To thank her, he murmured in her ear, “I have a wild desire to make love to you.”
A wave of emotion swept over her, and raising her shining eyes to his, she repeated the question: “You still love me, then?”
And he answered this time with the intonation she desired, and which she had not heard a moment ago. “Yes, I love you, my dear Any.”
“And you’ll come and see me often, evenings?” she said. “Since my daughter’s with me, I seldom go out.” Now that she observed in him an unexpected revival of tenderness, a great happiness filled her heart. Since Olivier’s hair had grown white and the years had brought tranquillity, she feared far less that he should be charmed by another woman than that in his horror of solitude he might marry. This fear, already old, was ceaselessly growing and gave birth in her mind to impossible projects for keeping him near her as much as practicable, in order to prevent his spending long evenings in the cold silence of his empty house. Unable always to attract and retain him, she suggested distractions, sent him to the theater, urged him to go into society, preferring to know him in the society of women rather than in the sadness of his home.
She continued, following her secret thought, “Ah, if I could keep you always, how I should spoil you! Promise to come very often, since I shall no longer go out much.”
“I promise you.”
A voice murmured near her ear, “Maman.”
The countess, startled, turned and found Annette, the duchess, and the marquis joining them.
“It’s four o’clock,” the duchess said. “I’m quite tired and would very much like to go.”
The countess answered, “I’m going as well. I can’t take any more.”
They reached the inner staircase that starts from the galleries where drawings and watercolors are hung, overlooking the glass-roofed garden where the sculpture is exhibited.
From the landing of this staircase could be seen the whole of this gigantic hothouse filled with statues arranged around the green shrubbery and overtopping the billowy black mass of humanity that covered the grounds. It seemed a dark damask of heads and shoulders from which the white, gleaming marbles appeared to spring, rending it in a thousand places.
As Bertin bowed to the ladies at the exit, the countess whispered to him, “Will you be coming this evening?”
“Yes indeed.” And he re-entered the exhibition to have a chat with the artists about the impressions of the day.
The painters and sculptors were standing in knots around the statues, in front of the buffet, where they engaged in discussion, as they did every year, supporting and attacking the same ideas, upon very much the same kind of work. Bertin, who ordinarily became excited in these discussions, being specially endowed with a gift of repartee, now found perfunctory answers no longer interested him. Yet he liked these things, and had liked them almost exclusively, but on this day his mind was diverted from them by one of those small but tenacious preoccupations, one of those little cares it would seem ought not to disturb, yet which is there, fixed in the mind like an invisible thorn in the flesh.
And now he had even forgotten his concern for his Bathers, only to remember (in its place?) the unpleasant bearing of the marquis toward Annette. But that impression of discontent and discomfort had taken possession of him when he saw Farandal talking and smiling as if he were betrothed, his glances caressing the young girl’s face.
When Bertin entered the countess’s house that evening and found her alone with her daughter, continuing by lamplight their knitting for the poor, he had great difficulty in refraining from words of scorn and disparagement for the marquis, and in revealing to Annette all his banality shrouded in chic.
For a long while past, in these after-dinner calls, he often fell into rather somnolent silences and the easy attitudes of an old friend who no longer stands on ceremony. Deep in his easy chair, legs crossed and head thrown back, he would talk dreamily, resting body and mind in this tranquil intimacy. But now he was suddenly aroused again and experienced the activity of a man who exerts himself to please, who is interested in what he is about to say, and who in the presence of certain people seeks the rarest and most brilliant expressions of his ideas in order to render them more captivating.
He no longer let the conversation drag but sustained and enlivened it, lashing it with his newfound fervor; and when he had provoked joyous peals of laughter from the countess and her daughter, or when he felt that they were moved, or raised their eyebrows in surprise, or interrupted their work to listen to him, he experienced a sensation of pleasure, a shiver of success that rewarded him for his pains.
He came whenever he knew them to be alone, and never, perhaps, had he spent such pleasant evenings.
The countess, who found that this assiduity appeased her constant fears, exerted every means to attract and hold him. She declined invitations to dinners in town, to balls and theaters, for the pleasure of going out at three o’clock and dropping into the telegraph box the little blue message that said, “See you soon.” At first, eager to afford him the tête-à-tête he desired, she sent her daughter to bed as soon as ten o’clock began to sound. Then, noticing one day that he evinced surprise at this behavior and even asked with a laugh that Annette no longer be treated as a naughty child, she granted a quarter of an hour’s grace, then half an hour, then an hour. He didn’t remain long, however, after the girl had retired, as if half the charm that held him there had left with her. Immediately approaching the countess’s feet, he would sit quite close to her, and with a coaxing gesture, rest his cheek now and then against her knees. She would give him one of her hands, which he held in both of his, and once this feverish mental excitement subsided he would stop talking and seem to rest in loving silence from the effort he had made.
