Book: Fromont and Risler, Complete

A >> Alphonse Daudet >> Fromont and Risler, Complete




Desiree suspected nothing, not she! Sidonie's manner was so frank and
friendly. And then, they were brother and sister now. Love was no longer
possible between them.

But the little cripple had a vague presentiment of woe when Sidonie,
standing in the doorway and ready to go, turned carelessly to her
brother-in-law and said:

"By the way, Frantz, Risler told me to be sure to bring you back to dine
with us to-night. The carriage is below. We will pick him up as we pass
the factory."

Then she added, with the prettiest smile imaginable:

"You will let us have him, won't you, Ziree? Don't be afraid; we will
send him back."

And he had the courage to go, the ungrateful wretch!

He went without hesitation, without once turning back, whirled away by
his passion as by a raging sea, and neither on that day nor the next nor
ever after could Mam'zelle Zizi's great easy-chair learn what the
interesting communication was that the little low chair had to make to
it.




CHAPTER XVI

THE WAITING-ROOM

"Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and for ever!
What is the use of struggling and fighting against fate? Our sin
is stronger than we. But, after all, is it a crime for us to love?
We were destined for each other. Have we not the right to come
together, although life has parted us? So, come! It is all over;
we will go away. Meet me to-morrow evening, Lyon station, at ten
o'clock. The tickets are secured and I shall be there awaiting you.

"FRANTZ."

For a month past Sidonie had been hoping for that letter, a month during
which she had brought all her coaxing and cunning into play to lure her
brother-in-law on to that written revelation of passion. She had
difficulty in accomplishing it. It was no easy matter to pervert an
honest young heart like Frantz's to the point of committing a crime; and
in that strange contest, in which the one who really loved fought against
his own cause, she had often felt that she was at the end of her strength
and was almost discouraged. When she was most confident that he was
conquered, his sense of right would suddenly rebel, and he would be all
ready to flee, to escape her once more.

What a triumph it was for her, therefore, when that letter was handed to
her one morning. Madame Dobson happened to be there. She had just
arrived, laden with complaints from Georges, who was horribly bored away
from his mistress, and was beginning to be alarmed concerning this
brother-in-law, who was more attentive, more jealous, more exacting than
a husband.

"Oh! the poor, dear fellow, the poor, dear, fellow," said the sentimental
American, "if you could see how unhappy he is!"

And, shaking her curls, she unrolled her music-roll and took from it the
poor, dear fellow's letters, which she had carefully hidden between the
leaves of her songs, delighted to be involved in this love-story, to give
vent to her emotion in an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery which melted
her cold eyes and suffused her dry, pale complexion.

Strange to say, while lending her aid most willingly to this constant
going and coming of love-letters, the youthful and attractive Dobson had
never written or received a single one on her own account.

Always on the road between Asnieres and Paris with an amorous message
under her wing, that odd carrier-pigeon remained true to her own dovecot
and cooed for none but unselfish motives.

When Sidonie showed her Frantz's note, Madame Dobson asked:

"What shall you write in reply?"

"I have already written. I consented."

"What! You will go away with that madman?"

Sidonie laughed scornfully.

"Ha! ha! well, hardly! I consented so that he may go and wait for me at
the station. That is all. The least I can do is to give him a quarter of
an hour of agony. He has made me miserable enough for the last month.
Just consider that I have changed my whole life for my gentleman! I have
had to close my doors and give up seeing my friends and everybody I know
who is young and agreeable, beginning with Georges and ending with you.
For you know, my dear, you weren't agreeable to him, and he would have
liked to dismiss you with the rest."

The one thing that Sidonie did not mention--and it was the deepest cause
of her anger against Frantz--was that he had frightened her terribly by
threatening to tell her husband her guilty secret. From that moment she
had felt decidedly ill at ease, and her life, her dear life, which she so
petted and coddled, had seemed to her to be exposed to serious danger.
Yes, the thought that her husband might some day be apprized of her
conduct positively terrified her.

That blessed letter put an end to all her fears. It was impossible now
for Frantz to expose her, even in the frenzy of his disappointment,
knowing that she had such a weapon in her hands; and if he did speak, she
would show the letter, and all his accusations would become in Risler's
eyes calumny pure and simple. Ah, master judge, we have you now!

