It was her mother"s voice which replied: "It is I, darling, I have come to see how you are."
She hesitated what she should do. She opened the door, and then went back to bed. The Marquise approached, and, speaking in low tones, as people do to a convalescent, said:
"Well, are you better? Won"t you eat an egg?"
"No, thanks, nothing at all."
Madame Obardi sat down near the bed. They remained without saying anything, then, finally, as her daughter stayed quiet, with her hands inert upon the bedclothes, she asked:
"Don"t you intend to get up?"
Yvette answered: "Yes, pretty soon."
Then in a grave and slow tone she said: "I have thought a great deal, mamma, and this--this is my resolution. The past is the past, let us speak no more of it. But the future shall be different or I know what is left for me to do. Now, let us say no more about it."
The Marquise, who thought the explanation finished, felt her impatience gaining a little. It was too much. This big goose of a girl ought to have known about things long ago. But she did not say anything in reply, only repeating:
"You are going to get up?"
"Yes, I am ready."
Then her mother became maid for her, bringing her stockings, her corset, and her skirts. Then she kissed her.
"Will you take a walk before dinner?"
"Yes, mamma."
And they took a stroll along the water, speaking only of commonplace things.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM EMOTION TO PHILOSOPHY
The following day, early in the morning, Yvette went out alone to the place where Servigny had read her the history of the ants. She said to herself:
"I am not going away from this spot without having formed a resolution."
Before her, at her feet, the water flowed rapidly, filled with large bubbles which pa.s.sed in silent flight with deep whirlings. She already had summed up the points of the situation and the means of extricating herself from it. What should she do if her mother would not accept the conditions which she had imposed, would not renounce her present way of living, her set of visitors--everything and go and hide with her in a distant land?
She might go alone, take flight, but where, and how? What would she live on? By working? At what? To whom should she apply to find work?
And, then, the dull and humble life of working-women, daughters of the people, seemed a little disgraceful, unworthy of her. She thought of becoming a governess, like young girls in novels, and of becoming loved by the son of the house, and then marrying him. But to accomplish that she must have been of good birth, so that, when the exasperated father should approach her with having stolen his son"s love, she might say in a proud voice:
"My name is Yvette Obardi."
She could not do this. And then, even that would have been a trite and threadbare method.
The convent was not worth much more. Besides, she felt no vocation for a religious life, having only an intermittent and fleeting piety. No one would save her by marrying her, being what she was! No aid was acceptable from a man, no possible issue, no definite resource.
And then she wished to do something energetic and really great and strong, which should serve as an example: so she resolved upon death.
She decided upon this step suddenly, but tranquilly, as if it were a journey, without reflecting, without looking at death, without understanding that it is the end without recommencement, the departure without return, the eternal farewell to earth and to this life.
She immediately settled on this extreme measure, with the lightness of young and excited souls, and she thought of the means which she would employ. But they all seemed to her painful and hazardous, and, furthermore, required a violence of action which repelled her.
She quickly abandoned the poniard and revolver, which might wound only, blind her or disfigure her, and which demanded a practiced and steady hand. She decided against the rope; it was so common, the poor man"s way of suicide, ridiculous and ugly; and against water because she knew how to swim So poison remained--but which kind?
Almost all of them cause suffering and incite vomitings. She did not want either of these things.
Then she thought of chloroform, having read in a newspaper how a young woman had managed to asphyxiate herself by this process. And she felt at once a sort of joy in her resolution, an inner pride, a sensation of bravery. People should see what she was, and what she was worth.
She returned to Bougival and went to a druggist, from whom she asked a little chloroform for a tooth which was aching. The man, who knew her, gave her a tiny bottle of the narcotic.
Then she set out on foot for Croissy, where she procured a second phial of poison. She obtained a third at Chaton, a fourth at Ruril, and got home late for breakfast.
As she was very hungry after this long walk, she ate heartily with the pleasurable appet.i.te of people who have taken exercise.
Her mother, happy to see her so hungry, and now feeling tranquil herself, said to her as they left the table:
"All our friends are coming to spend Sunday with us. I have invited the Prince, the Chevalier, and Monsieur de Belvigne."
Yvette turned a little pale, but did not reply. She went out almost immediately, reached the railway station, and took a ticket for Paris. And during all the afternoon, she went from druggist to druggist, buying from each one a few drops of chloroform. She came back in the evening with her pockets full of little bottles.
She began the same system on the following day, and by chance found a chemist who gave her, at one stroke, a quarter of a liter. She did not go out on Sat.u.r.day; it was a lowering and sultry day; she pa.s.sed it entirely on the terrace, stretched on a long wicker-chair.
She thought of almost nothing, very resolute and very calm. She put on the next morning, a blue costume which was very becoming to her, wishing to look well. Then looking at herself in the gla.s.s, she suddenly said:
"To-morrow, I shall be dead." And a peculiar shudder pa.s.sed over her body. "Dead! I shall speak no more, think no more, no one will see me more, and I shall never see anything again."
And she gazed attentively at her countenance, as if she had never observed it, examining especially her eyes, discovering a thousand things in herself, a secret character in her physiognomy which she had not known before, astonished to see herself, as if she had opposite her a strange person, a new friend.
She said to herself: "It is I, in the mirror, there. How queer it is to look at oneself. But without the mirror we would never know ourselves. Everybody else would know how we look, and we ourselves would know nothing."
She placed the heavy braids of her thick hair over her breast, following with her glance all her gestures, all her poses, and all her movements. "How pretty I am!" she thought. "Tomorrow I shall be dead, there, upon my bed." She looked at her bed, and seemed to see herself stretched out, white as the sheets.
Dead! In a week she would be nothing but dust, to dust returned! A horrible anguish oppressed her heart. The bright sunlight fell in floods upon the fields, and the soft morning air came in at the window.
She sat down thinking of it. Death! It was as if the world was going to disappear from her; but no, since nothing would be changed in the world, not even her bedroom. Yes, her room would remain just the same, with the same bed, the same chairs, the same toilette articles, but she would be forever gone, and no one would be sorry, except her mother, perhaps.
People would say: "How pretty she was! that little Yvette," and nothing more. And as she looked at her arm leaning on the arm of her chair, she thought again, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And again a great shudder of horror ran over her whole body, and she did not know how she could disappear without the whole earth being blotted out, so much it seemed to her that she was a part of everything, of the fields, of the air, of the sunshine, of life itself.
There were bursts of laughter in the garden, a great noise of voices and of calls, the bustling gaiety of country house parties, and she recognized the sonorous tones of M. de Belvigne, singing:
"I am underneath thy window, Oh, deign to show thy face." She rose, without reflecting, and looked out. They all applauded. They were all five there, with two gentlemen whom she did not know.
She brusquely withdrew, annoyed by the thought that these men had come to amuse themselves at her mother"s house, as at a public place.