"I am going to take advantage of the sunshine to have a turn in the Bois," said he."I have my coupe; will you come with me?"Was he sincere in proposing this tete-a-tete drive which was so contrary to our habits? What was his motive: the wish to show me that he had not even understood my attack, or the yearning of the sick man who dreads to be alone?
I accepted the offer at all hazards, in order to continue my observation of him, and a quarter of an hour afterwards we were speeding towards the Arc de Triomphe in that same carriage in which I had seen him pass by me, beaten, broken, almost killed, after our first interview.
This time, he looked like another man.Warmly wrapped in an overcoat lined with seal fur, smoking a cigar, waving his hand to this person or that through the open window, he talked on and on, telling me anecdotes of all sorts, which I had either heard or not heard previously, about people whose carriages crossed ours.He seemed to be talking before me and not with me, so little heed did he take of whether he was telling what I might know, or apprising me of what I did not know.I concluded from this--for, in certain states of mind, every mood is significant--that he was talking thus in order to ward off some fresh attempt on my part.But I had not the courage to recommence my efforts to open the wound in his heart and set it bleeding afresh so soon.I merely listened to him, and once again I remarked the strange contrast between his private thoughts and the rigid doctrines which he generally professed.One would have said that in his eyes the high society, whose principles he habitually defended, was a brigand's cave.It was the hour at which women of fashion go out for their shopping and their calls, and he related all the scandals of their conduct, false or true.
He dwelt on all these stories and calumnies with a horrid pleasure, as though he rejoiced in the vileness of humanity.Did this mean the facile misanthropy of a profligate, accustomed to such conversations at the club, or in sporting circles, during which each man lays bare his brutal egotism, and voluntarily exaggerates the depth of his own disenchantment that he may boast more largely of his experience? Was this the cynicism of a villain, guilty of the most hideous of crimes, and glad to demonstrate that others were less worthy than he? To hear him laugh and talk thus threw me into a singular state of dejection.
We had passed the last houses in the Avenue de Bois, and were driving along an alley on the right in which there were but few carriages.On the bare hedgerows a beautiful light shone, coming from that lofty, pale blue sky which is seen only over Paris.
He continued to sneer and chuckle, and I reflected that perhaps he was right, that the seamy side of the world was what he depicted it.Why not? Was not I there, in the same carriage with this man, and I suspected him of having had my father murdered! All the bitterness of life filled my heart with a rush.Did my stepfather perceive, by my silence and my face, that his gay talk was torturing me? Was he weary of his own effort?
He suddenly left off talking, and as we had reached a forsaken corner of the Bois, we got out of the carriage to walk a little.
How strongly present to my mind is that by-path, a gray line between the poor spare grass and the bare trees, the cold winter sky, the wide road at a little distance with the carriage advancing slowly, drawn by the bay horse, shaking its head and its bit, and driven by a wooden-faced coachman--then, the man.He walked by my side, a tall figure in a long overcoat.The collar of dark brown fur brought out the premature whiteness of his hair.He held a cane in his gloved hand, and struck away the pebbles with it impatiently.Why does his image return to me at this hour with an unendurable exactness? It is because, as I observed him walking along the wintry road, with his head bent forward, I was struck as I had never been before with the sense of his absolute unremitting wretchedness.Was this due to the influence of our conversation of that afternoon, to the dejection which his sneering, sniggering talk had produced in me, or to the death of nature all around us?
For the first time since I knew him, a pang of pity mingled with my hatred of him, while he walked by my side, trying to warm himself in the pale sunshine, a shrunken, weary, lamentable creature.
Suddenly he turned his face, which was contracted with pain, to me, and said:
"I do not feel well.Let us go home." When we were in the carriage, he said, putting his sudden seizure upon the pretext of his health:
"I have not long to live, and I suffer so much that I should have made an end of it all years ago, had it not been for your mother."Then he went on talking of her with the blindness that I had already remarked in him.Never, in my most hostile hours, had Idoubted that his worship of his wife was perfectly sincere, and once again I listened to him, as we drove rapidly into Paris in the gathering twilight, and all that he said proved how much he loved her.Alas! his passion rated her more highly than my tenderness.
He praised the exquisite tact with which my mother discerned the things of the heart, to me, who knew so well her want of feeling!
He lauded the keenness of her intelligence to me, whom she had so little understood! And he added, he who had so largely contributed to our separation:
"Love her dearly; you will soon be the only one to love her."If he were the criminal I believed him to be, he was certainly aware that in thus placing my mother between himself and me he was putting in my way the only barrier which I could never, never break down, and I on my side understood clearly, and with bitterness of soul, that the obstacles so placed would be stronger than even the most fatal certainty.What, then, was the good of seeking any further? Why not renounce my useless quest at once? But it was already too late.
