Chapter 18

"Listen to me, papa," she said, the following morning. "We are going to leave here at the end of September; that's settled, isn't it? We are going everywhere, a month to one place and a fortnight to another--just as we fancy. Well, _I_ want you to take me now to all the places where you fought. Do you know, I've heard that you fell in love with a princess? Suppose we were to come across her again, what should you say to that? Wasn't it at Pordenone that you got those great scars?" And, taking her father's face in her two hands, she pressed her lips to the white, hollow places which had been marked by the finger of Glory.

"I want you to tell me all about everything," she continued; "it will be ever so nice to go all through your campaigns again with your daughter. If one winter will not be enough for it all, why, we'll just take two. And when I'm quite myself again--we are quite rich enough surely, Henriette and I; you've worked hard enough for us--well, we'll just sell the refinery, and we'll all come here. We'll go to Paris for two months of the year to enjoy ourselves; that will be quite enough, won't it? Then as you always like to have something to do, you can take your farm again from Têtevuide's son-in-law. We'll have some cows and a nice farm-yard for mamma--do you hear, mamma? I shall be outdoors all day; and the end of it will be that I shall get _too_ well--you'll see. And then we'll have people to visit us all the time. In the country we can allow ourselves that little luxury--that won't ruin us--and we shall be as happy, as happy--you'll see."

Travelling and plans of all kinds--she talked of nothing but the future now. She spoke of it as of a promised thing, a certainty. It was she, now, who made every one hopeful, and she concealed the fact that she was dying so skilfully and pretended so well that she wanted to live, that M. Mauperin on seeing her and listening to her dreams, gave himself up to dreaming with her of years which they had before them and which would be full of peace, tranquility, and happiness. Sometimes, even, the illusions that the invalid had invented herself dazzled her too, for an instant, and she would begin to believe in her own fiction, forget herself for a moment and, quite deceived like the others, she would say to herself, "Suppose, after all, that I should get well!" At other times she would delight in going back to the past. She would tell about things that had happened, about her own feelings, funny incidents that she remembered, or she would talk about her childish pleasures. It was as though she had risen from her death-bed to embrace her father for the last time with all she could muster of her youth.

"Oh, my first ball-dress," she said to him one day; "I can see it now--it was a pink tulle one. The dressmaker didn't bring it--- it was raining--and we couldn't get a cab. How you did hurry along! And how queer you looked when you came back carrying a cardboard box! And you were so wet when you kissed me! I remember it all so well."

Renée had only herself and her own courage to depend on, in her task of keeping her father up and herself too. Her mother was there, of course; but ever since Henri's death she had been buried in a sort of silent apathy. She was indifferent to all that went on, mute and absent-minded. She was there with her daughter, night and day, without a murmur, patient and always even-tempered, ready to do anything, as docile and humble as a servant, but her affection seemed almost mechanical. The soul had gone out of her caresses, and all her ministrations were for the body rather than the heart; there was nothing of the mother about her now except the hands.

LV

Renée could still drag along with her father to the first trees of the little wood near the house. She would then sink down with her back against the moss of an oak-tree on the boundary of the wood. The smell of hay from the fields, an odour of grass and honey came to her there with a delicious warmth from the sunshine, the fresh air from the wood, damp from the cool springs and the unmade paths.

In the midst of the deep silence, an immense, indistinct rustling could be heard, and a hum and buzz of winged creatures, which filled the air with a ceaseless sound like that of a bee-hive and the infinite murmur of the sea. All around Renée, and near to her, there seemed to be a great living peace, in which everything was being swayed--the gnat in the air, the leaf on the branch, the shadows on the bark of the trees, the tops of the trees against the sky, and the wild oats on each side of the paths. Then from this murmur came the sighing sound of a deep respiration, a breeze coming from afar which made the trees tremble as it passed them, while the blue of the heavenly vault above the shaking leaves seemed fixed and immovable. The boughs swayed slowly up and down, a breath passed over Renée's temples and touched her neck, a puff of wind kissed and cheered her. Gradually she began to lose all consciousness of her physical being, the sensation and fatigue of living; an exquisite languor took possession of her, and it seemed to her as though she were partially freed from her material body and were just ready to pass away in the divine sweetness of all these things. Every now and then she nestled closer to her father like a child who is afraid of being carried away by a gust of wind.

