Octave Mirbeau Archive
Written: 1886.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Lying flat upon the dune, face downward, my elbows sunk in the sand with head buried in my hands, and staring into the space before me, I dream.... The sea is in front of me, immense and glaucous, streaked with violet shadows, plowed by mighty billows whose crests, rising and falling back and forth, are white in the sun. The reefs of la Gamelle from time to time uncover the dark points of their rocks and send forth a dull noise like a distant cannonade. Yesterday the tempest broke loose; today the wind has subsided, but the sea still refuses to quiet down. The waves come up, swell, roll, rise, toss up their manes of swirling foam, break into ripples and fall back upon the pebbles, flat and broken, with a frightful roar of rage. But the sky no longer threatens, streaks of blue appear between the rifts of clouds swiftly borne away, and the seagulls are soaring high in the air. The fishing boats have just left the harbor, they are receding in the distance, diminishing, separating, becoming indistinct and finally vanishing. To my right, dominated by sinking dunes, is the strand extending as far as Ploch, which one can see behind a rise in the ground in the midst of dreary verdure, the roofs of the nearest houses, the belfry of granite stone at the end of which there rises a lighthouse. Beyond the pier the eye can see limitless expanses of pink shores, silvery bays, soft-blue cliffs covered with mist, so faint in the distance that they look like columns of vapor, and the ever present sea and the ever present sky which blend together yonder into a sort of mysterious and poignant elimination of all things.... To my left the dune, where the broomrape spreads its corymbs of purple flowers, ends abruptly. The ground rises, becomes steep and the rocks pile up, topple over, form openings of roaring abysses or plunge into the sea, cleaving its body like the prows of giant vessels. Further on there is the beach again.
The sea, held back by the shore, ever turbulent and white with foam, leaps and beats impetuously against the side of the cliffs. And the shore continues jagged, indented and worn away by the eternal onrush of the waves crumbling into a chaotic mass or rising and shaping themselves into awesome shadows against the sky. Over my head flocks of linnets are flying, and above the rage of the waves the wind brings to me the plaint of cock-pigeons and curlews.
It is here that I come every day. Whether it be windy or rainy, whether the sea howl or hum peacefully, whether it be clear or dark, I always come to this place.... It is not, however, because the sight impresses and moves me or that the terrible or charming aspect of nature consoles me. I hate this nature; I hate the sea, I hate the sky, the cloud that passes, the wind that blows, the birds that circle in the air; I hate everything that surrounds me, everything that I see, everything that I hear. I come here by force of habit, impelled by an animal instinct which calls animals back to the place that is familiar to them. Like the hare, I have dug my seat in the sand and I always come back to it. Whether it is upon the sand or on the moss, in the shadow of the woods, in the depths of the caves or in the sun of the solitary strand—does not matter!
Where can a man who suffers find refuge? Where look for the voice that soothes! Where can he find compassion which dries the eyes that weep? Oh! I know these chaste dawns, these gay noon hours, these pensive evenings and starry nights!... These endless distances where the soul expands, where sorrows dissolve... Ah! I know them!... Beyond this horizon line, beyond this sea, are there no countries like the rest? Are there no people, no trees, no noises?
There is no rest, no silence for me!... To die!... But who can assure me that the thought of Juliette will not come to mingle with the worms to eat me up?... One stormy day I was face to face with Death and I prayed to be taken by him. But Death turned away from me.... He spared me, me who am useless for anything or to anybody, to whom life is more of a torture than the carcass of a condemned criminal or the chain-shot of a galley-slave, and he took another instead—a strong, brave and kindly man for whom poor creatures were waiting! Yes, one time the sea snatched me, rolled me on its waves and then cast me up alive again upon the seashore, as if I were unworthy to perish in it.
