Complete Works of Emile Zola (148 page)

“Oh yes, it is Madeleine; there is no doubt about it,” he said at last lowering his voice.

He was smiling and looking at her with a pleased expression.

“This Joseph has an excellent memory — You remember, he was the young fellow who waited on us, when we stayed in this inn — He has just told me that you were here, and that he had recognised you again — I wanted to shake bands with you, my dear girl.”

And he advanced towards her, with his hands stretched out cordially, and still smiling. The young woman drew back.

“No, no,” she whispered.

He seemed surprised at this refusal, but he did not lose his cheerful humour.

“You won’t let me shake hands with you?” he went on.
“
Why? You surely don’t suppose that I am coming to interfere in your new love. I am a friend, Madeleine, an old comrade, and nothing more — I have waited till the gentleman went out, and I will be off before he comes back. Is it big Ralph?”

Big Ralph was the student who had offered to take Madeleine into his lodgings, a few minutes after the doctor’s departure. She shuddered at the man’s name. James’s supposition, the possibility of an intimacy between her and one of his old friends, hurt her deeply. “If I were to tell him all?
”
she thought. Driven into a comer, and bleeding at heart, she was recovering the vigour and decision of her character; she was going, in a few short words, to confess the truth to her first lover, and beg him never to try to see her again, when James went on in his merry tone:

“Won’t you answer me — Good gracious! how reserved you are! — Was it you that chose this room? — You remember this room, don’t you? — Ah! my dear girl, what jolly happy days we had! — But do you know, you are playing this gentleman rather a scurvy trick by bringing him here?”

He burst into a loud laugh, while Madeleine, crushed and dejected, looked at him with an air of utter stupor.

“I was never very particular,” he added, “and I believe that you have perfectly forgotten me — Yet I should not like to be in this gentleman’s place — I say now, between ourselves, why on earth did you choose this room? — Won’t you answer me? We parted bad friends, then?”

“No,” she said, in a hollow tone.

She was reeling, and leaning against the mantelpiece to prevent herself from falling. She felt that she would not have the courage to speak now; she would never dare to mention William’s name, now that James had made sport of the man who was to spend the night with her in the room where they had formerly made love to each other. And then he must go and suspect her, in the unfeeling joke of a man of pleasure, of having chosen this room purposely. It seemed to her that her first lover was throwing her back, by one word, into the mire that she ought never to have left. She thought herself sullied with a stain so ineffaceable, that she lowered her head. in shame like a guilty woman. Besides, James’s presence was producing on her the effect of alarm, which, the day before, had made her lose her usual imperturbability and energy; her sanguine temperament was liable to sudden periods of agitation, and this strong-minded young fellow to whom she would always belong by the close bonds of the flesh, broke down her will by the mere sound of his voice, and with one look overcame all her resistance and made her weak and nervous. When she felt in her being this enervation of submissiveness, she was afraid of her first thoughts of resistance, and gave way entirely. James knew nothing, it was fate which had thrown him in her way, so she would bear her shame to the bitter end, and wait till he had gone.

The young fellow could not guess the thoughts which were making her shudder and turn pale. He imagined that she was supposing him capable of waiting for the man she was with, and then making a ridiculous scene.

“Don’t tremble;” he said, continuing to laugh.
“
Do you take me for an ogre? I have told you already that I simply wanted to shake hands with you. I am here and off again directly — Really, I have no desire to see this gentleman. The sight of him would not interest me in the least. At the faintest noise, I am off
— “

He went and listened at the door which he had left open. Then he came, losing none of his cheeriness at Madeleine’s attitude. This original interview amused him, and he felt nothing of its cruel and coarse side.

“Do you know,” he continued, “that I nearly stayed over in yon country, in a comfortable bed at the bottom of the sea? But the fishes would have nothing to do with me — I have come back to live in Paris. Oh! I am certain to come across you there, and I am sure that you won’t make that frightful face at me — And you, Madeleine, how has the world treated you? What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she replied.

She had no energy left, and listened and answered quite mechanically. She told herself that he was going to go away, and that she would reflect afterwards. In her scare, the thought that her husband might come up any moment did not occur to her mind now.

