Complete Works of Emile Zola (147 page)

“Child, child,” repeated Madeleine. “Come now, if we are unable to realise your dream, we can always, however, love one another.”

“Why not flee?” answered William eagerly.

Again a slight smile passed over her lips.

“Because we cannot go and live in your castles in the air, my dear poet,” she replied. “Happiness must exist in ourselves, and it is useless for us to rely on fate for finding it. I see that you have forgotten everything, and I feel that I am forgetting too: we still have many happy hours to live together.”

And, as her husband was beginning to look sad, she added cheerfully:

“Now, we shall be happy everywhere. I defy sorrow — I don’t know what the feeling of fear was that came over me on the road. I was half asleep, and the cold must have affected me. Then this inn produced a strange feeling of repugnance on me — But since we have been here, warming ourselves and chatting, I have seen that you are right: we are very comfortable here, surrounded by this deep silence. Your words have calmed my anguish — Now I am hopeful.”

William was soon consoled as he heard her talking in this strain.

“Yes, hope on, Madeleine,” he said.
“
See how united we are to each other. Nothing now can separate us.”

“Nothing,” replied the young wife, “if we love each other as we are doing. We may return to Véteuil, or go to Paris, but we shall find our love everywhere — Love me without ceasing, as you have loved me to-night, and I will bring back your happiness, I swear it to you — I am yours, do you hear, yours entirely.”

They clasped each other in a closer embrace, and exchanged silent kisses for several minutes. The clock struck twelve.

“
Midnight already,” exclaimed Madeleine. “We really must go to bed, if we wish to awake early.”

As she jumped up from William’s knees, he left his chair, saying:

“I am going down for a moment to the stable. I want to see how that young fellow has attended to my horse — You will not be afraid of being left alone in the room, will’ you?”

“Afraid of what?” replied his young wife with a laugh. “You know very well that I am no coward — You will find me gone to bed, no doubt. Be quick back.”

They exchanged a last kiss; then William went down leaving the key in the door.

When Madeleine was by herself, she stood for a moment, lost in thought, staring at the fire with the blank smile which her husband’s tender words had brought to her lips. As she had just said, she felt greatly comforted, and lulled with new hopes. Up to this moment, she had hardly bestowed a look on the room: as she had entered, she had come straight to the fire-place to warm her feet, and had remained there, seated on William’s knees. When her fit of musing had passed away, she felt a desire, before getting into bed, to set in order the few packages that the waiter had brought up, and dropped down at random. She raised her eyes and looked round her.

Then all her uncomfortable feeling came back, nor could she at first explain to herself why this vague sensation of terror was creeping over her. She was distressed by the same feeling of repugnance and uneasiness which she had already experienced in the yard. She seemed to recognise the room again; but the candle cast such a feeble light on the walls that she could distinguish nothing clearly. She said to herself that she was silly and afraid, thinking that she was dreaming awake. She pushed the packages into one comer, trying all the time to re-assure herself. There was a carpet-bag missing, and she looked for it all round, finding it at last on the marble top of the drawers, where the waiter had dropped it down. It had entirely hid the glass clock. When Madeleine had got the bag and discovered this clock, she stood rooted to the spot, and horribly pale.

She had not been mistaken; she knew the inn, and she knew the room, for she had slept here with James. The student was passionately fond of boating, and he would often go all the way to Rouen by the river, with a few friends who were taking their mistresses with them. Madeleine had come with him on one of these trips, but when she had got as far as Mantes, she had felt unwell, and the whole party had made for the Big Stag.

