Pâquerette was gravely taking her ease in a red armchair, the covering of which, worn thin in spots, showed the wool with which the back and arms were stuffed. She was reading a little yellow book, full of stains, which she closed and placed upon the bureau when I made my appearance.
I took her hands, I wept. I seated myself on a stool, at her feet. In my despair, I was tempted to call her mother. I told her how I had passed the morning; I repeated to her the words of Jacques, those of Laurence; I emptied my heart, avowed my love and my jealousy, asked for advice. With clasped hands, sobbing, supplicating, I addressed myself to Pâquerette as to a good soul who knew life, who could save me from the mud into which I had blindly strayed.
She smiled as she listened to me, tapping me upon the cheeks with her withered and yellow fingers.
“Come, come,” said she, when emotion had choked my voice in my throat, “come, you have shed enough tears! I knew that one day or another you would climb up here to ask aid and succor of me. I expected you. You took all this much too seriously; you should have reached sobs gradually. Do you wish me to speak frankly to you?”
“Yes, yes,” I cried; “frankly, brutally.”
“Well, you fill Laurence with fear! In the past, I would have shown you the door at the second kiss: you embrace too strongly, my son. Laurence remains with you, because she cannot go elsewhere. If you wish to get rid of her, give her a new dress!” Pâquerette stopped with satisfaction at this phrase, she coughed, then pushed from her forehead a curl of gray hair which had just slipped over it.
“You ask advice from me, my son,” added she. “I will give you through friendship the advice which Jacques gave you through interest. He will willingly deliver you from Laurence.”
She laughed wickedly, and my pain became more intense.
“Listen,” said I, with violence: “I came here to be calmed. Do not overturn my reason. Jacques can’t love Laurence after the words he spoke to me this morning, it is impossible.”
“Ah! my son,” answered the old woman, “you are very innocent, very young. I know not what you mean by love, and I know not if Jacques loves Laurence. What I do know is that they embrace each other in out-of-the-way corners. In the past, how many kisses I gave without knowing why, how many kisses were given to me which came from I know not where! You are a strange fellow, who do nothing like the rest. You should not have thought of having a sweetheart. If you are wise, this is what you will do: you will accept things as they are, and quietly Laurence will depart. She is no longer young, she may become a charge to you. Think of that. If you retain her, you will repent of it later. You had better let her go, since she herself wishes to take her departure.”
I listened with stupor.
“But I love Laurence!” I cried.
“You love Laurence, my son; well, you will love her no longer! That is the whole of it. People unite and people quit each other. Such is life. But, great heavens! whence come you? How could such a man as you conceive the idea of loving anybody? In my time, people loved differently; it was then easier to turn the back than to embrace. You can readily understand that it is henceforward impossible for you to live with Laurence. Separate from her politely. I do not advise you to accept Marie as your sweetheart; that poor girl displeases you, and I think you had better jog on through life alone!”
I no longer heard Pàquerette’s voice. The thought that Jacques might have deceived me in the morning had not before occurred to me; now, I plunged into it, not succeeding in believing it, but finding a sort of consolation in saying to myself that he had, perhaps, lied to me. This was a new shadow upon my mind, a new torment added to the torments which were already racking me. I was on the point of losing my senses. Pâquerette continued, speaking through her nose: “I wish to form you, Claude, to communicate to you my experience. You do not know how to love. One must be kind to women; one must not beat them, one must give them sweet things. Above all, no jealousy; if you are deceived, allow yourself to be deceived; you will be better loved afterwards. When I think of my adorers, I recall a little flaxen haired fellow who boasted that he had had for sweethearts all the girls of the public balls. Do you see that étagère, the last souvenir which remains to me? It came from him. One evening, he approached me and said to me, with a laugh: ‘You are the only one whom I have not adored. Will you accept me after all the rest? I accepted his homage, he kissed me upon both cheeks, and we supped together. That is the way to love.”
I recovered from my stupor; I stared about the place in which I found myself. Then only I saw the filth of the den, then only I perceived the odor of musk and scraps of food. All my excitement had subsided; I realized the shame of my presence at the feet of this old wretch. The words which she had spoken to me, and which my memory had retained, grew clear and frightful in my mind, which before had turned them over without understanding them.
I had not the strength to go downstairs to my chamber. I seated myself upon a step and wept away all the blood of my heart.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SAD REFLECTIONS.
I AM a coward; I suffer and I dare not cauterize the wound. I feel that Pâquerette and Jacques are right, that I cannot live amid the frightful torment which is rending me. I must, if I do not wish to die of it, tear love from my bosom. But I am like the dying who are frightened by the unknown and the annihilation of the body. I know what is the anguish of my heart, full as it is of Laurence; I know not what would be its pain were this woman to leave it empty. I prefer the sobs of my agony to the death of my love; I recoil before the mysterious horrors of a soul widowed by affection.
It is with despair that I feel Laurence escaping from me. I press her in my arms like a horse hair shirt which brings the blood, which gives me a bitter delight. She tears me, and yet I love her. I love her for all the darts she drives into my flesh; I experience the painful ecstasy of those monks who die beneath the rods with which they strike themselves. I love and I sob. I do not wish to refuse to sob, if I ought to refuse to love.
And yet I realize that this sharp and biting nightmare must come to an end. The crisis is approaching.-
I do not know which of us is going to die. It seems as if anguish kept me awake, warned me of a coming misfortune. Heaven will take pity on me: it will cure my mind and leave me my heart; it will choose me for death rather than choose my tenderness.
This morning, I met a young man and a young woman, who were walking in the bright sunshine. With arms closely locked, they advanced slowly, forgetting the crowd. The young woman leaned her head upon the young man’s shoulder; she gazed at him, moved and smiling, while he, in a glance, returned her emotion, her smile. This youthful couple absolutely sparkled with devotion and happiness, with pure love and genuine delight.
True youthful love then exists. While I live miserably in the deep gloom, torn and devoured by a horrible nightmare, a fearful incubus, there are, amid the sunbeams of May, true lovers who live deliciously. I did not know that people could love each other thus, I believed that kisses must of necessity be biting and poignant.
But, I remember now. Young lovers stroll along, two by two, in the moonlight, amid the first streaks of dawn. They are clad in light garments. They embrace each other at every step in a tender, dreamy fashion; they live amid the grass, among the crowd, and they are always alone. Heaven smiles upon them, the earth is discreet, the universe is their accomplice. Young lovers exchange their hearts, they live in each other’s lives.