Chapter VI: Introduction: By Edmund Gosse (6)

Jeanne felt a vague excitement in the presence of this reawakening of the fields and woods. She gave way to a sweet melancholy and spent hours languidly dreaming. All the tender incidents of her first hours of love came back to her, not that any renewal of affection for her husband stirred her heart; _that_ had been completely destroyed; but the soft breeze which fanned her cheek and the sweet perfume which filled the air seemed to breathe forth a tender sigh of love which made her pulse beat quicker. She liked to be alone, and in the warm sunshine, to enjoy these vague, peaceful sensations which aroused no thoughts.

One morning she was lying thus half-dormant, when suddenly she saw in her mind that sunlit space in the little wood near Etretat where for the first time she had felt thrilled by the presence of the man who loved her then, where he had for the first time timidly hinted at his hopes, and where she had believed that she was going to realize the radiant future of her dreams. She thought she should like to make a romantic, superstitious pilgrimage to the wood, and she felt as if a visit to that sunny spot would in some way alter the course of her life.

Julien had gone out at daybreak, she did not know whither, so she ordered the Martins' little white horse, which she sometimes rode, to be saddled, and set off.

It was one of those calm days when there is not a leaf nor a blade of grass stirring. The wind seemed dead, and everything looked as though it would remain motionless until the end of time; even the insects had disappeared. A burning, steady heat descended from the sun in a golden mist, and Jeanne walked her horse along, enjoying the stillness, and every now and then looking up at a tiny white cloud which hung like a snowy fleece in the midst of the bright blue sky. She went down into the valley leading to the sea, between the two great arches which are called the gates of Etretat, and went slowly towards the wood.

The sunlight poured down through the foliage which, as yet, was not very thick, and Jeanne wandered along the little paths unable to find the spot where she had sat with Julien. She turned into a long alley and, at the other end of it, saw two saddle-horses fastened to a tree; she recognized them at once; they were Gilberte's and Julien's. Tired of being alone and pleased at this unexpected meeting, she trotted quickly up to them, and when she reached the two animals, which were waiting quietly as if accustomed to stand like this, she called aloud. There was no answer.

On the grass, which looked as if someone had rested there, lay a woman's glove and two whips. Julien and Gilberte had evidently sat down and then gone farther on, leaving the horses tied to the tree. Jeanne wondered what they could be doing, and getting off her horse, she leant against the trunk of a tree and waited for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. She stood quite motionless, and two little birds flew down onto the grass close by her. One of them hopped round the other, fluttering his outstretched wings, and chirping and nodding his little head; all at once they coupled. Jeanne watched them, as surprised as if she had never known of such a thing before; then she thought: "Oh, of course! It is springtime."

Then came another thought--a suspicion. She looked again at the glove, the whips and the two horses standing riderless; then she sprang on her horse with an intense longing to leave this place. She started back to Les Peuples at a gallop. Her brain was busy reasoning, connecting different incidents and thinking it all out.

How was it that she had never noticed anything, had never guessed this before? How was it that Julien's frequent absence from home, his renewed attention to his toilet, his better temper had told her nothing? Now she understood Gilberte's nervous irritability, her exaggerated affection for herself and the bliss in which she had appeared to be living lately, and which had so pleased the comte.

She pulled up her horse for she wanted to think calmly, and the quick movement confused her ideas. After the first shock she became almost indifferent; she felt neither jealousy nor hatred, only contempt. She did not think about Julien at all, for nothing that he could do would have astonished her, but the twofold treachery of the comtesse, who had deceived her friend as well as her husband, hurt her deeply. So everyone was treacherous, and untrue and faithless! Her eyes filled with tears, for sometimes it is as bitter to see an illusion destroyed as to witness the death of a friend. She resolved to say nothing more about her discovery. Her heart would be dead to everyone but Paul and her parents, but she would bear a smiling face.

When she reached home she caught up her son in her arms, carried him to her room and pressed her lips to his face again and again, and for a whole hour she played with and caressed him.

Julien came in to dinner in a very good temper and full of plans for his wife's pleasure.

"Won't your father and mother come and stay with us this year?" he said.

Jeanne almost forgave him his infidelity, so grateful was she to him for making this proposal. She longed to see the two people she loved best after Paul, and she passed the whole evening in writing to them, and urging them to come as soon as possible.

They wrote to say they would come on the twentieth of May; it was then the seventh, and Jeanne awaited their arrival with intense impatience. Besides her natural desire to see her parents, she felt it would be such a relief to have near her two honest hearts, two simple-minded beings whose life and every action, thought and desire had always been upright and pure. She felt she stood alone in her honesty among all this guilt. She had learnt to dissimulate her feelings, to meet the comtesse with an outstretched hand and a smiling face, but her sense of desolation increased with her contempt for her fellow-men.

