The Confession
Marguerite de Thèrelles was dying. Although she was only fifty-six, she looked at least seventy-five. She was gasping, paler than her sheets, shaken with frightful shudders, her face distorted, her eyes haggard, as though they saw some frightful thing.
Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older, was sobbing on her knees at the bedside. A little table had been drawn up to the dying woman’s couch, and on the tablecloth stood two lighted candles, for they were waiting for the priest, who was to administer the extreme unction and the last sacrament.
The apartment wore the sinister aspect of all chambers of death, their air of despairing farewell. Medicine bottles stood on the tables, cloths lay about in corners, kicked or swept out of the way. The disordered chairs themselves looked frightened, as though they had run in every direction. For Death, the victor, was there, hidden, waiting.
The story of the two sisters was very touching. It had been told far and wide, and had filled many eyes with tears.
Suzanne, the elder, had once been deeply in love with a young man who loved her. They were betrothed, and were only awaiting the day fixed for the wedding, when Henry de Sampierre died suddenly.
The young girl’s despair was terrible, and she declared that she would never marry. She kept her word. She put on widow’s clothes and never gave them up.
Then her sister, her little sister Marguerite, who was only twelve years old, came one morning and threw herself into her elder sister’s arms, saying:
“Sister, I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want you to cry all your life long. I will never leave you, never, never! I won’t marry either. I will stay with you forever and ever.”
Suzanne kissed her, touched by her childish devotion, believing in it not at all.
But the little sister kept her word, and, despite her parents’ prayers and her sister’s entreaties, she never married. She was pretty, very pretty; she refused several young men who seemed to love her; she never left her sister.
They lived together all the days of their lives, without ever being parted. They lived side by side, inseparable. But Marguerite always seemed sad and depressed, more melancholy than the elder, as though crushed, perhaps, by her sublime self-sacrifice. She aged more rapidly, had white hair at the age of thirty, and, often ill, seemed the victim of some secret gnawing malady.
Now she was to be the first to die.
She had not spoken for twenty-four hours. She had only said, at the first glimmer of dawn:
“Go and fetch the priest; the time has come.”
Since then she had lain still on her back, shaken with fits of shuddering, her lips trembling as though terrible words had risen from her heart and could not issue forth, her eyes wild with terror, a fearful sight.
Her sister, mad with grief, was crying brokenly, her forehead pressed against the edge of the bed, and repeating:
“Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!”
She had always called her “my little one,” just as the younger had always called her “Sister.”
Steps sounded on the staircase. The door opened. A choirboy appeared, followed by the old priest in his surplice. As soon as she saw him, the dying woman sat up with a convulsive movement, opened her lips, babbled two or three words, and fell to scraping her nails together as though she meant to make a hole in them.
The Abbé Simon went up to her, took her hand, kissed her on the brow, and said gently:
“God forgive you, my child; be brave, the time has come: speak.”
Then Marguerite, shivering from head to foot, shaking the whole bed with her nervous movements, stammered:
“Sit down, sister, and listen.”
The priest bent down to Suzanne, still lying at the foot of the bed, raised her, placed her in an armchair, and, taking in each hand the hand of one of the sisters, murmured:
“O Lord God, give them strength, grant them Thy pity!”
And Marguerite began to speak. The words came from her throat one by one, hoarse, deliberate, as though they were very weary.
“Mercy, mercy, sister, forgive me! Oh, if you knew how all my life I have dreaded this moment! …”
“What have I to forgive you, little thing?” stammered Suzanne, her tears choking her. “You have given me everything, sacrificed everything for me; you are an angel.”