The solid mass of clouds breaks up, becomes whiter. The sun showers the sea with rays of brilliant light, the changing green of the sea grows softer, becomes golden in some places and opalescent in others, and near the shore above, the bubbling line is variegated with all the shades of pink and white. The reflections of the sky which the waves endlessly divide, which they break up into a multitude of small fragments of light, glitter upon the agitated surface. Behind the harbor the slender mast of a cutter, which men are towing on the bowline, glides along slowly, then the hull appears, the hauled-up sails swell out, and gradually the vessel moves aways, dancing on the waves. Along the beach which the ebb tide uncovers, an angler is walking hastily, and ship-boys come running to the shore bare-legged, wade in the mud puddles, pick up rocks covered with seaweed, in search of loaches and crabs.... Pretty soon the vessel is nothing but a grayish speck on the horizon line which grows thinner, enveloped in a vacuous fog.... One can see that the sea is getting calm.
It is already two months that I have been here!... two months!... I have walked on the roads, in the fields, through the heaths; I know all the grass blades, all the rocks, all the crosses watching over the crossroads.... Like a tramp I have slept in the ditches, my limbs made numb by the cold, and I have crawled to the foot of the rocks, upon beds of humid foliage; I have wandered over the beach and the cliffs, blinded by the sand, lashed by the spray, deafened by the wind; with bleeding hands and bruised knees I have climbed rocks inaccessible to men, haunted only by sea ravens; I have spent sorrowful nights on the sea and I have seen sailors crossing themselves in the terror of death; I have rolled from the tops of huge boulders, and with the water up to my neck, swept by dangerous currents, I have fished sea weeds; I have climbed trees and I have dug the earth with a mattock.
The people here thought that I was out of my mind. My arms are broken. My flesh is bruised. And yet not for a minute, not for a second has my passion deserted me, it has possessed me even more than in the past. I feel how it strangles me, how it squashes my brains, crunches my chest, gnaws my heart, dries up my veins.... I am like a small animal attacked by a polecat; no matter how much I roll on the ground desperately struggling with its teeth, the polecat holds me and won’t let me go. Why did I go away?... Couldn’t I hide myself away in a room at some furnished house?... Juliette would come to see me from time to time, nobody would know that I existed, and in my obscurity I could enjoy my heavenly as well as abominable bliss.... Lirat had spoken to me of honor, of duty, and I believed him!... He had said to me: “Nature will console you.” And I believed him! Lirat had lied to me. Nature has no soul. Entirely given over to her eternal labor of destruction, she whispers to me nothing but thoughts of death and crime. Never has she bent over my burning forehead to cool it or stooped over my panting breast to calm it. And infinitude has only brought sorrow closer to me! Now I can no longer resist, and vanquished, I abandon myself to grief, without even making an effort to drive it away occasionally.
Though the sun rise in the splendor of silver gilt dawns, though it go down in purple glory, though the sea display its gems, though everything glitter, sing and emit sweet odors, I don’t want to see anything, I don’t want to hear anything.... I only want to see Juliette in the fugitive outline of the clouds; I only want to hear Juliette in the errant plaint of the wind, and I am ready to kill myself just to grasp her elusive image in the things about me!... I see her at the Bois smiling, happy with her freedom. I see her promenading in the stage boxes; I see her especially at night, in her bedroom. Men enter and go out, others come in and leave, all sated with love! By the glimmer of the night lamp, obscene shadows dance and grimace around her bed; laughter, kisses and dull spasms are stifled in the pillows, and with a swooning look, with trembling mouth, she offers everyone her luxurious body which never tires of pleasure. With my brains on fire, sinking my nails into my throat, I shriek: “Juliette! Juliette!” as if it were possible for Juliette to hear me across the space: “Juliette! Juliette!” Alas! the cry of the sea-gulls and the rumbling noise of the waves beating against the rocks are the only things that answer: “Juliette! Juliette!”
And evening comes.... The fogs float up, pink and weightless, enveloping the shore, the village, while the jetty, almost black, assumes the appearance of the hull of a huge vessel without masts; the sun inclines its copper-colored ball toward the sea, tracing a path of rippling, crimson light upon its limitless extent. Near the shore the water grows darker, and sparkles flare up on the crests of the waves. At this sad hour I return through the fields, meeting again the same carts pulled by oxen covered with cloths of gray flax, seeing the same silhouettes of peasants who, bent over the niggardly soil, struggle grimly with the heath and the rocks. And upon the heights of Saint-Jean where the windmills rotate their sails in the blue of the sky, the same calvary stretches out its supplicating arms....