Every day some village scandal reached her ears which filled her with still greater disgust and scorn for human frailty. The Couillards' daughter had just had a child and was therefore going to be married. The Martins' servant, who was an orphan, a little girl only fifteen years old, who lived near, and a widow, a lame, poverty-stricken woman who was so horribly dirty that she had been nicknamed La Crotte, were all pregnant; and Jeanne was continually hearing of the misconduct of some girl, some married woman with a family, or of some rich farmer who had been held in general respect.

This warm spring seemed to revive the passions of mankind as it revived the plants and the flowers; but to Jeanne, whose senses were dead, and whose wounded heart and romantic soul were alone stirred by the warm springtide breezes, and who only dreamed of the poetic side of love, these bestial desires were revolting and hateful. She was angry with Gilberte, not for having robbed her of her husband, but for having bespattered herself with this filth. The comtesse was not of the same class as the peasants, who could not resist their brutal desires; then how could she have fallen into the same abomination?

The very day that her parents were to arrive, Julien increased his wife's disgust by telling her laughingly, as though it were something quite natural and very funny, that the baker having heard a noise in his oven the day before, which was not baking day, had gone to see what it was, and instead of finding the stray cat he expected to see, had surprised his wife, "who was certainly not putting bread into the oven." "The baker closed the mouth of the oven," went on Julien, "and they would have been suffocated if the baker's little boy, who had seen his mother go into the oven with the blacksmith, had not told the neighbors what was going on." He laughed as he added, "That will give a nice flavor to the bread. It is just like a tale of La Fontaine's."

For some time after that Jeanne could not touch bread.

When the post-chaise drew up before the door with the baron's smiling face looking out of the window, Jeanne felt fonder of her parents and more pleased to see them than she had ever been before; but when she saw her mother she was overcome with surprise and grief. The baroness looked ten years older than when she had left Les Peuples six months before. Her huge, flabby cheeks were suffused with blood, her eyes had a glazed look, and she could not move a step unless she was supported on either side; she drew her breath with so much difficulty that only to hear her made everyone around her draw theirs painfully also.

The baron, who had lived with her and seen her every day, had not noticed the gradual change in his wife, and if she had complained or said her breathing and the heavy feeling about her heart were getting worse, he had answered:

"Oh, no, my dear. You have always been like this."

Jeanne went to her own room and cried bitterly when she had taken her parents upstairs. Then she went to her father and, throwing herself in his arms, said, with her eyes still full of tears:

"Oh, how changed mother is! What is the matter with her? Do tell me what is the matter with her?"

"Do you think she is changed?" asked the baron in surprise. "It must be your fancy. You know I have been with her all this time, and to me she seems just the same as she has always been; she is not any worse."

"Your mother is in a bad way," said Julien to his wife that evening. "I don't think she's good for much now."

Jeanne burst into tears.

"Oh, good gracious!" went on Julien irritably. "I don't say that she is dangerously ill. You always see so much more than is meant. She is changed, that's all; it's only natural she should begin to break up at her age."

In a week Jeanne had got accustomed to her mother's altered appearance and thought no more about it, thrusting her fears from her, as people always do put aside their fears and cares, with an instinctive and natural, though selfish dislike of anything unpleasant.

The baroness, unable to walk, only went out for about half an hour every day. When she had gone once up and down "her" avenue, she could not move another step and asked to sit down on "her" seat. Some days she could not walk even to the end of the avenue, and would say:

"Let us stop; my hypertrophy is too much for me to-day."

She never laughed as she used to; things which, the year before, would have sent her into fits of laughter, only brought a faint smile to her lips now. Her eyesight was still excellent, and she passed her time in reading _Corinne_ and Lamartine's _Meditations_ over again, and in going through her "Souvenir-drawer." She would empty on her knees the old letters, which were so dear to her heart, place the drawer on a chair beside her, look slowly over each "relic," and then put it back in its place. When she was quite alone she kissed some of the letters as she might have kissed the hair of some loved one who was dead.

Jeanne, coming into the room suddenly, sometimes found her in tears.

"What is the matter, mamma, dear?" she would ask.

"My souvenirs have upset me," the baroness would answer, with a long-drawn sigh. "They bring to my mind so vividly the happy times which are all over now, and make me think of people whom I had almost forgotten. I seem to see them, to hear their voices, and it makes me sad. You will feel the same, later on."

If the baron came in and found them talking like this, he would say:

"Jeanne, my dear, if you take my advice, you will burn all your letters--those from your mother, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more painful than to stir up the memories of one's youth when one is old."

But Jeanne, who had inherited her mother's sentimental instincts, though she differed from her in nearly everything else, carefully kept all her old letters to form a "souvenir-box" for her old age, also.

A few days after his arrival, business called the baron away again. The baroness soon began to get better, and Jeanne, forgetting Julien's infidelity and Gilberte's treachery, was almost perfectly happy. The weather was splendid. Mild, starlit nights followed the soft evenings, and dazzling sunrises commenced the glorious days. The fields were covered with bright, sweet-smelling flowers, and the vast calm sea glittered in the sun from morning till night.

