Below he found Louis, his valet-de-chambre — a great, fair, frigid fellow, whom he had made his tool. Louis had the merit of never showing any emotion outwardly, never speaking, and never hearing anything he was not wanted to. He was a most excellent machine, which worked when it was wound up. But, looked at closely, there was a suspicion of a smirk on his lips, which showed that the machine had certain secret wheels working on their own account.
Louis simply informed his master that he had heard Mademoiselle Jeanne running about the house calling for her father. He had thought madame was dying, and he had also thought he might come and disturb him.
Monsieur de Rionne felt quite upset; tears of fear and pain welled into his eyes. It was a selfish, personal suffering which tortured him. Had he been questioned he would have exposed the truth that grief for his wife had no place in the depths of his despair.
However, in good faith, he lied to himself, and he had the consolation of thinking that he was really weeping at Blanche’s approaching death, and thus he arrived home, suffering but rebellious.
When he entered the room where the sick woman lay in agony, he was seized with faintness. His brain no longer retained Julia’s little blue room, but his flesh had kept a remembrance of it, and having just left that perfumed retreat, it quivered in this great gloomy apartment through which was passing the cold breath of death.
He drew near the bed, and when he saw the pale face of the dying woman he burst into tears. He thought of Julia out there in her big armchair, with a look half-cross, half-smiling, and sulking ‘midst her waving curls. Here, in the soft dim light, he saw Blanche, her head resting on her pillow, her eyes closed, and, her features already contracted by the cold finger of death, she lay and looked like a marble figure.
Monsieur de Rionne stood one moment speechless before that motionless face, which yet had a significant and terrible eloquence for him. Then, thinking that some sign of life would calm his anguish — he longed to see her part her tightened lips — he bent over her in a trembling voice and said:
“Blanche! Do you hear me? Speak to me, I beg of you.”
The face of the dying woman twitched slightly, and she raised her eyelids. Her eyes, unnaturally bright, wandered here and there. They looked about in a dazed kind of way, resting at length on Monsieur de Rionne. He had never seen any one die, and, as he had never known genuine sorrow — sorrow that drives one to frantically embrace the corpse of a loved one — he analysed the horror of death. He was thinking of himself, reflecting that he too would die one day, and that he would be like that.
Blanche fixed her eyes on her husband, and recognised him. She sighed, and tried to smile. In that last hour an idea of forgiveness was taking possession of her. Yet she was battling with herself. The bitterness of her married life was recalled to her, and, in order to be gentle with him, she was obliged to fancy that she was dead already, that earthly miseries no longer weighed her down. Moreover, she did not remember having had her husband summoned.
At one moment, finding no one in whom to confide, she had the idea of exacting a vow from him. Now that she had poured out her heart, and that she had been able to set a guardian over her daughter, she no longer felt the need of this reassurance.
Her husband was there, and she was rather surprised at it She looked on him without rancour, as a person whom one knows, and on whom one smiles before departing on a journey.
Then, as sensibility gradually returned, she recollected herself and almost pitied this man, rendered so unworthy by cowardice. She became full of compassion for him.
“My friend,” said she, and her words came in a faint whisper, “you did well to come. I shall die more at peace.”
Monsieur de Rionne, much affected by this gentle remark, wept afresh.
Blanche continued without noticing:
“Do not despair. I no longer suffer. I am at peace. I am happy. I have only one wish, and that is to wipe out all dissension that may have existed between us. I do not wish to carry away with me ill thoughts of you, and I do not desire you to have the least remorse when I am gone. If I have caused you offence, forgive me, as I have forgiven you.”
These words acted very sensibly on Monsieur de Rionne’s nerves, and his heart felt as if it would for the moment break. His impatience of grief was over for the time. “I have nothing to forgive you,” he stammered. “You are good. I regret that the difference of our characters should have separated us from each other. You see I weep. I am in despair.”
Blanche looked at him as he struggled to address her. He seemed to her a pitiful object This man could not find one word of condemnation for himself. He besought her in no way to grant him forgiveness. He was simply intoxicated with fear.
She realised that if God had by a miracle spared her, the very next day he would have resumed his old way of life, and deserted her afresh. But she was dying, and her death taught him no lesson; it was merely a lamentable accident at which he was obliged to assist.
She began smiling again, looking him full in the face, subduing him by her will.
“Bid me goodbye,” she said. “I have no ill-will towards you; I swear it. Later this assurance will perhaps be a consolation to you. I trust it will.”
And as she ceased speaking — “What are your last wishes?” asked Monsieur de Rionne.
“I have none,” she answered, quietly. “I have nothing to ask of you, nothing to give you advice about. Act according to the dictates of your own heart.”
She would not speak to him of their daughter. She thought it might be acting ill to extract vows from him which he would not keep. So then, in a still softer voice she repeated, “Goodbye — do not distress yourself,” and with a motion of her hand waved him slowly away, closing her eyes in order not to see him any more. He retired to the foot of the bed, powerless to withdraw his looks from such a terrible sight.
The servants had gone to fetch the doctor, and he had just arrived, knowing, however, that his attendance would be of no avail. An old priest, who had ministered to the dying woman in the morning, had also arrived. He knelt down, and was reciting in quiet tones the prayers for the dying.
Blanche grew weaker and weaker. The end was near. But she raised herself up abruptly and asked for her daughter. As Monsieur de Rionne did not stir, Daniel, who had remained silent, keeping back his tears, ran and fetched Jeanne, who was in the midst of her games in the next room. The poor mother, with distended eyes, as if she were out of her mind, gazed at her daughter, and endeavoured to hold out her arms to her. But she failed to raise them, and Daniel was obliged to hold Jeanne up, with her feet resting on the wooden sides of the bed.
The child did not cry. She looked at her mother’s disordered face with a sort of innocent astonishment. Then, as that face grew calmer — it seemed to fill with heavenly joy, and shone with tenderness — the little girl recognised her sweet smile, and she also began to smile, holding out her little hands.
So Blanche died, a smile on her own face and on that of her child. She fixed her last look on Daniel — a look at once of supplication and command. He was supporting Jeanne; his mission had begun.
Monsieur de Rionne knelt down by the body of his wife, remembering that it was the custom on such occasions so to act. The doctor had just left, and one of the watchers hastened to light two candles. The priest, who had risen to offer the crucifix to Blanche’s lips, resumed his prayers.
Daniel kept Jeanne in his arms, and as the atmosphere of the room became stifling, he took up his position by the window of a neighbouring room. There he wept in silence, whilst the child amused herself by watching the rapidly passing lamps of the carriages on the boulevard.