Complete Works of Emile Zola (25 page)

His continued silence compelled Madame de Rionne to understand what was passing through his mind. She felt him tremble like a timid child, and she almost regretted that she had troubled this hitherto tranquil heart. A kind of coquetry came upon her, and she almost wished that he should always think of her as a noble and upright soul rather than as one who had been subject like others to human weakness.

“I am speaking to you of sad things,” she continued, “and I know not even if you understand me thoroughly. However, I must speak out, and you must forgive me. I am confessing to you as to a priest — a priest has, so to speak, no age; he is only a soul that listens. You are now merely a child, and my words terrify you. When you are a man you will recollect them. They will teach you what a woman can suffer; they will tell you what I expect of your devotion.”

At this point Daniel interrupted her.

“Do you think I am a coward?” he asked. “I am only ignorant. Life frightens me because I do not know it, and it appears all black to me. But I will enter it with a firm will if you are concerned in its purpose. Speak! What is my mission to be?”

Blanche drew him near her and in a low voice, as if she was afraid of being overheard, she said:

“You have seen my little girl, my poor Jeanne, who was playing here just now. She has just turned six. I am going away without knowing her, so to speak, without being able to tell whether there is good or bad in her. This uncertainty doubles my sufferings and makes death indeed awful to me. And I say to myself: I am leaving this child quite alone. I reflect that perhaps she will, like me, be wounded by hard-hearted people, and may be she will not have the courage I have had in facing it.” With a wave of her hand, the dying woman seemed to drive away a disturbing vision.

“I said to myself,” she continued, “I should always be near her, preparing a happy life for her, training her heart. When I felt death coming I sought for some one to fill my place and I found none. My parents are dead.

I have led a cloistered life. I have made no friends, and Monsieur de Rionne has only one sister, given up to luxury, in whom Jeanne would find a bad example, and I am terrified at the very thought of my husband taking charge of her. I have told you enough for you to understand the fear that seizes me when I contemplate my little girl falling into his hands. I wish to protect my child from him.”

Once again she paused and then added: “You see now, my friend, what your mission is. The task I give you is to watch over my child. I desire you to be as a guardian angel to her.”

Daniel knelt down, and he trembled with emotion. He was unable to speak, and the only answer he could give, the only thanks he could give utterance to, was to kiss Madame de Rionne’s hand.

“It is a hard task,” she said as she went on, “I am imposing upon you. Death presses me close, and I must hurry on without knowing how much you will be able to accomplish. I dare not think of difficulties in store for you, or the strange part you will have to play. Heaven has been good in sending you here, and in granting this consolation to my heart. And heaven will still be kind, and help you in your trust, and guard you in your perils. Only, remember my last wish, and walk firmly on. I trust to your devotion.”

At last Daniel, full of emotion, was able to speak.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed. “Now I shall truly live. How good of you to have thought of me, to have had confidence in me! You shower benefits upon me even to the last.”

A motion from Blanche interrupted him.

“Let me finish. My pride prevented me from withholding my money from my husband; what he asked me for I granted him. At the present moment I have no idea how we stand. No doubt my daughter will be poor, and it is almost pleasant for me to think so. I only regret not to be able to leave you some money.”

“Regret nothing,” cried Daniel. “I will work. Heaven will provide for all.”

The dying woman was failing fast. Her head slid on to the pillow; but, speaking with difficulty, she continued:

“So all goes well. I have opened my heart to you; now I feel calm, now I can die content. You will watch over Jeanne; you will be a friend to her; you must protect her against the world. Follow her, step by step, as closely as possible; keep her from danger, awaken every good quality of her heart. But, above all, marry her to a worthy man; then your task will be accomplished. When a woman marries a bad man, as I know to my cost, the solitude of desertion is fearful, and it requires great determination not to make a mistake and fall. Whatever happens, do not forsake her. Remember constantly that your good angel, on her deathbed, besought you to be faithful to your mission. Do you swear it?”

