THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
a terrible anguish. Daniel’s image rose up abruptly before him. He made no answer, and regretted not having asked his friend about this correspondence which made his fiancée tremble in this way.
She would not desist. She reminded him of certain passages, and recited even whole sentences to him. George had a suspicion. He asked her if she had preserved the letters. She smiled and brought them to him.
“Here they are,” she said. “You love me so much now that no doubt you do not recollect having loved me in former days.... Listen.”
And she read a page of one of the love letters. George was gazing at her with a bewildered look that made her laugh. Then he took the letters and went through them feverishly. He understood all.
Daniel had fled, without even dreaming that he had left behind him proofs of his passion and devotion. In the crisis of despair he had gone through, one single thought had filled his mind — that of departure, immediate departure.
At last George could read the depths of that great heart. He held in his hands the whole secret, and he would not be outdone by this sublime courage. His love cried aloud in his breast, but he imposed silence on it.
He took Jeanne’s hand in his.
“We pretend to love each other,” he said, “and all the time we are only children. We have not yet given one thought to the man who gave us to one another. He suffers far from us, whilst we are here passing tender moments with the selfishness of lovers. You must know all, Jeanne, for we must not be among those who nave bad hearts. These letters have just taught me the truth.... Listen to the history of Daniel’s life.”
And, quite simply, he told Jeanne what his friend had confided to him. He related to her the story of that noble life, full of self-sacrifice and love. He depicted Daniel to her kneeling by the bed of her dying mother. And then she began to weep. She became conscious of her cruel behaviour in the past; she saw once more that guardian who had supported her through each perilous hour of her life.
But George kept on without stopping, relating the long martyrdom slowly and tenderly. He emphasised each particular; he laid bare the poor creature’s miseries and sufferings. He dwelt first on those twelve years of solitude and adoration, during which Jeanne was at the convent; then afterwards he dilated upon Daniel’s whole-hearted and complete self-sacrifice, his work at Monsieur Tellier’s, his jealous supervision of her in the midst of the feverish frivolities of the world, and then came the excursions at Mesuil Rouge. As he proceeded he saw the whole story in a clearer light himself; he saw an explanation for all that had happened; he found out what his friend had kept secret from him. His voice shook and his eyes became moist. Lastly George spoke of the letters. He confessed the truth, depicted Daniel’s love, and disclosed the depths of that bleeding heart to Jeanne. And it was they who had broken that heart without knowing it! In reward for his devotion they had just imposed on him another supreme, a godlike sacrifice.
When he had finished George felt calmer-
He raised his head and fixed his eyes on the woman he loved, who had drawn herself up, trembling.
She remembered the last conversation she had with Daniel, and she was horrified at the sufferings she must have inflicted upon him. She had learned, as in a flash of lightning, the life of that miserable young man. She felt the deepest pity for him, and a need to seek his forgiveness.
“We cannot allow this murder,” she said in a rapid voice. “We too must know how to sacrifice ourselves. We should be miserable, you know, if our happiness were bought at the cost of so many tears, so much anguish.”
“What do you suggest we should do?” asked George.
“What you would do in my place? Dictate my duty to me yourself.”
George looked her full in the face, and said softly: “Let us go and find Daniel.”
In the evening he received a letter from his friend which made him anxious. This feverishly written letter seemed like a last farewell. Daniel said he found himself slightly indisposed. He had tried to be cheerful, but notwithstanding all his courage complaints would escape him.
Jeanne and George grew frightened, and hastened their departure.
Daniel, when he left Paris, hoped that he had done with sorrow, but despondency seized him during the journey. He no longer suffered poignantly. His very thoughts floated in a kind of dim, healing twilight. His life was wrecked; he was growing weaker, and gave himself up joyfully to this final engulfment.
On arrival at Saint-Henri he hired his old room where he had suffered a great deal on a former occasion. He opened the window and gazed out over the sea. The sea, from some strange cause, appeared to him to be quite small, the reason being that he inwardly felt a void — a void still more immense. He listened to the sound of the waves, and it seemed to him that they beat on the rocks with a noise as of thunder. Passion no longer raised her voice complainingly in his veins, and he heard the wash of the waves in the great silence of his being. He once more took his walks along the beach; but he only dragged along now — his breath failed him at every step. He was quite astonished to find the line of horizon changed; at times he fancied he was walking in some far-off and unknown country. He was changed from that being with a burning heart who threw sobs to the winds of heaven. He was no longer feverish with the depths of his anguish, and infinity was veiled in a mist.
Soon it became impossible for him to go out.
He remained sitting at the windows of his room for whole days together, watching the breaking waters. He acquired quite a fresh love for it. He gazed upon it affectionately. He knew that it was hastening his death, for its dull, melancholy roar, reechoing in his heart, continually increased his despondency.
Afterwards he was consoled by losing himself in the immensity of the ocean and the infinity of the sky. This great purity of sky, air, water, charmed his delicacy in his sickness. Nothing offended his weakened eyes in that enormous azure gulf, which seemed to open on the next world. Right down in the depths of the sky he saw at times a blinding light in which he longed, so to speak, to be annihilated. Soon he was obliged to keep to his bed. He had nothing now before his eyes but the white ceiling and the crude wallpaper. The whole day long he only gazed at the hard, cold-looking plaster. It seemed to him that he was dead already, and he fancied himself buried deep down in the cold earth.
Every now and then he was seized with sadness. In silence and solitude memory awoke. He recalled his life. He shut his eyes, and all his existence passed before him. From that moment the ceiling faded from his view, and he looked within and examined himself. These were hours without bitterness, in which, indeed, he found solace, for he found no remorse in his conscience.
His meditations always brought the smiling faces of George and Jeanne before him. That sight, far from reawakening his love-fever, consoled and delighted him. He pictured to himself that their happiness was of his making; he was departing gladly, in having united for ever the only beings he loved in the world.
With that clear-sightedness that a dying person’s brain has, his mission seemed to have been such as it ought to have been. He realised that he had now fully accomplished the wish of the dead woman. In his last hours he felt that his very love must needs have entered into his task. He would not have watched over Jeanne with such jealous care if he had not loved her. When she was dying, Madame de Rionne must have foreseen the future; she must have said to herself that Daniel would love her daughter, that he would watch over her as a lover, and that, when it was necessary, he would be ready to sacrifice himself and die.
One day a doubt came into Daniel’s mind. He nearly relapsed into his old agony. He asked himself whether the dead woman had not had a secret thought, and had not given him Jeanne for a wife. Perhaps, after all, he was not fulfilling her last wishes, in dying, in marrying her dear daughter to one other than himself. His heart began to throb; he felt fresh life coming back to him.
But he at once perceived that this thought was a cowardly one, an expiring cry of his love - passion. A melancholy smile came to his lips when he remembered his ugliness; he knew too well, from bitter experience, that he was born that he might be for ever loving others and never being