"I am born again--I am born again!" she cried to Madame Dobson. She ran
out into the garden, gathered great bouquets for her salon, threw the
windows wide open to the sunlight, gave orders to the cook, the coachman,
the gardener. The house must be made to look beautiful, for Georges was
coming back, and for a beginning she organized a grand dinner-party for
the end of the week.

The next evening Sidonie, Risler, and Madame Dobson were together in the
salon. While honest Risler turned the leaves of an old handbook of
mechanics, Sidonie sang to Madame Dobson's accompaniment. Suddenly she
stopped in the middle of her aria and burst into a peal of laughter. The
clock had just struck ten.

Risler looked up quickly.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing-an idea that came into my head," replied Sidonie, winking of
Madame Dobson and pointing at the clock.

It was the hour appointed for the meeting, and she was thinking of her
lover's torture as he waited for her to come.

Since the return of the messenger bringing from Sidonie the "yes" he had
so feverishly awaited, a great calm had come over his troubled mind, like
the sudden removal of a heavy burden. No more uncertainty, no more
clashing between passion and duty.

Not once did it occur to him that on the other side of the landing some
one was weeping and sighing because of him. Not once did he think of his
brother's despair, of the ghastly drama they were to leave behind them.
He saw a sweet little pale face resting beside his in the railway train,
a blooming lip within reach of his lip, and two fathomless eyes looking
at him by the soft light of the lamp, to the soothing accompaniment of
the wheels and the steam.

Two hours before the opening of the gate for the designated train, Frantz
was already at the Lyon station, that gloomy station which, in the
distant quarter of Paris in which it is situated, seems like a first
halting-place in the provinces. He sat down in the darkest corner and
remained there without stirring, as if dazed.

Instinctively, although the appointed hour was still distant, he looked
among the people who were hurrying along, calling to one another, to see
if he could not discern that graceful figure suddenly emerging from the
crowd and thrusting it aside at every step with the radiance of her
beauty.

After many departures and arrivals and shrill whistles, the station
suddenly became empty, as deserted as a church on weekdays. The time for
the ten o'clock train was drawing near. There was no other train before
that. Frantz rose. In a quarter of an hour, half an hour at the least,
she would be there.

Frantz went hither and thither, watching the carriages that arrived. Each
new arrival made him start. He fancied that he saw her enter, closely
veiled, hesitating, a little embarrassed. How quickly he would be by her
side, to comfort her, to protect her!

The hour for the departure of the train was approaching. He looked at the
clock. There was but a quarter of an hour more. It alarmed him; but the
bell at the wicket, which had now been opened, summoned him. He ran
thither and took his place in the long line.

"Two first-class for Marseilles," he said. It seemed to him as if that
were equivalent to taking possession.

He made his way back to his post of observation through the luggage-laden
wagons and the late-comers who jostled him as they ran. The drivers
shouted, "Take care!" He stood there among the wheels of the cabs, under
the horses' feet, with deaf ears and staring eyes. Only five minutes
more. It was almost impossible for her to arrive in time.

At last she appeared.

Yes, there she is, it is certainly she--a woman in black, slender and
graceful, accompanied by another shorter woman--Madame Dobson, no doubt.

But a second glance undeceived him. It was a young woman who resembled
her, a woman of fashion like her, with a happy face. A man, also young,
joined them. It was evidently a wedding-party; the mother accompanied
them, to see them safely on board the train.

Now there is the confusion of departure, the last stroke of the bell, the
steam escaping with a hissing sound, mingled with the hurried footsteps
of belated passengers, the slamming of doors and the rumbling of the
heavy omnibuses. Sidonie comes not. And Frantz still waits.

At that moment a hand is placed on his shoulder.

Great God!

He turns. The coarse face of M. Gardinois, surrounded by a travelling-cap
with ear-pieces, is before him.

"I am not mistaken, it is Monsieur Risler. Are you going to Marseilles by
the express? I am not going far."

He explains to Frantz that he has missed the Orleans train, and is going
to try to connect with Savigny by the Lyon line; then he talks about
Risler Aine and the factory.

"It seems that business hasn't been prospering for some time. They were
caught in the Bonnardel failure. Ah! our young men need to be careful. At
the rate they're sailing their ship, the same thing is likely to happen
to them that happened to Bonnardel. But excuse me, I believe they're
about to close the gate. Au revoir."