I lived at the end of the village with Mother Le Gannec, an excellent woman who took care of me as well as she could. The house which opened on the main road was clean, well-kept, furnished with new and shining furniture. The poor woman strove to please me, worked desperately to invent something that would smooth my brow, that would bring a smile upon my lips. She was really touching. Every time I came down in the morning I would find her, knitting stockings or spinning, finished with her housework, alive, alert, almost pretty in her flat cap, her short black shawl, and her apron of green serge.
“Friend Mintié!” she would exclaim, “I have cooked some nice shell-fish fricassee for supper for you.... If you like sea-eel soup better, I’ll make you some sea-eel soup.”
“Just as you please, Mother Le Gannec.”
“But you always say the same thing. Ah! by Jesus! Friend Lirat was not like you at all. ‘Mother Le Gannec, I want some oysters and some periwinkles.’ To be sure I gave him some oysters and some periwinkles!... But he was never as sad as you are. Why no, indeed!”
And Mother Le Gannec told me some stories about Lirat who stayed with her a whole autumn.
“And he was so lively and so intrepid!... He would go out in the rain ‘to take some views.’ It did not hurt him a bit. He would come back drenched to the bones but always gay, always singing!... You ought to have seen that fellow eat! Ah, he could swallow the sea in the morning!”
Sometimes, to distract me, she told me her misfortunes, simply, without complaining, repeating with sublime resignation:
“Whatever the good Lord wishes, we must wish also. To cry over it all the time won’t help matters a bit.”
And in a musical voice which all Bretons possess, she used to say:
“Le Gannec was the best fisherman in Ploch and the most daring seaman on the entire coast. There was none whose fishing boat was better equipped, none who better knew reefs abounding with fish. Whenever a fishing boat dared out in stormy weather it was sure be the Marie Joseph. Everybody held him in high esteem not only because he was courageous but because his conduct was beyond reproach and worthy. He shunned the cabarets like a pest, detested drunkards, and it was an honor to be of the same mind as he was. I must also tell you that he was the commander of a life boat. We had two boys, friend Mintié, strong, well-built and able, one was eighteen years old and the other twenty, and the father expected both to be brave seamen as he was.... Ah! If you had only seen my two handsome boys, friend Mintié! Things were coming along nicely, in fact so nicely that with our savings we were able to build this house and buy this furniture. And so we were contented! One night, it was two years ago, the father and the boys did not return! I was not alarmed at all. It often happened that he had gone out far, as far as Croisic, Sables or Herbaudière. Was it not his business to follow the fish? But days passed and none showed up! And the days were still passing.... And not one came back! Every morning and every evening I used to go to the harbor and look at the sea.... I used to ask the fishermen whom I happened to meet: ‘Have you seen the Marie Joseph yet?’ ‘No,’ someone would answer, ‘I wonder why they haven’t come back?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Do you think some misfortune happened to them?’ ‘It’s quite possible!’ And while saying this the fisherman would cross himself. Then I burned three candles at the Noter Dame du Bon Voyage!... Finally one day, they came back, all three of them, in a big cart, black, swollen, half devoured by crabs and starfishes.... Dead.... Dead ... all three of them, my man and my two handsome boys. The keeper of the Penmarch lighthouse had found them washed upon the rocks.”
I was not listening and was thinking of Juliette. Where is she? Why does she keep silent? Eternal questions!
Mother Le Gannec continued:
“I don’t know your affairs, friend Mintié, and I don’t know why you are so unhappy, but you have not lost your man and your two boys at one stroke as I have! And even if I don’t cry, friend Mintié, that does not keep me from feeling sad, you see!”
And when the wind howled, when the sea rumbled from afar, she would add with a grave voice:
“Holy Virgin, have pity on our poor children over yonder on the sea.”
While I was thinking:
“Perhaps she is dressing now. Maybe she is still sleeping, worn out during the night.”
