Эмиль Золя
Abbe Mouret's Transgression
‘Let us go back to the shade,’ begged Serge. ‘You can sit down there as you did just now, and I will lie at your feet and talk to you.’
Where they stood the sun rays fell like torrential rain. It was as if the triumphant orb seized upon the shadowless ground, and strained it to his blazing breast. Albine grew faint, staggered, and turned to Serge for support.
But the moment they felt each other’s touch, they fell together without even a word. It was as though the very rock beneath them had opened, as though they were ever going down and down. Their hands sought each other caressingly, embracingly, but such keen anguish did they experience that they suddenly tore themselves apart, and fled, each in a different direction. Serge did not cease running till he had reached the pavilion, and had thrown himself upon his bed, his brain on fire, and despair in his heart. Albine did not return till nightfall, after hours of weeping in a corner of the garden. It was the first time that they had not returned home together, tired after their long wanderings. For three days they kept apart, feeling terribly unhappy.
XIII
Yet now the park was entirely their own. They had taken sovereign possession of it. There was not a corner of it that was not theirs to use as they willed. For them alone the thickets of roses put forth their blossoms, and the parterre exhaled its soft perfume, which lulled them to sleep as they lay at night with their windows open. The orchard provided them with food, filling Albine’s skirts with fruits, and spread over them the shade of its perfumed boughs, under which it was so pleasant to breakfast in the early morning. Away in the meadows the grass and the streams were all theirs; the grass, which extended their kingdom to such boundless distance, spreading an endless silky carpet before them; and the streams, which were the best of their joys, emblematic of their own purity and innocence, ever offering them coolness and freshness in which they delighted to bathe their youth. The forest, too, was entirely theirs, from the mighty oaks, which ten men could not have spanned, to the slim birches which a child might have snapped; the forest, with all its trees, all its shade, all its avenues and clearings, its cavities of greenery, of which the very birds themselves were ignorant; the forest which they used as they listed, as if it were a giant canopy, beneath which they might shelter from the noontide heat their new-born love. They reigned everywhere, even among the rocks and the springs, even over that gruesome stretch of ground that teemed with such hideous growth, and which had seemed to sink and give way beneath their feet, but which they loved yet even more than the soft grassy couches of the garden, for the strange thrill of passion they had felt there.
Thus, now, in front of them, behind them, to the right of them and to the left, all was theirs. They had gained possession of the whole domain, and they walked through a friendly expanse which knew them, and smiled kindly greetings to them as they passed, devoting itself to their pleasure, like a faithful and submissive servitor. The sky, with its vast canopy of blue overhead, was also theirs to enjoy. The park walls could not enclose it, their eyes could ever revel in its beauty, and it entered into the joy of their life, at daytime with its triumphal sun, at night with its golden rain of stars. At every moment of the day it delighted them afresh, its expression ever varying. In the early morning it was pale as a maiden just risen from her slumber; at noon, it was flushed, radiant as with a longing for fruitfulness, and in the evening it became languid and breathless, as after keen enjoyment. Its countenance was constantly changing. Particularly in the evenings, at the hour of parting, did it delight them. The sun, hastening towards the horizon, ever found a fresh smile. Sometimes he disappeared in the midst of serene calmness, unflecked by a single cloud, sinking gradually beneath a golden sea. At other times he threw out crimson glories, tore his vaporous robe to shreds, and set amidst wavy flames that streaked the skies like the tails of gigantic comets, whose radiant heads lit up the crests of the forest trees. Then, again, extinguishing his rays one by one, he would softly sink to rest on shores of ruddy sand, far-reaching banks of blushing coral; and then, some other night, he would glide away demurely behind a heavy cloud that figured the grey hangings of some alcove, through which the eye could only detect a spark like that of a night-light. Or else he would rush to his couch in a tumult of passion, rolled round with white forms which gradually crimsoned beneath his fiery embraces, and finally disappeared with him below the horizon in a confused chaos of gleaming, struggling limbs.
