Delphi complete works of.., p.318
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 318
The next day fresh complications. Nansen had a severe haemorrhage caused by his nausea; and as the ship’s pharmacy contained no perchloride we had to put in at San-Remo to obtain speedy relief for our invalids. That evening, while the Red, White and Blue was firing salutes without end, preparatory to resuming her berth beside His Highness’s yacht at the foot of the rock of Monaco, we all returned to Monte-Carlo by the Corniche road. At the hotel a letter from my father awaited me, a warlike trumpet-call in the name of honor and fatherland. For the last hundred years we have always had a Dauvergne under the flag and in high rank; if war should break out to-morrow, if France should need the services of her sons, what one of our family would be found in the ranks! Four pages of this lyrical stuff to induce me to let my mistress go once and for all, and to enter at Saint-Cyr. I leave it to you to judge whether all that bugling had any effect on me.
War is a bore; I consider it an idiotic, filthy thing. Of the two ways of looking at a battlefield, — the vertical way, from the standpoint of the cavalier with unsheathed sword, erect in his stirrups, and with a glass of brandy in his head, and the horizontal, from the standpoint of the poor wounded devil, who drags himself along in the blood and filth with a hole in his side — I have never been able to appreciate any but the last, which has disgusted, if not terrified me. On the day after Wissembourg, my father said, in speaking of the battle: “There was plenty of fresh meat there.” And that is how war always appears to me, all fresh-killed meat, crushed and carried on carts, and not firm flesh on the hoof, alive and quivering. And yet I am no coward. If you had seen me the other night dipping my nose in the vinegar with the sturdy crew of the Red, White and Blue! I didn’t shirk. No, I shall have my chance like everybody else, but I have a holy horror of carnage. Moreover, the words country, flag, family, arouse in me only hypocritical echoes, mere wind and noise. You are like me, my dear Vallongue, with this difference, that in you everything is the result of study and reflection. Your brain, like those of so many young Frenchmen, is a conquest of German philosophy, a conquest much more serious than that of Alsace, or even of Lorraine. Kant, Hartmann, and more than all the rest, the famous fellow — you know whom I mean — have taken down the scenery piece by piece before your eyes; profound study of sentiment and sensation have destroyed in you the faculty of feeling.
But how happens it that I, who know nothing, who have never read or learned anything, am at the same stage of moral weariness and decrepitude? Why am I already withered, corroded, at barely eighteen? Whence comes this contempt for all duties, for all tasks, — this revolt against every law, no matter what it may be? My name, my fortune, my youth, — and the mind of an anarchist. Why is it? Do you, Vallongue, to whom I tell everything, who know me just as I am, try to explain me to myself. Do you look upon me — your letter seems to imply as much — as simply a product of the new school, a specimen of the very latest yacht model? In that case our elders will be surprised. Those who are passing away and those who are coming resemble one another hardly at all, I know; but this time, if I am to judge by my father and myself, the bridges between the two generations are entirely demolished, and in passing from one bank to the other misunderstanding may be exaggerated to hatred.
At all events, I have placed my own interpretation on the general’s letter, reading in it only his return to life and his longing to see his dear Mme. F — , by whom, I am bound to say, his expenditure of military eloquence was relished much more heartily than by his son. My sentimental darling’s eyes were filled with tears over it; for some time past, by the way, these attacks of oversensitiveness on her part have been frequent, and rather disturbing. What an adventure that would be! In this instance, however, her tears came from a wholly mental source; I felt that she was completely upset, ready for the greatest sacrifices. Ah! the old rascal, his letter was not written for me so much as for her who read it over my shoulder, thinking of him meanwhile. And I anticipate now a still more energetic paternal demonstration. I will wager that he proposes to come in person to get up a touching melodramatic scene, in order to bring down his mistress and his boy with one stone, — two birds instead of one. I wonder if he thinks that I will wait for him! In the first place, roulette no longer amuses me, — another sensation fallen into the pit; it wasn’t worth the trouble of roasting in this Central African climate, blinded with the glare and the hot dust, and deafened by this chirping of crickets which seems like the monotonous hum of the light.
