we reached the street, an icy blast, which struck me in the face, gave me a delicious feeling. I felt that I was restored to the good, to free and energetic life; the intoxication which had possessed me was driven away, and, beneath the drizzling winter rain, I had an instant of ineffable pleasure, casting from me all the disgusts of the mad night. I comprehended the wretchedness I had left behind me; I would have preferred to go home on foot through the streets, allowing the glacial water to penetrate me and renew my being.
Laurence shivered at my side. She had fastened her handkerchief over her bare shoulders; not daring to venture on, she looked in a despairing way at the sombre sky and at the gutters which were overflowing upon the pavements. The poor girl thought the wintry sky capable only of giving her inflammation of the lungs.
I had two francs left. I hailed a fiacre and helped Laurence into it. She gathered herself up in one of the corners and there sat silently, without ceasing to shiver. I saw her on my left, like a patch of tarnished white. Sometimes, a drop of water, which had remained upon her garments, rolled as far as my hand.
After an instant had elapsed, a sort of drowsiness seized upon me and sleep closed my eyes. As I dozed, I seemed to hear the din of the ball; the jolts of the vehicle whirled me away as in a furious dance, and the axletrees, with their sharp noise, played those airs which all night long had filled my ears. When, feverish and excited, I opened my eyes, I stared stupidly at the sides of the narrow box which seemed to me full of music and tumult. Then, I felt a biting sensation of cold; finding beneath my hand the icy hand of Laurence, I remembered where I had been and realized where I was. Without, the rain was still falling; the flickering lights fled rapidly behind us.
Fatigue once more made me close my eyes, and again I was drawn into the midst of gigantic circles of dancers, incessantly renewed. It seems to me now that I remember vaguely having danced thus for long hours. I found myself nailed to a bench, beside a shivering woman, and I whirled I know not how in a sort of box which rolled with a tremendous noise at the bottom of a glacial gulf.
Having ascended to my chamber, while Laurence was taking off her costume, I threw all my remaining wood upon the fire, which was faintly burning upon the hearth. Then, I hastened to bed, happy as a child to find myself again amid my poverty, gazing with loving glances at the broad lights and shadows which the flames of the hearth caused to dance up and down along my poor walls. Calmness had taken possession of me from the moment I crossed the threshold of this retired chamber. With my head upon the pillow, at peace and almost smiling, I gazed at my companion who, standing pensively before the fire, was removing her garments one by one.
She soon came to me, and sat down at my feet on the edge of the bed. Breaking, at last, the silence which she had maintained until then, she began to talk with extreme volubility.
Enveloped in an old wrapper, with her feet drawn up under her and her hands clasped in front of her knees, she indulged in loud bursts of laughter, throwing her head backwards. She seemed to be in haste to throw off all the words, all the gayety, she had amassed. For nearly a whole hour she entertained me with a recital of the thousand incidents of the ball. She had seen everything, heard everything. She gave vent to exclamations without end, sudden joys, hurried and tumultuous reminiscences. A man had slipped in such a way, a woman had sworn in such another way; Jeanne wore a milkmaid’s costume which became her marvelously; Louise looked hideous as a Scotch lassie; as to Edouard, he had certainly pawned his watch that very morning. And she rattled on, always finding some new detail, repeating the same circumstance ten times rather than pause. Then, shivering with cold, she finally went to bed. She asserted that she had never before been so much amused at a ball, and made me promise to take her to another as soon as I possibly could. She fell asleep thus, while still talking to me, laughing amid her slumber.
This sudden awakening to life, this flood of feverish words, strangely astonished me. I could not then and I cannot now explain to myself the coldness and indolence of this girl amid the tumult of the night, and her bursts of gayety, her chatter of the morning in our sad and silent chamber. Why had she torn from me the promise to take her as soon and as often as possible to these balls, where she laughed so little and did not dance at all? Besides, if she were acting in good faith, what was that singular joy which had manifested itself by silence and ill-humor during the soirée, and, later, had broken out in thick and delighted laughter?
Oh! what an unknown world is that of the flesh and dissipation, in which I find food for amazement at every step! I dare not as yet critically examine all this wretchedness, the motives of this puzzling woman, cold in her feelings, weary and half asleep amid her joys! I took her to the ball to save her, but she had come back from it more terrible, more impenetrable than ever!
CHAPTER XIII.
AN ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY.
YOU complain of my silence; you are uneasy, and ask me what new sorrows have made the pen fall from my fingers.
Brothers, my new sorrows are caused by the fact that our ridiculous fancies of childhood are being dissipated one by one. This adieu to early hopes has, in its salutary harshness, the most profound bitterness. I feel myself becoming a man; I weep over my departing weaknesses, taking, at the same time, a great pride in the strength I am acquiring.
Ah! how silly youth would be, if it had not its beautiful simplicity! The foolishness upon the lips of the child is an adorable ignorance by which men are quietly amused. Scarcely a month ago, I was a simpleton; I spoke to you innocently of the redemption of women. Verily, to have heard me, an old man would at once have smiled his sweetest smile and ironically shaken his head: he would have given the smile to the young soul who had faith in entire perfection, and addressed the shake of the head to the absurd youth who was boldly attempting the miracle which the Saviour alone has the power to work.
Enough of deceptions! The brutal truth has strange delights for those who are tormented by the problem of life; they are weary of those hopes which mothers bequeath to their children, and which, slow to vanish, abandon them one by one, lengthening their martyrdom. As for me, I prefer, even should I suffer from having all my illusions torn from me in a day, to see clearly into this world of dissipation to the depths of which I have descended.
No doubt, some once sinful women who have sincerely repented are met with. Women who have strayed from the right path have seen the error of their ways, have reformed, have found husbands and have been pardoned. But such things are miracles. The laws common to shortsighted humanity seem to ordain that wretched women, who have once forgotten themselves, shall be trodden under foot, torn to pieces, and their fragments so scattered that they cannot be reunited at the final hour.
Listen, brothers: should a Magdalen crawl at your feet, cursing her past errors, promising you a new youth of love, do not believe her. Heaven is not lavish of prodigies. Providence rarely shackles human misfortunes. Say to yourselves that evil is powerful, and that in this world of ours falsehood is not changed into truth even to give relief to a poor, suffering soul. Repulse the Magdalen, spurn her, laugh at her tears and the pleading of her heart; rail against all redemption. Such is the advice of what men call wisdom.
I feel that I am gaining experience in worldly matters.
Laurence is a soul forever lost, a stupefied intelligence, a creature so hardened that nothing can awaken her from her sleep in the mud. I might bruise her flesh, I might break her bones with a club, or I might lift her drowsy eyelids with kisses, but she would still squat at my feet, without a quiver, without a cry either of pain or joy. Sometimes, I am tempted to cry out to her:
“Get up and let us fight; awake, shout, swear, and show me that you
