Madame Du Roy answered slowly: "Not over much."
The guests were taking their leave. Madame Laroche-Mathieu looked like a housemaid from the country. She was the daughter of a notary, and had been married to the deputy when he was only a barrister of small standing. Madame Rissolin, old and stuck-up, gave one the idea of a midwife whose fashionable education had been acquired through a circulating library. The Viscountess de Percemur looked down upon them.
Her "Lily Fingers" touched these vulgar hands with repugnance.
Clotilde, wrapped in lace, said to Madeleine as she went out: "Your dinner was perfection. In a little while you will have the leading political drawing-room in Paris."
As soon as she was alone with George she clasped him in her arms, exclaiming: "Oh, my darling Pretty-boy, I love you more and more every day!"
XII
The Place de la Trinite lay, almost deserted, under a dazzling July sun.
An oppressive heat was crushing Paris. It was as though the upper air, scorched and deadened, had fallen upon the city--a thick, burning air that pained the chests inhaling it. The fountains in front of the church fell lazily. They seemed weary of flowing, tired out, limp, too; and the water of the basins, in which leaves and bits of paper were floating, looked greenish, thick and glaucous. A dog having jumped over the stone rim, was bathing in the dubious fluid. A few people, seated on the benches of the little circular garden skirting the front of the church, watched the animal curiously.
Du Roy pulled out his watch. It was only three o"clock. He was half an hour too soon. He laughed as he thought of this appointment. "Churches serve for anything as far as she is concerned," said he to himself.
"They console her for having married a Jew, enable her to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of protestation in the world of politics and a respectable one in that of fashion, and serve as a shelter to her gallant rendezvous. So much for the habit of making use of religion as an umbrella. If it is fine it is a walking stick; if sunshiny, a parasol; if it rains, a shelter; and if one does not go out, why, one leaves it in the hall. And there are hundreds like that who care for G.o.d about as much as a cherry stone, but who will not hear him spoken against. If it were suggested to them to go to a hotel, they would think it infamous, but it seems to them quite simple to make love at the foot of the altar."
He walked slowly along the edge of the fountain, and then again looked at the church clock, which was two minutes faster than his watch. It was five minutes past three. He thought that he would be more comfortable inside, and entered the church. The coolness of a cellar a.s.sailed him, he breathed it with pleasure, and then took a turn round the nave to reconnoiter the place. Other regular footsteps, sometimes halting and then beginning anew, replied from the further end of the vast pile to the sound of his own, which rang sonorously beneath the vaulted roof. A curiosity to know who this other promenader was seized him. It was a stout, bald-headed gentleman who was strolling about with his nose in the air, and his hat behind his back. Here and there an old woman was praying, her face hidden in her hands. A sensation of solitude and rest stole over the mind. The light, softened by the stained-gla.s.s windows, was refreshing to the eyes. Du Roy thought that it was "deucedly comfortable" inside there.
He returned towards the door and again looked at his watch. It was still only a quarter-past three. He sat down at the entrance to the main aisle, regretting that one could not smoke a cigarette. The slow footsteps of the stout gentleman could still be heard at the further end of the church, near the choir.
Someone came in, and George turned sharply round. It was a poor woman in a woolen skirt, who fell on her knees close to the first chair, and remained motionless, with clasped hands, her eyes turned to heaven, her soul absorbed in prayer. Du Roy watched her with interest, asking himself what grief, what pain, what despair could have crushed her heart. She was worn out by poverty, it was plain. She had, perhaps, too, a husband who was beating her to death, or a dying child. He murmured mentally: "Poor creatures. How some of them do suffer." Anger rose up in him against pitiless Nature. Then he reflected that these poor wretches believed, at any rate, that they were taken into consideration up above, and that they were duly entered in the registers of heaven with a debtor and creditor balance. Up above! And Du Roy, whom the silence of the church inclined to sweeping reflections, judging creation at a bound, muttered contemptuously: "What bosh all that sort of thing is!"