Rooted to the spot, and stupefied, the young wife examined the clock. An object like this could leave no doubt in her mind, for castles in blown glass are not often met with, and she recognised again the little galleries and the open windows, through which were seen the bedrooms and parlours in the interior. She remembered too that James and she had had a long laugh at the little dolls that inhabited these apartments, and that they had even taken off the globe and amused themselves by putting the dolls into fresh rooms. It seemed to her that all this had taken place the day before, and that she was looking on the clock again after an absence of a few hours. The candle, placed by the side of this frail glass construction, penetrated with its rays the slender colonnades, and the narrow rooms with their transparent walls, casting a point of light on each drop of the molten glass that had trickled down, and transforming the rails of the balconies into needles of flame. It might have been thought a fairy palace, a palace lit up with green and yellow flames by millions of invisible lamps. And Madeleine gazed on these glittering stars with a look of terror, as if this fragile toy had enclosed some terrible and threatening weapon.

She drew back, lifted up the candlestick, and took a turn round the room. At each step, she found a memory. One by one she recognised the coloured pictures that told the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. Certain spots in the faded paper attracted her attention, and each piece of furniture spoke to her of the past. When she came to the bed, she fancied that the clothes had not even been changed, and that she was going to sleep with William in these sheets that were still warm with James’s body.

It was this thought that distressed her. She had traversed the room like a person walking in his sleep, with her eyes wide open, and her lips firmly closed, examining every object with the minuteness of a mad woman and seeming to attach an immense interest to allowing no detail to escape her notice. But when she had touched the blue cotton curtains with their border of pale flowers and suspended by a rod above the bed, she felt her legs give way all at once, and she had to sit down. Now her thoughts were fixed on this narrow bed, arched in the middle like the white headstone of a grave, and she said to herself that she would never sleep there with William.

She put her hands to her brow, fancying that her head was going to split, and she felt a secret feeling of rage rising to her heart. The unrelenting pursuit and attack of her memories was filling her with exasperation. Would she never more then be able to pass a peaceful night, would she never be allowed to forget? James was finding her out even in this out of the way place, even in this inn bedroom, where chance had driven them. And she had been fool enough to hope, and to pretend that she felt appeased and comforted. She ought rather to have listened to her fears, and to the uncomfortable feeling which had warned her of the blow that was threatening her. This time, she would be driven mad. What was she going to say to her husband, to that man whose tender words had lulled her with a false dream, a few minutes before? would she have the courage to exclaim: “Come away, you have made a mistake, this room is accursed, for I have slept in it with my first lover.”

Or would she say nothing, would she consent to prostitute herself in William’s arms, while thinking of James? In her anxiety, she kept looking at the door, and listening to the faint sounds in the house, dreading to hear her husband’s footsteps, and shuddering at the idea of seeing him come in, and not knowing what to say to him.

As she listened, it seemed to her that somebody was walking softly along the passage, and stopping at her door. There was a wary tap.

“Come in,” she shouted absently, hardly knowing in her trouble what she was saying.

The door opened, and in walked — James!

CHAPTER X.

WHEN James woke up at La Noiraude, he was very much surprised at. the sudden departure of William and his wife, for he had not the least suspicion of the terrible drama that his presence had brought about. In a few words, Geneviève told him the story of the sudden death of a relative, which had obliged her master and mistress to set out in the night. He could not think for a moment of questioning the veracity of this account. “Oh! very well!” he said to himself, “I shall see my turtle-doves when I come back from Toulon.” And he thought of nothing more but of killing the day in the pleasantest possible manner.

He started out to air his vexation in the little silent streets of Véteuil, but he was unlucky enough not to come across a single one of his old schoolfellows, and the hour of departure seemed as if it would never come. Towards evening, as he had only a few minutes left to catch the coach, he was accosted by a worthy fellow who uttered an exclamation on recognising him and began to tell him a long story about the last moments of his uncle, and when he had let him go, the coach had gone. James lost an hour in looking for a conveyance that he might hire, and got to Mantes just in time to hear the whistle of the train starting off. This delay was very vexatious, but having learnt that he could take an early train next morning which would bring him to Paris in time to catch his train at the Lyons station, he made up his mind to stay at the Big Stag, where in days gone by be had had some very pleasant parties.

