the smile of the dying woman. Wishing to keep Jeanne with her to the last, she defied pain and concealed her suffering as well as she could that she might not frighten the child. She watched her playing, listened to her childish prattle, and grew absorbed in the contemplation of that fair little head, forgetting almost that she must die and leave her dear little love. Then, suddenly remembering that her end was near, she seemed to feel already cold in death, and terror seized her once more, for the sole cause of her despair was quitting this poor little creature.

Illness had been an implacable foe to her. One evening, as she was about to retire to bed, she had been seized, and not a fortnight had elapsed before she was in the last stages of agony. She rose from her bed no more, and was dying without being able to make any certain provision for her child. She told herself that she was leaving her without means of support and with her father alone as her guide, and, she trembled at the idea, knowing what sort of guide he would make for her daughter.

Suddenly Blanche felt that she was sinking rapidly. She believed death was at hand. Her strength failing her, she lay back on her pillows.

“Jeanne,” she said, feebly, “go and tell your father I want to see him.”

Then, when the child had left the room, she again began to roll her head slowly from side to side. With eyes wide open and lips tightly compressed, she fought with all the energy of her will against death, unwilling to give up her life till she had set her heart at rest.

The laughter of the children on the boulevard below could no longer be heard, and the trees stood out in dark masses in the pale gray of the sky. The city noise floated up more faintly and the silence grew more profound, broken only by the slow breathing of the expiring woman and by stifled sobs which came from the recesses of the window.

There, hidden by the curtains, and weeping bitter tears, was a young man of eighteen — Daniel Raimboult — who had just entered the room, but had not dared to approach the bed. The nurse being away, he forgot himself by weeping as he stood.

Daniel was a pitiful-looking creature, whom one would take to be about fifteen years of age. His lean, short limbs were clad in a fantastical manner, while his fair, almost yellow, hair fell in lank wisps round a long face, with a big mouth and projecting teeth. Notwithstanding, when you came to look at his high, broad forehead, and his eyes full of kindness, you could not help but feel some sympathy for him. Young girls laughed when he passed, for his manner was awkward, and all his poor frame seemed to quiver with shame.

Madame de Rionne had been the good fairy of his life. She had heaped benefits upon him without revealing herself, and when at last he saw her and was allowed to thank his benefactress, he found she was dying.

And now he stood behind the curtain, unable to repress his grief. Blanche heard his stifled sobs, and she raised herself partly up, trying to see who it was that was crying.

“Who is there?” asked she. “Who is crying near me?”

Then Daniel came and knelt down by the bedside, and Blanche recognised him.

“So it is you, Daniel,” she said. “Get up, my friend, and do not cry.”

Daniel at once forgot his timidity and awkwardness. His heart was on his lips, and he held out his hands to her, beseechingly.

“Oh, madame!” he cried, in broken accents, “do let me kneel; do let me weep! I came to see you; despair seized me, and I could not hold back my tears. Now I am here and no one is near, I must tell you how good you are, and how I love you. For more than ten years I have understood everything; for more than ten years I have kept silence, and been suffused with gratitude and affection. You must let me weep. You understand this, do you not? Often have I dreamt of the blessed time when I could kneel down thus before you. That was my dream, which soothed me in the bitterness of my childhood. I took delight in imagining the smallest details of our meeting. I told myself that I should see you beautiful and smiling; that you would have such and such a look, would use such and such a gesture. And now, alas! what do I see?... I never thought until to-day that one could be an orphan twice.”

His voice broke. Blanche, in the last glimmerings of light, looked at him and took a little fresh life, face to face with this worship and despair. In that supreme hour she was rewarded for her good work; she felt her agony softened by this love she would leave behind her.

Daniel continued:

“I owe you everything, and I have only my tears at present to prove to you my devotion. I looked on myself, so to speak, made by you, and I wished your work to be good and beautiful. Throughout my whole life I determined to show my gratitude; I wanted to make you proud of me. And now I have only a few minutes in which to thank you. You will look on me as ungrateful, for I feel my tongue is powerless to express what is in my heart. I have lived alone — I don’t know how to speak.... What will become of me if God does not take pity on you and me?”

Madame de Rionne listened to these disjointed words, and a sweet happiness came to her from them. She took Daniel’s hand.

“My friend,” said she, “I know you are not ungrateful. I have watched over you, and I have learned how deep is your gratitude. There is no need for you to seek words in which to thank me, for your tears alone assuage my suffering.”

Daniel with difficulty kept back his sobs. There was a short silence.

“When I summoned you to Paris,” continued the dying woman, “I was still strong. I hoped to be able to help you to still pursue your studies. Then illness came upon me before I could make the future sure for you. You came too late. In leaving this life I shall take with me the regret of not having finished my task.”