Frantz has hardly heard what he has been saying. His brother's ruin, the
destruction of the whole world, nothing is of any further consequence to
him. He is waiting, waiting.

But now the gate is abruptly closed like a last barrier between him and
his persistent hope. Once more the station is empty. The uproar has been
transferred to the line of the railway, and suddenly a shrill whistle
falls upon the lover's ear like an ironical farewell, then dies away in
the darkness.

The ten o'clock train has gone!

He tries to be calm and to reason. Evidently she missed the train from
Asmeres; but, knowing that he is waiting for her, she will come, no
matter how late it may be. He will wait longer. The waiting-room was made
for that.

The unhappy man sits down on a bench. The prospect of a long vigil brings
to his mind a well-known room in which at that hour the lamp burns low on
a table laden with humming-birds and insects, but that vision passes
swiftly through his mind in the chaos of confused thoughts to which the
delirium of suspense gives birth.

And while he thus lost himself in thought, the hours passed. The roofs of
the buildings of Mazas, buried in darkness, were already beginning to
stand out distinctly against the brightening sky. What was he to do? He
must go to Asnieres at once and try to find out what had happened. He
wished he were there already.

Having made up his mind, he descended the steps of the station at a rapid
pace, passing soldiers with their knapsacks on their backs, and poor
people who rise early coming to take the morning train, the train of
poverty and want.

In front of one of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and
countrywomen. Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its
denouement before the Commissioner of Police. Ah! if Frantz had known
what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at
the crowd indifferently from a distance.

When he reached Asnieres, after a walk of two or three hours, it was like
an awakening. The sun, rising in all its glory, set field and river on
fire. The bridge, the houses, the quay, all stood forth with that
matutinal sharpness of outline which gives the impression of a new day
emerging, luminous and smiling, from the dense mists of the night. From a
distance he descried his brother's house, already awake, the open blinds
and the flowers on the window-sills. He wandered about some time before
he could summon courage to enter.

Suddenly some one hailed him from the shore:

"Ah! Monsieur Frantz. How early you are today!"

It was Sidonie's coachman taking his horses to bathe in the river.

"Has anything happened at the house?" inquired Frantz tremblingly.

"No, Monsieur Frantz."

"Is my brother at home?"

"No, Monsieur slept at the factory."

"No one sick?"

"No, Monsieur Frantz, no one, so far as I know."

Thereupon Frantz made up his mind to ring at the small gate. The gardener
was raking the paths. The house was astir; and, early as it was, he heard
Sidonie's voice as clear and vibrating as the song of a bird among the
rose-bushes of the facade.

She was talking with animation. Frantz, deeply moved, drew near to
listen.

"No, no cream. The 'cafe parfait' will be enough. Be sure that it's well
frozen and ready at seven o'clock. Oh! about an entree--let us see--"

She was holding council with her cook concerning the famous dinner-party
for the next day. Her brother-in-law's sudden appearance did not
disconcert her.

"Ah! good-morning, Frantz," she said very coolly. "I am at your service
directly. We're to have some people to dinner to-morrow, customers of the
firm, a grand business dinner. You'll excuse me, won't you?"

Fresh and smiling, in the white ruffles of her trailing morning-gown and
her little lace cap, she continued to discuss her menu, inhaling the cool
air that rose from the fields and the river. There was not the slightest
trace of chagrin or anxiety upon that tranquil face, which was a striking
contrast to the lover's features, distorted by a night of agony and
fatigue.

For a long quarter of an hour Frantz, sitting in a corner of the salon,
saw all the conventional dishes of a bourgeois dinner pass before him in
their regular order, from the little hot pates, the sole Normande and the
innumerable ingredients of which that dish is composed, to the Montreuil
peaches and Fontainebleau grapes.

At last, when they were alone and he was able to speak, he asked in a
hollow voice:

"Didn't you receive my letter?"

"Why, yes, of course."

She had risen to go to the mirror and adjust a little curl or two
entangled with her floating ribbons, and continued, looking at herself
all the while:

"Yes, I received your letter. Indeed, I was charmed to receive it. Now,
should you ever feel inclined to tell your brother any of the vile
stories about me that you have threatened me with, I could easily satisfy
him that the only source of your lying tale-bearing was anger with me for
repulsing a criminal passion as it deserved. Consider yourself warned, my
dear boy--and au revoir."

