Chapter 15

He. Who is he? He is the imaginary lover, the handsome young man whom she has met in the street, he who turned round to look at her, or the one who was so charming at the last ball, or again the one who has just passed the window.

Who is he? Does she know? It is the one she is waiting for. The first who presents himself who is _handsome, young, intelligent and rich_. What does the rest matter provided he possesses all these qualities, and all these qualities he must possess.

Often she has never even seen him, but he is charming, and she feels that she loves him already.

And there are the brilliant displays of the future appearing, the enchanted palaces which are built out of the chapters of novels which never will be finished.

And thus every evening--wild adventures in the young brain, intrigues in embryo, meetings full of mystery, delightful terrors with phantom lovers, until at length a very palpable one presents himself, and comes and knocks at the door of reality.

Sometimes he is very far from the cherished dream. He is neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor intelligent. She rather makes a face, but she ends by taking him. It is a man.

And meanwhile mamma has said as she kisses her daughter's forehead, "Sleep well, my daughter," and she murmurs to papa, "What an angel of candour!"

LXIX.

THE GUST OF WIND.

"I turned my eyes instinctively towards the lighted window, and through the curtains which were drawn, I distinctly caught sight of a woman, dressed in white, with her hair undone, and moving like one who knows that she is alone."

G. DROZ (_Monsieur, Madame, et Bébe_).

Suzanne's room ... but why should I describe the room?... let me describe Suzanne to you at this secret hour: I am sure that you would prefer me to do so.

The young people who read this, will do well to skip this chapter, it interests the men alone. Like the preacher who one day turned the women out of church, as he wanted to keep the men only, I warn over-chaste young ladies that these lines may shock....

Suzanne was preparing to go to bed.

To go to bed! That is not done quickly. You have, Mesdames, so many little things to do before going to bed. So Suzanne was going to and fro in her small room, attending to all these little details.

She was in a short petticoat, with her legs and arms bare and her little feet in slippers. I warned you that I had borrowed the ring of Gyges and I can tell you that I saw her calf and right above the knee, and all was like a sculptor's model. Beneath the thin, partly-open cambric her budding bosom rose and fell, marking a voluptuous valley on which, like the Shulamite's lover, one would never be weary to let one's kisses wander.

But on seeing the white plump shoulders, the graceful throat, and the neck on which was twisted a mass of little brown curls, and the back of velvet which had no other covering than the thick rolls of half-loosed hair, and the delicate hips which the little half-revealing petticoat closely pressed, one asked oneself where the kisses would run on for the longest time.

She was delicious like this and under every aspect, and undoubtedly she knew it, for every time she passed before the large glass of her wardrobe, she looked at herself in it and smiled. And she was quite right, for it was indeed the sweetest of sights.

A pretty woman is never insensible to the sight of her own charms. See therefore, what a love they have for mirrors. Habit, which palls in so many things, never palls in this; for her it is a sight always charming and always fresh. Very different to the forgetful lover or the sated husband, whose eyes and senses are so quickly habituated, she never grows weary of finding out that she is pretty, and making herself so; in truth a constant homage, earnest and conscientious.

Suzanne then examined herself full face, in profile, in three-quarters view, and behind, attentively and conscientiously, like an amateur judging a work of art, who cries at length, "Yes, it is all good, it is all perfect, there is nothing amiss." One could have believed that she saw herself again for the first time after many years.

At length, when the survey was completed, and the toilette finished, she let her petticoat slip down, opened her bed, put one knee upon it, and, the upper part of her body leaning forward on her hands, prepared to get in.

The lamp on the night-table, close beside her, threw its light no longer on her face.

But at the same instant a little zephyr taking her astern, caused the white tissue which English-women never mention, to gently undulate.

She noticed then that she had forgotten to shut her window.

"Heavens," cried Marcel to himself, for it was he, who perched on the rise of the road and armed with his good opera-glass, had just been witness of what I have narrated.

LXX.

THE AMBUSCADE.

"Be not discouraged either before obstacles, or before ill-will. Wait patiently. The sacred hour will sound for you and all the ways will be made smooth."