It was only the plants which had not made their submission. Albine and Serge passed like monarchs through the kingdom of animals, who rendered them humble and loyal obeisance. When they crossed the parterre, flights of butterflies arose to delight their eyes, to fan them with quivering wings, and to follow in their train like living sunbeams or flying blossoms. In the orchard, they were greeted by the birds that banqueted in the fruit-trees. The sparrows, the chaffinches, the golden orioles, the bullfinches, showed them the ripest fruit scarred by their hungry beaks; and while they sat astride the branches and breakfasted, birds twittered and sported round them like children at play, and even purloined the fruit beneath their very feet. Albine found even more amusement in the meadows, where she caught the little green frogs with eyes of gold, that lay squatting amongst the reeds, absorbed in contemplation; while Serge, with a piece of straw, poked the crickets out of their hiding-places, or tickled the grasshoppers to make them sing. He picked up insects of all colours, blue ones, red ones, yellow ones, and set them creeping upon his sleeve, where they gleamed and glittered like buttons of sapphire and ruby and topaz.
Then there was all the mysterious life of the streams; the grey-backed fishes that threaded the dim waters, the eels whose presence was betrayed by a slight quivering of the water-plants, the young fry, which dispersed like blackish sand at the slightest sound, the long-legged flies and the water-beetles that ruffled into circling silvery ripples the stagnant surface of the pools; all that silent teeming life which drew them to the water and impelled them to dabble and stand in it, so that they might feel those millions of existences ever and ever gliding past their limbs. At other times, when the day was hot and languid, they would betake themselves beneath the voiceful shade of the forest and listen to the serenades of their musicians, the clear fluting of the nightingales, the silvery bugle-notes of the tomtits, and the far-off accompaniment of the cuckoos. They gazed with delight upon the swift flight of the pheasants, whose plumes gleamed like sudden sun rays amidst the branches, and with a smile they stayed their steps to let a troop of young roebucks bound past, or else a couple of grave stags that slackened their pace to look at them. Again, on other days they would climb up amongst the rocks, when the sun was blazing in the heavens, and find a pleasure in watching the swarms of grasshoppers which at the sound of their footsteps arose with a great crepitation of wings from the beds of thyme. The snakes that lay uncoiled beneath the parched bushes, or the lizards that sprawled over the red-hot stones, watched them with friendly eyes.
Of all the life that thus teemed round them in the park, Albine and Serge had only become really conscious since the day when a kiss had awakened them to life themselves. Now it deafened them at times, and spoke to them in a language which they did not understand. It was that life – all the voices of the animal creation, all the perfumes and soft shadows of the flowers and trees – which perturbed them to such a point as to make them angry with one another. And yet throughout the whole park they found nothing but loving familiarity. Every plant and every creature was their friend. All the Paradou was one great caress.
Before they had come thither, the sun had for a whole century reigned over it in lonely majesty. The garden, then, had known no other master; it had beheld him, every morning, scaling the boundary wall with his slanting rays, at noontide it had seen him pour his vertical heat upon the panting soil; and at evening it had seen him go off, on the other side, with a kiss of farewell upon its foliage. And so the garden had no shyness; it welcomed Albine and Serge, as it had so long welcomed the sun, as pleasant companions, with whom one puts on no ceremony. The animals, the trees, the streams, the rocks, all continued in an unrestrained state of nature, speaking aloud, living openly, without a secret, displaying the innocent shamelessness, the hearty tenderness of the world’s first days. Serge and Albine, however, suffered from these voluptuous surroundings, and at times felt minded to curse the garden. On the afternoon when Albine had wept so bitterly after their saunter amongst the rocks, she had called out to the Paradou, whose intensity of life and passion filled her with distress:
‘If you really be our friend, why, why do you make us so wretched?’
XIV
The next morning Serge barricaded himself in his room. The perfume from the garden irritated him. He drew the calico curtains closely across the window to shut out the sight of the park. Perhaps he thought he might recover all his old serenity and calm if he shut himself off from that greenery, whose shade sent such passionate thrills quivering through him.
