IV
Next morning Yvette went off alone to sit in the place where Servigny had read over the history of the ants.
“I will not leave it,” she said to herself, “until I have come to a decision.”
The river ran at her feet, the swift water of the main stream; it was full of eddies and great bubbles which swirled silently past her.
She had already envisaged every aspect of the situation and every means of escape from it. What was she to do if her mother failed to hold scrupulously to the condition she had laid down, if she did not give up her life, her friends, everything, to take refuge with her in some distant region?
She might go alone … away. But whither? How? What could she live on? By working? At what? Whom should she ask for work? And the melancholy and humble life of the working girl, of the daughters of the common folk, seemed to be a little shameful, and unworthy of her. She thought of becoming a governess, like the young ladies in novels, and of being loved and married by the son of the house. But for that role she should have been of noble descent, so that when an irate parent reproached her for stealing his son’s heart, she could have answered proudly:
“My name is Yvette Obardi.”
She could not. And besides, it was a rather commonplace, threadbare method.
A convent was scarcely any better. Besides, she felt no call towards a religious life, having nothing but an intermittent and fleeting piety. No one—since she was the thing she was—could save her by marrying her, she could not take help from a man, there was no possible way out and no certain resource at all.
She wanted something violent, something really great, really brave, something that would be held up for all to see: and she decided to die.
She came to this resolution quite suddenly, quite calmly, as though it were a question of a journey, without reflecting, without seeing what death means, without realising that it is an end without a new beginning, a departure without a return, an eternal farewell to earth, to life.
She was attracted immediately by this desperate decision, with all the impulsiveness of a young and ardent spirit. And she pondered over the means she should employ. They all appeared to be painful and dangerous to carry out, and to demand, too, a violence which was repulsive to her.
She soon gave up the idea of dagger or pistol, which might only wound, maim, or disfigure her, and which required a steady and practised hand—rejected hanging as vulgar, a pauper’s sort of suicide, ridiculous and ugly—and drowning because she could swim. Poison was all that remained, but which poison? Almost all would hurt her or make her sick. She did not want to suffer, or to be sick. Then she thought of chloroform, having read in a newspaper of a young woman who suffocated herself by this means.
At once she felt something like pleasure in her resolve, a secret self-praise, a prick of vainglory. They should see the manner of woman she was!
She returned to Bougival and went to the chemist’s, where she asked for a little chloroform for an aching tooth. The man, who knew her, gave her a very small phial of the drug. Then she walked over to Croissy, where she procured another little phial of poison. She got a third at Chaton, and a fourth at Rueil, and returned home late for lunch. As she was very hungry after her walk, she ate a hearty meal, with the sharp enjoyment of a hungry athlete.
Her mother, glad to see her excellent appetite, felt now quite confident, and said to her as they rose from the table:
“All our friends are coming to spend Sunday here. I’ve invited the prince, the chevalier, and Monsieur de Belvigne.”
Yvette turned slightly pale, but made no answer. She left the house almost at once, went to the railway station, and took a ticket to Paris.
Throughout the afternoon she went from chemist to chemist, buying a few drops of chloroform from each.
She returned in the evening, her pockets full of little bottles. Next day she continued her campaign, and happening to go into a druggist’s, she was able to buy half a pint all at once. She did not go out on Saturday—it was stuffy and overcast; she spent the whole of it on the veranda, lying in a long cane chair. She thought about nothing, filled with a placid resolution.
The next day, wishing to look her best, she put on a blue frock which became her marvellous well. And as she viewed herself in the mirror she thought suddenly: “Tomorrow I shall be dead.” A strange shiver ran through her body. “Dead! I shall not speak, I shall not think, no one will see me any more. And I shall never see all this again.” She scrutinised her face carefully, as though she had never seen it before, examining, above all, the eyes, discovering a thousand aspects of herself, a secret character in her face that she did not know, astonished to see herself, as though she were face to face with a stranger, a new friend.
“It is I,” she said to herself, “it is I, in that glass. How strange it is to see oneself. We should never recognise ourselves, if we had no mirrors. Everyone else would know what we looked like, but we should have no idea of it.”
