A large drop of warm rain fell upon her brow, and a slight and almost imperceptible motion ran through the leaves, the quivering of the rain which was now beginning. Then a noise came from afar, a confused sound, like that of the wind in the branches: it was the deluge descending in sheets on earth and river and trees. In a few minutes the water poured about her, covering her, drenching her like a shower-bath. She did not move, thinking only of what was happening on the terrace.
She heard them get up and go to their rooms. Doors were closed within the house; and the young girl, yielding to an irresistible desire to learn what was going on, a desire which maddened and tortured her, glided downstairs, softly opened the outer door, and, crossing the lawn under the furious downpour, ran and hid in a clump of trees, to look at the windows.
Only one window was lighted, her mother’s. And suddenly two shadows appeared in the luminous square, two shadows, side by side. Then distracted, without reflection, without knowing what she was doing, she screamed with all her might, in a shrill voice: “Mamma!” as a person would cry out to warn people in danger of death.
Her desperate cry was lost in the noise of the rain, but the couple separated, disturbed. And one of the shadows disappeared, while the other tried to discover something, peering through the darkness of the garden.
Fearing to be surprised, or to meet her mother at that moment, Yvette rushed back to the house, ran upstairs, dripping wet, and shut herself in her room, resolved to open her door to no one.
Without taking, off her streaming dress, which clung to her form, she fell on her knees, with clasped hands, in her distress imploring some superhuman protection, the mysterious aid of Heaven, the unknown support which a person seeks in hours of tears and despair.
The great lightning flashes threw for an instant their livid reflections into her room, and she saw herself in the mirror of her wardrobe, with her wet and disheveled hair, looking so strange that she did not recognize herself. She remained there so long that the storm abated without her perceiving it. The rain ceased, a light filled the sky, still obscured with clouds, and a mild, balmy, delicious freshness, a freshness of grass and wet leaves, came in through the open window.
Yvette rose, took off her wet, cold garments, without thinking what she was doing, and went to bed. She stared with fixed eyes at the dawning day. Then she wept again, and then she began to think.
Her mother! A lover! What a shame! She had read so many books in which women, even mothers, had overstepped the bounds of propriety, to regain their honor at the pages of the climax, that she was not astonished beyond measure at finding herself enveloped in a drama similar to all those of her reading. The violence of her first grief, the cruel shock of surprise, had already worn off a little, in the confused remembrance of analogous situations. Her mind had rambled among such tragic adventures, painted by the novel-writers, that the horrible discovery seemed, little by little, like the natural continuation of some serial story, begun the evening before.
She said to herself: “I will save my mother.” And almost reassured by this heroic resolution, she felt herself strengthened, ready at once for the devotion and the struggle. She reflected on the means which must be employed. A single one seemed good, which was quite in keeping with her romantic nature. And she rehearsed the interview which she should have with the Marquise, as an actor rehearses the scene which he is going to play.
The sun had risen. The servants were stirring about the house. The chambermaid came with the chocolate. Yvette put the tray on the table and said:
“You will say to my mother that I am not well, that I am going to stay in bed until those gentlemen leave, that I could not sleep last night, and that I do not want to be disturbed because I am going to try to rest.”
The servant, surprised, looked at the wet dress, which had fallen like a rag on the carpet.
“So Mademoiselle has been out?” she said.
“Yes, I went out for a walk in the rain to refresh myself.”
The maid picked up the skirts, stockings, and wet shoes; then she went away carrying on her arm, with fastidious precautions, these garments, soaked as the clothes of a drowned person. And Yvette waited, well knowing that her mother would come to her.
The Marquise entered, having jumped from her bed at the first words of the chambermaid, for a suspicion had possessed her, heart since that cry: “Mamma!” heard in the dark.
“What is the matter?” she said.
Yvette looked at her and stammered: “I—I—” Then overpowered by a sudden and terrible emotion, she began to choke.
The Marquise, astonished, again asked: “What in the world is the matter with you?”
Then, forgetting all her plans and prepared phrases, the young girl hid her face in both hands and stammered:
“Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!”
Madame Obardi stood by the bed, too much affected thoroughly to understand, but guessing almost everything, with that subtile instinct whence she derived her strength. As Yvette could not speak, choked with tears, her mother, worn out finally and feeling some fearful explanation coming, brusquely asked:
“Come, will you tell me what the matter is?”
Yvette could hardly utter the words: “Oh! last night—I saw—your window.”
The Marquise, very pale; said: “Well? what of it?”
Her daughter repeated, still sobbing: “Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!”
Madame Obardi, whose fear and embarrassment turned to anger, shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. “I really believe that you are crazy. When this ends, you will let me know.”
But the young girl, suddenly took her hands from her face, which was streaming with tears.
“No, listen, I must speak to you, listen. You must promise me—we must both go, away, very far off, into the country, and we must live like the country people; and no one must know what has become of us. Say you will, mamma; I beg you, I implore you; will you?”
