Paul’s Mistress
The Restaurant Grillon, a small commonwealth of boatmen, was slowly emptying. In front of the door all was tumult—cries and calls—and huge fellows in white jerseys gesticulated with oars on their shoulders.
The ladies in bright spring toilettes stepped aboard the skiffs with care, and seating themselves astern, arranged their dresses, while the landlord of the establishment, a mighty, red-bearded, self-possessed individual of renowned strength, offered his hand to the pretty creatures, and kept the frail crafts steady.
The rowers, bare-armed, with bulging chests, took their places in their turn, playing to the gallery as they did so—a gallery consisting of middle-class people dressed in their Sunday clothes, of workmen and soldiers leaning upon their elbows on the parapet of the bridge, all taking a great interest in the sight.
One by one the boats cast off from the landing stage. The oarsmen bent forward and then threw themselves backward with even swing, and under the impetus of the long curved oars, the swift skiffs glided along the river, grew smaller in the distance, and finally disappeared under the railway bridge, as they descended the stream toward La Grenouillère. One couple only remained behind. The young man, still almost beardless, slender, with a pale countenance, held his mistress, a thin little brunette with the air of a grasshopper, by the waist; and occasionally they gazed into each other’s eyes. The landlord shouted:
“Come, Mr. Paul, make haste,” and they drew near.
Of all the guests of the house, Mr. Paul was the most liked and most respected. He paid well and punctually, while the others hung back for a long time if indeed they did not vanish without paying. Besides which he was a sort of walking advertisement for the establishment, inasmuch as his father was a senator. When a stranger would inquire: “Who on earth is that little chap who thinks so much of his girl?” some habitué would reply, half-aloud, with a mysterious and important air: “Don’t you know? That is Paul Baron, a senator’s son.”
And invariably the other would exclaim:
“Poor devil! He has got it badly.”
Mother Grillon, a good and worthy business woman, described the young man and his companion as “her two turtledoves,” and appeared quite touched by this passion, which was profitable for her business.
The couple advanced at a slow pace. The skiff Madeleine was ready, and at the moment of embarking they kissed each other, which caused the public collected on the bridge to laugh. Mr. Paul took the oars, and rowed away for La Grenouillère.
When they arrived it was just upon three o’clock and the large floating café overflowed with people.
The immense raft, sheltered by a tarpaulin roof, is joined to the charming island of Croissy by two narrow footbridges, one of which leads into the centre of the aquatic establishment, while the other unites with a tiny islet, planted with a tree and called “The Flower Pot,” and thence leads to land near the bath office.
Mr. Paul made fast his boat alongside the establishment, climbed over the railing of the café, and then, grasping his mistress’s hands, assisted her out of the boat. They both seated themselves at the end of a table opposite each other.
On the opposite side of the river along the towing-path, a long string of vehicles was drawn up. Cabs alternated with the fine carriages of the swells; the first, clumsy, with enormous bodies crushing the springs, drawn by broken-down hacks with hanging heads and broken knees; the second, slightly built on light wheels, with horses slender and straight, their heads well up, their bits snowy with foam, and with solemn coachmen in livery, heads erect in high collars, waiting bolt upright, with whips resting on their knees.
The bank was covered with people who came off in families, or in parties, or in couples, or alone. They plucked at the blades of grass, went down to the water, ascended the path, and having reached the spot, stood still awaiting the ferryman. The clumsy punt plied incessantly from bank to bank, discharging its passengers upon the island. The arm of the river (called the Dead Arm) upon which this refreshment wharf lay, seemed asleep, so feeble was the current. Fleets of yawls, of skiffs, of canoes, of podoscaphs, of gigs, of craft of all forms and of all kinds, crept about upon the motionless stream, crossing each other, intermingling, running foul of one another, stopping abruptly under a jerk of the arms only to shoot off afresh under a sudden strain of the muscles and gliding swiftly along like great yellow or red fishes.
