A long week went by. The torture of separation and anxiety began all over again. There was no doubting it this time: he was ill, he could even be dying; I could not rush to his side and no one summoned me!
I fell into such a state of collapse that my angelic Gérard grew alarmed.
‘Have you heard anything?’ I asked her.
And she told me that a carriage had been hired at the ‘Berceau d’Anacréon’, that very morning, to meet at the station a famous doctor from Paris. That poor little Duvert was much worse, his lungs were failing… the time of year, all the leaves coming down… Mme Duvert was very upset, she wouldn’t survive, she adored that son of hers…
‘Leave me,’ I cried, distraught, ‘I need to be alone, leave me.’
But I adored him too, and was I to stay here, separated from him, in mortal anguish? I could hear him calling out to me in his agony! I could see the light going out in those beautiful eyes that had so disturbed my life. A hundred times I pictured him dying, thinking I was dying too.
And there I remained, in this extreme distress, harbouring jealous thoughts about that mother who didn’t love him the way I did and who had him all to herself, held him even now in her arms.
Uncertainty and torment make evil counsellors. Insensibly, without our noticing, they drive us towards reckless, strange decisions, make us lose sense of what we can and can’t do. We no longer see objections to anything; everything becomes possible, we find an excuse for anything.
And that is how, in my dreadful anguish, an idea entered my head like a flash of lightning. I could go and wait at the station, catch the wise doctor summoned to my beloved’s sick-bed, of whom Gérard had just spoken. He was the man who could give me proper news, and then I would know something.
And why not, then? I would tell him that I’m a relation, a friend, come to that even the truth. And while asking him to keep my request a secret, I would beg him to keep nothing from me. What could be more natural?
And without further hesitation, I put on my hat and made my way determinedly to the station.
It was eleven o’clock as I arrived.
Outside, by the wicket fence, a carriage was waiting, all newly polished.
‘What time is the next train from Paris?’ I asked the first railway official I met.
‘In twelve minutes,’ he said.
I didn’t have long to wait, thank God, since it was only this dreadful nervous agitation that had brought me here.
Oh, my dear Jean, those twelve minutes seemed like a century to me. I paced the platform from one end to the other, bumping into porters, into trunks being pushed on trolleys, my eyes distracted by the hosts of bright-coloured posters and railway maps, hardly taking in what I was seeing, and my ears filled with the sound of whistles as if there was always a locomotive just behind me.
In Brunoy’s little station, people must surely have wondered if that poor lady wouldn’t be better locked up!
At last, the train from Paris!
The doors opened. People dashed forward, risking a broken neck to gain an extra minute. Baskets and parcels were hastily unloaded, all the small fry of luggage. People met people, exchanged greetings, embraced each other. As for me, I stared all round in search of a gentleman who might resemble a doctor. I had a mental picture of what a prince of science must certainly look like… dignified in posture, affable in manner, greying hair and at the very least a scrap of ribbon in his buttonhole.
No one fitted my man’s description closely, or in any way at all.
I looked over towards the carriage; it was still waiting however. So, bravely, I went up to the driver.
‘Is this carriage free?’ I said, as if I wanted to hire it.
‘No, madame,’ came the answer. ‘I’m waiting for an important medical doctor arriving on the express in five minutes, if it isn’t late, as usual.’
‘So what was the train that just went through?’ I asked.
‘A local train, madame.’
Sure of not missing my doctor this time, I went to sit down in the waiting room for a moment to recover my composure.
But soon a din even louder than the first threw the peaceful little station into a flurry. This time, it was the express.
Only one passenger alighting at Brunoy!
My doctor surely: it could only be him.
Can you imagine my amazement when I recognised the doctor as an old acquaintance of mine!
One switches so easily back to hopefulness that this happy coincidence poured balm on my heart, and I told myself, just because it was him, that he was going to bring off a miracle and save my poor Paul.
