Part 23

"It is too stupid, indeed!" said he. "One should not be as stupid as that!"

"And that is all you find to say to me?"

"What else do you expect me to say to you? I say that it is stupid. There is nothing else to say."

"And you? What are you going to do?"

He looked at me obliquely. There was a sneer on his lips. Ah! how ugly was his look, in that moment of distress; how ugly and hideous was his mouth!

"I?" said he, pretending not to understand that, in this question, there were prayers for him.

"Yes, you. I asked you what you were going to do."

"Nothing. I have nothing to do. I am going to continue. Why, you are crazy, my girl. You do not expect...."

I burst out:

"You are going to have the courage to remain in a house from which I am driven out?"

He rose, relighted his cigarette, and said, icily:

"Oh! no scene, you know. I am not your husband. You have seen fit to commit a stupidity. I am not responsible for it. What do you expect? You must take the consequences. Life is life."

I became indignant.

"Then you are going to drop me? You are a wretch, a scoundrel, like the others, do you know it?"

William smiled. He was really a superior man.

"Oh! don't say useless things. I have made you no promises. Nor have you made me any. People meet; that is well. They part; that is well, too. Life is life."

And he added, sententiously:

"You see, Célestine, in life there must be conduct; there must be what I call administration. You have no conduct; you have no administration. You allow yourself to be carried away by your nerves. In our business nerves are a very bad thing. Remember this well: life is life."

I think I should have thrown myself upon him and torn his face, his emotionless and cowardly face of a flunky, with furious digs of my nails, if tears had not suddenly come to soften and relax my overstrained nerves. My wrath fell, and I begged:

"Oh! William! William! my little William! my dear little William! how unhappy I am!"

William tried to revive my drooping spirits a little. I must say that he made use of all his powers of persuasion and all his philosophy. During the day he generously overwhelmed me with lofty thoughts, with grave and consoling aphorisms, in which these words, provoking and soothing at the same time, continually recurred:

"Life is life."

I must do him justice. This last day he was charming, though a little too solemn, and he did things very well. In the evening, after dinner, he put my trunks on a cab, and escorted me to a lodging-house where he was known, paying a week's rent in advance out of his own pocket, and recommending the proprietor to take good care of me. But he could not stay himself, for he had an appointment with Edgar!

"You understand, of course, that I cannot disappoint Edgar. And perhaps, too, he might know of a place for you. A place gotten through Edgar,--ah! that would be astonishing."

On leaving me, he said:

"I will come to see you to-morrow. Be wise; no more stupidities. They do you no good. And get this truth well into your head, Célestine,--that life is life!"

The next day I waited for him in vain. He did not come.

"It is life," I said to myself.

But the following day, being impatient to see him, I went to the house. I found in the kitchen only a tall blonde girl, bold and pretty,--prettier than I.

"Eugénie is not here?" I asked.

"No, she is not here," answered the tall girl, dryly.

"And William?"

"Nor William either."

"Where is he?"

"How do I know?"

"I want to see him. Go tell him I want to see him."

The tall girl looked at me scornfully.

"Say, am I your servant?"

I understood it all. And, being tired of struggling, I went away.

"It is life."

This phrase pursued me, obsessed me, like a music-hall refrain.

And, as I went away, I could not help thinking, not without a feeling of sorrowful melancholy, of the joy with which I had been welcomed in that house. The same scene must have taken place. They had opened the usual bottle of champagne. William had taken the blonde girl on his knees, and had whispered in her ear:

"You will have to be nice with Baby."

The same words, the same movements, the same caresses, while Eugénie, devouring the janitor's son with her eyes, led him into the adjoining room.

"Your little phiz, your little hands, your big eyes!"

I walked on, utterly irresolute and stupefied, repeating to myself with stupid obstinacy:

"Yes, indeed, it is life; it is life."

For more than an hour, in front of the door, I paced up and down the sidewalk, hoping that William might come in or go out. I saw the grocer enter, a little milliner with two big band-boxes, and the delivery-man from the Louvre; I saw the plumbers come out, and I know not who or what else,--shades, shades, shades. I did not dare to go into the janitor's lodge in the next house. The janitress undoubtedly would not have received me well. And what would she have said to me? Then I went away for good, still pursued by the irritating refrain:

"It is life."

