Erotic Classics I

by Various Authors

  He paused, realizing that he had been far too rough, and cudgelling his brains to find a way of saying the same things in other terms and of sending her away without insulting her.

  But she was calm, like one prepared to listen to anything.

  “Go on,” she said, folding her arms over her heart, whose throbbing gradually grew less violent; “I am listening; I presume that you have something more than that to say to me?”

  “Still another effort of the imagination, another love scene,” thought Raymon.—”Never,” he cried, springing excitedly to his feet, “never will I accept such sacrifices! When I told you that I should have the strength to do it, Indiana, I boasted too much, or rather I slandered myself; for the man is no better than a dastard who will consent to dishonor the woman he loves. In your ignorance of life, you failed to realize the importance of such a plan, and I, in my despair at the thought of losing you, did not choose to reflect—”

  “Your power of reflection has returned very suddenly!” she said, withdrawing her hand, which he tried to take.

  “Indiana,” he rejoined, “do you not see that you impose the dishonorable part on me, while you reserve the heroic part for yourself, and that you condemn me because I desire to remain worthy of your love? Could you continue to love me, ignorant and simple-hearted woman as you are, if I sacrificed your life to my pleasure, your reputation to my selfish interests?”

  “You say things that are very contradictory,” said Indiana; “if I made you happy by remaining with you, what do you care for the public opinion? Do you care more for it than for me?”

  “Oh! I do not care for it on my account, Indiana!”

  “Is it on my account then? I anticipated your scruples and to spare you anything like remorse I have taken the initiative; I did not wait for you to come and carry me away from my home, I did not even consult you with regard to crossing my husband’s threshold forever. The decisive step is taken, and your conscience cannot reproach you for it. At the moment, Raymon, I am dishonored. In your absence I counted on yonder clock the hours that consummated my disgrace; and now, although the dawn finds my brow as pure as it was yesterday, I am a lost creature in public opinion. Yesterday there was still some compassion for me in the hearts of other women; today there will be no feeling left but contempt. I considered all these things before acting.”

  “Infernal female foresight!” thought Raymon.

  And then, struggling against her as he would have done against a bailiff who has come to levy on his furniture, he said in a caressing fatherly tone:

  “You exaggerate the importance of what you have done. No, my love, all is not lost because of one rash step. I will enjoin silence on my servants.”

  “Will you enjoin silence on mine who, I doubt not, are anxiously looking for me at this moment. And my husband, do you think he will quietly keep the secret? do you think he will consent to receive me tomorrow, when I have passed a whole night under your roof? Will you advise me to go back and throw myself at his feet, and ask him, as a proof of his forgiveness, to be kind enough to replace on my neck the chain which has crushed my life and withered my youth? You would consent, without regret, to see the woman which you loved so dearly go back and resume another man’s yoke, when you have her fate in your hands, when you can keep her in your arms all your life, when she is in your power, offering to remain here forever! You would not feel the least repugnance, the least alarm in surrendering her at once to the implacable master, who perhaps awaits her coming only to kill her!”

  A thought flashed through Raymon’s brain. The moment had come to subdue that womanly pride, or it would never come. She had offered him all the sacrifices that he did not want, and she stood before him in overweening confidence that she ran no other risks than those she had foreseen. Raymon conceived a scheme for ridding himself of her embarrassing devotion or of deriving some profit of it. He was too good a friend of Delmare, he owed too much consideration to the man’s unbounded confidence to steal his wife from him; he must content himself with seducing her.

  “You are right, my Indiana,” he cried with animation, “you bring me back to myself, you rekindle my transports with the thought of your danger and the dread of injuring you has cooled. Forgive my childish solicitude and let me prove to you how much of tenderness and genuine love it denotes. Your sweet voice makes my blood quiver, your burning words pour fire into my veins; forgive, oh! forgive me for having thought of anything else than this ineffable moment when I at last possess you. Let me forget all the dangers that threaten us and thank you on my knees for the happiness you bring me; let me live entirely in this hour of bliss which I pass at your feet and for which all my blood would not pay. Let him come, that dolt of a husband who locks you up and goes to sleep upon his vulgar brutality, let him come and snatch you from my transports! let him come and snatch you from my arms, my treasure, my life ! Henceforth you do not belong to him; you are my sweetheart, my companion, my mistress—”

  As he pleaded thus, Raymon gradually worked himself up, as he was accustomed to do when arguing his passions. It was a powerful, a romantic situation; it offered some risks. Raymon loved danger, like a genuine descendant of a race of valiant knights. Every sound that he heard in the street seemed to denote the coming of the husband to claim his wife and his rival’s blood. To seek the joys of love in the stirring emotions of such a situation was a diversion worthy of Raymon. For a quarter of an hour he loved Madame Delmare passionately, he lavished upon her the seductions of burning eloquence. He was truly powerful in his language and sincere in his behavior—this man whose ardent brain considered love-making a polite accomplishment. He played at passion so well that he deceived himself. Shame upon this foolish woman! She abandoned herself in ecstasy to those treacherous demonstrations; she was happy, she was radiant with hope and joy; she forgave everything, she almost accorded everything.

