THOSE WHO RETURN

       (L'ombre)

       by Maurice Level

        translated from the French by: Bérengère Drillien

      I

        AT three o’clock that afternoon, the heat of the sun was overpowering in the street.

        Claude de Marbois came to a standstill in front of the door that made a dark cavern in the dazzling whiteness of the walls, and thought:

        “Shall I go in?  …Here’s another to whom I shall have to tell my story, who will listen with half an ear, without in the least understanding what is the matter with me, and who will tell me to come back again, after giving me advice which I shall not follow…”

        For months he had known and feared this vacillating state of mind.  For a week he would be as other men, then, suddenly, doubt took hold of him. At once he lost control of his will, could not make up his mind about the most ordinary decision, and finally left everything to chance. Only a moment ago it had seemed simple and sensible to go and consult the doctor; now it appeared complicated and useless. However, as the heat made his temples throb, the cool archway and fresh-washed cobblestones tempted him. He crossed the threshold and inquired for Doctor Charlier.

        The drawing-room into which he was shown was huge, luxurious, and depressing. Loose covers, bordered with red, enveloped the seats. The daylight, filtering through the shutters and closed red curtains, darkened about the wainscoting; the beadwork and caryatides of a Buhl cabinet gleamed in the corner; a crystal chandelier, veiled in net, shook and tinkled when a carriage passed in the street.

        On his right, a man and woman were talking in whispers, between them was seated a little girl.

        She had a pale face and fair hair, glassy eyes, a thin-lipped mouth, which opened to show teeth with a gap between them. Now and then the mother smoothed the child’s face with her fingers and when she did this, the father looked at the grief-stricken woman and the idiot child with an expression that was almost that of shame.

        On his left a young man was seated on the edge of an armchair. He was gesticulating wildly, his hands with their twisted wrists and crooked fingers beat the air unceasingly, his shoulders jerking up and down at the same time, following the movement of his hands. Behind him, an old woman, probably a nurse-housekeeper, was dozing.

        When the portière was drawn aside, Claude saw a hand holding it back. The first group of people stood up. Then he saw the little girl was paralyzed, and he began to turn over the magazines scattered about the table, with one ear straining toward the mystery of the adjoining room. After a short time, the door opened again, the wildly-gesticulating man crossed the room with the help of the old woman, throwing his arms about, limping, lifting his feet like a prancing horse, and uttering little cries.

        As soon as he was alone, Claude began to walk up and down the room, stopping to glance at a knick-knack, to pick it up, and put it down again.

        When he had almost made up his mind to go, his turn came. There was the same shaded light and the same coolness in the doctor’s room as in the drawing-room. But his attention was riveted on the man whose fame had attracted him there, and to whom he was going to tell his trouble, so that he had no time to notice the surroundings particularly.

        “Monsieur,” said he, as he seated himself, “it is not my intention to set you a medical problem. I should like to say that I understand my case as well, better even, than any physician you care to name…”

        And as the doctor slightly shrugged his shoulders, he corrected himself with a constrained smile:

        “…or at any rate the symptoms… I eat well, and usually sleep well… There is nothing wrong either with my digestion or my heart. And yet, I feel that I am ill. I feel it, as you may feel a dog lying stretched across your bed, a good, obedient dog who does not get in your way, but whose presence you realize because of the warmth and gentle breathing. My malady is here.”

        He touched his forehead with his first finger.

        “What you tell me,” said the doctor, “is interesting and correct, no doubt, yet it is necessary to say definitely what kind of discomfort you experience, how it takes you…”

        “Discomfort…?”

        Claude reflected a moment:

        “Discomfort? ...the word is too weak to characterize some of my feelings, too strong to define others. Sometimes I have intolerable pains in my head; sometimes, without exactly feeling any physical pain anywhere, I have strange sensations. I am obsessed by feelings that I can overcome only by force of will, when I do not succumb to them…”

        “I am neither a roué nor a degenerate; yet there are days when certain visions rise so definitely before me and I am a prey to such violent desires, that if, hitherto, I have been able to resist their attraction, it is impossible for me to say whether, an hour hence, I shall be able to do so. At other times, I feel strangely weary, as though I had just accomplished some gigantic task. I feel that my bones are broken, my muscles torn, and it is when I wake up that I feel this—when I wake up, after eight hours’sleep and rest, following on no excess and troubled by no dreams.

        “I also have fits of inexplicable rage; of fury that would urge me to any crime; preconceived dislikes; I am so sensitive and excitable, that a word, a gesture, are sufficient to unhinge me: I suffer almost physically from all these things.”

        “What about your spirits?”

        “That’s terribly easy to answer: I am unhappy. And when I say I am unhappy, it is…although I cannot remember why…as definite as when other patients tell you they have a headache or cramp in the stomach.”

        “I have told you, Monsieur, all that I feel, all that you must believe and understand, in order to undertake my cure.”

        After these words, that had come in a rush, emphasized by trenchant gestures, and in an expressionless voice, that trembled with emotion and ill-concealed annoyance, he threw himself back in his chair, exhausted. Deep in his eyes there were evil lights, his face grew dark, and his cheeks hollow, the cheekbones stood out, accentuating the flatness of the temples, where the scanty hair, plastered down, showed a glimpse of the humid skin beneath.

        “Now, let me see,” said the doctor, “do you remember being seriously ill since you were a child?”

        “No, unless it was before I was three or four…even then I should have been told.”

        “Will you take your clothes off?”

        Claude looked surprised.

        “To make sure,” went on the doctor, “let me see first of all if there is anything wrong, unknown to you, which may explain your general state of health.”

        “Very well,” he murmured.

        He unbuttoned his gloves. As he drew them off, finger by finger, the doctor went on:

        “Are your parents still alive?”

        “Only my father…”

        “Is it long since you lost your mother?”

        “Very long.”

        “Do you know what she died of?”

        Claude frowned and set his mouth, as though he had been asked an insulting question.

        “Why do you ask me that?”

        “Simply because, just as children inherit the eyes, shape of the head, and general appearance of their parents, so they may equally inherit certain mental deficiencies. If, for example,  your parents had been very nervous people, the reason for your state of health would be found.”