The streets seemed to me intolerably sad. The passers-by made upon me the impression of spectres. When I saw in the distance a hat shining on a gentleman's head, like a light-house in the night, like a gilded cupola in the sunshine, my heart leaped. But it was never William. In the lowering, pewter-colored sky, no hope was shining.

I returned to my room, disgusted with everything.

Ah! yes, the men! Be they coachmen, _valets_, dudes, priests, or poets, they are all the same. Low-lived wretches!

I think that these are the last recollections that I shall call up. I have others, however,--many others. But they all resemble each other, and it tires me to continually write the same stories, and to unroll, in a continuous and monotonous panorama, the same faces, the same souls, the same phantoms. And then I feel that I have no mind left for it, for I am becoming more and more distracted from the ashes of this past by the new preoccupations of my future. I could have told also of my stay in the Countess Fardin's mansion. But what is the use? I am too weary, and also too distressed. There, amid the same social phenomena, there was one vanity that disgusts me more than any other,--literary vanity; one species of stupidity that is lower than any other,--political stupidity.

There I knew M. Paul Bourget in all his glory; it is needless to say more. Ah! there you have the philosopher, the poet, the moralist, befitting the pretentious nullity, the intellectual hollowness, the falsehood, of that sphere of society in which everything is artificial,--elegance, love, cooking, religious feeling, patriotism, art, charity, and vice itself, which, making a pretext of politeness and literature, wraps itself in mystical tinsel and covers itself with sacred masks; that sphere of society in which there is to be found but one sincere desire,--the fierce desire for money, which gives to these ridiculous mountebanks something even more odious and grim than their ridiculousness. That is the only thing that makes of these poor phantoms living human creatures.

There I knew Monsieur Jean, he too a psychologist and a moralist, a moralist of the servants' hall, a psychologist of the ante-room, scarcely more of a _parvenu_ in his way, or more of a ninny, than he who reigned in the _salon_. Monsieur Jean emptied chamber-vessels; M. Paul Bourget emptied souls. Between the servants' hall and the _salon_ there is not such a distance of servitude as we think. But, since I have put Monsieur Jean's photograph in the bottom of my trunk, let his memory remain, similarly buried, in the bottom of my heart, under a thick layer of oblivion.

It is two o'clock in the morning. My fire is going out, my lamp is smoking, and I have no more wood or oil. I am going to bed. But there is too much fever in my brain; I shall not sleep. I shall dream of him who is on the way to me. I shall dream of what is to happen to-morrow. Outside, the night is calm and silent. A sharp, cold air is hardening the ground, beneath a sky sparkling with stars. And somewhere in this night Joseph is on his way. Through space I see him,--yes, really, I see him, serious, dreaming, enormous, in his compartment in a railway carriage. He is smiling at me; he is drawing nearer to me; he is coming toward me. He is bringing me, at last, peace, liberty, happiness. Happiness?

I shall see him to-morrow.

XVII

It is eight months since I have written a single line in this diary,--I have had something else to do and to think of,--and it is exactly three months since Joseph and I left the Priory, and established ourselves in the little café at Cherbourg, near the harbor. We are married; business is good; I like the trade; I am happy. Born by the sea, I have come back to the sea. I did not miss it, but it gives me pleasure, all the same, to find it again. Here one does not see the desolate landscapes of Audierne, the infinite sadness of its coasts, the magnificent horror of its beaches that howl so mournfully. Here nothing is sad; on the contrary, everything contributes to gaiety. There is the joyous sound of a military city, the picturesque movement and varied activity of a military harbor. Crowds in a hurry to enjoy between two periods of far-off exile; spectacles incessantly changing and diverting, in which I inhale that natal odor of coal tar and sea-weed which I love, although I never found it agreeable in my childhood. I have seen again the lads of my native province, now serving on State men-of-war. We have scarcely talked together, and I have not dreamed of asking them for news of my brother. It is so long ago! To me it is as if he were dead. Good day!... good evening!... be good. When they are not drunk, they are too stupid. When they are not stupid, they are too drunk. And they have heads like those of old fishes. Between them and me there has been no other emotion, no other effusion. Besides, Joseph does not like me to be familiar with simple seamen, dirty Bretons who haven't a sou, and who get drunk on a glass of kill-me-quick.