Others arrived continually; some from Chatou up the stream; others from Bougival down it; laughter crossed the water from one boat to another, calls, admonitions, or imprecations. The boatmen exposed the bronzed and knotted muscles of their biceps to the heat of the day; and like strange floating flowers, the silk parasols, red, green, blue, or yellow, of the ladies bloomed in the sterns of the boats.
A July sun flamed high in the heavens; the atmosphere seemed full of burning merriment; not a breath of air stirred the leaves of the willows or poplars.
In front, away in the distance, the inevitable Mont-Valérien reared its fortified ramparts, tier above tier, in the intense light; while on the right the divine slopes of Louveciennes, following the bend of the river, disposed themselves in a semicircle, displaying in turn across the rich and shady lawns of large gardens the white walls of country seats.
Upon the outskirts of La Grenouillère a crowd of pedestrians moved about beneath the giant trees which make this corner of the island one of the most delightful parks in the world.
Women and girls with yellow hair and breasts developed beyond all measurement, with exaggerated hips, their complexions plastered with rouge, their eyes daubed with charcoal, their lips bloodred, laced up, rigged out in outrageous dresses, trailed the crying bad taste of their toilettes over the fresh green sward; while beside them young men posed in their fashion-plate garments with light gloves, patent leather boots, canes the size of a thread, and single eyeglasses emphasizing the insipidity of their smiles.
Opposite La Grenouillère the island is narrow, and on its other side, where also a ferryboat plies, bringing people unceasingly across from Croissy, the rapid branch of the river, full of whirlpools and eddies and foam, rushes along with the strength of a torrent. A detachment of pontoon-builders, in the uniform of artillerymen, was encamped upon this bank, and the soldiers seated in a row on a long beam watched the water flowing.
In the floating establishment there was a boisterous and uproarious crowd. The wooden tables upon which the spilt refreshments made little sticky streams were covered with half-empty glasses and surrounded by half-tipsy individuals. The crowd shouted, sang, and brawled. The men, their hats at the backs of their heads, their faces red, with the shining eyes of drunkards, moved about vociferating and evidently looking for the quarrels natural to brutes. The women, seeking their prey for the night, sought for free liquor in the meantime; and the unoccupied space between the tables was dominated by the customary local public, a whole regiment of rowdy boatmen, with their female companions in short flannel skirts.
One of them performed on the piano and appeared to play with his feet as well as his hands; four couples glided through a quadrille, and some young men watched them, polished and correct, men who would have looked respectable, did not their innate viciousness show in spite of everything.
For there you see all the scum of society, all its well-bred debauchery, all the seamy side of Parisian society—a mixture of counter-jumpers, of strolling players, of low journalists, of gentlemen in tutelage, of rotten stockjobbers, of ill-famed debauchees, of old used-up fast men; a doubtful crowd of suspicious characters, half-known, half-sunk, half-recognised, half-criminal, pickpockets, rogues, procurers of women, sharpers with dignified manners, and a bragging air which seems to say: “I shall kill the first man who treats me as a scoundrel.”
The place reeks of folly, and stinks of vulgarity and cheap gallantry. Male and female are just as bad one as the other. There dwells an odour of so-called love, and there one fights for a yes, or for a no, in order to sustain a worm-eaten reputation, which a thrust of the sword or a pistol bullet only destroys further.
Some of the neighbouring inhabitants looked in out of curiosity every Sunday; some young men, very young, appeared there every year to learn how to live, some promenaders lounging about showed themselves there; some greenhorns wandered thither. With good reason is it named La Grenouillère. At the side of the covered wharf where drink was served, and quite close to the Flower Pot, people bathed. Those among the women who possessed the requisite roundness of form came there to display their wares and to get clients. The rest, scornful, although well filled out with wadding, supported by springs, corrected here and altered there, watched their dabbling sisters with disdain.
The swimmers crowded on to a little platform to dive. Straight like vine poles, or round like pumpkins, gnarled like olive branches, bowed over in front, or thrown backward by the size of their stomachs, and invariably ugly, they leaped into the water, splashing it over the drinkers in the café.
