The Pardon
She had been brought up in one of those families who live shut up in themselves, and seem to be remote from everything. They pay no attention to political events, although they chat about them at table, and changes in government seem so far, so very far away that they are spoken of only as a matter of history—like the death of Louis XVI, or the landing of Napoleon.
Customs change, fashions succeed each other, but this is hardly perceptible in the family where old traditions are always followed. And if some impossible story arises in the neighbourhood, the scandal of it dies at the threshold of this house.
The father and mother, alone in the evening, sometimes exchange a few words on such a subject, but in an undertone, as if the walls had ears.
With great discretion, the father says: “Do you know about this terrible affair in the Rivoil family?”
And the mother replies: “Who would have believed it? It is frightful!”
The children have no suspicion of anything, but come to the age of living, in their turn, with a bandage over their eyes and minds, without ever suspecting any other kind of existence, without knowing that one does not always think as one speaks, nor speak as one acts, without knowing that it is necessary to live at war with the world, or at least in armed peace, without surmising that the ingenuous are frequently deceived, the sincere trifled with, and the good wronged.
Some go on until death in this blindness of probity, loyalty, and honour; so upright that nothing can open their eyes. Others, undeceived, without realizing why, are weighed down with despair, and die believing that they are the puppets of exceptional fate, the miserable victims of unlucky circumstance or particularly bad men.
The Savignols married their daughter Berthe when she was eighteen. Her husband was a young man from Paris, Georges Baron, whose business was on the Stock Exchange. He was an attractive youth, with a smooth tongue, and he observed all the outward proprieties necessary. But at the bottom of his heart he sneered a little at his guileless parents-in-law, calling them, among his friends, “My dear fossils.”
He belonged to a good family, and the young girl was rich. He took her to live in Paris.
She became one of the numerous race of provincials in Paris. She remained ignorant of the great city, of its elegant people, of its pleasures and its customs, as she had always been ignorant of the perfidy and mystery of life.
Shut up in her own household, she only knew the street she lived in, and when she ventured into another quarter, it seemed to her that she had journeyed far, into an unknown, strange city. She would say in the evening:
“I crossed the boulevards today.”
Two or three times a year, her husband took her to the theatre. These were great events not to be forgotten, which she recalled continually.
Sometimes at table, three months afterwards, she would suddenly burst out laughing and exclaim:
“Do you remember that ridiculous actor who imitated the cock’s crowing?”
All her interests were limited to two allied families, who represented the whole of humanity to her. She designated them by the distinguishing prefix “the,” calling them respectively “the Martinets,” or “the Michelints.”
Her husband lived according to his fancy, coming home at whatever hour he wished, sometimes at daybreak, pretending business, and feeling in no way constrained, so sure was he that no suspicion would ruffle this candid soul.
But one morning she received an anonymous letter. She was dismayed, being too upright to understand the infamous accusations, to scorn this letter, whose author declared himself to be moved by interest in her happiness, by hatred of all evil and love of truth.
But it revealed to her that her husband had had a mistress for two years, a young widow, Mme. Rosset, at whose house he spent all his evenings.
She knew neither how to pretend nor to dissimulate, to spy or to plan any sort of ruse. When he returned for luncheon, she threw him the letter, sobbing, and then fled from the room.
He had time to understand the matter and prepare his answer before he rapped at his wife’s door. She opened it immediately, without looking at him. He smiled, sat down, and drew her to his knee. In a sweet voice, and a little jocosely, he said:
“My dear little one, Mme. Rosset is a friend of mine. I have known her for ten years and like her very much. I may add that I know twenty other families of whom I have not spoken to you, knowing that you care nothing for the world or for forming new friendships. But in order to end, once for all, these infamous lies, I will ask you to dress yourself, after luncheon, and we will go to pay a visit to this young lady, who will become your friend at once, I am sure.”
She embraced her husband eagerly; and, from feminine curiosity, which never sleeps once it has been aroused, she did not refuse to go to see this unknown woman, of whom, in spite of everything, she was still suspicious. She felt by instinct that a known danger is sooner overcome.
They were ushered into a pretty little apartment on the fourth floor of a handsome house, full of bric-a-brac and artistically decorated. After about five minutes’ waiting, in a drawing room where the light was dimmed by draperies, hangings, and curtains tastefully arranged, a door opened and a young woman appeared. She was very dark, small, rather plump, and looked astonished, although she smiled. Georges presented them. “My wife, Madame Julie Rosset.”
