Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola. Ðмиль ЗолÑЧитать онлайн книгу.
her. When she discovered what manner of man it was she had married all her woman’s pride and instinct revolted. Her mother spoke in her; her inner being grew, dominated, and drove out the outer being that circumstances alone had created. And the veil was torn aside.
Then she saw herself in the hands of Lorin, tied to him for ever, and terror and anger seized her. She had wilfully brought this untoward fate upon herself; she had prepared her own sufferings, all unwitting, with a light heart. The outlook was dark indeed. Now that she had an imperative desire to love some one, she could not satisfy her desire, for she despised the only man to whom it was necessary that she should give her affections. At these thoughts she was seized with unknown, unspeakable pangs of misery, and as she wept gave up all hope of happiness.
Then cowardice followed. She feared that she would never have the strength to live on thus. The prospect of a lonely, loveless life scared her. Then she began inwardly to battle against herself. When her heart, crying with anguish, drove her to love a man other than her husband, then her duty as a wife spoke loudly and her self-respect asserted itself.
Some days she managed to prove to herself that after all love is free, and that human laws could not restore her to a young girl’s ignorant pride. But the next day duty once again raised her solemn voice, and she recoiled before the sin, accepting her martyrdom as a punishment for her blindness.
For nearly six months this inward battle lasted, and she showed many outward marks of it. Every morning, notwithstanding the resistance her self-respect made, she advanced one step nearer the gulf. She made desperate efforts, strove hard to hold back, but her head was in a whirl, and little by little her passions began to yield altogether and drag her down. She was on the point of falling when Daniel came once more across her path in life.
The young man, when he saw the burning eyes of the young woman, partly guessed the tortures she was undergoing. He saw Lorin turning to folly and fatness. For a moment the thought came to him of calling him out and killing him, so that his wife might be rid of him. Then he cross-examined himself, and, with terror, came to the conclusion that love was once more asserting its sway over him.
His eyes never left Jeanne during the whole evening he spent there. He took an infinite delight in watching her every movement; her voice, her every action gave him pleasure, and he forgot himself dangerously in this contemplation. He noticed that Jeanne’s eyes were constantly directed towards the door. Undoubtedly she was expecting some one; and he felt a burning sensation shoot across his breast. Certainly Jeanne was in a fever; she shivered, she was making her last stand before yielding. Then he drew near and spoke to her of Mesuil Rouge.
“Do you remember,” he said, “those delicious evenings and those lovely twilights? How fresh and cool it was under the trees, and what a deep calm reigned all around!” Jeanne smiled at these sweet memories of peace.
“I went again to Mesuil Rouge after that,” she answered, “and I thought of you. I had no one then to take me to the islets.”
Suddenly she looked towards the drawing room door. Daniel again felt that burning sensation in his chest; he also turned round, and in the doorway he saw a tall, smiling young man who was casting a searching look across the room.
This young man perceived Lorin and went and shook hands with him, with an exaggerated and forced warmth of manner. He joked with him for a minute or two, then turned towards Jeanne. The young wife shuddered.
Daniel drew back and took stock of the newcomer. He judged him at first sight. Here was a de Rionne who had evidently not yet quite gone down the hill of ruin. Jeanne was no doubt taken with the elegance and brilliant talk of this man. They exchanged a few words of politeness, but she was nervous and anxious, as if she were impatiently waiting for words that did not come. Daniel, without dreaming that he ought to have moved away, remained where he was, being suspicious. He also was waiting for something, fixing looks of desperation upon her meanwhile.
The young man paid no attention whatever to this stranger, whose suppressed wrath he did not even notice. He bent quickly down, and said in a low voice:
“Madame, am I to come tomorrow?” Jeanne, pale as death, was about to answer, when, raising her eyes, she perceived Daniel before her, severity and anxiety depicted on his face. Her lips trembled; she drew back, hesitated a moment, then retired without a word. The young man turned on his heel, muttering between his teeth:
“Oh, well, the fruit is not yet ripe. I must wait a little longer.”
Daniel had heard all, and understood all. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He was like a man who has just escaped a great danger and who breathes again, looking round about him to see if the danger is really and completely over. He was choking; he felt the need of breathing freely, and as he could not reflect calmly in the stifling air of the drawing room, he sought out George and drew him away into the street.
George was by no means pleased at being dragged off. He was very happy in this house, where that sad young woman who had moved him so resided. If Lorin had not been there as a killjoy to his feelings, he would willingly have lost himself in the contemplation of Jeanne’s melancholy beauty.
“Why the deuce do you run away like this?” he asked his friend, when in the street.
“I do not like Lorin,” stammered Daniel.
“Oh, as to that, I do not like him any better than you do; but I should like to have stayed, to find out what makes his wife look as if she were pining... We shall go there again, shall we not?”
“Oh, yes.”
They walked home together silently. George was meditating, and at moments, feelings hitherto unknown to him caused a warm, quick flow of blood to mount to his head; he gave himself up to a sweet dream that was quite new to him. Daniel strode moodily along, with his head bowed, hurrying over the ground, in haste to be alone.
When he reached his room he sat down and shuddered. He shook all over; he accused himself of returning to Paris too late. He felt sure indeed that Jeanne had not yet fully committed herself, but he did not know what course to take to bring about an immediate and violent reaction in her feelings. The dead woman’s words recurred to his mind. “When you are a man,” she had said, “remember my words; they will tell you what a woman can suffer.
I know what a burden a lonely life is, and how much determination is required not to fall.” And here was Jeanne in her loneliness wanting in determination — here she was ready to fall.
Daniel had already suffered too much to lie to himself again. He felt that his love was gnawing at his entrails afresh, and that it was only from shame, from cowardice, that he did not speak openly of it. At Mesuil Rouge he had a similar attack one dark night when a cold rain was falling. Then in a jealous fury he had wished to tear Jeanne away from Lorin. To-day he was seeking to protect her against herself, to prevent her from taking a lover, and he was enduring the utmost agony, with the same cries of agony and suffering.
To deceive himself he, to excuse his actions, pretended that it was his mission to the dead woman only that urged him on, and that he was accomplishing a sacred task. This time it was a question of the young woman’s honour, of her remaining calm and proud in her virtue, or of her suffering the remorse of sin. The strife had never been sharper nor more decisive. Then he laughed at himself in mockery, for he knew full well that he was lying again, and that it was his love alone which drove him to desire Jeanne’s happiness. His heart lay bare before him. The honourable guardian had become the passionate lover, who no longer watched over the woman entrusted to him for any other reason except that of jealousy.
And he put his face between his hands and wept, seeking with anguish a means of saving her, and of saving himself at the same time. Then, as he could think of none, he took a sheet of notepaper and began to write to Jeanne. The tears dried on his cheeks, and all the fever passed into his hand, so rapidly did he write.
For two hours he never raised his head; he was gaining consolation. His letter was an effusion of love, a flood of affection breaking down all obstacles, and spreading far and wide. All the accumulated adoration of years found an issue in that confession. This poor wretch let himself go, so