As pleased as an actress who has just delivered a telling speech with
fine effect, she passed him and left the room smiling, with a little curl
at the corners of her mouth, triumphant and without anger. And he did not
kill her!




CHAPTER XVII

AN ITEM OF NEWS

In the evening preceding that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz
had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the illustrious Delobelle
returned home, with downcast face and that air of lassitude and
disillusionment with which he always met untoward events.

"Oh! mon Dieu, my poor man, what has happened?" instantly inquired Madame
Delobelle, whom twenty years of exaggerated dramatic pantomime had not
yet surfeited.

Before replying, the ex-actor, who never failed to precede his most
trivial words with some facial play, learned long before for stage
purposes, dropped his lower lip, in token of disgust and loathing, as if
he had just swallowed something very bitter.

"The matter is that those Rislers are certainly ingrates or egotists,
and, beyond all question, exceedingly ill-bred. Do you know what I just
learned downstairs from the concierge, who glanced at me out of the
corner of his eye, making sport of me? Well, Frantz Risler has gone! He
left the house a short time ago, and has left Paris perhaps ere this,
without so much as coming to shake my hand, to thank me for the welcome
he has received here. What do you think of that? For he didn't say
good-by to you two either, did he? And yet, only a month ago, he was
always in our rooms, without any remonstrance from us."

Mamma Delobelle uttered an exclamation of genuine surprise and grief.
Desiree, on the contrary, did not say a word or make a motion. She was
always the same little iceberg.

Oh! wretched mother, turn your eyes upon your daughter. See that
transparent pallor, those tearless eyes which gleam unwaveringly, as if
their thoughts and their gaze were concentrated on some object visible to
them alone. Cause that poor suffering heart to open itself to you.
Question your child. Make her speak, above all things make her weep, to
rid her of the burden that is stifling her, so that her tear-dimmed eyes
can no longer distinguish in space that horrible unknown thing upon which
they are fixed in desperation now.

For nearly a month past, ever since the day when Sidonie came and took
Frantz away in her coupe, Desiree had known that she was no longer loved,
and she knew her rival's name. She bore them no ill-will, she pitied them
rather. But, why had he returned? Why had he so heedlessly given her
false hopes? How many tears had she devoured in silence since those
hours! How many tales of woe had she told her little birds! For once more
it was work that had sustained her, desperate, incessant work, which, by
its regularity and monotony, by the constant recurrence of the same
duties and the same motions, served as a balance-wheel to her thoughts.

Lately Frantz was not altogether lost to her. Although he came but rarely
to see her, she knew that he was there, she could hear him go in and out,
pace, the floor with restless step, and sometimes, through the half-open
door, see his loved shadow hurry across the landing. He did not seem
happy. Indeed, what happiness could be in store for him? He loved his
brother's wife. And at the thought that Frantz was not happy, the fond
creature almost forgot her own sorrow to think only of the sorrow of the
man she loved.

She was well aware that it was impossible that he could ever love her
again. But she thought that perhaps she would see him come in some day,
wounded and dying, that he would sit down on the little low chair, lay
his head on her knees, and with a great sob tell her of his suffering and
say to her, "Comfort me."

That forlorn hope kept her alive for three weeks. She needed so little as
that.

But no. Even that was denied her. Frantz had gone, gone without a glance
for her, without a parting word. The lover's desertion was followed by
the desertion of the friend. It was horrible!

At her father's first words, she felt as if she were hurled into a deep,
ice-cold abyss, filled with darkness, into which she plunged swiftly,
helplessly, well knowing that she would never return to the light. She
was suffocating. She would have liked to resist, to struggle, to call for
help.

Who was there who had the power to sustain her in that great disaster?

God? The thing that is called Heaven?

She did not even think of that. In Paris, especially in the quarters
where the working class live, the houses are too high, the streets too
narrow, the air too murky for heaven to be seen.

It was Death alone at which the little cripple was gazing so earnestly.
Her course was determined upon at once: she must die. But how?

