Doctor Pascal

“Then you want to get rid of me? It was in order to have me here no longer that you were so bent upon marrying me. Do you still think me your enemy, then?”

He felt his tortures return, and he looked away from her, wishing to retain his courage.

“My enemy, yes. Are you not so? We have suffered so much through each other these last days. It is better in truth that we should separate. And then I do not know what your thoughts are; you have never given me the answer I have been waiting for.”

She tried in vain to catch his glance, which he still kept turned away. She began to talk of the terrible night on which they had gone together through the papers. It was true, in the shock which her whole being had suffered, she had not yet told him whether she was with him or against him. He had a right to demand an answer.

She again took his hands in hers, and forced him to look at her.

“And it is because I am your enemy that you are sending me away? I am not your enemy. I am your servant, your chattel, your property. Do you hear? I am with you and for you, for you alone!”

His face grew radiant; an intense joy shone within his eyes.

“Yes, I will wear this lace. It is for my wedding day, for I wish to be beautiful, very beautiful for you. But do you not understand me, then? You are my master; it is you I love.”

“No, no! be silent; you will make me mad! You are betrothed to another. You have given your word. All this madness is happily impossible.”

“The other! I have compared him with you, and I have chosen you. I have dismissed him. He has gone away, and he will never return. There are only we two now, and it is you I love, and you love me. I know it, and I give myself to you.”

He trembled violently. He had ceased to struggle, vanquished by the longing of eternal love.

The spacious chamber, with its antique furniture, warmed by youth, was as if filled with light. There was no longer either fear or suffering; they were free. She gave herself to him knowingly, willingly, and he accepted the supreme gift like a priceless treasure which the strength of his love had won. Suddenly she murmured in his ear, in a caressing voice, lingering tenderly on the words:

“Master, oh, master, master!”

And this word, which she used formerly as a matter of habit, at this hour acquired a profound significance, lengthening out and prolonging itself, as if it expressed the gift of her whole being. She uttered it with grateful fervor, like a woman who accepts, and who surrenders herself. Was not the mystic vanquished, the real acknowledged, life glorified with love at last confessed and shared.

“Master, master, this comes from far back. I must tell you; I must make my confession. It is true that I went to church in order to be happy. But I could not believe. I wished to understand too much; my reason rebelled against their dogmas; their paradise appeared to me an incredible puerility. But I believed that the world does not stop at sensation; that there is a whole unknown world, which must be taken into account; and this, master, I believe still. It is the idea of the Beyond, which not even happiness, found at last upon your neck, will efface. But this longing for happiness, this longing to be happy at once, to have some certainty – how I have suffered from it. If I went to church, it was because I missed something, and I went there to seek it. My anguish consisted in this irresistible need to satisfy my longing. You remember what you used to call my eternal thirst for illusion and falsehood. One night, in the threshing yard, under the great starry sky, do you remember? I burst out against your science, I was indignant because of the ruins with which it strews the earth, I turned my eyes away from the dreadful wounds which it exposes. And I wished, master, to take you to a solitude where we might both live in God, far from the world, forgotten by it. Ah, what torture, to long, to struggle, and not to be satisfied!”

Softly, without speaking, he kissed her on both eyes.

“Then, master, do you remember again, there was the great moral shock on the night of the storm, when you gave me that terrible lesson of life, emptying out your envelopes before me. You had said to me already: ‘Know life, love it, live it as it ought to be lived.’ But what a vast, what a frightful flood, rolling ever onward toward a human sea, swelling it unceasingly for the unknown future! And, master, the silent work within me began then. There was born, in my heart and in my flesh, the bitter strength of the real. At first I was as if crushed, the blow was so rude. I could not recover myself. I kept silent, because I did not know clearly what to say. Then, gradually, the evolution was effected. I still had struggles, I still rebelled against confessing my defeat. But every day after this the truth grew clearer within me, I knew well that you were my master, and that there was no happiness for me outside of you, of your science and your goodness. You were life itself, broad and tolerant life; saying all, accepting all, solely through the love of energy and effort, believing in the work of the world, placing the meaning of destiny in the labor which we all accomplish with love, in our desperate eagerness to live, to love, to live anew, to live always, in spite of all the abominations and miseries of life. Oh, to live, to live! This is the great task, the work that always goes on, and that will doubtless one day be completed!”