There was a stone bench covered with moss in the garden. After dinner, towards seven o'clock, Renée liked to sit there; she would put her feet up, leaning her head against the back of the seat, and with a trail of convolvulus tickling her ear she would stay there, looking up at the sky. It was just at the time of those beautiful summer days which fade away in silvery evenings. Imperceptibly her eyes and her thoughts were fascinated by the infinite whiteness of the sky, just ready to die away. As she watched she seemed to see more brilliancy and light coming from this closing day, a more dazzling brightness and serenity seemed to fall upon her. Gradually some great depths opened in the heavens, and she fancied she could see millions of little starry flames as pale as the light of tapers, trembling with the night breeze. And then, from time to time, weary of gazing into that dazzling brightness which kept receding, blinded by those myriads of suns, she would close her eyes for an instant as though shrinking from that gulf which was hanging over her and drawing her up above.

LVI

"Mother," she said, "don't you see how nice I look? Just see all the trouble I've taken for you;" and joining her hands over her head, her dress loose at the waist, she sank down on the pillows full length on the sofa in a careless, languid attitude which was both graceful and sad to see. Renée thought that the bed and the white sheets made her look ill. She would not stay there, and gathered together all her remaining strength to get up. She dressed slowly and heroically towards eleven o'clock, taking a long time over it, stopping to get breath, resting her arms over and over again, after holding them up to do her hair. She had thrown a fichu of point-lace over her head, and was wearing a dressing-gown of starched white piqué, with plenty of material in it, falling in wide pleats. Her small feet were incased in low shoes, and instead of rosettes she wore two little bunches of violets which Chrétiennot brought her every morning. In order to look more alive, as invalids do when they are up and dressed, she would stay there all day in this white girlish toilette fragrant with violets.

"Oh, how odd it is when one is ill!" she said, looking down at herself and then all round the room. "I don't like anything that is not pretty now, just fancy! I couldn't wear anything ugly. Do you know I've thought of something I want. You remember the little silver-mounted jug--so pretty it was--we saw it in a jeweller's shop in the Rue Saint Honoré when we had just gone out of the theatre for the interval. If it isn't sold--if he still has it, you might let him send it. Oh, I know I'm getting the most ruinous tastes--I warn you of that. I want to arrange things here. I'm getting very difficult to please; in everything I have the most luxurious ideas. I used not to be at all elegant in my tastes; and now I have eyes for everything I wear, and for everything all round me--oh, such eyes! There are certain colours that positively pain me--just fancy--and others that I had never noticed before. It is being ill that makes me like this--it must be that. It's so ugly to be ill; and so it makes you like everything that is beautiful all the more."

With all this coquetry which the approach of death had brought to her, these fancies and caprices, these little delicacies and elegancies, other senses too seemed to come to Renée. She was becoming, and she felt herself becoming, more of a woman. Under all the languor and indolence caused by illness, her disposition, which had always been affectionate but somewhat masculine and violent, grew gentler, more unbending, and more calm. Gradually the ways, tastes, inclinations, and ideas--all the signs of her sex, in fact--made their appearance to her. Her mind seemed to undergo the same transformation. She gave up her impetuous way of criticising and her daring speech. Occasionally she would use one of her old expressions, and then she would say, smiling, "That is a bit of the old Renée come back." She remembered speeches she had made, bold things she had done, and her familiar manner with young men; she would no longer dare to act and speak as in those old days. She was surprised, and did not know herself in her new character. She had given up reading serious or amusing books; she only cared now for works which set her thinking, books with ideas. When her father talked to her about hunting and the meets to which she had been and of those in store for her, it gave her the sensation of being about to fall, and the very idea of mounting a horse frightened her. All the emotions and weaknesses that she felt were quite new to her. Flowers about which she had never troubled much were now as dear to her as persons. She had never liked needlework, and now that she had started to embroider a skirt, she enjoyed doing it. She quite roused up and lived over again in the memories of her early girlhood. She thought of the children with whom she used to play, of the friends she had had, of different places to which she had been, and of the faces of the girls in the same row with her at her confirmation.

