The Confession of a Child of the Century Part 14

She frowned and cast her eyes about her in a strange manner; then she replied, almost graciously:

"Come to-morrow during the day and I will see you." Then she left me.

The next day at noon I presented myself. I was introduced into a room with old hangings and antique furniture. I found her alone, seated on a sofa. I sat down before her.

"Madame," I began, "I come neither to speak of what I suffer, nor to deny that I love you. You have written me that what has pa.s.sed between us can not be forgotten, and that is true; but you say that on that account we can not meet on the same footing as heretofore, and you are mistaken. I love you, but I have not offended you; nothing is changed in our relations since you do not love me. If I am permitted to see you, responsibility rests with me, and as far as your responsibility is concerned, my love for you should be sufficient guarantee."

She tried to interrupt me.

"Kindly allow me to finish what I have to say. No one knows better than I, that in spite of the respect I feel for you, and in spite of all the protestations by which I might bind myself, love is the stronger. I repeat I do not intend to deny what is in my heart; but you do not learn of that love to-day for the first time, and I ask you what has prevented me from declaring it up to the present time? The fear of losing you; I was afraid I would not be permitted to see you, and that is what has happened. Make a condition that the first word I shall speak, the first thought or gesture that shall seem to be inconsistent with the most profound respect, shall be the signal for the closing of your door; as I have been silent in the past, I will be silent in the future. You think that I have loved you for a month, when in fact I have loved you from the first day I met you. When you discovered it, you did not refuse to see me on that account. If you had at that time enough esteem for me to believe me incapable of offending you, why have you lost that esteem? That is what I have come to ask you. What have I done? I have bent my knee, but I have not said a word. What have I told you? What you already knew. I have been weak because I have suffered. It is true, madame, that I am twenty years of age and what I have seen of life has only disgusted me, I could use a stronger word; it is true that there is not at this hour on earth, either in the society of men or in solitude, a place, however small and insignificant, that I care to occupy. The s.p.a.ce enclosed between the four walls of your garden is the only spot in the world where I live; you are the only human being who has made me love G.o.d. I had renounced everything before I knew you; why deprive me of the only ray of light that Providence has spared me? If it is on account of fear, what have I done to inspire it? If it is on account of pity, in what respect am I culpable? If it is on account of pity and because I suffer, you are mistaken in supposing that I can cure myself; it might have been done, perhaps, two months ago; but I preferred to see you and to suffer, and I do not repent, whatever may come of it. The only misfortune that can reach me, is losing you. Put me to the proof. If I ever feel that there is too much suffering for me in our bargain, I will go away; and you may be sure of it, since you send me away to-day, and I am ready to go. What risk do you run in giving me a month or two of the only happiness I will ever know?"

I waited her reply. She suddenly rose from her seat, then sat down again.

Then a moment of silence ensued.

"Rest a.s.sured," she said, "it is not so."

I thought she was searching for words that would not appear too severe, and that she was anxious to avoid hurting me.

"One word," I said, rising, "one word, nothing more. I know who you are, and, if there is any compa.s.sion for me in your heart, I thank you; speak but one word, this moment decides my life."

She shook her head; I saw that she was hesitating.

"You think I can be cured?" I cried. "May G.o.d grant you that solace if you send me away--"

I looked out of the window at the horizon and felt in my soul such a frightful sensation of loneliness at the idea that I was going away, that my blood froze in my veins. She saw me standing before her, my eyes fixed on her, awaiting her reply; all of my life was hanging in suspense upon her lips.

"Very well," she said, "listen to me. This move of yours in coming to see me was an act of great imprudence; however, it is not necessary to a.s.sume that you have come here to see me; accept a commission that I will give you for a friend of my family. If you find that it is a little far, let it be the occasion of an absence which shall last as long as you choose, but which must not be too short. Although you said a moment ago," she added with a smile, "that a short trip would calm you. You will stop in the Vosges and you will go as far as Strasburg. Then in a month, or better, in two months you will return and report to me; I will see you again and give you further instructions."

CHAPTER VIII

THAT evening I received a letter from Madame Pierson, addressed to M. R.

D., at Strasburg. Three weeks later my mission had been accomplished and I returned.

While absent, I had thought of nothing but her, and I despaired of ever forgetting her. Nevertheless, I determined to restrain my feelings in her presence; I had suffered too cruelly at the prospect of losing her, to run any further risks. My esteem for her rendered it impossible for me to suspect her sincerity, and I did not see, in her plan for getting me to leave the country, anything that resembled hypocrisy. In a word, I was firmly convinced that at the first word of love her door would be closed to me.

Upon my return, I found her thin and changed. Her habitual smile seemed to languish on her discolored lips. She told me that she had been suffering.