Notwithstanding the great trees which overhang the floating-house, and notwithstanding the vicinity of the water, a suffocating heat filled the place. The fumes of the spilt liquors mingled with the effluvia of the bodies and with the strong perfumes with which the skin of the trader in love is saturated and which evaporate in this furnace. But beneath all these diverse scents a slight aroma of poudre de riz lingered, disappearing and reappearing, and perpetually encountered as though some concealed hand had shaken an invisible powder-puff in the air. The show was on the river, where the perpetual coming and going of the boats attracted the eyes. The girls in the boats sprawled upon their seats opposite their strong-wristed males, and scornfully contemplated the dinner-hunting females prowling about the island.
Sometimes when a crew in full swing passed at top speed, the friends who had gone ashore gave vent to shouts, and all the people as if suddenly seized with madness commenced to yell.
At the bend of the river toward Chatou fresh boats continually appeared. They came nearer and grew larger, and as faces became recognisable, the vociferations broke out anew.
A canoe covered with an awning and manned by four women came slowly down the current. She who rowed was petite, thin, faded, in a cabin-boy’s costume, her hair drawn up under an oilskin hat. Opposite her, a lusty blonde, dressed as a man, with a white flannel jacket, lay upon her back at the bottom of the boat, her legs in the air, resting on the seat at each side of the rower. She smoked a cigarette, while at each stroke of the oars, her chest and her stomach quivered, shaken by the stroke. At the back, under the awning, two handsome girls, tall and slender, one dark and the other fair, held each other by the waist as they watched their companions.
A cry arose from La Grenouillère, “There’s Lesbos,” and all at once a furious clamour, a terrifying scramble took place; the glasses were knocked down; people clambered on to the tables; all in a frenzy of noise bawled: “Lesbos! Lesbos! Lesbos!” The shout rolled along, became indistinct, was no longer more than a kind of deafening howl, and then suddenly it seemed to start anew, to rise into space, to cover the plain, to fill the foliage of the great trees, to extend to the distant slopes, and reach even to the sun.
The rower, in the face of this ovation, had quietly stopped. The handsome blonde, stretched out upon the bottom of the boat, turned her head with a careless air, as she raised herself upon her elbows; and the two girls at the back commenced laughing as they saluted the crowd.
Then the hullabaloo redoubled, making the floating establishment tremble. The men took off their hats, the women waved their handkerchiefs, and all voices, shrill or deep, together cried:
“Lesbos.”
It was as if these people, this collection of the corrupt, saluted their chiefs like the warships which fire guns when an admiral passes along the line.
The numerous fleet of boats also saluted the women’s boat, which pushed along more quickly to land farther off.
Mr. Paul, contrary to the others, had drawn a key from his pocket and whistled with all his might. His nervous mistress grew paler, caught him by the arm to make him be quiet, and upon this occasion she looked at him with fury in her eyes. But he appeared exasperated, as though borne away by jealousy of some man or by deep anger, instinctive and ungovernable. He stammered, his lips quivering with indignation:
“It is shameful! They ought to be drowned like puppies with a stone about the neck.”
But Madeleine instantly flew into a rage; her small and shrill voice became a hiss, and she spoke volubly, as though pleading her own cause:
“And what has it to do with you—you indeed? Are they not at liberty to do what they wish since they owe nobody anything? You shut up and mind your own business.”
But he cut her speech short:
“It is the police whom it concerns, and I will have them marched off to St. Lazare; indeed I will.”
She gave a start:
“You?”
“Yes, I! And in the meantime I forbid you to speak to them—you understand, I forbid you to do so.”
Then she shrugged her shoulders and grew calm in a moment:
“My dear, I shall do as I please; if you are not satisfied, be off, and instantly. I am not your wife, am I? Very well then, hold your tongue.”
He made no reply and they stood face to face, their lips tightly closed, breathing quickly.
