Was not his duty to remain faithfully at his post, like a soldier, like a guardian of honor and life, and to put all his means of action in the service of his conviction? Was not his duty to go to find Aline’s parents, and Madame Bise, and cry out to them: “Don’t allow this to happen; wait for the healing that will happen on its own! Can’t you see that the demon of money is agitating Caresco’s soul, that the slightest of his gestures, his smiles and his actions is the reflection of vile self-interest, and that his crime is worse than any other because it carries no sanction?”
But what echo would his voice find in the consciousness of the people that the ardent seducer had already enveloped with a persuasive magnetism? Would anyone even listen to him? Would he not see irritated face turn toward him, menacing eyes furious at being distracted from a conviction equal to his own?
For the human mind is constructed in such a way that, as soon as it is entrenched in a persuasion, contrary arguments, the means employed by adverse faith, only serve to root it more deeply in conviction. And in the present case Bordier felt that he would collide with the opinion of the relatives, especially of Madame Bise, that odious little woman whose stupidity irritated him, and, even more probably, of Aline Romé herself.
Given his impotence, therefore, and under the influence of his timorous character, which liked to let things go, convinced that he would be preaching to blocked ears, he decided to maintain a silence to which he was, in any case, obliged by a kind of professional secrecy.
As he finished his cup of coffee, the doorbell rang, pulling him back from the regions where his thoughts were floating. Georges Ponviane came in, without waiting to be introduced—but as Bordier got up joyfully to take his hands, he stopped, surprised by the other’s fearful expression.
“Georges! What’s the matter?”
“Nothing very bad—at least, I hope so. But Madeleine has been gripped by a kind of indigestion, and when I arrived at Madame Bise’s house a little while ago, where’s she’s been living since her bereavement, I found her in considerable pain. So I came to look for you, so that you might calm her down, and I’m very, very glad to have found you, my dear Jean.” Already reassured by the idea that his friend would come to care for his fiancée, and remove her from peril, if any existed, he added: “Oh, I’m sure that it’s nothing…perhaps another of the nervous accidents similar to those I’ve already mentioned to you…but you’ll understand that I’d rather be reassured, and you’re the only one in whom I have absolute confidence.”
Bordier had already put on his overcoat. In the fiacre that was waiting for them at the door, Georges expressed his anxieties about Madeleine, and his astonishment at seeing the alarming symptoms recur in spite of Dr. Cartaux’s expectations.
Bordier reassured him. Was it so astonishing that Madeleine was suffering after the frightful mental shock that she had experienced in the sudden death of her mother? No, no, Georges ought not to worry; all that would gradually fade way and disappear completely with the happy calm of marriage.
“When is it, your marriage?” Bordier added.
They chatted about their projects. The great desire of Georges and his father was not to delay too long the moment when Madeleine would be removed from the deplorable guardianship of Madame Bise. They were anticipating the minimum delay, while observing the proprieties—a few months at the most—and the marriage would be simple, without any pomp or a large gathering.
With a radiant contentment that dissipated the mists of anxiety, Georges again expressed to Bordier his desire to have him as a witness. Was it not to him, his truest, his only friend, the brother of his heart, that the prerogative belonged of placing the foundations of his happiness? His union with the ideal young woman would be imprinted with expansion and joy, presented under such auspices, supported by such camaraderie! Jean Bordier would then marry in his turn, would chose a companion as healthy and beautiful as Madeleine, and an intense affection would continue to unite the two households as it had sealed the hearts of the two friends.
What foursomes they would have then, what common voyages, what intimate celebrations, full of harmony and tranquility, in two families that would form one, nursed by the same joys, suffering the same difficulties, united by bonds more indissoluble than those of vulgar blood relationship! Children would be born who would love one another in their turn—and Georges, in an overflow of hope and joy, was already declaring that Bordier would be the godfather of his firstborn.