Silent still, he smiled radiantly, and kissed her on the mouth.

“And, master, though I have always loved you, even from my earliest youth, it was, I believe, on that terrible night that you marked me for, and made me your own. You remember how you crushed me in your grasp. It left a bruise, and a few drops of blood on my shoulder. Then your being entered, as it were into mine. We struggled; you were the stronger, and from that time I have felt the need of a support. At first I thought myself humiliated; then I saw that it was but an infinitely sweet submission. I always felt your power within me. A gesture of your hand in the distance thrilled me as though it had touched me. I would have wished that you had seized me again in your grasp, that you had crushed me in it, until my being had mingled with yours forever. And I was not blind; I knew well that your wish was the same as mine, that the violence which had made me yours had made you mine; that you struggled with yourself not to seize me and hold me as I passed by you. To nurse you when you were ill was some slight satisfaction. From that time, light began to break upon me, and I at last understood. I went no more to church, I began to be happy near you, you had become certainty and happiness. Do you remember that I cried to you, in the threshing yard, that something was wanting in our affection. There was a void in it which I longed to fill. What could be wanting to us unless it were God? And it was God – love, and life.”

VIII

Then came a period of idyllic happiness. Clotilde was the spring, the tardy rejuvenation that came to Pascal in his declining years. She came, bringing to him, with her love, sunshine and flowers. Their rapture lifted them above the earth; and all this youth she bestowed on him after his thirty years of toil, when he was already weary and worn probing the frightful wounds of humanity. He revived in the light of her great shining eyes, in the fragrance of her pure breath. He had faith again in life, in health, in strength, in the eternal renewal of nature.

On the morning after her avowal it was ten o’clock before Clotilde left her room. In the middle of the workroom she suddenly came upon Martine and, in her radiant happiness, with a burst of joy that carried everything before it, she rushed toward her, crying:

“Martine, I am not going away! Master and I – we love each other.”

The old servant staggered under the blow. Her poor worn face, nunlike under its white cap and with its look of renunciation, grew white in the keenness of her anguish. Without a word, she turned and fled for refuge to her kitchen, where, leaning her elbows on her chopping-table, and burying her face in her clasped hands, she burst into a passion of sobs.

Clotilde, grieved and uneasy, followed her. And she tried to comprehend and to console her.

“Come, come, how foolish you are! What possesses you? Master and I will love you all the same; we will always keep you with us. You are not going to be unhappy because we love each other. On the contrary, the house is going to be gay now from morning till night.”

But Martine only sobbed all the more desperately.

“Answer me, at least. Tell me why you are angry and why you cry. Does it not please you then to know that master is so happy, so happy! See, I will call master and he will make you answer.”

At this threat the old servant suddenly rose and rushed into her own room, which opened out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. In vain the young girl called and knocked until she was tired; she could obtain no answer. At last Pascal, attracted by the noise, came downstairs, saying:

“Why, what is the matter?”

“Oh, it is that obstinate Martine! Only fancy, she began to cry when she knew that we loved each other. And she has barricaded herself in there, and she will not stir.”

She did not stir, in fact. Pascal, in his turn, called and knocked. He scolded; he entreated. Then, one after the other, they began all over again. Still there was no answer. A deathlike silence reigned in the little room. And he pictured it to himself, this little room, religiously clean, with its walnut bureau, and its monastic bed furnished with white hangings. No doubt the servant had thrown herself across this bed, in which she had slept alone all her woman’s life, and was burying her face in the bolster to stifle her sobs.

“Ah, so much the worse for her?” said Clotilde at last, in the egotism of her joy, “let her sulk!”

Then throwing her arms around Pascal, and raising to his her charming face, still glowing with the ardor of self-surrender, she said:

“Master, I will be your servant to-day.”

