Complete Works of Emile Zola (63 page)

Marius remained in his state of tender ecstasy; he required no more, and would have remained there on the cliff all night, without seeking to obtain from Fine a more complete avowal. She was growing impatient.

The story of her love was a simple one. At first she had admired Philippe’s tall frame and energetic countenance, with that blindness of young girls which prompts them to choose handsome lads, those who carry all their beauty on their faces and none in their souls. Then wounded to the heart by the indifference of Blanche’s lover, seeing at last clearly into his vain nature, she had begun to look more severely upon his conduct and had become little by little estranged from him. It was at this time that she found herself frequently with Marius, in an intimacy which brought them closer and closer together.

In this instance love had been born of kindliness.

Marius, ugly to the eyes became beautiful for the heart. At first, Fine had seen in him merely a disheartened friend who needed help; she had undertaken half his task in a sisterly way, prompted a little by love for Philippe and a great deal by a natural desire to be serviceable. She had therefore joined Marius, and their common thought of deliverance had united them more each day. It was thus that their affection grew, they loved each other through their self-devotion, whilst living on the same hope and working for the same object.

And it was in the accomplishment of this generous task that Marius became handsome. The comparison which Fine could not help drawing between Philippe and Marius, made the latter appear an exceptional being, the charming prince of young girls’ dreams. Marius’ countenance became forthwith transfigured in her eyes; it appeared to her quite handsome with all the beauty of his loyal and tender nature. She would have been immensely surprised had anyone told her her lover was ugly.

Marius could still hear the young woman’s cry, that cry of the heart which as good as told him: “You are handsome, and I love you!” He dared not speak, fearing to dispel the sweet dream which was so deliciously soothing his mind. Fine, in her embarrassment, continued to smile.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked, speaking merely for the sake of speaking, and scarcely knowing what she was saying.

“Yes, I believe you,” Marius replied in a low deep voice, “I need to believe you. When you were not there, the murmur of the waves told me a secret. I don’t know what is the matter with the sea and the sky this evening. They speak in so sweet a voice that they have moved my heart and disturbed my mind. At this close of day, amidst the sadness of the twilight, I have just discovered within myself a happiness I had never dreamed of. Would you like to know the secret the waves whispered in my ear?”

“Yes,” said the young woman, while her emotion caused her hand to tremble.

Marius leant towards her, and murmured in a faint and timid tone of voice:

“The waves told me that I loved you.”

The shadows were falling more grey and solemn. In the heavens, lights appeared amid a milky transparency. The dark blue motionless sea was slumbering as it wafted its sluggish heavy breath. Fresh and briny odours arose, borne by the evening breeze, and the serenity of space spread in the advancing night. The hour was a fit one for an avowal of love. A divine tenderness, a smiling calm came from the vast compassionate sea. At the foot of the cliff the waves were slowly breaking, lulling the sleeping coast; whilst, from the earth, still hot and feverish, rose a fierce breath of passion. It seemed as though the vast sea was adding its voice to Marius’s tender words.

“Well,” said the flower-girl gaily, “the waves are chatter-boxes. But did they tell you the truth?”

“Yes, yes,” he exclaimed, “the waves spoke the truth. I feel it now, my friend, I’ve been loving you for months past. Ah! what a lot of good this avowal does me. For a long time past I have felt there was something wanting: when I was in your presence, I became penetrated by some pleasant sensation, I could hear some indistinct voices within me, and I could not make out what they were whispering. Now, the silence of this cliff has sufficed for me to hear them tell of my love.”

Fine listened to Marius’s words with a smile on her lips. The shadows were becoming more and more bluish and mysterious. Marius hesitated for a moment, then asked in soft and humble tone of voice:

“You are not angry at what I am telling you? I know very well that you cannot love me.’’

“You know nothing at all,” replied Fine, with abrupt tenderness. “Good heavens! what a time you are making up your mind! My answer has been ready for more than a month past.”

“And what is it?”

“Ask the waves,” the young woman answered, with a laugh.