LVII

As she was looking out of the window one day, she saw a woman sit down in the dust in the middle of the village street, between a stone and a wheel-rut, and unswathe her little baby. The child lay face downward, the upper part of its body in the shade, moving its little legs, crossing its feet, and kicking about, and the sun caressed it lovingly as it does the bare limbs of a child. A few rays that played over it seemed to strew on its little feet some of the rose petals of a Fête-Dieu procession. When the mother and child had gone away Renée still went on gazing out of the window.

LVIII

"You see," she said to her father, "I never could fall in love; you made me too hard to please. I always knew beforehand that no one could ever love me as you did. I saw so many things come into your face when I was there, such happiness! And when we went anywhere together, weren't you proud of me! Oh! weren't you just proud to have me leaning on your arm! It would have been all no good for any one else to have loved me; I should never have found any one like my own father; you spoiled me too much."

"But all that won't prevent my dear little girl one of these fine days, when she gets well, finding a handsome young man----"

"Oh, your handsome young man is a long way off yet," said Renée, a smile lighting up her eyes. "It seems strange to you," she went on, "doesn't it, that I have never seemed anxious to marry. Well, I tell you, it is your own fault. Oh, I'm not sorry in the least. What more did I want? Why, I had everything; I could not imagine any other happiness. I never even thought of such a thing. I didn't want any change. I was so well off. What _could_ I have had, now, more than I already had? My life was so happy with you; and I was so contented. Yes," she went on, after a minute's silence, "if I had been like so many girls, if I had had parents who were cold and a father not at all like you; oh yes, I should certainly have done as other girls do, I should have wanted to be loved, I should have thought about marriage as they do. Then, too, I may as well tell you all, I should have had hard work to fall in love; it was never much in my way, all that sort of thing, and it always made me laugh. Do you remember before Henriette's marriage, when her husband was making love to her? How I did tease them! _'Bad child!'_ do you remember, that was what they used to call me. Oh, I've had my fancies, like every one else; dreamy days when I used to go about building castles in the air. One wouldn't be a woman without all that. But it was only like a little music in my mind; it just gave me a little excitement. It all came and went in my imagination; but I never had any special man in my mind, oh never. And then, too, when once I came out of my room, it was all over. As soon as ever any one was there, I only had my eyes; I thought of nothing but watching everything so that I could laugh afterward--and you know how your dreadful daughter could watch. They would have had to----"

"Monsieur," said Chrétiennot, opening the door, M. Magu is downstairs; "he wants to know if he can see mademoiselle."

"Oh, father," said Renée, beseechingly, "no doctor to-day, please. I don't feel inclined. I'm very well. And then, too, he snorts so; why does he snort like that, father?"

M. Mauperin could not help laughing.

"I'll tell you," she went on, "it's the effect of driving about in a gig on his rounds in the winter. As both his hands are occupied, one with the reins and the other with the whip, he's got into the way of not using his handkerchief----"

LIX

"Is the sky blue all over, father? Look out and tell me, will you?" said Renée, one afternoon, as she lay on the sofa.

"Yes, my child," answered M. Mauperin from the window, "it is superb."

"Oh!"

"Why? Are you in pain?"

"No, only it seemed to me that there must be clouds--as though the weather were going to change. It's very odd when one is ill, it seems as if the sky were much nearer. Oh, I'm a capital barometer now." And she went on reading the book she had laid down while she spoke.

