The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume VI Part 19

The examination of the walls was over. The governor went to put down his lamp and welcome the last comer, while Duroy began to re-examine the pictures as if he could not tire of admiring them. He was quite upset.

What should he do? Madame Forestier called to him: "Monsieur Duroy." He went to her. It was to speak to him of a friend of hers who was about to give a fete, and who would like to have a line to that effect in the _Vie Francaise_. He gasped out: "Certainly, Madame, certainly."

Madame de Marelle was now quite close to him. He dared not turn round to go away. All at once he thought he was going mad; she had said aloud: "Good evening, Pretty-boy. So you no longer recognize me."

He rapidly turned on his heels. She stood before him smiling, her eyes beaming with sprightliness and affection, and held out her hand. He took it tremblingly, still fearing some trick, some perfidy. She added, calmly: "What has become of you? One no longer sees anything of you."

He stammered, without being able to recover his coolness: "I have a great deal to do, Madame, a great deal to do. Monsieur Walter has entrusted me with new duties which give me a great deal of occupation."

She replied, still looking him in the face, but without his being able to discover anything save good will in her glance: "I know it. But that is no reason for forgetting your friends."

They were separated by a lady who came in, with red arms and red face, a stout lady in a very low dress, got up with pretentiousness, and walking so heavily that one guessed by her motions the size and weight of her legs. As she seemed to be treated with great attention, Duroy asked Madame Forestier: "Who is that lady?"

"The Viscomtesse de Percemur, who signs her articles 'Lily Fingers.'"

He was astounded, and seized on by an inclination to laugh.

"'Lily Fingers!' 'Lily Fingers!' and I imagined her young like yourself. So that is 'Lily Fingers.' That is very funny, very funny."

A servant appeared in the doorway and announced dinner. The dinner was commonplace and lively, one of those dinners at which people talk about everything, without saying anything. Duroy found himself between the elder daughter of the master of the house, the ugly one, Mademoiselle Rose and Madame de Marelle. The neighborhood of the latter made him feel very ill at ease, although she seemed very much at her ease, and chatted with her usual vivacity. He was troubled at first, constrained, hesitating, like a musician who has lost the keynote. By degrees, however, he recovered his a.s.surance, and their eyes continually meeting questioned one another, exchanging looks in an intimate, almost sensual, fas.h.i.+on as of old. All at once he thought he felt something brush against his foot under the table. He softly pushed forward his leg and encountered that of his neighbor, which did not shrink from the contact.

They did not speak, each being at that moment turned towards their neighbor. Duroy, his heart beating, pushed a little harder with his knee. A slight pressure replied to him. Then he understood that their loves were beginning anew. What did they say then? Not much, but their lips quivered every time that they looked at one another.

The young fellow, however, wis.h.i.+ng to do the amiable to his employer's daughter, spoke to her from time to time. She replied as the mother would have done, never hesitating as to what she should say. On the right of Monsieur Walter the Viscomtesse de Percemur gave herself the airs of a princess, and Duroy, amused at watching her, said in a low voice to Madame de Marelle. "Do you know the other, the one who signs herself 'Pink Domino'?"

"Yes, very well, the Baroness de Livar."

"Is she of the same breed?"

"No, but quite as funny. A tall, dried-up woman of sixty, false curls, projecting teeth, ideas dating from the Restoration, and toilets of the same epoch."

"Where did they unearth these literary phenomena?"

"The scattered waifs of the n.o.bility are always sheltered by enriched cits."

"No other reason?"

"None."

Then a political discussion began between the master of the house, the two deputies, Norbert de Varenne, and Jacques Rival, and lasted till dessert.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Duroy again approached Madame de Marelle, and looking her in the eyes, said: "Shall I see you home to-night?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because Monsieur Laroche Mathieu, who is my neighbor, drops me at my door every time I dine here."

"When shall I see you?"

"Come and lunch with me to-morrow."

And they separated without saying anything more.

Duroy did not remain late, finding the evening dull. As he went downstairs he overtook Norbert de Varenne, who was also leaving. The old poet took him by the arm. No longer having to fear any rivalry as regards the paper, their work being essentially different, he now manifested a fatherly kindness towards the young fellow.