She held out her hands to Marius, who kissed them passionately. It was now quite dark, and the dull moan of the sea lingered voluptuously in the gloom. The young man bent over the young woman and their lips met. Then they talked as lovers do, in the puerile way of children, going from recollections of the past to projects for the future. Their voices were a music which caressed them, and they talked to hear each other speak, to feel one another’s warm breath play about their faces. They were so happy in the obscurity, in face of the infinite which lay open before them!

“Listen,” said Fine, “we will get married when your brother is free. Philippe must be placed in safety first.”

At the mention of Philippe’s name, Marius shuddered. He had forgotten his brother. The sad reality rose before him. For two hours he had been living in the seventh heaven, and now he had fallen back to the earth from the height of his dream.

“Philippe,” he murmured despondently, “yes, we must think of him. O heavens! is my happiness already dead? You love my brother, do you not? For mercy’s sake, tell me the truth.”

Fine said nothing, but burst into sobs. The young man’s words were breaking her heart. In his despair, he pressed for an answer, and at last the flower-girl cried:

“I love you because you are good, because you know how to love. So you see well enough that I cannot love Philippe.”

There was such a burst of faith and love in this cry that Marius at last understood. He placed his arms around her in a sudden transport of adoration. And then he had a slight feeling of remorse.

“We are happy,” he observed, “and egotistical. Whilst we are breathing here the free air of heaven, our brother is pining in prison. Ah! we know not how to work for his deliverance.”

“Yes, you’ll see!” Fine replied. “You’ll see what one can do, when one’s in love and loved in return.”

They remained hand in hand, without saying another word, while the sea continued to lull their love with its monotonous voice. The stars were shining brightly as they re-entered Marseille, their hearts full of their young hopes and affection.

CHAPTER X

HOSTILITIES ARE RENEWED

BLANCHE passed her days in tears. The autumn was giving a pale hue to the melancholy horizon, the season was becoming cold and dreary. Chill blasts stirred the sea whose voice had changed into a wail, whilst the trees were casting their leaves upon the ground. Beneath the mournful nudity of the heavens lay the bareness of the sea and shore.

This sadness of the air, this last farewell of summer spread over Blanche’s surroundings the despair which already filled her heart. She led a retired life in the little house by the shore. It was situated a short distance from the village of Saint Henri, stood alone upon a cliff and overlooked the sea which beat against the rocks beneath the windows. Blanche would spend whole days together watching and listening to the waves, whose constant noise soothed her sufferings. This was her sole diversion; she followed with her eyes the great sheets of foam which broke and leapt into the air; her aching being found relief in presence of the mild and monotonous immensity.

Occasionally of an evening she would go out, accompanied by her companion. She would descend to the sea-shore and seat herself on a fragment of rock. The cool night breeze calmed the fever that was consuming her. She would linger in the darkness, deafened by the breaking of the waves upon the beach, and not return home until she was shivering with the cold. The same thought was ever oppressing her. At each succeeding hour it was there, overwhelming, inexorable. In the chilliness of the night or the warmth of the day, in presence of the infinite or before the void of darkness, Blanche thought of Philippe and her unborn babe.

Fine was her great consoler. If the flower-girl had not consented to spend the Sunday afternoons with her, the poor young creature would have died of despair. She felt an imperious need of confiding her grief to some kind soul. Solitude frightened her; for, when she found herself alone again, her remorse rose before her like a spectre and filled her with terror. Directly Fine arrived, they both went up to a little room where they shut themselves in to talk and weep undisturbed. The window stood open, and far away, on the blue velvet of the sea, white sails would pass like messengers of hope. And, on each occasion, the same tears were shed, the same words spoken, heart-rending and pathetic.

“Oh! how gloomy life is,” said Blanche. “I’ve been thinking all day of the hours I passed with Philippe among the rocks of Jaumegarde and the Infernets. I ought to have killed myself in those gulfs, have fallen down some precipice.”

“Why be always weeping, ever regretting?” Fine gently replied. “You’re no longer a little girl, and have sacred duties to fulfil. For heaven’s sake, think of the present, and no longer linger in an ever irreparable past. You will end by making yourself ill, by killing your child.”

