Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  ‘Yes, of course, these traces of my presence might compromise you,’ she replied.

  ‘You are a child,’ he said coaxingly as he put her cloak around her as if she were a baby. ‘You know very well that I love you. But, really, you delight in torturing me and you drive me mad. Wait while I call a cab for you. If I could, I would take you all the way home but that would ruin you.’

  ‘And do you think then that I’m not ruined already?’ she said bitterly.

  ‘No, my dear,’ replied Raymon, who wanted only to persuade her to leave him in peace. ‘Your absence hasn’t been noticed, since no one has yet come here to enquire for you. Although I would have been the last person to be suspected, it would be natural to make enquiries at the houses of your acquaintances. And then you can go and place yourself under your aunt’s protection; in fact that’s the course I advise you to take. She will arrange everything. People will assume you spent the night at her house.’

  Madame Delmare was not listening. She was gazing stupidly at the huge, red sun as it rose above the horizon of sparkling roofs. Raymon tried to rouse her from her daze. She turned to look at him but did not seem to recognize him. Her cheeks had a greenish pallor and her dry lips seemed paralysed.

  Raymon took fright. He recalled the other girl’s suicide and in his dread, not knowing what to do, afraid of being twice a criminal in his own eyes but feeling too mentally exhausted to manage to deceive her further, he sat her down gently on a chair, locked her in, and went up to his mother’s room.

  XXI

  HE found her awake. She was used to rising early, as a result of the habits of hard-working activity contracted during the emigration* and lost when prosperity* returned.

  When she saw Raymon, pale and agitated, come into her room so late, in evening dress, she realized that he was struggling with one of the crises of his stormy life.

  She had always been his last resort and his saviour in these turbulent situations, which left a lasting, painful impression only in her maternal heart. Her life had been blighted and worn out by all that Raymon’s had gained and retrieved. Her son’s character, impetuous yet cold, calculating but passionate, was a consequence of her inexhaustible love and generous affection for him. He would have been better with a less kind mother, but she had made him used to taking advantage of all the sacrifices she agreed to make for him; she had taught him to strive for and to ensure his own well-being as keenly and strongly as she strove for it. Because she thought she was made to preserve him from all sorrow and to sacrifice all her interests to him, he had become used to thinking the whole world was made for him and must be placed in his hand at a word from his mother. By dint of generosity she had succeeded only in making a selfish heart.

  She turned pale, that poor mother, and sitting up in bed looked at him anxiously. Already her look was saying, ‘What can I do for you? Where must I go?’

  ‘Mother,’ he said, grasping the withered, transparent hand she held out to him, ‘I’m terribly unhappy; I need your help. Deliver me from the troubles which beset me. I love Madame Delmare; you know that . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Madame de Ramière in a tone of affectionate reproach.

  ‘Don’t try to deny it, mother dear,’ said Raymon, who had no time to lose. ‘You know but your admirable tact prevented you from being the first to mention it. Well, she is driving me to despair, and I am losing my reason.’

  ‘Well, tell me all about it,’ said Madame de Ramière with the youthful eagerness inspired by the ardour of her maternal love.

  ‘I don’t want to hide anything from you, especially as, this time, I’m not guilty. For some months I’ve been trying to calm her romantic imagination and bring her back to a sense of her duties. But all my care only manages to arouse that thirst for danger, that craving for adventure which abounds in the minds of the women of her country. This very moment, as I’m talking to you, she is here, in my room, against my will, and I don’t know how to get her to leave.’

  ‘Poor child!’ said Madame de Ramière, dressing hurriedly. ‘She’s so shy and gentle. I’ll go and see her, I’ll talk to her. That’s what you’ve come to ask me to do isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Raymon, softened by his mother’s affectionate reply. ‘Go and make her listen to the language of reason and kindness. I’m sure that when you tell her what’s right, she’ll want to do it. Perhaps she’ll yield to your loving manner; she’ll regain control of herself, the unfortunate girl! She is suffering so much.’