“I swear it,” murmured Daniel, ‘midst suffocating sobs.

Blanche closed her eyes like a child going to sleep, then she slowly opened them again.

“All this is terrible, my child,” she murmured. “I know not what the future has in store for you; I foresee, however, great obstacles. But, nevertheless, heaven, as you said, will provide for everything.... Kiss me.”

Daniel, confused, bent over her and set his quivering lips on the pale forehead of Madame de Rionne. The poor woman, with closed eyes, smiled faintly, while receiving that solemn kiss of devotion and love.

Night had now quite set in; the stars could be seen twinkling in the clear sky. A sound of footsteps was heard and a chambermaid entered, bearing a lamp; she drew near the dying woman.

“Here is your husband, madame,” said she.

And as Daniel returned to his place in the window recess, Monsieur de Rionne came in, terror-stricken.

CHAPTER II

BLANCHE was born in the south near Marseilles. At twenty-three years of age she married Monsieur de Rionne. She had a noble heart, and with a foreknowledge of the miseries of the world she made a rigid and lofty rule of conduct for herself. Her strength lay in her upright principles, and fully - determined will. She married to comply with her father’s wish, without seeking to know Monsieur de Rionne, saying to herself, with a sort of innocent pride, that she would, if necessary, learn how to suffer patiently and keep her self-respect, and she did so. Her husband was indeed a fascinating man, wonderfully polite and elegant, but a really miserable creature, who might have been good, but who preferred remaining bad.

He had a deplorable weakness: a profound cowardice with respect to vice. Yet with all that, his sentiments were the most beautiful in the world, and his heart was open to every kind of pity. He did evil with full consciousness, without any shame, and he knew equally well how to do good, when he chose. But doing good had no interest for him.

He toyed at first with his wife, as he would have toyed with a mistress. She was charming; she had about her a perfume of virtue and modesty that he inhaled for the first time in his life. Afterwards his wife palled upon him. In this delicate creature he found so strong a will and such calm nobility that in the end he grew almost to be afraid of her. In the cowardice of his heart he began to hate this unconquerable courage. So as not to appear weak before Blanche he avoided her more and more; he set up hard comparisons in his conscience when in the presence of his beautiful-charactered wife, and there was nothing he dreaded so much as the disagreeable voice of remorse which constantly disturbed him in his gaieties. He resumed his old habits of frivolity and pursuit of loose pleasures, forgetting as quickly as possible that he had a family and ties, too, that should bind him close.

Blanche had certainly loved this man, even though it had been but for a brief period. Afterwards she despised him, and the wound in her heart had, as it were, been seared by a hot iron. Nothing but deep regret was left. She had reckoned on her courage, and her courage gave her heart nothing but a terrible feeling of emptiness. She still remained high-principled, above the shameful things which surrounded her; but her heart bled in that severe loneliness, and she often longed to begin her life again.

Three years after her marriage her father and mother died and she was left an orphan. She no longer had a single relation who could render her any help. Then she endured a bitter loneliness, and took a kind of pleasure in shutting herself up with her year-old daughter. This child brought her, under another form, all the tender joys of love. One object of affection is enough to fill an existence, and for her the dear little one was the necessary and consoling object of affection.

For five years she lived this solitary life, alone with Jeanne. She allowed no one to come near her child, wishing to be her servant and friend, and in every way her guide. She took her out walking, played with her, gave her her first lessons, and so developed her mind and heart. Her own life practically dead, she only existed for and by her child.

What happy dreams she had during those long hours of voluntary solitude! Whilst Jeanne played at her feet she studied her in her first lispings. Naturally she wished her to be sincere at heart. She looked forward to being always able to help her, and to be for ever by her side as a counsellor and exemplar.

