This letter produced upon Germinie the effect of a push from behind. Shewent out and instinctively walked toward the railroad that would takeher to her little one. Her hair was uncombed and she was in herslippers, but she did not think of that. She must see her child, shemust see her instantly. Then she would come back. She thought ofmademoiselle's breakfast for a moment, then forgot it. Suddenly,half-way to the station, she saw a clock at a cab office and noticedthe hour: she remembered that there was no train at that time. Sheretraced her steps, saying to herself that she would hurry the breakfastand then make some excuse to be given her liberty for the rest of theday. But when the breakfast was served she could find none: her mind wasso full of her child that she could not invent a falsehood; herimagination was benumbed. And then, if she had spoken, if she had madethe request, she would have betrayed herself; she could feel the wordsupon her lips: "I want to go and see my child!" At night she dared notmake her escape; mademoiselle had been a little indisposed the nightbefore; she was afraid that she might need her.
The next morning when she entered mademoiselle's room with a fable shehad invented during the night, all ready to ask for leave of absence,mademoiselle said to her, looking up from a letter that had just beensent up to her from the lodge: "Ah! my old friend De Belleuse wants youfor the whole day to-day, to help her with her preserves. Come, give memy two eggs, post-haste, and off with you. Eh? what! doesn't that suityou? What's the matter?"
"With me? why nothing at all!" Germinie found strength to say.
All that endless day she passed standing over hot stewpans and sealingup jars, in the torture known only to those whom the chances of lifedetain at a distance from the sick bed of those dear to them. Shesuffered such heart-rending agony as those unhappy creatures suffer whocannot go where their anxiety calls them, and who, in the extremity ofdespair caused by separation and uncertainty, constantly imagine thatdeath will come in their absence.
As she received no letter Thursday evening and none Friday morning, shetook courage. If the little one were growing worse the nurse would havewritten her. The little one was better: she imagined her saved, cured.Children are forever coming near dying, and they get well so quickly!And then hers was strong. She decided to wait, to be patient untilSunday, which was only forty-eight hours away, deceiving the remainderof her fears with the superstitions that say yes to hope, persuadingherself that her daughter had "escaped," because the first person shemet in the morning was a man, because she had seen a red horse in thestreet, because she had guessed that a certain person would turn into acertain street, because she had ascended a flight of stairs in so manystrides.
On Saturday, in the morning, when she entered Mere Jupillon's shop, shefound her weeping hot tears over a lump of butter that she was coveringwith a moist cloth.
"Ah! it's you, is it?" said Mere Jupillon. "That poor charcoal woman!See, I'm actually crying over her! She just went away from here. Youdon't know--they can't get their faces clean in their trade withanything but butter. And here's her love of a daughter--she's atdeath's door, you know, the dear child. That's the way it is with us!Ah! _mon Dieu_, yes!--Well, as I was saying, she said to her just nowlike this: 'Mamma, I want you to wash my face in butter right away--forthe good God.'"
And Mere Jupillon began to sob.
Germinie had fled. All that day she was unable to keep still. Again andagain she went up to her chamber to prepare the few things she proposedto take to her little one the next day, to dress her cleanly, to make alittle special toilet for her in honor of her recovery. As she went downin the evening to put Mademoiselle to bed, Adele handed her a letterthat she had found for her below.
XXIII
Mademoiselle had begun to undress, when Germinie entered her bedroom,walked a few steps, dropped upon a chair, and almost immediately, aftertwo or three long-drawn, deep, heart-breaking sighs, mademoiselle sawher throw herself backward, wringing her hands, and at last roll fromthe chair to the floor. She tried to lift her up, but Germinie wasshaken by such violent convulsions that the old woman was obliged to letthe frantic body fall again upon the floor; for all the limbs, whichwere for a moment contracted and rigid, lashed out to right and left, atrandom, with the sharp report of the trigger of a rifle, and threw downwhatever they came in contact with. At mademoiselle's shrieks on thelanding, a maid ran to a doctor's office near by but did not find him;four other women employed in the house assisted mademoiselle to liftGerminie up and carry her to the bed in her mistress's room, on whichthey laid her after cutting her corset lacings.