At the other end of the great wooden café the four women made their entry. The two in men’s costumes marched in front: the one thin like an oldish tomboy, with a yellow tinge on her temples; the other filling out her white flannel garments with her fat, swelling out her wide trousers with her buttocks and swaying about like a fat goose with enormous legs and yielding knees. Their two friends followed them, and the crowd of boatmen thronged about to shake their hands.
The four had hired a small cottage close to the water’s edge, and lived there as two households would have lived.
Their vice was public, recognised, patent to all. People talked of it as a natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well known women and of actresses to the little house close to the water’s edge.
A neighbour, horrified by these scandalous rumours, notified the police, and the inspector, accompanied by a man, had come to make inquiry. The mission was a delicate one; it was impossible, in short, to accuse these women, who did not abandon themselves to prostitution, of any tangible crime. The inspector, very much puzzled, and, indeed, ignorant of the nature of the offences suspected, had asked questions at random, and made a lofty report conclusive of their innocence.
The joke spread as far as Saint Germain. They walked about the Grenouillère establishment with mincing steps like queens; and seemed to glory in their fame, rejoicing in the gaze that was fixed on them, so superior to this crowd, to this mob, to these plebeians.
Madeleine and her lover watched them approach, and the girl’s eyes lit up.
When the first two had reached the end of the table, Madeleine cried:
“Pauline!”
The large woman turned and stopped, continuing all the time to hold the arm of her feminine cabin-boy:
“Good gracious, Madeleine! Do come and talk to me, my dear.”
Paul squeezed his fingers upon his mistress’s wrist, but she said to him, with such an air: “You know, my dear, you can clear out, if you like,” that he said nothing and remained alone.
Then they chatted in low voices, all three of them standing. Many pleasant jests passed their lips, they spoke quickly; and Pauline now and then looked at Paul, by stealth, with a shrewd and malicious smile.
At last, unable to put up with it any longer, he suddenly rose and in a single bound was at their side, trembling in every limb. He seized Madeleine by the shoulders.
“Come, I wish it,” said he; “I have forbidden you to speak to these sluts.”
Whereupon Pauline raised her voice and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumb under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that the words which came from that mouth and fell upon him defiled him like dirt, and, in presence of the row which was beginning, he fell back, retraced his steps, and rested his elbows on the railing toward the river, turning his back upon the victorious women.
There he stayed watching the water, and sometimes with rapid gesture, as though he could pluck it out, he removed with his nervous fingers the tear which stood in his eye.
The fact was that he was hopelessly in love, without knowing why, notwithstanding his refined instincts, in spite of his reason, in spite, indeed, of his will. He had fallen into this love as one falls into a muddy hole. Of a tender and delicate disposition, he had dreamed of liaisons, exquisite, ideal, and impassioned, and there that little bit of a woman, stupid like all prostitutes, with an exasperating stupidity, not even pretty, but thin and a spitfire, had taken him prisoner, possessing him from head to foot, body and soul. He had submitted to this feminine witchery, mysterious and all powerful, this unknown power, this prodigious domination—arising no one knows whence, but from the demon of the flesh—which casts the most sensible man at the feet of some harlot or other without there being anything in her to explain her fatal and sovereign power.
And there at his back he felt that some infamous thing was brewing. Shouts of laughter cut him to the heart. What should he do? He knew well, but he could not do it.
He steadily watched an angler upon the bank opposite him, and his motionless line.
Suddenly, the worthy man jerked a little silver fish, which wriggled at the end of his line, out of the river. Then he endeavoured to extract his hook, pulled and turned it, but in vain. At last, losing patience, he commenced to tear it out, and all the bleeding gullet of the fish, with a portion of its intestines came out. Paul shuddered, rent to his heartstrings. It seemed to him that the hook was his love, and that if he should pluck it out, all that he had in his breast would come out in the same way at the end of a curved iron, fixed in the depths of his being, to which Madeleine held the line.