She took the thick plaits of her hair and laid them across her breast, gazing at her own gestures, her poses and movements.
“How pretty I am!” she thought. “Tomorrow I shall be dead, there, lying on my bed.”
She looked at her bed, and imagined that she saw herself lying on it, white as the sheets.
Dead! In a week that face, those eyes, those cheeks, would be nothing but black rottenness, shut up in a box underground.
A frightful spasm of anguish constricted her heart.
The clear sunlight flooded the landscape, and the sweet morning air came in at the window.
She sat down and thought. Dead—it was as though the world was disappearing for her sake; and yet it was not like that, for nothing in the world would change, not even her room. Yes, her room would stay just the same, with the same bed, the same chairs, the same dressing-table, but she would be gone forever, and no one would be sorry, except perhaps her mother.
People would say: “How pretty she was, little Yvette!” and that was all. And when she looked at her hand resting on the arm of her chair, she thought again of the rottenness, the black and evil-smelling corruption that her flesh would become. And again a long shudder of horror ran through her whole body, and she could not understand how she could disappear without the whole world coming to an end, so strong was her feeling that she herself was part of everything, of the country, of the air, of the sun, of life.
A burst of laughter came from the garden, a clamour of voices, shouts, the noisy merriment of a country-house party just beginning, and she recognised the sonorous voice of Monsieur de Belvigne, singing:
“Je suis sous ta fenêtre,
Ah! daigne enfin paraître.”
She rose without thinking and went to look out. Everyone clapped. They were all there, all five of them, with two other gentlemen she did not know.
She drew back swiftly, torn by the thought that these men had come to enjoy themselves in her mother’s house, in the house of a courtesan.
The bell rang for lunch.
“I will show them how to die,” she told herself.
She walked downstairs with a firm step, with something of the resolution of a Christian martyr entering the arena where the lions awaited her.
She shook hands with them, smiling pleasantly but a little haughtily. Servigny asked her:
“Are you less grumpy today, Mam’zelle?”
“Today,” she replied in a strange, grave voice, “I am for the wildest pleasures. I’m in my Paris mood. Take care.” Then, turning to Monsieur de Belvigne: “You shall be my pet today, my little Malvoisie. After lunch I’m taking you all to the fair at Marly.”
Marly fair was indeed in full swing. The two newcomers were presented to her, the Comte Tamine and the Marquis de Boiquetot.
During the meal she hardly spoke, bending every effort of will to her resolve to make merry all that afternoon, so that none might guess, so that there should be all the more surprise; they would say: “Who would have thought it? She seemed so gay, so happy! One can never tell what is going on in their heads!”
She forced herself not to think of the evening, the hour she had chosen, when they would all be on the veranda.
She drank as much wine as she could get down, to sharpen her courage, and took two small glasses of brandy; when she left the table she was flushed and a little giddy; she felt herself warmed in body and spirit, her courage high, ready for adventure.
“Off we go!” she cried.
She took Monsieur de Belvigne’s arm, and arranged the order of the rest.
“Come along, you shall be my regiment. Servigny, I appoint you sergeant; you must march on the right, outside the ranks. You must make the Foreign Legion march in front, our two aliens, the prince and the chevalier, and behind them the two recruits who have joined the colours today. Quick march!”
They went off, Servigny playing an imaginary bugle, and the two new arrivals pretending to play the drum. Monsieur de Belvigne, somewhat embarrassed, said to Yvette:
“Do be a little reasonable, Mademoiselle Yvette. You’ll get yourself talked about.”
“It’s you I’m compromising, Raisiné,” she replied. “As for myself, I don’t care a rap. It will be all the same tomorrow. So much the worse for you; you shouldn’t go about with girls like me.”