“Ah,” he said, somewhat abashed, you are doing nothing Good gracious! how cool you are! And I really thought that you would rush into my arms — You love him then?
”

“Yes.”

“So much the better! I hate people that have no heart. And have you been with him long?”

“Five years.”

“The deuce! that is quite a serious affair — It is not big Ralph, you are sure? George then? No — Ah! perhaps it is Julian Durand, the little fair fellow? — No, not he either? — Then it is somebody that I don’t know?”

She grew pale again, and felt a shudder which caused an expression of unspeakable suffering to pass over her face. James thought that she fancied she could hear her lover’s footsteps.

“Come, don’t shudder like that,” he continued, “I have promised you that I would be off the moment he comes back. It is a pleasure to me to chat with you a bit —

Then you don’t see the fellows now at all that I have just mentioned?”

“No.”

“They were jolly dogs, comrades of a day that I have thought about sometimes, far away from France — Do you remember the merry days we spent with the? We used to start out in the morning for Verrières wood, and come back at night, loaded with lilac boughs. I remember yet the enormous dishes of strawberries we used to eat, and especially the little room where we slept so often; I used to open the shutters by five o’clock, and the sun would wake you up by shining on your eyes — I always thought that one of my excellent friends must have taken my place in your heart.”

Madeleine gave a beseeching gesture. But James was at last becoming somewhat piqued by her cold attitude, and he continued unfeelingly:

“Come now, you may confess the truth, and I shall not be annoyed — It must have been so, so don’t say no — Well! such is life; meetings, partings, and meetings again. There is not a week that I don’t come across some old — You make a mistake to look at things on the tragic side and to treat me as an enemy — You used to be so bright and reckless.”

He was looking at her, and wondering to see her so stout and healthy looking, in the full bloom of her beauty.

“It is no use your pulling long faces at me,” he said jokingly, “I think you are quite charming. You have become a woman, Madeleine, and you must have been happy — Come, just give a look at me; ah! my lovely red hair, and my soft pearly skin!”

He had moved nearer to her, and a flash of desire passed across his eyes.

“Come now, won’t you give me a kiss before I go Madeleine threw herself back to escape his hands which he was stretching out towards her.

“No, let me alone, I implore you,” she stammered in a feeble tone.

James was struck with the despairing accent of her voice. He suddenly became serious, for the good nature that lay at the bottom of his character was moved, and he felt a vague consciousness of having been brutal and cruel unintentionally. He took a few steps towards the door. Then stopping and turning round, he said:

“You are right, Madeleine. I am a fool, and I was wrong to come here — Pardon my jokes as I pardon your coldness. But I am afraid that you have neither heart nor memory. If you really love this man, don’t stay with him in this room.”

He spoke in a serious tone, and she kept back her sobs as he pointed to the walls of the room with a vigorous gesture.

“I am a gay rogue, myself,” he continued. “I love a little everywhere, without any very nice scruples. And yet I can still hear this bed, this furniture and the whole room speaking to me of you — Remember, Madeleine.”

The thoughts that he was evoking brought a new flash of desire to his eyes.

“Come,” he said approaching her again, “one shake of the hand, and I am off.”

“No, no,” repeated the young wife quite crazed.

He kept her for a few seconds trembling before him; then he shrugged his shoulders and left the room. He went away looking on her as a fool. His transient regret, at having come and shown himself perhaps somewhat brutal, had been drowned in a secret irritation at his former mistress, who had refused even to shake hands with him. If he had felt a spark of sentimentality as he had pointed to the walls of the room, this tender emotion sprung from a vague feeling of jealousy which he would have blushed to avow openly.