The rustle of a dress made him start. It was she.
He rose, and advanced quickly. She did not hold out her hand, but murmured in a low voice: "I have only a few moments. I must get back home. Kneel down near me, so that we may not be noticed." And she advanced up the aisle, seeking a safe and suitable spot, like a woman well acquainted with the place. Her face was hidden by a thick veil, and she walked with careful footsteps that could scarcely be heard.
When she reached the choir she turned, and muttered, in that mysterious tone of voice we always a.s.sume in church: "The side aisles will be better. We are too much in view here."
She bowed low to the high altar, turned to the right, and returned a little way towards the entrance; then, making up her mind, she took a chair and knelt down. George took possession of the next one to her, and as soon as they were in an att.i.tude of prayer, began: "Thanks; oh, thanks; I adore you! I should like to be always telling you so, to tell you how I began to love you, how I was captivated the first time I saw you. Will you allow me some day to open my heart to tell you all this?"
She listened to him in an att.i.tude of deep meditation, as if she heard nothing. She replied between her fingers: "I am mad to allow you to speak to me like this, mad to have come here, mad to do what I am doing, mad to let you believe that--that--this adventure can have any issue.
Forget all this; you must, and never speak to me again of it."
She paused. He strove to find an answer, decisive and pa.s.sionate words, but not being able to join action to words, was partially paralyzed. He replied: "I expect nothing, I hope for nothing. I love you. Whatever you may do, I will repeat it to you so often, with such power and ardor, that you will end by understanding it. I want to make my love penetrate you, to pour it into your soul, word by word, hour by hour, day by day, so that at length it impregnates you like a liquid, falling drop by drop; softens you, mollifies you, and obliges you later on to reply to me: "I love you, too.""
He felt her shoulder trembling against him and her bosom throbbing, and she stammered, abruptly: "I love you, too!"
He started as though he had received a blow, and sighed: "Good G.o.d."
She replied, in panting tones: "Ought I to have told you that? I feel I am guilty and contemptible. I, who have two daughters, but I cannot help it, I cannot help it. I could not have believed, I should never have thought--but it is stronger than I. Listen, listen: I have never loved anyone but you; I swear it. And I have loved you for a year past in secret, in my secret heart. Oh! I have suffered and struggled till I can do so no more. I love you."
She was weeping, with her hands crossed in front of her face, and her whole frame was quivering, shaken by the violence of her emotion.
George murmured: "Give me your hand, that I may touch it, that I may press it."
She slowly withdrew her hand from her face. He saw her cheek quite wet and a tear ready to fall on her lashes. He had taken her hand and was pressing it, saying: "Oh, how I should like to drink your tears!"
She said, in a low and broken voice, which resembled a moan: "Do not take advantage of me; I am lost."
He felt an impulse to smile. How could he take advantage of her in that place? He placed the hand he held upon his heart, saying: "Do you feel it beat?" For he had come to the end of his pa.s.sionate phrases.
For some moments past the regular footsteps of the promenader had been coming nearer. He had gone the round of the altars, and was now, for the second time at least, coming down the little aisle on the right. When Madame Walter heard him close to the pillar which hid her, she s.n.a.t.c.hed her fingers from George"s grasp, and again hid her face. And both remained motionless, kneeling as though they had been addressing fervent supplications to heaven together. The stout gentleman pa.s.sed close to them, cast an indifferent look upon them, and walked away to the lower end of the church, still holding his hat behind his back.
Du Roy, who was thinking of obtaining an appointment elsewhere than at the Church of the Trinity, murmured: "Where shall I see you to-morrow?"
She did not answer. She seemed lifeless--turned into a statue of prayer.
He went on: "To-morrow, will you let me meet you in the Parc Monseau?"