I used to go out, walk through the village and seat myself on a stump on the Quimper road, at the foot of a long acclivity, waiting for the postman to arrive. The road, laid out in the midst of rocks, is flanked on one side by a long embankment topped by fir trees, on the other side it dominates a small arm of the sea, which winds round the heath, bare and flat, in the midst of which puddles are shining. Here and there cones of gray rock rise up in the air; a few pines spread their blue crowns in the foggy atmosphere. Over my head, ravens never cease flying, strung out in a black and endless line, hastening toward I know not what voracious feasts, and the wind brings the sad tinkling of bells hung on the necks of the scattered cows, grazing upon the niggardly grass of the heath.
As soon as I would see two little white horses and a coach with a yellow body descending the hillside in the clatter of old iron and bells, my heart would start beating faster.... “There is perhaps a letter from her in that coach!” I would say to myself. And that old, dilapidated vehicle creaking on its springs appeared to me more splendid than a royal carriage, and the driver with his crush hat and his red face looked to me like a deliverer of some kind. How could Juliette write to me when she did not know where I was? But I was still hoping for a miracle! Then I would go back to the village, walking hastily, assuring myself by a succession of irrefutable arguments, that on that day I was going to get a long letter, in which Juliette would let me know of her coming to me, and I was reading in advance, her tender words, her passionate phrases, her repentance; on the paper I saw traces of tears wet as yet, for all this while, I thought, Juliette was passing her time in crying. Alas! Nothing came from her. Sometimes there was a letter from Lirat, admirable, fatherly in its contents, which bored me. With heavy heart, feeling more than ever the crushing weight of loneliness, my mind excited by a thousand projects, one more foolish than the other, I would return to my dune. From this short-lived hope I would pass to keenest sorrow, and the day would pass in invoking Juliette, in calling her, in begging for her from the pale flowers on the sands, from the foam of the waves, from all this insensible nature about me which denied her to me and which ever revealed her indistinct image, marred by the kisses of everybody.
“Juliette! Juliette!”
One day, on the jetty, I met a young lady in the company of an old gentleman. Tall, slender, she looked pretty under her veil of white gauze which covered her face and whose ends, tied at the back of her gray felt hat, fluttered in the wind. Her graceful and supple movements resembled those of Juliette. Indeed in the way she carried her head, in the delicate curves of her waist line, in the way her arms fell, in the ruffling of her dress in the air, I recognized something of Juliette. I looked at her with emotion and two tears rolled down my cheeks. She walked to the end of the pier. I sat down on the parapet and, pensive and fascinated, followed the silhouette of the young lady. As she was moving away, I felt affected more and more.... Why had I not known her before I met the other one? I would have loved her perhaps! A young girl who has never felt the impure breath of man upon her, whose ears are chaste, whose lips have never known lewd kisses, what a joy it would be to love her, to love her as angels do!
The white veil was fluttering above her like the wings of a sea-gull. And suddenly she disappeared behind the lighthouse. At the bottom of the jetty the sea splashed back and forth like a child’s cradle rocked by a nurse who hums a lullaby, and the sky was cloudless; it was stretched above the motionless surface of the water like a huge flowing curtain of light muslin.
The young lady was not long in coming back. She passed so near that her dress almost brushed against me. She was blond; I should have liked it better if she were dark as Juliette was. She walked away, left the jetty, took to the village road and pretty soon I saw only a white veil which seemed to say: “Good-bye, goodbye! Don’t be sad, I shall come back.”
In the evening I asked Mother Le Gannec about her.
“That’s demoiselle Landudec,” she replied, “a very excellent and well deserving girl, friend Mintié. The old gentleman is her father.... They live in the big château on the Saint Jean road. You know which one I mean.... You have been there several times.”
“How is it that I have never seen them?”
“Ah! Lord!... That’s because the old man is always sick and the girl stays at home to take care of him, the poor thing! Undoubtedly he must have felt better today and she took him out for a walk.”
“Hasn’t she got a mother?”
“No. Her mother has been dead for quite some time.”
“Are they rich?”
“Rich? Not so very! But they help everybody.... If you only went to mass on Sunday you would see the kind young lady.”
