Complete Works of Emile Zola (14 page)

Yes, such is, without doubt, the explanation of my being. I comprehend my flesh, I comprehend my heart; I am conscious of my innocence and of my infamy, of my love for illusion and of my love for truth. I am a delicate machine made up of sensations — sensations of the soul and sensations of the body. I receive and give back, quiveringly, the slightest ray, the slightest odor, the slightest tenderness. I live on too lofty a plane, crying out my sufferings, stammering forth my ecstasies, in heaven and amid the mud, more crushed after each new bound, more radiant after each new fall.

The other day, amid the cool air, beneath the tall trees of Fontenay, my flesh was softened, my heart had the mastery. I loved and I believed myself loved in my turn. The truth escaped from me; I saw Laurence clothed in white, young and pure; her kiss appeared to me to have so much sweetness that it seemed to come from her soul. Now, Laurence is here, seated upon the edge of the bed; to see her, pale and sorrowful, in her soiled dress, makes my flesh quiver, my heart leap with indignation. The spring time has flown; Laurence has grown old, she does not love me. Oh! what a miserable child I am! I deserve to weep, for I cause my own tears.

What do I care for Laurence’s ugliness, her infamy and her weariness! Let her be uglier, more infamous and more weary, but let her love me! I wish her to love me.

I regret neither the graces of her fifteenth year nor her youthful smile of the other day, when she ran about beneath the trees and was the good fairy of my youth. No, I regret neither her beauty nor her freshness; I regret the dream which led me to believe that her heart was in her caresses.

She is here, deplorable, crushed. I have, indeed, the right to exact that she shall love me, that she shall give herself to me. I accept her entire being, I want her as she is, asleep and weary, but I want her, I want her, with all my will, with all my strength.

I remember that I dreamed of reforming Laurence, that I wished her to possess more reason, more reserve. What do I care for reserve, what do I care for reason? I have no business with them now. I demand love, mad and lasting love. I am eager to have my love returned, I do not wish longer to love all alone. Nothing wearies the heart like caresses which are not returned. I gave this woman my youth, my hopes; I shut myself up with her in suffering and abjection; I forgot everything in the depths of our gloom, even the crowd and its opinions. I can, it seems to me, demand in exchange from this woman that she shall unite herself with me, that she shall join her destiny to mine amid the desert of poverty and abandonment in which we live.

Spring is dead, I tell you. I dreamed that the young foliage was growing green in the sunlight, that Laurence laughed madly amid the tall grass. I find myself in the damp darkness of my chamber, opposite Laurence who is sleeping; I have not quitted the wretched den, I have not seen either the eyes or the lips of this girl open. Everything is deception. In this crumbling of the true and the false, in this confused noise which life causes within me, I feel but a single need, a sharp and cruel need: to love, to be loved, no matter where, no matter how, that I may plunge headlong into an abyss of devotion.

Oh! brothers, later, if ever I emerge from the black night which holds me captive, and the caprice should seize upon me to relate to the crowd the story of my far off loves, I will, without doubt, imitate those weepers, those dreamers, who deck with golden rays the demons of their twentieth year and put wings upon their shoulders. We call the poets of youth those liars who have suffered, who have shed all their tears, and who, to-day, in their recollections, have no longer anything but smiles and regrets. I assure you that I have seen their blood, that I have seen their bare flesh, torn and full of pain. They have lived in suffering, they have grown up in despair. Their sweethearts were vile creatures, their love affairs had all the horrors of the love affairs of a great city. They have been deceived, wounded, dragged in the mud; never did they encounter a heart, and each one of them has had his Laurence, who has made of his youth a desolate solitude. Then, the wound healed, age came on, remembrance imparted its caressing charm to all the infamy of the past, and they wept over their morbid love affairs. Thus they have created a false world of sinful young women, of girls adorable in their carelessness and their triviality. You know them all — the Mirai Pinsons and the Musettes — you dreamed about them when you were sixteen, and, perhaps, you have even sought for them. Their admirers were prodigal; they accorded them beauty and freshness, tenderness and frankness; they have made them shining types of unselfish love, of eternal youth; they have thrust them upon our hearts, they have taken delight in deceiving themselves. They lie! they lie! they lie!

