A Love Story

by Emile Zola

  ‘ “Look, it’s rather nice. Let’s see.” ’

  When the servant had opened the door to her, Hélène had imagined a completely different scene. She thought she would find a nervous Juliette, extremely pale, in a panic at the thought of the rendezvous, hesitant and yet drawn to it. And she imagined herself begging Juliette to reconsider, until the young woman, choked with sobs, threw herself into her arms. Then they would have wept together, Hélène would have gone away with the thought that henceforth Henri was lost to her but that she had ensured his happiness. And it was nothing of the sort. She had arrived right in the middle of a rehearsal, and couldn’t for the life of her understand what was going on. She found Juliette, looking relaxed, having obviously slept well, and with a clear enough mind to give her opinion about Madame Berthier’s gestures, not in the least bit troubled about what she might be doing that afternoon. This indifference, this superficiality, made Hélène, who had arrived fervent with passion, go cold.

  She tried to speak.

  ‘Who is playing this Chavigny?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Malignon,’ said Juliette, turning round, in surprise. ‘The annoying thing is that he can’t come to rehearsals. Listen, ladies, I’m going to play the part of Chavigny. Unless we do that, we’ll never get through it.’

  And from then on, she acted too, playing the man’s part, with an involuntary deepening of the voice and a gallant mien, as the situation demanded. Madame Berthier cooed, the stout Madame de Guiraud took infinite pains to be vivacious and witty. Pierre came in to put wood on the fire, and covertly looked at the ladies, whom he found amusing.

  Meanwhile Hélène who was still resolved to do what she had come for, despite the tightening of her heart, tried to take Juliette on one side.

  ‘Can you spare me one minute? I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘Impossible, my dear... as you see I’m busy. Tomorrow, if you have time.’

  Hélène said no more. The distant tone of the young woman annoyed her. She felt angry at seeing her so unconcerned, when she herself had endured such terrible agonies since the previous day. At one point she was about to get up and let things take their course. It was stupid to try and save this woman. The whole nightmare began again. Her hand, which had just tightened over the letter in her pocket, was hot and damp. Why should she love other people since others did not love her and did not suffer in the way she did?

  ‘Oh! Excellent!’ Juliette cried suddenly.

  Madame Berthier rested her head on Madame de Guiraud’s shoulder, sobbing, repeating:

  ‘ “I’m sure he loves her. I’m sure of it.” ’

  ‘You will be a runaway success,’ said Juliette. ‘Take your time, won’t you? “I’m sure he loves her, I’m sure of it...” And leave your head in that position. That’s charming... Now you, Madame Guiraud.’

  ‘ “No, child, it’s not possible. It’s a caprice, a fantasy...” ’ declaimed the stout lady.

  ‘Perfect! But it’s a long scene. What do you say, shall we have a short break? We must get this sequence right.’

  Then all three discussed how to arrange the salon. The door of the dining room, on the left, would do for the entrances and exits; they would place an armchair on the right, a sofa at the back, and push the table up against the hearth. Hélène, who had got up, followed them as if she was interested in this arrangement. She had renounced her plan of provoking an explanation, she simply wanted to make one last effort and prevent Juliette from going to the rendezvous.

  ‘I came to ask you, is it not today that you are going to visit Madame de Chermette?’

  ‘Yes, this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, if you allow, I’ll come and call for you. I’ve been promising for a long time I will go and visit her.’

  Juliette had a moment’s embarrassment, but recovered herself immediately.

  ‘I should like nothing more... except that I’ve got a lot of errands to do. I am going to the shops first, so I really don’t know what time I shall arrive at Madame de Chermette’s.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Hélène replied. ‘That will be a nice walk for me.’

  ‘Listen, may I be absolutely honest? Please don’t insist, as I should prefer to be on my own... We’ll do that the Monday after.’

