THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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      The night of William’s arrival, she saw him on the staircase. He stepped aside against the wall with such a respectful air, that she was in a way confused and astonished at his attitude. Usually, the lodgers in the hotel almost walked over her feet and blew whiffs of tobacco in her face. The young man went into a room that adjoined hers, a thin partition separated the two apartments. Madeleine fell asleep listening, in spite of herself, to the step of. the stranger who was taking possession of his quarters.

      William, respectful as he had been, had not failed to notice his Neighbour’s pearly complexion and lovely golden hair. If he walked about a long time in his room that night, it was because the thought of having a woman so near him caused him a sort of feverishness. He could hear her bed creak when she turned over.

      Next day, the young people smiled at one another as a matter of course. Their intimacy made rapid progress. Madeleine gave way the more easily to her sympathy for this calm gentle young fellow, because she felt herself perfectly safe with him. She looked upon him somewhat as a child. She thought that if he should ever commit the folly of speaking to her about love, she would give him a lecture and easily get to know the motive of his desires. She felt confidence in her strength, and meant to keep her oath of widowhood. The following days, she accepted William’s arm, and consented to take a little walk in his company. On their return, she went into the young man’s room, and he went into hers. But there was not the least tender word, not the least smile to cause uneasiness. They treated one another as friends of a day’s standing, with a reserve full of charming delicacy.

      At bottom, their existence was disturbed in an indistinct kind of way. At night when they were alone in their rooms, they would listen to each other’s step, and they would dream, without being able to read clearly the feelings that were disturbing them. Madeleine felt that she was loved, and she indulged the sweet thought, saying to herself all the while that she herself would not fall in love. To tell the truth, she did not know what real love was; her first intimacy had been so devoid of tenderness that she enjoyed William’s attentions with infinite pleasure; her heart went out to him, in spite of herself, touched by a sympathy which was gradually ripening into affection. If she still happened to think of her wounds, she drove away the cruel memories by musing on her new friend; the passion of a sanguine temperament had dismayed her, the endearing affection of a nervous nature was filling her with a softening languor, and toning down her caprices one by one. As for William, he was living in a dream, he was worshipping the first woman he had met, and this was fatal. In the beginning he did not even ask himself where this woman came from, she was the first to smile on him, and that smile was sufficient to make him kneel down and offer her his life. He was joyously astonished at having found a sweetheart at once, he was in haste to open his heart so long closed, so full of restrained passion; if he did not embrace Madeleine, it was because he did not dare to, but he thought already that she was his.

      Things went on like this for a week. William hardly went out; Paris terrified him, and he had taken good care not to go to one of the big hotels of which his father had given him the addresses. He congratulated himself now on having buried himself behind the Luxembourg in the heart of that peaceful neighbourhood where love was awaiting him. He would have liked to carry Madeleine off to the fields, far far away, not from a design of making her fall into his arms the sooner, but because he loved the trees, and wished to walk with her in their shade. She resisted, with a sort of presentiment. At last, she consented to go and dine with him at a little inn on the outskirts of Paris. There, at the restaurant in the Verrières wood, she surrendered herself.

      Next day, when they returned to Paris, the two lovers were so astonished at their adventure, that they would at times speak to each other with a certain amount of ceremony. They even experienced a feeling of restraint, an uncomfortable sensation which they had not felt when they were simply comrades. By a singular sentiment of shame, they did not wish to sleep both of them in the hotel where, the day before, they had been almost strangers to each other. William saw that Madeleine would be pained by the smiles of the waiters, if she came to live in his room. He went at night to sleep in a neighbouring hotel. Besides, now that she was his, he wanted to have the young woman entirely to himself, in some retreat unknown to the world.

      He acted as if he were on the point of getting married. The banker, on whom his father had given him unlimited credit, told him, when he made inquiries, of a quiet little house, which was for sale in the Rue de Boulogne. William hurried off to look at the place, and bought it at once. He put the workmen in immediately, and furnished it in a few days. The whole thing was the affair of a week at most. One night, he took Madeleine by the hand and asked her if she would be his wife Since the night they had spent in the restaurant in the Verrières wood, he came to see her every afternoon, like a betrothed young man paying his addresses to his ladylove; then he went away discreetly. His request touched Madeleine’s heart, and she replied by throwing her arms round his neck. They went into the house in the Rue de Boulogne like two new married people, on the evening of their wedding day. It was there really that their nuptial night was spent. They seemed to have forgotten the chance circumstance which had thrown them suddenly, one night, into one another’s arms: they seemed to think that this was the first time that they had been allowed to exchange kisses. Sweet and happy night when the lovers could picture to themselves that the past was dead for ever, and that their union had the purity and strength of au eternal bond.

      They lived there for six months, severed from the world and seldom going out. It was a veritable vision of happiness. Lulled by their affection, they no longer reminded one another of what had preceded their love, nor were they uneasy about the events that the future might have in store for them. They were remote from the past and careless of the future, in a complete contentment of mind, in the peace of a happiness which nothing disturbed. The house, with its little rooms, carpeted and upholstered with bright material, offered them a lovely retreat, secluded, quiet, and cheerful. And then there was the garden, a little patch not much bigger than your hand, where they would forget themselves, in spite of the cold, chatting during the fine winter afternoons.

      Madeleine used to think that her life only dated from the previous day. She did not know if she loved William; she only knew that this man brought happiness to her being, and that it was pleasant to repose in this happiness. All her wounds had been healed; she no longer felt those shocks and burning pangs which had torn her breast; she was filled with warmth, a genial unfluctuating warmth which gave rest to her heart. She never asked herself any questions. Like a patient recovering with reduced strength from a sharp attack of fever, she abandoned herself to the voluptuous languor of her convalescence, thanking him from the bottom of her heart, who had extricated her from her anguish. It was not the fond embraces of the young man which touched her the most; her senses were usually quiescent, and there was more maternity than passion in her kisses: it was the profound esteem which he showed for her, the dignity with which he treated her, like a lawful wife. This raised herself in her own esteem, and she could fancy that she had passed from the arms of her mother to the arms of a husband. This picture which her shame would draw, flattered her pride, and hampered all the modesty of her nature. She could thus hold up her head, and, above all, she enjoyed to the full her new affection, her peacefulness and smiling hopes, in the complete oblivion of the wounds which bled in her no longer.

      William was in the seventh heaven. At last, the cherished dream of his youth and childhood was being realised. When he was at school, crushed by the blows of his comrades, he had dreamt of a happy solitude, a hidden secluded nook where he would pass long days of idleness, never beaten, but caressed by some kind and gentle fairy who would always stay by his side; and later on, at eighteen, when vague desires were beginning to throb in his veins, he had taken up again this dream beneath the trees in the park, on the banks of clear streams, replacing the СКАЧАТЬ