Complete Works of Emile Zola (158 page)

Monsieur de Rieu could read his resolution in his clear eyes, and in the cold, malignant expression of his lips. His head dropped again on to the pillow, and a last chuckle of delight passed over his face, now contracted in the agony of death.

“Now,” he murmured, “I can die in peace.”

William and Madeleine had stood by at this scene with increasing uneasiness. They felt that the final act of a terrible comedy had just been played in their presence, and they hastened to take leave of the dying man. Hélène, stupefied and huddled in her chair, did not even get up, and it was Tiburce who showed them to the entrance. As they were descending the steps he remembered the vile terms in which he had spoken to William of Madame de Rieu, and he thought he had better change his tone.

“I formed a wrong opinion of this poor woman,” he said. “She is very much affected by the approaching end of her husband — It is a sacred charge that he is entrusting to me, and I will do all I can to make her happy.”

Then, considering himself sufficiently exculpated and wishing to have done with the subject, he went on somewhat abruptly, addressing himself to William:

“By the way, I met one of our old school-fellows to-day.”

Madeleine turned quite pale.

“What school-fellow?” asked William, in a confused tone.

“James Berthier,” replied Tiburce, “you know, that big fellow who used to stick up for you. You were inseparable — It seems that he is rich now. He has been back from the South some eight or ten days, it seems.”

The young couple did not say a word. The entrance-hall, where this conversation had taken place, was rather dark, and the young man had failed to notice the alteration in their faces.

“Oh!” he went on, “he is a very good sort of fellow. I dare bet that he will go through what his uncle left him in a few years. He took me to his quarters, a delightful little suite of rooms in the Rue Taitbout, with an unmistakable odour of petticoats all about.”‘

He gave a little laugh like a man who knew what life was and was incapable of committing any indiscretion. William held out his hand as if to take leave of him. But he continued:

“We talked about you. He did not know that you were in Paris and that you had a little place here. I gave him your address and he will come and see you to-morrow night.”

William had opened the outer door.

“Good-bye,” he said to Tiburce, excitedly shaking hands and stepping out on to the causeway.

Madeleine, left alone for a minute with the young fellow, asked him in a distinct and rapid voice the number of the house in the Rue Taitbout which Monsieur James Berthier was living in. He told her. When she had overtaken her husband, she took his arm, and they traversed in silence the short distance that separated them from the Rue de Boulogne. On reaching home they found a short, urgent letter from Geneviève informing them that little Lucy had had a relapse, and summoning them in all haste. Everything urged them to leave Paris at once, and nothing in the world would have induced them to stay until the next evening. Madeleine did not sleep the whole night. Next morning, just when they were getting into the train, she pretended to discover that she had forgotten a package and seemed greatly annoyed at having left it behind. It was in vain William told her that the housekeeper in the Rue de Boulogne would forward it; she stood motionless and undecided. Then he offered to go back to the house himself, but this arrangement did not suit her. As the bell was ringing for the train to start she shoved her husband on to the platform, telling him she would be more comfortable if she knew that he was with their daughter, and promising to follow him in a few hours. When she was alone she went hurriedly out of the station. Instead of taking the Rue d’Amsterdam, she walked in the direction of the Boulevards.

It was a clear April morning and everything was redolent with the breath of approaching spring. The air, in spite of the warm puffs and genial breezes, was still somewhat sharp. One side of the street still lay in bluish mist; the other side, lit up with a long patch of yellow sunlight, was bathed in a flood of purple and gold. Madeleine was walking on the causeway, in the full glare of the sun’s rays. As soon as she had found herself out of the station, she had slackened her pace. Thus she walked on, slowly and absorbed in thought. Since the previous night her mind had been fully made up. All her energy had come back at the prospect of a visit from James. While she had been asking Tiburce for his address she had thought: “To-morrow I will let William start off. Then when I am alone I will go and see James, tell him everything and implore him to spare us. If he solemnly promises never to try to see us again, it seems to me that I shall believe him to be dead again. My husband will never know of this step, for he is too agitated to see the necessity for it, but later on he will fancy that fate has protected us and he will grow calm like myself. Besides, I can represent to him that I have had some correspondence with James, or pretend that we have had some little tiff.” All the night she had revolved this plan in her head; she modified its details, got ready the words she would say to her former lover, and toned down the terms of her confession. She was weary of dread, weary of suffering, and she wished to put an end to the situation. Danger was restoring to her the energetic and practical decision which she had inherited from Férat the workman.