        “It is not that,” Claude replied in a decided voice, “no, it’s not that. My father is a calm, matter-of-fact man. As for my mother, no one who ever mentioned her to me, has made the least allusion to what you suppose…”

        “Let’s try something else then. You tell me you never had a serious illness, but have you ever experienced any violent emotion, have you never been through some mental crisis, disappointment in love, or with regard to your career?”

        “No.”

        “You never remember being frightened as a child?”

        “Again, no.”

        “You have never heard that when you mother was enceinte, she went through any such crisis, or felt any such fear?”

        Claude shook his head. This interrogation, which disturbed the ghosts of his childhood and stirred his memories, troubled him.

        For the first time his thoughts were being directed toward thrilling problems; the unexpected vista hurt him.

        He had answered “no” to everything without being sure. Now he was beginning to think.

        He went on undressing. Bending over him, the doctor stopped him:

        “What’s the matter with your hands?”

        “My hands?”

        He stared at his open fingers.

        The doctor drew back the blinds, opened the shutters, and in the broad light of day, the hands appeared.

        They were strange hands indeed! Long, carefully manicured and slender, their violent color standing out in sharp contrast to the white wrists.

        They were red; not with the red-brown of sunburn, nor the purplish red of a delicate skin roughened by east winds, nor were they the bright scarlet as is sometimes the case when the hands are constantly in icy-cold water.  They were of an uniform, shining red, with, here and there, patches of unblemished skin, specks and stains such as might be caused by splashes of blood. And as the doctor held them outspread on his own, Claude jeered:

        “I suppose there’s no connection between these stains and my condition?”

        “No. It’s mere curiosity.”

        “I was wondering,” he muttered between his teeth.  Then submitted with a bad grace to the examination:

        The doctor took a pin.

        “Shut your eyes…what am I doing?”

        “You are pricking me, of course!”

        “And now?”

        “You are pricking me…you are still pricking me.”

        “Good…You may dress again…You don’t drink?”

        “No.”

        “The only treatment I can order you for the moment is to avoid worry and fits of temper, to take cold baths, and plenty of exercise: in one word, to tire yourself out. Fatigue is the best sedative. Eat little…and think less.”

        He rose, and with his hand on Claude’s shoulder, and his clear gaze bent upon the patient’s shifty glance, he added:

        “And you will get well…do you understand…you must get well.”

        “I have not told you all, doctor,” said Claude with sudden decision. “What I have to ask you, exceeds the limits of a consultation, but I beg you to answer me quite plainly. I am engaged; is it right for me, in my present state, to get married?”

        “Why not? Marriage will give you the regular life which you need.”

        “Now that’s the first comforting word I have heard for a long time,” cried Claude.

        When he reached the street again, the sun had gone down.

        He began to walk with his hands in his pockets, going over and over again in his mind, the questions asked, and the answers given.

        It was certain that this man had said:

        “You will get well, you must get well.”

        Such words are not lightly spoken. A clever doctor does not risk the contradiction of his assertions by events, just to please a patient. “He would get well, he must get well!” Infinite peace descended upon him. For one moment he felt that his will would get the better of his trouble.

        His heels struck the pavement, marking time with his rapid walk. Suddenly the doubt, which continually obsessed him fell headlong at his feet.

        “On what evidence did that doctor give me any reassurance? …on what I myself told him? …Supposing I had not told him the truth, what then? …He asked me about my mother …I remember nothing about her …About my father …What do I know about him? …I spent my childhood at school, and the holidays in the country with servants. Since I have been grown-up, I never see my father except at meals. We have lived together without knowing or caring for one another; occasionally I have had a glimpse of his thoughts, but I have never linked up with them. …What then?”

        He began to tremble. Then he rebelled again:

        “My mother, maybe…but my father? …Does he not look a strong, healthy man?”

        At once the vision of the fair idiot child whom he had seen in the doctor’s waiting-room took possession of him. Her parents looked quite strong and healthy, too.  What was the dark blemish that slumbered in the impenetrable shadow of the past, and sparing the parent, destroyed the child?

        He stopped with bent head, then started off again, and people turned around to look at him, surprised at his gestures and the scattered words that fell from his lips. He walked like this for a long time, crossed boulevards, the Rue Richelieu, the Cour du Carrousel and along the Seine. Twilight had come. Under the arches lights shone out, their reflection dancing on the water.

        He went on, turning over a thousand thoughts, trying to find, in the little he knew of his people, the gleam of light that would guide him to the source of his trouble. He passed beyond Notre-Dame. The sour smell of the Halle aux Vins irritated him. Near the gates of the Jardin des Plantes, he slackened speed, sniffing in the wild-beast smell, without noticing that there were fewer passers-by, that there was less noise, that every one had disappeared, and that nothing was left on the deserted bank of the river, except the heaps of sand piled up beside the police-boats. Overpowering fatigue laid hold of him. He sat down at the water’s brink, dangling his legs, and watched the river flow past.

        Cries, and the sound of running footsteps aroused him from his torpor. A band of children was coming down the bank, in pursuit of a dog. The creature looked at him with an expression that was almost human in its agony; already the children had almost overtaken it.

        Claude guessed what they were going to do, and that the torture of the poor dog was to end there. At any other time, he would have picked up the animal, and driven off the children. Today the thought did not even enter his head. One of them seized the dog, and held it poised. The poor beast had not even strength to bark, and fell, open-mouthed into the river. The cold water renewed its strength momentarily, and it tried to swim, and save its life.

        All that Claude needed to do to save its life, was to stretch out a hand. Close to him, the children jeered:

        “He’s sinking! He’s sinking!”

        The dog’s muzzle disappeared first, then appeared again. A cry rang through the darkness, a ripple spread to the bank, the water curled into little waves, that lost themselves in the calm of mid-river. One of the children shouted:

        “He’s done for!”

        Then, as though roused from a nightmare, Claude stood up, raising his hands to strike:

        “Little devils!”

        The children took to their heels.

        Looking first at the smooth surface of the water, and then at the shadows that flew along the road before him, ashamed of having allowed such a thing to be, even to have enjoyed it, in a kind of way, he went away, muttering:

        “They are only children …But I, I, a man!”

        On reaching the station of Austerlitz, he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. As he raised it to his face, he saw his red hands in the light of a street lamp. Then, seized with sudden terror, he hid them under his arm-pits, and fled.

II

        “WHAT time is it?”

        “Eleven o’clock, Monsieur.”

        “You should not have let me sleep so late.”

