The Passion Trilogy – The Calvary, The Torture Garden & The Diary of a Chambermaid. Octave Mirbeau
about me. But the room was quiet, the lamp continued to burn sadly and my open book was lying on the carpet.
The next morning I got up late, having slept badly, pursued by the thought of Juliette in my sleep disturbed by nightmares. During the remainder of that troubled, feverish night she did not leave me for an instant, assuming the most extravagant forms, abandoning herself to the most wretched pranks, and lo! I again beheld her in the morning, and this time she was the same as when I met her before at Lirat's, with her air of modesty, her discreet and charming manners.
I felt a kind of sadness—not exactly sadness, but regret, the regret one feels at the sight of a rose-bush whose roses have wilted and whose petals are scattered over the muddy ground. For I could not think of Juliette without thinking at the same time of Lirat's malignant words: "There was also an affair with a wrestler of Neuilly whom she gave twenty francs." What a pity! … When she entered the studio I could swear that she was the most virtuous of women. … Her very manner of walking, greeting, smiling, seating herself bespoke good breeding, a peaceful, happy life without hasty acts of indiscretion, without degrading remorse. Her hat, her cloak, her dress, her whole appearance was of a refined and charming elegance, meant for the enjoyment of just one, for the cheerfulness of a secluded house, closed to the seekers of unclean spoils. … And her eyes, radiating a perfectly legitimate tenderness, her eyes from which shone such candor, so much sincerity, which seemed to have no knowledge of lies, her eyes more beautiful than the lakes haunted by the moon! …
"Is Charles all right?" Lirat had asked.
Charles? … Her husband, to be sure! … And naïvely I pictured to myself a respectable interior of a room, with jolly children playing on the carpet, a family lamp, grouping kind and simple beings around its gentle shimmer; a chaste bed, protected by a crucifix and a hallowed branch of boxtree! … Then suddenly, crashing into this peace, the bullhead from the Bouffes, the croupier of the gambling club, and Charles Malterre who broke Lirat's lounge by rolling on it, while crying in rage! … I conjured the image of the comedian—a pallid face, wrinkled, glabrous, with impudent bloodshot eyes, with sensual lips, wearing an open collar, a pink cravat, a low-plaited short jacket!
I was unnerved and irritated. … What did it matter to me, after all? Did the life of this woman concern me, was it related to me in any way? … Was it my business to interest myself in the fate of women whom chance threw in my path? … I don't care what she is, this Mlle. Juliette Roux! … She is neither my sister nor my fiançée, nor my friend; there is not a single bond of kinship between us. … If I had seen her yesterday walking on the street, like one of the thousands of persons whom one brushes against every day and who pass on and vanish, she would have already been drawn into the vortex of oblivion and never again would I be likely to see her.
"Maybe Lirat is mistaken?" I repeated, while breakfasting. I knew his exaggerations, his passion for ridicule, his horror of and contempt for woman. What he said of Juliette he was saying of all other women. Who knows—perhaps this comedian, this croupier, all the details of this ignominious affair in the exposure of which his spiteful spirit found gratification, existed only in his imagination? And Charles Malterre?
Undoubtedly I should have preferred to see her married. I should have been pleased to see her leaning openly on the arm of a man, respected, envied by the most honest! But she loved this Malterre, she lived decently with him, she was devoted to him: "Charles will be sorry to learn of your refusal." The almost entreating voice in which she said those words was still in my ears. This means that she was mindful of the things that might or might not please Malterre.