Little by little she grew to understand, with a woman’s keen intuition, that Annette attracted him almost as much as herself. This did not trouble her, indeed she was happy that he might find with them something of the home life of which she had deprived him; and she enchained him as much as she could between them, playing the mother that she might almost believe himself the father of this little girl, and that a new element of tenderness might be added to all that charmed him in that house.
Her coquetry, always on the alert but always accentuated since she felt on all sides certain hints, as yet almost imperceptible, of the innumerable attacks of age, took a more active form. To become as slender as Annette she continued to drink nothing, and the real slenderness of her waist restored to her indeed the figure of a young girl so far that from behind they could scarcely be distinguished from one another, but her face, grown thin, suffered under this treatment.
The skin, once plumped out, formed wrinkles and assumed a yellowish tint that rendered the superb freshness of the child all the more striking. Then she protected her face by the processes of the stage, and although she thus created for herself a rather suspicious fairness in the strong light of day, she obtained under the gaslight that artificial and charming brilliancy which gives an incomparable complexion to well-painted women.
The realization of this decadence and the employment of these artifices modified her habits. She avoided as much as possible comparisons in broad daylight, and sought them by the light of the lamps, which gave her an advantage. When she felt fatigued, pale, older than usual, she had accommodating headaches, which caused her to forego balls or theaters; but on those days when she felt at her best, she triumphed and played the elder sister with the grave modesty of the young mother. In order that her appearance should be always similar to her daughter’s she gave the girl dresses suitable for a young matron, somewhat grave for her; and Annette, whose playful and vivacious character became more and more conspicuous, wore them with a sparkling sprightliness that rendered her still more pleasing. She lent herself unreservedly to the coquettish maneuvers of her mother, instinctively enacted with her graceful little scenes, knew how to kiss her at the proper time and put her arm lovingly about her waist, showing by
a motion, a caress, some ingenious invention, how pretty they both were, and how they resembled each other.
Olivier Bertin, by dint of seeing them together and ceaselessly comparing them, at times almost confounded them. Occasionally, if the young girl spoke to him while he was looking in another direction, he was obliged to ask, “Which one said that?” Often even he amused himself in playing this confusing game when the three were alone in the little Louis XV salon. Then he would close his eyes and request them to address him the same question, one after the other at first, then changing the order of interrogations, to see if he could recognize the voices. They endeavored, so skillfully, to find the same intonations, to utter the same phrases, with the same expression, that often he could not guess. Indeed, they had come to pronounce so much alike that the servants answered the young girl with a “Oui, madame” and her mother with a “Oui, mademoiselle.”
By dint of imitating each other for amusement and copying each other’s motions, they had acquired so great a similarity of carriage and gesture that Monsieur de Guilleroy himself, when he saw either of them traversing the dark background of the drawing room, confounded them at every turn, and would ask, “Is that you, Annette, or is it your mother?”
From this natural and willed resemblance, both real and artificial, was born in the painter’s mind and heart the whimsical impression of a double being, old and new, intimately known and almost unknown, of two bodies created successively of the same flesh, of the same woman perpetuated, rejuvenated, having become once more what she had been. And he lived near them, divided between the two, uneasy, troubled, feeling for the mother his revived passion and covering the daughter with an obscure tenderness.
PART TWO
1
Paris, July 20, 11 at night
My friend,
Mother just died at Roncières. We leave in an hour.
Don’t come: We’re telling no one. But pity me, and think of me.
Your Any
July 21, noon
My poor friend,
I’d have come in spite of you, had I not grown used to regarding all your wishes as commands. Since yesterday I’ve been thinking of you with poignant grief. Thinking of that speechless journey you made last night opposite your daughter and your husband in that dimly lit carriage dragging you toward your dead. I could see the three of you under the oil lamp, you weeping and Annette sobbing. Could see your arrival at the station, the horrible drive, your entering the castle among the servants, you rushing up the stairs toward that room, toward that bed she’s lying on, your first glance at her and then your kiss on her thin motionless face. I thought of your heart then, that poor heart, half of which belongs to me and which is breaking, which suffers so, which stifles you, and which makes me suffer too at this time.
I kiss your tearful eyes with profound pity.
Olivier
July 24, Roncières
Your letter would have done me good, my friend, if anything could do me good in this terrible misfortune. We buried her yesterday, and since her poor lifeless body has gone out of this house I feel alone in the world. We love our mothers almost unconsciously—it is as natural as it is to live—and we realize how deep-rooted that love is only when we come to the last separation. No other affection can be compared to this; all others are fortuitous but this is from birth. All the others are brought to us later by the chances of life; this has lived in our blood since we first saw the light of day. And then, then, we have not only lost a mother but all our own childhood half disappears, for our little life of girlhood belonged to her as much as to us. She alone knew it as we do; she knew a host of things, remote, insignificant, and dear, which are, which were, the first sweet emotions of our hearts. To her alone do I still say: Do you remember, Mother, the day when . . .? Do you remember, Mother, the porcelain doll grandmother had given me? We both mumbled over a long sweet chapter of small and childish reminiscences that no one on earth now knows but me. It is therefore a part of myself that died, the oldest, the best. I have lost the poor heart wherein the little girl I once was still lived complete. Now no one knows her anymore; no one remembers little Any, her short skirts, her laughter, and her faces.