Bordier smiled at the slightly puerile expansions of his excited friend, gained by the contagion of his contentment, and shook his friend’s hand warmly, promising all that he was asked, and also quivering at the comforting hope of the radiance of the dawn that was about to break.
Alas! Extinct dreams! Frightful collapse of all those ideal caresses! What did he think, the poor physician, when, after having examined Madeleine, lying in the warm softness of white sheets, her head lost in the golden waves of her hair, shaken by vomiting, her breasts swollen, with the areolas of maternity, and that abdomen already bulging under the covers? What did he think, when he was struck by that awful discovery?
In a bleak retreat, his confidence and his joy fled.
What, Madeleine! Madeleine, the young woman of such pure and calm appearance that she seemed to symbolize virginity; Madeleine, who had appeared to him on the first evening he saw her as a radiant blossoming of a lily of modest love; Madeleine, whose eyes bathed in candid repose, whose lips were so chastely pink that it seemed that a material word might bruise them in passing…Madeleine was pregnant!
The young man was astounded. Suppositions collided in his mind. Pregnant! By whom? What man had been infamous enough to tarnish that pure soul?
What man? For he did not suppose for a single instant that it was Georges. He knew the noble honesty of his friend’s character too well. Then again, even supposing a fault, excusable in sum between two young people exasperated by a violent amorous impulse, even supposing such a fault had been committed, would Georges not have confided it to him, the other half of his heart, the depository of his slightest actions, his most trivial thoughts? Would not Georges have been on the lookout for these symptoms of pregnancy, so evident for alerted minds, which were now becoming so even to those that were not? And as soon as the first alarm, would he have failed to make him party to it, to seek information from him regarding the probabilities, and even the measures that might be taken to avoid a scandal?
No, Georges was not the author of the sin. An ardent conviction revolted Bordier against the mere supposition. Was it, then, Madeleine who had betrayed him, who, in a moment of recklessness, under an unconscious pressure, solicited by the ardent words of a cavalier, perhaps after the intoxication of a ball, had weakened in another’s arms? No, that was not possible either. Madeleine seemed to him to be as sure, as loyal, as Georges, as respectful of the supreme grandeur of their love.
Something mysterious and abominable must have happened, which he could not imagine. And already, exceeding reality, he thought of hypnotism. But who? What wretch…?
And before the calm face, the young woman’s eyes, filled with a tranquil mirage, now that the crisis was over, he thought that he might be mistaken. He posed the same questions again, repeated them with a precision that his role as a physician authorized—and he obtained the same replies, made in the same candid, almost innocent fashion.
“Oh yes, my dear Monsieur Bordier,” Madeleine said to him, “examine me carefully and tell me exactly what villainous illness I have in my abdomen. Isn’t it bizarre that I’ve swollen up in this fashion? I’m obliged to lace myself up very tightly to get into my corset, and I can foresee the moment when I shall have to let out my dresses. I believe that I have a tumor. Oh, poor Georges! Poor Georges! How he will suffer from all this!”
She was weeping now, and Bordier felt that lamentation infecting him. Could he doubt a virtue that was exhaled in such a loving plaint? How sublimely beautiful she was thus, vanquished by her body a
nd her heart, annihilated by dolor and fear under the irredeemable menace suspended over her head! How ardently desirable she was, with her head, so fine and so aristocratic, overwhelmed by the envelope of her blonde hair, and how he could have understood how Georges, without seeking to, without wanting to dig deeply into all that was frightful and incomprehensible in his misdeed, might have accepted thus to transport her, joyful and adored, toward the summit of felicity!
But he was judging as someone who is not in love, who appreciates a situation in human terms, who does not envisage all there might be of sovereign folly in a passion so exalted.
And what about Georges? What would become of him in the presence of the fact that had fallen brutally upon his love? Would he be crushed by it, or heroic enough to resist it, to cast it off with a shrug of his shoulders?
“Alas,” said Madeleine, “I can tell by your expression that it’s grave. Poor Georges!”