After the first expressions of astonishment at running into each other again, I said to him: ‘Ah, dear doctor! Can you give me a few moments? There’s something I have to ask you, something that means a great deal to me.’
He looked, I must say, somewhat irritated. A patient was waiting for him; time was pressing. But when I insisted and pronounced the name of Paul Duvert, he stopped short and said: ‘I am at your disposal.’
And we went into the waiting room.
‘Dear, dear doctor,’ I said without preamble, ‘I’m going to confess all. This poor child you’ve come to save from death’s clutches, I’m in love with him. I beg you, cure him for me!’
‘Well now!’ he said with his good-natured laugh. ‘Madame de Valneige’s latest adventure! That’s what you mean by coming out to the country for a rest, how funny. Well, never mind…! It’s not serious, at least…’
So forcefully did I make clear that the opposite was the case, and in my pleadings he recognised such genuine grief, that he was moved by my plight.
‘You won’t, will you,’ I said then, clasping my hands, ‘you won’t keep anything from me; and you will, won’t you, tell his mother she mustn’t obstruct him in any way, that if he asks to see me she’ll send for me… this young man is in love with me too!’
The good doctor was doubtless saying to himself he had stumbled into a very annoying situation here, that I had become completely scatty; and yet he promised not to return to Paris without letting me know what was happening.
‘I’m going back on the twelve forty train,’ he said, ‘and if you care to wait for me here again…’
And the carriage carried him off at full tilt.
I didn’t feel I had the strength to go home, and I began to wander round the little square adjacent to the station, stopping at frequent intervals to sit on the benches because my heart was pounding so hard.
God, how cruel it felt, and long, waiting like this! What was this worthy doctor going to say to me? What would his diagnosis be? Would it be a death sentence, or would he give me back a little hope?
Alas, alas, I didn’t need to question him! His expression was sombre and worried, as if all his knowledge had been useless.
‘You wish me to keep nothing back, my dear child. Well…’
‘Is there no hope?’ My breath came so unevenly, I could barely speak.
‘None,’ he said, simply. ‘It’s too late to try anything.’
And, squeezing his hand with enough strength to crush it, I fled to weep at home.
His death sentence was pronounced, then! My God, my God, he was lost, lost for ever to me, I was not going to see him again!
But… this mother, did she not, in return for my promise, make me a promise too? And if I have kept mine, now is the moment, Mme Duvert, for you to keep yours: you said I would see him again…
We are brought together by a shared grief; it is not about the Valneige woman any more, it is about the woman who has been in love with your son!
And while emboldened by these sentiments, I quickly seized pen and paper and addressed to my poor friend’s mother a few lines asking her to receive me.
Pity me, my dear Jean: I was cruelly left for three long days without news.
I was ready to do anything. I was as fully prepared to face the wrath of this pitiless mother, to test her vigilance, as I was to throw m
yself at her feet and beg permission to visit him.
In this state of torture, I was wondering if my agony could possibly last any longer, when Gérard, looking most surprised, brought in to me the visiting card of ‘Abbé Bonavent.’
It was a considerable shock. No priestly robes had ever crossed my threshold.
But I understood… he was coming to tell me, all too probably, that the end had come… that my poor Paul… wild with grief, forgetting I was about to address a man in holy orders, I stumbled to the drawing room where he was waiting.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he? He’s dead!’ I burst out, unable to hold back my tears.
‘Calm yourself, madame, I beg you, calm yourself,’ the worthy man said, in a voice both kindly and authoritative. ‘It is at times like this that we need all our courage. As you have guessed, I have come to you as the envoy of the very unfortunate Mme Duvert, an old friend whose request I cannot refuse… which will explain…’
‘…how it is that you, monsieur l’abbé, come to find yourself in the home of Josiane de Valneige… I understand.’
‘Just so,’ he added swiftly, with visible relief. ‘And therefore, my poor child, I shall speak to you without circumlocution. I know everything. Therefore do not be afraid to bare your heart to an old man, a minister of God who is familiar with every error and every weakness, but also knows how to forgive and to pray.’