A hand was placed upon his shoulder; he started and turned; his mistress was at his side. They did not speak to each other; and like him she rested her elbows upon the railing, and fixed her eyes upon the river.
He tried to speak to her and could find nothing. He could not even disentangle his own emotions; all that he was sensible of was joy at feeling her there close to him, come back again, as well as shameful cowardice, a craving to pardon everything, to allow everything, provided she never left him.
At last, after a few minutes, he asked her in a very gentle voice:
“Would you like to go? It will be nicer in the boat.”
She answered: “Yes, darling.”
And he assisted her into the skiff, pressing her hands, all softened, with some tears still in his eyes. Then she looked at him with a smile and they kissed each other again.
They reascended the river very slowly, skirting the willow-bordered, grass-covered bank, bathed and still in the afternoon warmth. When they had returned to the Restaurant Grillon, it was barely six o’clock. Then leaving their boat they set off on foot towards Bezons, across the fields and along the high poplars which bordered the river. The long grass ready to be mowed was full of flowers. The sinking sun glowed from beneath a sheet of red light, and in the tempered heat of the closing day the floating exhalations from the grass, mingled with the damp scents from the river, filled the air with a soft languor, with a happy light, with an atmosphere of blessing.
A soft weakness overtook his heart, a species of communion with this splendid calm of evening, with this vague and mysterious throb of teeming life, with the keen and melancholy poetry which seems to arise from flowers and things, and reveals itself to the senses at this sweet and pensive time.
Paul felt all that; but for her part she did not understand anything of it. They walked side by side; and, suddenly, tired of being silent, she sang. She sang in her shrill, unmusical voice some street song, some catchy air, which jarred upon the profound and serene harmony of the evening.
Then he looked at her and felt an impassable abyss between them. She beat the grass with her parasol, her head slightly inclined, admiring her feet and singing, dwelling on the notes, attempting trills, and venturing on shakes. Her smooth little brow, of which he was so fond, was at that time absolutely empty! empty! There was nothing therein but this canary music; and the ideas which formed there by chance were like this music. She did not understand anything of him; they were now as separated as if they did not live together. Did his kisses never go any farther than her lips?
Then she raised her eyes to him and laughed again. He was moved to the quick and, extending his arms in a paroxysm of love, he embraced her passionately.
As he was rumpling her dress she finally broke away from him, murmuring by way of compensation as she did so:
“That’s enough. You know I love you, my darling.”
But he clasped her around the waist and, seized by madness, he started to run with her. He kissed her on the cheek, on the temple, on the neck, all the while dancing with joy. They threw themselves down panting at the edge of a thicket, lit up by the rays of the setting sun, and before they had recovered breath they were in one another’s arms without her understanding his transport.
They returned, holding each other by the hand, when, suddenly, through the trees, they perceived on the river the skiff manned by the four women. Fat Pauline also saw them, for she drew herself up and blew kisses to Madeleine. And then she cried:
“Until tonight!”
Madeleine replied: “Until tonight!”
Paul felt as if his heart had suddenly been frozen.
They re-entered the house for dinner and installed themselves in one of the arbours, close to the water. They began to eat in silence. When night arrived, the waiter brought a candle enclosed in a glass globe, which gave a feeble and glimmering light; and they heard every moment the bursts of shouting from the boatmen in the large room on the first floor.
Toward dessert, Paul, taking Madeleine’s hand, tenderly said to her:
“I feel very tired, my darling; unless you have any objection, we will go to bed early.”
She, however, understood the ruse, and shot an enigmatical glance at him—that glance of treachery which so readily appears in the depths of a woman’s eyes. Having reflected she answered:
“You can go to bed if you wish, but I have promised to go to the ball at La Grenouillère.”
He smiled in a piteous manner, one of those smiles with which one veils the most horrible suffering, and replied in a coaxing but agonized tone:
“If you were really nice, we should remain here, both of us.”
She indicated no with her head, without opening her mouth.
