The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
half the village gathered in front of the door.
Petrus Martel came to grasp his hand, with the familiarity of a strolling actor, and murmured in his ear: “I shall have a proposal to make to you — something stunning — with reference to your undertaking.”
Suddenly, Doctor Bonnefille appeared, hurrying in his usual fashion. He passed quite close to Will, and bowing very low to him as he would do to the Marquis, he said to him:
“A pleasant journey, Baron.”
“That settles it!” murmured Gontran.
Andermatt, triumphant, swelling with joy and pride, pressed the hands extended toward him, thanked them, and kept repeating: “Au revoir!”
He was nearly forgetting to embrace his wife, so much was he thinking about other things. This indifference was a relief to her, and, when she saw the landau moving away on the darkening road, as the horses broke into a quick trot, it seemed to her that she had nothing more to fear from anyone for the rest of her life.
She spent the whole evening seated in front of the hotel, between her father and Paul Bretigny, Gontran having gone to the Casino, where he went every evening.
She did not want either to walk or to talk, and remained motionless, her hands clasped over her knees, her eyes lost in the darkness, languid and weak, a little restless and yet happy, scarcely thinking, not even dreaming, now and then struggling against a vague remorse, which she thrust away from her, always repeating to herself, “I love him! I love him!”
She went up to her apartment at an early hour, in order to be alone and to think. Seated in the depths of an armchair and covered with a dressing-gown which floated around her, she gazed at the stars through the window, which was left open; and in the frame of that window she evoked every minute the image of him who had conquered her. She saw him, kind, gentle, and powerful — so strong and so yielding in her presence. This man had taken herself to himself, — she felt it, — taken her forever. She was alone no longer; they were two, whose two hearts would henceforth form but one heart, whose two souls would henceforth form but one soul. Where was he? She knew not; but she knew full well that he was dreaming of her, just as she was thinking of him. At each throb of her heart she believed she heard another throb answering somewhere. She felt a desire wandering round her and fanning her cheek like a bird’s wing. She felt it entering through that open window, this desire coming from him, this burning desire, which entreated her in the silence of the night.
How good it was, how sweet and refreshing to be loved! What joy to think of some one, with a longing in your eyes to weep, to weep with tenderness, and a longing also to open your arms, even without seeing him, in order to invite him to come, to stretch one’s arms toward the image that presents itself, toward that kiss which your lover casts unceasingly from far or near, in the fever of his waiting.
And she stretched toward the stars her two white arms in the sleeves of her dressing-gown. Suddenly she uttered a cry. A great black shadow, striding over her balcony, had sprung up into her window.
She sprang wildly to her feet! It was he! And, without even reflecting that somebody might see them, she threw herself upon his breast.
French
VIII
THE absence of Andermatt was prolonged. M. Aubry-Pasteur got the soil dug up. He found, in addition, four springs, which supplied the new Company with more than twice as much water as they required. The entire district, driven crazy by these searches, by these discoveries, by the great news which circulated everywhere, by the prospects of a brilliant future, became agitated and enthusiastic, talked of nothing else, and thought of nothing else. The Marquis and Gontran themselves spent their days hanging round the workmen, who were boring through the veins of granite; and they listened with increasing interest to the explanations and the lectures of the engineer on the geological character of Auvergne. And Paul and Christiane loved one another freely, tranquilly, in absolute security, without anyone suspecting anything, without anyone thinking even of spying on them, for the attention, the curiosity, and the zeal of all around them were absorbed in the future station.
Christiane acted like a young girl under the intoxication of a first love. The first draught, the first kiss, had burned, had stunned her. She had swallowed the second very quickly, and had found it better, and now again and again she raised the intoxicating cup to her lips.
Since the night when Paul had broken into her apartment, she no longer took any heed of what was happening in the world. For her, time, events, beings, no longer had any existence; there was nothing else in life save one man, he whom she loved. Henceforth, her eyes saw only him, her mind thought only of him, her hopes were fixed on him alone. She lived, went from place to place, ate, dressed herself, seemed to listen and to reply, without consciousness or thought about what she was doing. No disquietude haunted her, for no misfortune could have fallen on her. She had become insensible to everything. No physical pain could have taken hold of her flesh, as love alone could, so as to make her shudder. No moral suffering could have taken hold of her soul, paralyzed by happiness. Moreover, he, loving her with the self-abandonment which he displayed in all his attachments, excited the young woman’s tenderness to distraction.
Often, toward evening, when he knew that the Marquis and Gontran had gone to the springs, he would say, “Come and look at our heaven.” He called a cluster of pine-trees growing on the hillside above even the gorges their heaven. They ascended to this spot through a little wood, along a steep path, to climb which took away Christiane’s breath. As their time was limited, they proceeded rapidly, and, in order that she might not be too much fatigued, he put his arm round her waist and lifted her up. Placing one hand on his shoulder, she let herself be borne along; and, from time to time, she would throw herself on his neck and place her mouth against his lips. As they mounted higher, the air became keener; and, when they reached the cluster of pine-trees, the odor of the balsam refreshed them like a breath of the sea.
They sat down under the shadowy trees, she on a grassy knoll, and he lower down, at her feet. The wind in the stems sang that sweet chant of the pine-trees which is like a wail of sorrow; and the immense Limagne, with its unseen backgrounds steeped in fog, gave them a sensation exactly like that of the ocean. Yes, the sea was there in front of them, down below. They could have no doubt of it, for they felt its breath fanning their faces.
He talked to her in the coaxing tone that one uses toward a child.
“Give me your fingers and let me eat them — they are my bonbons, mine!”
He put them one after the other into his mouth, and seemed to be tasting them with gluttonous delight.
“Oh! how nice they are! — especially the little one. I have never eaten anything better than the little one.”
Then he threw himself on his knees, placed his elbows on Christiane’s lap, and murmured:
“‘Liane,’ are you looking at me?” He called her Liane because she entwined herself around him in order to embrace him the more closely, as a plant clings around a tree. “Look at me. I am going to enter your soul.”
And they exchanged that immovable, persistent glance, which seems truly to make two beings mingle with one another!
“We can only love thoroughly by thus possessing one another,” he said. “All the other things of love are but foul pleasures.”
And, face to face, their breaths blending into one, they sought to see one another’s images in the depths of their eyes.
He murmured: “I love you, Liane. I see your adored heart.”
She replied: “I, too, Paul, see your heart!”
And, indeed, they did see one another even to the depths of their hearts and souls, for there was no longer in their hearts and souls anything