Now, she had already put into execution the beginning of her plan. She was alone, and it was hardly eight o’clock. She did not intend to present herself at James’s rooms till towards mid-day, which would compel her to wait yet for four whole hours. But this delay did not annoy her, for there was no hurry. There was not the slightest agitation in her resolution, which was the result of careful deliberation. She said to herself that it was pleasant in the sun and that she would walk about till mid-day. She intended to follow out her project scrupulously, without anticipating or retarding the details which she had so carefully arranged.

For years she had not been alone like this, afoot on a causeway. It carried her back to the time when she was in love with James. As she had time to spare, she began to look curiously at the displays in the shop windows, especially at the jewellers’ and the milliners’. She felt a sort of pleasant sensation at finding herself lost in Paris in the April sunshine. When she came to the Madeleine she was delighted to see that it was the market-day for flowers.

She went up, and walked slowly between the two rows of pots and bouquets, making a long stop before the bunches of full-blown roses. When she got to the end of the stalls, she turned back and stood absorbed in contemplation before each plant. Around her, in the yellow glare of sunlight, were spread patches of green, dotted with bright spots, red, violet, blue, and almost as soft as a velvet carpet. An all-pervading perfume filled the air at her feet, and played about her dress with almost inebriating strength; this perfume, as it rose to her lips, seemed to give a gentle, burning sensation to her face, like a kiss. For nearly two hours she stayed there, walking up and down in the fresh fragrance, rapt in her contemplation of the flowers. Gradually her cheeks bad become rosy, and a vague smile played on her lips. The spring air was quickening the blood in her veins and mounting to her head. She was quite giddy, as if she had been leaning over a wine vat.

At first, she had only thought of the step she was going to take. Her brain was resuming its work of the night, and she could see herself going to James’s rooms; she kept repeating the terms in which she would inform him that she was William’s wife, and she mused on the consequences that were likely to follow from such an avowal. Then she began to be filled with hope. She would return to Véteuil, appeased and almost restored to happiness; she would resume with her husband their former peaceful life. Then, when these thoughts of hope had, as it were, lulled and soothed her heart, she gradually began to indulge in dreams. She forgot the painful scene that was to take place in a few moments, and felt quite unconcerned about the project. Half inebriated by the perfume of the flowers, and cheered by the warmth of the sun, she continued to walk about, giving herself up to a pleasing and transient reverie. The thought of the tranquil life that she would lead with William carried her back to the past. She was filled with the memories of days gone by, days of happiness and love. The image of her husband at last faded away, and she soon saw nothing but James. The thought of him was ceasing to torture her, for he was smiling at her as he used to do. Then she saw again the room in the Rue Soufflot, and she called to mind certain April mornings which she had spent with her first lover in Verrières wood. She was happy in the thought of being able to think on all this without suffering; she became more carried away by her dream, forgetful of the present and losing all thought of the coming interview. Thus she walked in the over-powering perfume of the roses, her whole being filled with an increasing sensation of tenderness.

As people were beginning to stare at her with curious eyes, she determined to continue her walk somewhere else, so she went towards the Champs-Elysées, carrying her dream with her. The paths under the trees were almost deserted, and she could remain there in the chilly silence. Besides, she saw nothing of what was going on around her. At the end of a long walk, she came back, almost unconsciously, to the Madeleine. There, she was becoming absorbed again in the genial and perfumed air, and giving way once more to the sensation of voluptuous inebriation, when she noticed it only wanted a quarter to twelve. She had just time to hasten to the Rue Taitbout. Then, with hurried steps, she rapidly traversed the Boulevards, still under the influence of the perfumes of the flowers, and with excited brain, almost forgetting the words which she had proposed to repeat. She walked as if impelled by some fatal force, and when she arrived she was quite red and uncomfortable.

