THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
he saw his old comrades salute him with more cowardice than they had beaten him; it was known in the town that he would be the count’s heir. His only dread, a strange dread mingled with painful hope, was of finding himself face to face with his mother. He did not see her again, and he was sad; the thought of this woman would recur to him every day; her complete forgetfulness of him, was for him an inexplicable monstrosity the cause of which he would have liked to discover. He even asked Geneviève if he ought not to try to see her. The old protestant answered him rudely that he was mad.
“Your mother is dead,” she added, in her voice of inspiration; “pray for her.”
Geneviève had always loved the child of sin, in spite of the terrors which such affection caused him. Now that this child had become a man, she put more guard on her heart. Yet at bottom, she was absolutely and blindly devoted to him.
On two occasions, James came to spend his student’s holidays at Véteuil. These times were for William months of wild joy. The two friends were always together; they would shoot for whole days, or catch crawfish in the little brook that runs through the country. Often, in some secluded nook, they would sit down and talk about Paris, especially about women. James spoke lightly of them, as a man who had no very great regard for them, but who had the gallantry to look kindly on them, and not to speak all his mind on the subject. And William would then reproach him for his coldness of heart; he set woman on a pedestal, and made her an idol, before which he chanted an eternal song of fidelity and love.
“Oh! do be quiet,” the impatient student would exclaim, “You don’t know what you are saying. You will soon bore your mistresses, if you are always on your knees before them. But you will do as others do, you will deceive and be deceived. Such is life.”
“No, no,” he would answer in his obstinate way, “I shall not do as others do. I shall never love but one woman. I shall love her in such a way that I defy fate to disturb our affection.”
“Rubbish! we shall see.”
And James would laugh at the artlessness of his country friend. He almost scandalised him by the recital of his love adventures of one night. The journeys that he thus, made to Véteuil cemented still more closely the friendship of the two young fellows. Besides, they used to write long letters to one another. Gradually, however, James’s letters became less frequent; the third year, he had ceased to give any sign of life. William was very sad at this silence.
He knew, through the student’s uncle, that his friend was to leave France, and he would have very much liked to bid him good bye before his departure. He was beginning to get mortally tired at La Noiraude. His father learnt the cause of his languid dejected ways, and said to him one night as he left the table:
“I know that you want to go to Paris. I give you leave to live there one year, and I expect that you will do some stupid thing or other. You shall have unlimited credit. You may start tomorrow.”
Next day on his arrival in Paris, William learnt that James had gone away the day before. He had written a farewell letter to him at Véteuil which Geneviève sent on to him. In this letter, which was full of high spirits and very affectionate, his friend informed him that he had been gazetted as surgeon to our expeditionary army to Cochin China, and that he would be doubtless a long time away from France. William returned immediately to La Noiraude, distressed at this hurried departure and terrified at the thought of finding himself alone in an unknown town. He plunged again into his beloved solitude. But, two months later, his father again disturbed his loneliness by ordering him to return to Paris where he intended him to live for a year.
William went and took up his quarters in the Rue de l’Est, at the very hotel where Madeleine was already staying.
CHAPTER IV.
WHEN Madeleine met William, she was thinking of leaving the hotel and looking for a little room which she would furnish herself. In this house, open to all comers, full of students and young women, she did not feel sufficiently at home, and she found herself exposed to having to listen to horrible proposals which put her in mind cruelly of her desertion. After her removal, she intended to work and to utilise her talent for embroidery. Besides, her income of two thousand francs, was sufficient for her needs. The future filled her with an indistinct feeling of anxiety; she foresaw that the solitude, to which she wished to condemn herself, would be full of perils. Although she had sworn to be brave, there were days that were so devoid of interest and so sad, that on certain nights, she would find herself in the midst of her dejection, entertaining thoughts of weakness that were unworthy of herself.
The night of William’s arrival, she saw him on the staircase. He stepped aside against the wall with such a respectful air, that she was in a way confused and astonished at his attitude. Usually, the lodgers in the hotel almost walked over her feet and blew whiffs of tobacco in her face. The young man went into a room that adjoined hers, a thin partition separated the two apartments. Madeleine fell asleep listening, in spite of herself, to the step of. the stranger who was taking possession of his quarters.
William, respectful as he had been, had not failed to notice his Neighbour’s pearly complexion and lovely golden hair. If he walked about a long time in his room that night, it was because the thought of having a woman so near him caused him a sort of feverishness. He could hear her bed creak when she turned over.
Next day, the young people smiled at one another as a matter of course. Their intimacy made rapid progress. Madeleine gave way the more easily to her sympathy for this calm gentle young fellow, because she felt herself perfectly safe with him. She looked upon him somewhat as a child. She thought that if he should ever commit the folly of speaking to her about love, she would give him a lecture and easily get to know the motive of his desires. She felt confidence in her strength, and meant to keep her oath of widowhood. The following days, she accepted William’s arm, and consented to take a little walk in his company. On their return, she went into the young man’s room, and he went into hers. But there was not the least tender word, not the least smile to cause uneasiness. They treated one another as friends of a day’s standing, with a reserve full of charming delicacy.
At bottom, their existence was disturbed in an indistinct kind of way. At night when they were alone in their rooms, they would listen to each other’s step, and they would dream, without being able to read clearly the feelings that were disturbing them. Madeleine felt that she was loved, and she indulged the sweet thought, saying to herself all the while that she herself would not fall in love. To tell the truth, she did not know what real love was; her first intimacy had been so devoid of tenderness that she enjoyed William’s attentions with infinite pleasure; her heart went out to him, in spite of herself, touched by a sympathy which was gradually ripening into affection. If she still happened to think of her wounds, she drove away the cruel memories by musing on her new friend; the passion of a sanguine temperament had dismayed her, the endearing affection of a nervous nature was filling her with a softening languor, and toning down her caprices one by one. As for William, he was living in a dream, he was worshipping the first woman he had met, and this was fatal. In the beginning he did not even ask himself where this woman came from, she was the first to smile on him, and that smile was sufficient to make him kneel down and offer her his life. He was joyously astonished at having found a sweetheart at once, he was in haste to open his heart so long closed, so full of restrained passion; if he did not embrace Madeleine, it was because he did not dare to, but he thought already that she was his.
Things went on like this for a week. William hardly went out; Paris terrified him, and he had taken good care not to go to one of the big hotels of which his father had given him the addresses. He congratulated himself now on having buried himself behind the Luxembourg in the heart of that peaceful neighbourhood where love was awaiting him. He would have liked to carry Madeleine off to the fields, far far away, not from a design of making her fall into his arms the sooner, but because he loved the trees, and wished to walk with her in their shade. She resisted, with a sort of presentiment. At last, she consented to go and dine with him at a little inn on the outskirts of Paris. There, at the restaurant in the Verrières wood, she surrendered herself.
Next day, when they returned to Paris,