He felt quite at home there; the people were nearly the same, and the waiter who showed him to his room took the liberty of reminding him, with the familiarity of hotel servants, of the short stay he had made in the inn in Madeleine’s company; and he remembered the lady quite well, he said, a fine girl, with her purse always open.

It might be then ten o’clock, and James had forgotten the flight of time in smoking by his fire till past eleven. Just as he was going to bed he heard a scratching at his door and went to open it. The waiter entered with a singular expression on his face. He had something to tell the gentleman, he stammered, but he hardly dared, and the gentleman must promise beforehand to pardon him for his indiscretion; besides, if lie was interfering in other people’s affairs, it was because he thought he was doing a kindness to the gentleman, of whose recent return to France he was aware, and who would, he dared say, not be sorry to learn about a certain person. James lost his patience and begged him to explain himself.

Then, becoming as unreserved as he had been cautious just before, the waiter informed him of the presence of Madame Madeleine in the inn, where she had just arrived and a man with her. He gave a little knowing smile as he added that he had given the travellers room number seven, which the gentleman had good reason for remembering. The young doctor could hardly help smiling too, but his delicate feelings had become too deadened by his love adventures for him to think of feeling hurt by such a confidence. He even put two or three questions to the waiter, asked him if Madeleine was still pretty, if her companion seemed old, and at last dismissed him with the assurance that the proximity of the young woman was not going to prevent him enjoying a sound sleep.

But this was merely a boast, for when the waiter had gone he began to walk up and down the room, pondering in spite of himself, over his old love. He was not of a meditative nature, and during his long absence the memory of his former mistress had hardly troubled his head. Yet he could not learn without a certain emotion that she was there, in an adjoining room, in company with another man. She was the only woman with whom he had lived as husband for a year, and the certainty that she had been a virgin when she came to him, made her different in his eyes from the numerous creatures that he had made love to for a night and cast off next morning. However, he told himself philosophically that such was life, and that he hardly could have expected anything else than to find Madeleine leaning on another man’s arm. The thought never occurred to him for a moment of accusing himself of having been the cause of the young woman’s loose life; she was travelling about and must have fallen in with a rich lover. His reverie ended in an ardent wish to shake her hand like an old comrade; he was not in love with her now, it was true, only he would have felt it a real pleasure to chat with her for a few minutes. When the thought of this friendly grasp of the hand had occurred to him, he forgot the little touch of regret that he had just experienced, and thought solely of devising an excuse to get near Madeleine for a moment. This interview appeared perfectly natural and it fell in with his jovial good natured disposition. He expected, too, that his former mistress would throw herself into his arms again. The idea that she could be married, if it had occurred to him, would have seemed very ludicrous, for he could always see her in his mind’s eye at his lodgings in the Rue Soufflot surrounded by his friends smoking their clay pipes. He resolved simply to act prudently, so as not to compromise her in the mind of her new lover.

His room was at the end of the passage, three doors away from number seven. He had half opened his door, and stood listening and considering on the difficulty of putting his project into execution. As he had to start early next morning he was beginning to despair of accomplishing his object, when he heard the noise of the opening of a door. He put his head out and caught a glimpse in the shade of a man leaving number seven and going away in the direction of the staircase. When the noise of his footsteps had died away, he had a quiet laugh to himself as he thought:

“The gentleman has gone out, now is the time to go and pay my respects to the lady.”

And he came stealthily and knocked at Madeleine’s door. When he was inside the room, and she saw him before her, she jumped up with a sudden start. However, this apparition did not give her the violent shook that the unexpected sight of him under other circumstances would have done, for she was almost expecting him. Since she had recognised the room, since the memories of the past had been driving her mad again, she could fancy that her former lover was before her. And now he was come, and it seemed quite natural to her, for he was in his own room. She did not even ask herself how it came about that he was at the Big Stag or how he had learnt that she was there too. She simply felt her whole being turn cold. Erect and motionless, with her eyes fixed on James, she waited, in a strange calm attitude, for him to speak first.