(_Charge of Mgr. de Nancy_).

Drawing near to the window, Suzanne distinguished in front of her, behind the open-work palisade, a dark motionless figure.

She immediately recognized the Curé.

Alarmed and trembling, she hastily drew back; but she heard a gentle cough, as if someone was calling and was afraid of being surprised.

"What is happening?" she said to herself, "what is he doing there?"

She covered herself hurriedly with a dressing-gown and drew near the casement again. Marcel, with his hat in his hand, bowed to her, and appeared to invite her by a sign to come down.

Again she drew back. She knew not what to think or what to do. She hesitated to comply with the priest's desire, and, on the other hand, she was afraid lest Marianne, or some neighbour, should happen to wake and catch the Curé of the village making signs, at that unseasonable hour, before her door, during her father's absence. God only knew what a scandal there would be then! and as tongues would wag, her father perhaps might hear of it, and what explanation could she give? already they were beginning to chatter about her absence from the services and their meetings on the road.

She was seized with terror and ran to put out the lamp, calculating that the Curé would withdraw.

But the Curé of Althausen had not undertaken this adventurous expedition to abandon it at the moment when he was attaining his object. Excited by the alcohol, by the dishabille of the charming young girl, and by all that he had just caught a sight of, emboldened by the night and the solitary place, he was waiting with impatience.

Therefore when Suzanne, trembling all over, drew near a second time to see if he was gone, he was at the same place, still bowing to her and calling her by signs. He was not tired, and with perfectly clerical obstinacy, multiplied his salutes and his signs.

She said to herself that there was doubtless some important motive for him to have decided, in spite of dangers and the proprieties, to require an interview with her in the middle of the night "Good God! could some misfortune have happened to my father?" The thought oppressed her mind. She hesitated no longer, put on a light petticoat, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and went downstairs.

LXXI.

THE BREACH.

"Who art thou, who knockest so loudly. Art thou Great Love, to whom all must yield, for whom heroes sacrificed (more than life) their very heart ... Ah, if thou art he, let the door be opened wide."

MICHELET (_L'Amour_).

She saw at once that he was all in a fever.

--What has happened? she said. You have seen my father?

--Nothing has happened, Mademoiselle; as to your father, I saw him this morning getting into a carriage: I believe that he is well.

--But what is it then? what is it? do not hide anything from me.

--I am hiding nothing from you, Mademoiselle, nothing grievous has happened. Be comforted. I was passing by in my walk, I saw the light, I observed you, your window was partly open. I stopped and said to myself: Perhaps I can make a sign to Mademoiselle Durand that I am going away.

--Oh, Heavens, I am trembling all over.... What! you are going away? And where? And when?

--To-morrow morning, Mademoiselle, after Mass.

--For ever?

--Perhaps.

--You are leaving Althausen so, without saying good-bye to your parishioners, to your friends!

--I have no friends, Mademoiselle, I have only you, who are willing to hear me some ... friendship; only you, who have sometimes thought of the poor solitary at the parsonage, therefore I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart, and I wanted to bid you ... farewell.

--But why this sudden and unexpected departure?

--A more important cure is offered me, Mademoiselle, and I have, like others, a little grain of ambition.

--Oh, I understand, Monsieur, and let me congratulate you on this change in your fortune. Is it far?

--Nancy, Mademoiselle.

--Nancy! I am glad of it on your account. You will have distractions there which you have not here. I almost envy you.

--Do not envy me, Mademoiselle, for I carry away death in my soul. I am sorrowful as Christ at Golgotha. I spoke to you of ambition. It is false, I have no ambition. Other motives than miserable calculations compel me to depart.

--Motives ... serious?

--You will understand them, Mademoiselle, for I must confess it to you, and that I should not do if I was to remain in this parish. But from the day I saw you, I have felt myself drawn towards you by an invincible sympathy. Oh, be not disturbed. Let not my words offend you; it is the fondness which I should have felt for a dearly-loved sister, if God had given me one. Believe it truly, Mademoiselle, the spotless calyx of the lily, the emblem of purity, is not more chaste than my thoughts when they fly towards you, for when I think of you, I think of the queen of angels; that is why I wished to see you again and bid you farewell.