And a day will come, which may not be far distant, when I in my turn shall so depart, leaving my dear Annette alone in the world, as my mother leaves me today. How sad all this is, how harsh, how cruel. Yet we never think of it, we don’t look about us to see death taking someone at every instant, as it will take us soon. If we looked at it, if we thought of it, if we were not distracted, gladdened, and blinded by all that goes on before us, we could no longer live, for the sight of the endless massacre would drive us mad.
I am so crushed, so hopeless, that I have no longer the strength to do anything. Night and day I think of my poor mother, nailed in that box, buried in that earth, in that field, under the rain, and whose old face, which I used to caress with so much happiness, is now but frightful decay. Oh, how horrible! My friend, how horrible!
When I lost my father I was just married, and did not feel all these things as I do today. Yes, pity me, think of me, write to me. I have so much need of you now.
Any
Paris, July 25
My poor friend,
Your grief causes me horrible pain. Nor does life seem in any way bright to me. Since your departure I am lost, forsaken, without bond or refuge. Everything fatigues me, bores or irritates me. I am continuously thinking of you and Annette; I feel that you are quite far when I so greatly need you to be near me.
It is extraordinary how far away you seem to be, and how I miss you. Never, even when I was young, have you been my all as you are at this moment. For some time I have had a premonition of this crisis, which must be a sunstroke in Indian summer. So strange is what I feel that I wish to tell it to you. Imagine that since you are gone I can no longer go walking. Formerly, and even during the last months, I was very fond of starting out alone and lounging through the streets, diverted by people and things, enjoying the pleasures of seeing, of rambling about carelessly. I wandered, without knowing where, to walk, to breathe, to dream. Now it is impossible. As soon as I descend into the street I am oppressed by anguish, by the fears of a blind man who has lost his dog. I become uneasy, like a traveler who has lost his path, and I am compelled to return home. I ask myself, “Where shall I go?” I answer, “Nowhere, since I am walking.”
Well, I cannot—I can no longer walk without an aim. The mere thought of walking along weighs me down with fatigue and worries me to death. . . . Then I drag my melancholy to the Cercle.
And do you know why? Simply because you are no longer here. I am certain of it. When I know you to be in Paris there are no useless walks since it is possible I may meet you in any street. I can go anywhere because you may be everywhere. If I do not find you, I may at least find Annette, who is an emanation of yourself. You two fill the streets with hope for me, hope of recognizing you, whether you come toward me from afar or I guess who you are as I follow you. And then the city becomes charming to me, and the women whose figures resemble yours stir up my heart with all the bustle of the streets, engross my attention, occupy my eyes, give me a sort of longing to see you.
You will think me very selfish, my poor friend, as I thus speak of the solitude of an old cooing pigeon when you are shedding such painful tears. Forgive me, I am so accustomed to being spoiled by you that I cry Help! Help! when I have you no longer.
I kiss your feet that you may have pity on me.
Olivier
Roncières, July 30
My friend,
Thank you for your letter. I need so much to know that you love me. I have just passed through frightful days. I really believed that grief would kill me too. It felt within me like a block of suffering that was locked inside my bosom and was continually growing, choking, strangling me. The physician who was called, in order to relieve the nervous crisis that afflicted me, recurring frequently during the day, gave me morphine, which drove me almost wild
, and the great heat of those days aggravated my condition and threw me into a state of overexcitement that was almost delirium. I am a little quieter since the violent storm of Friday. I must tell you that since the day of the burial I could weep no more, but during the storm, the approach of which had quite upset me, I suddenly felt that the tears were beginning to flow from my eyes, slow, few, small, burning. Oh, how painful those first tears were! They were tearing as if they had claws, and my throat was so contracted as hardly to admit my breath. Then they became more rapid, larger, less hot. They gushed from my eyes as from a spring, and there came so many, oh so many, that my handkerchief was saturated with them, and I had to get another. The great block of pain seemed to soften and to flow from my eyes.
From that moment I have been weeping night and day, and that is saving me. We should really go insane, or die, finally, if we could not weep. I am very lonely here. My husband is taking some excursions in the country, and I insisted on his taking away Annette, to distract and console her a little. They drive or ride as far as eight to ten leagues from Roncières, and she comes back to me rosy with youth, notwithstanding her sadness, and her eyes shining with life, quite brightened by the country air and the outing she has had.
How beautiful it is to be at that age. I think we shall remain here a fortnight or three weeks longer; then, the month of August notwithstanding, we shall return to Paris for the season you know.
I send you all that remains of my heart.
Any
Paris, August 4
I can stand it no longer, my dear friend, you must return, for something is surely going to happen to me. I wonder whether I am not ill, so distasteful has everything become to me which I had been doing so long with a certain pleasure or with indifferent resignation.
Like Death Page 11