A Love Story

by Emile Zola

  For hours they nourished their love with a few words, spoken from time to time in low voices so as not to wake the little girl. The words might be banal, but they were heartfelt. That day they were both very much in love.

  ‘I promise you she is a lot better,’ said the doctor. ‘In a fortnight she’ll be able to go down in the garden.’

  Hélène’s needle worked more quickly. She said quietly:

  ‘Just yesterday she was really downhearted again. But this morning she was laughing, she said she would be a very good girl.’

  There was a long silence. The child was still sunk in a sleep that cocooned them both in immense peace. When she rested like that, they felt relieved, they felt closer together.

  ‘Have you seen the garden?’ Henri asked. ‘It’s full of flowers at the moment.’

  ‘The daisies have grown, haven’t they?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, the tubs are splendid... The clematis has climbed up into the elms. You’d think it was a nest of leaves.’

  Silence fell again. Hélène dropping her needlework, smiled at him, and they imagined walking together down long idyllic shady avenues, where the ground was covered in showers of rose petals. When he leaned over her, he drank in the light fragrance of verbena, which emanated from her robe. But a rustle of the bed sheets disturbed them.

  ‘She’s waking,’ said Hélène, looking up.

  Henri had drawn aside. He also threw a glance at the edge of the bed. Jeanne had just clasped the pillow in her little arms; and with her chin tucked into the eiderdown, she now had her face turned entirely in their direction. But her eyelids remained closed; she appeared to fall asleep again, her breathing steady and regular.

  ‘So are you sewing still?’ he asked, drawing near to her again.

  ‘I can’t sit doing nothing,’ she replied. ‘It’s automatic. It keeps my thoughts under control. For hours I can think of the same thing and not get tired.’

  He said no more, but watched her needle pricking the cotton with a little regular click; and it seemed to him that this thread pulled and knotted something of their two lives together. She could go on sewing for hours, while he sat there listening to the clicking of her needle; they never tired of that language, lulled as they were in their love for one another. That was their one desire, days spent like that in this peaceful room, growing in intimacy, while the child slept and they avoided all movement so as not to disturb her sleep. It was a delicious stillness in which they listened to each other’s hearts, an infinite sweetness delighting them with a special feeling of love and eternity!

  ‘You are so good, so good,’ he whispered on several occasions, finding only that word to express the joy he felt because of her.

  She had raised her head again, feeling no embarrassment at being loved so ardently. Henri’s face was near her own. They looked at each other for a moment.

  ‘Let me get on with my work,’ she said, in no more than a whisper. ‘I shall never finish.’

  But at that moment an instinctive worry made her turn her head. And she saw Jeanne, her face all white, looking at them with her wide-open eyes black as ink. The child had not moved, her chin in the eiderdown, squeezing the pillow in her small arms. She had just opened her eyes and was watching them.

  ‘Jeanne, what’s the matter?’ Hélène asked. ‘Are you ill? Do you want anything?’

  She did not answer, she did not move, did not even close her great staring, flashing eyes. A fierce dark shadow had fallen across her forehead, her cheeks were pale and hollow. Already her wrists were turning over as though she was about to have a convulsion. Hélène jumped to her feet, begging her to say something. But she remained stiff, casting such black glances at her mother that the latter blushed red and stammered:

  ‘Doctor, come and look, what’s wrong with her?’

  Henri had pulled his chair away from Hélène’s. He drew nearer the bed, tried to take hold of one of the little hands that were clutching at the pillow for dear life. Then, as he touched her, Jeanne seemed to get very agitated. With a sudden movement she turned to the wall, crying out:

  ‘Leave me be! You are hurting me!’

  She dived under the covers. Vainly for a quarter of an hour both of them tried to soothe her with gentle words. Then as they did not desist, she raised herself, and, her hands clasped, pleaded with them.

  ‘Please, please, let me alone... You are hurting me. Leave me alone.’