  Raymon threw himself into a chair and began to cry, the morning’s different emotions had so shattered his nerves. His mother wept with him and only decided to go downstairs after forcing him to take a few drops of ether.

  Indiana was not crying and she got up calmly and with dignity when she recognized Madame de Ramière. Raymon’s mother so little expected this noble, controlled bearing that she felt embarrassed in front of the young woman as if she lacked consideration for her in surprising her in her son’s room.

  Then she gave way to her heart’s genuine, deep feeling and opened her arms in a rush of affection. Madame Delmare threw herself into them; her despair broke out into bitter sobs and the two women wept together for a long time in each other’s arms.

  But when Madame de Ramière wanted to speak, Indiana stopped her.

  ‘Don’t say anything to me, Madame,’ she said, wiping away her tears. ‘You won’t find any words which don’t cause me pain. Your interest and your embrace are enough to prove to me your generous affection. My heart is relieved as much as it can be. I’ll go now. I don’t need your entreaties to understand what I have to do.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t come to send you away, but to comfort you,’ said Madame de Ramière.

  ‘I can’t be comforted,’ replied Indiana, kissing her. ‘Love me, that will help me a little. But don’t speak to me. Goodbye, Madame. You believe in God; pray to Him for me.’

  ‘You shan’t go away alone,’ cried Madame de Ramière. ‘I intend to take you back to your husband’s house myself, to justify you, to defend and protect you.’

  ‘Generous woman!’ said Indiana, clasping her to her heart. ‘You cannot do it. You are the only one not to know Raymon’s secret. All Paris will be talking of it this evening and you have no place in such a story. Let me endure the scandal alone. I’ll not suffer for long.’

  ‘What do you mean? Would you commit the crime of making an attempt on your life? My dear child, you, too, believe in God.’

  ‘Yes, Madame, so I leave for Bourbon Island in three days.’

  ‘Come to my arms, my darling child, come, let me bless you. God will reward your courage . . .’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Indiana, looking up to heaven.

  Madame de Ramière wanted at least to send for a cab, but Indiana objected. She wanted to go home alone without fuss. In vain did Madame de Ramière express alarm at seeing her, weak and distraught, set out on such a long walk.

  ‘I have the strength,’ she replied. ‘A word from Raymon was enough to give it me.’

  She wrapped her cloak around her, lowered her black lace veil, and left the house by a secret exit to which Madame de Ramière led her. As soon as she began to walk in the street, she felt that her trembling legs almost refused to carry her. At every moment she seemed to feel her furious husband’s rough hand grasp hold of her, throw her down, and drag her in the gutter. Soon the street noises, the indifferent faces of the passers-by, and the penetrating morning cold restored her strength and composure; but it was a painful strength and a gloomy composure, like the calm that settles over the waters of the sea and alarms the far-sighted sailor more than the upheavals of the storm. She walked along by the Seine from the Institut as far as the Corps Législatif,* but she forgot to cross the bridge and continued to walk along by the river, lost in a dazed reverie, in a mindless meditation and continuing to walk on aimlessly.

  Little by little she reached the water’s edge. The river was washing lumps of ice up t
o her feet and making them break with a sharp chilling sound on the stones of the river bank. The greenish water exerted a powerful attraction on Indiana’s senses. One gets used to terrible ideas; by dint of accepting them, one comes to like them. The example of Noun’s suicide had soothed Indiana’s hours of despair for so long now that she had turned suicide into a kind of enticing pleasure. One thought alone, a religious thought, had prevented her from deciding on it definitely, but at that moment coherent thought was no longer in control of her exhausted brain. She barely remembered that God existed, that Raymon had ever existed, and she walked on, getting nearer and nearer to the river-bank, in obedience to the instinct of unhappiness and the magnetic power of suffering.