The Marquise, confused, stood in the middle of the room. She had in her veins the irascible blood of the common people. Then a sense of shame, a mother’s modesty, mingled with a vague sentiment of fear and the exasperation of a passionate woman whose love is threatened, and she shuddered, ready to ask for pardon, or to yield to some violence.
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
Yvette replied:
“I saw you, mamma, last night. You cannot—if you knew—we will both go away. I will love you so much that you will forget—”
Madame Obardi said in a trembling voice: “Listen, my daughter, there are some things which you do not yet understand. Well, don’t forget—don’t forget-that I forbid you ever to speak to me about those things.”
But the young girl, brusquely taking the role of savior which she had imposed upon herself, rejoined:
“No, mamma, I am no longer a child, and I have the right to know. I know that we receive persons of bad repute, adventurers, and I know that, on that account, people do not respect us. I know more. Well, it must not be, any longer, do you hear? I do not wish it. We will go away: you will sell your jewels; we will work, if need be, and we will live as honest women, somewhere very far away. And if I can marry, so much the better.”
She answered: “You are crazy. You will do me the favor to rise and come down to breakfast with all the rest.”
“No, mamma. There is some one whom I shall never see again, you understand me. I want him to leave, or I shall leave. You shall choose between him and me.”
She was sitting up in bed, and she raised her voice, speaking as they do on the stage, playing, finally, the drama which she had dreamed, almost forgetting her grief in the effort to fulfill her mission.
The Marquise, stupefied, again repeated: “You are crazy—” not finding anything else to say.
Yvette replied with a theatrical energy: “No, mamma, that man shall leave the house, or I shall go myself, for I will not weaken.”
“And where will you go? What will you do?”
�
��I do not know, it matters little—I want you to be an honest woman.”
These words which recurred, aroused in the Marquise a perfect fury, and she cried:
“Be silent. I do not permit you to talk to me like that. I am as good as anybody else, do you understand? I lead a certain sort of life, it is true, and I am proud of it; the ‘honest women’ are not as good as I am.”
Yvette, astonished, looked at her, and stammered: “Oh! mamma!”
But the Marquise, carried away with excitement, continued:
“Yes, I lead a certain life—what of it? Otherwise you would be a cook, as I was once, and earn thirty sous a day. You would be washing dishes, and your mistress would send you to market—do you understand—and she would turn you out if you loitered, just as you loiter, now because I am—because I lead this life. Listen. When a person is only a nursemaid, a poor girl, with fifty francs saved up, she must know how to manage, if she does not want to starve to death; and there are not two ways for us, there are not two ways, do you understand, when we are servants. We cannot make our fortune with official positions, nor with stockjobbing tricks. We have only one way—only one way.”
She struck her breast as a penitent at the confessional, and flushed and excited, coming toward the bed, she continued: “So much the worse. A pretty girl must live or suffer—she has no choice!” Then returning to her former idea: “Much they deny themselves, your ‘honest women.’ They are worse, because nothing compels them. They have money to live on and amuse themselves, and they choose vicious lives of their own accord. They are the bad ones in reality.”
She was standing near the bed of the distracted Yvette, who wanted to cry out “Help,” to escape. Yvette wept aloud, like children who are whipped. The Marquise was silent and looked at her daughter, and, seeing her overwhelmed with despair, felt, herself, the pangs of grief, remorse, tenderness, and pity, and throwing herself upon the bed with open arms, she also began to sob and stammered:
“My poor little girl, my poor little girl, if you knew, how you were hurting me.” And they wept together, a long while.
Then the Marquise, in whom grief could not long endure, softly rose, and gently said:
“Come, darling, it is unavoidable; what would you have? Nothing can be changed now. We must take life as it comes to us.”
Yvette continued to weep. The blow had been too harsh and too unexpected to permit her to reflect and to recover at once.
Her mother resumed: “Now, get up and come down to breakfast, so that no one will notice anything.”
The young girl shook her head as if to say, “No,” without being able to speak. Then she said, with a slow voice full of sobs:
“No, mamma, you know what I said, I won’t alter my determination. I shall not leave my room till they have gone. I never want to see one of those people again, never, never. If they come back, you will see no more of me.”
The Marquise had dried her eyes, and wearied with emotion, she murmured:
“Come, reflect, be reasonable.”
Then, after a moment’s silence:
“Yes, you had better rest this morning. I will come up to see you this afternoon.” And having kissed her daughter on the forehead, she went to dress herself, already calmed.
Yvette, as soon as her mother had disappeared, rose, and ran to bolt the door, to be alone, all alone; then she began to think. The chambermaid knocked about eleven o’clock, and asked through the door: “Madame the Marquise wants to know if Mademoiselle wishes anything, and what she will take for her breakfast.”
Yvette answered: “I am not hungry, I only ask not to be disturbed.”
And she remained in bed, just as if she had been ill. Toward three o’clock, some one knocked again. She asked:
“Who is there?”
It was her mother’s voice which replied: “It is I, darling, I have come to see how you are.”
She hesitated what she should do. She opened the door, and then went back to bed. The Marquise approached, and, speaking in low tones, as people do to a convalescent, said:
“Well, are you better? Won’t you eat an egg?”
