Complete Works of Emile Zola (797 page)

One evening Pauline had sat up knitting in Lazare’s room till nearly midnight, while her cousin, whose pen had dropped idly from his fingers, slowly told her about what he intended to write in the future — dramas peopled with colossal characters.

The whole house was asleep. Véronique had gone to bed long ago, and the deep stillness of the night, through which only broke the familiar wail of the high tide, gradually per­meated them with tenderness. Lazare, unbosoming himself, confessed that his life hitherto had been a failure; if litera­ture also failed him, he had made up his mind to retire to some secluded spot and live the life of a recluse.

‘Do you know,’ he added with a smile, ‘I often think that we ought to have emigrated after my mother’s death?’

‘Emigrated! Why?’

‘Yes; have taken ourselves very far away — to Oceania, for instance, to one of those islands where life is so sweet and pleasant.’

‘But your father? Should we have taken him with us?’

‘Oh! it’s only a fancy, a dream, that I’m talking of. One may indulge in pleasant dreams, you know, when the actual truth is not very cheerful.’

He had risen from the table and had sat down upon one of the arms of Pauline’s chair. She let her knitting drop, that she might laugh at ease over the ceaseless flow of the young man’s imagination.

‘Are you mad, my poor fellow?’ she asked. ‘What should we have done out there?’

‘We should have lived! Do you remember that book of travels that we read together a dozen years ago? There is a perfect paradise out there. There is no winter, the sky is always blue, and life is passed beneath the sun and the stars. We should have had a cabin and have lived upon delicious fruits, with nothing to do and never a trouble to vex us.’

‘Ah! then we should soon have become a pair of savages, with rings through our noses and feathers on our heads!’

‘Well, why not? We should have loved each other from one end of the year to the other, taking no count of the days. Ah! it would have been delightful!’

She looked at him. Her eyelids were quivering and her face turned pale. That thought of love had filled her with delicious languor. He had playfully taken hold of her hand and was smiling in an embarrassed manner. At first Pauline felt no disquietude. It was nothing more than a revival of their old intimacy. But she slowly grew disturbed; her strength seemed to ebb from her, and her very voice faltered as she said:

‘Nothing but fruit would make rather a spare diet. We should have had to hunt and fish, and cultivate a piece of land. If it is true, as they say, that the women do the work out there, would you have set me to dig the ground?’

‘You! With those tiny hands of yours! Oh! we could have made capital servants out of the monkeys, you know!’

She smiled languidly at this pleasantry, while he added:

‘Besides, they would have been no longer in existence, those little hands of yours! I should have eaten them up — like this!’

He kissed her hands and pretended to bite at them, while the blood surged to his face in a sudden thrill of passion. They neither of them spoke. They were affected by a common madness — a vertigo which threw them both into dizzy faintness. Pauline seemed on the point of swooning; her eyes closed; but at last, as Lazare’s lips suddenly met hers, the thrill she felt made her raise her eyelids, and she awoke like one who has just passed through a terrible dream. Then she sprang to her feet, and, faint though she still felt, she found courage to resist both Lazare and her own passion. The struggle was short, but violent. She repulsed him again and again, and at last, profiting by a brief respite, she fled across the landing into her own room. He followed, and she could hear him speaking to her, but in spite of the passionate promptings of her own heart she kept silent. He sobbed and her own tears fell, yet she gave him no response. When at last she heard him close his door behind him she gave full rein to her grief. It was all over and she had conquered, but her victory filled her with distress. It was impossible for her to sleep; she lay awake till morning. What had happened took complete possession of her thoughts. That evening had been a sin at which she now shuddered with horror. She felt that she could no longer find excuse for herself, that she must acknowledge the duplicity of her affections. Her motherly love for Lazare and her condemna­tion of Louise were but a hypocritical revival of her old passion for her cousin. She had let herself glide into falsehood, for, as she analysed more closely the secret sentiments of her heart, she became conscious that the rupture between Lazare and his wife had pleased her rather than otherwise, and that she had hoped in some way to profit by it. Was it not she, too, who had brought about between her cousin and herself a renewal of the intimacy of former days? Ought she not to have known that the result must be disastrous? Now matters had reached a terrible pass, and they were threatened with ruin. She had given him to another, while she herself loved him passionately, and he, too, longed for her. This thought careered through her brain and beat upon her temples like a peal of bells. At first she made up her mind to run away from the house in the morning. Then she thought that such flight would be cowardly. Since Lazare was leaving very shortly, why should she not remain? Her pride, too, awoke within her; she resolved to conquer herself, for she felt that she could never again carry her head erect should the occurrence of that night inspire her with remorse.