"You tire yourself with reading, little girl; let us talk instead. Give it me," and M. Mauperin held out his hand for the book, which she slipped from her fingers into his. On opening it, M. Mauperin noticed some pages that he had doubled down some years before, telling her not to read them, and these forbidden pages were still doubled down.

Renée appeared to be sleepy. The storm which was not yet in the sky had already begun to weigh on her. She felt a most unbearable heaviness which seemed to overwhelm her, and at the same time a nervous uneasiness took possession of her. The electricity in the air was penetrating her and working on her.

A great silence had suddenly come over everything, as though it had been chased from the horizon, and the breath of solemn calm passing over the country filled her with immense anxiety. She looked at the clock, did not speak again, but kept moving her hands about from place to place.

"Ah, yes," said M. Mauperin, "there is a cloud, really, a big cloud over Fresnoy. How it is moving along! Ah, it's coming over on to our side--it's coming. Shall I shut everything up--the window and the shutters, and light up? Like that my big girl won't be so frightened."

"No," said Renée, quickly, "no lights in the daytime--no, no! And then, too," she went on, "I'm not afraid of it now."

"Oh, it is some distance off yet," said M. Mauperin, for the sake of saying something. His daughter's words had called up a vision of lighted tapers in this room.

"Ah, there's the rain," said Renée, in a relieved tone. "It's like dew, that rain is. It's as if we were drinking it, isn't it? Come here--near me."

Some large drops came down, one by one, at first. Then the water poured from the sky, as it does from a vase that has been upset. The storm broke over Morimond and the thunder rolled and burst in peals. The country round was all fire and then all dark. And at every moment in the gloomy room, lighted up with pale gleams, the flashes would suddenly cover the reclining figure of the invalid from head to foot, throwing over her whole body a shroud of light.

There was one last peal of thunder, so loud and which burst so near, that Renée threw her arms round her father's neck and hid her face against him.

"Foolish child, it's over now," said M. Mauperin; and like a bird which lifts its head a little from under its wing, she looked up, keeping her arms round him.

"Ah, I thought we were all dead!" she said, with a smile in which there was something of a regret.

LX

One morning on going to see Renée, who had had a bad night, M. Mauperin found her in a doze. At the sound of his footstep she half opened her eyes and turned slightly towards him.

"Oh, it's you, papa," she said, and then she murmured something vaguely, of which M. Mauperin only caught the word "journey."

"What are you saying about a journey?" he asked.

"Yes, it's as though I had just come back from far away--from very far away--from countries I can't remember." And opening her eyes wide, with her two hands flat out on the sheet, she seemed to be trying to recall where she had been, and from whence she had just come. A confused recollection, an indistinct memory remained to her of stretches and spaces of country, of vague places, of those worlds and limbos to which sick people go during those last nights which are detaching them from earth, and from whence they return, surprised, with the dizziness and stupor of the Infinite still upon them, as if in the dream they have forgotten they had heard the first flapping of the wings of Death.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said after a minute's silence, "it's just the effect of the opium--they gave me some last night to make me sleep." And moving as though to shake off her thoughts, she said to her father, "Hold the little glass for me, will you, so that I can make myself look nice? Higher up--oh, these men--how awkward they are, to be sure."

She put her thin hands through her hair to fluff it up and pulled her lace into its place again.

"There now," she said, "talk to me. I want to be talked to," and she half closed her eyes while her father talked.

"You are tired, Renée; I'll leave you," said M. Mauperin, seeing that she did not appear to be listening.

"No, I have a touch of pain. Talk to me, though; it makes me forget it."

"But you are not listening to me. Come now, what are you thinking about, my dear little girl?"

"I'm not thinking about anything. I was trying to remember. Dreams, you know--it isn't really like that--it was--I don't remember. Ah!"

She broke off suddenly, with a pang of sharp pain.

"Does it hurt you, Renée?"