“You have done a pious work,” interrupted Daniel. “You owe me nothing, and I owe you my whole life. The benefit is too great already. Look at me, and see the poor creature that you have adopted and protected. When I found myself awkward, when people laughed at me, I wept for shame for your sake. Forgive me an unworthy thought. I often feared lest my face should be displeasing to you. I trembled lest I should meet you. I was afraid lest my ugliness should deprive me of some of your kind feeling towards me. And only to think that you received me as a son! You, who are so beautiful! You have held out your hand to a wretched child whom no one cared for, but rather despised. The more I was railed at, the more I felt ugly and weak, and the more I worshipped you, for I understand what goodness you must possess to stoop down to me. I ardently wished to be good-looking, that I might be pleasing in your sight.”

Blanche smiled. Such youthful, ingenuous adoration, such flattering humility, made her forget death for a moment.

“What a child you are!” she said.

Then she pondered a while. She was endeavouring to see Daniel’s face in the gloom. The blood flowed more rapidly in her veins, and she thought of herself and the time when she was young.

Then she went on:

“You are impulsive, and life will be hard for you. I can only at this last hour tell you to remember me — think of me as a safeguard. Though I have not been permitted to make any provision for your future, I have at least been able to put you in the way of gaining your livelihood, of walking in a straightforward and manly way through life; and this thought consoles me a little in my compulsory desertion of you. Think of me sometimes; love me and try to please me when I am dead as you have loved and pleased me during my lifetime.”

She said this in such sweet, moving tones that Daniel began to weep again.

“No,” said he, “do not leave me like this; give me some task to perform. My existence will henceforth be a blank if you vanish suddenly from it. During the past ten years I have had no other idea than that of pleasing you and obeying all your wishes. I only wished to become a little worthy in your eyes. You have been my goddess. If I can work no longer for you I shall feel like a coward. Of what use will life be to me? For what shall I strive? Think of something, I beseech you, for me to do to prove my devotion, that I may still testify my gratitude when you are no more.”

While Daniel was speaking a sudden inspiration lit up the pale face of Madame de Rionne; she drew herself up to a sitting posture, rallying her strength and fighting against her pain.

“You are right,” said she; “I have a mission to entrust you with. God Himself has set you there on your knees by my death-bed. Heaven made me give you a helping hand in order that you in your turn might one day help me. Rise up, my friend, for I now beg of you to console and support me.”

And when Daniel had risen and sat down, she said:

“Listen, my time is short; I must tell you all. I besought God that a good angel might come to me — I am willing to believe that you are the angel whom He sends me. I believe in you for I have seen you weep.”

And then she hastily poured out to him all she had in her heart. She forgot she was speaking to a child. This poor soul, torn with anxiety, opened her heart and consoled herself by revealing in death what she had hidden in life.

The young man’s ardent and humble reverence had softened the woman’s stoic courage. She was happy in making her confession at last, to be able, before leaving the world, to confide in some one all the bitterness of her past life. She did not complain; she simply unburdened her heart.

“I spent my life,” she said, “in loneliness and tears. I must tell you these things, my friend, in order that you may understand my sufferings. You pictured me as a joyous being; you have set me on a pinnacle of glory and happiness. Alas! I am only a poor woman who, during long, weary years, has inured herself to misery. And, though I am shedding tears, I call to mind the joys of my youth. What a blessed thing was my childhood there, in Provence! At that time I was proud; I had determined to fight the battle of life bravely, but only emerged from the fight with a bleeding heart.”

Daniel listened, barely understanding her, believing that the delirium of the death agony was creeping over her.

“I married a man,” she exclaimed, “whom I could not love, and who soon drove me back to the solitude of my young days. Henceforth I had to stifle my feelings. Very soon Monsieur de Rionne took to his bachelor ways. I met him now and then at meals. I knew his daily life was an insult to me. And so I shut myself up with my little girl in a corner of the house; I looked upon it as my convent, and I vowed to live as if I were really cloistered there. At times my whole being was in revolt, and I could only appear serene and victorious at the price of much hidden suffering.”

“What!” thought Daniel, “is this what life really is? My saint has indeed suffered! She, whom I delighted to contemplate as a superior being, quite happy, quite divine, was all the time weeping with misery, while I adored her as one above all pain. Is there nothing, then, in the world but sorrow? Does heaven not even spare such souls as are worthy of it? What a terrifying world is ours! When I thought of my benefactress, I imagined her in joy and peace, sheltered from evil by her goodness; she seemed to me serene, like those holy women who have halos round their heads and peaceful smiles on their lips. But what do I find? Only that she weeps, because she has cause, and her heart bleeds like mine, and she is my sister in suffering.”

His heart was wounded. He was silent, terrified at the sad picture which rose up before him. For this was the first step he made in the knowledge of life; all the ignorance of his being revolted face to face with the injustice of evil. He would not have shuddered thus if it had not been a question of one so beloved; but the cruel reality had been revealed, wounding his inmost feelings. A shivering fear, as it were, seized him, for he felt that from that time forward he must face the sternest facts of life. Notwithstanding, his desire for self-sacrifice impelled him to listen intently to this last confession. He considered that he was receiving solemn commands, and so he waited for his duty to be prescribed for him.