That evening I remained to talk with Mother Le Gannec much longer. I saw the kindly lady again several times on the jetty, and on those days the thought of Juliette was less oppressive. I wandered in the neighborhood of the château which looked to me as desolate as the Priory. Grass was sprouting in the courtyard, the lawns were not well kept, the alleys of the park were broken up by the heavy carts of nearby farmers. The gray stone façade, turned green by rain, was as gloomy as the large granite rocks that one saw on the waste land.... The following Sunday I went to mass, and I saw demoiselle Landudec praying among the peasants and fishermen. Kneeling on her prayer stool, her slim body bent like a primitive virgin, her head over a book, she prayed with fervor. Who knows? Perhaps she understood that I was unhappy and mentioned my name in her prayers? And while the priest was chanting his orison in a tremulous voice, while the nave of the church was being filled with the noise of wooden shoes beating against the slabs and with the whisper of lips in prayer, while the incense in the censer rose to the ceiling together with the shrill voices of the children in the choir, while the young lady prayed as Juliette would have done had she prayed at all, I was dreaming.... I was in the park, and the young lady approached, bathed in moonlight. She took my hand, and we walked on the lawns and in the shadow of rustling trees.
“Jean,” she said to me, “you are suffering and I have come to you. I have asked God if I could love you. God permits. I love you!”
“You are too beautiful, too pure, too holy to love me! You must not love me!”
“I love you! Put your arm in mine, rest your head on my shoulder and let us walk together, always!”
“No, no! Is it possible for the lark to love the owl? Is it possible for the dove that flies in heaven to love the toad which hides itself in the mud of stagnant waters?”
“You are not an owl, and you are not a toad, for I have chosen you! The love which God has permitted me to bear blots out all sin and assuages all sorrow. Come with me and I shall give you happiness.”
“No, no! My heart is cankered, and my lips have drunk the poison which kills souls, the poison which damns angels like you; don’t look at me so, for my eyes will defile you and you will be like Juliette!...”
The mass was over, the vision disappeared. There arose a noise of moved chairs and heavy steps in the church, and the children of the choir put out the tapers on the altar.... Still kneeling, the girl was praying. Of her face I could distinguish only a profile lost in the shadow of the white veil. She got up, after making the sign of the cross. I had to move my chair to let her pass. She passed ... and I felt a real joy, as though in refusing the love which she offered me in thought I had just now fulfilled a great duty.
She occupied my mind for a week. I resumed my furious walks through the moor, on the strand, and I wished I could conquer my passion. While walking, driven by the wind, carried along by that peculiar exaltation occasioned by rain pelting the sea shore, I imagined all sorts of romantic conversations with demoiselle Landudec and nocturnal adventures which took place in enchanted and lunar places. Like the characters in an opera, we vied with each other in sublime thought, in heroic sacrifices, in wonderful devotion; under the spell of the passionate rhythms and stirring recurrences of the song of the elements, we extended the boundaries of human self-denial. A sobbing orchestra accompanied the anguish of our voices.
“I love you! I love you!”
“No, no! You must not love me!”
She, in a very long white gown, with a bewildered look and outstretched arms ... I, gloomy, inexorable, the calves of my legs swelling under the violet silk tight garment, my hair disheveled by the wind.
“I love you! I love you!”
“No! No! You must not love me!”
And the violins emitted inaudible plaints, the wind instruments moaned, while the double basses and the dulcimers rumbled like tempest and peals of thunder.
Oh, the tragi-comedy of sorrow!
A curious thing! Demoiselle Landudec and Juliette became one; I no longer separated them, I confused them in my dreams, extravagant and melodramatic. Both were too pure for me.
“No! No! I am a leper, leave me alone!”
They passionately kissed my wounds, spoke of death and cried: “I love you! I love you!”
And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms over us and blessed us, the three of us!
This trance did not last long; I soon found myself on the dune, face to face with Juliette.
There were no violins, no wind instruments any longer, only the howl of anguish and revolt, the cry of a captured stag craving the female of its species.
“Juliette! Juliette!”
One evening I returned home more despondent than ever, my mind obsessed with dismal projects, my arms and hands in some manner agitated by a mad desire to kill, to strangle. I would have liked to feel something alive writhing, rattling, dying under the pressure of my fingers. Mother Le Gannec was standing at the threshold, darning the never failing pair of stockings. She said to me:
“How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have prepared some nice sea-crab for you!”
“Leave me alone, you driveling woman!” I shouted. “I don’t want your sea-crab, I don’t want anything, do you hear me?”