  When she felt the biting cold of the water washing over her shoes, she awoke as if from sleepwalking. On looking around to see where she was, she saw Paris behind her and the Seine rushing by beneath her feet, carrying along in its oily mass of water the white reflection of the houses and the greyish blue of the sky. The ceaseless flow of the water and the immobility of the ground became confused in her disturbed perceptions and it seemed to her that the water was still and the ground moving. In this moment of dizziness, she leaned against a wall and bent over, fascinated, towards what she took for solid ground . . . But the barking of a dog that was leaping around her distracted her attention and delayed for a few moments the accomplishment of her purpose. Then a man, who, guided by the dog’s voice, was running up to her, grasped her round the waist, pulled her away, and set her down on the remains of an abandoned boat by the river-bank. She looked straight at him but did not recognize him. He knelt at her feet, took off his cloak, and wrapped it round her, took her hands in his to warm them and called her by name. But her brain was too weak to make any effort; for forty-eight hours she had forgotten to eat.

  But when warmth had returned a little to her numbed limbs, she saw Ralph on his knees before her, holding her hands and watching for the return of her reason.

  ‘Did you meet Noun?’ she asked.

  Then she added, distraught in her obsession:

  ‘I saw her go by on this path,’ (and she pointed to the river). ‘I wanted to follow her but she was walking too quickly and I’m not strong enough to walk. It was like a nightmare.’

  Ralph looked at her in distress. He too felt as if his head was splitting and his brain giving way.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she replied, ‘but first look for my feet; I’ve lost them there on those pebbles.’

  Ralph realized that her feet were wet and numbed by the cold. He carried her in his arms to a house where they found refuge and where a kind woman’s care restored her reason. Meanwhile Ralph sent a message to M. Delmare that his wife was found, but the Colonel had not yet come home when the news arrived. He was continuing his search in a frenzy of anxiety and anger. Ralph, more perceptive, had already gone to M. de Ramière’s house but he had found Raymon, who had just gone to bed, coldly ironic. Then he had thought of Noun and he had followed the river in one direction while his servant explored it in the other. Ophelia had immediately hit upon his mistress’s track and had quickly guided Sir Ralph to the place where he had found her.

  When Indiana recovered her memory of what had happened on that wretched night, she tried in vain to recall the period of her delirium. So she could not explain to her cousin what thoughts had motivated her during the previous hour. But he guessed them and understood the state of her heart without questioning her. He simply took her hand and said, gently and gravely:

  ‘Cousin, I insist on your making me one promise. That’s the last proof of friendship I’ll trouble you with.’

  ‘Tell me what it is,’ she replied. ‘To oblige you is the last pleasure left to me.’

  ‘Well, swear to me that you will never have recourse to suicide again without giving me warning,’ continued Ralph. ‘I swear to you on my honour not to oppose it in any way. I only want to be told about it in advance. As for other considerations, I care about them as little as you do, and you know that I’ve often had the same idea . . .’

  ‘Why are you talking to me about suicide?’ asked Madame Delmare. ‘I’ve never intended to make an attempt on my life. I fear God; but for that! . . .’

  ‘A little while ago, Indiana, when I grasped you in my arms, when that poor beast’ (and he stroked Ophelia) ‘tugged at your dress, you had forgotten God and the whole universe, your cousin Ralph like all the rest . . .’

  A tear welled up in Indiana’s eye. She pressed Ralph’s hand. ‘Why did you stop me?’ she said sadly. ‘I would be in God’s bosom now, for I wasn’t guilty. I wasn’t conscious of what I was doing.’

  ‘I was well aware of that and I thought it was better to kill oneself intentionally. We’ll talk about it again some time if you like.’

  Indiana shuddered. The carriage in which they were being driven stopped in front of the house where she was to be reunited with her husband. She had not the strength to go upstairs. Ralph carried her right up to her room. All their domestic staff was reduced to one maid-servant, who had gone to talk about Madame Delmare’s flight with the neighbours, and Lelièvre, who, giving up the search in despair, had gone to the mortuary to inquire about the corpses brought in that morning. So Ralph stayed with Madame Delmare to look after her. She was suffering intensely, when the loudly rung doorbell announced the Colonel’s return. A shudder of terror and hatred ran through her whole being. She suddenly caught hold of her cousin’s arm.