  That was said without any emotion, so clearly and with such a quiet smile that Hélène, confused, made no reply. She had to give Juliette a hand carrying the table to the fireside. Then she retreated while the rehearsal continued. At the end of the scene, Madame de Guiraud in her monologue declaimed these two sentences with great passion:

  ‘ “But what an abyss is the heart of a man! Oh, truly, we are worth more than them!” ’

  What should she do now? And in the turmoil which this question occasioned in her, Hélène had only vague thoughts of violent action. She felt an irresistible urge to take revenge on Juliette’s utter unconcern, as if this serenity was in some way insulting to the fever that possessed her. She dreamed of her downfall, wondering whether she would still retain her indifferent sangfroid. Then she despised herself for having been so fastidious and principled. She should have told Henri a score of times: ‘I love you, take me, let us go’, and not be afraid, just like this woman with the pale, untroubled expression, who, three hours before her first rendezvous, was performing a play in her house. Even now, this very minute, she was trembling more than her. That was what made her mad, being conscious of her own violent feelings amidst the cheerful tranquillity of this salon, the fear of bursting out suddenly with passionate words. Was she being a coward, then?

  A door opened, she suddenly heard Henri’s voice saying:

  ‘Don’t mind me... I’m not staying.’

  The rehearsal was nearly over. Juliette, still in the role of Chavigny, had just grasped Madame de Guiraud’s hand.

  ‘ “Ernestine, I adore you!” ’ she cried in a surge of great conviction.

  ‘ “So you don’t love Madame de Blainville any more?” ’ recited Madame de Guiraud.

  But Juliette refused to continue as long as her husband stayed. The men weren’t to know. Then the doctor was very amiable to the women. He complimented them, promised it would be a great success. Wearing his black gloves, very correct with his clean-shaven chin, he was coming back from his visits. On arrival he had simply greeted Hélène with a little nod. He had seen an illustrious actress in the Comédie-Française playing Madame de Léry; and he indicated some moves to Madame de Guiraud.

  ‘At the moment when Chavigny falls at your feet, you walk over to the fireside and throw the purse into the fire. In a detached way, you know, without any anger, like a woman playing at love...’

  ‘Yes yes, let’s get on with it,’ said Juliette again. ‘We know all that.’

  And as he was finally pushing open the door to his study, she took up the sequence again.

  ‘ “Ernestine, I adore you!” ’

  Before leaving the room, Henri had acknowledged Hélène with the same nod of his head. She remained silent, expecting some catastrophe. This abrupt appearance of Juliette’s husband seemed to pose a real threat... But when he had gone, he seemed ridiculous to her with his courteousness and his blindness. So he too cared about this ridiculous play! And he had shown no emotion in his eyes when he saw her there. Then the whole house seemed to her hostile and ice-cold. It was a collapse, nothing held her back, for she hated Henri as much as she did Juliette. She grasped the letter at the bottom of her pocket again with clenched fingers. She stammered out an ‘Au revoir’. She left, feeling giddy, the chairs and tables seemed to be whizzing round, and her ears were burning with the words uttered by Madame de Guiraud.

  ‘ “Farewell. You may bear me a grudge today, but tomorrow you will still be my friend and, believe me, that is worth more than a passing caprice.” ’

  Out on the pavement, when Hélène closed the door behind her, she pulled the letter from her pocket in one violent, involuntary movement and slipped it through the lett
er box. Then she remained for a second or two, dazedly looking at the narrow brass blade which had closed again.

  ‘It’s done,’ she said under her breath.

  She could once again visualize the two rooms with their pink cretonne hangings, the sofas, the enormous bed. Malignon and Juliette were in it. Suddenly the curtain opened and her husband came in. And that was all. She was very calm. Instinctively she looked to see if anyone had seen her putting it through the letter box. The street was empty. She turned the corner and walked back up the road.

  ‘Have you been a good girl, darling?’ she said, giving Jeanne a kiss.

  The little girl, sitting in the same armchair, raised her sulky face. Without a word she flung her arms around her mother’s neck, kissed her, uttering a great sigh. She was really unhappy. At lunch, Rosalie expressed surprise.

  ‘Did Madame have a lot of errands?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ said Hélène.

  ‘Because Madame has such a good appetite. Madame hasn’t eaten so well for a long time...’

