One morning, as he lay partly awake and partly asleep in his bed, he heard a voice he had heard in days long gone by — the voice of a dying woman — saying to him: “If she marries a man with a bad disposition you will still have to fight for her, still have to protect her; solitude is burdensome for a wife, and she must have a great deal of moral resolution and strength not to go astray. Whatever happens, never desert her.”
The next day Daniel left for Paris. He was going to finish his task. He felt now an invincible courage, a firm hope.
CHAPTER XII
ON reaching Paris Daniel took up his quarters with George.
“What, you!” cried his friend, not expecting him in the least But he received him like a prodigal son, with all kinds of marks of goodwill and the deepest joy.
He dared not ask him any questions for fear of hearing of a new and early departure. Daniel reassured him by telling him that he had come to set to work again at their common task. Their sweet life of former days was about to begin once more. During the journey to Paris he had considered the course of life he should pursue. He decided to resume his interrupted labours, to try for fame once again. As of old, Jeanne was his goal. When necessity demanded it he had sacrificed the pursuit of science and the brilliant future for her sake which had opened out before him; he had taken up a mean occupation solely to live near her. To-day the position was changed. He must be a simple employé no longer, for he had to ascend the social scale, to become celebrated, and to make the doors of the fashionable world open to him because of his own position. And he determined to set to work again and hasten the hour that should enable him to meet her on an equal footing.
George and he took up their labours once more with ardour. They dedicated several essays to the Institute, which drew upon them the attention of the world of learning.
Daniel now consented to inscribe his name on their essays, and the names of the two friends were always seen side by side, uniting them in the same renown. At last the great work at which they had been labouring ever since they had lived in the impasse St. Dominique d’Enfer was completed and published. It caused a lively sensation and any amount of discussion. And a most unusual thing happened for a scientific work; the report of it even reached the core of the fashionable world. Daniel, who had more especially taken charge of its compiling, had set his whole soul on that.
The two young authors had become celebrated; they found themselves received everywhere with open arms. George, who had attained the end he had aspired to, lived in a state of serene happiness. Daniel, on the contrary, seemed to be conscientiously acquitting himself of a task whose accomplishment left him unmoved.
One day George invited him to an evening reception given by some great personage, and Daniel went, driven there by a presentiment — such as we all have at times. The first person he met on entering the drawingroom was Jeanne, on the arm of Lorin. He had only just had a glimpse of her once or twice since his return to Paris, and he felt anxious at the look of sadness on her face. She no longer laughed with the light, disdainful air of a young girl. The smile had faded from her lips; tears had made her eyelids heavy and gray.
Lorin perceived his old acquaintances and rushed to meet them. He was delighted at being able to shake hands with them in full view of the crowd.
“At last, I see you once more!” he said, in such a loud voice that every one could hear him. “For a whole month I have been hunting for you. I really must scold you for deserting your old comrade in this way.”
George stared at him, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or be angry. Daniel, who was considering Jeanne, hastened to answer.
“Our time is very much taken up; besides, we did not wish to intrude upon you.”
“Oh, come now,” interposed Lorin with emphasis; “you know very well you are always welcome. I will take no excuse, but shall expect you at the first opportunity. Do you know that you are two notabilities who are in everybody’s mouth just now? You must be earning a vast amount of money.” Then, remembering that he had his wife on his arm, he added: “My dear, I wish to present to you Monsieur Daniel Raimboult and Monsieur George Raymond, our young and illustrious scholars.” Jeanne bowed slightly, and looking at Daniel, she said: “I already know this gentleman.”
“By Jove, yes, I was forgetting,” exclaimed Lorin, laughing heartily; “he took you out often enough on the Seine.
“Ah, my dear Daniel, you have indeed done well in becoming a celebrity! It pained me deeply to see you the secretary of Monsieur Tellier. You know that he died lately, some say from apoplexy, others from a speech that had been ill received. I was told yesterday that his wife was about to retire into a convent. These queens of fashion always end in that way.”
Jeanne was pained at this speech. The loud voice of her husband irritated her. Her lips trembled, and she turned her head aside as if to escape the unpleasantness of being on the arm of such a man.
Lorin was no longer the young gallant who played the part of a lover so gracefully. Little by little his old instincts had taken hold of him again; he was once more the rough, hard trader. Directly he was married he no longer felt any necessity to make himself agreeable to his wife.
Daniel noticed even that Lorin’s general appearance was not as elegant as it was formerly, and he felt a great pity for Jeanne.
“Very well, depend on our coming,” he said, “and at an early date.”
And he moved off, taking George with him, who had not as yet opened his lips, but had gazed at Jeanne with admiring and sympathetic eyes. When they were a short distance off, George asked:
“You know Lorin’s wife, then?”
“Yes,” quietly answered Daniel; “she is the niece of the deputy in whose house I worked.”
“I am sorry for her, with all my heart,” said George, “for her clumsy clown of a husband must cause her great unhappiness. Do you intend to go and see them?”
“Most decidedly.”
“I will accompany you.... That poor young woman, with her great, sad eyes, has moved my heart wonderfully.”
Daniel changed the conversation as soon as he could. He also was very much moved, and he rebuked himself with a kind of bitter joy that misery had most probably commenced what his affection could not do. He saw very well that Jeanne’s heart was at last awakened, and that now she suffered.
Every evening, for nearly a week, George said to him:
“Well, are we going to Lorin’s tomorrow?” Daniel began to feel timid of going to see Jeanne. It seemed as if the fever of love was again about to take possession of him. Since the evening “at home,” when he had met her, she was always before his eyes, looking at him with a melancholy, sad smile; and every now and then he felt his heart beating, and mad hopes entered his brain. At last he made up his mind to go. One evening George and he fulfilled their promise. It just happened that it was a reception night. The drawing - room when they arrived was already full of people, and Lorin pointed them out to his guests as lions of the day. The evening was a most distressing one for Daniel. He saw all, he understood all.
He found Jeanne nervous and restless. She was no longer the heedless young girl who queened it in her ignorance; she was a broken woman, whose heart had expanded only to bleed. As long as her affections had been dormant she had remained a mere coquettish doll, who lived quietly on in her mocking frigidity. But now her heart had spoken loudly; she wanted love, and she found no one to love. A rebellion arose within her, and she accused herself bitterly of letting her heart sleep too long.
The awakening had been cruel for Jeanne. Two or three months after her marriage she found out she had a soul which hitherto she had known nothing about Her husband, with his low instincts, his crooked and wicked nature, caused her a revulsion