When Madeleine was left alone she began to walk mechanically up and down in the room, moving the packages about, scarcely knowing what she was doing. There was in her being a sort of deafening rumble which prevented her from hearing her thoughts. For an instant, she entertained the idea of running after James and telling him of her marriage with William; she thought, now that she saw him no longer before her, that she felt strong enough to make such a confession. Yet, she was not urged to this act of courage by the thought of succouring her husband, or of assuring him a peaceful future; she thought but of herself, for she was revolting at last beneath the familiar and mocking contempt of her first lover, and wished to show him that she was living as a virtuous woman, and that she ought to be respected. This rebellion of her pride concealed from her the real situation, and she was no longer asking herself what she should say to William when he came upstairs again. Exasperated by the merciless persecution of fate, she was simply becoming angry, and feeling a selfish need of soothing herself in an immediate and violent fashion.

As she was walking up and down with sudden gesticulations, she heard behind her the creaking of the door which James had left half open, and she turned round, thinking it was her husband who was coming back. Then she saw on the threshold, the beggar they had met on the road, the woman in rags who had followed the conveyance right to the Big Stag.

The woman came nearer, looking earnestly at her. Then she said: “I was not mistaken. I recognised you, Madeleine, although your face was in the shade. Do you know me?”

Madeleine had stepped back in sudden surprise on seeing the poor woman’s face in the full light. She drew herself up in a stiff and unpitying attitude.

“Yes, I know you, Louise,” she replied, in a tone in which she gave vent to all the anger and all the revolt of her being.

The apparition of this woman was the last straw that was wanting to turn her crazed. Louise was that old companion who had taken her to see her daughter, a few miles out of Paris, the day before James went away. She was known in the Latin quarter under the nickname of Verdigris, à title she had earned by her fondness for absinthe and the greenish tints of her flabby and sickly-looking cheeks. Verdigris used to be pointed out in those days as a celebrity, whose favours the school-truants wrangled for. She had a wild look, and had become quite hysterical with drink, and, at the public dances, she would throw her arms round the necks of all the men: she was a sad spectacle of drunken, down-at-heels debauchery, utterly regardless of the stink of the gutter in which she was wallowing. For a moment, when she had a daughter, she bad seemed to reform a little. As James rather liked her low vulgar ways, he had felt no scruples in introducing her to Madeleine for a companion, the more so, as she was at that time the mistress of one of his friends: she wanted to turn over a new leaf, she said, and live with one man only. Then she had relapsed into the mire again, unable to take a serious view of her duties as a mother, and even chaffing herself for having believed in this stupid nonsense for a few months. When Madeleine was living in the Rue de l’Est, she had seen her one night staggering along the causeway, dead drunk, between two abusive students, and this vile creature had remained in her memory as the most horrible recollection of her former life.

To-day, Verdigris seemed to have sunk into the very last stage of shame. She must have been thirty and some odd years old, but she might easily have been taken for fifty. She had on a wretched dress, all in rags, and her tattered, short skirt exposed the old pair of men’s boots on her feet: she had a tartan shawl tied round her body, but it was too scanty to cover her arms, half-bare and blue with cold. Her face, encircled with a handkerchief fastened under her chin, bore an expression of abject stupidity, for drink bad transformed it into a sottish mask, with colourless sagging lips, and bleary blinking eyes. She spoke in a hoarse whisper, with frequent hiccups, and accompanied her remarks with a running commentary of vague gesticulations, in which lingered a trace of the ribald graces of her old disreputable dancing days. But the saddest feature of this vile, debauched creature, was her look of wild vacancy, and the continual shuddering which shook her whole frame: absinthe had made terrible ravages, both on her mind and body, and she moved and spoke in a sort of stupor, broken, now and again, by hysterical laughter, or sudden fits of excitement. Madeleine remembered what her husband had told her about this woman, wandering about the roads like an escaped lunatic. She looked upon her as quite mad, and only felt all the more horror.

“Yes, I know you,” she repeated, in a harsh tone. “What do you want with me?”

Louise was still looking at her with her vacant eyes. She gave a maniac’s laugh and replied:

“You are talking to me like a fine lady, you are proud! — Is it because I have not got a silk dress like yourself? — But you know quite well, my dear girl, that there are ups and downs in life? To-morrow you may be as wretched as I am to-day.” — , Each of her words went to Madeleine’s heart, and increased her irritation. All her past rose before her, and she told herself that this woman was right, and that she might sink to this depth of shame.’’