Sitting motionless in her easy-chair, she considered what manner of death
she should choose. As she was almost never alone, she could not think of
the brazier of charcoal, to be lighted after closing the doors and
windows. As she never went out she could not think either of poison to be
purchased at the druggist's, a little package of white powder to be
buried in the depths of the pocket, with the needle-case and the thimble.
There was the phosphorus on the matches, too, the verdigris on old sous,
the open window with the paved street below; but the thought of forcing
upon her parents the ghastly spectacle of a self-inflicted death-agony,
the thought that what would remain of her, picked up amid a crowd of
people, would be so frightful to look upon, made her reject that method.

She still had the river. At all events, the water carries you away
somewhere, so that nobody finds you and your death is shrouded in
mystery.

The river! She shuddered at the mere thought. But it was not the vision
of the deep, black water that terrified her. The girls of Paris laugh at
that. You throw your apron over your head so that you can't see, and
pouf! But she must go downstairs, into the street, all alone, and the
street frightened her.

Yes, it was a terrible thing to go out into the street alone. She must
wait until the gas was out, steal softly downstairs when her mother had
gone to bed, pull the cord of the gate, and make her way across Paris,
where you meet men who stare impertinently into your face, and pass
brilliantly lighted cafes. The river was a long distance away. She would
be very tired. However, there was no other way than that.

"I am going to bed, my child; are you going to sit up any longer?"

With her eyes on her work, "my child" replied that she was. She wished to
finish her dozen.

"Good-night, then," said Mamma Delobelle, her enfeebled sight being
unable to endure the light longer. "I have put father's supper by the
fire. Just look at it before you go to bed."

Desire did not lie. She really intended to finish her dozen, so that her
father could take them to the shop in the morning; and really, to see
that tranquil little head bending forward in the white light of the lamp,
one would never have imagined all the sinister thoughts with which it was
thronged.

At last she takes up the last bird of the dozen, a marvellously lovely
little bird whose wings seem to have been dipped in sea-water, all green
as they are with a tinge of sapphire.

Carefully, daintily, Desiree suspends it on a piece of brass wire, in the
charming attitude of a frightened creature about to fly away.

Ah! how true it is that the little blue bird is about to fly away! What a
desperate flight into space! How certain one feels that this time it is
the great journey, the everlasting journey from which there is no return!

By and by, very softly, Desiree opens the wardrobe and takes a thin shawl
which she throws over her shoulders; then she goes. What? Not a glance at
her mother, not a silent farewell, not a tear? No, nothing! With the
terrible clearness of vision of those who are about to die, she suddenly
realizes that her childhood and youth have been sacrificed to a vast
self-love. She feels very sure that a word from their great man will
comfort that sleeping mother, with whom she is almost angry for not
waking, for allowing her to go without a quiver of her closed eyelids.

When one dies young, even by one's own act, it is never without a
rebellious feeling, and poor Desiree bids adieu to life, indignant with
destiny.

Now she is in the street. Where is she going? Everything seems deserted
already. Desiree walks rapidly, wrapped in her little shawl, head erect,
dry-eyed. Not knowing the way, she walks straight ahead.

The dark, narrow streets of the Marais, where gas-jets twinkle at long
intervals, cross and recross and wind about, and again and again in her
feverish course she goes over the same ground. There is always something
between her and the river. And to think that, at that very hour, almost
in the same quarter, some one else is wandering through the streets,
waiting, watching, desperate! Ah! if they could but meet. Suppose she
should accost that feverish watcher, should ask him to direct her:

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur. How can I get to the Seine?"

He would recognize her at once.

"What! Can it be you, Mam'zelle Zizi? What are you doing out-of-doors at
this time of night?"

"I am going to die, Frantz. You have taken away all my pleasure in
living."

Thereupon he, deeply moved, would seize her, press her to his heart and
carry her away in his arms, saying:

"Oh! no, do not die. I need you to comfort me, to cure all the wounds the
other has inflicted on me."

But that is a mere poet's dream, one of the meetings that life can not
bring about.

Streets, more streets, then a square and a bridge whose lanterns make
another luminous bridge in the black water. Here is the river at last.
The mist of that damp, soft autumn evening causes all of this huge Paris,
entirely strange to her as it is, to appear to her like an enormous
confused mass, which her ignorance of the landmarks magnifies still more.
This is the place where she must die.

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