She turned towards him her again uncovered face, a livid face, contracted by fearful suffering, and in a jerky voice e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "Leave me, leave me now; go away, go away, only for five minutes! I suffer too much beside you. I want to pray, and I cannot. Go away, let me pray alone for five minutes. I cannot. Let me implore G.o.d to pardon me--to save me. Leave me for five minutes."
Her face was so upset, so full of pain, that he rose without saying a word, and then, after a little hesitation, asked: "Shall I come back presently?"
She gave a nod, which meant, "Yes, presently," and he walked away towards the choir. Then she strove to pray. She made a superhuman effort to invoke the Deity, and with quivering frame and bewildering soul appealed for mercy to heaven. She closed her eyes with rage, in order no longer to see him who just left her. She sought to drive him from her mind, she struggled against him, but instead of the celestial apparition awaited in the distress of her heart, she still perceived the young fellow"s curly moustache. For a year past she had been struggling thus every day, every night, against the growing possession, against this image which haunted her dreams, haunted her flesh, and disturbed her nights. She felt caught like a beast in a net, bound, thrown into the arms of this man, who had vanquished, conquered her, simply by the hair on his lip and the color of his eyes. And now in this church, close to G.o.d, she felt still weaker, more abandoned, and more lost than at home.
She could no longer pray, she could only think of him. She suffered already that he had quitted her. She struggled, however, despairingly, resisted, implored help with all the strength of her soul. She would liked to have died rather than fall thus, she who had never faltered in her duty. She murmured wild words of supplication, but she was listening to George"s footsteps dying away in the distance.
She understood that it was all over, that the struggle was a useless one. She would not yield, however; and she was seized by one of those nervous crises that hurl women quivering, yelling, and writhing on the ground. She trembled in every limb, feeling that she was going to fall and roll among the chairs, uttering shrill cries. Someone approached with rapid steps. It was a priest. She rose and rushed towards him, holding out her clasped hands, and stammering: "Oh! save me, save me!"
He halted in surprise, saying: "What is it you wish, madame?"
"I want you to save me. Have pity on me. If you do not come to my a.s.sistance, I am lost."
He looked at her, asking himself whether she was not mad, and then said: "What can I do for you?"
He was a tall, and somewhat stout young man, with full, pendulous cheeks, dark, with a carefully shaven face, a good-looking city curate belonging to a wealthy district, and accustomed to rich penitents.
"Hear my confession, and advise me, sustain me, tell me what I am to do."
He replied: "I hear confessions every Sat.u.r.day, from three to six o"clock."
Having seized his arm, she gripped it tightly as she repeated: "No, no, no; at once, at once! You must. He is here, in the church. He is waiting for me."
"Who is waiting for you?" asked the priest.
"A man who will ruin me, who will carry me off, if you do not save me.
I cannot flee from him. I am too weak--too weak! Oh, so weak, so weak!"
She fell at his feet sobbing: "Oh, have pity on me, father! Save me, in G.o.d"s name, save me!"
She held him by his black gown lest he should escape, and he with uneasiness glanced around, lest some malevolent or devout eye should see this woman fallen at his feet. Understanding at length that he could not escape, he said: "Get up; I have the key of the confessional with me."
And fumbling in his pocket he drew out a ring full of keys, selected one, and walked rapidly towards the little wooden cabin, dust holes of the soul into which believers cast their sins. He entered the center door, which he closed behind him, and Madame Walter, throwing herself into the narrow recess at the side, stammered fervently, with a pa.s.sionate burst of hope: "Bless me father, for I have sinned."
Du Roy, having taken a turn round the choir, was pa.s.sing down the left aisle. He had got half-way when he met the stout, bald gentleman still walking quietly along, and said to himself: "What the deuce is that customer doing here?"
The promenader had also slackened his pace, and was looking at George with an evident wish to speak to him. When he came quite close he bowed, and said in a polite fashion: "I beg your pardon, sir, for troubling you, but can you tell me when this church was built?"