One afternoon Jeanne went into the fields with Paul in her arms. She felt an exquisite gladness as she looked now at her son, now at the flowery hedgerows, and every minute she pressed her baby closely to her and kissed him. The earth exhaled a faint perfume, and, as she walked along, she felt as though her happiness were too great for her. Then she thought of her child's future. What would he be? Sometimes she hoped he would become a great and famous man. Sometimes she felt she would rather he remained with her, passing his life in tender devotion to his mother and unknown to the world. When she listened to the promptings of her mother's heart, she wished him to remain simply her adored son; but when she listened to her reason and her pride she hoped he would make a name and become something of importance in the world.

She sat down at the edge of a ditch and studied the child's face as if she had never really looked at it before. It seemed so strange to think that this little baby would grow up, and walk with manly strides, that these soft cheeks would become bearded, and the feeble murmur change to a deep-toned voice.

Someone called her, and, looking up, she saw Marius running towards her. Thinking he had come to announce some visitor, she got up, feeling vexed at being disturbed. The boy was running as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Madame!" he cried, when he was near enough to be heard. "Madame la baronne is very ill."

Jeanne ran quickly towards the house, feeling as if a douche of cold water had been poured down her spine. There was quite a little crowd standing under the plane tree, which opened to let her through as she rushed forward. There, in the midst, lay the baroness on the ground, her head supported by two pillows, her face black, her eyes closed, and her chest, which for the last twenty years had heaved so tumultuously, motionless. The child's nurse was standing there; she took him from his mother's arms, and carried him away.

"How did it happen? What made her fall?" asked Jeanne, looking up with haggard eyes. "Send for the doctor immediately."

As she turned she saw the curé; he at once offered his services, and, turning up his sleeves, began to rub the baroness with Eau de Cologne and vinegar; but she showed no signs of returning consciousness.

"She ought to be undressed and put to bed," said the priest; and, with his aid, Joseph Couillard, old Simon and Ludivine tried to raise the baroness.

As they lifted her, her head fell backwards, and her dress, which they were grasping, gave way under the dead weight of her huge body. They were obliged to lay her down again, and Jeanne shrieked with horror.

At last an armchair was brought from the drawing-room; the baroness was placed in it, carried slowly indoors, then upstairs, and laid on the bed. The cook was undressing her as best she could when the Widow Dentu came in, as if, like the priest, she had "smelt death," as the servants said. Joseph Couillard hurried off for the doctor, and the priest was going to fetch the holy oil, when the nurse whispered in his ear:

"You needn't trouble to go, Monsieur le curé. I have seen too much of death not to know that she is gone."

Jeanne, in desperation, begged them to tell her what she could do, what remedies they had better apply. The curé thought that anyhow he might pronounce an absolution, and for two hours they watched beside the lifeless, livid body, Jeanne, unable to contain her grief, sobbing aloud as she knelt beside the bed. When the door opened to admit the doctor, she thought that with him came safety and consolation and hope, and she rushed to meet him, trying to tell him, in a voice broken with sobs, all the details of the catastrophe.

"She was walking--like she does every day--and she seemed quite well, better even--than usual. She had eaten some soup and two eggs for lunch, and--quite suddenly, without any warning she fell--and turned black, like she is now; she has not moved since, and we have--tried everything to restore her to consciousness--everything--"

She stopped abruptly for she saw the nurse making a sign to the doctor to intimate that it was all over. Then she refused to understand the gesture, and went on anxiously:

"Is it anything serious? Do you think there is any danger?"

He answered at last:

"I very much fear that--that life is extinct. Be brave and try to bear up."

For an answer Jeanne opened her arms, and threw herself on her mother's body. Julien came in. He made no sign of grief or pity, but stood looking simply vexed; he had been taken too much by surprise to at once assume an expression of sorrow.

"I expected it," he whispered. "I knew she could not live long."

He drew out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down and crossed himself as he mumbled something, then rose and attempted to raise his wife. She was clinging to the corpse, almost lying on it as she passionately kissed it; they had to drag her away for she was nearly mad with grief, and she was not allowed to go back for an hour.

Then every shadow of hope had vanished, and the room had been arranged fittingly for its dead occupant. The day was drawing to a close, and Julien and the priest were standing near one of the windows, talking in whispers. The Widow Dentu, thoroughly accustomed to death, was already comfortably dozing in an armchair. The curé went to meet Jeanne as she came into the room, and taking both her hands in his, he exhorted her to be brave under this sorrow, and attempted to comfort her with the consolation of religion. Then he spoke of her dead mother's good life, and offered to pass the night in prayers beside the body.

But Jeanne refused this offer as well as she could for her tears. She wanted to be alone, quite alone, with her mother this last night.

"That cannot be," interposed Julien; "we will watch beside her together."

She shook her head, unable to speak for some moments; then she said:

"She was my mother, and I want to watch beside her alone."

"Let her do as she wants," whispered the doctor; "the nurse can stay in the next room," and Julien and the priest, thinking of their night's rest, gave in.