        “Monsieur went to bed so late last night, and when I came in this morning, you were sleeping so well, I did not like to wake you.”

        “Open the shutters. What kind of day is it?…”

        “Beautiful.”

        When the curtains were drawn back, light filled the room. A puff of balmy air came in through the open window. The leaves of the trees stood out against the calm, blue sky, and the golden daylight, the twittering of birds and the noises in the street below, filled the room with the joy of summer-time.

        Claude exclaimed:

         “Ah! How good it all is. Quick, my bath …I’ll go out before lunch …Any news in the papers? Nothing?  That’s good…any letters?”

        “One.”

        “Give it here…”

        Leaning on his elbow, he tore open the envelope, read one page, and suddenly throwing off the coverings, jumped out of bed.

        “Is my father in?”

        “He was going down as I came up,” replied the man.

        “Ask him to be good enough to wait until I come down.”

        He threw on a few clothes and went downstairs, and into the dining-room. M. de Marbois was wiping his mouth as he pushed away his empty cup. Lighting a cigar, he said mockingly:

        “Is the house on fire?”

        Claude held out the letter, saying in a stifled voice:

        “Read that!”

        M. de Marbois glanced through it rapidly as he would a document that did not interest him in the least:

        DEAR SIR:

        After serious thought, I have decided not to allow the proposed marriage between you

        and my daughter to take place. I beg you not to take this decision, which in no way

        affects the very true regard I have for you personally, as an insult. My opinion is

        that you are both too young, to bind yourselves, and my concern for your welfare

        is the sole reason that guides me.

        Believe me. … 

        Having finished reading, M. de Marbois returned the letter to his son.

        “What do you say about it?” asked Claude.

        “Good gracious! what I say is that M. Lesquenne does not seem to me destitute of a certain amount of common-sense, and that nothing in his letter justifies such a state of commotion on your part.”

        “The fact that my life is broken…my hopes destroyed, is nothing then?”

        “Your life is not broken, neither are your hopes destroyed, because this marriage is cancelled. Do you really love this girl?”

        “Love her! …love her, did you say?”

        For the space of a second, Claude was puzzled. When he came to think about it, was it really love, or only one of his many moods, that succeeded one another, affecting his mind for a short time, and then disappearing without any trace of their presence? …His father’s tone, and still more the attitude he had adopted goaded him to protest:

        “Yes, I love her, you know I do, and so does her father. Any one who has seen us together must know it.”

        M. de Marbois flicked off the ash at the end of his cigar:

        “Maybe she does not love you?”

        Claude shrugged his shoulders.

        “You’re joking! No, it is something else. An engagement is not broken off like this, without giving any reason. This letter is made up of hollow phrases, and vague words.  …Money and position are unquestionable on both sides; all that was settled before the formal proposal was made. …So what is it? …You must go and see him…”

        “Hum!” murmured M. de Marbois.

        “Is not that your opinion?”

        “I’m thinking…it is a very delicate matter...”

        “A delicate matter for a father to demand an explanation?”

        “No…it’s no good…I can’t do it…” broke in M. de Marbois rising. “Besides I was very never keen on the marriage, and am not sorry to see it fall through.”

        “And so you advise me to accept this refusal?”

        “Yes.”

        “And not to seek the reason for it?”

        “Yes.”

        “So you are satisfied with it! It is my opinion that you are both too young! You do not see the insult? But if you had been told the worst possible things about a man, you would express yourself in exactly the same way! Some one has been running me down to M. Lesquenne, and to Suzanne; what have they said? I do not know, but I will know, I promise you…unless…I fall back into the shadow, in I have been struggling so many years…”

        M. de Marbois shrugged his shoulders:

        “Got it again!”

        “I’ve never been without it,” cried Claude. “For years, since I was old enough to think, nothing has been clear around me. I remain in darkness and ignorance about the most trivial details of my life. I go through life like a blind man. I take a step forward…and suddenly I am up against it. I go back, the shadow draws back with me. I go forward again, it precedes me! This sort of thing may go on for minutes or for weeks. At last, when I have dared everything to catch sight of the obstacle, when I have done my utmost to overcome it, I find that it is unsurmountable. I clench my fists, I stamp, I weep, and when, at last my strength fails me, my will gives way, I go round it…and I pass on! Only I pass on with the Unknown against which I struggle before me, and behind me the Unfathomed, whose shadow spreads out at each step I take, and leaps over my head!”

        “What nonsense!”

        “It’s easy to say that. When I was a child, did I ever know one of the pleasures of children of my own age? I was four when my mother died, and I can remember just enough of her to know that I used to see her weep. How many times since I’ve asked the cause of those tears! …the answer was always the same: ‘she is inclined to melancholy’…And there are so many others things that I cannot remember! Now at last I am a man; I meet a girl whom I love and who loves me; I believe that I have found the road to happiness. I ask her to marry me. One fine morning, good-by to all my dreams, to all the plans and promises: all is over. And thus from childhood to manhood. If I had anything to reproach myself with…but there is nothing. Any one can inquire into my life without finding the least thing to complain of. Have you ever had to complain of me? Have I ever caused you annoyance, or worry? …Then, why, why…?”

        Suddenly, his voice changed, and became timid, almost pleading:

        “Forgive me for what I am going to say. This thing that has just happened is so unexpected, so painful, that you cannot be angry with me for imagining the most ridiculous things…”

        “What things?”

        “I hardly like to say… I am sure they are absurd…But suppose…it’s only a supposition…that there were something in your life…oh, nothing serious, just one of those ridiculous stories that cling to a man…I really do not know quite how to put it…Suppose…Help me…Understand what I leave unsaid…It is so painful to put into words…Do you follow me?”

        “With the greatest interest,” murmured M. de Marbois, with his chin in his hand.

        Claude continued:

        “If that were it, of course everything would be explained. I do not know how to say pretty things…I am not reproaching you, but you never encouraged me to show my feelings and I am as capable of filial affection as another…as open to decent feelings…And listen, I am going to say an extraordinary thing. If I were certain that M. Lesquenne were, indirectly, aiming at you, I feel sure, that far from being angry, I should care for you all the more, because of your sorrow, because of my duty to make your life happier…I should forget that you have not always been very kind to me…It is quite conceivable that a man who has suffered should retire within himself…In short, I should never have a bitter word or a sigh of regret, and I would blot out of my mind all that you had told me, as I respectfully beg you to banish from your mind the question I hardly dare ask.”

