Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola. Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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Название: Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola
Автор: Ðмиль ЗолÑ
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027231713
isbn:
I no longer heard Pàquerette’s voice. The thought that Jacques might have deceived me in the morning had not before occurred to me; now, I plunged into it, not succeeding in believing it, but finding a sort of consolation in saying to myself that he had, perhaps, lied to me. This was a new shadow upon my mind, a new torment added to the torments which were already racking me. I was on the point of losing my senses. Pâquerette continued, speaking through her nose: “I wish to form you, Claude, to communicate to you my experience. You do not know how to love. One must be kind to women; one must not beat them, one must give them sweet things. Above all, no jealousy; if you are deceived, allow yourself to be deceived; you will be better loved afterwards. When I think of my adorers, I recall a little flaxen haired fellow who boasted that he had had for sweethearts all the girls of the public balls. Do you see that étagère, the last souvenir which remains to me? It came from him. One evening, he approached me and said to me, with a laugh: ‘You are the only one whom I have not adored. Will you accept me after all the rest? I accepted his homage, he kissed me upon both cheeks, and we supped together. That is the way to love.”
I recovered from my stupor; I stared about the place in which I found myself. Then only I saw the filth of the den, then only I perceived the odor of musk and scraps of food. All my excitement had subsided; I realized the shame of my presence at the feet of this old wretch. The words which she had spoken to me, and which my memory had retained, grew clear and frightful in my mind, which before had turned them over without understanding them.
I had not the strength to go downstairs to my chamber. I seated myself upon a step and wept away all the blood of my heart.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SAD REFLECTIONS.
I AM a coward; I suffer and I dare not cauterize the wound. I feel that Pâquerette and Jacques are right, that I cannot live amid the frightful torment which is rending me. I must, if I do not wish to die of it, tear love from my bosom. But I am like the dying who are frightened by the unknown and the annihilation of the body. I know what is the anguish of my heart, full as it is of Laurence; I know not what would be its pain were this woman to leave it empty. I prefer the sobs of my agony to the death of my love; I recoil before the mysterious horrors of a soul widowed by affection.
It is with despair that I feel Laurence escaping from me. I press her in my arms like a horse hair shirt which brings the blood, which gives me a bitter delight. She tears me, and yet I love her. I love her for all the darts she drives into my flesh; I experience the painful ecstasy of those monks who die beneath the rods with which they strike themselves. I love and I sob. I do not wish to refuse to sob, if I ought to refuse to love.
And yet I realize that this sharp and biting nightmare must come to an end. The crisis is approaching.-
I do not know which of us is going to die. It seems as if anguish kept me awake, warned me of a coming misfortune. Heaven will take pity on me: it will cure my mind and leave me my heart; it will choose me for death rather than choose my tenderness.
This morning, I met a young man and a young woman, who were walking in the bright sunshine. With arms closely locked, they advanced slowly, forgetting the crowd. The young woman leaned her head upon the young man’s shoulder; she gazed at him, moved and smiling, while he, in a glance, returned her emotion, her smile. This youthful couple absolutely sparkled with devotion and happiness, with pure love and genuine delight.
True youthful love then exists. While I live miserably in the deep gloom, torn and devoured by a horrible nightmare, a fearful incubus, there are, amid the sunbeams of May, true lovers who live deliciously. I did not know that people could love each other thus, I believed that kisses must of necessity be biting and poignant.
But, I remember now. Young lovers stroll along, two by two, in the moonlight, amid the first streaks of dawn. They are clad in light garments. They embrace each other at every step in a tender, dreamy fashion; they live amid the grass, among the crowd, and they are always alone. Heaven smiles upon them, the earth is discreet, the universe is their accomplice. Young lovers exchange their hearts, they live in each other’s lives.
As for me, I am shut up here. I cannot have everything. I have the tears, the despair, of solitary love; I have the silence, the dead eyes, of Laurence. What need have I of spring and youthful love? I have my grief, if others have their joy.
Oh! my God, have pity! Do not deprive me of my suffering. Prevent this woman from curing me by killing my love. Let her remain where she is, at my side; let her remain there, cold and indifferent, to prolong my torment. I no longer know why I love her; I love her, setting aside all justice and all truth; I love her for the delight of loving her, and I do not wish to be disturbed amid the reckless madness of my devotion. My entire being is crushed by the idea that she may quit me; I am afraid of the dire desolation into which her absence would surely plunge me. In losing her, I would lose my family, all my affection, everything which yet binds me to this earth. My God, do not permit her to abandon me!
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FAIR
LAST evening, in order to obtain partial relief from my sufferings, I strolled upon a fair ground. The faubourg was all gayety and the people in their Sunday clothes were noisily passing through the streets.
The lamps had just been lighted. The avenue, at regular distances, was ornamented with yellow and blue posts, which were garnished with small, colored pots, and in these pots were burning smoky wicks, the flame and smoke being whirled about by the wind. In the trees Venetian lanterns swung. Canvas booths bordered the sidewalks, allowing the fringe of their red curtains to trail in the gutters. The gilded faïences, the freshly painted bonbons and the tinsel everywhere displayed shone in the raw light of the lamps.
There was in the atmosphere an odor of dust, of spiced cake and of greasy waffles; the powdered girls who led reckless lives laughed and wept beneath a hailstorm of kisses, blows and kicks. A hot and stifling mist hung over and weighed down upon this scene of riotous joy.
Above this mist, above these noises, spread out a cloudless sky, with pure and melancholy depths. An angel had lighted up the azure fields of the heavens for some divine fête, some majestically calm fête of the infinite.
Lost amid the crowd, I felt the solitude of my heart. I walked on, following with my glances the giddy young girls who smiled upon me as they went by, and I said to myself that I should never again see their smiles. This thought of so many loving lips, dimly seen for an instant and then lost forever, gave my sad soul, already tortured by my uncertainty in regard to Laurence, an additional pang of anguish.
In this wretched frame of mind, I reached a point where a street crossed the avenue. To the left, supported by an elm tree, stood an isolated booth. In front of it, a few badly joined planks formed a species of staging, and two lanterns illuminated the door, which was simply a bit of canvas raised like a curtain. As I came to a stop, a man wearing a magician’s costume, a flowing black СКАЧАТЬ