The Abbé Picot knelt down, prayed for a few moments, then rose and went out of the room, saying, "She was a saintly woman," in the same tone as he always said, "Dominus vobiscum."

"Won't you have some dinner?" asked the vicomte in a perfectly ordinary voice.

Jeanne, not thinking he was speaking to her, made no answer.

"You would feel much better if you would eat something," he went on again.

"Let someone go for papa, directly," she said as if she had not heard what he said; and he went out of the room to dispatch a mounted messenger to Rouen.

Jeanne sank into a sort of stupor, as if she were waiting to give way to her passion of regret until she should be alone with her mother. The room became filled with shadows. The Widow Dentu moved noiselessly about, arranging everything for the night, and at last lighted two candles which she placed at the head of the bed on a small table covered with a white cloth. Jeanne seemed unconscious of everything; she was waiting until she should be alone.

When he had dined, Julien came upstairs again and asked for the second time:

"Won't you have something to eat?"

His wife shook her head, and he sat down looking more resigned than sad, and did not say anything more. They all three sat apart from one another; the nurse dropped off to sleep every now and then, snored for a little while, then awoke with a start. After some time Julien rose and went over to his wife.

"Do you still want to be left alone?" he asked.

She eagerly took his hand in hers: "Oh, yes; do leave me," she answered.

He kissed her on the forehead, whispered, "I shall come and see you during the night," then went away with the Widow Dentu, who wheeled her armchair into the next room.

Jeanne closed the door and put both windows wide open. A warm breeze, laden with the sweet smell of the hay, blew into the room, and on the lawn, which had been mown the day before, she could see the heaps of dry grass lying in the moonlight. She turned away from the window and went back to the bed, for the soft, beautiful night seemed to mock her grief.

Her mother was no longer swollen as she had been when she died; she looked simply asleep, only her sleep was more peaceful than it had ever been before; the wind made the candles flicker, and the changing shadows made the dead face look as though it moved and lived again. As Jeanne gazed at it the memories of her early childhood came crowding into her mind. She could see again her mother sitting in the convent parlor, holding out the bag of cakes she had brought for her little girl; she thought of all her little ways, her affectionate words, the way she used to move, the wrinkles that came round her eyes when she laughed, the deep sigh she always heaved when she sat down, and all her little, daily habits, and as she stood gazing at the dead body she kept repeating, almost mechanically: "She is dead; she is dead;" until at last she realized all the horror of that word.

The woman who was lying there--mamma--little mother--Madame Adélaïde, was dead! She would never move, never speak, never laugh, never say, "Good morning, Jeannette"; never sit opposite her husband at the dinner table again. She was dead. She would be enclosed in a coffin, placed beneath the ground, and that would be the end; they would never see her again. It could not be possible! What! She, her daughter, had now no mother! Had she indeed lost for ever this dear face, the first she had ever looked upon, the first she had ever loved, this kindly loving mother, whose place in her heart could never be filled? And in a few hours even this still, unconscious face would have vanished, and then there would be nothing left her but a memory. She fell on her knees in despair, wringing her hands and pressing her lips to the bed.

"Oh, mother, mother! My darling mother!" she cried, in a broken voice which was stifled by the bed-covering.

She felt she was going mad; mad, like the night she had fled into the snow. She rushed to the window to breathe the fresh air which had not passed over the corpse or the bed on which it lay. The new-mown hay, the trees, the waste land and the distant sea lay peacefully sleeping in the moonlight, and the tears welled up into Jeanne's eyes as she looked out into the clear, calm night. She went back to her seat by the bedside and held her mother's dead hand in hers, as if she were lying ill instead of dead. Attracted by the lighted candles, a big, winged insect had entered through the open window and was flying about the room, dashing against the wall at every moment with a faint thud. It disturbed Jeanne, and she looked up to see where it was, but she could only see its shadow moving over the white ceiling.

Its buzzing suddenly ceased, and then, besides the regular ticking of the clock, Jeanne noticed another fainter rustling noise. It was the ticking of her mother's watch, which had been forgotten when her dress had been taken off and thrown at the foot of the bed, and the idea of this little piece of mechanism still moving while her mother lay dead, sent a fresh pang of anguish through her heart. She looked at the time. It was hardly half-past ten, and as she thought of the long night to come, she was seized with a horrible dread.

She began to think of her own life--of Rosalie, of Gilberte--of all her illusions which had been, one by one, so cruelly destroyed. Life contained nothing but misery and pain, misfortune and death; there was nothing true, nothing honest, nothing but what gave rise to suffering and tears. Repose and happiness could only be expected in another existence, when the soul had been delivered from its early trials. Her thoughts turned to the unfathomable mystery of the soul, but, as she reasoned about it, her poetic theories were invariably upset by others, just as poetic and just as unreal. Where was now her mother's soul, the soul which had forsaken this still, cold body? Perhaps it was far away, floating in space. But had it entirely vanished like the perfume from a withered flower, or was it wandering like some invisible bird freed from its cage? Had it returned to God, or was it scattered among the new germs of creation? It might be very near; perhaps in this very room, hovering around the inanimate body it had left, and at this thought Jeanne fancied she felt a breath, as if a spirit had passed by her. Her blood ran cold with terror; she did not dare turn round to look behind her, and she sat motionless, her heart beating wildly.

