She said to him:
“You see I have returned. I could not do otherwise. And then it was natural, since I love you. And you know it.”
She knew very well that all she could say would only irritate him. He asked her whether that was the way she spoke in the Rue Spontini.
She looked at him with sadness.
“Jacques, you have often told me that there were hatred and anger in your heart against me. You like to make me suffer. I can see it.”
With ardent patience, at length, she told him her entire life, the little that she had put into it; the sadness of the past; and how, since he had known her, she had lived only through him and in him.
The words fell as limpid as her look. She sat near him. He listened to her with bitter avidity. Cruel with himself, he wished to know everything about her last meetings with the other. She reported faithfully the events of the Great Britain Hotel; but she changed the scene to the outside, in an alley of the Casino, from fear that the image of their sad interview in a closed room should irritate her lover. Then she explained the meeting at the station. She had not wished to cause despair to a suffering man who was so violent. But since then she had had no news from him until the day when he spoke to her on the street. She repeated what she had replied to him. Two days later she had seen him at the opera, in her box. Certainly, she had not encouraged him to come. It was the truth.
It was the truth. But the old poison, slowly accumulating in his mind, burned him. She made the past, the irreparable past, present to him, by her avowals. He saw images of it which tortured him. He said:
“I do not believe you.”
And he added:
“And if I believed you, I could not see you again, because of the idea that you have loved that man. I have told you, I have written to you, you remember, that I did not wish him to be that man. And since—”
He stopped.
She said:
“You know very well that since then nothing has happened.”
He replied, with violence:
“Since then I have seen him.”
They remained silent for a long time. Then she said, surprised and plaintive:
“But, my friend, you should have thought that a woman such as I, married as I was — every day one sees women bring to their lovers a past darker than mine and yet they inspire love. Ah, my past — if you knew how insignificant it was!”
“I know what you can give. One can not forgive to you what one may forgive to another.”
“But, my friend, I am like others.”
“No, you are not like others. To you one can not forgive anything.”
He talked with set teeth. His eyes, which she had seen so large, glowing with tenderness, were now dry, harsh, narrowed between wrinkled lids and cast a new glance at her. He frightened her. She went to the rear of the room, sat on a chair, and there she remained, trembling, for a long time, smothered by her sobs. Then she broke into tears.
He sighed:
“Why did I ever know you?”
She replied, weeping:
“I do not regret having known you. I am dying of it, and I do not regret it. I have loved.”
He stubbornly continued to make her suffer. He felt that he was playing an odious part, but he could not stop.
“It is possible, after all, that you have loved me too.”
She answered, with soft bitterness:
“But I have loved only you. I have loved you too much. And it is for that you are punishing me. Oh, can you think that I was to another what I have been to you?”
“Why not?”
She looked at him without force and without courage.
“It is true that you do not believe me.”
She added softly:
“If I killed myself would you believe me?”
“No, I would not believe you.”
She wiped her cheeks with her handkerchief; then, lifting her eyes, shining through her tears, she said:
“Then, all is at an end!”
She rose, saw again in the room the thousand things with which she had lived in laughing intimacy, which she had regarded as hers, now suddenly become nothing to her, and confronting her as a stranger and an enemy. She saw again the nude woman who made, while running, the gesture which had not been explained to her; the Florentine models which recalled to her Fiesole and the enchanted hours of Italy; the profile sketch by Dechartre of the girl who laughed in her pretty pathetic thinness. She stopped a moment sympathetically in front of that little newspaper girl who had come there too, and had disappeared, carried away in the irresistible current of life and of events.
She repeated:
“Then all is at an end?”
He remained silent.
The twilight made the room dim.
“What will become of me?” she asked.
“And what will become of me?” he replied.
They looked at each other with sympathy, because each was moved with self-pity.
Therese said again:
“And I, who feared to grow old in your eyes, for fear our beautiful love should end! It would have been better if it had never come. Yes, it would be better if I had not been born. What a presentiment was that which came to me, when a child, under the lindens of Joinville, before the marble nymphs! I wished to die then.”
Her arms fell, and clasping her hands she lifted her eyes; her wet glance threw a light in the shadows.
“Is there not a way of my making you feel that what I am saying to you is true? That never since I have been yours, never — But how could I? The very idea of it seems horrible, absurd. Do you know me so little?”
He shook his head sadly. “I do not know you.”
She questioned once more with her eyes all the objects in the room.
“But then, what we have been to each other was vain, useless. Men and women break themselves against one another; they do not mingle.”
She revolted. It was not possible that he should not feel what he was to her. And, in the ardor of her love, she threw herself on him and smothered him with kisses and tears. He forgot everything, and took her in his arms — sobbing, weak, yet happy — and clasped her close with the fierceness of desire. With her head leaning back against the pillow, she smiled through her tears. Then, brusquely he disengaged himself.
“I do not see you alone. I see the other with you always.” She looked at him, dumb, indignant, desperate. Then, feeling that all was indeed at an end, she cast around her a surprised glance of her unseeing eyes, and went slowly away.