--I thank you, sir.

--I wished to say to you: Farewell! I go away, but tell me, not if I may ask to see you sometimes again--I dare not ask so great a favour--but if I shall have the right to mingle my memory with yours, my thought with your thought; tell me if you wish me to remain your friend though far away. We leave one another, we separate, but is that a reason why all should end? May we not write, give one another advice, follow one another from afar on the arduous road of life?

It is so sweet, when we are alone, when the heart is sad, when the heaven is dark and the tears come slowly to the eyes, to dream that away there, in a little corner behind the horizon, there is a sister-soul to our soul, which perhaps, at that very moment, leaps towards us also and murmurs across space: "Friend, I think of you." We feel less abandoned and less alone.

--Yes, that is true, I understand you.

--It is the communion of souls, dear Suzanne, sweeter than all the pleasures of the body, because it is holy and pure, it is the Ark of the Covenant, the gate of Heaven. Tell me, will you? Are you willing that we should follow one another thus in life? You do not answer....

--Listen, sir, listen, there is someone in the road.

--There are footsteps, said Marcel, after he had listened. Yes, there are footsteps. Someone comes. I must not be seen here.... Farewell, Mademoiselle, farewell.

--Do not go away. That would be the means of compromising us both, for they must have heard our voices, and your departure would attract suspicions.

--What shall I do? I cannot remain here.

--They cannot have seen us yet: Come in. Under this arbour you will be safe from any gaze.

--What! said Marcel, you wish...?

--I beseech you, come. This village is full of evil-minded people. It is more prudent for both of us.

She turned the key, and Marcel glided like a shadow through the half-open gate, quickly crossed the borders, and threw himself under the arbour.

Suzanne closed the gate again and rejoined him.

LXXII.

THE ASSAULT.

"Be mine, be my sister, for I am all thine, And well I deserve thee, for long have I loved."

A. DE VIGNY (_Eloa_).

They were standing up under the dark arbour. One close to the other, excited, panting: they could scarce get their breath again. Does their heart beat so hard because there is someone in the path? Silence!

The cricket, just by their side, sends forth from under the grass his soft monotonous cry, and down there in the neighbouring ditch the toad lifts his harsh voice. Silence!

A noise in the road, faint at first as the murmur of the wind, increases. It comes near. It is the cautious hesitating step of someone listening. It comes nearer and stops. Silence! The philosopher cricket continues his song, the amorous toad his poem.

Behind the branches of honeysuckle they watch attentively, and can see without being seen. A shadow passes slowly by, with its head turned towards the dark arbour. Suzanne made a movement of surprise;--Your servant, she said.

--Silence, murmured Marcel; and he seizes a hand which he keeps within his own.

Veronica slowly walked on.

When she reached the gate, she pushed it as if to assure herself if it was open.

--Well, there is an impertinence, said Suzanne. Who can have made her suspect that you were here?

Marcel, for reply, pressed the hand which he was holding.

Finding the gate closed, the servant continued her road, then all at once returned, stopped for a few seconds facing the arbour, and at length disappeared behind the chestnut-trees.

They followed the sound of her footsteps, which was soon lost in the silence, and found themselves alone, hearing nothing but the beatings of their own heart.

--Let us remain, said Suzanne in a low voice, we must not go out yet. Really, that is the most impertinent creature I have ever seen. By what right does she spy on you thus?

--Dear child, do you not know that these old servants are on the track of every scandal, jealous of all beauty and all virtue. She will have noticed our frequent interviews, and has imagined a world of iniquities. Nevertheless, I bless her, yes, I bless her, since I owe to her the joy of finding myself in this tête-à-tête with you. See, dear child, how strange is destiny, which is none other but the hand of God--for we must be blind not to recognize in all these things the finger of divine Providence--it is precisely the efforts made to put an obstacle between us, to prevent us, me from fulfilling my duties of a pastor, you those of a Christian, which have been the cause of our sweet intimacy. Your father forbids you to assist at the Holy Sacrifice, and you come to me to ask for counsel. This servant pursues us with her envious hate, and obliges us to take refuge like guilty lovers beneath this dark arbour. Almighty God, thanks, thanks. But what a strange situation! If anyone were to surprise us, the whole world would accuse us, and yet what is surer than our conscience? You see plainly, dear child, that we cannot separate thus, and that, whatever happens, we must not remain strangers to one another.