At that moment the invisible insect again commenced its buzzing, noisy flight, and Jeanne trembled from head to foot at the sound. Then, as she recognized the noise, she felt a little reassured, and rose and looked around. Her eyes fell on the escritoire with the sphinxes' heads, the guardian of the "souvenirs." As she looked at it she thought it would be fulfilling a sacred, filial duty, which would please her mother as she looked down on her from another world, to read these letters, as she might have done a holy book during this last watch.

She knew it was the correspondence of her grandfather and grandmother, whom she had never known; and it seemed as if her hands would join theirs across her mother's corpse, and so a sacred chain of affection would be formed between those who had died so long ago, their daughter who had but just joined them, and her child who was still on earth.

She opened the escritoire and took out the letters; they had been carefully tied into ten little packets, which were laid side by side in the lowest drawer. A refinement of sentimentality prompted her to place them all on the bed in the baroness's arms; then she began to read.

They were old-fashioned letters with the perfume of another century about them, such as are treasured up in every family. The first commenced "My dearie"; another "My little darling"; then came some beginning "My pet"--"My beloved daughter," then "My dear child"--"My dear Adélaïde"--"My dear daughter," the commencements varying as the letters had been addressed to the child, the young girl, and, later on, to the young wife. They were all full of foolish, loving phrases, and news about a thousand insignificant, homely events, which, to a stranger, would have seemed too trivial to mention: "Father has an influenza; Hortense has burnt her finger; Croquerat, the cat, is dead; the fir tree which stood on the right-hand side of the gate has been cut down; mother lost her mass book as she was coming home from church, she thinks someone must have stolen it," and they talked about people whom Jeanne had never known, but whose names were vaguely familiar to her.

She was touched by these simple details which seemed to reveal all her mother's life and inmost thoughts to her. She looked at the corpse as it lay there, and suddenly she began to read the letters aloud, as though to console and gladden the dead heart once more; and a smile of happiness seemed to light up the face. As she finished reading them, Jeanne threw the letters on the foot of the bed, resolving to place them all in her mother's coffin.

She untied another packet. These were in another handwriting, and the first ran thus:

"I cannot live without your kisses. I love you madly."

There was nothing more, not even a signature. Jeanne turned the paper over, unable to understand it. It was addressed clearly enough to "Madame la baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."

She opened the next:

"Come to-night as soon as he has gone out. We shall have at least
one hour together. I adore you."

A third:

"I have passed a night of longing and anguish. I fancied you in my
arms, your mouth quivering beneath mine, your eyes looking into my
eyes. And then I could have dashed myself from the window, as I
thought that, at that very moment, you were sleeping beside him, at
the mercy of his caresses."

Jeanne stopped in amazement. What did it all mean? To whom were these words of love addressed? She read on, finding in every letter the same distracted phrases, the same assignations, the same cautions, and, at the end, always the five words: "Above all, burn this letter." At last she came to an ordinary note, merely accepting an invitation to dinner; it was signed "Paul d'Ennemare." Why, that was the man of whom the baron still spoke as "Poor old Paul," and whose wife had been the baroness's dearest friend!

Then into Jeanne's mind came a suspicion which at once changed to a certainty--he had been her mother's lover! With a sudden gesture of loathing, she threw from her all these odious letters, as she would have shaken off some venomous reptile, and, running to the window, she wept bitterly. All her strength seemed to have left her; she sank on the ground, and, hiding her face in the curtains to stifle her moans, she sobbed in an agony of despair. She would have crouched there the whole night if the sound of someone moving in the next room had not made her start to her feet. Perhaps it was her father! And all these letters were lying on the bed and on the floor! He had only to come in and open one, and he would know all!

She seized all the old, yellow papers--her grandparents' epistles, the love letters, those she had not unfolded, those that were still lying in the drawer--and threw them all into the fireplace. Then she took one of the candles which were burning on the little table, and set fire to this heap of paper. A bright flame sprang up at once, lighting up the room, the bed and the corpse with a bright, flickering light, and casting on the white bed-curtain a dark, trembling shadow of the rigid face and huge body.

When there was nothing left but a heap of ashes in the bottom of the grate, Jeanne went and sat by the window, as though now she dare not sit by the corpse. The tears streamed from her eyes, and, hiding her face in her hands, she moaned out in heartbroken tones: "Oh, poor mamma! Poor mamma!"

Then a terrible thought came to her: Suppose her mother, by some strange chance, was not dead; suppose she was only in a trance-like sleep and should suddenly rise and speak! Would not the knowledge of this horrible secret lessen her, Jeanne's, love for her mother? Should she be able to kiss her with the same respect, and regard her with the same esteem as before? No! She knew it would be impossible; and the thought almost broke her heart.