  But Raymon ruined himself by over-precipitation. If he had carried his art so far as to prolong for twenty-four hours the situation in which Indiana had risked herself, she would perhaps have been his. But the day was breaking, bright and rosy; the sun poured floods of light into the room, and the noise in the street increased with every moment. Raymon cast a glance at the clock; it was nearly seven.

  “It is time to have done with it,” he thought; “Delmare may appear at any moment, and before that happens I must induce her to return home voluntarily.”

  He became more urgent and less tender; the pallor of his lips betrayed the working of an impatience more imperious than delicate. There was in his kisses a sort of abruptness, almost anger. Indiana was afraid. A good angel spread his wings over that wavering and bewildered soul; she came to herself and repelled the attacks of cold and selfish vice.

  “Leave me,” she said; “I do not propose to yield through weakness what I am willing to accord for love or gratitude. You cannot need proofs of my affection: my presence here is a sufficiently decisive one, and I bring the future with me. But allow me to keep all the strength of my conscience to contend against powerful obstacles that still separate us; I need stoicism and tranquility.”

  “What are you talking about?” angrily demanded Raymon, who was furious at her resistance and had not listened to her.

  And, losing his heart altogether in that moment of torture and wrath, he pushed her roughly away and strode up and down the room, with heaving bosom and head on fire; then he took a carafe and drank a large glass of water which suddenly calmed his excitement and cooled his love. Whereupon he looked at her ironically and said:

  “Come, madame, it is time for you to retire.”

  A ray of light at last enlightened Indiana and laid Raymon’s heart bare before her.

  “You are right,” she said.

  And she walked toward the door.

  “Pray take your cloak and boa,” he said, detaining her.

  “To be sure,” she
retorted, “those traces of my presence might compromise you.”

  “You are a child,” he said, in a coaxing tone, as he adjusted her cloak with ostentatious care; “you know very well that I love you; but really you take pleasure in torturing me, and you drive me mad. Wait until I go and call a cab. If I could, I would escort you home; but that would ruin you.”

  “Pray, do you not think that I am ruined already?” she asked bitterly.

  “No, my darling,” replied Raymon, who asked nothing better than to persuade her to leave him in peace. “Nobody has noticed your absence, as they have not yet come here in search of you. Although I should be the last one to be suspected, it would be natural to inquire at the houses of all of your acquaintances. And then you can go and place yourself under your aunt’s protection; indeed, that is the course I advise you to take; she will arrange everything. You will be supposed to have passed the night at her house.”

  Madame Delmare was not listening; she was gazing stupidly at the sun, as it rose, huge and red, over an expanse of gleaming roofs. Raymon tried to rouse her from her preoccupation. She turned her eyes on him, but seemed not to recognize him. Her cheeks had a greenish tinge and her parched lips seemed paralyzed.

  Raymon was terrified. He remembered the other’s suicide, and, in his alarm, not knowing which way to turn, dreading lest he should become twice a criminal in his own eyes, but feeling too exhausted mentally to be able to deceive her again, he pushed her gently into an easy chair, locked the door, and went up to his mother’s room.

  Chapter XXI

  He found her awake; she was accustomed to rise early, the result of habits of hardworking activity which she has formed during the emigration, and which she had not abandoned when she recovered her wealth.

  Seeing Raymon enter her room so late, pale and excited, and in full dress, she realized that he was struggling in one of the frequent crises of his stormy life. She had always been his refuge and salvation in these periods of agitation, of which no trace remained save a deep and sorrowful one in her mother-heart. Her life had been withered and used up by all that Raymon had acquired and reacquired. Her son’s character, impetuous yet cold, reflective yet passionate, was a consequence of her inexhaustible love and generous indulgence. He would have been a better man with a mother less kind; but she had accustomed him to make the most of all the sacrifices that she consented to make for him; she had taught him to seek and to advance his own well-being as zealously and as powerfully as she sought it. Because she deemed herself created to preserve him from all sorrows and to sacrifice all her own interests to him, he had accustomed himself to believe that the whole world was created for him and would place itself in his hand at a word from his mother. By an abundance of generosity she had succeeded only in forming a selfish heart.

  She turned pale, did the poor mother, and, sitting up in bed, gazed anxiously at him. Her glance said at once: “What can I do for you? Where must I go?”

  “Mother,” he said grasping the dry, transparent hand that she held out to him, “I am horribly unhappy, I need your help. Save me from the troubles by which I am surrounded. I love Madame Delmare, as you know—”

  “I did not know it,” said Madame de Ramière, in a tone of affectionate reproof.

  “Don’t try to deny it, dear mother,” said Raymon, who had no time to waste; “you did know it, and your admirable delicacy prevented you speaking it first. Well, that woman is driving me to despair, and my brain is going.”

  “Tell me what you mean!” said Madame de Ramière, with the youthful vivacity born of ardent maternal love.

  “I do not mean to conceal anything from you, especially as I am not guilty this time. For several months I have been trying to calm her romantic brain and bring her back to a sense of her duties; but all my efforts serve only to intensify this thirst for danger, this craving for adventure that ferments in the brains of all the women of her country. At this moment she is here, in my room, against my will, and I cannot induce her to go away.”