  It was true, she was ravenous, the sudden relief had made her stomach feel empty. She felt at peace, an inexpressible sense of well-being. After the shocks of these last two days a sort of silence had just come over her, her limbs were relaxed and supple, as when she’d taken a bath; she felt only that there was something heavy somewhere, a vague worry weighing on her mind.

  When she got back to her room, her eyes went straight to the clock, the hands showed twenty-five past twelve. Juliette’s rendezvous was for three o’clock. Mechanically she made the calculation — another two and a half hours. There was no hurry in any case, the hands were moving round, nobody in the world now had the power to stop them, and she let things take their course. A child’s bonnet had for some time been lying on the table. She took it up and began sewing by the window. Deep silence fell over the room. Jeanne was sitting in her usual place, but she sat there with her hands empty and idle.

  ‘Maman,’ she said, ‘I can’t do my work. I’m not enjoying it.’

  ‘Well, darling, don’t... Here you are, you can thread my needles.’

  Then, silently, laboriously, the child did so. She took great pains to cut the ends of cotton equal, spent an eternity looking for the hole in the needle; and she only managed it in the nick of time; her mother used the threaded needles she had prepared one by one.

  ‘You see,’ she murmured, ‘it’s quicker like that... Tonight my six little bonnets will be finished.’

  And she turned her head to look at the clock. Ten past one. Still almost two hours to go. Now Juliette must be beginning to dress. Henri would have received the letter. Oh, he was bound to go. The instructions were clear enough, he would find it without any trouble. But all this seemed to her still a very long way off and she was unconcerned. She sewed with regular stitches applying herself to the task like a sempstress. The minutes ticked by one by one. Two o’clock struck.

  A ring on the doorbell took her by surprise.

  ‘Who can it be, Maman?’ Jeanne asked. She had started in her chair.

  And, when Monsieur Rambaud came in:

  ‘So it’s you! Why did you ring so loud? You scared me.’

  The good fellow looked dismayed. It was true, he had tugged the bell rather hard.

  ‘I’m not well today, I’m poorly,’ said the child. ‘You mustn’t scare me.’

  Monsieur Rambaud was worried. What was the matter with the poor darling? And he only sat down, reassured, after a quick glance from Hélène told him that the child was having a black day, as Rosalie called it. It was usually very rare for him to call in the daytime, so he wanted to explain the reason for his visit straight away. It was for a compatriot of his, an old workman who could get no more work because he was so old, and whose wife was paralysed, living in a little room as big as your hand. You wouldn’t believe such poverty existed. That very morning he’d gone up to their room to see what it was like. It was nothing more than a hole under the roof with a skylight, its cracked panes let the rain in. Inside there was a mattress, a woman wrapped in an old curtain and her dazed husband crouching on the floor with not even the strength to sweep up a little.

  ‘Oh, the poor things, poor things!’ said Hélène, moved to tears.

  It wasn’t so much the old workman Monsieur Rambaud was concerned about. He would take him to his house and find things for him to do. But his wife, this paralysed woman whom her husband did not dare to leave for a minute and had to turn over, just as if she were a parcel; where could one put her, what could be done with her?

  ‘I thought of you,’ he went on. ‘You must get her into a hospice straight away. I would have gone to Monsieur Deberle directly but I thought since you know him better than I do, you would have more influence. If he would be so good as to see her it could all be sorted out by tomorrow.’ Jeanne had listened all pale, visibly trembling with pity. She clasped her hands together and whispered:

  ‘Oh, Maman, be kind to them, get the poor woman into...’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Hélène, who was becoming more agitated. ‘I’ll contact the doctor as soon as I am able and he will see to the arrangements himself... Give me their names and the address, Monsieur Rambaud.’

  The latter wrote a note on the little table. Then he rose.

  ‘It’s two thirty-five,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d find the doctor at home.’