The night wore on; the stars were fading, and a cool breeze sprang up. The moon was slowly sinking towards the sea over which she was shedding her silver light, and the memory of that other night she had passed at the window, the night of her return from the convent, came back to Jeanne. Ah! how far away was that happy time! How changed everything was, and what a different future lay before her from what she had pictured then! Over the sky crept a faint, tender tinge of pink, and the brilliant dawn seemed strange and unnatural to her, as she wondered how such glorious sunrises could illumine a world in which there was no joy or happiness.

A slight sound startled her, and looking round she saw Julien.

"Well, are you not very tired?" he said.

"No," she answered, feeling glad that her lonely vigil had come to an end.

"Now go and rest," said her husband.

She pressed a long sorrowful kiss on her mother's face; then left the room.

That day passed in attending to those melancholy duties that always surround a death; the baron came in the evening, and cried a great deal over his wife. The next day the funeral took place; Jeanne pressed her lips to the clammy forehead for the last time, drew the sheet once more over the still face, saw the coffin fastened down, and then went to await the people who were to attend the funeral.

Gilberte arrived first, and threw herself into Jeanne's arms, sobbing violently. The carriages began to drive up, and voices were heard in the hall. The room gradually filled with women with whom Jeanne was not acquainted; then the Marquise de Coutelier and the Vicomtesse de Briseville arrived, and went up to her and kissed her. She suddenly perceived that Aunt Lison was in the room, and she gave her such an affectionate embrace, that the old maid was nearly overcome. Julien came in dressed in deep mourning; he seemed very busy, and very pleased that all these people had come. He whispered some question to his wife about the arrangements, and added in a low tone:

"It will be a very grand funeral; all the best families are here."

Then he went away again, bowing to the ladies as he passed down the room.

Aunt Lison and the Comtesse Gilberte stayed with Jeanne while the burial was taking place. The comtesse repeatedly kissed her, murmuring: "Poor darling, poor darling," and when the Comte de Fourville came to take his wife home, he wept as if he had lost his own mother.

* * * * *

X

The next few days were very sad, as they always must be directly after a death. The absence of the familiar face from its accustomed place makes the house seem empty, and each time the eye falls on anything the dear, dead one has had in constant use, a fresh pang of sorrow darts through the heart. There is the empty chair, the umbrella still standing in the hall, the glass which the maid has not yet washed. In every room there is something lying just as it was left for the last time; the scissors, an odd glove, the fingered book, the numberless other objects, which, insignificant in themselves, become a source of sharp pain because they recall so vividly the loved one who has passed away. And the voice rings in one's ears till it seems almost a reality, but there is no escape from the house haunted by this presence, for others are suffering also, and all must stay and suffer with each other.

In addition to her natural grief, Jeanne had to bear the pain of her discovery. She was always thinking of it, and the terrible secret increased her former sense of desolation tenfold, for now she felt that she could never put her trust or confidence in anyone again.

The baron soon went away, thinking to find relief from the grief which was deadening all his faculties in change of air and change of scene, and the household at Les Peuples resumed its quiet regular life again.

Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne passed twelve days in an agony of fear, unable to sleep and scarcely touching food. The boy got well, but there remained the thought that he might die. What should she do if he did? What would become of her? Gradually there came a vague longing for another child, and soon she could think of nothing else; she had always fancied she should like two children, a boy and a girl, and the idea of having a daughter haunted her. But since Rosalie had been sent away, she had lived quite apart from her husband, and at the present moment it seemed utterly impossible to renew their former relations. Julien's affections were centered elsewhere; she knew that; and, on her side, the mere thought of having to submit to his caresses again, made her shudder with disgust.

Still, she would have overcome her repugnance (so tormented was she by the desire of another child) if she could have seen any way to bring about the intimacy she desired; but she would have died rather than let her husband guess what was in her thoughts, and he never seemed to dream of approaching her now. Perhaps she would have given up the idea had not each night the vision of a daughter playing with Paul under the plane tree appeared to her. Sometimes she felt she _must_ get up and join her husband in his room; twice, in fact, she did glide to his door, but each time she came back, without having turned the handle, her face burning with shame.

The baron was away, her mother was dead, and she had no one to whom she could confide this delicate secret. She made up her mind, at last, to tell the Abbé Picot her difficulty, under the seal of confession. She went to him one day and found him in his little garden, reading his breviary among the fruit trees. She talked to him for a few minutes about one thing and another, then, "Monsieur l'abbé, I want to confess," she said, with a deep blush.

He put on his spectacles to look at her better, for the request astonished him. "I don't think you can have any very heavy sins on your conscience," he said, with a smile.

"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject so--so painful to enter upon, that I dare not talk about it in an ordinary way," she replied, feeling very confused.

He put on his priestly air immediately.

"Very well, my daughter, come to the confessional, and I will hear you there."

But she suddenly felt a scruple at talking of such things in the quietness of an empty church.