But I must relate briefly the events that preceded our departure from the Priory.

It will be remembered that, at the Priory, Joseph slept in the out-buildings, over the harness-room. Every day, summer and winter, he rose at five o'clock. Now, on the morning of December 24, just a month after his return from Cherbourg, he noticed that the kitchen-door was wide open.

"What!" said he to himself. "Can they have risen already?"

He noticed at the same time that a square of glass had been cut out of the glass door, with a diamond, near the lock, in such a way as to admit the introduction of an arm. The lock had been forced by expert hands. Bits of wood, glass, and twisted iron were strewn along the stone flagging. Within, all the doors, so carefully bolted at night under Madame's eyes, were open also. One felt that something frightful had happened. Greatly impressed,--I tell the story of his discovery as he told it himself before the magistrates,--Joseph passed through the kitchen, and then through the passage-way into which opened, at the right, the fruit-room, the bath-room, and the ante-room; at the left, the servants' hall, the dining-room, and the little _salon_; and, at the end, the grand _salon_. The dining-room presented a spectacle of frightful disorder, of real pillage. The furniture was upset; the sideboard had been ransacked from top to bottom; its drawers, as well as those of the two side-tables, were turned upside down on the carpet; and on the table, among empty boxes and a confused heap of valueless articles, a candle was burning itself out in a brass candlestick. But it was in the servants' hall that the spectacle became really imposing. In the servants' hall--I believe I have already noted the fact--there was a very deep closet, protected by a very complicated system of locks, the secret of which was known only to Madame. There slept the famous and venerable silver service, in three heavy boxes, with steel corners and cross-pieces. The boxes were screwed to the floor, and held fast against the wall by solid iron clamps. But now the three boxes, torn from their mysterious and inviolable tabernacle, lay yawning and empty, in the middle of the room. At sight of these, Joseph gave the alarm. With all the strength of his lungs, he shouted up the stairs:

"Madame! Monsieur! Come down right away. We are robbed! we are robbed!"

There was a sudden avalanche, a frightful plunge down the stairs. Madame, in her chemise, with her shoulders scarcely covered by a light neckkerchief. Monsieur, in his drawers and shirt. And both of them, dishevelled, pale, and grimacing, as if they had been awakened in the middle of a nightmare, shouted:

"What is the matter? What is the matter?"

"We are robbed! we are robbed!"

"We are robbed, what? We are robbed, what?"

In the dining-room, Madame groaned:

"My God! My God!"

While, with distorted mouth, Monsieur continued to scream:

"We are robbed, what? what?"

Guided by Joseph into the servants' hall, Madame, at sight of the three boxes unsealed, made a great gesture, uttered a great cry:

"My silver service! My God! Is it possible? My silver service!"

And, lifting the empty compartments, and turning the empty cases upside down, she sank, frightened and horrified, upon the floor. Scarcely had she strength enough to stammer, in the voice of a child:

"They have taken everything! They have taken everything ... everything ... everything ... everything! Even the Louis XVI cruet."

While Madame was looking at the boxes as if she were looking at a dead child, Monsieur, scratching his neck, and rolling haggard eyes, moaned persistently in the far-away voice of a demented person:

"Name of a dog! Ah! name of a dog! Name of a dog of name of a dog!"

And Joseph, too, with atrocious grimaces, was exclaiming:

"The cruet of Louis XVI! The cruet of Louis XVI! Oh! the bandits!"

Then there was a minute of tragic silence, a long minute of prostration,--that silence of death, that prostration of beings and things, which follows the fracas of a terrible downfall, the thunder of a great cataclysm. And the lantern, swinging in Joseph's hands, cast a red, trembling, sinister gleam over the whole scene, over the dead faces and the empty boxes.