  She had got up too, looked at the clock, with a jump that shook her whole body. It was indeed two thirty-five, and the hands were going round. She stammered that the doctor must have left to do his rounds. However, Monsieur Rambaud, hat in hand, kept her standing there and began once more to tell her about them. The poor couple had sold everything, even their frying pan; since the beginning of winter they had been spending the days and nights without any heating. At the end of December they had not eaten for four days. Hélène made an exclamation of distress. The hands pointed to twenty to three. Monsieur Rambaud was a full two minutes taking his leave.

  ‘Well, I’m counting on you,’ he said.

  And, leaning over to give Jeanne a kiss:

  ‘Goodbye, darling.’

  ‘Goodbye... Don’t worry, Maman won’t forget, I’ll remind her.’

  When Hélène came back from the landing after seeing Monsieur Rambaud out, the hand of the clock was three-quarters of the way round. In another quarter of an hour it would all be over. Standing stock-still in front of the mantelpiece, she had a sudden vision of the scene which was going to take place: Juliette was already there, Henri had come in and found her. She knew the room, she could see the minutest details with a frightening clarity. So, still shaken by Monsieur Rambaud’s pathetic tale, a great shudder went through her, from top to toe. And she cried out inwardly. What she had done was an infamy, that letter she’d written, that cowardly denunciation. It suddenly appeared thus to her in a blinding light. Had she really committed such a shameful act! And she recalled that gesture when she had pushed the letter in the box, dazed, like somebody watching another person do something wrong, without it occurring to her that she should intervene. She seemed to be emerging from a dream. What had happened then? Why was she there still looking at the hands of this clock? Two more minutes had ticked by.

  ‘Maman,’ said Jeanne, ‘if you like, we’ll go and visit the doctor together this evening. That will be an outing for me. I can’t breathe today.’

  Hélène did not hear her. Thirteen minutes more. But she couldn’t let such an outrage take place. In this new turmoil in her heart there was only a furious desire to stop it happening. She had to, or die in the attempt. And she rushed wildly into the bedroom.

  ‘Oh, so you are taking me!’ cried Jeanne, in delight. ‘We’re going to see the doctor straight away, are we, Maman?’

  ‘No, no!’ she replied, searching for her boots and bending down to look under the bed.

  She couldn’t find them; she made a gesture of utter unconcern, with the thought that she might as well go out in the indoor shoes she
was wearing. Now she had turned the large wardrobe upside down to look for her shawl. Jeanne had come over, very coaxingly:

  ‘So are you not going to the doctor’s, Maman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, take me with you anyway... Oh, please take me, I want to so much!’

  But she had found her shawl at last and thrown it around her shoulders. Oh goodness! Only twelve minutes more, just time if she ran. She would go there, do something, no matter what. On the way she would think.

  ‘Please — take me too, Maman,’ pleaded Jeanne again in a voice that was more and more urgent and winsome.

  ‘I can’t take you,’ said Hélène. ‘I’m going somewhere where children can’t go... Give me my hat.’

  Jeanne’s face grew pale. Her eyes grew dark, her voice more clipped. She asked:

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Her mother, busy tying the ribbons on her bonnet, did not answer. The little girl asked:

  ‘You’re always going out without me these days... Yesterday you went out, and now you’re going out again. I’m too unhappy and I’m scared all alone. Oh, I’ll die if you leave me. Do you hear, Maman, I’ll die...’

  Then, sobbing, seized by a crisis of pain and anger, she clutched at Hélène’s skirt.

  ‘For goodness’ sake let me go, be sensible, I’m coming back soon,’ said the latter again.

  ‘No, I don’t want you to... I don’t want you to...’ stammered the child. ‘Oh, you don’t love me anymore, or else you’d take me. Oh, I know very well you love other people more than me. Take me, take me, or I’m going to stay here on the floor and that’s where you’ll find me, on the floor.’

  And she locked her little arms round her mother’s legs, she wept into the folds of her dress, clutching at her, dragging on her to prevent her from leaving. The hands were going round, it was ten to three. Then Hélène thought that she would never get there in time. She lost her head and pushed Jeanne violently away, crying:

  ‘What an unbearable child! It’s a real tyranny! If you cry, you will make me very angry indeed!’