Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne pa.s.sed twelve days in an agony of fear, unable to sleep and scarcely touching food. The boy got well, but there remained the thought that he might die. What should she do if he did?
What would become of her? Gradually there came a vague longing for another child, and soon she could think of nothing else; she had always fancied she should like two children, a boy and a girl, and the idea of having a daughter haunted her. But since Rosalie had been sent away, she had lived quite apart from her husband, and at the present moment it seemed utterly impossible to renew their former relations. Julien"s affections were centered elsewhere; she knew that; and, on her side, the mere thought of having to submit to his caresses again, made her shudder with disgust.
Still, she would have overcome her repugnance (so tormented was she by the desire of another child) if she could have seen any way to bring about the intimacy she desired; but she would have died rather than let her husband guess what was in her thoughts, and he never seemed to dream of approaching her now. Perhaps she would have given up the idea had not each night the vision of a daughter playing with Paul under the plane tree appeared to her. Sometimes she felt she _must_ get up and join her husband in his room; twice, in fact, she did glide to his door, but each time she came back, without having turned the handle, her face burning with shame.
The baron was away, her mother was dead, and she had no one to whom she could confide this delicate secret. She made up her mind, at last, to tell the Abbe Picot her difficulty, under the seal of confession. She went to him one day and found him in his little garden, reading his breviary among the fruit trees. She talked to him for a few minutes about one thing and another, then, "Monsieur l"abbe, I want to confess,"
she said, with a deep blush.
He put on his spectacles to look at her better, for the request astonished him. "I don"t think you can have any very heavy sins on your conscience," he said, with a smile.
"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject so--so painful to enter upon, that I dare not talk about it in an ordinary way," she replied, feeling very confused.
He put on his priestly air immediately.
"Very well, my daughter, come to the confessional, and I will hear you there."
But she suddenly felt a scruple at talking of such things in the quietness of an empty church.
"No, Monsieur le cure--after all--if you will let me--I can tell you here what I want to say. See, we will go and sit in your little arbor over there."
As they walked slowly over to the arbor she tried to find the words in which she could best begin her confidence. They sat down, and she commenced, as if she were confessing, "My father," then hesitated, said again, "My father," then stopped altogether, too ashamed to continue.
The priest crossed his hands over his stomach and waited for her to go on. "Well, my daughter," he said, perceiving her embarra.s.sment, "you seem afraid to say what it is; come now, be brave."
"My father, I want to have another child," she said abruptly, like a coward throwing himself headlong into the danger he dreads.
The priest, hardly understanding what she meant, made no answer, and she tried to explain herself, but, in her confusion, her words became more and more difficult to understand.
"I am quite alone in life now; my father and my husband do not agree; my mother is dead, and--and--the other day I almost lost my son," she whispered with a shudder. "What would have become of me if he had died?"
The priest looked at her in bewilderment. "There, there; come to the point," he said.
"I want to have another child," she repeated.
The abbe was used to the coa.r.s.e pleasantries of the peasants, who did not mind what they said before him, and he answered, with a sly smile and a knowing shake of the head: "Well, I don"t think there need be much difficulty about that."
She raised her clear eyes to his and said, hesitatingly:
"But--but--don"t you understand that since--since that trouble with--the--maid--my husband and I live--quite apart."
These words came as a revelation to the priest, accustomed as he was to the promiscuity and easy morals of the peasants. Then he thought he could guess what the young wife really wanted, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, pitying her, and sympathizing with her distress.
"Yes, yes, I know exactly what you mean. I can quite understand that you should find your--your widowhood hard to bear. You are young, healthy, and it is only natural; very natural." He began to smile, his lively nature getting the better of him. "Besides, the Church allows these feelings, sometimes," he went on, gently tapping Jeanne"s hands. "What are we told? That carnal desires may be satisfied lawfully in wedlock only. Well, you are married, are you not?"
She, in her turn, had not at first understood what his words implied, but when his meaning dawned on her, her face became crimson, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh! Monsieur le cure, what do you mean? What do you think? I a.s.sure you--I a.s.sure--" and she could not continue for her sobs.
Her emotion surprised the abbe, and he tried to console her.
"There, there," he said; "I did not mean to pain you. I was only joking, and there"s no harm in a joke between honest people. But leave it all in my hands, and I will speak to M. Julien."
She did not know what to say. She wished, now, that she could refuse his help, for she feared his want of tact would only increase her difficulties, but she did not dare say anything.
"Thank you, Monsieur le cure," she stammered; and then hurried away.
The next week was pa.s.sed by Jeanne in an agony of doubts and fears. Then one evening, Julien watched her all through dinner with an amused smile on his lips, and evinced towards her a gallantry which was faintly tinged with irony. After dinner they walked up and down the baroness"s avenue, and he whispered in her ear:
"Then we are going to be friends again?"
She made no answer, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground, where there was a straight line, hardly so thickly covered with gra.s.s as the rest of the path. It was the line traced by the baroness"s foot, which was gradually being effaced, just as her memory was fading, and, as she looked at it, Jeanne"s heart felt bursting with grief; she seemed so lonely, so separated from everybody.
"For my part, I am only too pleased," continued Julien. "I should have proposed it before, but I was afraid of displeasing you."
The sun was setting; it was a mild, soft evening, and Jeanne longed to rest her head on some loving heart, and there sob out her sorrows. She threw herself into Julien"s arms, her breast heaving, and the tears streaming from her eyes. He looked at her in surprise, thinking this outburst was occasioned by the love she still felt for him, and, unable to see her face, he dropped a condescending kiss upon her hair. Then they went indoors in silence and he followed her to her room.
To him this renewal of their former relations was a duty, though hardly an unpleasant one, while she submitted to his embraces as a disgusting, painful necessity, and resolved to put an end to them for ever, as soon as her object was accomplished. Soon, however, she found that her husband"s caresses were not like they used to be; they may have been more refined, they certainly were not so complete. He treated her like a careful lover, instead of being an easy husband.
"Why do you not give yourself up to me as you used to do?" she whispered one night, her lips close to his.
"To keep you out of the family way, of course," he answered, with a chuckle.
She started.
"Don"t you wish for any more children, then?" she asked.
His amazement was so great, that, for a moment, he was silent; then:
"Eh? What do you say?" he exclaimed. "Are you in your right senses?
Another child? I should think not, indeed! We"ve already got one too many, squalling and costing money, and bothering everybody. Another child! No, thank you!"
She clasped him in her arms, pressed her lips to his and murmured:
"Oh! I entreat you, make me a mother once more."
"Don"t be so foolish," he replied, angrily. "Pray don"t let me hear any more of this nonsense."
She said no more, but she resolved to trick him into giving her the happiness she desired. She tried to prolong her kisses, and threw her arms pa.s.sionately around him, pressing him to her, and pretending a delirium of love she was very far from feeling. She tried every means to make him lose control over himself, but she never once succeeded.
Tormented more and more by her desire, driven to extremities, and ready to do or dare anything to gain her ends, she went again to the Abbe Picot. She found him just finishing lunch, with his face crimson from indigestion. He looked up as she came in, and, anxious to hear the result of his mediation:
"Well?" he exclaimed.
"My husband does not want any more children," she answered at once without any of the hesitation or shame-faced timidity she had shown before.
The abbe got very interested, and turned towards her, ready to hear once more of those secrets of wedded life, the revelation of which made the task of confessing so pleasant to him.
"How is that?" he asked.