A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES I: THE ELM-TREE ON THE MALL
Translated by M. P. Willcocks
The tetralogy Histoire contemporaine consists of the novels Elm Tree on the Mall (1897), The Wicker Work Woman (1897), The Amethyst Ring (1899) and M. Bergeret in Paris (1901). The four novels detail the political and social climate of France during the Third Republic towards the end of the 19th century. The central figure in the collection is M. Bergeret; he is a humanist and philologist and he finds himself engaged in philosophical dialogues with those close to him. The issue of the Church and government once again feature as vital aspects in the author’s novels, as he demonstrates an aversion to the religious order and a profound scepticism about the state as a benevolent force under capitalism. There is a pervading pessimism throughout the tetralogy, with little hope expressed for any immediate human evolution or progression.
In M. Bergeret a Paris, the Dreyfus Affair, and what it reflects about French society and governance is at the heart of the text. The rampant anti-Semitism of 19th century Europe played a significant part in the prosecution of an innocent man and the corruption at the highest level of the French military was crucial to the wrongful conviction. France vehemently supported those defending Dreyfus and, as is very apparent in the text, attacked and lambasted those pro-army, royalist, nationalist, self-serving, reactionary forces that pervaded French society and supported such outrageous injustice.
The title p
age of the first volume
Alfred Dreyfus
CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy was a commissioned officer in the French armed forces during the latter half of the 1800’s, who gained notoriety as a spy for the German Empire and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason by which Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted in 1894.
I
THE salon which the Cardinal-Archbishop used as a reception room had been fitted, in the time of Louis XV., with panellings of carved wood painted a light grey. Seated figures of women surrounded by trophies filled the angles of the cornices. The mirror on the chimney-piece being in two divisions, was covered, as to its lower half, with a drapery of crimson velvet, which threw into relief a pure white statue of Our Lady of Lourdes with her pretty blue scarf. Along the walls, in the middle of the panels, hung enamel plates framed in reddish plush, portraits of Popes Pius IX. and Leo XIII. printed in colours, and pieces of embroidery, either souvenirs of Rome or gifts from the pious ladies of the diocese. The gilded side-tables were loaded with plaster models of Gothic or Romanesque churches: the Cardinal-Archbishop was fond of buildings. From the plaster rose hung a Merovingian chandelier executed from the designs of M. Quatrebarbe, diocesan architect and Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory.
Tucking his cassock up above his violet stockings and warming his short, stout legs at the fire, Monseigneur was dictating a pastoral letter, whilst, seated on a large table of brass and tortoiseshell, on which stood an ivory crucifix, the vicar-general, M. de Goulet, was writing: So that nothing may occur to sadden for us the joys of our retreat....
Monseigneur dictated in a dry, colourless voice. He was a very short man, but the great head with its square face softened by age was carried erect. Notwithstanding its coarse and homely lineaments, his face was expressive of subtlety and a kind of dignity born of habit and the love of command.
“The joys of our retreat.... Here you will expound the ideas of harmony, of the subduing of the mind, of that submission to the powers that be which is so necessary, and which I have already dealt with in my previous pastoral letters.”
M. de Goulet raised his long, pale, refined head adorned by beautiful curled locks as though by a Louis Quatorze wig.
“But this time,” said he, “would it not be expedient, while repeating these declarations, to show that reserve appropriate to the position of the secular powers, shaken as they are by internal convulsions and henceforth incapable of imparting to their covenants what they themselves do not possess — I mean continuity and stability? For you must see, Monseigneur, that the decline of parliamentary predominance...”
The Cardinal-Archbishop shook his head.
“Without reservations, Monsieur de Goulet, without any species of reservation. You are full of learning and piety, Monsieur de Goulet, but your old pastor can still give you a few lessons in discretion, before handing over the government of the diocese, at his death, to your youthful energy. Have we not to congratulate ourselves upon the attitude of M. le Préfet Worms-Clavelin, who regards our schools and our labours with favour? And are we not welcoming to our table to-morrow the general in command of the division and the president-in-chief? And, à propos of that, let me see the menu.”
The Cardinal-Archbishop inspected it, made alterations and additions, and gave special directions that the game should be ordered from Rivoire, the poacher to the prefecture.
A servant entered and presented him with a card on a silver tray.
Having read the name of Abbé Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, on the card, Monseigneur turned towards his vicar-general.
“I’ll wager,” said he, “that M. Lantaigne is coming to complain to me again about M. Guitrel.”
Abbé de Goulet rose to leave the salon. But Monseigneur stopped him.
“Stay! I want you to share with me the pleasure of listening to M. Lantaigne, who, as you know, is spoken of as the finest preacher in the diocese. For, if one listened only to public opinion, it would seem that he preaches better than you, dear Monsieur de Goulet. But that is not my opinion. Between ourselves, I care neither for his inflated style nor for his involved scholarship. He is terribly wearisome, and I am keeping you here to help me to get rid of him as quickly as possible.”
A priest entered the salon and bowed. He was very tall and immensely corpulent, with a serious, simple, abstracted face.
