Fromont and Risler Part 21

But his office of judge made it necessary for him to know all.

"Who is it?" he asked.

She replied in a stifled voice:

"You know very well that it is you."

She was his brother's wife.

For two years he had not thought of her except as a sister. In his eyes his brother's wife in no way resembled his former fiancee, and it would have been a crime to recognize in a single feature of her face the woman to whom he had formerly so often said, "I love you."

And now it was she who said that she loved him.

The unhappy judge was thunderstruck, dazed, could find no words in which to reply.

She, standing before him, waited.

It was one of those spring days, full of heat and light, to which the moisture of recent rains imparts a strange softness and melancholy.

The air was warm, perfumed by fresh flowers which, on that first day of heat, gave forth their fragrance eagerly, like violets hidden in a m.u.f.f.

Through its long, open windows the room in which they were inhaled all those intoxicating odors. Outside, they could hear the Sunday organs, distant shouts on the river, and nearer at hand, in the garden, Madame Dobson's amorous, languis.h.i.+ng voice, sighing:

"On dit que tu te maries; Tu sais que j'en puis mouri-i-i-r!"

"Yes, Frantz, I have always loved you," said Sidonie. "That love which I renounced long ago because I was a young girl--and young girls do not know what they are doing--that love nothing has ever succeeded in destroying or lessening. When I learned that Desiree also loved you, the unfortunate, penniless child, in a great outburst of generosity I determined to a.s.sure her happiness for life by sacrificing my own, and I at once turned you away, so that you should go to her. Ah! as soon as you had gone, I realized that the sacrifice was beyond my strength. Poor little Desiree! How I cursed her in the bottom of my heart! Will you believe it? Since that time I have avoided seeing her, meeting her. The sight of her caused me too much pain."

"But if you loved me," asked Frantz, in a low voice, "if you loved me, why did you marry my brother?"

She did not waver.

"To marry Risler was to bring myself nearer to you. I said to myself: 'I could not be his wife. Very well, I will be his sister. At all events, in that way it will still be allowable for me to love him, and we shall not pa.s.s our whole lives as strangers.' Alas! those are the innocent dreams a girl has at twenty, dreams of which she very soon learns the impossibility. I could not love you as a sister, Frantz; I could not forget you, either; my marriage prevented that. With another husband I might perhaps have succeeded, but with Risler it was terrible. He was forever talking about you and your success and your future--Frantz said this; Frantz did that--He loves you so well, poor fellow! And then the most cruel thing to me is that your brother looks like you. There is a sort of family resemblance in your features, in your gait, in your voices especially, for I have often closed my eyes under his caresses, saying to myself, 'It is he, it is Frantz.' When I saw that that wicked thought was becoming a source of torment to me, something that I could not escape, I tried to find distraction, I consented to listen to this Georges, who had been pestering me for a long time, to transform my life to one of noise and excitement. But I swear to you, Frantz, that in that whirlpool of pleasure into which I then plunged, I never have ceased to think of you, and if any one had a right to come here and call me to account for my conduct, you certainly are not the one, for you, unintentionally, have made me what I am."

She paused. Frantz dared not raise his eyes to her face. For a moment past she had seemed to him too lovely, too alluring. She was his brother's wife!

Nor did he dare speak. The unfortunate youth felt that the old pa.s.sion was despotically taking possession of his heart once more, and that at that moment glances, words, everything that burst forth from it would be love.

And she was his brother's wife!

"Ah! wretched, wretched creatures that we are!" exclaimed the poor judge, dropping upon the divan beside her.

Those few words were in themselves an act of cowardice, a beginning of surrender, as if destiny, by showing itself so pitiless, had deprived him of the strength to defend himself. Sidonie had placed her hand on his. "Frantz--Frantz!" she said; and they remained there side by side, silent and burning with emotion, soothed by Madame Dobson's romance, which reached their ears by s.n.a.t.c.hes through the shrubbery:

"Ton amour, c'est ma folie.

Helas! je n'en puis guei-i-i-r."

Suddenly Risler's tall figure appeared in the doorway.

"This way, Chebe, this way. They are in the summerhouse."

As he spoke the husband entered, escorting his father-in-law and mother-in-law, whom he had gone to fetch.

There was a moment of effusive greetings and innumerable embraces. You should have seen the patronizing air with which M. Chebe scrutinized the young man, who was head and shoulders taller than he.

"Well, my boy, does the Suez Ca.n.a.l progress as you would wish?"