He kissed her on the eyes with grateful emotion; and she at once set about preparing the breakfast, turning the kitchen upside down. She had put on an enormous white apron, and she looked charming, with her sleeves rolled up, showing her delicate arms, as if for some great undertaking. There chanced to be some cutlets in the kitchen which she cooked to a turn. She added some scrambled eggs, and she even succeeded in frying some potatoes. And they had a delicious breakfast, twenty times interrupted by her getting up in her eager zeal, to run for the bread, the water, a forgotten fork. If he had allowed her, she would have waited upon him on her knees. Ah! to be alone, to be only they two in this large friendly house, and to be free to laugh and to love each other in peace.

They spent the whole afternoon in sweeping and putting things in order. He insisted upon helping her. It was a play; they amused themselves like two merry children. From time to time, however, they went back to knock at Martine’s door to remonstrate with her. Come, this was foolish, she was not going to let herself starve! Was there ever seen such a mule, when no one had said or done anything to her! But only the echo of their knocks came back mournfully from the silent room. Not the slightest sound, not a breath responded. Night fell, and they were obliged to make the dinner also, which they ate, sitting beside each other, from the same plate. Before going to bed, they made a last attempt, threatening to break open the door, but their ears, glued to the wood, could not catch the slightest sound. And on the following day, when they went downstairs and found the door still hermetically closed, they began to be seriously uneasy. For twenty-four hours the servant had given no sign of life.

Then, on returning to the kitchen after a moment’s absence, Clotilde and Pascal were stupefied to see Martine sitting at her table, picking some sorrel for the breakfast. She had silently resumed her place as servant.

“But what was the matter with you?” cried Clotilde. “Will you speak now?”

She lifted up her sad face, stained by tears. It was very calm, however, and it expressed now only the resigned melancholy of old age. She looked at the young girl with an air of infinite reproach; then she bent her head again without speaking.

“Are you angry with us, then?”

And as she still remained silent, Pascal interposed:

“Are you angry with us, my good Martine?”

Then the old servant looked up at him with her former look of adoration, as if she loved him sufficiently to endure all and to remain in spite of all. At last she spoke.

“No, I am angry with no one. The master is free. It is all right, if he is satisfied.”

A new life began from this time. Clotilde, who in spite of her twenty-five years had still remained childlike, now, under the influence of love, suddenly bloomed into exquisite womanhood. Since her heart had awakened, the serious and intelligent boy that she had looked like, with her round head covered with its short curls, had given place to an adorable woman, altogether womanly, submissive and tender, loving to be loved. Her great charm, notwithstanding her learning picked up at random from her reading and her work, was her virginal naivete, as if her unconscious awaiting of love had made her reserve the gift of her whole being to be utterly absorbed in the man whom she should love. No doubt she had given her love as much through gratitude and admiration as through tenderness; happy to make him happy; experiencing a profound joy in being no longer only a little girl to be petted, but something of his very own which he adored, a precious possession, a thing of grace and joy, which he worshiped on bended knees. She still had the religious submissiveness of the former devotee, in the hands of a master mature and strong, from whom she derived consolation and support, retaining, above and beyond affection, the sacred awe of the believer in the spiritual which she still was. But more than all, this woman, so intoxicated with love, was a delightful personification of health and gaiety; eating with a hearty appetite; having something of the valor of her grandfather the soldier; filling the house with her swift and graceful movements, with the bloom of her satin skin, the slender grace of her neck, of all her young form, divinely fresh.

And Pascal, too, had grown handsome again under the influence of love, with the serene beauty of a man who had retained his vigor, notwithstanding his white hairs. His countenance had no longer the sorrowful expression which it had worn during the months of grief and suffering through which he had lately passed; his eyes, youthful still, had recovered their brightness, his features their smiling grace; while his white hair and beard grew thicker, in a leonine abundance which lent him a youthful air. He had kept himself, in his solitary life as a passionate worker, so free from vice and dissipation that he found now within him a reserve of life and vigor eager to expend itself at last. There awoke within him new energy, a youthful impetuosity that broke forth in gestures and exclamations, in a continual need of expansion, of living. Everything wore a new and enchanting aspect to him; the smallest glimpse of sky moved him to wonder; the perfume of a simple flower threw him into an ecstasy; an everyday expression of affection, worn by use, touched him to tears, as if it had sprung fresh from the heart and had not been hackneyed by millions of lips. Clotilde’s “I love you,” was an infinite caress, whose celestial sweetness no human being had ever before known. And with health and beauty he recovered also his gaiety, that tranquil gaiety which had formerly been inspired by his love of life, and which now threw sunshine over his love, over everything that made life worth living.