"No, Monsieur le curé--after all--if you will let me--I can tell you here what I want to say. See, we will go and sit in your little arbor over there."

As they walked slowly over to the arbor she tried to find the words in which she could best begin her confidence. They sat down, and she commenced, as if she were confessing, "My father," then hesitated, said again, "My father," then stopped altogether, too ashamed to continue.

The priest crossed his hands over his stomach and waited for her to go on. "Well, my daughter," he said, perceiving her embarrassment, "you seem afraid to say what it is; come now, be brave."

"My father, I want to have another child," she said abruptly, like a coward throwing himself headlong into the danger he dreads.

The priest, hardly understanding what she meant, made no answer, and she tried to explain herself, but, in her confusion, her words became more and more difficult to understand.

"I am quite alone in life now; my father and my husband do not agree; my mother is dead, and--and--the other day I almost lost my son," she whispered with a shudder. "What would have become of me if he had died?"

The priest looked at her in bewilderment. "There, there; come to the point," he said.

"I want to have another child," she repeated.

The abbé was used to the coarse pleasantries of the peasants, who did not mind what they said before him, and he answered, with a sly smile and a knowing shake of the head: "Well, I don't think there need be much difficulty about that."

She raised her clear eyes to his and said, hesitatingly:

"But--but--don't you understand that since--since that trouble with--the--maid--my husband and I live--quite apart."

These words came as a revelation to the priest, accustomed as he was to the promiscuity and easy morals of the peasants. Then he thought he could guess what the young wife really wanted, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, pitying her, and sympathizing with her distress.

"Yes, yes, I know exactly what you mean. I can quite understand that you should find your--your widowhood hard to bear. You are young, healthy, and it is only natural; very natural." He began to smile, his lively nature getting the better of him. "Besides, the Church allows these feelings, sometimes," he went on, gently tapping Jeanne's hands. "What are we told? That carnal desires may be satisfied lawfully in wedlock only. Well, you are married, are you not?"

She, in her turn, had not at first understood what his words implied, but when his meaning dawned on her, her face became crimson, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh! Monsieur le curé, what do you mean? What do you think? I assure you--I assure--" and she could not continue for her sobs.

Her emotion surprised the abbé, and he tried to console her.

"There, there," he said; "I did not mean to pain you. I was only joking, and there's no harm in a joke between honest people. But leave it all in my hands, and I will speak to M. Julien."

She did not know what to say. She wished, now, that she could refuse his help, for she feared his want of tact would only increase her difficulties, but she did not dare say anything.

"Thank you, Monsieur le curé," she stammered; and then hurried away.

The next week was passed by Jeanne in an agony of doubts and fears. Then one evening, Julien watched her all through dinner with an amused smile on his lips, and evinced towards her a gallantry which was faintly tinged with irony. After dinner they walked up and down the baroness's avenue, and he whispered in her ear:

"Then we are going to be friends again?"

She made no answer, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground, where there was a straight line, hardly so thickly covered with grass as the rest of the path. It was the line traced by the baroness's foot, which was gradually being effaced, just as her memory was fading, and, as she looked at it, Jeanne's heart felt bursting with grief; she seemed so lonely, so separated from everybody.

"For my part, I am only too pleased," continued Julien. "I should have proposed it before, but I was afraid of displeasing you."

The sun was setting; it was a mild, soft evening, and Jeanne longed to rest her head on some loving heart, and there sob out her sorrows. She threw herself into Julien's arms, her breast heaving, and the tears streaming from her eyes. He looked at her in surprise, thinking this outburst was occasioned by the love she still felt for him, and, unable to see her face, he dropped a condescending kiss upon her hair. Then they went indoors in silence and he followed her to her room.

To him this renewal of their former relations was a duty, though hardly an unpleasant one, while she submitted to his embraces as a disgusting, painful necessity, and resolved to put an end to them for ever, as soon as her object was accomplished. Soon, however, she found that her husband's caresses were not like they used to be; they may have been more refined, they certainly were not so complete. He treated her like a careful lover, instead of being an easy husband.

"Why do you not give yourself up to me as you used to do?" she whispered one night, her lips close to his.

"To keep you out of the family way, of course," he answered, with a chuckle.

She started.

"Don't you wish for any more children, then?" she asked.

His amazement was so great, that, for a moment, he was silent; then:

"Eh? What do you say?" he exclaimed. "Are you in your right senses? Another child? I should think not, indeed! We've already got one too many, squalling and costing money, and bothering everybody. Another child! No, thank you!"

She clasped him in her arms, pressed her lips to his and murmured:

"Oh! I entreat you, make me a mother once more."

"Don't be so foolish," he replied, angrily. "Pray don't let me hear any more of this nonsense."

She said no more, but she resolved to trick him into giving her the happiness she desired. She tried to prolong her kisses, and threw her arms passionately around him, pressing him to her, and pretending a delirium of love she was very far from feeling. She tried every means to make him lose control over himself, but she never once succeeded.