The terrible convulsions, the nervous contortions of the limbs, thesnapping of the tendons had ceased; but her neck and her breast, whichwas uncovered where her dress was unbuttoned, moved up and down as ifwaves were rising and falling under the skin, and the rustling of theskirts showed that the movement extended to her feet. Her head thrownback, her face flushed, her eyes full of melancholy tenderness, of thepatient agony we see in the eyes of the wounded, the great veins clearlymarked under her chin, Germinie, breathing hard and paying no heed toquestions, raised her hands to her neck and throat and clawed at them;she seemed to be trying to tear out the sensation of something risingand falling within her. In vain did they make her inhale ether and drinkorange-flower water; the waves of grief that flowed through her body didnot cease their action; and her face continued to wear the sameexpression of gentle melancholy and sentimental anxiety, which seemed toplace the suffering of the heart above the suffering of the flesh inevery feature. For a long time everything seemed to wound her senses andto produce a painful effect upon them--the bright light, the sound ofvoices, the odor of the things about her. At last, after an hour ormore, a deluge of tears suddenly poured from her eyes and put an end tothe terrible crisis. After that there was nothing more than anoccasional convulsive shudder in the overburdened body, soon quieted byweariness and by general prostration. It was possible to carry Germinieto her own room.
The letter Adele handed her contained the news of her daughter's death.
XXIV
As a result of this crisis, Germinie fell into a state of dumb, brutishsorrow. For months she was insensible to everything; for months,completely possessed and absorbed by the thought of the little creaturethat was no more, she carried her child's death in her entrails as shehad carried her life. Every evening, when she went up to her chamber,she took the poor darling's little cap and dress from the trunk at thefoot of her bed. She would gaze at them and touch them; she would laythem out on the bed; she would sit for hours weeping over them, kissingthem, talking to them, saying the things that a mother's bitter sorrowis wont to say to a little daughter's ghost.
While weeping for her daughter the unhappy creature wept for herself aswell. A voice whispered to her that she was saved had the child lived;that to have that child to love was her Providence; that all that shedreaded in herself would be expended upon that dear head and besanctified there--her affections, her unreasoning impulses, her ardor,all the passions of her nature. It seemed to her that she had felt hermother's heart soothing and purifying her woman's heart. In herdaughter she saw a sort of celestial vision that would redeem her andmake her whole, a little angel of deliverance as it were, issuing fromher errors to fight for her and rescue her from the evil influenceswhich pursued her and by which she sometimes thought that she waspossessed.
When she began to recover from the first prostration of despair, when,as the consciousness of life and the perception of objects returned toher, she looked about her with eyes that saw, she was aroused from hergrief by a more poignant cause of bitterness of spirit.
Madame Jupillon, who had become too stout and too heavy to do what itwas necessary for her to do at the creamery, notwithstanding all theassistance rendered by Germinie, had sent to her province for a niece ofhers. She was the embodiment of the blooming youth of the country, awoman in whom there was still something of the child, active andvivacious, with black eyes full of sunlight, lips as round and red ascherries, the summer heat of her province in
her complexion, the warmthof perfect health in her blood. Impulsive and ingenuous as she was, thegirl had, at first, drawn near to her cousin, simply and naturally,obeying the law of attraction that draws the young toward the young. Shehad met his friendly advances with the immodesty of innocence, artlesseffrontery, the liberties taught by life in the country, the happy follyof a nature abounding in high spirits, and with all sorts of ignoranthardihood, unblushing ingenuousness and rustic coquetry, against whichher cousin's vanity was without means of defence. The child's presencedeprived Germinie of all hope of repose. Mere girl as she was, shewounded her every minute in the day by her presence, her touch, hercaresses, everything in her amorous body that spoke of love. Herpreoccupation with Jupillon, the work that kept them constantlytogether, the provincial wonderment that she constantly exhibited, thehalf-confidences she allowed to come to her lips when the young man hadgone, her gayety, her jests, her healthy good-humor--everything helpedto exasperate Germinie and to arouse a sullen wrath within her;everything wounded that jealous heart, so jealous that the very animalscaused it a bitter pang by seeming to love someone whom it loved.