They went through Bougival, to the amazement of the people in the streets. Everyone turned round and stared; the local inhabitants came to their doors; the travellers on the little railway which runs from Rueil to Marly yelled at them; the men standing on the platforms shouted:
“To the river! … To the river! …”
Yvette marched with a military step, holding Servigny by the arm, as if she were leading a prisoner. She was far from laughter; she wore an air of pale gravity, a sort of sinister immobility. Servigny interrupted his bugle solo in order to shout orders. The prince and the chevalier were enjoying themselves hugely, judging it all vastly diverting and very witty. The two recruits steadily played the drum.
On their arrival at the fairground they caused quite a sensation. The girls clapped, all the young folk giggled; a fat man arm in arm with his wife said to her enviously:
“They’re enjoying life, they are.”
Yvette caught sight of a merry-go-round, and made De Belvigne mount a wooden horse on her right, while the rest of the squad clambered on to horses behind them. When their turn was over she refused to get off, making her escort remain upon the back of her childish steed for five turns running. The delighted crowd flung witticisms at them. Monsieur de Belvigne was very white when he got off, and felt sick.
Then she began careering through the stalls. She made each of the men get weighed before the eyes of a large crowd. She made them buy absurd toys, which they had to carry in their arms. The prince and the chevalier very soon had more than enough of the jest; Servigny and the two drummers alone kept up their spirits.
At last they reached the far end, and she looked at her followers with a curious expression, a glint of malice and perversity in her eyes. A strange fancy came into her head; she made them all stand in a row on the right bank overlooking the river, and said:
“Let him who loves me most throw himself into the water.”
No one jumped. A crowd had formed behind them; women in white aprons gaped at them, and two soldiers in red breeches laughed stupidly.
“Then not one of you is ready to throw himself into the water at my request?” she repeated.
“So much the worse, damn it,” murmured Servigny, and leapt, upright, into the river.
His fall flung drops of water right up to Yvette’s feet. A murmur of surprise and amusement ran through the crowd. Then the young girl bent down, picked up a little piece of wood, and threw it into the river, crying: “Fetch it.”
The young man began to swim, and seizing the floating stick in his mouth, like a dog, he brought it to land, clambered up the bank, dropped on one knee, and offered it to her.
“Good dog,” she said, taking it, and patting his head.
“How can they do it?” cried a stout lady, vastly indignant.
“Nice goings-on,” said another.
“Damned if I’d take a ducking for any wench,” said a man.
She took Belvigne’s arm again, with the cutting remark: “You’re a noodle; you don’t know what you’ve missed.”
As they went home she threw resentful glances at the passersby.
“How stupid they all look,” she observed; then, raising her eyes to her companion’s face, added: “And you too, for the matter of that.”
Monsieur de Belvigne bowed. Turning round, she saw that the prince and the chevalier had disappeared. Servigny, wretched and soaked to the skin, was no longer playing the bugle, but walked with a melancholy air beside the two tired young men, who were not playing the drum now.
She began to laugh dryly.
“You seem to have had enough. That’s what you call fun, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve come here for. I’ve given you your money’s worth.”
She walked on without another word, and suddenly De Belvigne saw that she was crying.
“What’s the matter?” he asked in alarm.
“Leave me alone,” she murmured. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
But he insisted foolishly: “Now, now, Mademoiselle, what is the matter with you? Has anybody hurt you?”
“Be quiet,” she said irritably.
Abruptly, unable to withstand the terrible sorrow flooding her heart, she broke into such a violent fit of sobbing that she could not walk any further. She covered her face with her hands, and gasped for breath, choking, strangled, stifled by the violence of her despair.
Belvigne stood helplessly beside her, repeating:
“I don’t understand at all.”
But Servigny rushed towards her. “Come along home, Mam’zelle, or they’ll see you crying in the street. Why do you do these silly things, if they make you so unhappy?”
He led her forward, holding her arm. But as soon as they reached the gate of the villa she ran across the garden and up to her room, and locked herself in.
She did not reappear until dinnertime; she was pale and very grave. All the rest were gay enough, however. Servigny had bought a suit of workman’s clothes in the neighbourhood, corduroy trousers, a flowered shirt, a jersey, and a smock, and was talking like a peasant.