And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman, stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and moaned.
“Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!”
I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I begged her to come to see me before I died, describing to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping, in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tenderness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted. “Why do you spy on me? Go away!”
“Friend Mintié,” muttered the sainted woman, “don’t be angry. I can see that you are unhappy and I came to know if I can help you!”
“Well, suppose I am unhappy! Does that concern you? Here, take this letter to the post office and leave me in peace.”
For four days I did not leave my room. Mother Le Gannec came to make my bed and serve my meal. She was humble, timid, more attentive than ever, sighing:
“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord, what a misfortune!”
I realized that I was not acting as I should; she had been so kind to me; I wanted to ask forgiveness for my rudeness. Her white coif, her black shawl, her sad figure of an afflicted mother touched me. But a sort of foolish pride threw a damper on this effusion. She walked near me, resigned, with an air of infinite motherly pity; from time to time she repeated:
“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord! What a misfortune!”
The day drew to a close. While Mother La Gannec, after having mailed the letter, was sweeping the room, I sat at the window, my elbows resting on the ledge. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon line, leaving of its dazzling glory only a reddish transparency on the sky, and the sea, grown dark, dull, no longer reflecting light, assumed a sad hue. Night came, silent and slow, and the air was so calm that one could hear the rhythmic noise of oars striking the water of the wharf and the distant creaking of halyards on the masts tops. The beacon light was turned on, its red light turning in space like some irrational astral body.... And I felt very unhappy!
Juliette did not answer me!... Juliette would not come!... My letter, no doubt, had frightened her. She had recalled furious, savage, strangling scenes. She was afraid and would not come! And besides, were there not races, banquets, dinners, a line of impatient men at her door, waiting for her, claiming her, men who had paid in advance for the promised night? Why should she come, after all? There was no Casino on this desolate beach; in this God-forsaken corner of the coast there was no one to whom she could sell herself.
As for me, she had taken all my money, my brains, my honor, my future, everything! What more could I give her? Nothing. Why then should she come? If I had only told her that I had ten thousand francs left she would have come running. But to what purpose? Ah! Let her not come! My anger subsided, self-disgust replaced it, a frightful disgust! How could it be possible that a man who was not bad, whose past aspirations lacked neither nobility of character nor ardor, should fall so low, in such a short time, into a mire so deep that no human force could lift him out of it!...
What I now suffered from was not so much my own follies, my own disgrace and crimes as the misery which I had caused those around me. Old Marie!... Old Felix!... Oh, the poor couple! Where were they now? What were they doing? Did they have anything to eat, at least? Had I not compelled them to beg their bread when I expelled them—so old, so kind, so confiding, more feeble and desolate than homeless dogs! I saw them bent over their staffs, horribly thin, coughing, harassed, spending nights in chance lodgings. And the sainted Mother Le Gannec who took care of me as a mother her child, who lulled me to sleep with her warm caresses like those bestowed on little ones! Instead of kneeling before her, of thanking her, did I not treat her brutally, did I not almost beat her! Ah, no! Let her not come! Let her not come!
Mother Le Gannec lit the lamp, and I was about to close the window when I heard the tinkling of small bells upon the road, then the trundling of a carriage. I mechanically looked out. Indeed a carriage had ascended the steep hill of this place, it was a sort of stage which appeared very high and loaded with trunks. A fisherman passed by. The postman asked him:
“Will you please tell us where the house of Madame Le Gannec is?” “It is in front of you,” answered the fisherman, who indicated the house with a motion of hand and continued on his way.
I grew very pale ... and I saw by the light of the lantern a small gloved hand resting on the handle of the stage door.
“Juliette! Juliette!” I shouted like a madman. “Mother Le Gannec, it’s Juliette!... Quick, quick ... it’s Juliette!”
Running, tumbling down the stairway, I dashed to the street: “Juliette! My Juliette!”
Arms embraced me, lips pressed against my cheek, a voice breathed in my ears:
“Jean! My dear little Jean!”
And I swooned into the arms of Juliette.