Madame Chebe, in whose thoughts Frantz had never ceased to be her future son-in-law, threw her arms around him, while Risler, tactless as usual in his gayety and his enthusiasm, waved his arms, talked of killing several fatted calves to celebrate the return of the prodigal son, and roared to the singing-mistress in a voice that echoed through the neighboring gardens:

"Madame Dobson, Madame Dobson--if you'll allow me, it's a pity for you to be singing there. To the devil with sadness for to-day! Play us something lively, a good waltz, so that I can take a turn with Madame Chebe."

"Risler, Risler, are you crazy, my son-in-law?"

"Come, come, mamma! We must dance."

And up and down the paths, to the strains of an automatic six-step waltz-a genuine valse de Vaucanson--he dragged his breathless mamma-in-law, who stopped at every step to restore to their usual orderliness the dangling ribbons of her hat and the lace tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of her shawl, her lovely shawl bought for Sidonie's wedding.

Poor Risler was intoxicated with joy.

To Frantz that was an endless, indelible day of agony. Driving, rowing on the river, lunch on the gra.s.s on the Ile des Ravageurs--he was spared none of the charms of Asnieres; and all the time, in the dazzling sunlight of the roads, in the glare reflected by the water, he must laugh and chatter, describe his journey, talk of the Isthmus of Suez and the great work undertaken there, listen to the whispered complaints of M. Chebe, who was still incensed with his children, and to his brother's description of the Press. "Rotary, my dear Frantz, rotary and dodecagonal!" Sidonie left the gentlemen to their conversation and seemed absorbed in deep thought. From time to time she said a word or two to Madame Dobson, or smiled sadly at her, and Frantz, not daring to look at her, followed the motions of her blue-lined parasol and of the white flounces of her skirt.

How she had changed in two years! How lovely she had grown!

Then horrible thoughts came to his mind. There were races at Longchamps that day. Carriages pa.s.sed theirs, rubbed against it, driven by women with painted faces, closely veiled. Sitting motionless on the box, they held their long whips straight in the air, with doll-like gestures, and nothing about them seemed alive except their blackened eyes, fixed on the horses' heads. As they pa.s.sed, people turned to look. Every eye followed them, as if drawn by the wind caused by their rapid motion.

Sidonie resembled those creatures. She might herself have driven Georges' carriage; for Frantz was in Georges' carriage. He had drunk Georges' wine. All the luxurious enjoyment of that family party came from Georges.

It was shameful, revolting! He would have liked to shout the whole story to his brother. Indeed, it was his duty, as he had come there for that express purpose. But he no longer felt the courage to do it. Ah! the unhappy judge!

That evening after dinner, in the salon open to the fresh breeze from the river, Risler begged his wife to sing. He wished her to exhibit all her newly acquired accomplishments to Frantz.

Sidonie, leaning on the piano, objected with a melancholy air, while Madame Dobson ran her fingers over the keys, shaking her long curls.

"But I don't know anything. What do you wish me to sing?"

She ended, however, by being persuaded. Pale, disenchanted, with her mind upon other things, in the flickering light of the candles which seemed to be burning incense, the air was so heavy with the odor of the hyacinths and lilacs in the garden, she began a Creole ballad very popular in Louisiana, which Madame Dobson herself had arranged for the voice and piano:

"Pauv' pit.i.t Mam'zelle Zizi, C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete a li."

["Poor little Mam'zelle Zizi, 'Tis love, 'tis love that turns her head."]

And as she told the story of the ill-fated little Zizi, who was driven mad by pa.s.sion, Sidonie had the appearance of a love-sick woman. With what heartrending expression, with the cry of a wounded dove, did she repeat that refrain, so melancholy and so sweet, in the childlike patois of the colonies:

"C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete...."

It was enough to drive the unlucky judge mad as well.

But no! The siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his compa.s.sionate heart evoked the image of little Desiree Delobelle, who had loved him so long. Until she was fifteen, she never had been called anything but Ziree or Zizi, and she was the pauv' pit.i.t of the Creole ballad to the life, the ever-neglected, ever-faithful lover. In vain now did the other sing. Frantz no longer heard her or saw her. He was in that poor room, beside the great armchair, on the little low chair on which he had sat so often awaiting the father's return. Yes, there, and there only, was his salvation. He must take refuge in that child's love, throw himself at her feet, say to her, "Take me, save me!" And who knows? She loved him so dearly. Perhaps she would save him, would cure him of his guilty pa.s.sion.

"Where are you going?" asked Risler, seeing that his brother rose hurriedly as soon as the last flourish was at an end.

"I am going back. It is late."