Blanche shuddered.

“Kill my child!” she resumed, amidst her sobs. “Do not say that. The child must live to atone for my transgression and obtain my pardon. Ah! Philippe was right when he said that I should belong to him for ever. Though I denied him, I have vainly tried to tear the memory of him from my heart. My pride has been crushed, and I have been obliged to yield to the love filled with remorse which is torturing me. And, today, I love Philippe more than ever I did before, with all my regrets and all my despair.”

Fine said nothing. She would have liked to have seen Blanche stronger and prepared for the difficult task maternity was about to bring her. But Mademoiselle de Cazalis was always the poor, weak creature who could do nothing but cry. The flower-girl determined to act herself when the time came.

“If you knew,” continued Blanche, “how I suffer when you’re not here! I feel Philippe torturing me: he lives again in my child, and is ever with me, reproaching me with my perjury. He is always before me, or about me. I can see him on his pallet, in his cell, I hear him complaining and cursing me. I would I had no heart, then I might live in peace.”

“Come, you must be calm,” said Fine.

With such despair consolation is often powerless. The young woman assisted with a certain terror at these scenes of distress. She studied Blanche’s shattered love like a physician studies some strange and terrible malady, and said to herself: “That is how one suffers, that is what one becomes, when one loves timidly.”

One day, when in one of her fits of despair, Blanche said in a broken voice, with her eyes fixed upon her companion:

“You are going to marry him, are you not?”

Fine did not at first understand Blanche, who added hastily:

“Hide nothing from me. I would rather know all. You are a good girl and will make him happy, and I prefer to see him married to you than to know he is gadding about Marseille. When I am dead, tell him that I always loved him.”

And she burst into sobs. The flower-girl gently took her hands.

“I beg you,” she said, “think no more of your lover, but think of your child. If possible, forget everything for it. Besides, be easy, I shall never marry Philippe, though I may become his sister — “

“His sister?” interrupted Mademoiselle de Cazalis.

“Yes,” answered Fine, smiling sweetly as she thought of Marius. “I love and am beloved.”

And she told her the story of her love, appeasing her fever by speaking to her of Marius. As she listened to the recital of this peaceful courtship, Blanche’s tears fell less fast. From that day forth, she loved Fine far more; she felt only a faint sadness when thinking of Philippe, and determined to devote herself to her child. True love, the devoted generous love of her friend had entered her heart.

Sometimes, Fine found Abbé Chastanier in the little house on the cliff. The priest took Blanche the consolations of religion; he sustained her by talking to her of Heaven, by withdrawing her thoughts from the world and its passions. He would have liked to have seen Mademoiselle de Cazalis enter a convent, for he felt that there was no longer any happiness possible for her amid the pleasures of society. She would have to remain everlastingly a widow, and she did not possess the strength of mind necessary to make herself a peaceful existence in her widowhood. But the poor priest was very ignorant of matters relating to the heart. Blanche much preferred to weep with Fine whilst talking of Philippe, than to listen to Abbé Chastanier’s sermons. Yet the old man spoke to her at times in profound accents, and the girl looked at him with surprise, seized with a desire to penetrate into the peaceful world in which he lived. She wished to kneel down, to remain for ever in obeisance, absorbed in an ecstasy that would have delivered her from all her sufferings. It was thus that she became little by little that which she was destined to be, a servant of God, one of those holy women whom the world has wounded and who ascend to heaven before their death.

One day, Abbé Chastanier remained till evening, and left with Fine. He had to tell the flower-girl some bad news which he did not wish to mention before Blanche. He found Marius on the shore awaiting his sweetheart.

“My dear child,” he said, “there is more trouble in store for you. M. de Cazalis wrote to me yesterday. He is much surprised that the sentence pronounced against your brother has not yet been carried out, and informs me he is taking steps to hasten the date of the public exhibition in the pillory. How are you getting on? Do you hope soon to secure the prisoner’s release?”