It did not take me long to regain my senses, however. They put me to bed and Juliette, bent over me, embraced me, crying:
“Ah! Poor little thing. How you frightened me! How pale you still are! Is it all over, tell me? Speak to me, my Jean!”
I did nothing but look at her. It seemed as though my whole being, inert and rigid, smitten by a powerful blow, by some great suffering or happiness—I did not know which—had brought back and crowded into my glance all the life forces leaving me, dripping from my limbs, my veins, my heart, my brains.... I was looking at her! She was still beautiful, a little paler than in the past, but on the whole the same as ever, with her beautiful, sweet eyes, her lovely mouth, her deliciously childish voice. In her countenance, her gestures, the movements of her body, her words I wanted to find some sorrowful traces of her unknown existence, some blemish, some evidence of depravity, something new and more withered. But no, she was paler, and that was all. And I burst into tears.
“Sit still, I want to look at you more, my little Juliette!”
She drank in my tears and wept, holding me in a close embrace.
“My Jean! Ah, my adored Jean!”
Mother Le Gannec rapped at the door of the room. She did not speak to Juliette, pretending not to see her.
“What shall I do with the trunks, friend Mintié?” she asked.
“Have some one bring them up here, Mother Le Gannec.”
“You could not bring them all up here,” the old woman harshly replied.
“Have you got many of them, deary?”
“Many? Why no! There are only six. These people are stupid!”
“Well, Mother Le Gannec,” I said, “keep them downstairs tonight. We shall see tomorrow.”
I got up, while Juliette examined the room, occasionally exclaiming:
“Why, it’s so nice here! There’s a lot of fun here, my dear. And you have a bed, too, a real bed. And I thought they slept in wardrobes in Brittany! Ah! What is that? Don’t stir, Jean, don’t stir.”
From the mantelpiece she took a large shell and put it to her ear.
“Wait!” she said with disappointment. “Wait now, it does not make that sh-sh-sh sound. Why is that?”
She suddenly rushed into my arms and covered me with kisses.
“Ah! your beard! You are growing whiskers, you villain! Ah how long your hair is! And how thin you are! And I, have I changed much! Am I still beautiful?”
She placed her arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder:
“Tell me what you have been doing here, how you have spent your time, what you have been thinking about. Tell it all to your little wifie. And don’t tell lies. Tell her everything, everything.”
Then I described my furious walks, my prostrations on the dune, my sobbing, the fact that I had been seeing her everywhere, calling her like a madman in the wind, in the tempest.
“Poor little thing!” she sighed. “And you probably have not even a raincoat.”
“And you? you, my Juliette? Did you ever think of me?”
“Ah! When I found you gone from the house I thought I would die. Celestine told me that a man had come to take you away! Still I waited.... He will come, he will come.... But you did not come back. The next morning I ran to Lirat! Oh, if you only knew how he received me! ... how he treated me! And I asked everybody: ‘Do you know where Jean is?’ And no one could answer me. Oh, you naughty boy! To leave me like that ... without a word! Don’t you love me any more? Then, you understand, I wanted to forget myself. I was suffering too much.”
Her words had a sharp, curt ring in them:
“As for Lirat, you may rest assured, my dear, I’ll get even with him. You’ll see! It’ll be a farce! What a mean person your friend Lirat is! But you’ll see.”
One thing tormented me: how many days or weeks would Juliette stay with me? She had brought six trunks with her; hence she intended to remain at Ploch for a month at least,—perhaps longer. Together with the great anticipated joy of possessing her without fear or obstacle, there mingled a keen uneasiness. I had no money, and I knew Juliette too well not to realize that she would not resign herself to a life like mine, and I foresaw expenditures which I was not in a position to make. What was to be done? Not having enough courage to ask her directly, I answered:
“We have plenty of time to think of it, my dear. In about three months from now when we shall go back to Paris.
“Three months! Why no, my poor little thing, I leave in a week. I am so sorry.”
“Stay here, my little Juliette, I implore you, stay here altogether. Stay longer! A fortnight!”
“It is impossible, really. Oh, don’t be sad, my dear! Don’t cry! If you cry I won’t tell you something very nice.”
She became more affectionate, nestled and resumed:
“Listen, my dear. I have only one thought, and that is to live with you! We shall leave Paris, we shall move into a small house, hidden so well, you see, that no one will know that we are living. All we need is an income of twenty thousand francs.”