        “Look here! what are you talking about?...You forgive me?”

        “Please don’t be angry!”

        “That’s enough!” cried M. de Marbois. “I forbid you to speak to me in that tone. I really don’t know what keeps me from pitching you outside, for daring to suggest such things. I advise you not to do it again, or…”

        “And that is all your answer?” said Claude. “Very well, I was wrong. Then there is no excuse for you, and I need not pick my words. If a father has certain rights, he also has certain duties, and at this moment you are forgetting them…”

        Without allowing him time to finish his sentence, M. de Marbois seized him by the collar:

        “Let’s settle this once and for all! For twenty years I have put up with your crafty temper, and your shifty look, for twenty years I have endured you. And to reward my twenty years’ patience you dare to raise your voice? …What do you think you are? …What good are you? …What satisfaction have I ever had out of you?... The moment you grew up, ought you not to have taken yourself off? You are not even fit to earn your own living! …you good-for-nothing, you waster, you cannot even make use of your hands! Look at them! …look at your hands! …are you not ashamed of yourself? The hands of a man of twenty-seven who must be fed and clothed! Look at them!...”

        Claude looked attentively at his father, and at his hands, and said:

        “I am looking at them!”

        Then freeing himself with a violent effort, he raised his clenched fist:

        “Let me go, will you!”

        A mad rage had taken possession of him. He felt that his hand was going to strike, that he was an instrument of murder, and the feeling expressed itself in his face, something terrible must have flashed from his eyes, for his father started back. But it was gone like lightning.  Master of himself once more, M. de Marbois took a cigarette, lighted it slowly, took a step toward the door, looked his son up and down and said with a sneer:

        “Madman!”

        Claude turned his head, and saw himself in the mirror.  He was still standing in a threatening attitude. His face was livid, his eyelids bistred, his trembling lips were as white as his face, and he was afraid of his own reflection.

        In his rage, he had dug the nails of his hands into his palms; with scared eyes he watched the drops of blood trickling down. Then, gradually, calm returned to him. Feeling nothing now but utter weariness, he sat down, and went over the scene that had just taken place, repeating the words his father had said, and his own replies, as though he wished to stamp them on his memory. He reviewed it all with a coolness of which he hardly believed himself capable. His fury had abated. He clearly examined cause and effect, and was astonished to find that he did not blame himself. Only an hour before, the idea of a son defying his father would have horrified him; now his attitude appeared excusable.

        Did he regret it? No, indeed.  He had defied his father, had insulted him, he had lifted his hand against him, with the feeling that the slightest thing would make him strike the blow.  And the impulse caused him neither shame nor remorse. Deep down in his heart, he would have preferred to condemn the act. But no! All he could confess to was a regret at having given in to one of those impulses, against which he was always struggling, and which until today, he had  been able to conquer.

        Why, when it was his father who was in question, had his will failed him for the first time? And he repeated aloud:

        “I have lifted my hand against my father! I have lifted my hand against my father!”

        The words left him cold.

        The footman came in:

        “Will Monsieur take lunch?”

        At first he did not reply, his thoughts becoming absolutely engrossed by other things.

        “What claim have you on me? Since you grew up, ought you not to have earned your own living? What good are you here? …I endure you…”

        He looked at the dining-room, the windows, the furniture. How far removed it all was! And yet he had lived here for many long years, memories slumbered in every corner…

        Through the bay window, looking down on the garden, came the stifling heat that precedes a thunderstorm. What had become of the exquisite morning freshness?

        In the heavy atmosphere he felt terribly alone; he felt that everything was strange to him, that he was a stranger to all things, and an indescribable discomfort took hold of him. He remembered a day like this, when, as a tiny child, he had stood in this same dining-room and watched his mother’s coffin pass out. He fancied he could see the poor dead woman; his present grief melted into the great sorrow of the past, and, filled with intense self-pity, he murmured:

        “Mother! Oh, mother!”

        The footman said to him a second time:

        “Will Monsieur take lunch?”

        He answered:

        “No.”

        As he passed the mirror he saw his face again. It was quite calm now, his eyes were heavy with fatigue, and two tears ran down his cheeks.

III

      CLAUDE  went up to his room, drew the curtains, and threw himself on his bed.

        The subdued light that surrounded him seemed still too bright. Even under his half-closed eyes he felt the caress of the daylight shining out brightly, or growing dimmer as a cloud hurried across the sun. He was full of perplexity, his ideas were so confused that he could not follow them as they were joined together, broke away, and grouped themselves anew, the wise mingling with the ridiculous, the real with the impossible. He got up—closed the shutters, and waited.

        By degrees, his whirling thoughts slackened speed, and he deliberately began to examine his position.

        After believing he was cured, he had awakened worse than the day before. He had dreamed of a new life, of looking after himself, conquering his incomprehensible fits of temper, and his incomprehensible fits of weakness. Nothing now remained of the plans he had made. The breaking off of his marriage destroyed all hope of settling down.  He had to face this sorrow as he had had to face all others…alone.  Instead of the help he had expected from his father, he had met with icy indifference. And yet, what dreams he had woven around that love of his! How many times he had seen that house, where, when evening came, his wife would be waiting for him. How he had longed for that facile happiness, possessed by so many who would not appreciate sweetness as he would!

        It could not be, no one had the right to destroy the happiness of two beings, thus, with the stroke of a pen. He sat up and in the friendly darkness, elaborated a plan. He would go to M. Lesquenne, would see him, speak to him, so that he would have to come back on his decision. He would tell him all his trouble, his father’s selfishness, his unhappy childhood…He stopped, thought again, and made up his mind:

        “I will go! …I’m going at once”…

        Immediately a thousand objections rose before him.

        “Suppose he will not see me?  Suppose he has gone away? Suppose he does see me, and when I have said all I have to say, tells me that his decision is irrevocable?”

        He went over the imaginary scene in his mind, arranging the smallest details of it, and murmured:

        “Yes, that is exactly what will happen!”

