Complete Works of Emile Zola (6 page)

I do not love Laurence. That cold and wearied girl causes me only disgust.

Her voice and gestures seem insults in my eyes; her entire form wounds me. Deprived of every delicacy of mind, she makes the kindest word odious, and thrusts an outrage into each one of her smiles. In her everything becomes bad.

I strove to feign tenderness and approached her. She sat motionless, leaning towards the hearth, and allowed me to take her cold and inert hands. Then, I drew her near me. She lifted her head, questioning me with a look. Beneath that look I recoiled, repulsing her.

“Well, what do you want?” she asked.

What did I want! My lips were open to cry to her: “I want you to take off that wretched silk dress and put on honest calico. I want you to cease pining after your past career. I want you to listen to me and understand what I say. I want you to turn your thoughts towards innocence and goodness. I want to make you a worthy woman.”

But, brothers, I did not say this. If I had loved her, I should without doubt have spoken, and, perhaps, she would have understood me.

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE WAY TO THE BALL.

I THINK I have been lacking both in skill and prudence. I was in too great haste; I overshot the mark, without asking Laurence if she understood me. How can I, who am ignorant of life, teach its science? What means do I know how to employ, except the systems, the rules of conduct, dreamed of at sixteen, beautiful in theory, but absurd in practice? Is it enough for me to love the good, to stretch towards an ideal of virtue vague aspirations, the aim of which is itself uncertain? When reality is before me, I know how little these desires take practical shape, how powerless I am in the struggle it offers me. I shall never know how either to bind or conquer it, ignorant as I am of the way in which to seize it and unable even to avow to myself what victory I demand. A voice cries out in me that I do not want the truth, that I do not desire to change it, to transform what is evil in my sight into good. Let the world which exists stand; I have the audacity to wish to create a new land, without making use of the wrecks of the old. Hence, having no solid foundation, the scaffolding of my dreams crumbles at the slightest shock. I am only a useless thinker, a platonic lover of the good nursed by vain reveries, whose power vanishes as soon as he touches the earth.

Brothers, it would be easier for me to give Laurence wings than to give her a woman’s heart.

We are but grown up children. We do not know what to do with that sublime reality, which comes to us from God and which we spoil at pleasure by our dreams. We are so awkward in living, that life, for this reason, becomes bad. Let us learn how to live and evil will disappear. If I possessed the great art of the real, if I had any conception of a human paradise, if I could distinguish the chimera from the possible, I could talk and Laurence would understand me. I would know how to take possession of her again and set her an example to follow. The delicate science which revealed to me the causes of her errors would find a remedy for each wound of her heart. But what can I do when my ignorance erects a barrier between her and me? I am the dream, she is the reality. We shall trudge on side by side without ever meeting, and, our journey finished, she will not have understood me, I will not have comprehended her.

I have decided to retrace my steps, in order to take Laurence such as she is and let her follow the road for which her human feet are fitted. I have resolved to study life with her, to descend that we may rise together. Since I am compelled to undertake this rough and disagreeable task, it is on the lowest step that I desire to start.

Would it not be a recompense great enough if I induced her to give me all the love of which she is capable? Brothers, I have a well grounded fear that our dreams are nothing but deceptions; I realize how weak and puerile they are in the presence of a reality of which I am vaguely conscious. There are days in which, further off than the sunlight and the perfumes, further off than those dim visions which I cannot turn to account, I catch a glimpse of the bold outlines of what is. And I comprehend that this is life, action and truth, while, in the surroundings which I have created for myself, move people strange to man, vain shadows whose eyes do not see me, whose lips cannot speak to me. The child can be pleased with these cold and mute friends; afraid of life, it takes refuge in that which does not live. But we men should not be satisfied with this eternal nothingness. Our arms are made for work.

Last night, as I was out walking with Laurence, we met a herd of maskers, packed into a carriage and going to the ball, intoxicated, in disorder, making a great noise. It is January, the most terrible of all the months. Poor Laurence was vastly moved by the cries of her kind. She smiled upon them, and turned that she might see them as long as possible. It was her former gayety which was passing by, her carelessness, her mad life so sharp that she could not forget its biting joys. She returned home sadder than ever and went to bed, sick of silence and solitude.

