THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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      CHAPTER I

      THE room was dimly lit by the faint glimmer of twilight.

      The window curtains partly drawn aside, allowed the higher branches of the trees to be seen, all tinted red by the last rays of the sun. Below on the Boulevard des Invalides children were playing, and the shrill sound of their laughter floating upward fell soft and pleasing.

      The spring following the dreadful cold of February was often very chilly and sharp. The evenings of May frequently retain some of the freshness of winter in the air. Cold breezes stirred the curtains now, and bore to the ear the distant rumble of carriages.

      Within the house all was gloom. The various articles of furniture, barely perceptible in the obscurity, looked like black spots against the bright paper wall, while the blue carpet grew, little by little, darker and darker. Night had already crept over the ceiling and the comers of the room. Soon, as the darkness fell, scarcely anything was to be seen but a long white streak which, starting from one of the windows, lighted with a pale glimmer the bed on which Madame de Rionne lay in the agony of death.

      At that last hour, in that newly-born sweetness of spring, in this room where a young woman lay dying, there was engendered a mournful feeling of pity. The obscurity became transparent, the stillness assumed an unspeakable sadness, the sounds from without changed into murmurs of regret, and one seemed to hear lamenting voices in the air.

      Blanche de Rionne, sitting propped up by pillows on her bed, was gazing into the gloom with wide-open eyes. The dim light shone on her poor face, wasted by illness; her arms were stretched out on the sheets; her hands, nervously restless, were unconsciously twisting them. Her lips were parted, yet she said nothing, while her body shook with prolonged shivering fits, and she lay and meditated whilst waiting for death, slowly rolling her head from side to side, as dying people do.

      She was barely thirty years of age. Ever a frail creature, her illness had made her still more delicate. This woman undoubtedly possessed courage of a high order; she must have been goodhearted, kind, and sensitive to a supreme degree. Death is the great test, and only in the last agony can one judge truly of men’s courage. And yet one felt there was some spirit of rebellion in her still. At moments her lips quivered, and her hands twisted the sheets more violently than ever. Anguish contracted her face, and big tears trickled down her cheeks, which, however, were immediately dried by the fever raging within her. She seemed to be waging a fierce battle with death, striving to stave it off with all the force of her determined will.

      Then, bending over the bedside, she gazed earnestly at a little girl of six sitting on the carpet and playing with the fringe of the bedcovering. From time to time the child raised her head, seized with a sudden fear and ready to cry without knowing why; then, when about to cry, she changed in a moment and laughed, when she saw her mother smiling sweetly upon her, she then turned again to her play, prattling to one of the corners of the sheet of which she had made a doll.

      Nothing could be more sad than the smile of the dying woman. Wishing to keep Jeanne with her to the last, she defied pain and concealed her suffering as well as she could that she might not frighten the child. She watched her playing, listened to her childish prattle, and grew absorbed in the contemplation of that fair little head, forgetting almost that she must die and leave her dear little love. Then, suddenly remembering that her end was near, she seemed to feel already cold in death, and terror seized her once more, for the sole cause of her despair was quitting this poor little creature.

      Illness had been an implacable foe to her. One evening, as she was about to retire to bed, she had been seized, and not a fortnight had elapsed before she was in the last stages of agony. She rose from her bed no more, and was dying without being able to make any certain provision for her child. She told herself that she was leaving her without means of support and with her father alone as her guide, and, she trembled at the idea, knowing what sort of guide he would make for her daughter.

      Suddenly Blanche felt that she was sinking rapidly. She believed death was at hand. Her strength failing her, she lay back on her pillows.

      “Jeanne,” she said, feebly, “go and tell your father I want to see him.”

      Then, when the child had left the room, she again began to roll her head slowly from side to side. With eyes wide open and lips tightly compressed, she fought with all the energy of her will against death, unwilling to give up her life till she had set her heart at rest.

      The laughter of the children on the boulevard below could no longer be heard, and the trees stood out in dark masses in the pale gray of the sky. The city noise floated up more faintly and the silence grew more profound, broken only by the slow breathing of the expiring woman and by stifled sobs which came from the recesses of the window.

      There, hidden by the curtains, and weeping bitter tears, was a young man of eighteen — Daniel Raimboult — who had just entered the room, but had not dared to approach the bed. The nurse being away, he forgot himself by weeping as he stood.

      Daniel was a pitiful-looking creature, whom one would take to be about fifteen years of age. His lean, short limbs were clad in a fantastical manner, while his fair, almost yellow, hair fell in lank wisps round a long face, with a big mouth and projecting teeth. Notwithstanding, when you came to look at his high, broad forehead, and his eyes full of kindness, you could not help but feel some sympathy for him. Young girls laughed when he passed, for his manner СКАЧАТЬ