I will imitate them. Like them, without doubt, I shall deceive myself, I shall believe in good faith the falsehoods which my recollections will relate to me; like them, perhaps, I shall have cowardice and timidity which will induce me not to speak loudly and frankly, telling what were my love affairs and how utterly miserable they were. Laurence will become Musette or Mimi; she will have youth, she will have beauty; she will no longer be the mute, wretched woman who is now in my company — she will be a giddy young girl, loving thoughtlessly, but thoroughly alive, rendered more youthful and more adorable by her caprices. My den will be transformed into a gay mansarde, blooming, white with sunlight; the blue silk dress will be changed into a neat and graceful calico; my poverty will be full of smiles, my tenderness will sparkle like a diamond. And I will sing in my turn the song of my twentieth year, taking up the refrain where the others have left it, continuing the sweet and lying words, deceiving myself, deceiving those who shall come after me.

Brothers, in these letters written for you alone, which I prepare day by day, quivering yet from the terrible shocks I have received, I can be rough, sharp, revealing everything, emphasizing my confessions. I give myself up wholly, I spread my entire life out before you, I exhibit to you my flesh and my blood: I wish to take my heart from my breast, to show it to you, bleeding, sick, frank in its baseness and in its purity. I feel myself better and worthier in confessing myself to you; I have an immense pride amid my abasement; the deeper I descend, the more disdain, the more superb indifference, I acquire. What a delicious thing is frankness! Say to yourselves that, out of ten young men, eight have the same life, the same youth, as I: some two or three in a hundred, perhaps, become frightened and weep as I weep; the others, several thousands, accept their lot and live in peace, infamous and smiling. All lie. As for me, I wound myself, I admit to you with sobs what are my love affairs, and tell you with what a terrible weight they stifle me.

Later, I will lie.

Nothing exists now, except the love of Laurence, which I have not and which I exact. There is no more light, there is no longer a world, there is no longer a crowd; in the gloom, a man and a woman are brought face to face forever. The man, setting aside all his lofty aspirations, all his appreciation of beauty, wishes to be loved by the woman, because he is afraid of being alone, because he is cold and hungry, because he loves himself. At the final day, when humanity is expiring, and when but a single couple remain upon the earth, the struggle will be terrible, the despair immense, if the last adorer cannot awaken the last sweetheart from the dull sleep of the heart and the flesh.

CHAPTER XXI.

A HORRIBLE PROPOSITION.

MARIE changed her chamber yesterday; she now lodges upon the same landing as I, in an apartment separated from mine by a simple partition. The poor child is dying; she gives vent to a light and hollow cough, with a sort of rattling in her throat after each attack of coughing. Jacques, whose studious quietude was disturbed by this cough, decided that the invalid would be more at her ease alone in a separate chamber. He has engaged Pâquerette to watch over and take care of her.

Last night, I heard for long hours Marie’s cough and the rattling in her throat. Laurence slept on tranquilly. The sound of each half stifled fit which passed through the partition filled me with indescribable sadness.

This morning, on arising, I went to see the dying girl. She was in bed, white, resigned, still smiling. Her head, raised upon two pillows, had a sort of gentle languor; her thin and almost transparent arms were stretched out on the sheet beside her poor body, the sharp and lamentable outlines of which could be seen beneath the covers.

The chamber was dark and cold. It resembles mine, but is better furnished, less dirty. A large window opens upon the high wall, which looms up gloomily a few meters from the front of the house.

Marie was alone, motionless, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling with that pensive and heartrending air of invalids who already see beyond life. Pâquerette had just gone down-stairs to get her breakfast. On a small table, placed near an arm-chair, were an army of bottles, a single glass and the remains of food. The thought came to me that Pâquerette took more care of herself than of the dying girl.

I kissed Marie’s forehead; I seated myself upon the edge of the bed, taking and holding one of her hands. She turned her head slowly and smiled upon me, telling me that she was not in pain, that she was resting herself. Her voice, a trifle hoarse, was reduced to a feeble and caressing murmur. Her forehead inclined, she looked at me with her feverish and enlarged eyes; astonishment and tenderness were mingled in her full glances. My heart was wrung with pity at the sight of this poor creature. I felt that I was on the point of bursting into tears.