And I allowed him to talk on, as if I would find in his words of charity the courage to bear what he was about to tell me.
Eventually, unable to hold back any longer: ‘Monsieur l’abbé,’ I said, ‘be merciful, do not hide things from me. Is he still alive? Is there no hope? Has he not spoken my name? Has he not asked to see me? He loved me so much…! Won’t you answer, monsieur l’abbé? He is dead, isn’t he? Yes, he is dead!’
‘Alas! Yes, the poor child’s sufferings are over,’ the priest said, his eyes damp. ‘Pity that mother, madame. Pity that mother, who had no one else in the world.’
‘And what about me?’ I cried in a violent surge of emotion. ‘Don’t you think I am to be pitied? Don’t you think I am suffering? Death ends everything, monsieur l’abbé, and yet Mme Duvert did not keep her promise. I was supposed to see him again. She had made me a promise, she had sworn to send for me at the final moment.’
‘Sometimes death surprises us, madame…
‘Be resigned, be full of hope, and may your suffering be the first stage on the road to a new life. As you know, much shall be forgiven those who have greatly loved. Farewell, madame, farewell.’
And he left me, shaking my hand in fatherly fashion.
He was gone, then, my poor Paul; so I would never see him again!
And so she had not kept her promise, Mme Duvert, a promise that was nevertheless a sacred one! I had faithfully kept mine; and it had surely cost me more than it would have cost her to keep hers. What had I asked of her, great God! To let me see for one last time this boy whose very breath contained my own life; to let me say to him before it was too late: I love you! And harshly, inexorably, with no pity for anyone’s grief but her own, she had kept me away!
I was not the one, my darling Paul, to see the last glimmer in your eyes; I was not the one to feel the last beat of your heart. But was I not the one who loved you the most? Oh, hideous, hideous regrets!
More than an hour had gone by since Abbé Bonavent had left and I hadn’t moved.
I was still there, crushed, the immensity of my distress preventing all rational thought, when I noticed the gathering dusk: it would soon be dark.
There came over me then an irresistible urge to be close to him, wherever that was, however I might manage it. So, swaying like a drunkard under the influence of my grief, but believing in my madness that I could still save something from this shipwreck, I took advantage of the twilight (you know what I mean, don’t you?) to take the road to the little house from which I had been excluded.
Six o’clock was striking from the tower of Brunoy’s little church. Wrapped in a long cloak and with a thick veil concealing my pinched face, I set course, though I barely had the strength to walk upright, for the little house in Sénart forest. The only true joys I had known, the hopes I had held most dear, here was where they had lived and here, little by little, in the peace and silence, they were dissolved into nothingness.
I thought that the whole world must be weeping with me, that a long mourning veil lay over all of nature and that all busyness, everybody’s lives, must come to a halt here because inside poor Josiane everything was broken.
But no, men and women passed on their way, their indifference only emphasising my horrible torment, and nothing in the neighbourhood of that devastated dwelling showed any sign of the drama that had reached its climax there.
Then my head began to clear and I thought: What did I imagine I was going to do when I got there, for heaven’s sake? I wasn’t going to be able to see him. I was out of my mind…
But all the same, yes: I would learn something at least. The glow of a light might show me where he lay, I would be closer to him, I… oh God, I didn’t know. But I walked, I kept on walking, until at last, ready to drop, I arrived outside the gate.
For a long minute I stood where I was. Everything was dark, as dark as death. Two windows alone showed a wavering light behind their lowered blinds. There, no doubt, in the funereal gleam of the candles, my beloved slept. My temples throbbed, my heart pounded as if ready to burst. My grief was so acute it came as a physical pain. I almost lost my head and began to wonder if I shouldn’t simply ignore the hostility or anger of this cruel mother, walk into her house anyway and clasp in one final embrace the being I had so adored – and the one person I had been unable to tell!