“No, it’s not grave,” Bordier replied, “surely not grave; I give you my word of honor on that.”
“Oh, tell Georges that!” she said, swiftly. “Reassure him, I beg you. For what does health, or even life, matter to me? But it’s for him, whom I love so much!”
At these words, Bordier remained deeply sad. In the shock of the discovery, he had not had time to think of what conduct he ought to adopt with regard to his friend. A frightful problem filled him with doubt and anguish. What was he going to say to the fiancé who was out there, in the drawing room, waiting feverishly, who must be expecting precise information, a diagnosis?
Madame Bise was absent this evening, kept away from home by a conference on Feminism at which she was even to speak, increasing carried away by that new enthusiasm. The two friends could, therefore, speak in total liberty—and it was that prospect which frightened the young physician.
And Bordier, who abominated the aunt, wished, at that critical moment, for her presence, swollen with self-importance, for the whirlwind of her vain words, and even her categorical opinions. For the dear aunt would not have neglected to impose the authority of her opinions and announce the diagnosis…of a reflux of blood, or bile on the heart. But he...what was he going to say to his Georges, so confident a friend?
Dare he deceive him? Or ought he, by means of skillful questions of which he could not yet glimpse the strategy, obtain revelations, discover whether a fault might have been committed, whether Georges, going momentarily astray, might have seduced his fiancée…and then reveal the result?
But how could he pose those questions? How could he lead the conversation on to that terrain strewn with thorns? He did not feel that he had the strength of mind, or the cunning for such delicate diplomacy. Then again, he had the absolute conviction that it was not the case. Why, then, by a maladroit investigation, excite suspicions, tear a portion of the veil that he would have liked to continue to obscure his friend’s sight?
But what a frightful moment it would be when Georges would finally be enlightened, when someone else, or even he, told him the abominable truth? What a collapse of gilded dreams, what an abyss, what sobs, what despair!
Was it not better, then, that he should bring him this very evening to the reality of the circumstance, gently, cradling him with affectionate and consoling words, imprinted with a philosophy broad enough to excuse anything?
And Bordier struggled in the tempest of his thoughts, tossed by surges of contrary ideas, seeking in vain for a saving plank to which he might cling, in order not to allow himself to be swallowed up by a bitter sea.
For a moment, he was dominated by the idea of flight, of the staircase that he could run swiftly down, in order to escape into the street and avoid further explanation. That was the idea most pleasing to his imprecise character, but he judged that it would be cowardly, unworthy of his amity.
Then, a subterfuge came quite naturally to take form in his mind, which satisfied both his dread and his conscience. The secret that he had just discovered was, in sum, a medical secret—a professional secret, discovered in the exercise of his art, while he was performing his function as a physician. What right did he have to reveal it, even to Georges? Although his friendship ordered him to speak, was he not, on the other hand, obliged to remain silent by the absolute rules of his profession?
That was a subtlety that would permit him to wait, to reflect during the few days ht he was about to spend in Bordeaux, to take inspiration from the advice of his masters if necessary. Another might have resolved the problem ex abrupto, leaving himself to the impulse of the moment, but Bordier accorded himself that half-measure.
And as he saw Madeleine, before his mutism, dissolve into tears again, he thought once again of the cheerful projects to which Georges had made him party a little while ago in the carriage, of the tender and sweet dreams so close to their realization, of united households, of children. “You’ll be the godfather of my firstborn,” he had said to him. And he was here, that firstborn, before time, brought by a mystery, conceived in a crime, already tormenting his mother’s organs before breaking her heart.
“You’re not saying anything,” said the pale, tearful woman. “So it’s very grave!”
“No, I affirm again that it’s not grave. Believe me, for you’re the person most dear to my dearest friend. But your case requires reflection, perhaps another examination more expert than mine...”
“Not Monsieur Caresco—I don’t want that!” Madeleine hastened to say.