The nest morning she came downstairs at her accustomed hour. There was nothing about her to reveal the night of torture she had spent except the heaviness of her eyes. She was pale and quite calm. When Lazare appeared in his turn, he explained his air of weary lassitude by telling his father that he had sat up late, working. The day passed in the usual way. Neither Pauline nor Lazare made any reference to what had occurred between them, even when they found themselves alone and free from all observation. They made no attempt to avoid each other; they appeared quite confident of themselves. But in the evening, when they wished each other good-night on the landing near their rooms, they fell into each other’s arms, and their lips met in a kiss. Then Pauline, full of alarm, hastily escaped and locked herself in her room, while Lazare, too, rushed away, bursting into tears.

It was thus that they continued to bear themselves towards each other. The days slowly glided away, and the cousins lived on together in constant anxiety of possible backsliding. Though they never spoke of such a thing, and never referred to that terrible night, they thought of it continually and were filled with fear. Their sense of what was right and honourable remained undimmed, and every sudden little lapse, any embrace or stolen kiss, left them full of anger with themselves. But neither had the courage to take the only safe step, that of immediate separation. Pauline, believing that it would be cowardly for her to flee, persisted in remaining in the presence of danger; while Lazare, absorbed in his transports, did not even reply to the pressing letters he received from his wife. He had now been six weeks at Bonneville, and he and Pauline had begun to believe that this existence of alternate pain and sweetness would go on for ever.

One Sunday, at dinner, Chanteau became quite gay, after venturing to drink a glass of Burgundy, a luxury for which he had to pay very dearly each time that he indulged in it. Pauline and Lazare had spent some delightful hours together by the sea under the bright blue sky, exchanging looks full of tenderness, though marked with that haunting fear of themselves which infused such passion into their intimacy.

They were all three smiling, when Véronique, who was just about to bring in the dessert, called from the door of the kitchen:

‘Here comes Madame!’

‘Madame who?’ cried Pauline, with a feeling of stupe­faction.

‘Madame Louise!’

They all broke out into exclamations. Chanteau, quite scared, gazed at Pauline and Lazare, who had turned very pale. But the latter rose excitedly from his seat and stammered angrily:

‘What! Louise? She never told me she was coming, and I had forbidden her to do so. She must be mad!’

The twilight was falling, soft and clear. Lazare threw down his napkin and rushed out of the room. Pauline followed him, struggling to regain her cheerful serenity. It was indeed Louise who was alighting with difficulty from old Malivoire’s coach.

‘Are you mad?’ her husband cried to her across the yard. ‘Why have you done such a foolish thing without writing to me?’

Then Louise burst into tears. She had been so poorly at Clermont, she said, and had felt so depressed and weary. And as her two last letters had remained unanswered, she had felt an irresistible impulse to set off, a yearning desire to see Bonneville again. If she had not sent him word of her intention, it was because she feared that he might have prevented her from satisfying her whim.

‘And to think I was pleased with the idea of taking you all by surprise!’ she concluded.

‘It is idiotic! You will go back again to-morrow!’ her husband cried.

Louise, quite overcome, crushed by this reception, fell into Pauline’s arms. The latter had again turned pale. And now, when she felt this woman, so soon to be a mother, press­ing against her, both horror and pity came upon her. However, she succeeded in conquering her jealousy and in silencing Lazare.

‘Why do you speak to her so unkindly? Kiss her! You did quite right to come, my dear, if you thought you would be better at Bonne ville. You know very well that we all love you, don’t you?’

Loulou was barking furiously at all the hubbub which disturbed the usual quiet of the yard. Minouche, having poked her head out of the door, had retired again, shaking her feet as though she had just escaped mixing herself up in some compromising incident. The whole party went into the house, and Véronique laid another cover at the table and began to serve the dinner over again.