  Hélène, very upset, went to sit down by the window. But Henri did not take his place again next to her. They had finally realized, Jeanne was jealous. They were at a loss for words. The doctor walked up and down quietly for a minute, then withdrew when he saw the anxious looks her mother was casting at the bed. As soon as he had gone, she returned to her daughter and lifted her up in her arms. And she talked to her for a long time.

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, I’m on my own... Look at me, answer me... You don’t have a pain anywhere? So have I hurt you? You must tell me everything... Are you cross with me? What is on your mind?’

  But it was useless to question her, no matter how she put it, Jeanne swore there was nothing wrong. Then suddenly she cried out twice:

  ‘You don’t love me any more... You don’t love me any more...’

  And she burst out crying, loud sobs, she entwined her arms around her mother in a convulsive movement, swamping her with desperate kisses. Hélène, her heart bruised, choked by an inexpressible sadness, hugged her close, her tears mingling with Jeanne’s and swearing she would never love anyone as much as her.

  From that day onwards, Jeanne’s jealousy was aroused by a word or a look. While her life had been in danger, an instinct made her accept the tenderness that was surrounding her, saving her. But now she was getting stronger she did not want to share her mother with anyone. So she became resentful towards the doctor, with a bitterness that was growing inside her and that was turning into hatred the more she recovered her health. It simmered away in her obstinate little head, in her mute, suspicious soul. She never consented to explain anything clearly. She herself didn’t know. She had a pain there when the doctor came too close to her mother; and she placed her two hands on her chest. That was all, it burned her, she was choked with an uncontrollable anger and her face grew pale. She couldn’t do anything to prevent it; she thought people were being very unfair to her, she became more stubborn, not replying when they scolded her for being naughty. Hélène was nervous and did not dare make her aware of what was wrong with her, turned her eyes away from the precocious look of this child of twelve blazing with all the passions of a woman.

  ‘Jeanne, you are causing me a lot of pain,’ she told her, tears in her eyes, when she saw her in an access of mad fury, which she bottled up, and which was suffocating her.

  But these words, which had been so potent before, which sent her weeping into Hélène’s arms, no longer had any effect. Her character was altering. Her mood changed ten times a day. Most often she spoke curtly to her mother, giving orders as though speaking to Rosalie, bothering her for the slightest thing, getting impatient, always complaining.

  ‘Give me a cup of herb tea. You are so slow! You’d let me die of thirst.’

  Then, when Hélène gave her the cup:

  ‘There’s no sugar in it, I don’t want any.’

  She flounced back on the bed, pushed away the tea again, saying it was too sweet. They didn’t want to look after her, they were doing it on purpose. Hélène, who was afraid to enrage her even more, did not reply, looking at her with great tears on her cheeks.

  Jeanne reserved her worst anger for when the doctor arrived. As soon as he came in she lay down flat in the bed, slyly hiding her head like those wild animals who do not tolerate the approach of a stranger. Some days she refused to talk, giving him her pulse, allowing herself to be examined, inert with her eyes on the ceiling. Other days she would not even look at him, and she hid her eyes in her hands in such a rage that you would have had to twist her hands to wrench them apart. One evening she
said harshly to her mother who was giving her a spoonful of medicine:

  ‘No, it’s poisoning me.’

  Hélène was transfixed, cut to the quick, fearing to find out what she meant.

  ‘What are you saying, child?’ she asked. ‘Do you know what you are saying? Medicine never tastes nice. You must take this.’

  But Jeanne remained obstinately silent, turning her head so that she didn’t swallow the potion. From that day on she was capricious, taking or not taking the medicine according to how she felt at the time. She sniffed at the phials, examined them on the bedside table with suspicion. And when she had refused it once, she recognized it. She would die rather than touch a drop. The kindly Monsieur Rambaud was the only one who could persuade her sometimes. She swamped him with exaggerated tenderness, especially when the doctor was present. And she glanced brightly at her mother, to see if she was suffering at this demonstration of so much affection for someone else.