During the long hours they spent together, Albine and he never now spoke of the rocks or the streams, the trees or the sky. The Paradou might no longer have been in existence. They strove to forget it. And yet they were all the time conscious of its presence on the other side of those slight curtains. Scented breezes forced their way in through the interstices of the window frame, the many voices of nature made the panes resound. All the life of the park laughed, chattered, and whispered in ambush beneath their window. As it reached them their cheeks would pale and they would raise their voices, seeking some occupation which might prevent them from hearing it.
‘Have you noticed,’ said Serge one morning during these uneasy intervals, ‘there is a painting of a woman over the door there? She is like you.’
He laughed noisily as he finished speaking. They both turned to the paintings and dragged the table once more alongside the wall, with a nervous desire to occupy themselves.
‘Oh! no,’ murmured Albine. ‘She is much fatter than I am. But one can’t see her very well; her position is so queer.’
They relapsed into silence. From the decayed, faded painting a scene, which they had never before noticed, now showed forth. It was as if the picture had taken shape and substance again beneath the influence of the summer heat. You could sea a nymph with arms thrown back and pliant figure on a bed of flowers which had been strewn for her by young cupids, who, sickle in hand, ever added fresh blossoms to her rosy couch. And nearer, you could also see a cloven-hoofed faun who had surprised her thus. But Albine repeated, ‘No, she is not like me, she is very plain.’
Serge said nothing. He looked at the girl and then at Albine, as though he were comparing them one with the other. Albine pulled up one of her sleeves, as if to show that her arm was whiter than that of the pictured girl. Then they subsided into silence again, and gazed at the painting; and for a moment Albine’s large blue eyes turned to Serge’s grey ones, which were glowing.
‘You have got all the room painted again, then?’ she cried, as she sprang from the table. ‘These people look as though they were all coming to life again.’
They began to laugh, but there was a nervous ring about their merriment as they glanced at the nude and frisking cupids which started to life again on all the panels. They no longer took those survivals of voluptuous eighteenth century art to represent mere children at play. They were disturbed by the sight of them, and as Albine felt Serge’s hot breath on her neck she started and left his side to seat herself on the sofa. ‘They frighten me,’ she murmured. ‘The men are like robbers, and the women, with their dying eyes, look like people who are being murdered.’
Serge sat down in a chair, a little distance away, and began to talk of other matters. But they remained uneasy. They seemed to think that all those painted figures were gazing at them. It was as if the trooping cupids were springing out of the panelling, casting the flowers they held around them, and threatening to bind them together with the blue ribbons which already enchained two lovers in one corner of the ceiling. And the whole story of the nymph and her faun lover, from his first peep at her to his triumph among the flowers, seemed to burst into warm life. Were all those lovers, all those impudent shameless cupids about to step down from their panels and crowd around them? They already seemed to hear their panting sighs, and to feel their breath filling the spacious room with the perfume of voluptuousness.
‘It’s quite suffocating, isn’t it?’ sighed Albine. ‘In spite of every airing I have given it, the room has always seemed close to me!
‘The other night,’ said Serge, ‘I was awakened by such a penetrating perfume, that I called out to you, thinking you had come into the room. It was just like the soft warmth of your hair when you have decked it with heliotropes… In the earlier times it seemed to be wafted to me from a distance, it was like the lingering memory of a perfume; but now I can’t sleep for it, and it is so strong and penetrating that it quite stupefies me. The alcove grows so hot, too, at night that I shall be obliged to lie on the couch.’
Albine laid her fingers on her lips, and whispered, ‘It is the dead girl – she who once lived here.’
They sniffed the odorous air with forced gaiety, but in reality feeling very troubled. Certainly never before had the room exhaled such a disquieting aroma. The very walls seemed to be still echoing the faint rustling of perfumed skirts; and the floor had retained the fragrance of satin slippers dropped by the bedside, and near the head of the bed itself Serge thought he could trace the imprint of a little hand, which had left behind it a clinging scent of violets. Over all the furniture the phantom presence of the dead girl still lingered fragrantly.
‘See, this is the armchair where she used to sit,’ cried Albine; ‘there is the scent of her shoulders at the back of it yet.’