Yvette was in a fever for the ending of the meal, feeling her courage ebbing. As soon as coffee was over she went again to her room. She heard laughing voices under her window. The chevalier was telling jokes, foreign witticisms and puns, crude and not very savoury. She listened in despair. Servigny, slightly drunk, was imitating a tipsy workman, and was addressing the Marquise as “Mrs. Obardi.” Suddenly he said to Saval: “Hullo, Mr. Obardi.” Everyone laughed.
Then Yvette made up her mind. First she took a sheet of her notepaper and wrote:
“I die so that I may not become a kept woman.
Then a postscript:
“Goodbye, mother dear. Forgive me.”
She sealed up the envelope, and addressed it to Madame la Marquise Obardi.
Then she moved her armchair up to the window, set a little table within reach of her hand, and placed upon it the large bottle of chloroform, with a handful of cotton wool beside it.
An immense rose-tree in full bloom, planted near the veranda and reaching right up to her window, filled the night with little gusts of faint, sweet fragrance; for some moments she sat breathing in the perfumed air. The crescent moon swung in the dark sky, its left side gnawed away, and veiled now and again with small clouds.
“I’m going to die,” thought Yvette. “I’m going to die!” Her heart, swollen with sobs, bursting with grief, choked her. She longed to cry for mercy, to be reprieved, to be loved.
Servigny’s voice came up to her; he was telling a shady story, constantly interrupted by bursts of laughter. The Marquise seemed more amused than any of them; she repeated gaily: “No one can tell a story like that as well as he can.”
Yvette took the bottle, uncorked it, and poured a little of the liquid on to the cotton wool. It had a queer, pungent, sweet smell, and as she lifted the pad of cotton wool to her lips, she swallowed the strong, irritating flavour of it, and it made her cough.
Then, closing her mouth, she began to breathe it in. She took long draughts of the deadly vapour, shutting her eyes, and compelling herself to deaden every impulse of her mind, so that she would no longer think nor realise what she was doing.
At first she felt as though her heart were swelling and growing, as though her spirit, just now heavy and burdened with sorrow, were growing light, as light as if the weight oppressing it had been raised, lessened, removed.
A lively and pleasant sensation filled her whole body, penetrating to the tips of her fingers and toes, entering into her flesh, a hazy drunkenness, a happy delirium.
She saw that the cotton wool was dry, and was surprised that she was not yet dead. Her senses were sharpened, intensified and more alert. She heard every word uttered on the veranda. Prince Kravalow was relating how he had killed an Austrian general in a duel.
Far away, in the heart of the country, she heard the noises of the night; the intermittent barking of a dog, the short croak of toads, the faint shiver of the leaves.
She took up the bottle, soaked the little piece of cotton wool, and began again to breathe it in. For some moments she felt nothing; then the languid, delightful, secure contentment that she had felt at first took hold of her once more.
Twice she poured out more chloroform, greedy now of the physical and mental sensation, the drowsy languor in which her senses were drowning. She felt as though she no longer had bones or flesh or arms or legs. All had been gently taken from her, and she had felt nothing. The chloroform had drained away her body, leaving nothing but her brain, wider, freer, more lively, more alert than she had ever felt it before.
She remembered a thousand things she had forgotten, little details of her childhood, trifles which gave her pleasure. Her mind, suddenly endowed with an agility hitherto unknown to it, leapt from one strange idea to another, ran through a thousand adventures, wandered at random in the past, and rambled through hopes of the future. This rapid, careless process of thought filled her with a sensual delight; she enjoyed a divine happiness in her dreams.
She still heard the voices, but could no longer distinguish the words, which seemed to her to take on another sense. She sank down and down, wandering in a strange and shifting fairyland.
She was on a large boat which glided beside a very pleasant country filled with flowers. She saw people on the banks, and these people were talking very loudly, and then she found herself on land again, without wondering how she got there, and Servigny, dressed like a prince, came to take her to a bullfight. The streets were full of people talking, and she listened to their conversations, which did not in the least surprise her, but were as though she had always known them; for through her dreamy intoxication she still heard her mother’s friends laughing and chatting on the veranda.
Then all grew dim.