She did not answer, and M. Mauperin could not help his lips moving, as he looked up with an expression of revolt.

"Poor father," said Renée, after a few minutes. "You see I'm resigned. No, we ought not to be so angry with pain. It is sent to us for some reason. We are not made to suffer simply for the sake of suffering."

And in a broken voice, stopping continually to get breath, she began talking to him of all the good sides of suffering, of the wells of tenderness it opens up in us, of the delicacy of heart, and the gentleness of character that it gives to those who accept its bitterness without allowing themselves to get soured by it.

She spoke to him of all the meannesses and the pettinesses that go away from us when we suffer; of the tendency to sarcasm which leaves us, and the unkind laughter which we restrain; of the way in which we give up finding pleasure in other people's little miseries, and of the indulgence that we have for every one.

"If you only knew," she said, "what a stupid thing wit seems to me now." And M. Mauperin heard her expressing her gratitude to suffering as a proof of election. She spoke of selfishness and of all the materiality in which robust health wraps us up; of that hardness of heart which is the result of the well-being of the body; and she told him what ease and deliverance come with sickness; how light she felt inwardly and what aspirations it brings with it for something outside ourselves.

She spoke, too, of suffering as an ill which takes our pride away, which reminds us of our infirmity, which makes us humane, causes us to feel with all those who suffer, and which instils charity into us.

"And then, too," she added with a smile, "without it there would be something wanting for us; we should never be sad, you know----"

LXI

"My dear fellow, we are very unhappy," said M. Mauperin, one evening, a few days later, to Denoisel, who had just jumped down from a hired trap. "I had a presentiment you would come to-day," he went on. "She is asleep now; you'll see her to-morrow. Oh, you'll find her very much changed. But you must be hungry," and he led the way to the dining-room, where supper was being laid for him.

"Oh, M. Mauperin," said Denoisel, "she is young. At her age something can always be done."

M. Mauperin put his elbows on the table and great tears rolled slowly from his eyes.

"Oh, come, come, M. Mauperin; the doctors haven't given her up; there's hope yet."

M. Mauperin shook his head and did not answer, but his tears continued to flow.

"They haven't given her up?"

"Yes, they have," said M. Mauperin, who could not contain himself any longer, "and I didn't want to have to tell you. One is afraid of everything, you see, when it comes to this stage. It seems to me that there are certain words which would bring the very thing about, and to own this, why, I fancied it would kill my child. And then, too, there might be a miracle. Why shouldn't there be? They spoke of miracles--the doctors did. Oh, God! She still gets up, you know; it's a great thing, that she can get up. The last two days there has been an improvement, I think. And then to lose two in a year--it would be too terrible. Oh, that would be too much! But there, eat, man, you are not eating anything," and he put a large piece of meat on Denoisel's plate. "Well, well, we must bear up and be men; that's all we can do. What's the latest news in Paris?"

"There isn't any; at least, I don't know any. I've come straight from the Pyrenees. Mme. Davarande read me one of your letters; but she is far from thinking her so ill."

"Have you no news of Barousse?"

"Oh, yes! I met him on the way to the station. I wanted to bring him with me, but you know what Barousse is; nothing in the world would induce him to leave Paris for a week. He must take his morning walk along the quays. The idea of missing an engraving with its full margin----"

"And the Bourjots?" asked M. Mauperin with an effort.

"They say that Mlle. Bourjot will never marry."

"Poor child, she loved him."

"As to the mother, it is the saddest thing--it appears it's an awful ending--there are rumours of strange things--madness, in fact. There's some talk of sending her to a private asylum."

LXII

"Renée," said M. Mauperin, on entering his daughter's room the following day, "there is some one downstairs who wants to see you."

"Some one?" And she looked searchingly at her father. "I know, it's Denoisel. Did you write to him?"

"Not at all. You did not ask to see him, so that I did not know whether it would give you any pleasure. Do you mind?"