He insisted:
“I beg of you, my darling.”
Then she roughly broke out:
“You know what I said to you. If you are not satisfied, the door is open. No one wishes to keep you. As for myself, I have promised; I shall go.”
He placed his two elbows upon the table, covered his face with his hands, and remained there pondering sorrowfully.
The boat people came down again, shouting as usual, and set off in their vessels for the ball at La Grenouillère.
Madeleine said to Paul:
“If you are not coming, say so, and I will ask one of these gentlemen to take me.”
Paul rose:
“Let us go!” murmured he.
And they left.
The night was black, the sky full of stars, but the air was heat-laden by oppressive breaths of wind, burdened with emanations, and with living germs, which destroyed the freshness of the night. It offered a heated caress, made one breathe more quickly, gasp a little, so thick and heavy did it seem. The boats started on their way, bearing Venetian lanterns at the prow. It was not possible to distinguish the craft, but only the little coloured lights, swift and dancing up and down like frenzied glowworms, while voices sounded from all sides in the shadows. The young people’s skiff glided gently along. Now and then, when a fast boat passed near them, they could, for a moment, see the white back of the rower, lit up by his lantern.
When they turned the elbow of the river, La Grenouillère appeared to them in the distance. The establishment en fête, was decorated with flags and garlands of coloured lights, in grape-like clusters. On the Seine some great barges moved about slowly, representing domes, pyramids, and elaborate monuments in fires of all colours. Illuminated festoons hung right down to the water, and sometimes a red or blue lantern, at the end of an immense invisible fishing-rod, seemed like a great swinging star.
All this illumination spread a light around the café, lit up the great trees on the bank, from top to bottom, the trunks standing out in pale gray and the leaves in milky green upon the deep black of the fields and the heavens. The orchestra, composed of five suburban artists, flung far its public-house dance-music, poor of its kind and jerky, inciting Madeleine to sing anew.
She wanted to go in at once. Paul wanted first to take a stroll on the island, but he was obliged to give way. The attendance was now more select. The boatmen, almost alone, remained, with here and there some better class people, and young men escorted by girls. The director and organiser of this spree, looking majestic in a jaded black suit, walked about in every direction, bald-headed and worn by his old trade of purveyor of cheap public amusements.
Fat Pauline and her companions were not there; and Paul breathed again.
They danced; couples opposite each other capered in the maddest fashion, throwing their legs in the air, until they were upon a level with the noses of their partners.
The women, whose thighs seemed disjointed, pranced around with flying skirts which revealed their underclothing, wriggling their stomachs and hips, causing their breasts to shake, and spreading the powerful odour of perspiring female bodies.
The men squatted like toads, some making obscene gestures; some twisted and distorted themselves, grimacing and hideous; some turned cartwheels on their hands, or, perhaps, trying to be funny, posed with exaggerated gracefulness.
A fat servant-maid and two waiters served refreshments.
The café boat being only covered with a roof and having no wall whatever to shut it in, this harebrained dance flaunted in the face of the peaceful night and of the firmament powdered with stars.
Suddenly, Mont-Valérien, opposite, appeared, illumined, as if some conflagration had arisen behind it. The radiance spread and deepened upon the sky, describing a large luminous circle of white, wan light. Then something or other red appeared, grew greater, shining with a burning crimson, like that of hot metal upon the anvil. It gradually developed into a round body rising from the earth; and the moon, freeing herself from the horizon, rose slowly into space. As she ascended, the purple tint faded and became yellow, a shining bright yellow, and the satellite grew smaller in proportion as her distance increased.
Paul watched the moon for some time, lost in contemplation, forgetting his mistress; when he returned to himself the latter had vanished.
He sought her, but could not find her. He threw his anxious eye over table after table, going to and fro unceasingly, inquiring for her from one person and then another. No one had seen her. He was tormented with uneasiness, when one of the waiters said to him:
“You are looking for Madame Madeleine, are you not? She left a few moments ago, with Madame Pauline.” And at the same instant, Paul perceived the cabin-boy and the two pretty girls standing at the other end of the café, all three holding each other’s waists and lying in wait for him, whispering to one another. He understood, and, like a madman, dashed off into the island.