Then she awoke, deliciously sleepy, and had some difficulty in recalling herself to consciousness.
So she was not dead yet.
But she felt so rested, and in such comfort and in such peace of mind, that she was in no hurry to finish the affair. She would have liked this glorious languor to last forever.
She breathed slowly, and looked at the moon facing her above the trees. Something in her soul was changed. Her thoughts were no longer those of a short while ago. The chloroform, soothing her body and mind, had assuaged her grief, and put to sleep her will to die.
Why not live? Why should she not be loved? Why should she not live happily? Everything now seemed possible, easy, sure. Everything in life was sweet, was good and charming. But because she wished to go on dreaming forever, she poured more of this dream-water on to the cotton wool, and again began to breathe it in, occasionally removing the poison from her nostrils, so that she would not take too much, so that she would not die.
She looked at the moon, and saw a face in it, a woman’s face. She began once more to roam about the country, adrift in the hazy visions of an opium dream. The face hung in the centre of the sky; then it began to sing; in a well-known voice it sang the “Alleluia d’Amour.” It was the Marquise, who had just gone indoors to play the piano.
Yvette had wings now. She was flying through the night, a beautiful clear night, over woods and rivers. She flew with vast delight, opening and beating her wings, wafted by the wind as by a caressing touch. She whirled through the air, which kissed her skin, and glided along so fast, so fast, that she had no time to see anything below her, and she found herself sitting beside a pond, with a line in her hand—she was fishing.
Something tugged at the line; she pulled it in and brought up the magnificent pearl necklace she had once desired. She was not in the least astonished at the catch, and looked at Servigny, who had appeared beside her, though she did not know how, and was fishing too; he was just landing a wooden roundabout horse.
Then once again she felt that she was waking, and heard them calling to her from below.
Her mother had said: “Blow out the candle.”
Then Servigny’s voice, clear and humorous: “Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”
They all took up the cry in chorus.
“Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”
Again she poured chloroform on to the cotton wool, but, as she did not want to die, she kept it at some distance from her face, so that she could breathe the fresh air while filling her room with the asphyxiating odour of the narcotic, for she knew that someone would come upstairs. So she arranged herself in a charming attitude of abandonment, a mimicking of the abandon of death, and waited.
“I’m a little uneasy,” said the Marquise. “The foolish child has gone to sleep leaving the candle alight on the table. I’ll send Clémence up to blow it out and to shut her balcony window, which she has left wide open.”
In a few moments the maid knocked at the door and called:
“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!”
After an interval of silence she began again: “Mademoiselle, Madame la Marquise says please will you blow out your candle and shut the window.”
Again she waited, then knocked more loudly and called:
“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!”
As Yvette did not answer, the servant departed and told the Marquise:
“Mademoiselle has certainly gone to sleep; her door is bolted and I can’t wake her.”
“But surely she won’t go on sleeping like that?” murmured Madame Obardi.
On Servigny’s advice they all assembled under the young girl’s window and shouted in chorus:
“Hip-Hip-Hurrah—Mam’zelle Yvette!”
The cry rang out in the still night, piercing the clear moonlit air, and died away in the sleeping countryside; they heard it fade away like the noise of a train that has gone by.
As Yvette did not reply, the Marquise said:
“I hope nothing’s the matter with her; I’m beginning to be alarmed.”
Then Servigny snatched the red roses and the still unopened buds from the big rose-tree that grew up the wall, and began to hurl them through the window into her room. At the first which struck her, Yvette started and nearly cried out. Some fell on her dress, some in her hair, others flew over her head and landed on the bed, covering it with a rain of flowers.
Once more the Marquise cried in a choking voice:
“Come, Yvette, answer!”
“Really, it’s not normal,” declared Servigny. “I’ll climb up by the balcony.”
But the chevalier was indignant.
“Pardon me, pardon me, but that’s too much of a favour, I protest; it’s too good a way—and too good a time—for making a rendezvous!”
And all the others, thinking that the young girl was playing a trick on them, cried out:
“We protest. It’s a put-up affair. He shan’t go up, he shan’t go up.”