This morning, I sold some of my clothes and hired a costume for Laurence. I announced to her that we would go to the ball in the evening. She threw herself upon my neck; then, she took possession of the costume and forgot me. She examined each ribbon, each spangle; impatient to deck herself, she threw the soiled satin over her shoulders, intoxicating herself with the rustle of the stuff. Sometimes she turned, thanking me with a smile. I realized that she had never before loved me so much, and I could scarcely keep my hands from snatching the gewgaw which had brought me the esteem I had failed to acquire with all my kindness.

At last, I had made myself understood. I had ceased to be an unknown being in her eyes, a frightful compound of austerity and weariness. I was going to the ball like all the rest; like them, I hired costumes and amused my friends. I was a charming fellow and, like everybody else, loved buxom shoulders, cries and oaths. Ah! what joy! My wisdom was a sham!

Laurence felt herself in a country with which she was acquainted; she was no longer afraid; she had resumed her freedom of manner and gave vent to bursts of hearty laughter. Her familiar words, her easy gestures, filled her with satisfaction.  She was perfectly at home in her present atmosphere.

This was what I wished, but I bad hoped that a month of tranquility, even though it had not succeeded in reforming her, had at least led her to forget somewhat her former ways. I had imagined that, when the mask fell, the face it would disclose would have less pallor about the lips and more blushes upon the cheeks. I was mistaken. The mask fallen, I had before me the same faded features, the same thick and noisy laugh. As this woman was when she entered my mansarde, rough, vulgar and cynical, so I again found her, after I had for a month protested against the infamy of her past life, silently to be sure, but every day. She had learned nothing, she had forgotten nothing. If her eyes shone with a new expression, it was only because of the miserable joy she felt on seeing that I seemed, at last, to have come down to her level. In view of this strange result, I asked myself if it would not be simply a waste of time to try again. I had wished for a real Laurence, and this Laurence, through whom ran a breath of life, terrified me more, perhaps, than the mournful creature of the past month. But the struggle promised to be so sharp that I heard, in the depths of my being, my audacity of twenty revolt at my repugnance and my fright.

As six o’clock struck, although the ball would not begin until midnight, Laurence began to make her toilet. Soon the chamber was in complete disorder: water, splashing from the wash-basin and dripping from the wet towels, flooded the floor; soap lather, fallen from Laurence’s hands, spread out upon the planks in whitish patches; the comb was on the floor near the hair brush, and various articles of clothing, forgotten upon the chairs, on the mantelpiece and in the corners, were soaking amid pools of water. Laurence, to be more at her ease, had squatted down. She was washing herself energetically, throwing handfuls of water in her face and upon her shoulders. Despite this deluge, the soap, covered with dust, left broad streaks of dirt on her skin. At this she was in despair. Finally, she emptied the entire contents of the wash-basin over her.

Then she arose, shivering, her shoulders red, and began to use the towel.

The key had remained in the lock of the door. As Laurence was rubbing her neck with the icy towel, Pâquerette came in. The old woman visited us occasionally to get a stick or two from the hearth with which to kindle her fire, and pity prevented me from driving her off in disgust.

“Ah! my dear,” cried Laurence to her, “come and help me a little. I’m tired of this wretched rubbing.”

Pâquerette took the towel, and began to rub with all the strength of her wasted arms. She did not seem astonished at either the disorder of the chamber or Laurence’s wholesale preparations for the ball. She quietly passed her stiff hands over the girl’s fresh looking shoulders, envying their whiteness, thinking of the pleasures of the past. Laurence, her head half turned around, smiled upon her and shivered by fits.

“Where are you going, my child?” at last asked the horrible old woman.

“Claude has invited me to go to the ball.”

“Ah! that’s as it should be, Monsieur,” resumed Pâquerette, ceasing to ply the towel and turning towards me.