Suzanne did not answer, and he, emboldened by this silence, pressed between his the hand which she abandoned to him.

--I was so much accustomed to see you in our church that, when you ceased to come there, it seemed to me that everything was in mourning. You were the most charming and the chastest ornament of it. When I went up into the pulpit, it was for you that I preached, and when I turned towards my flock to bless them, it was you alone, sweet lamb, that I blessed in the name of the Father. You understand now, why I shall go away enveloped in sorrow.

--But, sir, I do not deserve the honour which you do me, and I am unworthy to occupy your thoughts in this way.

--Do not say that, for since I have seen you, you have become, without my knowing how, the joy of my life, the source from which I draw my sweetest and most holy pleasures. With the memory of you, I lull myself in the Infinite. I see Heaven and the angels, I dream of Seraphims who resemble you, who bear me on their diaphanous wings into the abode where all is joy and love ... heavenly love, dear Suzanne, love like that of the angels for the Virgin, the mother, eternally pure, of our sweet Saviour. You see, you have no reasons to be offended with my dreams. You are not offended at them, are you?

--Why should I be offended at them, said Suzanne softly. Can one be offended with dreams?

--You remember that night, when, alone as we are now, I allowed myself in a moment of pious transport, to bear to my lips your lovely hand. I have often blushed at it.... I have blushed at it, because I thought that you might have mistaken that respectful kiss. I kissed it as I should have kissed the hem of a queen's robe, if that queen had been a saint, as I should have kissed the feet of the Virgin, as Magdalena kissed those of Christ, as I kiss it at this moment, dear, dear Suzanne.

And his lips rested on that little warm, quivering, feverish hand, and they could no more be separated from it.

And, when at length he withdrew his mouth from it, he found that Suzanne was so near to him that he heard the beatings of her heart.

--Leave me, said the imprudent girl, I entreat you, leave me. Oh, why are you doing that?

And she tried with vain efforts to loosen herself from the embrace.

But he murmured softly:

--Leave you, oh, never; you shall be my companion in life as you are my betrothed before the Eternal. Leave you, dear Suzanne, sweet mystic rose, chosen vessel. See, there is something stronger than all the laws and all the proprieties; it is a look from you. Why do you repulse me? I speak to you as to the Virgin, and I kiss your knees. Chaste betrothed of the Levite, let me espouse you before God.

She struggled with all her might, excited and maddened. But what can the dove do in the talons of the hawk! Pressed to his breast by his vigorous arms, it was in vain that she asked for pity. Hell might have opened, ere he would have dropped his prey.

The struggle lasted several minutes, passionate, silent, ardent. Woman is weak. Soon nothing was heard ... a sob ... and all died away in the dense shade.

The startled cricket was silent, and it alone might have counted the sighs, while in the neighbouring ditch the toad unwearied continued its love-song.

LXXIII.

AUDACES FORTUNA JUVAT.

"If you have done wrong, rebuke yourself sharply: If you have done well, have satisfaction."

SAINT FRANÇOIS DE SALLES (_Traité de l'Amour Divin_).

Marcel reached the parsonage without hindrance. Veronica had not yet returned. He congratulated himself on that, and went up the stair-case which led to his room with the light step of a happy man, locked his door, and began to laugh like a madman.

Everything was safe; only there was down there in a corner of the village, an honour lost.

--Is it really you, Marcel, is it really you, he said, who have just played so great a game, and won the trick?

And he laughed, and he rubbed his hands, and he would willingly have danced a wild saraband, if he had not been afraid of making a noise.

He listened in the next room where his uncle was in bed, and heard his loud breathing.