We did not speak of the past. She did not appear to wish to recall it and I had no desire to refer to it. We resumed our old relations of neighbors; yet there was something of constraint between us, a sort of conventional familiarity. It was as though we had said: "It was thus before, let it still be thus." She granted me her confidence, a concession that was not without its charms for me; but our conversation was colder, for the reason that our eyes expressed as much as our tongues. In all that we said there was more to be surmised than was actually spoken. We no longer endeavored to fathom each other's mind; there was not the same interest attaching to each word, to each sentiment; that curious a.n.a.lysis that characterized our past intercourse; she treated me with kindness, but I distrusted even that kindness; I walked with her in the garden, but no longer accompanied her outside of the premises; we no longer wandered through the woods and valleys; she opened the piano when we were alone; the sound of her voice no longer awakened in my heart those transports of joy which are like sobs that are inspired by hope. When I took leave of her, she gave me her hand, but I was conscious of the fact that it was lifeless; there was much effort in our familiar ease, many reflections in our lightest remarks, much sadness at the bottom of it all.

We felt that there was a third party between us: it was my love for her.

My actions never betrayed it, but it appeared in my face: I lost my cheerfulness, my energy, and the color of health that once shone in my cheeks. At the end of one month, I no longer resembled my old self.

And yet in all our conversations I insisted on my disgust with the world, on my aversion to returning to it. I tried to make Madame Pierson feel that she had no reason to reproach herself for allowing me to see her; I depicted my past life in the most somber colors and gave her to understand that if she should refuse to allow me to see her, she would condemn me to a loneliness worse than death; I told her that I held society in abhorrence and the story of my life, as I recited it, proved my sincerity. So, I affected a cheerfulness that I was far from feeling, in order to show her that in permitting me to see her she had saved me from the most frightful misfortune; I thanked her, almost every time I went to see her that I might return in the evening or the following morning. "All my dreams of happiness," said I, "all my hopes, all my ambitions, are enclosed in the little corner of the earth where you dwell; outside of the air that you breathe there is no life for me."

She saw that I was suffering and could not help pitying me. My courage was pathetic, and her every word and gesture shed a sort of tender light over my devotion. She saw the struggle that was going on in me: my obedience flattered her pride, while my pallor awakened her charitable instinct. At times she appeared to be irritated, almost coquettish; she would say in a tone that was almost rebellious: "I shall not be here to-morrow, do not come on such and such a day." Then as I was going away sad, but resigned, she sweetened the cup of bitterness by adding: "I am not sure of it, come whenever you please;" or her adieu was more friendly than usual, her glance more tender.

"Rest a.s.sured that Providence has led me to you," I said. "If I had not met you, I might have relapsed into the irregular life I was leading before I knew you. G.o.d has sent you as an angel of light to draw me from the abyss. He has confided a sacred mission to you; who knows, if I should lose you, whither the sorrow that consumes me might lead me, the sad experience I have been through, the terrible combat between my youth and my ennui?"

That thought, sincere enough on my part, had great weight with a woman of lofty devotion whose soul was as pious as it was ardent. It was probably the only consideration that induced Madame Pierson to permit me to see her.

I was preparing to go to see her one day when some one knocked at my door and I saw Mercanson enter, that priest I had met in the garden on the occasion of my first visit. He began to make excuses that were as tiresome as himself for presuming to call on me without having made my acquaintance; I told him that I knew him very well as the nephew of our cure, and asked what I could do for him.

He turned uneasily from one side to another with an air of constraint, searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him as though at a loss what to say. Finally, he informed me that Madame Pierson was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be able to see me that day.

"Is she ill? Why, I left her late yesterday afternoon and she was very well at that time!"

He bowed.

"But," I continued, "if she is ill, why send word to me by a third party?

She does not live so far away that a useless call would harm me."

The same response from Mercanson. I could not understand what this peculiar manner signified, much less why she had entrusted her mission to him.

"Very well," I said, "I shall see her to-morrow and she will explain what this means."

His hesitation continued.

"Madame Pierson has also told me--that I should inform you--in fact, I am requested to--"

"Well, what is it?" I cried, impatiently.

"Sir, you are becoming violent, I think Madame Pierson is seriously ill; she will not be able to see you this week."

Another bow, and he retired.

It was clear that his visit concealed some mystery: either Madame Pierson did not wish to see me, and I could not explain why, _or_ Mercanson had interfered on his own responsibility.

I waited until the following day and then presented myself at her door; the servant who met me said that her mistress was indeed very ill and could not see me; she refused to accept the money I offered her, and would not answer my questions.

As I was pa.s.sing through the village on my return, I saw Mercanson; he was surrounded by a number of school children, his uncle's pupils. I stopped him in the midst of his harangue and asked if I could have a word with him.

He followed me aside; but now it was my turn to hesitate, for I was at a loss how to proceed to draw his secret from him.

"Sir," I finally said, "will you kindly inform me if what you told me yesterday was the truth, or was there some motive behind it? Moreover, as there is not a physician in the neighborhood who can be called, in case of necessity, it is important that I should know whether her condition is serious."

He protested that Madame Pierson was ill, but that he knew nothing more, except that she had sent for him and asked him to notify me as he had done. While talking, we had walked down the road some distance and had now reached a deserted spot. Seeing that neither strategy nor entreaty would serve my purpose, I suddenly turned and seized him by the arms.

"What does this mean, sir? You intend to resort to violence?" he cried.

"No, but I intend to make you tell me what you know."

"Sir, I am afraid of no one, and I have told you what you ought to know."

"You have told me what you think I ought to know, but not what you know.

Madame Pierson is not sick, I am sure of it."