Pâquerette returned, loaded with new bottles and fresh food. She opened the window, complaining of the bad air; she established herself comfortably in the arm-chair, before the table; then, she began to eat noisily, talking as she chewed, questioning Marie about her adorers, about her past life. She seemed to ignore that the poor girl was sick; she treated her like a lazy creature who loves to lie in bed and be pitied. I looked with disgust at this woman, wrapped up in herself, licking her greasy fingers, chuckling, bantering the dying girl with her mouth full, and casting at me sullen and cynical glances, those desperate glances which certain old women yet have in their reddened eyes.

Pâquerette, ceasing to eat, partially turned her armchair; then, crossing her hands upon her skirts, she looked at us, at Marie and myself, first at one and afterwards at the other, laughing a wicked laugh.

“Ah! my dear,” said she to the sick girl, pointing at me her bony finger, “isn’t he a handsome young fellow! His heart is widowed and has need of new love affairs!”

Marie smiled sadly, closing her eyes, withdrawing her hand which mine had kept.

“You are deceived,” I answered Pâquerette, after a moment’s silence; “my heart is not widowed. I love Laurence.”

Marie lifted’ her eyelids, and restored to me her fingers, which I found more agitated, hotter, than before.

“Laurence! Laurence!” sneered the old woman; “she is making a fool of you! You are like all the rest of the men. They love those who betray and abandon them. Look for another sweetheart, my poor Monsieur, look for another sweetheart!”

I did not hear distinctly, according ordinarily no attention whatever to the chatter of this old woman. And yet, though I know not why, I felt a vague uneasiness. An unknown warmth filled my being with a painful quiver.

“Listen, my children,” added Pâquerette, taking her ease: “I am a kind hearted woman, and it displeases me to see you made game of. You are very nice, both of you, gentle as lambs, good as bread. It has been my dream to see you married, and I well know that two better little creatures were never brought together. So, Monsieur, accept Madame. Every day, I meet Laurence and Jacques caressing each other on the stairway!”

I glanced at Marie. She was calm; the beating of her pulse had not increased. She seemed to be dreaming with her eyes fixed on me, and, perhaps, she saw me in her dream. The kisses which Jacques might have given to Laurence did not disturb the tranquil friendship which she felt for him.

As for me, I felt the insupportable warmth mount to my breast and stifle me. I knew not what was the sudden numbness which gave me a dull, deep pain, penetrating even to my soul. I thought neither of Laurence nor Jacques; I listened to Pâquerette and the suffocation augmented, stopping up my throat.

Pâquerette slowly rubbed her withered hands; her gray eyes, sunken beneath her flabby eyelids, shone strangely in her yellow visage. She resumed, in a voice more cracked than ever:

“You stare at each other like a couple of stupid innocents! Have you not understood, Claude? Jacques has taken Laurence from you; take Marie. Ah! the little one smiles: she asks nothing better. In the way I suggest, no one will be left disconsolate, no one will have any reproaches to make. That’s the fashion in which everything should be arranged in this life!
”

Marie impatiently lifted her hand, making her a sign to stop. The old woman’s sharp voice imparted a quiver to her emaciated flesh. Then, her countenance assumed an expression of melancholy peace, an air of calm ecstasy; she gazed at me thoughtfully, and said to me, in a penetrating tone, a tone which I had never known her voice to possess:

“Will you, Claude? I will love you so much!
”

And she sat upright.

A fit of coughing threw her back upon the bed, her body horribly shaken, all panting with pain. With arms open and twisted, with head thrown backward, she was suffocating. Her partially uncovered breast, that poor breast which suffering had made so infantile, so pure, rose and fell frightfully as if torn by a furious tempest. Then, the terrible cough passed away, and the girl stretched herself out, pale, her cheeks violet, as if overwhelmed with fatigue and insensibility.

I had remained seated upon the edge of the bed, shaken myself by the torture of the dying girl. I had not dared to stir, nailed to my place by pity and fright. What I had before me was so profoundly horrible and so infinitely touching, so lamentable and so repulsive, that I know not how to explain the holy fear which held me where I was, grieved, full of disgust and compassion. I was tempted to beat Pâquerette, to drive her away; I felt inclined to embrace Marie as a brother would embrace his sister, to give her my blood to restore life and freshness to her expiring flesh.