  ‘Ah, it’s you, my friend!’ she would cry as soon as he appeared. ‘Come and sit here by me... Have you got any oranges?’

  She sat up and, laughing out loud, felt in his pockets, where there were always treats for her. Then she kissed him, pretending to passionate love, satisfied and avenged by the torment she thought she could see on her mother’s face. Monsieur Rambaud was radiant at having made peace with his little darling. But in the antechamber, Hélène, going to meet him, had just had a rapid word with him. So all of a sudden he pretended to catch sight of the potion on the table.

  ‘Well then, are you taking the syrup?’

  Jeanne’s face darkened. She said in a small voice:

  ‘No, it’s bad, it stinks, I’m not drinking that!’

  ‘What, you are not taking that?’ Monsieur Rambaud went on, with a cheery air. ‘But I bet it’s really nice... Will you let me drink a little?’

  And without waiting for permission he poured himself a big spoonful and swallowed it without making a face, affecting a gourmand’s delight.

  ‘Oh, exquisite!’ he muttered. ‘You are quite wrong... Wait... Just a little drop.’

  Jeanne, who thought that was funny, did not argue any more. She wanted to taste everything that Monsieur Rambaud tasted, she followed his movements with attention, apparently studying on his face the effects of the drug. And the good fellow swallowed a great deal of medicine in a month. When Hélène thanked him he shrugged.

  ‘Don’t thank me! It’s delicious!’ he said in the end, having convinced himself, and pleased to share the little girl’s medicine.

  He spent the evenings with her. The abbé for his part came regularly every two or three days. She kept them there for as long as possible, and got cross when they went to fetch their hats. At present she was afraid of being left on her own with her mother and the doctor, she would have liked there always to be visitors so that she could keep them apart. She often called for Rosalie without a reason. When they were alone, her eyes never left them, pursuing them in all the corners of the room. She grew pale as soon as their hands touched. If they happened to whisper to one another, she sat up annoyed, wanting to know what they were saying. She would not even tolerate her mother’s dress on the carpet brushing against the doctor’s foot. They could not go near one another, look at one another, without her starting to shake. Her aching flesh, her poor little innocent invalid’s body was irritated to such a degree that she would suddenly turn her head when she guessed that they had smiled at each other behind her back. She could sense the days when they were more loving to one another; and those days she was more depressed, she suffered just as nervous women do at the approach of a violent storm.

  Around Hélène everyone regarded Jeanne as having recovered. She had gradually come round to believing it herself. So she ended up treating these crises like any spoilt child’s aches and pains, of no consequence. After the six anguished weeks she had just endured, she felt the need to live her own life again. Her daughter could now do without her care for hours at a time; it was a time of delightful relaxation, rest, and pleasure; for so long she had not known if she had any kind of life at all. She rummaged in her drawers, found forgotten items again, busied herself with all sorts of little jobs in order to resume the happy routine of her daily life. And during this time of renewal, her love increased. Henri was a sort of reward for all that she had gone through. At the back of that bedroom, they were hidden away, and forgot there had ever been an obstacle to their love. Nothing now separated them but the child, shaken to the core by their passion. So in fact it was Jeanne who fomented their desire. Always between them, with her eyes spying on them, she forced them into a constant constraint, a comedy of indifference from which they emerged more tense than ever. For days at a time they were not able to say a word to each other, feeling that she was listening to them, even when she was apparently slumbering. One evening Hélène accompanied Henri to the door. In the hall, silent, overcome, she was about to collapse into his arms when Jeanne, behind the shut door started to shout: ‘Maman, Maman!’ in a furious voice, as though the doctor’s lightly and passionately touching her mother’s hair had an immediate effect on her. Hélène beat a hasty retreat, for she had just heard the little girl get out of bed. She found her shivering, exasperatedly rushing out in her nightdress. Jeanne did not want to be left.