He first ran toward Chatou, but having reached the plain, retraced his steps. Then he began to search the dense coppices, occasionally roaming about distractedly, or halting to listen.
The toads all about him poured out their short metallic notes.
From the direction of Bougival, some unknown bird warbled a song which reached him faintly from the distance.
Over the broad fields the moon shed a soft light, resembling powdered wool; it penetrated the foliage, silvered the bark of the poplars, and riddled with its brilliant rays the waving tops of the great trees. The entrancing poetry of this summer night had, in spite of himself, entered into Paul, athwart his infatuated anguish, stirring his heart with ferocious irony, and increasing even to madness his craving for an ideal tenderness, for passionate outpourings on the breast of an adored and faithful woman. He was compelled to stop, choked by hurried and rending sobs.
The convulsion over, he went on.
Suddenly, he received what resembled the stab of a dagger. There, behind that bush, some people were kissing. He ran thither; and found an amorous couple whose faces were united in an endless kiss.
He dared not call, knowing well that She would not respond, and he had a frightful dread of coming upon them suddenly.
The flourishes of the quadrilles, with the earsplitting solos of the cornet, the false shriek of the flute, the shrill squeaking of the violin, irritated his feelings, and increased his suffering. Wild and limping music was floating under the trees, now feeble, now stronger, wafted hither and thither by the breeze.
Suddenly he thought that possibly She had returned. Yes, she had returned! Why not? He had stupidly lost his head, without cause, carried away by his fears, by the inordinate suspicions which had for some time overwhelmed him. Seized by one of those singular calms which will sometimes occur in cases of the greatest despair, he returned toward the ballroom.
With a single glance of the eye, he took in the whole room. He made the round of the tables, and abruptly again found himself face to face with the three women. He must have had a doleful and queer expression of countenance, for all three burst into laughter.
He made off, returned to the island, and threw himself into the coppice panting. He listened again, listened a long time, for his ears were singing. At last, however, he believed he heard farther off a little, sharp laugh, which he recognised at once; and he advanced very quietly, on his knees, removing the branches from his path, his heart beating so rapidly, that he could no longer breathe.
Two voices murmured some words, the meaning of which he did not understand, and then they were silent.
Then, he was possessed by a frightful longing to fly, to save himself, forever, from this furious passion which threatened his existence. He was about to return to Chatou and take the train, resolved never to come back again, never again to see her. But her likeness suddenly rushed in upon him, and he mentally pictured the moment in the morning when she would awake in their warm bed, and would press coaxingly against him, throwing her arms around his neck, her hair dishevelled, and a little entangled on the forehead, her eyes still shut and her lips apart ready to receive the first kiss. The sudden recollection of this morning caress filled him with frantic recollections and the maddest desire.
The couple began to speak again; and he approached, stooping low. Then a faint cry rose from under the branches quite close to him. He advanced again, in spite of himself, irresistibly attracted, without being conscious of anything—and he saw them.
If her companion had only been a man. But that! that! He felt as though he were spellbound by the very infamy of it. And he stood there astounded and overwhelmed, as if he had discovered the mutilated corpse of one dear to him, a crime against nature, a monstrous, disgusting profanation. Then, in an involuntary flash of thought, he remembered the little fish whose entrails he had felt being torn out! But Madeleine murmured: “Pauline!” in the same tone in which she had often called him by name, and he was seized by such a fit of anguish that he turned and fled.
He struck against two trees, fell over a root, set off again, and suddenly found himself near the rapid branch of the river, which was lit up by the moon. The torrent-like current made great eddies where the light played upon it. The high bank dominated the stream like a cliff, leaving a wide obscure zone at its foot where the eddies could be heard swirling in the darkness.