Then, her imagination taking flight, she saw her married and happy. She then transferred her dreams of happiness in thought to her daughter. She had never once thought that death could come and separate them. Oh, those happy days! And now death was about to take her, and Jeanne would remain alone. Her dreams had been false to her. She would not be able to let her gain by her own experience. Now she would not be able to develop her intelligence or guide her heart. To-morrow Jeanne would pass into the hands of her father — into the hands of a reckless, unreliable man, who cared not one iota for the legacy of the dead woman, his wife. It thus happened that her soul was tranquilised in dictating to Daniel the testament of her love.

Whilst Madame de Rionne was dying, her husband was with Mademoiselle Julia, a ravishing creature, not the least wearisome, but wickedly pleasant withal. He knew full well that his wife was ill; but in order that he himself should not suffer too much, he tried to consider the disease which was to carry her off as a slight indisposition, and he had succeeded in persuading himself that he could live his usual life without worrying himself in any way about her.

Such was the nature of this man, this good fellow, whose purse was always open. He would give a sovereign to a poor man, perhaps, but at the same time he would not have sacrificed any of his pleasures. He avoided all emotion, and cheated himself with that sophistication of conceit which makes all cowards and egoists self-deceivers. He had seen the doctor that morning, and repented that he had asked some questions, for the doctor told him frankly that death might come at any moment At this blunt announcement he felt a dreadful chill flow through his blood. Death terrified him; he could not bear to hear it spoken of without shuddering. Then the thought of his wife’s death had rudely shown him all the vexations which would result from the mourning. It is true he would regain his liberty, but what a lot of worry and fuss there would be: first the funeral, then compulsory abstention from all pleasure, and all the rest of it! The dreaded idea of being pitied; he trembled at the thought of any privation. His wife could not die like that; he said it was only a fortnight since she was well. He uttered these things, in a dry, anxious, rapid tone, seeking to recover that happy equilibrium they wanted to rob him of.

At last, towards evening, he hurried to see Julia. Yet he was not perfectly reassured, and every now and then he turned round as if some one was there, bringing him bad news. However, at the end of half an hour he recovered his selfish serenity. His mistress’s little blue drawing-room was a quiet corner where he could be at his ease. He went there as a dog goes to his kennel — because it was snug and warm.

But this day Julia was nervous, and in a capricious humour. She received him very coldly. He cared little for this, for what he loved in her were the faint perfumes from her body, her loosely-hanging clothes, her freedom of speech and caresses, and the disorder that reigned in her apartment. He joked with her, made himself at home, and forgot everything unpleasant. Notwithstanding, however, she continued to sulk. He spoke of taking a private box for her for the first night of a play at the theatre. He was about to shake off his feeling of
ennui
when a parlour-maid came in and said he was wanted as quickly as possible at home. Monsieur de Rionne was stupefied. A violent remorse seized his heart. He dared not embrace his mistress, and hurried off after merely shaking hands. But on the staircase he thought to himself he might just as well have embraced her. The truth was, he was afraid he had offended her, and that he would not be able to go back later when he should have done with this deplorable business.

Below he found Louis, his
valet-de-chambre —
a great, fair, frigid fellow, whom he had made his tool. Louis had the merit of never showing any emotion outwardly, never speaking, and never hearing anything he was not wanted to. He was a most excellent machine, which worked when it was wound up. But, looked at closely, there was a suspicion of a smirk on his lips, which showed that the machine had certain secret wheels working on their own account.

Louis simply informed his master that he had heard Mademoiselle Jeanne running about the house calling for her father. He had thought madame was dying, and he had also thought he might come and disturb him.

Monsieur de Rionne felt quite upset; tears of fear and pain welled into his eyes. It was a selfish, personal suffering which tortured him. Had he been questioned he would have exposed the truth that grief for his wife had no place in the depths of his despair.

However, in good faith, he lied to himself, and he had the consolation of thinking that he was really weeping at Blanche’s approaching death, and thus he arrived home, suffering but rebellious.

When he entered the room where the sick woman lay in agony, he was seized with faintness. His brain no longer retained Julia’s little blue room, but his flesh had kept a remembrance of it, and having just left that perfumed retreat, it quivered in this great gloomy apartment through which was passing the cold breath of death.