She dared not speak to Mere Jupillon and denounce the little one to her,for fear of betraying herself; but whenever she found herself alone withJupillon she vented her feelings in recriminations, complaints andquarrels. She would remind him of an incident, a word, something he haddone or said, some answer he had made, a trifle forgotten by him butstill bleeding in her heart.
"Are you mad?" Jupillon would say to her; "a slip of a girl!"--"A slipof a girl, eh? nonsense!--when she has such eyes that all the men stareat her in the street! I went out with her the other day--I wasashamed--I don't know how she did it, but we were followed by agentleman all the time."--"Well, what if you were? She's a pretty girl,you know!"--"Pretty! pretty!" And at that word Germinie would hurlherself, figuratively speaking, at the girl's face, and claw it topieces with frantic words.
Often she would end by saying to Jupillon: "Look here! you loveher!"--"Well! what then?" he would retort, highly entertained by thesedisputes, by the opportunity to watch the antics of this fierce wrathwhich he fanned with pretended sulkiness, and by the excitement oftrifling with the woman, whom he saw to be half insane under hissarcasms and his indifference, stumbling wildly about and running herhead against stone walls in the first paroxysms of madness.
As a result of these scenes, repeated almost every day, a revolutiontook place in that excitable, extreme character, which knew no middlecourse, in that heart in which the most violent passions were constantlyclashing. Love, in which poison had long been at work, became decomposedand changed to hate. Germinie began to detest her lover and to seek outevery possible pretext for hating him more. And her thoughts recurred toher daughter, to the loss of her child, to the cause of her death, andshe persuaded herself that he had killed her. She looked upon him as anassassin. She conceived a horror of him, she avoided him, fled from himas from the evil genius of her life, with the terror that one has of aperson who is one's Bane!
XXV
One morning, after a night passed by her in turning over and over in hermind all her despairing, hate-ridden thoughts, Germinie went to thecreamery for her four sous' worth of milk and found in the back-shopthree or four maids from the neighborhood engaged in "taking aneye-opener." They were seated at a table, gossiping and sippingliqueurs.
"Aha!" said Adele, striking the table with her glass; "you here already,Mademoiselle de Varandeuil?"
"What's this?" said Germinie, taking Adele's glass; "I'd like somemyself."
"Are you so thirsty as all that this morning? Brandy and absinthe,that's all!--my soldier boy's _tap_, you know,--he never drank anythingelse. It's a little stiff, eh?"
"Ah! yes," said Germinie, contracting her lips and winking like a childwho is given a glass of liqueur with the dessert at a granddinner-party.
"It's good, all the same." Her spirits rose. "Madame Jupillon, let'shave the bottle--I'll pay."
And she tossed money on the table. After the third glass, she cried: "Iam _tight_!" And she roared with laughter.
Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had gone out that morning to collect herhalf-yearly income. When she returned at eleven o'clock, she rang once,twice! no one came. "Ah!" she said to herself, "she must have gonedown." She opened the door with her key, went to her bedroom and lookedin: the mattress and bedclothes lay in a heap on two chairs, andGerminie was stretched out across the straw under-mattress, sleepingheavily, like a log, in the utterly relaxed condition following a suddenattack of lethargy.
At the noise made by mademoiselle, Germinie sprang to her feet andpassed her hand over her eyes.--"Yes?" she said, as if some one hadcalled her; her eyes were wandering.
"What's happened?" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil in alarm; "did youfall? Is anything the matter with you?"
"With me? no," Germinie replied; "I fell asleep. What time is it?Nothing's the matter. Ah! what a fool!"
And she began to shake the mattress, turning her back to her mistress tohide the flush of intoxication on her face.
XXVI
One Sunday morning Jupillon was dressing in the room Germinie hadfurnished for him. His mother was sitting by, gazing at him with thewondering pride expressed in the eyes of mothers among the common peoplein presence of a son who dresses like a _monsieur_.
"You're dressed up like the young man on the first floor!" she said. "Ishould think it was his coat. I don't mean to say fine things don't lookwell on you, too----"
Jupillon, intent upon tying his cravat, made no reply.
