Complete Works of Emile Zola (26 page)

He drew near the bed, and when he saw the pale face of the dying woman he burst into tears. He thought of Julia out there in her big arm-chair, with a look half-cross, half-smiling, and sulking ‘midst her waving curls. Here, in the soft dim light, he saw Blanche, her head resting on her pillow, her eyes closed, and, her features already contracted by the cold finger of death, she lay and looked like a marble figure.

Monsieur de Rionne stood one moment speechless before that motionless face, which yet had a significant and terrible eloquence for him. Then, thinking that some sign of life would calm his anguish — he longed to see her part her tightened lips — he bent over her in a trembling voice and said:

“Blanche! Do you hear me? Speak to me, I beg of you.”

The face of the dying woman twitched slightly, and she raised her eyelids. Her eyes, unnaturally bright, wandered here and there. They looked about in a dazed kind of way, resting at length on Monsieur de Rionne. He had never seen any one die, and, as he had never known genuine sorrow — sorrow that drives one to frantically embrace the corpse of a loved one — he analysed the horror of death. He was thinking of himself, reflecting that he too would die one day, and that he would be like that.

Blanche fixed her eyes on her husband, and recognised him. She sighed, and tried to smile. In that last hour an idea of forgiveness was taking possession of her. Yet she was battling with herself. The bitterness of her married life was recalled to her, and, in order to be gentle with him, she was obliged to fancy that she was dead already, that earthly miseries no longer weighed her down. Moreover, she did not remember having had her husband summoned.

At one moment, finding no one in whom to confide, she had the idea of exacting a vow from him. Now that she had poured out her heart, and that she had been able to set a guardian over her daughter, she no longer felt the need of this reassurance.

Her husband was there, and she was rather surprised at it She looked on him without rancour, as a person whom one knows, and on whom one smiles before departing on a journey.

Then, as sensibility gradually returned, she recollected herself and almost pitied this man, rendered so unworthy by cowardice. She became full of compassion for him.

“My friend,” said she, and her words came in a faint whisper, “you did well to come. I shall die more at peace.”

Monsieur de Rionne, much affected by this gentle remark, wept afresh.

Blanche continued without noticing:

“Do not despair. I no longer suffer. I am at peace. I am happy. I have only one wish, and that is to wipe out all dissension that may have existed between us. I do not wish to carry away with me ill thoughts of you, and I do not desire you to have the least remorse when I am gone. If I have caused you offence, forgive me, as I have forgiven you.”

These words acted very sensibly on Monsieur de Rionne’s nerves, and his heart felt as if it would for the moment break. His impatience of grief was over for the time. “I have nothing to forgive you,” he stammered. “You are good. I regret that the difference of our characters should have separated us from each other. You see I weep. I am in despair.”

Blanche looked at him as he struggled to address her. He seemed to her a pitiful object This man could not find one word of condemnation for himself. He besought her in no way to grant him forgiveness. He was simply intoxicated with fear.

She realised that if God had by a miracle spared her, the very next day he would have resumed his old way of life, and deserted her afresh. But she was dying, and her death taught him no lesson; it was merely a lamentable accident at which he was obliged to assist.

She began smiling again, looking him full in the face, subduing him by her will.

“Bid me good-bye,” she said. “I have no ill-will towards you; I swear it. Later this assurance will perhaps be a consolation to you. I trust it will.”

And as she ceased speaking — “What are your last wishes?” asked Monsieur de Rionne.

“I have none,” she answered, quietly. “I have nothing to ask of you, nothing to give you advice about. Act according to the dictates of your own heart.”

She would not speak to him of their daughter. She thought it might be acting ill to extract vows from him which he would not keep. So then, in a still softer voice she repeated, “Good-bye — do not distress yourself,” and with a motion of her hand waved him slowly away, closing her eyes in order not to see him any more. He retired to the foot of the bed, powerless to withdraw his looks from such a terrible sight.