“No, thanks, nothing at all.”
Madame Obardi sat down near the bed. They remained without saying anything, then, finally, as her daughter stayed quiet, with her hands inert upon the bedclothes, she asked:
“Don’t you intend to get up?”
Yvette answered: “Yes, pretty soon.”
Then in a grave and slow tone she said: “I have thought a great deal, mamma, and this—this is my resolution. The past is the past, let us speak no more of it. But the future shall be different or I know what is left for me to do. Now, let us say no more about it.”
The Marquise, who thought the explanation finished, felt her impatience gaining a little. It was too much. This big goose of a girl ought to have known about things long ago. But she did not say anything in reply, only repeating:
“You are going to get up?”
“Yes, I am ready.”
Then her mother became maid for her, bringing her stockings, her corset, and her skirts. Then she kissed her.
“Will you take a walk before dinner?”
“Yes, mamma.”
And they took a stroll along the water, speaking only of commonplace things.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM EMOTION TO PHILOSOPHY
The following day, early in the morning, Yvette went out alone to the place where Servigny had read her the history of the ants. She said to herself:
“I am not going away from this spot without having formed a resolution.”
Before her, at her feet, the water flowed rapidly, filled with large bubbles which passed in silent flight with deep whirlings. She already had summed up the points of the situation and the means of extricating herself from it. What should she do if her mother would not accept the conditions which she had imposed, would not renounce her present way of living, her set of visitors—everything and go and hide with her in a distant land?
She might go alone, take flight, but where, and how? What would she live on? By working? At what? To whom should she apply to find work? And, then, the dull and humble life of working-women, daughters of the people, seemed a little disgraceful, unworthy of her. She thought of becoming a governess, like young girls in novels, and of becoming loved by the son of the house, and then marrying him. But to accomplish that she must have been of good birth, so that, when the exasperated father should approach her with having stolen his son’s love, she might say in a proud voice:
“My name is Yvette Obardi.”
She could not do this. And then, even that would have been a trite and threadbare method.
The convent was not worth much more. Besides, she felt no vocation for a religious life, having only an intermittent and fleeting piety. No one would save her by marrying her, being what she was! No aid was acceptable from a man, no possible issue, no definite resource.
And then she wished to do something energetic and really great and strong, which should serve as an example: so she resolved upon death.
She decided upon this step suddenly, but tranquilly, as if it were a journey, without reflecting, without looking at death, without understanding that it is the end without recommencement, the departure without return, the eternal farewell to earth and to this life.
She immediately settled on this extreme measure, with the lightness of young and excited souls, and she thought of the means which she would employ. But they all seemed to her painful and hazardous, and, furthermore, required a violence of action which repelled her.
She quickly abandoned the poniard and revolver, which might wound only, blind her or disfigure her, and which demanded a practiced and steady hand. She decided against the rope; it was so common, the poor man’s way of suicide, ridiculous and ugly; and against water because she knew how to swim So poison remained—but which kind? Almost all of them cause suffering and incite vomitings. She did not want either of these things.
Then she thought of chloroform, having read in a newspaper how a young woman had managed to asphyxiate herself by this process. And she felt at once a sort of joy in her resolution, an inner pride, a sensation of bravery. People should see what she was, and what she was worth.
She returned to Bougival and went to a druggist, from whom she asked a little chloroform for a tooth which was aching. The man, who knew her, gave her a tiny bottle of the narcotic.
Then she set out on foot for Croissy, where she procured a second phial of poison. She obtained a third at Chaton, a fourth at Ruril, and got home late for breakfast.
As she was very hungry after this long walk, she ate heartily with the pleasurable appetite of people who have taken exercise.
Her mother, happy to see her so hungry, and now feeling tranquil herself, said to her as they left the table:
“All our friends are coming to spend Sunday with us. I have invited the Prince, the Chevalier, and Monsieur de Belvigne.”
Yvette turned a little pale, but did not reply. She went out almost immediately, reached the railway station, and took a ticket for Paris. And during all the afternoon, she went from druggist to druggist, buying from each one a few drops of chloroform. She came back in the evening with her pockets full of little bottles.
She began the same system on the following day, and by chance found a chemist who gave her, at one stroke, a quarter of a liter. She did not go out on Saturday; it was a lowering and sultry day; she passed it entirely on the terrace, stretched on a long wicker-chair.
She thought of almost nothing, very resolute and very calm. She put on the next morning, a blue costume which was very becoming to her, wishing to look well. Then looking at herself in the glass, she suddenly said:
“Tomorrow, I shall be dead.” And a peculiar shudder passed over her body. “Dead! I shall speak no more, think no more, no one will see me more, and I shall never see anything again.”
And she gazed attentively at her countenance, as if she had never observed it, examining especially her eyes, discovering a thousand things in herself, a secret character in her physiognomy which she had not known before, astonished to see herself, as if she had opposite her a strange person, a new friend.
The Guy De Maupassant Megapack: 144 Novels and Short Stories Page 222