"You'll play the deuce with the poor girls to-day!" continued MereJupillon, giving to her voice an accent of insinuating sweetness: "Lookyou, bibi, let me tell you this, you great bad boy: if a young womangoes wrong, so much the worse for her! that's their look-out. You're aman, aren't you? you've got the age and the figure and everything. Ican't always keep you in leading-strings. So, I said to myself, as wellone as another. That one will do. And I fixed her so that she wouldn'tsee anything. Yes, Germinie would do, as you seemed to like her. Thatprevented you from wasting your money on bad women--and then I didn'tsee anything out of the way in the girl till now. But now it won't do atall. They're telling stories in the quarter--a heap of horrible thingsabout us. A pack of vipers! We're above all that, I know. When one hasbeen an honest woman all her life, thank God! But you never know whatwill happen--mademoiselle would only have to put the end of her noseinto her maid's affairs. Why there's the law--the bare idea gives me aturn. What do you say to that, bibi, eh?"
"_Dame_, mamma,--whatever you please."
"Ah! I knew you loved your dear darling mamma!" exclaimed the monstrouscreature embracing him. "Well! invite her to dinner to-night. You canget up two bottles of our Lunel--at two francs--the heady kind. And besure she comes. Make eyes at her, so that she'll think to-day's thegreat day. Put on your fine gloves: they'll make you look moredignified."
Germinie arrived at seven o'clock, happy and bright and hopeful, herhead filled with blissful dreams by the mysterious air with whichJupillon delivered his mother's invitation. They dined and drank andmade merry. Mere Jupillon began to cast glances expressive of deepemotion, drowned in tears, upon the couple sitting opposite her. Whenthe coffee was served, she said, as if for the purpose of being leftalone with Germinie: "Bibi, you know you have an errand to do thisevening."
Jupillon went out. Madame Jupillon, as she sipped her coffee, turned toGerminie the face of a mother seeking to learn her daughter's secret,and, in her indulgence, forgiving her in advance of her confession. Fora moment the two women sat thus, silent, one waiting for the other tospeak, the other with the cry of her heart on her lips. SuddenlyGerminie rushed from her chair into the stout woman's arms.
"If you knew, Madame Jupillon!"
She talked and wept and embraced her all at once. "Oh! you won't beangry with me! Well! yes, I love him--I've had a child by him. It'strue, I love him. Three years ago----"
At every word Madame Jupillon's fa
ce became sterner and more icy. Shecoldly pushed Germinie away, and in her most doleful voice, with anaccent of lamentation and hopeless desolation, she began, like a personwho is suffocating: "Oh! my God--you!--tell me such things asthat!--me!--his mother!--to my face! My God, must it be? My son--achild--an innocent child! You've had the face to ruin him for me! Andnow you tell me that you did it! No, it ain't possible, my God! And Ihad such confidence. There's nothing worth living for. There's notrusting anybody in this world! All the same, mademoiselle, I wouldn'tever 'a' believed it of you. _Dame!_ such things give me a turn. Ah!this upsets me completely. I know myself, and I'm quite likely to besick after this----"
"Madame Jupillon! Madame Jupillon!" Germinie murmured in an imploringtone, half dead with shame and grief on the chair on which she hadfallen. "I beg you to forgive me. It was stronger than I was. And then Ithought--I believed----"
"You believed! Oh! my God; you believed! What did you believe? Thatyou'd be my son's wife, eh? Ah! Lord God! is it possible, my poorchild?"
And adopting a more and more plaintive and lamentable tone as the wordsshe hurled at Germinie cut deeper and deeper, Mere Jupillon continued:"But, my poor girl, you must have a reason, let's hear it. What did Ialways tell you? That it would be all right if you'd been born ten yearsearlier. Let's see, your date was 1820, you told me, and now it's '49.You're getting on toward thirty, you see, my dear child. I say! it makesme feel bad to say that to you--I'd so much rather not hurt you. But abody only has to look at you, my poor young lady. What can I do? It'syour age--your hair--I can lay my finger in the place where you partit."