The Inferno

by Henri Barbusse

  ***

  The day was coming to a close. Complete silence in the room. A plain night lamp was burning, the flame scarcely flickering. The clock, like a poor soul, was ticking faintly. There was hardly a thing near the bed. It was as in a real temple.

  She lay stretched out in bed, in ideal quiet, her eyes turned toward the window. Bit by bit, she saw the evening descending upon the most beautiful day in her life.

  This ruined mass, this languid face shone with the glory of having created, with a sort of ecstasy which redeemed her suffering, and one saw the new world of thoughts that grew out of her experience.

  She thought of the child growing up. She smiled at the joys and sorrows it would cause her. She smiled also at the brother or sister it would have some day.

  And I thought of this at the same time that she did, and I saw her martyrdom more clearly than she.

  This massacre, this tragedy of flesh is so ordinary and commonplace that every woman carries the memory and imprint of it, and yet nobody really knows it. The doctor, who comes into contact with so much of the same sort of suffering, is not moved by it any more. The woman, who is too tender-hearted, never remembers it. Others who look on at travail have a sentimental interest, which wipes out the agony. But I who saw for the sake of seeing know, in all its horror, the agony of childbirth. I shall never forget the great laceration of life.

  The night lamp was placed so that the bed was plunged in shadow. I could no longer see the mother. I no longer knew her. I believed in her.

  CHAPTER XI

  The woman who had been confined was moved with exquisite care into the next room, which she had occupied previously. It was larger and more comfortable.

  They cleaned the room from top to bottom, and I saw Anna and Philip seated in the room again.

  “Take care, Philip,” Anna was saying, “you do not understand the Christian religion. You really do not know exactly what it is. You speak of it,” she added, with a smile, “as women speak of men, or as men when they try to explain women. Its fundamental element is love. It is a covenant of love between human beings who instinctively detest one another. It is also a wealth of love in our hearts to which we respond naturally when we are little children. Later all our tenderness is added to it bit by bit, like treasure to treasure. It is a law of outpouring to which we give ourselves up, and it is the source of that outpouring. It is life, it is almost a work, it is almost a human being.”

  “But, my dear Anna, that is not the Christian religion. That is you.”

  ***

  In the middle of the night, I heard talking through the partition. I struggled with my sleepiness and got up.

  The man was alone, in bed. A lamp was burning dimly. He was asleep and talking in his sleep.

  He smiled and said “No!” three times with growing ecstasy. Then his smile at the vision he saw faded away. For a moment his face remained set, as if he were waiting, then he looked terrified, and his mouth opened. “Anna! Ah, ah! – Ah, ah!” he cried through gaping lips. At this he awoke and rolled his eyes. He sighed and quieted down. He sat up in bed, still struck and terrified by what had passed through his mind a few seconds before.

  He looked round at everything to calm himself and banish his nightmare completely. The familiar sight of the room, with the lamp, so wise and motionless, enthroned in the middle, reassured him. It was balm to this man who had just seen what does not exist, who had just smiled at phantoms and touched them, who had just been mad.

  ***

  I rose the next morning, all broken up. I was restless. I had a severe headache. My eyes were bloodshot. When I looked at them in the mirror, it was as if I saw them through a veil of blood.

  When I was alone, free from the visions and scenes to which I devoted my life, all kinds of worries assailed me – worry about my position, which I was risking, worry about the steps I ought to be taking and yet was not taking, worry over myself that I was so intent upon casting off all my obligations and postponing them, and repudiating my wage-earning lot, by which I was destined to be held fast in the slow wheelwork of office routine.

  I was also worried by all kinds of minutiae, annoying because they kept cropping up every minute – not make any noise, not light a light when the Room was dark, hide myself, and hide myself all the time. One evening I got a fit of coughing while listening at the hole. I snatched up my pillow and buried my head in it to keep the sound from coming out of my mouth.

  Everything seemed to be in a league to avenge itself upon me for I did not know what. I felt as though I should not be able to hold out much longer. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to keep on looking as long as my health and my courage lasted. It might be bad for me, but it was my duty.

  ***

  The man was sinking. Death was evidently in the house.

  It was quite late in the evening. They were sitting at the table opposite each other.

  I knew their marriage had taken place that afternoon, and that its purpose had been only to solemnise their approaching farewell. Some white blossoms, lilies and azaleas, were strewn on the table, the mantelpiece, and one armchair. He was fading away like those cut flowers.

  “We are married,” he said. “You are my wife. You are my wife, Anna!”

  It was for the sweetness of saying, “You are my wife,” that he had so longed. Nothing more. But he felt so poor, with his few days of life, that it was complete happiness to him.

  He looked at her, and she lifted her eyes to him – to him who adored her sisterly tenderness – she who had become devoted to his adoration. What infinite emotion lay hidden in these two silences, which faced each other in a kind of embrace; in the double silence of these two human beings, who, I had observed, never touched each other, not even with the tips of their fingers.

  The girl lifted her head, and said, in an unsteady voice:

  “It is late. I am going to sleep.”

  She got up. The lamp, which she set on the mantelpiece, lit up the room.