        His thought then followed in logical order, and he asked himself what her attitude would be? …Strange to say, from that moment his defeat seemed to him inevitable. He gaged the instability of their love. How is it possible to know a girl from what one sees of her in society? When it came to himself, had he sufficient experience of life to know what words to choose in dealing with a stranger who has to learn everything from you? He no longer attempted to think of what means they had employed to induce her to go back on her promise, what revelation had sufficed to make her give up her promised bliss. He had no strength left in him to seek, and if he had what was the use of it…? Fate, chance, were against him, through no fault of his. Things were so, simply because they were so. He carried upon his thin shoulders a burden beneath which he bent more at every step he took. Perhaps there was an unlucky sign on his forehead, visible to all save himself! Because he had never struggled against the hard blows of Fate, he felt himself hopelessly beaten now. It was not defeat after battle, not complete rout, during which the vanquished gallop madly away under torrents of shell, men and horses falling by the way. Defeat of that kind lends a tragic grandeur even to the din that accompanies it. His own defeat was more sinister, it was endless despondency, like that of an army each soldier of which is less fearful than ashamed, and he blushed at the thought of his misery as though it were a sin, at his solitude as though it were a crime, and at his grief as though it were a cowardly act.

        The best part of the afternoon had gone. Pale twilight followed on the heat of late afternoon. The end of the day brings with it a langourousness that affects both people and things. Just as the poorest village puts on a youthful aspect with the morning light, so, in spite of the noise and movement, and the last golden rays of the sun, an unsuspected feeling of despair creeps into the heart when twilight falls. Lovers prefer it to the night, because it brings an added languor to their gestures, an added sweetness to their dreams; weak souls love it for its weariness and calm. Broad day and deep night are made for active passion, but it is at eventide that one many know the depths of despair.

        For a moment Claude remained still. His eyes wandered over the familiar furniture, over the pictures that hung on the walls. This room contained nothing that was dear to him, nothing that so much as recalled a pleasure; the shadow that deepened between these four walls was no less profound than the shadow which never left him. Then what good was it to go on living, to wait for to-morrows that were always the same as today, brushing against the skirts of happiness but never grasping it? Why take care of himself? Why get better? Live? For whom?

        He thought to himself:

        “Yes, that is the best…indeed the only thing!”

        He rose, opened a drawer of his bureau, and took out a revolver. Drawing it from the case, he examined the barrel, manipulated the magazine, and said:

        “There!”

        He repeated in different tones:

        “There! There!”

        Satisfied that his voice did not tremble, his hand did not shake, he smiled as he put in the cartridges.

        The weapon was before him. It did not look very terrible—a pretty little toy with its black handle and shining barrel. Presently he would raise it to his temples; one movement, and all would be over.

        He took the revolver in his hand, lifted it to the level of his eyes, and stared into the little open mouth of the barrel. Without moving his hand he turned his head to bring his temple near it. It was easy, very easy indeed, as easy as the irrevocable word or gesture.

        The clock on the mantelpiece was ticking out his last seconds: it was ten minutes to seven. Looking again at the revolver which he still held in his hand, he thought:

        “Ah, yes! it is easy, and quickly over…In a moment!...” He replaced it on the mantle, and without asking himself: “why not at once?” decided to wait until the clock struck the hour. In setting a limit to his life, thus, he felt himself the greater for the power that was his to do away with himself at the chosen moment.

        He who had never been master of the smallest thing: he who had never been able to say, “I will,” had never known a desire to succumb to his command, he whom life had ever humbled, and tossed hither and thither, was about to demonstrate his liberty, his will, his strength, for the first time in his life, by putting an end to everything, destroying everything, departing this life…

        How marvelous!

        Going away, setting forth…

        He sought words express himself without having to say the word “to die,” which seemed too violent, and too decisive…

        It was five minutes to seven by the clock. The moment approached. He looked round him as one does when starting a journey, to make sure that nothing is left behind.

        And suddenly he burst into a fit of laughter. Yes, he was forgetting what he had longed for so desperately just now in the dining-room, he was also forgetting the burden of remorse and hatred that he wished to leave behind him. Go away like that, quietly?  That, surely, would be too absurd! so that his father might feign grief, and say:

        “The poor boy shot himself in a moment of nervous stress. He who had everything to make him happy…”

        No! a hundred times no! He would first write down the tortures of his childhood, the sorrows of his manhood, so that people would know why he had preferred death to a life without love or pity. The thought that the blame would fall on his father, that the scandal would cause that hard proud being to tremble, filled him with joy:

        The clock struck, and fear, mingled with a touch of regret and pity, entered into his soul. But what were fear and pity against admirable vengeance? He did not fear the words “to die” any longer, feeling that their horror weighed less on him than on his father. When all was said and done, what did he care about life and death? The one a weariness; the other annihilation…Pah!

        Alone, he might have found in his indifference or his weakness the courage one needs to go on living. But from the moment he had offered himself the joy of leaving such a heritage behind him, he was no longer alone.

        He began to write. The words, which a moment ago, had come into his mind in shoals, now refused themselves. He could not remember the phrases he made up; those he wrote down did not express his thoughts or, at best, expressed them badly. Ten times did he begin a letter, ten times did he tear it up, and, at last, fearing lest he should be disturbed, he wrote on a clean sheet of paper:

        “I leave to him who has made it inevitable, the responsibility of my suicide.”

        Night had come.  The twittering of the birds in the garden came more intermittently. Remembering that those who have been on the brink of death say that in one instant the whole of their life passed before their eyes, he wished to see his memories again. But the shadow was within as well as around him, and vainly he bent his gaze on the darkness of his past.

        Then fear at the thought of the dread journey took him; the darkness was peopled with forms and the silence with sounds. Without tightening his grasp on the revolver, he felt the grooves in the handle against the palm of his hand, so plainly that he counted them, and he stared at his motionless hand with terror, thinking:

        “Will it place itself of its own accord against my forehead, in spite of me, before I am ready?...”

        A force was urging him to the brink, and he pleaded: “Not yet.” The whole of life…not his life, was dancing around him. Voices struck his ears, soothed him and led him back, while others murmured: “Go!”…He felt himself grow weaker, wished to be strong, and to whip up his courage said aloud:

        “I will not live any longer!”

        The cold circle of the barrel pressed against his temple. He felt the roundness of it. Never had his brain been clearer. The clock was ticking rapidly. In the street below a newsboy was calling out the evening papers. The barrel pressed harder, as though a hand had guided his. The steel grew warm as it remained in contact with the flesh. He did not feel it any longer, and counted…

        “One…two…”

        Suddenly, he saw a vision of his body lying prone across the table, of a little trickle of blood on the mahogany, of his limp arms, his nerveless hands, his staring eyes…Now he was only a thing, worthless…He stood upright, crying: “No! no!...not that!...flung down the revolver, and breathed with the relief and delight of a man who has just escaped mortal danger.