The best plan would be to start off on my yacht, placing Lydie in charge of friends who would bring her to me, by land, to some out-of-the-way corner of Bretagne or Italy. But in whose charge? It’s all over with the Nansens. I forgot to tell you that the unfortunate Swede was carried off by galloping consumption the day after our return. In that confession, Monsieur le Philosophe, let me submit to you as to my confessor a mysterious, almost untellable case of passion.
Imagine the Swede gathered to his fathers. For two days we lived in the atmosphere of that death, my mistress passing hours with the despairing widow, I and my brave Nuitt, whose leisure I employ in all sorts of ways, attending to the triple casket of oak, lead and fir, in which the deceased was to be taken home, and also to matters of transportation, routes, etc. We literally lived on that Swede; his ashes were mingled with our food, disturbed our slumbers. On the third day, yesterday morning, the countess said to me:
“You must go and see Nina; you have been very kind and obliging to her, and she would like to thank you.”
Nothing could be more commonplace than that call. Why was I so moved, so passionately moved, as I entered the little garden of the Nansen villa in a green ravine ten minutes’ walk from the sea? Was it the sirocco, the breath of the rose-laurels? I was conscious that my mouth was parched, my hands burning and my whole being invaded by a sensual vertigo which did not prevent my thinking of death. Indeed, how could I avoid thinking of it? It was master of that house and filled it with the disorder and dismay which it brings in its train. Those windows on the first floor wide open, that one hermetically closed through which could be seen the dismal yellow light of tapers burning in broad daylight, and everywhere, even at the further end of the garden, even under the laurels, the horrible odor of drugs and sawdust that hovers around death chambers.
I waited five minutes in a parlor on the first floor, seated on a straw-covered couch. Steps on the stairs. Nina. — I have told you, have I not, that there had been nothing between that woman and myself? On the night before her misfortune we had laughed and joked together all the evening on the hotel terrace. A lively flirtation. But I tried in vain to entertain her, she was occupied mainly in watching her husband as he sat at the piano with my mistress, in front of a sonata for four hands. I had not seen her since. Tell me why I was sure of what was going to happen. She entered the room, very pale, hastily dressed in a black dress fitting tight to her graceful and lithe figure; I could feel the presence of her lovely, dead-white Italian flesh beneath it. Her eyes shone between her inflamed, swollen lids. She threw herself down beside me without a word; our hands met and the fire was lighted. “Ah! Monsieur Charley!” — In an instant I had her against my breast, her lips against mine, worn out as she was by her nights of vigil, freely offered to me, beside herself, half-swooning in a long, feverish kiss which smelt of carbolic acid and phenol. — Just at that moment her housekeeper entered to ask for a pair of sheets and snatched from between my teeth an opportunity that was destined not to be renewed.
Now tell me what you think of this, my philosopher. By virtue of what diabolical relaxation of her nerves did that woman tear herself away from that dead man whom she loved and lamented, to fall incontinently into my arms? Can it be that some aphrodisaical air-current hovers around coffins? or is it simply that life takes its revenge in an immediate and violent outburst? I have a conviction that doctors know more than they tell about these moments of perverse passion, of which they doubtless take advantage often. I myself had already undergone the mysterious influence once before, under far more terrible circumstances; — love and death, Vallongue!
I did not expect to send my journal until I had come to some decision and fixed upon our next place of sojourn, but lo and behold, everything is in the air again. My father has not arrived, but Othello. This morning who should enter our room — as spruce as ever but with a terribly long face — but M. Alexandre, who, since my departure, has been acting as a spy upon Mme. F— ‘s husband in behalf of my family, and came hither on the express with him. Luckily, this ferocious husband is exploring Monaco, where he believes us to be, thus giving us time to form a plan.
More news soon. The affair does not lack gravity; but I feel my pulse and find it strong.
CHARLEXIS.
VII.