"Well, will you walk home a bit of my way with me?" said he.

"With pleasure, my dear master," replied Duroy.

And they went out, walking slowly along the Boulevard Malesherbes. Paris was almost deserted that night--a cold night--one of those nights that seem vaster, as it were, than others, when the stars seem higher above, and the air seems to bear on its icy breath something coming from further than even the stars. The two men did not speak at first. Then Duroy, in order to say something, remarked: "Monsieur Laroche Mathieu seems very intelligent and well informed."

The old poet murmured: "Do you think so?"

The young fellow, surprised at this remark, hesitated in replying: "Yes; besides, he pa.s.ses for one of the most capable men in the Chamber."

"It is possible. In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

All these people are commonplace because their mind is shut in between two walls, money and politics. They are dullards, my dear fellow, with whom it is impossible to talk about anything we care for. Their minds are at the bottom mud, or rather sewage; like the Seine Asnieres. Ah!

how difficult it is to find a man with breadth of thought, one who causes you the same sensation as the breeze from across the broad ocean one breathes on the seash.o.r.e. I have known some such; they are dead."

Norbert de Varenne spoke with a clear but restrained voice, which would have rung out in the silence of the night had he given it rein. He seemed excited and sad, and went on: "What matter, besides, a little

more or less talent, since all must come to an end."

He was silent, and Duroy, who felt light hearted that evening, said with a smile: "You are gloomy to-day, dear master."

The poet replied: "I am always so, my lad, so will you be in a few years. Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death. One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy.

He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pa.s.s. At mine, one no longer expects anything--but death."

Duroy began to laugh: "You make me shudder all over."

Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I have felt death a.s.sail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything about me of myself--of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have seen death whiten my black hairs, and with what skillful and spiteful slowness. Death has taken my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, my whole body of old, only leaving me a despairing soul, soon to be taken too.

Every step brings me nearer to death, every moment, every breath hastens his odious work. To breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work, dream, everything we do is to die. To live, in short, is to die. I now see death so near that I often want to stretch my arms to push it back. I see it everywhere. The insects crushed on the path, the falling leaves, the white hair in a friend's head, rend my heart and cry to me, "Behold it!"

It spoils for me all I do, all I see, all that I eat and drink, all that I love; the bright moonlight, the sunrise, the broad ocean, the n.o.ble rivers, and the soft summer evening air so sweet to breathe."

He walked on slowly, dreaming aloud, almost forgetting that he had a listener: "And no one ever returns--never. The model of a statue may be preserved, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never reappear again. And yet millions of beings will be born with a nose, eyes, forehead, cheeks, and mouth like me, and also a soul like me, without my ever returning, without even anything recognizable of me appearing in these countless different beings. What can we cling to?

What can we believe in? All religions are stupid, with their puerile morality and their egoistical promises, monstrously absurd. Death alone is certain."

He stopped, reflected for a few moments, and then, with a look of resignation, said: "I am a lost creature. I have neither father nor mother, nor sister nor brother; no wife, no children, no G.o.d."

He added, after a pause: "I have only verse."

They reached the Pont de la Concorde, crossed it in silence, and walked past the Palais Bourbon. Norbert de Varenne began to speak again, saying: "Marry, my friend; you do not know what it is to live alone at my age. Solitude now fills me with horrible agony--solitude at home by the fireside of a night. It is so profound, so sad; the silence of the room in which one dwells alone. It is not alone silence about the body, but silence about the soul; and when the furniture creaks I shudder to the heart, for no sound but is unexpected in my gloomy dwelling." He was silent again for a moment, and then added: "When one is old it is well, all the same, to have children."

They had got half way down the Rue de Bourgoyne. The poet halted in front of a tall house, rang the bell, shook Duroy by the hand, and said: "Forget all this old man's doddering, youngster, and live as befits your age. Good-night."

And he disappeared in the dark pa.s.sage.

Duroy resumed his route with a pain at his heart. It seemed to him as though he had been shown a hole filled with bones, an unavoidable gulf into which all must fall one day. He muttered: "By Jove, it can't be very lively in his place. I should not care for a front seat to see the procession of his thoughts go by. The deuce, no."