  From that day on, all they could do was shake hands when they met or took their leave. Madame Deberle had been at the seaside for a month with little Lucien; the doctor, who had plenty of time to spare, did not dare spend more than ten minutes with Hélène. They had given up the lengthy conversations they enjoyed so much in the window recess. When they looked at each other, a flame burned brighter than ever in their eyes.

  What tormented them most of all were Jeanne’s changes of mood. She burst into tears one morning when the doctor leaned over her. For a whole day her hatred turned into a feverish tenderness; she wanted him to stay next to her bed, she called to her mother a score of times, as if to see them side by side, concerned and with smiling faces. Her delighted mother was already dreaming of a long succession of days like that. But the next day when Henri arrived, the child received him so frostily that her mother, with one look, begged him to leave; the whole night Jeanne had been agitated, enraged with the regret of having been friendly to him. And scenes like that took place time and again. After the exquisite hours the little girl allowed them to have, the moments when she would kiss them passionately, the bad times descended like a whiplash and made them want to belong to one another.

  Then a feeling of revolt gradually came over Hélène. Certainly, she would have given up her life for her daughter. But why did the naughty girl torment her to such a degree now she was out of danger? When she indulged in one of these reveries that lulled her into some vague dream where she imagined herself walking with Henri into an unfamiliar, idyllic world, suddenly she could see the image of the rigid little girl; and she felt a continual anguish in her heart and in her belly. She suffered unbearably in this struggle between her motherhood and her love.

  One night the doctor came despite Hélène’s strictly forbidding him. For a week they had not been able to exchange a word. She refused to let him in, but gently he pushed her into the room as if to reassure her. There both of them thought they were safe. Jeanne was sleeping deeply. They sat down in the usual place, near the window, far from the lamp; and a peaceful darkness enveloped them. They chatted for two hours, their faces drawing closer together to talk very quietly, so quietly that no more than a whisper could be heard in the large sleep-filled room. Sometimes they turned their heads, glancing briefly at Jeanne whose head was on one side with her small clasped hands resting in the middle of the sheet. But in the end they forgot her. Their whispered conversation grew louder. Suddenly Hélène roused herself, disengaged her hands which were burning under Henri’s kisses. And she had a cold horror of the abomination they had nearly committed there.

  ‘Maman! Maman!’ stammered Jeanne, suddenly agitated as though tormented by some nig
htmare.

  She was struggling to sit up in her bed, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

  ‘Hide, hide away, please,’ repeated Hélène, in anguished tones. ‘You’ll kill her if you stay there.’

  Henri disappeared rapidly into the window recess, behind one of the blue velvet curtains. But the child carried on moaning.

  ‘Maman, Maman, oh, it hurts so much!’

  ‘I’m here near you, darling. Where does it hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know... It’s around there, see, it’s burning me.’

  She had opened her eyes, her face contracted, and she was holding her two small hands to her chest.

  ‘It attacked me suddenly. I was asleep, wasn’t I? I felt as though there was a great fire.’

  ‘Well, it’s gone now, you can’t feel it any more?’

  ‘Oh yes, I can.’

  And she cast a worried look around the room. Now she was completely awake, the frightful shadow fell across her pale face.

  ‘Are you on your own, Maman?’

  ‘Yes, darling!’

  She shook her head and went on looking, sniffing the air, with a growing agitation.

  ‘No. I know you aren’t. There’s someone here... I’m scared, Maman, I’m scared! Oh, you are lying to me, you are not on your own.’

  She was about to have a nervous breakdown. She threw herself backwards on the bed, sobbing, hiding under the covers as though to escape from some danger. Hélène, at her wits’ end, made Henri leave immediately. He wanted to stay and look after the little girl. But she pushed him out. She came back and took Jeanne in her arms, the child repeating her complaint that summed up her awful pain each time.