        When the lamp was lighted, his room, with the unmade bed, closed shutters, and garments lying across a chair, did not seem so dismal. He saw the strip of paper on which he had written a few minutes since, and put it in his pocket: that was over, nothing remained to show what he had tried to do; he was alive. He was going to live!

        At once the image of Death stood before him, tranquil and almost gentle. But already he looked upon it from afar. It retreated before him with each beat of his heart, and as it disappeared, he was filled with a great depression, a shame at his cowardice, and a disgust at his weakness. He thought of Death with a two-fold fear of seeing it disappear, and of feeling, once again, its arms around his neck. Then all vanished, and, alone at last, he sighed:

        “Life continues around me, and I shall have to submit to it, seeing that I have not had the courage to kill myself.”

        Some one knocked at his door; he started:

        “What is it?”

        “Monsieur wishes to know if you are dining, Sir?”

        “Well! Well!” he thought, “he’s beginning to reckon with me now, is he?”

        This was the first time his father had inquired for him. Generally, when Claude went into the dining-room, his father did not even turn his head, and when he rose to go to his club, remarked,

        “You were there, were you? Goodnight.”

        Claude was surprised at this new departure, and was on the point of replying:

        “No, I am dining out.”

        But he thought better of it, dressed, and went down to the dining-room.

        With a strange revulsion of thought he half repented, and almost regretted his violence that morning. Who could tell? Perhaps his father was merely one who acted on impulse, like himself, and to whom it was only fair to forgive a hasty word. Perhaps he had gone back on his decision. Suppose, after having refused to do so, he had decided to seek the interview!…

        The last thought gave him no pleasure.

        When he had heard his marriage was broken off, he felt it to be a disaster; but now that seemed an old story, forgotten…In any case, he had accepted it.

        An hour since, what he had called “his dream” had gone out of his life, even more easily than it had entered it, and the mere thought of beginning it all over again, instead of pleasing, worried him. It had been sufficient for him to contemplate the prospect of his lonely life, for the idea of a companion, even the woman he had believed he loved, to break down the balance of the calm into which his soul had plunged anew. Therefore, if his father were to say: “It is all arranged!” what attitude should he adopt? His answer was soon ready. Without allowing him to complete his sentence, to express a regret, he would stop him:

        “Thank you, but now I think as you do. I am happy as I am, I will not marry…”

        And as he went downstairs, he told himself that the morning’s scene had done some good after all, as it had brought his father nearer to him. It made him think a little of the prodigal son; the question asked by the footman marked the first step towards reconciliation, towards a changed life, and with his hand on the door, he smiled:

        “I wonder if my father will ever know that he very nearly never saw me again?...”

        And he rejoiced that the fear of annihilation had stayed his hand, and went in timidly, almost happy.

        But he stopped short, as though frozen to the spot. His father had finished dinner and was reading the paper. On the table, which had been half cleared, his napkin was thrown down beside an empty cup, containing the blackened end of a cigarette. His own place was laid on the other side, and his chair drawn up; the same scene as every evening, the dinner like every other dinner, quickly served, and silent. Then why had he sent for him?

        The footman was offering him a dish; he refused:

        “No soup.”

        His father put down the paper and remarked in an indifferent tone;

        “I have something to say to you.”

        Claude signed to the servant to stop waiting on him.

        “We can talk quite well while you are eating,” said M. de Marbois.

        He lighted his cigar, and went on:

        “I do not know whether you have thought over our conversation. I have done so, and it seems necessary for us to come to some understanding on the subject…”

        Claude bowed in assent.

        “For one in your condition, the best thing for your health and well-being, is to live secluded, a rational secluded life, under supervision, under…how shall I put it…under the eye of a medical man, in some quiet spot, far from the noise of a city, where influenced by some one with a strong will, surrounded by the care you need, you will find, for the first time in your life, the balance of your faculties, the right notion of your duties, in one word, a cure. …Do you understand me?”

        Claude bit his lips. He was playing with his knife, mechanically, and his hand began to shake so much that the blade rattled against the edge of the plate. His father repeated:

        “Do you understand me?”

        He shook his head and said,

        “No.”

        “It is rather difficult to explain…you are not in a fit state to grasp certain niceties, or to appreciate certain necessities. The doctor I saw a short while since, and whom you will see to-morrow, will explain.”

        Claude grew white, and looked over his shoulder. The servant waited, motionless, behind him. He opened his mouth to tell him to go out of the room, the thought better of it. He understood the cold cruelty of which his father had broached such a conversation before a third person; he particularly understood the calculation that had made him speak before a witness, who could intervene, if need be, or relate any loss of temper on his part, and he grew calm again.

        The game was too simple, and the malice too obvious! On his side, he had the strength of a man who waits, who watches, who can force the enemy to lay bare his thoughts, and he said frankly:

        “No, really, I cannot see…A doctor…why? I am not ill…”

        “You are.”

        “Do you imagine that the slight disappointment which we have already discussed had upset me to such a degree, do fears for my health trouble you so much that you foresee…while exaggerating it…the grief it may cause me? Nothing prevents me from going away for a few weeks…”

        M. de Marbois objected roughly:

        “No, not traveling about…traveling means adventure, no control, and it is necessary that you be under control, that you be taken quietly, without any fuss, to a quiet spot…I repeat what I said before to…”

        “To a private asylum, for instance?”

        M. de Marbois tried to meet his son’s eyes. They were so calm, so clear, that his own fell, and he said to the servant:

        “You can come again presently. Monsieur will ring…”

        Claude smiled. All the concentrated hatred within him appeared in that smile:

        “Why? I have nearly finished. Pierre can stay…But if you prefer it…Go, Pierre, I will ring for you.”

        When the door closed again, he sat back in his chair, and laid his clenched hands heavily on the table:

        “That fellow is neither deaf nor a fool. He heard and understood that you are trying to force me into a nursing home, in other words, into a madhouse! …oh do not let the word upset you, when the intention leaves you calm. Well, however much you may wish it, I am not mad, and have no desire to become so…”

        M. de Marbois struck the floor with his foot:

        “Who ever mentioned that…Is this morning’s scene to begin again?”