The servants had gone to fetch the doctor, and he had just arrived, knowing, however, that his attendance would be of no avail. An old priest, who had ministered to the dying woman in the morning, had also arrived. He knelt down, and was reciting in quiet tones the prayers for the dying.

Blanche grew weaker and weaker. The end was near. But she raised herself up abruptly and asked for her daughter. As Monsieur de Rionne did not stir, Daniel, who had remained silent, keeping back his tears, ran and fetched Jeanne, who was in the midst of her games in the next room. The poor mother, with distended eyes, as if she were out of her mind, gazed at her daughter, and endeavoured to hold out her arms to her. But she failed to raise them, and Daniel was obliged to hold Jeanne up, with her feet resting on the wooden sides of the bed.

The child did not cry. She looked at her mother’s disordered face with a sort of innocent astonishment. Then, as that face grew calmer — it seemed to fill with heavenly joy, and shone with tenderness — the little girl recognised her sweet smile, and she also began to smile, holding out her little hands.

So Blanche died, a smile on her own face and on that of her child. She fixed her last look on Daniel — a look at once of supplication and command. He was supporting Jeanne; his mission had begun.

Monsieur de Rionne knelt down by the body of his wife, remembering that it was the custom on such occasions so to act. The doctor had just left, and one of the watchers hastened to light two candles. The priest, who had risen to offer the crucifix to Blanche’s lips, resumed his prayers.

Daniel kept Jeanne in his arms, and as the atmosphere of the room became stifling, he took up his position by the window of a neighbouring room. There he wept in silence, whilst the child amused herself by watching the rapidly passing lamps of the carriages on the boulevard.

The air outside was still. In the distance could be heard the clarions of the Ecole Militaire sounding the tatoo.

CHAPTER III

TOWARDS morning Daniel again went up to his room. This big fellow of eighteen had the heart of a child. The peculiar circumstances under which he found himself had deeply stirred his affectionate disposition. He made himself laughable by his youth and devotion.

It will, no doubt, have been recognised by this time that he was the orphan mentioned in the
Semaphore.
Blanche de Rionne, the young unknown protector, had had him educated, and when he grew older, put him to the Lycée at Marseilles. She made it a rule seldom to see him, wishing that he should barely know her, and that he should only, so to speak, have Providence to thank for his position.

When she married she did not even speak to Monsieur de Rionne of her adopted child. This was one of her many secret good works.

At the Lycée Daniel’s awkward manners, joined to the timidity of an orphan, drew upon him the ridicule of his companions, and he was deeply wounded at being treated as a pariah. Then his gait became yet more ungainly. He was left alone, and thus he kept all his early innocence. He escaped all those first lessons in vice that youths of fifteen and upwards, in France particularly, impart to each other.

He was ignorant of everything, and had no knowledge of life whatever. In the loneliness created by his awkwardness an ardent love of study had seized him.

His quick and emotional intellect, which should have made him a poet, drove him, by a seeming contradiction, to the study of science, for in his nature there was a deep desire for truth.

He discovered a profound joy in seeking step by step the solution of some intricate problem in mathematics, and thus in a way he made poetry. He withdrew into himself and Nature, and circumstances led him to a life of meditation.

He was at home in science, for in its pursuit he had nothing to do with men; he had nothing to do with schoolmates, who laughed at his yellow hair. All human society terrified him; he loved better to live higher up in the regions of pure speculation, of absolute truth. There he could theorise poetically at his ease; he was no longer encumbered by his awkwardness of person. These scholars — these aged children of timid manners whom one meets in the streets — are sometimes great poets.

Railed at by his companions, his nerves always highly strung, Daniel hid away his affections in the recesses of his heart. All he had to love in this world was that unknown mother who watched over him, and he had loved her with all the intensity of passion which is centred on one object alone. Side by side with the poet-mathematician there was the passionate adorer, with an affection which grew in warmth the more it was repulsed. Daniel’s adoration of the good fairy had grown with years and made his existence sweet for him. The obscurity in which she kept herself made her all the more saintly to him. He knew her face thoroughly from having met her two or three times, and he spoke of her as he would of something wonderful and sacred.