  She trembled. She seemed to be in a dream and not to know how to yield to the dream. Then she raised her arm and took the pins out of her hair. It fell down her back and looked, in the night, as if it were lit by the setting sun.

  The man made a sudden movement and looked at her in surprise. Not a word.

  She removed a gold brooch from the top of her blouse, and a bit of her bosom appeared.

  “What are you doing, Anna, what are you doing?”

  “Why, undressing.”

  She wanted to say this in a natural voice, but had not succeeded. He replied with an inarticulate exclamation, a cry from his heart, which was touched to the quick. Stupefaction, desperate regret, and also the flash of an inconceivable hope agitated him, oppressed him.

  “You are my husband.”

  “Oh,” he said, “you know I am nothing.” He spoke feebly in a tragic tone. “Married for form's sake,” he went on, stammering out fragmentary, incoherent phrases. “I knew it, I knew it – formality – our conventions–”

  She stopped, with her hand hesitating on her blouse like a flower, and said:

  “You are my husband. It is your right.”

  He made a faint gesture of denial. She quickly corrected herself.

  “No, no, it is not your right. I want to do it.”

  I began to understand how kind she was trying to be. She wished to give this man, this poor man who was sinking at her feet, a reward that was worthy of her. She wanted to bestow upon him the gift of the sight of her body.

  But the thing was harder than the mere bestowal of a gift. It must not look like the mere payment of a debt. He would not have consented to that. She must make him believe it was a voluntary wifely act, a willing caress. She must conceal her suffering and repugnance like a vice. Feeling the difficulty of giving this delicate shade to her sacrifice, she was afraid of herself.

  “No, Anna – dear Anna – think –” He was going to say, “Think of Michel,” but he did not have the strength at that moment to use this
one decisive argument, and only murmured, “You, you!”

  “I want to do it,” she repeated.

  “But I do not want you to. No, no.”

  He said this in a weaker voice now, overcome by love. Through instinctive nobility, he covered his eyes with his hand, but gradually his hand surrendered and dropped.

  She continued to undress, with uncertain movements that showed she hardly knew what she was doing. She took off her black waist, and her bust emerged like the day. When the light shone on her she quivered and crossed her shining arms over her chest. Then she started to unhook the belt of her skirt, her arms curved, her reddened face bent down and her lips tightly compressed, as if she had nothing in mind but the unhooking of her skirt. It dropped to the ground and she stepped out of it with a soft rustle, like the sound the wind makes in a leafy garden.

  She leaned against the mantelpiece. Her movements were large, majestic, beautiful, yet dainty and feminine. She pulled off her stockings. Her legs were round and large and smooth as in a statue of Michael Angelo's.

  She shivered and stopped, overcome by repugnance.

  “I feel a little cold,” she said in explanation and went on undressing, revealing her great modesty in violating it.

  “Holy Virgin!” the man breathed in a whisper, so as not to frighten her.

  ***

  I have never seen a woman so radiantly beautiful. I had never dreamed of beauty like it. The very first day, her face had struck me by its regularity and unusual charm, and her tall figure – taller than myself – had seemed opulent, yet delicate, but I had never believed in such splendid perfection of form.

  In her superhuman proportions she was like some Eve in grand religious frescoes. Big, soft and supple, broad-shouldered, with a full beautiful bosom, small feet, and tapering limbs.

  In a dreamy voice, going still further in the bestowal of her supreme gift, she said:

  “No one” – she stressed these words with an emphasis amounting to the mention of a certain name – “no one – listen – no one, no matter what happens, will ever know what I have just done.”

  And now she, the giver of a gift, knelt – knelt to her adorer who was prostrated before her like a victim. Her shining knees touched the cheap common carpet. Her chastity clothed her like a beautiful garment. She murmured broken words of gratitude, as though she felt that what she was doing was higher than her duty and more beautiful, and that it glorified her.

  ***

  After she dressed and left the room without their having dared to say anything to each other, I wavered between two doubts. Was she right, or was she wrong? I saw the man cry and I heard him mutter:

  “Now I shall not be able to die.”

  CHAPTER XII

  The man was lying in bed. They moved about him carefully. He stirred faintly, said a few words, asked for a drink, smiled and then became silent under the rush of thoughts.

  That morning they had seen him fold his hands, and they had asked him whether he wanted them to send for a priest.

  “Yes – no,” he said.

  They went out, and a few minutes later, as if he had been waiting outside the door, a dark-robed priest entered. The two were left alone together.

  The dying man turned his face toward the newcomer.

  “I am going to die,” he said.

  “What is your religion?” asked the priest.

  “The religion of my own country, the Greek Orthodox Church.”

  “That is a heresy which you must instantly abjure. There is only one true religion, the Roman Catholic religion. Confess now. I will absolve you and baptise you.”

  The other did not reply.

  “Tell me what sins you have committed. You will repent and everything will be forgiven you.”

  “My sins?”

  “Try to remember. Shall I help you?” He nodded toward the door. “Who is that person?”

  “My – wife,” said the man with slight hesitation, which did not escape the priest, who was leaning over him with ears pricked. He smelt a rat.