The young widow uttered a little cry of astonishment and joy, and came forward with both hands extended. She had not hoped for this happiness, she said, knowing that Madame Baron saw no one. But she was so happy! She was so fond of Georges! (She said “Georges” quite naturally, with sisterly familiarity.) And she had had a great desire to know his young wife, and to love her, too.
At the end of a month these two friends were never apart from each other. They met every day, often twice a day, and nearly always dined together, either at one house or at the other. Georges scarcely ever went out now, no longer alleging business engagements, but he said he loved his own chimney corner.
And when finally an apartment was vacant in the house where Madame Rosset resided, Madame Baron hastened to take it in order to be nearer her new friend.
During two whole years there was a friendship between them without a cloud, a friendship of heart and soul, absolute, tender, devoted, and delightful. Berthe could not speak without mentioning Julie’s name, for to her Julie represented perfection. She was happy with a perfect happiness, calm and secure.
But Madame Rosset fell ill. Berthe never left her. She passed nights of despair; her husband, too, was brokenhearted.
One morning, on coming out from his visit the doctor took Georges and his wife aside, and announced that he found the condition of their friend very grave.
When he had gone out, the young people, stricken down, looked at each other and then began to weep. They both watched at night by the bedside. Every moment Berthe would embrace the sick woman tenderly, while Georges, standing silently at the foot of her couch, would look at them with dogged persistence. The next day she was worse.
Finally, toward evening, she declared herself better, and persuaded her friends to go home to dinner.
They were sitting sadly at table, scarcely eating anything, when the maid brought Georges an envelope. He opened it, turned pale, and rising, said to his wife, in a constrained way: “Excuse me, I must leave you for a moment. I will return in ten minutes. Please don’t go out.” And he ran into his room for his hat.
Berthe waited, tortured by a new fear. But, yielding in all things, she would not go up to her friend’s room again until he had returned.
As he did not reappear, the thought came to her to look in his room to see whether he had taken his gloves, which would show whether he had really gone somewhere.
She saw them there, at first glance. Near them lay a crumpled paper, where he had thrown it.
She recognized it immediately; it was the one that had just been given to Georges.
And a burning temptation took possession of her, the first of her life, to read—to know. Her conscience struggled in revolt, but the itch of an exacerbated and cruel curiosity impelled her hand. She seized the paper, opened it, recognized at once the handwriting as that of Julie, a trembling hand, written in pencil. She read:
“Come alone and embrace me, my poor dear; I am going to die.”
She could not understand it all at once, but stood stupefied, struck especially by the thought of death. Then, suddenly, the familiarity of it seized upon her mind. This came like a great light, illuminating her whole life, showing her the infamous truth, all their treachery, all their perfidy. She saw now their prolonged cunning, their sly looks, her good faith abused, her confidence deceived. She saw them looking into each other’s face, under the shade of her lamp in the evening, reading from the same book, exchanging glances at the end of the pages.
And her heart, stirred with indignation, bruised with suffering, sank into an abyss of despair that had no boundaries.
When she heard steps, she fled and shut herself in her room.
Her husband called her: “Come quickly, Madame Rosset is dying!”
Berthe appeared at her door and said with trembling lip:
“Go alone to her; she has no need of me.”
He looked at her wildly, dazed with grief, and repeated:
“Quick, quick! She is dying!”
Berthe answered: “You would prefer if it were I.”
Then he understood, probably, and left her to herself, going up again to the dying woman.
There he wept without fear, or shame, indifferent to the grief of his wife, who would no longer speak to him, nor look at him, but who lived shut in with her disgust and angry revolt, praying to God morning and evening.
They lived together, nevertheless, eating together face to face, mute and hopeless.
After a time, he recovered his calm, but she would not pardon him. And so life continued hard for them both.
For a whole year they lived thus, strangers one to the other. Berthe almost became mad.
Then one morning, having set out at dawn, she returned about eight o’clock, carrying in both hands an enormous bouquet of roses, of white roses, all white.
She sent word to her husband that she would like to speak to him. He came in disturbed, troubled.
“Let us go out together,” she said to him. “Take these flowers, they are too heavy for me.”
He took the bouquet and followed his wife. A carriage awaited them, which started as soon as they were seated.
It stopped before the gate of a cemetery. Then Berthe, her eyes full of tears, said to Georges: “Take me to her grave.”
He trembled, without knowing why, but walked on in front, holding the flowers in his arms. Finally he stopped before a shaft of white marble and pointed to it without a word.
She took the bouquet from him, and, kneeling, placed it at the foot of the grave. Then she sank into an unfamiliar prayer of supplication.
Her husband stood behind her, weeping, haunted by memories.
She arose and put out her hands to him.
“If you wish, we will be friends,” she said.