Tormented more and more by her desire, driven to extremities, and ready to do or dare anything to gain her ends, she went again to the Abbé Picot. She found him just finishing lunch, with his face crimson from indigestion. He looked up as she came in, and, anxious to hear the result of his mediation:

"Well?" he exclaimed.

"My husband does not want any more children," she answered at once without any of the hesitation or shame-faced timidity she had shown before.

The abbé got very interested, and turned towards her, ready to hear once more of those secrets of wedded life, the revelation of which made the task of confessing so pleasant to him.

"How is that?" he asked.

In spite of her determination to tell him all, Jeanne hardly knew how to explain herself.

"He--he refuses--to make me a mother."

The priest understood at once; it was not the first time he had heard of such things, but he asked for all the details, and enjoyed them as a hungry man would a feast. When he had heard all, he reflected for a few moments, then said in the calm, matter-of-fact tone he might have used if he had been speaking of the best way to insure a good harvest.

"My dear child, the only thing you can do is to make your husband believe you are pregnant; then he will cease his precautions, and you will become so in reality."

Jeanne blushed to the roots of her hair, but, determined to be ready for every emergency, she argued:

"But--but suppose he should not believe me?"

The curé knew too well the ins and outs of human nature not to have an answer for that.

"Tell everybody you are _enceinte_. When he sees that everyone else believes it, he will soon believe it himself. You will be doing no wrong," he added, to quiet his conscience for advising this deception; "the Church does not permit any connection between man and woman, except for the purpose of procreation."

Jeanne followed the priest's artful device, and, a fortnight later, told Julien she thought she was _enceinte_. He started up.

"It isn't possible! You can't be!"

She gave him her reasons for thinking so.

"Bah!" he answered. "You wait a little while."

Every morning he asked, "Well?" but she always replied: "No, not yet; I am very much mistaken if I am not _enceinte_."

He also began to think so, and his surprise was only equaled by his annoyance.

"Well, I can't understand it," was all he could say. "I'll be hanged if I know how it can have happened."

At the end of a month she began to tell people the news, but she said nothing about it to the Comtesse Gilberte, for she felt an old feeling of delicacy in mentioning it to her. At the very first suspicion of his wife's pregnancy, Julien had ceased to touch her, then, angrily thinking, "Well, at any rate, this brat wasn't wanted," he made up his mind to make the best of it, and recommenced his visits to his wife's room. Everything happened as the priest had predicted, and Jeanne found she would a second time become a mother. Then, in a transport of joy, she took a vow of eternal chastity as a token of her rapturous gratitude to the distant divinity she adored, and thenceforth closed her door to her husband.

She again felt almost happy. She could hardly believe that it was barely two months since her mother had died, and that only such a short time before she had thought herself inconsolable. Now her wounded heart was nearly healed, and her grief had disappeared, while in its place was merely a vague melancholy, like the shadow of a great sorrow resting over her life. It seemed impossible that any other catastrophe could happen now; her children would grow up and surround her old age with their affection, and her husband could go his way while she went hers.

Towards the end of September the Abbé Picot came to the château, in a new cassock which had only one week's stains upon it, to introduce his successor, the Abbé Tolbiac. The latter was small, thin, and very young, with hollow, black-encircled eyes which betokened the depth and violence of his feelings, and a decisive way of speaking as if there could be no appeal from his opinion. The Abbé Picot had been appointed _doyen_ of Goderville. Jeanne felt very sad at the thought of his departure; he was connected, in her thoughts, with all the chief events of her life, for he had married her, christened Paul, and buried the baroness. She liked him because he was always good-tempered and unaffected, and she could not imagine Etouvent without the Abbé Picot's fat figure trotting past the farms. He himself did not seem very rejoiced at his advancement.

"I have been here eighteen years, Madame la Comtesse," he said, "and it grieves me to go to another place. Oh! this living is not worth much, I know, and as for the people--well, the men have no more religion than they ought to have, the women are not so moral as they might be, and the girls never dream of being married until it is too late for them to wear a wreath of orange blossoms; still, I love the place."

The new curé had been fidgeting impatiently during this speech, and his face had turned very red.

"I shall soon have all that changed," he said, abruptly, as soon as the other priest had finished speaking; and he looked like an angry child in his worn but spotless cassock, so thin and small was he.

The Abbé Picot looked at him sideways, as he always did when anything amused him.

"Listen, l'abbé," he said. "You will have to chain up your parishioners if you want to prevent that sort of thing; and I don't believe even that would be any good."

"We shall see," answered the little priest in a cutting tone.

The old curé smiled and slowly took a pinch of snuff.

"Age and experience will alter your views, l'abbé; if they don't you will only estrange the few good Churchmen you have. When I see a girl come to mass with a waist bigger than it ought to be, I say to myself--'Well, she is going to give me another soul to look after;'--and I try to marry her. You can't prevent them going wrong, but you can find out the father of the child and prevent him forsaking the mother. Marry them, l'abbé, marry them, and don't trouble yourself about anything else."