I had come down, in response to Joseph's call, at the same time as the masters. In presence of this disaster, and in spite of the prodigious comicality of these faces, my first feeling was one of compassion. It seemed to me that this misfortune fell upon me too, and that I was one of the family, sharing its trials and sorrows. I should have liked to speak consoling words to Madame, whose dejected attitude it gave me pain to see. But this impression of solidarity or of servitude quickly vanished.

In crime there is something violent, solemn, justiciary, religious, which frightens me, to be sure, but which also leaves in me--how shall I express it?--a feeling of admiration. No, not of admiration, since admiration is a moral feeling, a spiritual excitement, whereas that which I feel influences and excites only my flesh. It is like a brutal shock throughout my physical being, at once painful and delicious,--a sorrowful and swooning rape of my sex. It is curious, doubtless it is peculiar, perhaps it is horrible,--and I cannot explain the real cause of these strange and powerful sensations,--but in me every crime, especially murder, has secret relationships with love. Yes, indeed! A fine crime takes hold of me just as a fine man does.

I must say that further reflection suddenly transformed into a hilarious gaiety, a childish content, that grave, atrocious, and powerful enjoyment of crime which succeeded the impulse to pity that at first so inappropriately startled my heart. I thought:

"Here are two beings who live like moles, like larvæ. Like voluntary prisoners, they have voluntarily shut themselves up in the jail of these inhospitable walls. All that constitutes the joy of life, the smile of a house, they repress as something superfluous. Against everything that could excuse their wealth, and pardon their human uselessness, they guard as they would guard against filth. They let nothing fall from their parsimonious table to satisfy the hunger of the poor; they let nothing fall from their dry hearts to relieve the pain of the suffering. They even economize in making provision for their own happiness. And should I pity them? Oh! no. It is justice that has overtaken them. In stripping them of a portion of their goods, in giving air to the buried treasures, the good thieves have restored equilibrium. What I regret is that they did not leave these two maleficent beings totally naked and miserable, more destitute than the vagabond who so often begged at their door in vain, sicker than the abandoned creature dying by the roadside, within two steps of this hidden and accursed wealth."

This idea of my masters, with wallets on their backs, having to drag their lamentable rags and their bleeding feet over the stony highways, and to stand with outstretched hands at the implacable threshold of the evil-minded rich, enchanted me, and filled me with gaiety. But my gaiety became more direct, and more intense, and more hateful, as I surveyed Madame, stranded beside her empty boxes, deader than if she had been really dead,--for she was conscious of this death, the most horrible death conceivable to a being who had never loved anything but the valuation in money of those invaluable things,--our pleasures, our caprices, our charities, our love, the divine luxury of the soul. This shameful sorrow, this crapulous dejection, was also a revenge for the humiliations and severities that I have undergone, that came to me from her, in every word that issued from her mouth, in every look that fell from her eyes. This deliciously grim enjoyment I tasted to the full. I would have liked to cry out: "Well done! Well done!" And, above all, I would have liked to know these admirable and sublime thieves, in order to thank them in the name of all the ragamuffins, and to embrace them, as brothers. Oh! good thieves, dear figures of justice and pity, through what a series of intense and delightful sensations you have made me pass!

Madame was not slow in recovering her self-possession. Her combative, aggressive nature suddenly reawakened in all its violence.

"And what are you doing here?" she said to Monsieur, in a tone of anger and supreme scorn. "Why are you here? How ridiculous you are, with your big puffy face, and in your shirt-tail! Do you think that will get us back our silver service? Come! shake yourself; stir yourself; try to understand. Go for the police, for the justice of the peace. Ought they not to have been here long ago? Oh! my God! what a man!"

Monsieur, with bent back, started to go. She interrupted him:

"And how is it that you heard nothing? What! they turn the house upside down, break in doors, force locks, empty walls and boxes, and you hear nothing? What are you good for, big blockhead?"

Monsieur ventured to answer:

"But you, too, my pet, you did not hear anything."

"I? It is not the same thing. Is it not a man's business to hear? And besides, you provoke me. Clear out!"