And at the thought that Lirat, in making improper use of a false situation, was calumniating her in an odious manner, my heart grew heavy, a feeling of great pity swept over me and I caught myself saying aloud: "Poor girl!" Still this Malterre had been writhing on the lounge, he had cried, he had laid bare his heart to Lirat, had shown him her letters. Well, what of it? What have I to do with this woman? Let her have all the singers, all the croupiers, all the wrestlers she wants! To hell with her! And I went out humming a gay air, with the free bearing of a gentleman whose spirit is not in the least troubled by anything. And why should it be, I ask you? …
I went down the boulevards, stopping in front of the booths, strolling in spite of the sun, which was like a niggardly and pallid smile of December still permeated with fog; the air was cold and piercing. On the sidewalk women were passing, shivering with cold, wrapped in long cloaks of otter skin, some of them dressed in small drawn bonnets of fur like Juliette's, and every time these cloaks and bonnets attracted my attention I observed them with genuine pleasure. I liked to follow them with my glance until they were lost in the crowd. At the corner of the Rue Taitbout, I remember, I came upon a tall slender woman, pretty and resembling Juliette so closely that I brought my hand to my hat ready to greet her. I was excited—oh, it was not the violent beating of the heart which halts your breathing, weakens the flow of blood in your veins and stuns you; it was a light touch, a caress, something very sweet, which brings a smile upon the lips and a cheerful surprise to the eyes.
But this woman was not Juliette. I felt somewhat peeved and avenged myself by thinking her very ugly. Two o'clock already! … Shall I go to see Lirat? Why? To make him talk about Juliette, to compel him to admit that he had lied to me, to make him tell me of her traits of character, sublime and poignant, tell me some touching stories of her devotion, sacrifice—that tempted me. I thought the matter over, however, knowing that Lirat would be angry, that he would mock at me, at her, and I had a horror of his sarcasms; I already heard sinister words, abominable phrases coming out of a twisted corner of his mouth with a hissing sound.
At the Champs-Elysées, I called a hackney-coach and proceeded toward the Bois. Why dissemble? There I hoped to meet Juliette. Yes, certainly I hoped it, but at the same time I feared it. Not to see her at all, I felt, would prove a disappointment to me. On the other hand, were she in the habit of exhibiting herself in this market place of gallantry regularly like the other ladies, I should again feel hurt, and in the end I did not know what it was that stirred me more: the hope of seeing her or the fear of meeting her.
There were few people in the Bois. On the grand lake drive, carriages were passing slowly at a considerable distance from one another, the drivers perched high upon their seats. Sometimes a brougham would leave the strung-out line, turn and disappear to the trot of its horses, carrying away God knows where the profile of a woman, or some white and pallid faces, or the end of a ruffled dress seen for a moment through the window of the coach door. … My heart and the blood in my temples were beating faster, impatience caused the tips of my fingers to twitch; my neck was tired from turning in the same direction in an effort to penetrate the shadow of the carriages and began to hurt; anxiously I was chewing the end of a cigar which I could not make up my mind to light, for fear of missing her carriage in the act. Once I thought I saw her inside a brougham, which was going in the opposite direction.
"Turn, turn," I shouted to the driver, "and follow that brougham."
I did not at all reflect whether or not I was acting properly towards a woman to whom I had been introduced only the day before, and casually at that, one whose reputation I wanted to see rehabilitated at all costs. Half leaning against the lowered window of the coach door, I never lost sight of the brougham. And I was saying to myself: "Perhaps she recognized me! Perhaps she is going to stop, get out of the carriage, appear in the street." Indeed, I was saying this to myself without the slightest notion of attempting a gallant conquest. I was saying that as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world. The brougham rolled on speedily, lightly, bounding on its springs, and my hackney coach followed it with difficulty.
"Faster!" I gave the order, "faster, and get ahead of it!"
The driver lashed his horse, which started into a gallop, and in a few seconds the wheels of the two carriages touched each other. Then a woman's head, with dishevelled hair under a very large hat, with a nose comically turned up, with lips cracked from the excessive use of paint and crimson like a living flesh wound, appeared in the frame of the coach door. With a scornful glance, she took in the driver, the cab, the horse and myself, put out her tongue and then withdrew into a corner of her carriage. It was not Juliette! I did not come home until night, very much disappointed and yet delighted with my useless drive!
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