        “Oh no! Oh no! See how low and quietly I speak. I fear scandal, and dislike dumb witnesses. However great a scoundrel the doctor who gave you advice without seeing me, may be, he needs rather more than your desire, supported by a few francs, to send me to the cell and the shower-bath! He needs just a tiny, tiny little certificate…And I wish to be free…do you hear, free. It is necessary for me to be free.”

        “For all the use you’ve made of your freedom so far!” sneered M. de Marbois.

        “Maybe! but I am keen on it…so much so that I too have consulted a doctor, and I am going to follow a treatment, but as he wishes, and as I agree. If I am mad, you must admit, that I am a terribly reasonable and annoying madman at this moment.”

        He went on, laughing,

        “Why am I in your way? I can’t think. For years, I have been trying to find out why, without ever having harmed a soul, never having had a vengeance to satisfy, nor a secret to hide, tortured by others and by myself, blind rages that make me shudder surge into my heart. In the same way I try to find out why I lie, as though terrible results might come from innocent truths…” His voice had gradually grown louder, and his eyes, so clear a moment ago, became cloudy…

        “I feel…I know that within me there sleeps a terrible being, who wakes up, now and then, and fills me with dread. But it is you who made me, and it is no more my fault that I have the fair hair and pale face of the degenerate, and hands like these that look as though I had dipped them in an orgy of blood…”

        He spread his red hands upon the tablecloth.

        In his look and gesture was something so terrible that he realized it, and, recovering himself, went on with the conversation:

        “But, in spite of all that, because of all that, if you prefer it, I will not go into a nursing home.”

        “You don’t imagine, I hope, that after this morning, we can go on living together. If you object to the nursing home, we will not mention it again, but it is no less necessary for us to part company. I wish it, I insist upon it…”

        “And so do I. I will go away.”

        “May I be permitted to know where?”

        “To Vendée.”

        M. de Marbois raised his head.

        “Vendée? Where? Why?”

        “Where? To Saint-Fulgent. Why? Because I will take nothing from you, and with my own money I can live in the house mother left me.”

        “A ridiculous idea. None of us have been in the place for twenty years. The house must have fallen to pieces.”

        “That does not matter; no matter what it is like, I shall be comfortable there; it is my house, and it belonged to my mother.”

        “You know nothing about that part of the country.”

        “My mother loved it.”

        “What do you about it?”

        “She used to speak of it. That is sufficient for me.”

        “Do you so much as remember your mother?”

        Claude’s face lit up, as though a vision of the dead woman had passed before his eyes:

        “I remember nothing else.”

        “You shall not go to Saint-Fulgent,” cried M. de Marbois.

        “I shall go there.”

        “Is that your last word?”

        “My last.”

        “Listen; if you go there against my wish, you can make your mind that it will be for always. I refuse you nothing necessary to your health. Go to Switzerland, Italy, where you like, but…”

        “It is no use, I shall go to Saint-Fulgent.”

        “How long since you decided on this?”

        “Always.”

        M. de Marbois burst out laughing.

        “Come! here’s a decision that will have the same fate as all others! To-morrow it will be something else!”

        “To-morrow I shall be gone.”

        M. de Marbois struck the table with his clenched fist:

        “Look here…Good God!...who is master here?”

        Claude put his fingers to his lips.

        “Gently! I have just rung for Pierre.”

        The footman entered. M. de Marbois had sat down again, and was biting his nails. Claude stared at him. For a moment the dreadful expression came into his eyes again then, without a word, without turning his head, he went out.

IV

        WHEN he got off the train, Claude had to stop at Montaigu, to look for a conveyance, and, while waiting for the horses to be harnessed, went into an inn on the square.

        As he sipped the drink he had ordered, he looked around him. Some peasants were playing at cards; in a corner a boy was doing his lessons. Now and again the sound of sabots, or the deep clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, broke the silence. Evening spread an impressive calm over the village. The man came in and said:

        “The carriage is ready; we can start.”

        Claude stretched himself, for he was tired and stiff with the journey, sat down on the seat beside the driver, and the little horse started off.

        As they passed the last houses of the village, the driver entered into conversation:

        “So, Monsieur is going to Trois-Tourelles?”

        “Yes. It isn’t far, is it?”

        “About an hour and a half.”

        “As much as that?”

        “At least. Monsieur does not know the country, it is probably the first time he has been here?”

        “Yes, my parents used to come here.”

        “Oh, they would remember it, for it has hardly changed. The country is not like the town. When once the houses are built, nobody touches them again. Everything remains in its place, people as well as things. The same farmers are here who were here more than forty years ago.”

        “I know.”

        “Of course if Monsieur is a friend of M. de Marbois, he knows all there is know. But M. de Marbois never comes here now. It is Chagne the tenant farmer, who is practically boss there. Sometimes, he even says he wishes the master would come along and take a look around.”

        “Well, he will have his wish, then, for here I am!”

        The man held back his horse:

        “Ah…it is Monsieur…it is Monsieur’s son. Look at that now! people said you were ill…you know how people will talk when they don’t know…don’t you?”

        These words roused Claude from his indifference, and he asked:

        “Who says that?”

        “I’ve heard it said…and if it is rest that Monsieur is needing, he will get that at the farm, it’s not so noisy there as Paris. The country is the best thing for any one whose nerves are not strong.”

        Claude was not listening. Thus, wherever he went, his reputation preceded him. Even in this remote corner of the Bocage, people knew he was different from others, and this peasant who spoke of any one whose nerves are not strong probably thought more than what he said. He was on the point of telling him to go back, and to catch the next train home, but he felt too tired to spend another night traveling yet. Besides, the magic of the countryside, the scent of the fields, from which came the smell of newly-turned earth, the sight of the low hedges, and sturdy oaks, everything…even the fresh air, the bark of a watch-dog, soothed and lulled him, like an old, old song, the words of which are forgotten, but to which we listen fondly and recognize, remembering the refrain instinctively, before it is sung, because, when we were tiny children, hardly able to speak, a sleepy nurse sang it to us, as with careless hand she rocked our cradle.

        This unknown country was more familiar to him than Paris. The straight road that stretched before him brought no memories with each turning; but every time it disclosed new details, a house on the edge of a field, a pond where the oxen had trampled the mud, he said to himself:

        “I feel that I have seen these things before!”