Still she went up the stairs without the least hesitation. It was James himself who opened the door, and on seeing her he uttered a cry of joyful surprise.

“You, you!” he exclaimed “Well, my dear girl, I was hardly looking for you this morning,”

He had shut the door, and was leading the way through several little rooms very elegantly furnished. She followed him in silence, until they came to the furthest room, which was his sleeping apartment, where he turned round and took her cheerily by the hands.

“We are not bad friends any longer then?” he said. “Do you know, you hardly behaved very kindly to me at Mantes? — You wish to make peace, don’t you?”

She was looking at him, without opening her lips. He had just got up, and was still in his shirt sleeves smoking a clay pipe. In his new position as a rich young bachelor, he had not lost the free-and-easy ways of the student and the sailor. Madeleine fancied she had found him again just as she used to know him, just as he was represented by that photograph over which one night she had shed tears. His open shirt allowed her to catch a glimpse of his bare skin.

James sat on the edge of the tumbled bed, and the clothes were dragging on the floor. He still held her by the hands as she stood before him.

“How on earth did you get to know my address?” he went on. “Can it be that you love me still, that you have come across me in the street and followed me? — But first of all, let us sign our compact.”

He drew her in a transport towards him and kissed her on the neck. She made no resistance or struggle, but dropped on to his knees and sat there in a sort of stupor. Although she had only come up a few stairs, she was quite out of breath. She felt half intoxicated as it were, everything seemed turning round, and she examined the room with a confused glance. Noticing on the chimney-piece a bouquet of flowers which were fading, she smiled and thought of the market by the Madeleine. Then she remembered that she had come to tell James of her marriage with William, and she turned towards him, with an unconscious Emile still on her lips. The young fellow had slipped one arm round her waist.

“My dear,” he said, with a broad grin, “you may believe me or not as you like, but since you refused to shake hands with me, I have been dreaming of you every night — I say do you remember our little room in the Rue Soufflot?”

His voice was becoming tender and earnest and his hands were burying, themselves in the warm dress of his former mistress. He trembled in the excitement of awakening, and seized with burning desire. Had Madeleine come at any other hour of the day he would not have clasped her so closely to his breast. As for Madeleine, she had felt herself fainting away, since she had been on James’s knees. A pungent perfume seemed to come from this man which troubled her senses. A flush of warmth passed over her limbs, her ears were filled with a vague hum, and she could not keep her eyes open in an unconquerable feeling of drowsiness. The words: “I came up to tell him everything, and I am going to tell him everything,” revolved in her brain, but the sound gradually died away, like a retreating voice which becomes more and more feeble, and at last becomes inaudible.

By suddenly letting herself sink on the young man’s shoulder she half pushed him over on to the bed. He seized her in a transport, and lifted her up from the floor which her feet were still touching. She became submissive to his embrace like a horse which knows the firm knees of its master. At the moment when she gave way, turning quite pale, closing her eyes and feeling carried away with an excitement that took away her breath, it seemed as if she were falling from a great height, with long and steady oscillations full of cruel pleasure. She felt that she was going to be dashed to the ground, but the delightful sensation of being balanced in the air was none the less keen. Everything around her had disappeared. In the vagueness of her fall, in the temporary deadening of all her senses, she heard the clear tones of a clock striking twelve. These twelve light strokes seemed to h«r to last an age.

When she came to herself, she saw James walking up and down in the room. She got up, looking round her and trying to understand how it was she was lying on this man’s bed. At last she remembered. Then she slowly put straight her disordered dress, and went up to a mirror to tie up her red hair which had fallen down on her shoulders. She was utterly prostrate and stupid.