And, as Monsieur went up-stairs to dress, Madame turned her fury upon us.

"And you? What are you doing, standing there like so many bundles, and looking at me? It is all the same to you, I suppose, whether your masters are plundered or not? And you too heard nothing? What luck! It is charming to have such servants. You think of nothing but eating and drinking, pack of brutes that you are!"

Then, addressing Joseph directly, she asked:

"Why didn't the dogs bark? Say, why not?"

This question seemed to embarrass Joseph for a fraction of a second, but he quickly recovered himself.

"I don't know, Madame," said he, in a most natural tone. "It is true that the dogs didn't bark. That is curious, indeed!"

"Did you let them loose last night?"

"Certainly I let them loose, as I do every night. That is curious! Yes, indeed! that is curious! It must be that the robbers knew the house ... and the dogs."

"Well, Joseph, how is it that you, so devoted and punctual as a rule, did not hear anything?"

"It is true that I heard nothing. That is another singular thing. For I do not sleep soundly. If a cat crosses the garden, I hear it. It is not natural, all the same. And those confounded dogs especially! Indeed, indeed!"

Madame interrupted Joseph:

"Stop! Leave me in peace. You are brutes, all of you! And Marianne. Where is Marianne? Why isn't she here? She is sleeping like a chump, undoubtedly."

And, going out of the servants' hall, she called up the stairs:

"Marianne! Marianne!"

I looked at Joseph, who looked at the boxes. Joseph's face wore a grave expression. There was a sort of mystery in his eyes.

I will not try to describe this day, with all its varied incidents and follies. The prosecuting attorney, summoned by dispatch, came in the afternoon, and began his investigation. Joseph, Marianne, and I were questioned, one after the other,--the first two for the sake of form, I with a hostile persistence which was extremely disagreeable to me. They visited my room, and searched my commode and my trunks. My correspondence was examined in detail. Thanks to a piece of good luck that I bless, the manuscript of my diary escaped them. A few days before the event I had sent it to Cléclé, from whom I had received an affectionate letter. But for that the magistrates perhaps would have found in these pages a foundation for a charge against Joseph, or at least for suspicion of him. I still tremble at the thought of it. It goes without saying that they also examined the garden paths, the platbands, the walls, the openings in the hedges, and the little yard leading to the lane, in the hope of finding foot-prints and traces of wall-scaling. But the ground was very dry and hard; it was impossible to discover the slightest imprint, the slightest clue. The fence, the walls, the openings in the hedges, kept their secret jealously. Just as in the case of the outrage in the woods, the people of the neighborhood hurried forward, asking to testify. One had seen a man of light complexion "whose looks he did not like;" another had seen a man of dark complexion "who had a funny air." In short, the investigation proved fruitless. No scent, no suspicion.

"We shall have to wait," declared the prosecuting attorney, mysteriously, as he left that night. "Perhaps the Paris police will put us on the track of the guilty."

During this fatiguing day, amid the goings and comings, I had scarcely the leisure to think of the consequences of this drama, which for the first time put a little animation and life into this dismal Priory. Madame did not give us a minute's rest; we had to run hither and thither,--without reason, moreover, for Madame had lost her head a little. As for Marianne, she seemed to take no notice of anything, and to be unaware that anything had happened to upset the house. Like the sad Eugénie, she followed her own idea, and her own idea was very far from our preoccupations. When Monsieur appeared in the kitchen, she became suddenly like one intoxicated, and she looked at him with ecstatic eyes.

"Oh! your big phiz! Your big hands! Your big eyes!"

In the evening, after a silent dinner, I had an opportunity to reflect. The idea had struck me immediately, and now it was fortified within me, that Joseph was not a stranger to this bold robbery. I even went so far as to hope that between his Cherbourg trip and the preparation of this audacious and incomparably executed stroke there had been an evident connection. And I remembered the answer he made to me, on the eve of his departure:

"That depends ... on a very important matter."

Although he endeavored to appear natural, I perceived in his movements, in his attitude, in his silence, an unusual embarrassment, visible only to me.