THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ the young girl. “The dead feel cold in the earth, you may be sure! Love, do good, and you will have a long life of happiness before you!”

      And she passionately kissed Mademoiselle de Cazalis, who answered in a softer tone:

      “You are right, I forgot that I could work to lessen the misery of the unfortunate, and thus secure some comfort for myself.”

      The period of convalescence was not long. Blanche was soon able to get up and drag herself to the window. There she passed her time in a consoling contemplation of the great sea which spread out in its apparent infinity before her. All invalids should go and get cured beside the blue waters of the Mediterranean, for its calm immensity has a tranquil majesty about it that appeases pain.

      It was on a clear morning, beside the open window, with her eyes lost on the bluish horizon, that Blanche spoke out plainly to Abbé Chastanier of her firm intention to take the veil.

      “My father,” she said, “I am gaining strength every day, and, as the life of this world is not suitable for me, I desire, as soon as I am well, that my first steps may take me to God.”

      “My daughter,” answered the priest, “this decision is a grave one. Before binding yourself with everlasting bonds, I ought to remind you of the good things you are leaving — “

      “It is useless,” interrupted the young woman, excitedly, “my resolution is irrevocable. You are familiar with all the reasons that urge me to affiance myself to Heaven. You, yourself, have pointed divine love out to me as the only refuge against the human love by which I have been crushed. Do not treat me as a child, I beg of you: look on me as a woman who has suffered a great deal and desires to atone for her cowardice. Confess it, my father, there are no earthly advantages comparable to the tranquillity of one’s spirit, and, if I succeed in tasting the joys of pardon, I shall not regret the mundane satisfaction to which I renounce so willingly. Do not prevent me going to God.”

      Abbé Chastanier bowed his head. Blanche spoke in such a deep and troubled voice that he understood heavenly grace had touched this poor child, and that it would be wrong to deprive her of the sweets of abnegation.

      “I did not wish to raise a discussion as to my resolution,” continued the convalescent, in a calmer voice. “I desired to consult you as to the religious order I ought to choose. As I told you, I feel strong, and in a week I must leave this beach, every rock on which, reminds me of my short life of grief and passion.”

      “I have already reflected on the choice you might make,” answered the priest, “and I have thought of the Carmelite order.”

      “Are not the Carmelites cloistered?”

      “Yes, they lead a contemplative life, they kneel to God and implore him to pardon the world. They are the daughters of ecstasy. Your place is among them. You are weak, you need to forget, to place an impenetrable barrier between you and your youth. I advise you to shut yourself up in the innermost recesses of the cloister, far from mankind, and to live in earnest prayer full of forgiveness and celestial peace.”

      Blanche gazed at the great sea. The priest’s words had brought tears to her eyes. After a silence she murmured, as if speaking to herself:

      “No, no, it would be cowardice to seek for calm in that way, to slumber in ecstasy. It would be a sort of divine egotism and I will have none of it. I wish to earn my pardon by working with my hands and heart for the good of the unfortunate. If I cannot watch over my child, I will watch over those children of poor mothers who are without bread. I feel that at such a sacrifice only, shall I be happy.”

      There was another silence; then taking the abbé’s hand and gazing in his face, she added:

      “My father can you procure my admission among the sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul, those whom they term the sisters of the poor?”

      Abbé Chastanier protested, saying she was too delicate, that she would not be able to stand up against the fatigue that these saintly creatures endure in the hospitals, orphanages, everywhere where there are services to be rendered to the suffering and forlorn.

      “Do not be alarmed!” exclaimed Blanche, in a transport of self-sacrifice, “I shall be strong in order to earn my forgiveness. I can only accept the chalice of labour. If I do not make myself useful I shall never forget. I have a last request to make to you: let me be placed in an orphanage; I shall fancy myself the mother of all those little creatures entrusted to my care, I will cherish them as I would have my own child.”

      She wept; she spoke with such transports of affection that Abbé Chastanier was obliged to give way. He promised to take the necessary steps, and a few days later he announced to Blanche that her wishes would be realized. Besides, he considered the young woman’s decision very natural: her spirit which was full of blind devotion, had been formed to understand extreme abnegation. He wrote to M. de Cazalis who answered him in terms of perfect indifference, that his niece was free, and that whatever she decided on would be satisfactory. At the bottom of his heart, he was delighted to see her enter a poor and modest Order that was not so rapacious for dowries as some of the others.

      On the evening of the day preceding that on which Mademoiselle de Cazalis was to leave the cottage, she appeared quite uneasy and embarrassed in Abbé Chastanier’s presence. Fine, who was there, pressed her with questions as to the cause of this sudden sadness. She ended by falling on her knees before the priest and saying to him in a trembling voice:

      “My father, I am not yet dead to the pleasures of this world. I should like to see my son for the last time, before belonging entirely to God.”

      The abbé hastened to raise her from the ground.

      “Go,” he answered her, “go where your heart calls you, and learn that you do not offend Heaven by giving way to your tenderness. Heaven loves those who love. That is all the Christian doctrine.”

      Blanche who was quite troubled, hastened to get ready. Fine was to take her to her child and both of them soon went out. From the day the infant had been born, they had both avoided speaking of the poor little creature. The flower-girl had simply set the young mother’s mind easy by saying he was in safety, and well, and had all possible care.

      When Fine and Marius found themselves in possession of the newborn babe, they returned in the cabriolet to Marseille. The next morning they played a most audacious game by taking the child to Saint Barnabé, and giving him to the wife of the gardener Ayasse, thinking that M. de Cazalis would never seek him there.

      It was to Saint Barnabé, then, that Fine took Blanche. When the latter caught sight of the gardener’s cottage, with the great mulberry trees spreading their branches before the entrance; when she saw the stone bench on which she had been seated with Philippe, all the past flew back to her memory, and she burst out sobbing.

      Barely a year had gone by, and yet it seemed as if centuries of suffering separated the hour of her first love from the present. She could still see herself hanging round her lover’s neck, without a care and hoping for a future full of happiness. And, at the same time, she saw herself disconsolate, her heart bleeding, so broken that she was on the point of renouncing the pleasures of her eighteen summers. She was choking with intense bitterness when she reflected that a few months had sufficed to take her from those hopes of happiness which are burning in the hearts of all young girls to the dark thoughts of remorse which weigh on the minds of penitents.

      Blanche had come to a standstill before the gardener’s door, trembling with emotion, not daring to enter, fearing to meet Philippe’s ghost in this cottage where he had fondled СКАЧАТЬ