They two, blooming youth and vigorous maturity, so healthy, so gay, so happy, made a radiant couple. For a whole month they remained in seclusion, not once leaving La Souleiade. The place where both now liked to be was the spacious workroom, so intimately associated with their habits and their past affection. They would spend whole days there, scarcely working at all, however. The large carved oak press remained with closed doors; so, too, did the bookcases. Books and papers lay undisturbed upon the tables. Like a young married couple they were absorbed in their one passion, oblivious of their former occupations, oblivious of life. The hours seemed all too short to enjoy the charm of being together, often seated in the same large antique easy-chair, happy in the depths of this solitude in which they secluded themselves, in the tranquillity of this lofty room, in this domain which was altogether theirs, without luxury and without order, full of familiar objects, brightened from morning till night by the returning gaiety of the April sunshine. When, seized with remorse, he would talk about working, she would link her supple arms through his and laughingly hold him prisoner, so that he should not make himself ill again with overwork. And downstairs, they loved, too, the dining-room, so gay with its light panels relieved by blue bands, its antique mahogany furniture, its large flower pastels, its brass hanging lamp, always shining. They ate in it with a hearty appetite and they left it, after each meal, only to go upstairs again to their dear solitude.

Then when the house seemed too small, they had the garden, all La Souleiade. Spring advanced with the advancing sun, and at the end of April the roses were beginning to bloom. And what a joy was this domain, walled around, where nothing from the outside world could trouble them! Hours flew by unnoted, as they sat on the terrace facing the vast horizon and the shady banks of the Viorne, and the slopes of Sainte-Marthe, from the rocky bars of the Seille to the valley of Plassans in the dusty distance. There was no shade on the terrace but that of the two secular cypresses planted at its two extremities, like two enormous green tapers, which could be seen three leagues away. At times they descended the slope for the pleasure of ascending the giant steps, and climbing the low walls of uncemented stones which supported the plantations, to see if the stunted olive trees and the puny almonds were budding. More often there were delightful walks under the delicate needles of the pine wood, steeped in sunshine and exhaling a strong odor of resin; endless walks along the wall of inclosure, from behind which the only sound they could hear was, at rare intervals, the grating noise of some cart jolting along the narrow road to Les Fenouilleres; and they spent delightful hours in the old threshing yard, where they could see the whole horizon, and where they loved to stretch themselves, tenderly remembering their former tears, when, loving each other unconsciously to themselves, they had quarreled under the stars. But their favorite retreat, where they always ended by losing themselves, was the quincunx of tall plane trees, whose branches, now of a tender green, looked like lacework. Below, the enormous box trees, the old borders of the French garden, of which now scarcely a trace remained, formed a sort of labyrinth of which they could never find the end. And the slender stream of the fountain, with its eternal crystalline murmur, seemed to sing within their hearts. They would sit hand in hand beside the mossy basin, while the twilight fell around them, their forms gradually fading into the shadow of the trees, while the water which they could no longer see, sang its flutelike song.

Up to the middle of May Pascal and Clotilde secluded themselves in this way, without even crossing the threshold of their retreat. One morning he disappeared and returned an hour later, bringing her a pair of diamond earrings which he had hurried out to buy, remembering this was her birthday. She adored jewels, and the gift astonished and delighted her. From this time not a week passed in which he did not go out once or twice in this way to bring her back some present. The slightest excuse was sufficient for him – a fete, a wish, a simple pleasure. He brought her rings, bracelets, a necklace, a slender diadem. He would take out the other jewels and please himself by putting them all upon her in the midst of their laughter. She was like an idol, seated on her chair, covered with gold, – a band of gold on her hair, gold on her bare arms and on her bare throat, all shining with gold and precious stones. Her woman’s vanity was delightfully gratified by this. She allowed herself to be adored thus, to be adored on bended knees, like a divinity, knowing well that this was only an exalted form of love. She began at last to scold a little, however; to make prudent remonstrances; for, in truth, it was an absurdity to bring her all these gifts which she must afterward shut up in a drawer, without ever wearing them, as she went nowhere.