Caresco! The name fell into the conversation like a shell that blasts apart a wall in a dark house, and, letting the daylight in, expels the shadows. Caresco! Instinctively, stupidly, Bordier associated the name with the crime, and wanted to seek, to know.”
“Caresco?” he said. “You know him, then?”
“I’ve only seen him twice. The first time it was at my Aunt Bise’s house at Les Bolois, the day when I had a prolonged fainting fit and he cared for me. Then I saw him again the other day, in the Avenue Hoche, when I went to visit Aline. Bizarrely enough, I fell ill again. Oh, how I dislike him!”
“You had a fainting fit,” said Bordier, whose voice was trembling. “What happened? Where? What did he do to care for you?”
And Madeleine recounted the adventure, explaining how, alarmed by the storm, in one of those crises of nervous excitement to which she had been subject since childhood, she had fallen unconscious during the visit to Château Gaillard, and had been picked up by the surgeon, who had taken refuge beside her, alone, to shelter from the storm.
“Alone?” Bordier insisted.
“Yes, alone. Why?”
“And for how long?” he asked.
“About five minutes. It was toward the end of July.”
Five months! The date coincided with the development of the pregnancy. A frightful suspicion invaded Bordier, suddenly: a suspicion founded on probabilities, on a plausibility, on the vileness of the man, the baseness of his soul, on everything that he had seen, and which now tormented him like a bitter whirlpool, on everything that Dr. Savre had said to him.
With a horrible tenacity, that suspicion took hold of him, became a certainty, and was elevated to the level of reality, with the flap of a wing that chased away doubt.
Yes, such an infamous thing could only have been done by that ferocious dominator, devoid of faith or law, always so seconded by circumstances that one was led to doubt in an immanent Justice and Truth.
“Oh, what did he do? What did he do?” the physician let out, his throat constricted by anguish.
Madeleine did not understand that exclamation. Surprised by the panic that was brightening Bordier’s eyes, she replies: “What did he do? I don’t know. He probably sprinkled water on me.”
The hazard of the words aggravated the irony. The lamentation appealed to laughter. Both of them had mournful faces, and they were producing vaudeville dialogue. Was it that, the absurd shock of it, which pulled Bordier out of the frightful situation?
He stood up, and took Madeleine’s hand.
“Don’t
worry, Mademoiselle—and whatever happens, remember that you have a great love, Georges’ love, and a great friendship, mine.”
He went out.
Down below, another struggle was about to begin, and he shivered as he went down the stairway and took hold of the door-handle of the drawing room where Georges as waiting. A shrill voice came through the door to strike his ear. Madame Bise had returned, and Bordier blessed the fact, feeling an immense relief at being able to avoid being alone with his friend.
Madame Bise was crying out. She was reproaching Georges for having left the young woman in the sole company of Bordier; her feminism was emboldening her suppositions. In vain, Georges was protesting that Bordier was a doctor, and that his quality as a physician authorized him to go to any bedside. The old fool did not want to hear it. She had come back in a state of excitement impossible to describe. The meeting had been inflammatory, and it had ended with a cat-fight.
“They behaved like men, no less!” she said to Bordier, when the latter, judging that the reproaches had concluded, had come into the room to listen to the account of the battle.
She had scarcely finished that declaration than Miss Pisword came in. The Englishwoman was in a lamentable state, her garments torn, her right eye surrounded by a black bruise. One of her front teeth—the one that stuck out furthest, like an elephant’s tusk—having been broken, had disappeared in the brawl. It was while wanting to defend her seat on the committee that a kind of concierge had attacked her, manifesting her chauvinism by giving the daughter of Albion a thrashing. She concluded therefrom that men had paid women to fight, and aggressively indicated to the two young men the horror of her demolished mouth. The scene was too funny for words, and would have delighted Ponviane and Bordier had disaster not been in their hearts.
The Necessary Evil Page 23