AFTER LEAVING M. Mérivet abruptly, at the conclusion of their conversation by the little church, Richard ran into M. Alexandre; and the smile at - the corner of the flunkey’s mouth, the irony which he fancied he could detect in it, cast a gleam of light into his mind.
“Where are they, the villains? — Why, that man knows; he knows it through Grosbourg, and Rosine at our house knows it through him.”
And as he strode along the already scorching road, his short, compact shadow beside him repeated the gestures with which he accompanied a furious soliloquy.
“What a fool I am not to have thought of it sooner, instead of going so often to cool my heels at the post-office! — If only the girl will speak now! Oh! she shall speak, or else—”
At that moment Rosine Chuchin, whose face was a younger and more refined copy of the repulsive countenance of her father the keeper, appeared at the small park gate, at the top of the two steps from which she had nearly killed her master with her announcement of Lydie’s departure. Arrayed in a stylish hat and dainty shoes, with a prayer-book with gilt clasp under her arm, the servant was waiting for some one. She stepped aside to let Richard pass, with the meaningless, servile smile in which one can read whatever one chooses; but he took her by both arms and turned her with her back against the gate, which he closed with a kick.
“Where is Madame? — You know — tell me instantly — where is Madame?”
He shook her roughly. She, utterly bewildered, unable to understand at first, stammered:
“Why, no, Monsieur Richard, I don’t know where Madame is. When she came back from high mass she found a despatch—”
“I am talking about your mistress — my — my — wife.” It required an effort for him to say the word. “Where is she?” — And seeing that she was on the point of lying: “I have never interfered with your performances; but I know all about them, as you can imagine. If you think I don’t hear you when your lover comes to the laundry — I need say only a word and my mother would turn you and Père Chuchin into the street—”
“Oh! Monsieur Richard—”
“No double-dealing then. When Alexandre writes to them, where does he address his letters?” The involuntary swaying of that robust country girl’s whole body bore witness to her uncertainty; but it ended by her whispering the name of the town and the hotel. Richard was thunderstruck. He supposed they were far away, beyond the sea, entirely out of reach. Had he not heard of a journey to the Indies? And lo! instead of leaping upon his vengeance when it proved to be so near at hand, he felt that he suddenly grew calmer, but without abandoning his proposed departure, for he bade Rosine prepare his valise.
“You know, the small valise I carry when I go to the Mérogis ponds hunting. Above all things, not a word to my mother. Where has she gone, did you say?”
“To the station at Villeneuve, with the victoria.”
“Mamma gone to Villeneuve! What for, pray?” Mme. Fénigan never left the house except to go to mass.
“I don’t know, Monsieur Richard, but I will take advantage of her being away to get the valise, which is at the Château.”
She started along the hedgerow. He called her back.
“Go to my room at the same time, and get—” He could not make up his mind to ask for his revolver which was in his table-drawer. That would have been to emphasize his purpose, which was already a sort of burden to him.
“No — no matter, I will go myself.”
As he examined his weapon he was angry with himself for that sudden and inexplicable softening.
“Why is it? How can the thought that tomorrow at this time I may be avenged if I choose, how can that thought have cooled me down so? In God’s name, am I a downright coward, or simply incapable of making up my mind?” Thereupon, to excite his passion, to bring back his furious impulse of a few moments earlier, he took out Charlexis’ letters to his wife, which he kept in a box in his room in order to have them always at hand, under his eyes. Ah! that was soon done. In that slightly sluggish brain, retarded in action by the benumbing influence of outdoor life, the imagination needed to be quickened by external images. In like manner certain voluptuaries resort to books and pictures to quicken their deadened passions. He knew the letters by heart; but as he read them the sentences took shape, the words gleamed like glances.
The rumbling of the victoria on the gravel tore him away from these visions. His mother, already! He hastily returned the letters to their hiding-place, vexed to think that he had not gone away without looking at them. Now he must invent an excuse to explain his journey and avoid tears and entreaties. He cudgelled his brains as he went down to meet her, and appeared at the top of the steps as the carriage drew up at the foot. What was his amazement to see the coachman’s box piled high with boxes, and, seated beside Mme. Fénigan, under a brilliant scarlet umbrella, a young woman dressed in the same scarlet from the feather in her travelling-cap to the openwork silk stockings which she showed as she leaped out of the carriage with the impetuosity of a young boy.