But the Marquise repeated in her agitation:
“Someone must go and see.”
“She favours the duke; we are betrayed,” declared the prince, with a dramatic gesture.
“Let’s toss for the honour,” suggested the chevalier, and took a gold hundred-franc piece from his pocket.
He began with the prince. “Tails,” he called. It was heads. The prince in his turn threw the coin, saying to Saval:
“Call, please.”
“Heads,” called Saval.
It was tails.
The prince proceeded to put the same question to all the others. All lost. Servigny, who alone remained facing him, drawled insolently:
“Damn it, he’s cheating!”
The Russian placed his hand on his heart and offered the gold coin to his rival, saying:
“Spin it yourself, my dear duke.”
Servigny took it and tossed it, calling: “Heads!”
It was tails. He bowed, and pointed to the pillar of the balcony.
“Up you go, prince,” he said.
But the prince was looking about him with a troubled air.
“What are you looking for?” asked the chevalier.
“I … I should like a … a ladder.”
There was a general roar of laughter, and Saval came forward, saying: “We’ll help you.”
He lifted the man in his Herculean arms, with the advice: “Hold on to the balcony.”
The prince promptly caught hold of it and, Saval letting go, he remained suspended, waving his legs. Servigny caught hold of the wildly struggling limbs that were groping for a foothold, and tugged at them with all his strength; the hands loosed their grip and the prince fell like a log on to the stomach of Monsieur de Belvigne, who was hurrying forward to help support him.
“Whose turn now?” asked Servigny, but no one offered.
“Come on, Belvigne, a little courage.”
“No, thank you, my boy. I’d sooner keep my bones whole.”
“Well, you, then, chevalier? You should be used to scaling fortresses.”
“I leave it to you, my dear duke.”
“Well … well … I don’t know that I’m so keen on it as all that.” And Servigny walked round the pillar with a scrutinising eye. Then he leapt, caught hold of the balcony, hauled himself up like a gymnast on the horizontal bar, and clambered over the rail.
All the spectators applauded, with uplifted faces. But he reappeared directly, crying: “Come at once! Quickly! Yvette’s unconscious!”
The Marquise screamed loudly and dashed up the stairs.
The young girl, her eyes closed, lay like one dead. Her mother rushed wildly into the room and threw herself upon her.
“What is it? Tell me, what is it?” she asked.
Servigny picked up the bottle of chloroform which had fallen on the floor. “She’s suffocated herself,” he said. He set his ear to her heart, then added: “But she’s not dead; we’ll soon bring her round. Have you any ammonia here?”
“Any what … any what … sir?” said the distracted maid.
“Any sal volatile?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fetch it at once, and leave the door open, to make a draught.”
The Marquise had fallen upon her knees and was sobbing. “Yvette! Yvette! My child, my little girl, my child, listen, answer me, Yvette! My child! Oh! my God, my God, what is the matter with her?”
The frightened men wandered aimlessly about the room, bringing water, towels, glasses, and vinegar.
Someone said: “She ought to be undressed.”
The Marquise, who was almost out of her wits, tried to undress her daughter, but she no longer knew what she was doing. Her trembling hands fumbled uselessly at the clothing, and she moaned: “I … I … I can’t, I can’t.”
The maid had returned with a medicine bottle; Servigny uncorked it and poured out half of its contents on to a handkerchief. He thrust it under Yvette’s nose, and she began to choke.
“Good; she’s breathing,” he said. “It’s nothing.”
He bathed her temples, her cheeks, and her neck with the strong-smelling liquid. Then he signed to the maid to unlace the young girl, and when nothing but a petticoat was left over her chemise, he took her in his arms and carried her to the bed; he was shaken, his senses maddened by the fragrance of her half-naked body, by the touch of her flesh, and the softness of the half-seen breasts on which he pressed his lips.
When she was in bed he rose to his feet, very pale.
“She’s coming to,” he said; “it’s nothing,” for he had heard that her breathing was continuous and regular. But seeing the men’s eyes fixed upon Yvette stretched across the bed, a spasm of jealous fury seized him. He went up to them, saying:
“Gentlemen, there are too many of us in this room. Be good enough to leave Monsieur Saval and myself alone with the Marquise.”