  ‘Listen Ralph,’ she said, ‘if you have any affection for me, you’ll spare me the sight of that man in my present state. I don’t want to make him sorry for me; I’d rather have his anger than his pity . . . Don’t open the door, or send him away. Tell him I haven’t been found . . .’

  Her lips quivered, her arms tightened round Ralph with convulsive strength to hold him back. Divided between two conflicting feelings, the poor baronet did not know what he should do. Delmare was pulling the bell hard enough to break it and his wife was half-dead in her chair.

  ‘You’re thinking only of his anger,’ Ralph said at last. ‘You don’t think of the torments he has suffered, of his anxiety. You always imagine he hates you . . . If you had seen his distress this morning! . . .’

  Indiana, exhausted, let go her arms and Ralph went to open the door.

  ‘Is she here?’ shouted the Colonel as he came in. ‘A thousand devils! I’ve run about enough looking for her. I’m very much obliged to her for the pleasant task she’s forced on me! May heaven confound her. I don’t want to see her, for I’d kill her.’

  ‘You forget that she can hear you,’ replied Ralph quietly. ‘She’s in no state to bear any painful emotions. Restrain yourself.’

  ‘Twenty-five thousand curses!’ roared the Colonel. ‘I’ve borne plenty myself since this morning. It’s as well for me that my nerves are like cables. Who, if you please, is the more injured, the more tired, has the more right to be ill—she or I? And where did you find her? What was she doing? It’s because of her that I treated that silly old Carvajal woman outrageously; she gave me ambiguous replies and blamed me for this fine escapade . . . What a mess! I’m at the end of my tether!’

  As he was saying these things in his harsh, rough voice, Delmare flung himself into a chair. He wiped his brow which was dripping with sweat despite the fierce seasonal cold. With many oaths he told of his fatigues, his anxieties, his sufferings. He asked a thousand questions but fortunately he did not listen to the answers, for poor Ralph could not tell a lie and he saw nothing in what he had to tell which could pacify the Colonel. Ralph sat on a table, impassive and dumb as if he had absolutely no connection with these two people, and yet more unhappy because of their woes than they were themselves.

  When Madame Delmare heard her husband’s curses, she felt stronger than she expected to. She preferred his anger, which reconciled her with herself, to a generosity which would have aroused her remorse. She wiped away the last trace of her tears and
summoned up what remained of her strength; she did not worry about using it all up in one day, so heavily did life weigh upon her. When her husband came up to her looking harsh and commanding, his manner and tone of voice suddenly changed, and in front of her he was embarrassed, tamed by the superiority of her character. Then he tried to be cold and dignified like her, but he could not manage to.

  ‘Will you deign to tell me, Madame, where you spent the morning and perhaps the night?’ he asked.

  The word perhaps told Madame Delmare that it was quite late before her absence had been noticed. This increased her courage.

  ‘No, Monsieur,’ she replied. ‘I don’t intend to tell you.’

  Delmare turned green with anger and astonishment.

  ‘Do you really expect to conceal the information from me?’ he asked in a quavering voice.

  ‘I don’t much care,’ she replied icily. ‘If I refuse to answer you, it’s entirely for form’s sake. I want to convince you that you have no right to ask me that question.’

  ‘I haven’t the right, a thousand demons! Then who is master here, you or me? Then who wears a skirt and ought to be working a distaff? Do you claim the right to take the beard off my chin? It would look well on you, a silly weak woman!’

  ‘I know I’m the slave and you’re the lord. The law of the land has made you my master. You can tie up my body, bind my hands, control my actions. You have the right of the stronger, and society confirms you in it. But over my will, Monsieur, you have no power. God alone can bend and subdue it. So look for a law, a dungeon, an instrument of torture that gives you a hold over me! It’s as if you wanted to touch the air and grasp space.’

  ‘Be quiet, you foolish, impertinent creature. Your novelistic language annoys us.’

  ‘You can impose silence on me, but you can’t stop me thinking.’

  ‘Silly pride, arrogance of a worm! You take advantage of our pity for you. But you’ll see that your strong character can be subdued without too much difficulty.’