“Good morning, Richard!” she cried cheerily, as she assisted Mme. Fénigan to alight, that lady meanwhile making signs to her son. The voice rang out, fresh and youthful, with a pretty Parisian accent which he had heard before, which was almost familiar. However, Richard was still hesitating when his mother, coming up the steps on the arm of the young woman in red, announced her:
“Élise, you know, your cousin from Lorient.”
A swarm of memories, of love-lorn, happy moments, rushed confusedly into his mind. He saw his cousin, a plump, little creature, galloping by his side along the level roads of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, at the door of the landau in which her father, François Belleguic, a rich contractor and builder, and Mme. Belleguic, born de Kerkabelec, were discussing with Mme. Fénigan the approaching marriage of their children, who already understood each other remarkably well. The two mothers unfortunately were too much alike to agree. Mme. Belleguic, born de, etc., was a Bretonne cut out of the solid rock, another “kindly tyrant” who undertook to drive everybody as she drove her husband, with a strong hand and a tight rein. “François, who is not an eagle,” she would say when she spoke of him, in his presence; and the husband always bowed, smiling and happy; and indeed there was little of the eagle about him; he had submitted to the conjugal yoke, which eventually twisted his neck out of shape. Richard, after a violent scene between the two “kindly tyrants,” was bound to take sides with his mother against the parents of the young woman upon whom he was already bestowing the caressing glances of a fiancé; he sacrificed himself, largely through weakness, the material impossibility of saying no, but he retained in the depths of his heart a feeling of genuine regret which disappeared beneath the obliterating force of time and of other deeper wounds. In the twelve years that had elapsed, Madame Belleguic, born de Kerkabelec, had gone to join her forefathers. François who was not an eagle, in despair at having no one to tell him so, followed his wife to the grave. Élise, who had married a drunken, brutal surgeon in the navy, who beat her with machine-like regularity, had obtained a legal separation, and subsequently a divorce, as soon as the divorce law was passed. At first Mme. Fénigan thundered against her with all the indignation of an orthodox Catholic; indeed, Élise’s action was at the time a pretext for bitter-sweet discussions between her and Lydie, in which the “dear mothers” and “dear daughters” passed one another hissing amid corrosive vapor. Then, when her daughter-in-law had gone, having to reckon with the loneliness and depression of her son, who, she had supposed, would be satisfied with her undemonstrative maternal affection, a change was wrought in her ideas concerning the divorcée, and even concerning divorce. She remembered that Élise and Richard had been fond of each other. She had a twinge of remorse for the caprice which caused her to break off that match which would have saved them all so much grief, — remorse that was the more sincere because the passing of the Belleguics left in her hands all the authority of which she was so jealous. Thereupon, without any definitely formed decision, guided by her maternal instinct and the advice of the curé of Draveil, her confessor, she wrote secretly to her cousin at Lorient to come and pass some time at Uzelles, and the cousin, who bore no malice, accepted at once.
The first effect of her presence was to prevent Richard’s immediate departure. He postponed it until an evening train and breakfasted opposite Élise, pleased to renew his acquaintance with her bright laugh, the pretty upward curl of her eyes, and her dazzlingly red lips. She was of that privileged race upon whom life pours in a torrent its vexations and catastrophes, without leaving a single trace of them behind. He found her after so many years of sorrow and tears as merry and frolicsome as ever, still with her provincial taste for tinsel and gaudy colors, still with her little rows of grains of rice between her lips, her pink and brown cheek with its peach-like down, but with arms somewhat stouter and a mastery of the art of décolleté, ingenuous yet audacious, well adapted to intimidate her bashful neighbor at table. Again and again Richard turned and stole a glance, blushing hotly, and thereby filled the honest coquettish girl’s heart with joy; his mother had said to her simply: “My boy is sick, cure him for me.”
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