His voice was sharp and authoritative. The other men left at once.
Madame Obardi had seized her lover in her arms and, with her face raised to his, was crying:
“Save her! … Oh, save her!”
But Servigny, who had turned round, saw a letter on the table. With a swift movement he picked it up and read the address. He guessed the whole affair at once and thought: “Perhaps the Marquise had better not know about this.” And tearing open the envelope, he read at a glance the two lines which it contained:
I die so that I may not become a kept woman.
“Deuce take it,” he said to himself. “This needs thinking over”; and he hid the letter in his pocket. He returned to the bedside, and at once the thought came to him that the young girl had regained consciousness, but dared not show it, out of shame, humiliation, and a dread of being questioned.
The Marquise had fallen on her knees and was weeping, her head resting on the foot of the bed. Suddenly she exclaimed:
“A doctor! We must have a doctor!”
But Servigny, who had been whispering to Saval, said to her:
“No, it’s all right now. Just go out for a minute and I promise you that she’ll be ready to kiss you when you come back.”
The baron took Madame Obardi’s arm and led her away. Servigny sat down beside the bed and took Yvette’s hand.
“Listen to me, Mam’zelle,” he said.
She did not answer. She felt so happy, so comfortable, so cosy and warm that she would have liked never to move or speak again, but to live on in this state. A sense of infinite well-being possessed her, like no sensation she had ever known. The warm night air drifted into the room in a gentle, caressing breeze, and from time to time its faint breath blew sweetly across her face. It was a caress, the wind’s kiss, the soft refreshing breath of a fan made of all the leaves in the wood, all the shadows of the night, all the mists of the river, and all the flowers, for the roses strewn upon the floor and the bed, and the rose-tree that clung to the balcony, mingled their languid fragrance with the healthy tang of the night breeze.
She drank in the good air, her eyes closed, her senses still half adrift in the intoxication of the drug; she no longer felt a wish to die, but a strong, imperious desire to live, to be happy, no matter how, to be loved, yes, loved.
“Mam’zelle Yvette, listen to me,” repeated Servigny.
She decided to open her eyes. Seeing her thus revived, he went on:
“Come now, what’s all this foolishness?”
“I was so unhappy, Muscade,” she murmured.
He gave her hand a benevolent squeeze.
“Well, this has been a deuce of a lot of use to you, now, hasn’t it? Now promise me not to try again.”
She did not answer, but made a little movement of her head, and emphasised it with a smile that he felt rather than saw.
He took from his pocket the letter he had found on the table.
“Am I to show this to your mother?” he asked.
“No,” she signed with a movement of her head.
He did not know what more to say, for there seemed no way out of the situation.
“My dear little girl,” he murmured, “we must all accept our share of things, however sad. I understand your grief, and I promise …”
“You’re so kind …” she stammered.
They were silent. He looked at her. There was tenderness and surrender in her glance, and suddenly she raised her arms, as if she wished to draw him to her. He bent over her, feeling that she was calling him, and their lips met.
For a long time they stayed thus with closed eyes. But he, realising that he was on the point of losing control, raised his head and stood up. She was smiling at him now with real tenderness, and, gripping his shoulders with both hands, she tried to hold him back.
“I’m going to fetch your mother,” he said.
“One more second,” she murmured. “I’m so happy.”
Then, after a brief interval of silence, she said very softly, so softly that he hardly heard her:
“You will love me very much, won’t you?”
He knelt down by the bedside and kissed her wrist, which she held out to him.
“I adore you.”
But there were footsteps at the door. He sprang up and cried in his ordinary voice, with its faint note of irony:
“You can come in. It’s all over now.”
The Marquise flung herself upon her daughter with open arms, and embraced her frantically, covering her face with tears. Servigny, his heart full of joy and his body on fire with love, stepped out on to the balcony to breathe deeply of the cool night air, humming:
“Souvent femme varie;
Bien fol est qui s’y fie.”