        The carriage lamps threw little dancing lights and shadows on the road. The bells tinkled more slowly, the horse slackened speed.

        “A hill,” said the peasant.

        At the end of the slope, a village appeared, they went down the other side, the horse picked his way, rolling from side to side, and the brake creaked along the wheels. Then they went up again. At last, crossing the village street, they turned a corner, and were amid fields, where a big farm with a huge farmyard, and uneven roofs, spread out before them.

        At a distance, it looked asleep. No smoke floated from the chimneys, no light in any window. But as they drew nearer, they saw a tiny point of light piercing the darkness; a dog barked, awakened hens flapped their wings. A warm smell of straw litters came to them on the breeze. The light moved, disappeared, and appeared again under the door, and a voice said:

        “That’s enough, Tambour.”

        The dog stopped barking, and growled instead, and the voice inquired:

        “Who is it? Where are you going?”

        “Is it you, Chagne?” said the driver, “some one to see you.”

        “Wait!” said the man suspiciously.

        “Whoa!” said the peasant, and brought his horse to a standstill. Then, turning to Claude: “I don’t care about going any nearer, he’s a cross-grained fellow, and would have a shot at us as soon as look!...”

        And, as a matter of fact, Père Chagne did arrive, escourted by his dog, and carrying a gun:

        He stared at the carriage, the peasant, and the traveler; Claude got down:

        “Père Chagne, I am M. Claude.”

        “Excuse me, master,” stammered the farmer, “I did not know…”

        “Did you not receive my telegram?”

        “I did receive a telegram, but I cannot read. My son is at Nantes, so I was waiting till to-morrow.”

        “There will always be some eggs and a glass of milk for my dinner, and a bed for me to sleep in, of course?”

        “Ah, master! not eggs, we haven’t got so much as one. We took them all to market, and the milk. And we don’t milk again till the morning. And there isn’t a bed really fit. …”

        What the man was saying was simple and comprehensible enough. Expecting no one, they had not prepared anything. Yet Claude felt furiously angry. Ever since he started, he had been thinking of his arrival at the farm. Old Chagne and all his sons assembled to welcome him, the house ready, the table set.

        Instead of that they greeted him, gun in hand, nothing was prepared, everything was depressing, everything was ugly. The wrinkled old farmer impressed him disagreeably; everything here seemed hostile to him, even the dog, who sniffed around his legs growling. He struck him with his stick and sent him off, remarking in a surly voice to the peasant who had driven him: “Show me the light,” and preceded by the farmer, went into the house.

        The pleasant, restful feeling he had experienced during the drive was now lost in one of utter weariness, and bored surprise in a need to hear nothing, see nothing, think of nothing, and to sleep. An old woman came out of an adjoining room:

        “Wife,” said the farmer, “this is our master.”

The old woman became busy at once, hurried to the dresser, spread a cloth, and laid the table.  She too made excuses; if they had only known, if they had only the least idea…but they would fix things up for to-night, and to-morrow…

        The eagerness they showed in serving him, the regrets they reiterated, and, above all, the word “master” which recurred at nearly every other word, put him into a little better humor. Fits of anger, as well as fits of gayety did not last long with him. He asked about the crops, the price of the cattle, in the tone of a man who wants to know how things are, as quickly as possible. The old man had gone out, the farmer stood facing him, cap in hand. From the yard came a great sound of flapping wings, and the terrified squawks of fowls. Claude got up.

        In the fowlhouse, deep in shadow, where the farmer’s wife was trying to catch a chicken, terror swept through the feathered world; the hens ran along, their necks outstretched, their wings wide-spread. One ran into Claude’s legs; he seized it.

        “No, master, not that one,” said the woman, “it’s an old one…we want a young bird..look, that one. Eh! But you’re cleverer than I am.”

        The creature was squawking dismally. It would seem as though the inhabitants of the poultry-yard have a vision of their approaching end, the moment they are caught, so despairing is their outcry.

        “You will soil your hands, master,” said the farmer’s wife. “Give him to me, it will only take a minute.”

        She shut the door, and sat down on a stump of wood, put the chicken between her knees, opened his beak with one hand, and with the other, plunged in the scissors, and gave a smart cut. There was a rattle, a spurt of blood; she lifted up the chicken by its wings, holding it at arm’s length, so as not to be bespattered, she let it bleed. First the blood flowed in a thin stream, then drop by drop, then more slowly, a heavier drop coagulated at the end of the beak, and all was over. While she rapidly plucked the chicken, Claude said:

        “It doesn’t take long.”

        “Well, no, master, you see it’s a young one, the feathers are only down, and come out easily.”

        “I mean to kill it.”

        She explained:

        “Yes, that one! but sometimes, it all depends…Some of them struggle. It isn’t very nice to look at…Now it’s plucked and emptied and all that remains to do is to fry it in the casserole.”

        Claude returned with her to the kitchen, where a fire of vine branches was blazing. As he watched the preparations, he thought of the poor, terror-stricken chicken that ran against his legs. He heard its cry, its death-rattle, and as had done the day the dog was drowned, he realized that he had taken an ugly pleasure in looking on at the scene.

        The butter was frizzling on the fire. The farmer’s wife turned around:

        “In five minutes it will all be ready…”

        Then looking at Claude’s hands, she took a towel:

        “I told you, master, that you would soil your hands; your fingers are covered with blood.”

        Interrupted in his thoughts, Claude took the towel mechanically, but, looking at his hands, overcome by a great fear, and a great shame, he said:

        “No…it is not blood…it is the color…”

        Once again the farm, the low-ceilinged room, and the hearth, where little bits of live coal fell amid the ashes, depressed him. He ate little, drank one glass of wine, took his candle, went into the room that had been prepared for him, and to bed. He turned and tossed for a long time, between the rough sheets unable to sleep, his ears buzzing as they do when silence succeeds prolonged noise. At last it stopped. He thought of his mother, who perhaps, had slept in that room, of the drowning dog, and the little bleeding chicken, of a thousand and one sad, confused things, then sleep came and took him.

 Click here for: Part II

Click here for: Part III

Click bat to go back to the Library...

All text contents of these pages copyright © 2008 by R.J. Warren, all rights reserved.

All graphic contents of these pages copyright © 2008 by R.J. Warren, all rights reserved.