“Where do you expect me to get that much now?” I exclaimed discouraged.
“Now, listen to me,” continued Juliette. “We need only twenty thousand francs. Well, I have figured it all out! In six months we shall have it.”
Juliette looked at me with a mysterious air and repeated:
“We shall have it!”
“Please don’t talk like that, my dear. You don’t know how you hurt me.”
Juliette raised her voice, the wrinkle on her forehead grew rigid.
“Then you want me always to belong to others?”
“Oh! keep still, Juliette! Keep still! Never talk to me like that, never!”
“You are so funny! Come now, be nice and embrace me!”
The next morning, while dressing in the midst of opened trunks and scattered dresses, very much disconcerted by the absence of her chamber maid, she made all sorts of plans for the day. She wanted to take a walk on the jetty, to visit the lighthouse, to fish, to walk to the dune and sit down on the spot where I had cried so much. She said she enjoyed watching the pretty Breton girls in braided and embroidered dresses, like those in the theater, drinking fresh milk on the farms!
“Are there any boats here?”
“Yes.”
“Lot of them?”
“Certainly.”
“Ah! What a chance. I like boats so much!”
Then she gave me news of Paris. Gabrielle no longer lived with Robert. Malterre was married. Jesselin was on a trip. He had had several duels. And gossip about everybody. All this bad odor of Paris brought back my melancholy and bitter memories. Seeing me sad, she interrupted herself and embraced me, assuming an air of distress:
“Ah! Perhaps you suppose I like this life!” she said plaintively, “and that I only think of amusing myself, of flirting. If you only knew! There are certain things that I can’t tell you. But if you knew what a torture it is to me! You think you are unhappy! How about me? Why, if I did not have the hope of living with my Jean I would kill myself, so often do I feel disgusted with life.”
And, dreaming and wheedling, she would revert to the subject of farming, of hidden paths covered with verdure, of the peace and sweetness of a retired life amid flowers, domestic animals and love. Ah! devoted, humble, eternal love, love that was to brighten our life like the dazzling sun!
We went out after the breakfast which Mother Le Gannec sullenly served us, without once opening her mouth. We were hardly out, when the wind freshened; it disheveled Juliette’s hair. She wanted to return to the house.
“Ah! The wind, dear! I can’t stand the wind. It spoils my hair and makes me sick.”
She was bored all day and our kisses could not dispel the feeling of emptiness. Just as in the past, in my study, she spread a napkin on her dress, placed a few small nail brushes and files on the napkin, and gravely began to polish her nails. I suffered cruelly, and the vision of the old man at the window obsessed me.
The next day Juliette announced that she had to leave that very evening.
“Ah! What a misfortune, my dear! I have forgotten! Quick, quick, get me a carriage. Oh! what a misfortune!”
I made no effort to detain her. Sunk in my chair motionless, gloomy, my head buried in my hands, I sat throughout the preparations for her departure without uttering a single word or making a single request. Juliette went out, returned, folding her gowns, arranging her dressing-case, locking her trunks; I heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing. Men came in; their heavy steps caused the floor to creak. I understood that they were taking the trunks away. Juliette sat on my lap.
“My poor little dear,” she cried, “you suffer because I leave so soon. You should not feel hurt ... be sensible. Besides, I’ll come back shortly and stay a long time. Don’t act so. I’ll come back. I promise you. I’ll bring Spy along. I’ll also bring a horse to ride on, yes? You’ll see how well your little wifie rides on horseback. Now embrace me, my Jean! Why don’t you embrace me? Come on, Jean! Good bye! I adore you! Good bye!”
It was growing dark when Mother Le Gannec came into my bedroom. She lit the lamp and gently approached.
“Friend Mintié! Friend Mintié!”
I lifted my eyes; she was so sad, there breathed such merciful pity from her that I threw myself into her arms.
“Ah! Mother Le Gannec! Mother Le Gannec!” I sobbed. “That is what is killing me!”
Mother Le Gannec murmured:
“Friend Mintié, why don’t you pray to the merciful Lord? That will relieve you.”