But Marguerite interrupted her:
“Hush, hush! Let me speak … do not stop me … it is horrible … let me tell all … the whole story, without faltering. … Listen … You remember … you remember … Henry. …”
Suzanne shuddered and looked at her. The younger sister continued:
“You must hear it all, if you are to understand. I was twelve, only twelve, you remember that, don’t you? And I was spoilt, I did everything that came into my head! … Don’t you remember how spoilt I was? … Listen. … The first time he came he wore high shining boots; he dismounted in front of the steps, and he apologised for his clothes, saying he had come with news for Father. You remember, don’t you? … Don’t speak … listen. When I saw him I was quite overcome, I thought him so handsome; and I remained standing in a corner of the drawing room all the time he was speaking. Children are strange … and terrible. … Oh, yes … I have dreamed of it!
“He came back … many times. … I gazed at him with all my eyes, with all my soul. … I was big for my age … and far more sophisticated than people supposed. He came again often. … I thought of nothing but him. I used to repeat very softly: ‘Henry … Henry de Sampierre!’
“Then they said that he was going to marry you. It was a sore grief to me, sister, oh, a sore, sore grief! I cried for three whole nights, without sleeping. He used to come every day, in the afternoon, after lunch, you remember, don’t you? Don’t speak … listen. You made him cakes, of which he was very fond … with flour, butter and milk. … Oh! I knew just how you made them. … I could make them this moment, if I had to. He would swallow them in a single mouthful, and then he would toss down a glass of wine and then say: ‘Delicious!’ Do you remember how he used to say it?
“I was jealous, jealous. … The day of your wedding was drawing near. There was only a fortnight. I was going mad. I used to say to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, no, I won’t have it. … It is I who will marry him, when I am grown up. I shall never find a man I love so much.’ … And then one evening, ten days before the wedding, you went out with him to walk in front of the house, in the moonlight … and out there … under the pine-tree, the big pine-tree … he kissed you … held you in his arms … for such a long time. … You haven’t forgotten, have you? … It may have been the first time … yes … you were so pale when you came back into the drawing room!
“I saw you; I was there, in the copse. I grew wild with rage! If I could have done it, I would have killed you both!
“I said to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, never! He shall not marry anyone. … I should be too unhappy. …’ Suddenly I began to hate him terribly.
“Do you know what I did then? … Listen. I had seen the gardener make little balls with which to kill stray dogs. He crushed a bottle with a stone, and put the ground glass in a little ball of meat.
“I took a little medicine bottle from Mother’s room, I smashed it up with a hammer, and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glittering powder. … Next day, as soon as you had made the little cakes, I split them open with a knife and put the glass in. … He ate three of them … and I, too, ate one. … I threw the other six into the pond … the two swans died three days later. … Don’t speak … listen, listen. I was the only one who did not die. … But I have always been ill … listen. … He died … you know … listen … that was nothing. … It was afterwards, later … always … that it was most terrible … listen. …
“My life, my whole life … what torture! I said to myself: ‘I will never leave my sister. And I will tell her all, in the hour of my death.’ … There! And since then I have thought every moment of this hour, the hour when I shall have to tell you all. … Now it has come … it is terrible. … Oh! … Sister!
“Every moment the thought has been with me, morning and evening, day and night: ‘I shall have to tell her, some day. …’ I waited. … What torment! … It is done. … Do not say anything. … Now I am afraid. … I am afraid. … Oh, I am afraid! If I were to see him again, presently, when I am dead … see him again … do you dream of seeing him? … See him before you do! … I shall not dare. … I must … I am going to die. … I want you to forgive me. I want you to. … Without it, I cannot come into his presence. Oh, tell her to forgive me, Father, tell her. … I beg you. I cannot die without it. …”
She was silent, and lay panting, still clawing at the sheet with her shrivelled fingers. …
Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands, and did not stir. She was thinking of the man she might have loved so long! What a happy life they would have had! She saw him again, in the vanished long-ago, in the distant past forever blotted out. Oh, beloved dead, how you tear our hearts! Oh, that kiss, her only kiss! She had kept it in her soul. And then, nothing more, nothing more in all her life! …
Suddenly the priest stood up and cried out in a loud shaken voice:
“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”
Then Suzanne let her hands fall apart and showed a face streaming with tears, and, falling upon her sister, she kissed her fiercely, stammering:
“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one. …”