  “Unhappy child!” said Madame de Ramière, dressing herself in haste. “Such a timid, gentle creature! I will go and see her, talk to her! that is what you came to ask me to do, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Raymon, moved involuntarily by his mother’s goodness of heart; “go and make her understand the language of reason and kindness. She will love virtue from your lips, I doubt not; perhaps she will give way to your caresses; she will recover her self-control, poor creature! she suffers so keenly!”

  Raymon threw himself into a chair and began to weep, the divers emotions of the morning had so shaken his nerves. His mother wept for him and could not make up her mind to go down until she had forced him to take a few drops of ether.

  Indiana was not weeping and rose with a calm and dignified air when she recognized her. Madame de Ramière was so little prepared for such a dignified and noble bearing, that she felt embarrassed before the younger woman, as if she had shown lack of consideration for her by taking her by surprise in her son’s bedroom. She yielded to the deep and true emotion of her heart and opened her arms impulsively. Madame Delmare threw herself into them; her despair found vent in bitter sobs and the two women wept a long while on each other’s bosom.

  But when Madame de Ramière would have spoken, Indiana checked her.

  “Do not say anything to me, madame,” she said, wiping away her tears; “you could find no words to say that would not cause me pain. Your interest and your kisses are enough to prove your generous affection; my heart is as much relieved as it can be. I will go now; I do not need your urging to realize what I have to do.”

  “But I did not come to send you away, but to comfort you,” said Madame de Ramière.

  “I cannot be comforted,” she replied, kissing her once more; “love me, that will help me a little; but do not speak to me. Adieu, madame; you believe in God—pray for me.”

  “You shall not go alone!” cried Madame de Ramière; “I will myself go with you to your husband, to justify you, defend you and protect you.”

  “Generous woman!” said Indiana, embracing her warmly, “you cannot do it. You alone are ignorant of Raymon’s secret; all Paris will be talking about it tonight, and you would play an incongruous part in such a story. Let me bear the scandal of it alone; I shall not suffer long.”

  “What do you mean? would you commit the crime of taking your own life? Dear child! you too believe in God, do you not?”

  “And so, madame, I start for Ile Bourbon in three days.”

  “Come to my arms, my darling child! come and let me bless you! God will reward your courage.”

  “I trust so,” said Indiana, looking up at the sky.

  Madame de Ramière insisted on sending for a carriage; but Indiana resisted. She was resolved to return alone and without causing a sensation. In vain did Raymon’s mother express her alarm at the idea of her undertaking so long a journey on foot in her exhausted, agitated condition.

  “I have strength enough,” she said; “a word from Raymon sufficed to give me all I need.”

  She wrapped herself in her cloak, lowered her black lace veil and left the house by a secret door to which Madame de Ramière showed her the way. As soon as she stepped into the street she felt as if her trembling legs would refuse to carry her; it seemed to her every moment that she could feel her furious husband’s brutal hand seize her, throw her down and drag her in the gutter. Soon the noise in the street, the indifference of the faces that passed her on every side and the penetrating chill of the morning air restored her strength and tranquillity, but it was a pitiable sort of strength and a tranquillity as depressing as that which sometimes prevails on the ocean and alarms the farsighted sailor more than the howling of the tempest. She walked along the quays from the Institute to the Corps Législatif; but she forgot to cross the bridge and continued to wander by the river, absorbed in a bewildered reve
rie, in meditation without ideas, and walking aimlessly on and on.

  She gradually drew nearer to the river, which washed pieces of ice ashore at her feet and shattered them on the stones along the shore with a dry sound that suggested cold. The greenish water exerted an attractive force on Indiana’s senses. One becomes accustomed to horrible ideas; by dint of dwelling on them one takes pleasure in them. The thought of Noun’s suicide had soothed her hours of despair for so many months, that suicide had assumed in her mind the form of a tempting pleasure. A single thought, a religious thought, had prevented her from deciding definitely upon it; but at this moment no well-defined thought controlled her exhausted brain. She hardly remembered that God existed, that Raymon ever existed, and she walked on, still drawing nearer the bank, obeying the instinct of unhappiness and the magnetic force of suffering.

  When she felt the stinging cold of the water on her feet, she woke as if from a fit of somnambulism, and on looking about to discover where she was, saw Paris behind her and the Seine rushing by at her feet, bearing in its oily depths the white reflection of the houses and the grayish blue of the sky. This constant movement of the water and the immobility of the ground became confused in her bewildered mind, and it seemed to her that the water was sleeping and the ground moving. In that moment of vertigo she leaned against a wall and bent forward, fascinated, over what seemed to her a solid mass. But the bark of a dog that was capering about her distracted her thoughts and delayed for some seconds the accomplishment of her design. Meanwhile a man ran to the spot, guided by the dog’s voice, seized her around the waist, dragged her back and laid her on the ruins of an abandoned boat on the shore. She looked in his face and did not recognize him. He knelt at her foot, unfastened his cloak and wrapped it about her, took her hands in his to warm them and called her by name. But her brain was too weak to make an effort; for forty-eight hours she had forgotten to eat.