--And the hag who is watching still beneath the limes! And the father who is at Vic, and who, I doubt not, is snoring too. Come, all goes well! all goes well!

But he stopped, ashamed of himself.

--Decidedly, he said to himself, I have become in a few days utterly bad. I did not believe that it was possible to make such rapid progress in evil. But nonsense. Is it evil? Has not God made wine to be drunk, flowers to be plucked, and women to be loved? As to that weather-beaten old soldier, why should I feel any pity on his account? He has been insolent, he has detested me without my ever having done anything to him; I have loved his daughter, his daughter has loved me, we are quits. I do not see why I should distress myself about an adventure which would make so many people happy, and for which all my brethren would have very quickly sold the sacred Host and the holy Pyx besides. Ah, my dear uncle, good father Ridoux, sleep, sleep in peace. How greatly am I your debtor for what you have done for me, unwittingly and in spite of yourself; for, have you not, by urging me to drink more than is my custom, in order to draw my secret from me, given me the courage to undertake what I should never have dared to dream of? _Audaces fortuna juvat_. Oh, Providence! Providence! She is mine, the girl with the dark eyes is mine!

He heard a slight noise in the corridor.

--Good never comes alone, he continued, it always has evil for an escort. Behind the sweet form of the angel, the grinning face of Satan. He is coming upstairs and knocks at the door.

He had not lighted his lamp again, and he carefully refrained from answering. He heard Veronica, trying to open the door and calling him in a low voice. But he pretended to be deaf, and quietly got into bed, all the while cursing his accomplice, and thinking of the clumsy trap into which he had fallen like a fool, and of that thick and filthy spider's web where, like an unwary and silly fly, he had daubed his wings.

What a difference between the chaste resistance of Suzanne, her tears and her defeat, and the hideous advances of that old courtesan of the sacristy!

In place of that unclean creature, accomplished in crime, oozing hypocrisy from every pore, he had an adorable, loving, charming mistress, such as he had never dared to dream of. And all this alteration in a few hours! because he had faced it out, because, excited by intoxication, he had taken his courage in both hands, and because he had dared.

Oh, why had he not dared ere this? He would not be under the infamous yoke of his servant. And how many priests, he said to himself, for want of a little boldness, are devoted to a degrading concubinage with faded old spinsters!

He was not without uneasiness. How could he see Suzanne again, situated as he was between the jealous watching of the servant and the vigilance of the father? And above all, how could he discard his uncle's entreaties, and refuse an unexpected promotion, without arousing suspicion in high quarters? For, more than ever, he wished to remain at Althausen and keep the treasure which had just caused him so much anxiety. Yes, he saw them accumulating on his head, swooping from all parts and under all aspects: Veronica, Durand, Ridoux, the Bishop, the gossips, scandal, dishonour.

But, after all, what did it matter to him? The essential is that he was in possession of Suzanne, that Suzanne was his, that he had the most charming of mistresses, and he was indifferent to all the rest.

To see her again readily and without danger, to contrive other interviews, and above all to act prudently, was what he must think of. The chief step was taken, the rest would come of its own accord.

With Suzanne's consent all obstacles could be smoothed away, and clever is he who succeeds in barring the way to two lovers who are determined to see one another again.

The old counsellor Lamblin, who in his capacity of magistrate was aware of that, said long ago:

"To safely guard a certain fleece, In vain is all the watchman's care; 'Tis labour lost, if Beauty chance To feel a strange sensation there."

It was on this indeed that Marcel calculated; and, smiling, he slept the sleep of the just and dreamed the most rosy dreams.

LXXIV.

BEFORE MASS.

"You think that we ought not to break in two this puppet which is called Public Opinion, and sit upon it."

EUG. VERMEESCH (_L'Infamie humaine_).

A loud and well-known voice roused him unpleasantly from his dreams.

--Well, well, lazy-bones, still in bed when the sun is risen! You are not thinking then of going away? You go to bed the first, and you get up the last. I, a poor old invalid, am giving you an example of activity. Ah, young people! young people! you are not equal to us. Come, come you can rub your eyes to-morrow. Get up! Get up!