But no, I could not destroy the sanctity of this supreme moment. How could I kneel at the foot of that death-bed and pray in silence when all was stormy revolt inside me?
But another thought suddenly leapt into my whirling head.
Mme Duvert, abbé Bonavent had told me, wished to inter her unhappy son in the family vault they had at Père-Lachaise, and, before his final journey, he would pass the night in Brunoy’s little church, where his body would be taken by the few friends they still knew.
What if, maybe, I could obtain permission to pray at his side! What if I, who had been kept at arm’s length from his bed of suffering, without compassion or regard for my profound love, what if I could pass this last night alone with him! Yes, it would bring a measure of release from my extreme grief to leave before this altar of death the shards of my forever-broken heart.
Obtaining this favour, this mercy from abbé Bonavent became a fixed idea, an obsession. I had not failed to discern, beneath his priestly gravity, a degree of sympathy and good will. I would go and find him; he would take pity on me.
Ah, my poor Jean, how my heart was trembling when, the following day, after a sleepless night, I made my way to the modest presbytery. I found the worthy priest walking in his little garden, reading his breviary. I could not pretend that the expression of pained surprise that passed over his face escaped me; and even though it was from the very depths of my suffering that I had summoned it, I could feel my confidence failing.
However, when he had ushered me into the humble little office where he had many times, no doubt, welcomed tortured and unhappy souls with kindness, I found my courage somewhat restored.
‘Monsieur l’abbé,’ I began, hands joined in supplication, ‘I come to you, who must surely be as merciful as God himself, to ask if you will grant me a favour, just one. I am in such distress!’
‘What can I do for you, my child? Speak.’
And so, encouraged by his gently compassionate tone, his expression of genuine goodness, I continued: ‘Oh, Father! All the meaningless clamour of this life fades to silence at your feet. What I am about to ask, if I dare, may perhaps appear sacrilege to you. But you are the representative of goodness and mercy. Allow a suffering woman to approach the sanctuary of Peace and Forgiveness. I will
feel grateful with my whole being; but more than that, I feel my soul will rise to a higher plane through you, through the Christian charity you bestow on my grief… allow me to be near my poor friend one last time, let me say my last farewell, let me keep vigil over him in the crypt where he is to be laid. You know, monsieur l’abbé, I was promised that I should see him again and I did not see him! For pity’s sake, I beg you, grant me in recompense this supreme favour…’
For a long time he sat silent, forehead creased in thought, as if a little unsure what to say; but, I could see, quite affected.
‘Poor woman,’ he said in the end. ‘Since it will bring you consolation, I shall not refuse you. And may it be God’s will that in this sanctuary, where you have perhaps never ventured, you find peace for your soul and forgiveness for your sins. Come at nine o’clock, madame, I shall be waiting for you in the sacristy.’
Oh, my dear Jean, what a man that priest was! And how willing the human heart is to deceive itself. Would you believe my suffering seemed to have eased, would you believe I told myself that perhaps all was not lost, that a miracle might be accomplished!
As nine o’clock rang from the little church’s bell tower, I arrived, trembling, but in a spirit of pious contemplation, outside the sacristy door where we had agreed to meet. Through the half open doorway I could see in profile the worthy priest’s cassock, feebly illuminated by a small lamp. He took it up, and I followed him, grasping two candles, to the underground chamber where the body of my poor Paul lay.
We had come down here, without exchanging a word, into an oppressive silence. And after having received, from the priest’s hand, the holy water, I threw myself on my knees, whilst he, blessing those dear mortal remains, said a short prayer. Then vaguely, as in a dream, I heard him murmur, ‘Courage’. And the sound of his footsteps echoed under the vault…
I was alone, alone with him.
It was as if the world had caved in! It was as if life itself was rent asunder!
At first I felt fear, the fear of a poor woman whose nerves are stretched to their limits.
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