One day, when he was almost eighteen, as he was leaving the Lycée he was told that Madame de Rionne had sent for him to be with her in Paris. He nearly went out of his mind with joy, for now he would be able to see her freely, to thank and love her, at his ease.

The wild dream of his youth was about to be realised; the good fairy, the saint, his providence, was admitting him into the heaven where she dwelt, and so he started in all haste.

He arrived and found Madame de Rionne in her bed, dying. Every evening, for eight days, he went down to the room she occupied;
he gazed at her from a distance and wept. He thus awaited the terrible end, intoxicated with grief, unable to understand how it happened that saints could be mortal and die.

Then at last he had knelt down at her bedside and solemnly promised the dying woman that her last wish should be carried out.

He passed the night near the body, in the company of the watcher. Monsieur de Rionne had remained on his knees an hour, and afterwards discreetly retired.

Whilst the priest prayed and the watcher rested in an easy chair, Daniel was in dreamland, with dry eyes, unable to weep. He felt crushed, but was in that quiet, tranquil state, without pain, similar to the light drowsiness that precedes sleep. He grasped nothing distinctly, and every now and then his thoughts wandered. For nearly ten hours one idea alone filled his brain: Blanche was dead, and henceforth little Jeanne would be the saint whom he would love, to whom he would give his devotion.

But, unconsciously, during that long, mournful night his courage was rapidly maturing; he was becoming a man indeed.

The terrible scene at which he had assisted, the despair which had so deeply shaken him, all this stern education in suffering had killed the timidity of childhood in him. In his oppression he dimly felt this working of sorrow; he yielded to the force which was transforming him, and ripening, in a few hours, his heart and mind.

In the morning, when he went back to his room, he was like a drunken man who could not recognise the place he lived in. The long, narrow room had only a window which opened in the slanting roof, whence once could see the tops of the trees of the esplanade, as it were a lake of verdure; further on, to the left, could be seen the heights of Passy. The window had remained open, a bright light filled the room, and it felt almost cold.

Daniel sat down on the edge of his bed. He was ready to drop with fatigue, but did not dream of going to rest. He remained thus a long time, forgetting himself, whilst staring at the furniture, asking himself now and then what he was doing there, and suddenly remembering all.

At times he listened, astonished, wondering why he did not hear himself weeping. Then he went and stood at the window, and the air did him good. Not a sound came up from the house. Below, in the little garden, there were people silently hurrying about On the boulevard the carriages rolled along as if nothing sorrowful had taken place in the night Paris was slowly awakening, and now a pale sunlight whitened the topmost leaves of the trees. The joyful aspect of the sky, the heedlessness of the city, saddened Daniel profoundly, and gave him excuse to weep again. It was a salutary crisis, which made his head feel lighter. He remained at the window in the fresh air, trying to reflect as to what he should do.

Then he understood that as yet nothing rational would come to his brain, and decided to occupy himself mechanically. He moved several objects from one place to another, ferreted in his trunk, took out some clothes, which he put back again directly afterwards.

His head began to grow less painful. When night came once more he was quite surprised. He could have sworn the day had only just begun. He had remained shut up, pondering on one idea only, and that long day of suffering seemed quite short. He left his room and tried to eat; then he wished to see Madame de Rionne once more. He could not, however, gain admittance to the death chamber. So, going up again to his own room, he fell into a heavy sleep, which overpowered him till very late the next day.

When he awoke he heard a suppressed murmur of voices. The funeral carriages were about to leave the house. He hastily dressed himself and went downstairs. On the way he met the coffin, which four men could just manage. It gave out a dull sound at every concussion.

At the start there was some confusion on the boulevard. The followers were numerous, and the procession was only slowly organised.

Monsieur de Rionne put himself at the head of it, accompanied by his brother-in-law. His sister, a young woman, whose eyes wandered freely over the crowd, entered another carriage. Immediately behind Monsieur de Rionne came the frequenters of the house, the servants, and Daniel took up his place amongst the latter. Then the remainder of the followers came in groups, in irregular file.