‘Hallo! is it really you, Louisette?’ Chanteau exclaimed, with an uneasy smile. ‘You wanted to take us by surprise? You have almost made my wine go the wrong way!’

However, the evening passed off pleasantly. They had all regained their self-possession, and avoided making any reference to the immediate future. There was a momentary revival of embarrassment at bedtime, when Véronique inquired if Monsieur Lazare was going to sleep in his wife’s room.

‘Oh no! Louise will sleep better alone,’ Lazare replied, looking up instinctively and catching Pauline’s glance.

‘Yes, that will be better,’ said the young wife; ‘sleep at the top of the house, for I’m dreadfully tired, and like that I shall have the whole bed to myself.’

Three days passed. Then Pauline at last came to a determination. She would leave the house on the following Monday. Lazare and Louise had already begun to talk of remaining till after the birth of the expected baby, and Pauline thought she could see that her cousin had had enough of Paris, and would settle down altogether at Bonneville, weary and sick of his perpetual failures. The best thing she could do, therefore, was to give the place up to them at once, for she had not been able to conquer herself, and she more than ever lacked the courage to live beside them and witness all the intimacy of man and wife. Besides, this course seemed the best means of escaping from all the perils threatened by the reviving passion from which she and Lazare had just suffered so cruelly. Louise alone expressed some astonishment on learning Pauline’s decision, but she was supplied with undeniable reasons for it. Doctor Cazenove told her that his relation at Saint-Lô had made Pauline unusually favourable offers, that the girl could not really refuse them any longer, and that her friends must insist upon her accepting a position which would make her future safe. Chanteau, too, with tears in his eyes, expressed his consent.

On the Saturday came a farewell dinner, with the priest and the Doctor. Louise, who suffered greatly, could scarcely drag herself to the table, and this threw additional gloom over the meal, in spite of the efforts of Pauline, who had cheerful smiles for everyone, though in reality she grieved bitterly at the thought of leaving that house, which she had animated and brightened for so many years with her ringing laughter. Her heart was aching with pain, and Véronique served the dinner with a tragic air. Chanteau refused to touch a single drop of Burgundy, having become all at once almost superfluously prudent, for he trembled at the thought of being so soon deprived of a nurse whose mere voice seemed able to lull his pains. Lazare, for his part, was feverish, and wrangled with the Doctor about a new scientific discovery.

By eleven o’clock the house had once more subsided into silence. Louise and Chanteau were already asleep, while Véronique was tidying up her kitchen. Then, at the top of the house, by the door of his old room, which he still occu­pied, Lazare detained Pauline for a moment, according to his wont.

‘Good-bye!’ he murmured.

‘No! not good-bye,’ she said, forcing herself to smile. ‘
Au revoir,
since I am not going away till Monday.’

They gazed at each other, and as their eyes grew dim they fell into each other’s arms, while their lips met passion­ately in a last kiss.

CHAPTER X

The next morning, as they sat down to their coffee at the early breakfast, they were surprised that Louise did not make her appearance. The servant went upstairs to knock at her door, and when the young woman at last came down it was evident that she was in a state of great suffering. She took but a few sips of coffee; and all the morning she dragged herself about the house, rising from one chair to go and sit down upon another. They did not venture to speak to her, for she grew irritable and seemed to suffer the more when any notice was taken of her. She experienced no relief until a little before noon, when she was able to sit down at the table again and take some soup. Between two and three o’clock, however, she was again unable to remain still, and dragged herself about between the dining-room and the kitchen, finally going, with great difficulty, upstairs, but only to come down again immediately.

At the top of the house Pauline was now packing her trunk. She was to leave Bonneville the next morning, and she had only the needful time to empty her drawers and get everything ready for departure; nevertheless, she every minute went out on to the landing and looked over the banis­ters, distressed by the other’s evident suffering. About four o’clock, as she heard Louise becoming still more agitated, she resolved to speak to Lazare, who had locked himself up in his room, full of nervous exasperation at the troubles with which he accused Fate of overwhelming him.