THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ de Rionne had been the good fairy of his life. She had heaped benefits upon him without revealing herself, and when at last he saw her and was allowed to thank his benefactress, he found she was dying.

      And now he stood behind the curtain, unable to repress his grief. Blanche heard his stifled sobs, and she raised herself partly up, trying to see who it was that was crying.

      “Who is there?” asked she. “Who is crying near me?”

      Then Daniel came and knelt down by the bedside, and Blanche recognised him.

      “So it is you, Daniel,” she said. “Get up, my friend, and do not cry.”

      Daniel at once forgot his timidity and awkwardness. His heart was on his lips, and he held out his hands to her, beseechingly.

      “Oh, madame!” he cried, in broken accents, “do let me kneel; do let me weep! I came to see you; despair seized me, and I could not hold back my tears. Now I am here and no one is near, I must tell you how good you are, and how I love you. For more than ten years I have understood everything; for more than ten years I have kept silence, and been suffused with gratitude and affection. You must let me weep. You understand this, do you not? Often have I dreamt of the blessed time when I could kneel down thus before you. That was my dream, which soothed me in the bitterness of my childhood. I took delight in imagining the smallest details of our meeting. I told myself that I should see you beautiful and smiling; that you would have such and such a look, would use such and such a gesture. And now, alas! what do I see?... I never thought until to-day that one could be an orphan twice.”

      His voice broke. Blanche, in the last glimmerings of light, looked at him and took a little fresh life, face to face with this worship and despair. In that supreme hour she was rewarded for her good work; she felt her agony softened by this love she would leave behind her.

      Daniel continued:

      “I owe you everything, and I have only my tears at present to prove to you my devotion. I looked on myself, so to speak, made by you, and I wished your work to be good and beautiful. Throughout my whole life I determined to show my gratitude; I wanted to make you proud of me. And now I have only a few minutes in which to thank you. You will look on me as ungrateful, for I feel my tongue is powerless to express what is in my heart. I have lived alone — I don’t know how to speak.... What will become of me if God does not take pity on you and me?”

      Madame de Rionne listened to these disjointed words, and a sweet happiness came to her from them. She took Daniel’s hand.

      “My friend,” said she, “I know you are not ungrateful. I have watched over you, and I have learned how deep is your gratitude. There is no need for you to seek words in which to thank me, for your tears alone assuage my suffering.”

      Daniel with difficulty kept back his sobs. There was a short silence.

      “When I summoned you to Paris,” continued the dying woman, “I was still strong. I hoped to be able to help you to still pursue your studies. Then illness came upon me before I could make the future sure for you. You came too late. In leaving this life I shall take with me the regret of not having finished my task.”

      “You have done a pious work,” interrupted Daniel. “You owe me nothing, and I owe you my whole life. The benefit is too great already. Look at me, and see the poor creature that you have adopted and protected. When I found myself awkward, when people laughed at me, I wept for shame for your sake. Forgive me an unworthy thought. I often feared lest my face should be displeasing to you. I trembled lest I should meet you. I was afraid lest my ugliness should deprive me of some of your kind feeling towards me. And only to think that you received me as a son! You, who are so beautiful! You have held out your hand to a wretched child whom no one cared for, but rather despised. The more I was railed at, the more I felt ugly and weak, and the more I worshipped you, for I understand what goodness you must possess to stoop down to me. I ardently wished to be good-looking, that I might be pleasing in your sight.”

      Blanche smiled. Such youthful, ingenuous adoration, such flattering humility, made her forget death for a moment.

      “What a child you are!” she said.

      Then she pondered a while. She was endeavouring to see Daniel’s face in the gloom. The blood flowed more rapidly in her veins, and she thought of herself and the time when she was young.

      Then she went on:

      “You are impulsive, and life will be hard for you. I can only at this last hour tell you to remember me — think of me as a safeguard. Though I have not been permitted to make any provision for your future, I have at least been able to put you in the way of gaining your livelihood, of walking in a straightforward and manly way through life; and this thought consoles me a little in my compulsory desertion of you. Think of me sometimes; love me and try to please me when I am dead as you have loved and pleased me during my lifetime.”

      She said this in such sweet, moving tones that Daniel began to weep again.

      “No,” said he, “do not leave me like this; give me some task to perform. My existence will henceforth be a blank if you vanish suddenly from it. During the past ten years I have had no other idea than that of pleasing you and obeying all your wishes. I only wished to become a little worthy in your eyes. You have been my goddess. If I can work no longer for you I shall feel like a coward. Of what use will life be to me? For what shall I strive? Think of something, I beseech you, for me to do to prove my devotion, that I may still testify my gratitude when you are no more.”

      While Daniel was speaking a sudden inspiration lit up the pale face of Madame de Rionne; she drew herself up to a sitting posture, rallying her strength and fighting against her pain.

      “You are right,” said she; “I have a mission to entrust you with. God Himself has set you there on your knees by my deathbed. Heaven made me give you a helping hand in order that you in your turn might one day help me. Rise up, my friend, for I now beg of you to console and support me.”

      And when Daniel had risen and sat down, she said:

      “Listen, my time is short; I must tell you all. I besought God that a good angel might come to me — I am willing to believe that you are the angel whom He sends me. I believe in you for I have seen you weep.”

      And then she hastily poured out to him all she had in her heart. She forgot she was speaking to a child. This poor soul, torn with anxiety, opened her heart and consoled herself by revealing in death what she had hidden in life.

      The young man’s ardent and humble reverence had softened the woman’s stoic courage. She was happy in making her confession at last, to be able, before leaving the world, to confide in some one all the bitterness of her past life. She did not complain; she simply unburdened her heart.

      “I spent my life,” she said, “in loneliness and tears. I must tell you these things, my friend, in order that you may understand my sufferings. You pictured me as a joyous being; you have set me on a pinnacle of glory and happiness. Alas! I am only a poor woman who, during long, weary years, has inured herself to misery. And, though I am shedding tears, I call to mind the joys of my youth. What a blessed thing was my childhood there, in Provence! At that time I was proud; I had determined to fight the battle of life bravely, but only emerged from the fight with a bleeding heart.”

      Daniel listened, barely understanding her, believing that the delirium of the death agony was creeping over her.

      “I married a man,” she exclaimed, СКАЧАТЬ