Then, taking up a dry towel, she continued, as she affectionately wiped Laurence’s arms:

“I said to myself only this morning that you would soon die of sadness, if you persisted in always remaining shut up in this chamber. Laurence is a good girl, Monsieur, a very good girl and a kind-hearted and indulgent one into the bargain. I know more than one such who would have quitted you twenty times, if subjected to the same treatment that Laurence has undergone for the past month. She is a miracle of patience and devotion to have remained. There, my child, you are as dry as a bone and as beautiful as a butterfly. You will have hosts of handsome and attentive gallants at the ball to-night! Are you jealous, Claude?”

I could not answer her. I smiled mechanically, and continued to gaze upon the strange scene. A single engrossing recollection, which unceasingly presented itself to my mind, prevented me from hearing what the old woman said. It was that of an antiquated engraving, which I had seen I know not where, representing Venus at her toilet, bathed by nymphs, caressed by little Cupids. The goddess has abandoned herself to the arms of her women, as young and beautiful as herself; the foam of the waves partially covers them, and, on the shore, an old faun stands lost in mute admiration and astonishment at the sight of so much youth and freshness. —

“He is jealous, he is jealous!” cried Pâquerette, with a sharp laugh, broken by hiccoughs. “So much the better for you, my girl; he will make you more presents and it will be much easier for you to fool him. I once had an admirer, who strongly resembled you, Monsieur. He was a trifle shorter, I think, but he had the same eyes, the same mouth; he even wore his hair combed back, as you do. He adored me, overwhelmed me with attention and followed me everywhere, but, nevertheless, I dismissed him at the end of a week.”

While Pâquerette was chattering, Laurence had dressed herself. She combed her hair, standing before the looking-glass, serious and thoughtful. The old woman stood beside her, as straight as a lance; she had ceased to babble, and was enviously contemplating the packages of rouge, and the vials of aromatic oils, common perfumery bought at a low price at stands in the open air. The two women having forgotten me, I sat down in a corner.

I saw their images in the looking-glass. Both the faces, despite the wrinkles of the one and the relative freshness of the other, seemed to me to have the same expression of degradation and baseness. The same looks stamped with dissipation, the same pale lips, were common to each. One could hardly read upon their faded cheeks the number of years which separated their ages. They were equally old in sin. For an instant I thought that I was endeavoring to reform Pâquerette instead of Laurence, and I closed my eyes to banish her from my sight.

They had forgotten that I existed. Occasionally they spoke in whispers. Laurence swore, striking her foot violently on the floor, when one of her rebellious locks refused to curl. Then the old woman spoke of her own flaxen tresses of other days; she described the style of coiffure of the girls of her time, and, to make herself better understood, arranged in her turn her gray locks before the looking-glass. Then followed long eulogies upon my companion’s youth, endless lamentations in regard to the weariness of old age. Pâquerette said that her wrinkles had come to her long before she was ready for them, and that she greatly regretted not having enjoyed herself more when she was twenty. Now, she must live slowly in silence and gloom, having at heart a jealous admiration for those who could yet grow old.

Laurence listened, but only asked questions, demanding if such and such a curl became her, seeking for new praises. Then, when her locks, so long toiled over, had been satisfactorily arranged, her face was to be painted. Pâquerette wished to put the finishing touch to the masterpiece. She took red and blue pigments upon little balls of wadding, and passed them along the cheeks and around the eyes of the young woman. She enlarged her eyelids, purified her forehead and gave health to her lips. And, like us, poor dreamers, who daub reality with discordant colors and afterwards cry out that we have made a creation, she was amazed at her work, without seeing that her trembling hand had confused the features, exaggerated the red of the lips and made the eyelids too large. Beneath her fingers Laurence’s visage had horribly changed, I thought. It had acquired in spots dull and earthy tints, while in other spots, which had been rubbed with ointment put on to fix the rouge, it shone with tremendous brilliancy. The stretched and irritated skin grimaced; the entire face, at once red and faded, had the silly smile of pasteboard dolls. The tones were so loud and so false that they wounded the sight.

Laurence, straight and motionless, her glance partially turned towards the looking-glass, complacently allowed herself to be rejuvenated. She scratched off with her finger-nail the touches which seemed to her too prominent. Leaning forward, she gravely studied for several seconds each of the beauties which Pâquerette gave her.