The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
was suffocating, gasping, and strove to speak, without being able to utter a word. She pushed him away with her two hands, having seized him by the hair to hinder the approach of the mouth that she felt coming towards her own. She kept turning her head from right to left and from left to right with a rapid motion, closing her eyes, in order no longer to see him. He touched her through her dress, handled her, pressed her, and she almost fainted under his strong and rude caress. He rose suddenly and sought to clasp her to him, but, free for a moment, she had managed to escape by throwing herself back, and she now fled from behind one chair to another. He felt that pursuit was ridiculous, and he fell into a chair, his face hidden by his hands, feigning convulsive sobs. Then he got up, exclaimed “Farewell, farewell,” and rushed away.
He quietly took his stick in the hall and gained the street, saying to himself: “By Jove, I believe it is all right there.” And he went into a telegraph office to send a wire to Clotilde, making an appointment for the next day.
On returning home at his usual time, he said to his wife: “Well, have you secured all the people for your dinner?”
She answered: “Yes, there is only Madame Walter, who is not quite sure whether she will be free to come. She hesitated and talked about I don’t know what — an engagement, her conscience. In short, she seemed very strange. No matter, I hope she will come all the same.”
He shrugged his shoulders, saying: “Oh, yes, she’ll come.”
He was not certain, however, and remained anxious until the day of the dinner. That very morning Madeleine received a note from her: “I have managed to get free from my engagements with great difficulty, and shall be with you this evening. But my husband cannot accompany me.”
Du Roy thought: “I did very well indeed not to go back. She has calmed down. Attention.”
He, however, awaited her appearance with some slight uneasiness. She came, very calm, rather cool, and slightly haughty. He became humble, discreet, and submissive. Madame Laroche-Mathieu and Madame Rissolin accompanied their husbands. The Viscountess de Percemur talked society. Madame de Marelle looked charming in a strangely fanciful toilet, a species of Spanish costume in black and yellow, which set off her neat figure, her bosom, her rounded arms, and her bird-like head.
Du Roy had Madame Walter on his right hand, and during dinner only spoke to her on serious topics, and with an exaggerated respect. From time to time he glanced at Clotilde. “She is really prettier and fresher looking than ever,” he thought. Then his eyes returned to his wife, whom he found not bad-looking either, although he retained towards her a hidden, tenacious, and evil anger.
But Madame Walter excited him by the difficulty of victory and by that novelty always desired by man. She wanted to return home early. “I will escort you,” said he.
She refused, but he persisted, saying: “Why will not you permit me? You will wound me keenly. Do not let me think that you have not forgiven me. You see how quiet I am.”
She answered: “But you cannot abandon your guests like that.”
He smiled. “But I shall only be away twenty minutes. They will not even notice it. If you refuse you will cut me to the heart.”
She murmured: “Well, then I agree.”
But as soon as they were in the carriage he seized her hand, and, kissing it passionately, exclaimed: “I love you, I love you. Let me tell you that much. I will not touch you. I only want to repeat to you that I love you.”
She stammered: “Oh! after what you promised me! This is wrong, very wrong.”
He appeared to make a great effort, and then resumed in a restrained tone: “There, you see how I master myself. And yet — But let me only tell you that I love you, and repeat it to you every day; yes, let me come to your house and kneel down for five minutes at your feet to utter those three words while gazing on your beloved face.”
She had yielded her hand to him, and replied pantingly: “No, I cannot, I will not. Think of what would be said, of the servants, of my daughters. No, no, it is impossible.”
He went on: “I can no longer live without seeing you. Whether at your house or elsewhere, I must see you, if only for a moment, every day, to touch your hand, to breathe the air stirred by your dress, to gaze on the outline of your form, and on your great calm eyes that madden me.”
She listened, quivering, to this commonplace love-song, and stammered: “No, it is out of the question.”
He whispered in her ear, understanding that he must capture her by degrees, this simple woman, that he must get her to make appointments with him, where she would at first, where he wished afterwards. “Listen, I must see you; I shall wait for you at your door like a beggar; but I will see you, I will see you tomorrow.”
She repeated: “No, do not come. I shall not receive you. Think of my daughters.”
“Then tell me where I shall meet you — in the street, no matter where, at whatever hour you like, provided I see you. I will bow to you; I will say ‘I love you,’ and I will go away.”
She hesitated, bewildered. And as the brougham entered the gateway of her residence she murmured hurriedly: “Well, then, I shall be at the Church of the Trinity tomorrow at halfpast three.” Then, having alighted, she said to her coachman: “Drive Monsieur Du Roy back to his house.”
As he reentered his home, his wife said: “Where did you get to?”
He replied, in a low tone: “I went to the telegraph office to send off a message.”
Madame de Marelle approached them. “You will see me home, Pretty-boy?” said she. “You know I only came such a distance to dinner on that condition.” And turning to Madeleine, she added: “You are not jealous?”
Madame Du Roy answered slowly: “Not over much.”
The guests were taking their leave. Madame Laroche-Mathieu looked like a housemaid from the country. She was the daughter of a notary, and had been married to the deputy when he was only a barrister of small standing. Madame Rissolin, old and stuck-up, gave one the idea of a midwife whose fashionable education had been acquired through a circulating library. The Viscountess de Percemur looked down upon them. Her “Lily Fingers” touched these vulgar hands with repugnance.
Clotilde, wrapped in lace, said to Madeleine as she went out: “Your dinner was perfection. In a little while you will have the leading political drawingroom in Paris.”
As soon as she was alone with George she clasped him in her arms, exclaiming: “Oh, my darling Pretty-boy, I love you more and more every day!”
French
XII
The Place de la Trinité lay, almost deserted, under a dazzling July sun. An oppressive heat was crushing Paris. It was as though the upper air, scorched and deadened, had fallen upon the city — a thick, burning air that pained the chests inhaling it. The fountains in front of the church fell lazily. They seemed weary of flowing, tired out, limp, too; and the water of the basins, in which leaves and bits of paper were floating, looked greenish, thick and glaucous. A dog having jumped over the stone rim, was bathing in the dubious fluid. A few people, seated on the benches of the little circular garden skirting the front of the church, watched the animal curiously.
Du Roy pulled out his watch. It was only three o’clock. He was half an hour too soon. He laughed as he thought of this appointment. “Churches serve for anything as far as she is concerned,” said he to himself. “They console her for having married a Jew, enable her to assume an attitude of protestation in the world of politics and a respectable one in that of fashion, and serve as a shelter to her gallant rendezvous. So much for the habit