At sight of him Monseigneur exclaimed gaily: “Ah! good-day, Monsieur l’abbé Lantaigne. At the very moment that you sent in your name the vicar-general and I were talking about you. We were saying that you are the most distinguished orator in the diocese, and that the Lenten course you preached at Saint-Exupère is proof positive of your great talents and profound scholarship.”
Abbé Lantaigne reddened. He was sensitive to praise, and it was by the door of pride alone that the Enemy could find entrance to his soul.
“Monseigneur,” he answered, his face lit up by a smile which quickly died away, “the approval of Your Eminence gives me a deep delight which comes felicitously to soothe the opening of an interview which is a painful one to me. For it is a complaint which the head of the high seminary has the misfortune to pour into your paternal ears.”
Monseigneur interrupted him:
“Tell me, Monsieur Lantaigne, has that Lenten course at Saint-Exupère been printed?”
“A synopsis of it appeared in the diocesan Semaine religieuse. I am moved, Monseigneur, by the marks of interest which you deign to show in my apostolic labours. Alas! it is long enough ago since I first entered the pulpit. In 1880, when I had too many sermons, I gave them to M. Roquette, who has since been raised to a bishopric.”
“Ah!” cried Monseigneur, with a smile, “that good M. Roquette! When I went last year ad limina apostolorum I met M. Roquette for the first time just as he was gaily setting out for the Vatican. A week later I met him in Saint-Peter’s, where he was imbibing the solace that he much needed after being refused the cardinal’s hat.”
“And why,” demanded M. Lantaigne, in a voice that whistled like a whip-lash, “why should the purple have descended on the shoulders of this poor creature, a mediocrity in character, a nonentity in doctrine, whose mental density has made him ridiculous, and whose sole recommendation is that he has sat at table with the President of the Republic at a masonic banquet? Could M. Roquette only rise above himself, he would be astonished at finding himself a bishop. In these times of trial, when a future confronts us pregnant with awful menace as well as with gracious promise, it would be expedient to build up a body of clergy powerful both in character and in scholarship. And in fact, Monseigneur, I come to interview Your Eminence about another Roquette, about another priest who is unfitted to sustain the weight of his great duties. The professor of rhetoric at the high seminary, M. l’abbé Guitrel...”
Monseigneur interrupted with a feigned jest, and asked, with a laugh, whether Abbé Guitrel were in a fair way to become a bishop in his turn.
“What an idea, Monseigneur!” cried Abbé Lantaigne. “If perchance this man were raised to a bishopric, we should behold once more the days of Cautinus, when an unworthy pontiff defiled the see of Saint Martin.”
The Cardinal-Archbishop, curled up in his armchair, remarked genially:
“Cautinus, Bishop Cautinus” (it was the first time he had heard the name), “Cautinus who was a successor of Saint Martin. Are you quite sure that this Cautinus behaved as badly as they make out? It is an interesting point in the history of the Gallic Church concerning which I should much like to have the opinion of so learned a man as yourself, Monsieur Lantaigne.”
The head of the high seminary drew him
self up.
“The testimony, Monseigneur, of Gregory of Tours is explicit in the passage touching Bishop Cautinus. This successor of the blessed Martin lived in such luxury and robbed the Church of its treasures to such an extent that, at the end of two years of his administration, all the sacred vessels were in the hands of the Jews at Tours. And if I have coupled the name of Cautinus with that of this unhappy M. Guitrel, it is not without reason. M. Guitrel carries off the artistic curios, wood-carvings, or finely chased vessels, which are still to be found in country churches, in the care of ignorant churchwardens, and it is for the benefit of the Jews that he devotes himself to this robbery.”
“For the benefit of the Jews?” demanded Monseigneur. “What is this that you are telling me?”
“For the benefit of the Jews,” returned Abbé Lantaigne, “and to embellish the drawing-rooms of M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin, Jew and freemason. Madame Worms-Clavelin is fond of antiquities. Through the medium of M. Guitrel she has gained possession of the copes treasured for three hundred years in the vestry of the church at Lusancy, and she has, I am told, turned them into seats of the kind called poufs.”
Monseigneur shook his head.
“Poufs! But if the transfer of these disused vestments has been conducted legally, I do not see that Bishop Cautinus... I mean M. Guitrel, has done wrong in taking part in this lawful transaction. There is no reason why these copes of the pious priests of Lusancy should be revered as relics of the saints. There is no sacrilege in selling their cast-off clothes to be turned into poufs.”
M. de Goulet, who had been nibbling his pen for some moments, could not refrain from a murmur. He deplored the fact that the churches should be thus robbed of their artistic treasures by infidels. The head of the high seminary answered in firm tones:
“Let us, Monseigneur, if you please, drop the subject of the trade to which the friend of M. Worms-Clavelin, the Jewish préfet, devotes himself, and allow me to enumerate the only too definite complaints which I have to bring against the professor of rhetoric at the high seminary. I impugn: first, his doctrine; second, his conduct. I say that I indict first his doctrine, and that on four grounds: first...”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 112