  “How long has she been your wife?”

  “Two days.”

  “Oh, two days! Now I have struck it. And before that, you sinned with her?”

  “No,” said the man.

  The priest was put out of countenance.

  “Well, I suppose you are not lying. Why didn't you sin? It is unnatural. After all,” he insisted, “you are a man.”

  The sick man was bewildered and began to get excited. Seeing this, the priest said:

  “Do not be surprised, my son, if my questions are direct and to the point. I ask you in all simplicity, as is my august duty as a priest. Answer me in the same simple spirit, and you will enter into communion with God,” he added, not without kindness.

  “She is a young girl,” said the old man. “I took her under my protection when she was quite a child. She shared the hardships of my traveller's life, and took care of me. I married her before my death because I am rich and she is poor.”

  “Was that the only reason – no other reason at all?”

  He fixed his look searchingly on the dying man's face, then said, “Eh?” smiling and winking an eye, almost like an accomplice.

  “I love her,” said the man.

  “At last, you are confessing!” cried the priest. He buried his eyes in the eyes of the dying man. The things he said fairly hit him as he lay there.

  “So you desired this woman, the flesh of this woman, and for a long time committed a sin in spirit? Didn't you? Eh?

  “Tell me, when you were travelling together, how did you arrange for rooms and beds in the hotels?

  “You say she took care of you? What did she have to do for you?”

  The two men scanned each other's faces keenly, and I saw the misunderstanding between them growing.

  The dying man withdrew into himself and became hardened, incredulous before this stranger, with the vulgar appearance, in whose mouth the words of God and truth assumed a grotesque aspect.

  However, he made an effort:

  “If I have sinned in spirit, to use your words,” he said, “it proves that I have not sinned in reality, and why should I repent of what was suffering pure and simple?”

  “No theories now. We are not here for theorising. I tell you, a sin committed in spirit is committed in intention, and therefore in effect, and must be confessed and redeemed. Tell me how often you succumbed to guilty thoughts. Give me details.”

  “But I resisted,” moaned the unfortunate man. “That is all I have to say.”

  “That is not enough. The stain – you are now convinced, I presume, of the justice of the term – the stain ought to be washed out by the truth.”

  “Very well,” said the dying man. “I confess I have committed the sin, and I repent of it.”

  “That is not a confession, and is none of my business,” retorted the priest. “Now tell me, under exactly what circumstances did you yield to temptation with that person, to the suggestions of the evil spirit?”

  The man was swept by a wave of rebellion. He half rose and leaned on his elbow, glaring at the stranger, who returned his look steadily.

  “Why have I the evil spirit in me?” he demanded.

  “You are not the only one. All men have it.”

  “Then it is God who put it into them, since it is God who made them.”

  “Ah, you are a debater! Well, if it gives you pleasure, I will answer you. Man has both the spirit of good and the spirit of evil in him, that is to say, the possibility of doing the one or the other. If he succumbs to evil, he is damned. If he triumphs over it, he is rewarded. To be saved, he must earn salvation by struggling with all his powers.”

  “What powers?”

  “Virtue and faith.”

  “And if he does not have enough virtue and faith, is that his fault?”

  “Yes, because that comes from his having too much iniquity and blindness in his soul.”

  The man sat up again, seized by a new fit of ang
er which consumed him like a fever.

  “Ah,” he said, “original sin! There's nothing that can excuse the suffering of good people on earth. It is an abomination.”

  The priest looked at the rebellious man blankly.

  “How else could souls be tried?” he said quite calmly.

  “Nothing can excuse the suffering of the good.”

  “God's designs are inscrutable.”

  The dying man flung out his emaciated arms. His eyes became hollow.

  “You are a liar!”

  “Enough,” said the priest. “I have listened patiently to your ramblings and feel sorry for you. But there's no good arguing. You must prepare to appear before God, from whom you seem to have lived apart. If you have suffered, you will be consoled in His bosom. Let that suffice for you.”

  The invalid fell back and lay still for a while. He remained motionless under the white spread, like a reclining sepulchral statue of marble with a face of bronze.

  He regained his voice.

  “God cannot console me.”

  “My son, my son, what are you saying?”

  “God cannot console me, because He cannot give me what I want.”

  “Ah, my poor child, how far gone you are in your blindness! Why did you have me summoned?”

  “I had hopes, I had hopes.”

  “Hopes? Hopes of what?”

  “I do not know. The things we hope for are always the things we do not know.”

  His hands wavered in the air, then fell down again.

  “Time is passing,” said the priest and began all over again.

  “Tell me the circumstances of your sin. Tell me. When you were alone with this person, when you two were close together, did you talk to each other, or did you keep quiet?”

  “I do not believe in you,” said the man.

  The priest frowned.

  “Repent, and tell me that you believe in the Catholic religion, which will save you.”

  But the other man shook his head in utter anguish and denied all his happiness.

  “Religion –” he began.

  The priest interrupted brutally.

  “You are not going to start over again! Keep quiet. All your arguments are worthless. Begin by believing in religion and then you will see what it means. I have come to force you to believe.”