On the other bank, the country seats of Croissy could be plainly seen.
Paul saw all this as though in a dream; he thought of nothing, understood nothing, and all things, even his very existence, appeared vague, far-off, forgotten, and closed.
The river was there. Did he know what he was doing? Did he wish to die? He was mad. He turned, however, toward the island, toward Her, and in the still air of the night, in which the faint and persistent burden of the music was borne up and down, he uttered, in a voice frantic with despair, bitter beyond measure, and superhumanly low, a frightful cry:
“Madeleine!”
His heartrending call shot across the great silence of the sky, and sped over the horizon. Then with a tremendous leap, with the bound of a wild animal, he jumped into the river. The water rushed on, closed over him, and from the place where he had disappeared a series of great circles started, enlarging their brilliant undulations, until they finally reached the other bank. The two women had heard the noise of the plunge. Madeleine drew herself up and exclaimed:
“It is Paul,”—a suspicion having arisen in her soul—“he has drowned himself”; and she rushed toward the bank, where Pauline rejoined her.
A clumsy punt, propelled by two men, turned round and round on the spot. One of the men rowed, the other plunged into the water a great pole and appeared to be looking for something. Pauline cried:
“What are you doing? What is the matter?”
An unknown voice answered:
“It is a man who has just drowned himself.”
The two haggard women, huddling close to each other, followed the manoeuvres of the boat. The music of La Grenouillère continued to sound in the distance, seeming with its cadences to accompany the movements of the sombre fishermen; and the river which now concealed a corpse, whirled round and round, illuminated. The search was prolonged. The horrible suspense made Madeleine shiver all over. At last, after at least half an hour, one of the men announced:
“I have got him.”
And he pulled up his long pole very gently, very gently. Then something large appeared upon the surface. The other boatman left his oars, and by uniting their strength and hauling upon the inert weight, they succeeded in getting it into their boat.
Then they made for land, seeking a place well lighted and low. At the moment they landed, the women also arrived. The moment she saw him, Madeleine fell back with horror. In the moonlight he already appeared green, with his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his clothes full of slime. His fingers, closed and stiff, were hideous. A kind of black and liquid plaster covered his whole body. The face appeared swollen, and from his hair, plastered down by the ooze, there ran a stream of dirty water.
The two men examined him.
“Do you know him?” asked one.
The other, the Croissy ferryman, hesitated:
“Yes, it certainly seems to me that I have seen that head; but you know when a body is in that state one cannot recognize it easily.” And then, suddenly:
“Why, it’s Mr. Paul!”
“Who is Mr. Paul?” inquired his comrade.
The first answered:
“Why, Mr. Paul Baron, the son of the senator, the little chap who was so much in love.”
The other added, philosophically:
“Well, his fun is ended now; it is a pity, all the same, when one is rich!”
Madeleine had fallen on the ground sobbing. Pauline approached the body and asked:
“Is he really quite dead?”
The men shrugged their shoulders.
“Oh! after that length of time, certainly.”
Then one of them asked:
“Was it not at Grillon’s that he lodged?”
“Yes,” answered the other; “we had better take him back there, there will be something to be made out of it.”
They embarked again in their boat and set out, moving off slowly on account of the rapid current. For a long time after they were out of sight of the place where the women remained, the regular splash of the oars in the water could be heard.
Then Pauline took the poor weeping Madeleine in her arms, petted her, embraced her for a long while, and consoled her.
“How can you help it? it is not your fault, is it? It is impossible to prevent men from doing silly things. He did it of his own free will; so much the worse for him, after all!”
And then lifting her up:
“Come, my dear, come and sleep at the house; it is impossible for you to go back to Grillon’s tonight.”
And she embraced her again, saying: “Come, we will cure you.”
Madeleine arose, and weeping all the while but with fainter sobs, laid her head upon Pauline’s shoulder, as though she had found a refuge in a closer and more certain affection, more familiar and more confiding, and she went off slowly.