She sat down in it herself, and bade Serge drop upon his knees and kiss her hand.
‘You remember the day when I first let you in and said, “Good morrow, my dear lord!” But that wasn’t all, was it? He kissed her hands when the door was closed. There they are, my hands. They are yours.’
Then they tried to resume their old frolics in order that they might forget the Paradou, whose joyous murmur they heard ever rising outside, and that they might no longer think of the pictures nor yield to the languor-breathing influence of the room. Albine put on an affected manner, leant back in her chair, and finally laughed at the foolish figure which Serge made at her feet.
‘You stupid!’ she said, ‘take me round the waist, and say pretty things to me, since you are supposed to be in love with me. Don’t you know how to make love then?’
But as soon as she felt him clasp her with eager impetuosity, she began to struggle, and freed herself from his embrace.
‘No, no; leave me alone. I can’t bear it. I feel as though I were choking in this room.’
From that day forward they felt the same kind of fear for the room as they already felt for the garden. Their one remaining harbour of refuge was now a place to be shunned and dreaded, a spot where they could no longer find themselves together without watching each other furtively. Albine now scarcely ventured to enter it, but remained near the threshold, with the door wide open behind her so as to afford her an immediate retreat. Serge lived there in solitude, a prey to sickening restlessness, half-stifling, lying on the couch and vainly trying to close his ears to the sighs of the soughing park and his nostrils to the haunting fragrance of the old furniture. At night he dreamt wild passionate dreams, which left him in the morning nervous and disquieted. He believed that he was falling ill again, that he would never recover plenitude of health. For days and days he remained there in silence, with dark rings round his sleepy eyes, only starting into wakefulness when Albine came to visit him. They would remain face to face, gazing at one another sadly, and uttering but a few soft words, which seemed to choke them. Albine’s eyes were even darker than Serge’s, and were filled with an imploring gaze.
Then, after a week had gone by, Albine’s visit never lasted more than a few minutes. She seemed to shun him. When she came to the room, she appeared thoughtful, remained standing, and hurried off as soon as possible. When he questioned her about this change in her demeanour towards him, and reproached her for no longer being friendly, she turned her head away and avoided replying. He never could get her to tell him how she spent the mornings that she passed alone. She would only shake her head, and talk about being very idle. If he pressed her more closely, she bounded out of the room, just wishing him a hasty good-night as she disappeared through the doorway. He often noticed, however, that she had been crying. He observed, too, in her expression the phases of a hope that was never fulfilled, the perpetual struggling of a desire eager to be satisfied. Sometimes she seemed quite overwhelmed with melancholy, dragging herself about with an air of utter discouragement, like one who no longer had any pleasure in living. At other times she laughed lightly, her face shone with an expression of triumphant hope, of which, however, she would not yet speak, and her feet could not remain still, so eager was she to dart away to what seemed to her some last certainty. But on the following day, she would sink again into desperation, to soar afresh on the morrow on the pinions of renewed hope. One thing which she could not conceal from Serge was that she suffered from extreme lassitude. Even during the few moments they spent together she could not prevent her head from nodding, or keep herself from dozing off.
Serge, recognising that she was unwilling to reply, had ceased to question her; and, when she now entered his room, he contented himself with casting an anxious glance at her, fearful lest some evening she should no longer have strength enough to come to him. Where could she thus reduce herself to such exhaustion? What perpetual struggle was it that brought about those alternations of joy and despair? One morning he started at the sound of a light footfall beneath his window. It could not be a roe venturing abroad in that manner. Moreover he could recognise that light footfall. Albine was wandering about the Paradou without him. It was from the Paradou that she returned to him with all those hopes and fears and inward wrestlings, all that lassitude which was killing her. And he could well guess what she was seeking out there, alone in the woody depths, with all the silent obstinacy of a woman who has vowed to effect her purpose. After that he used to listen for her steps. He dared not draw aside the curtain and watch her as she hurried along through the trees; but he experienced strange, almost painful emotion, in listening to ascertain what direction she took, whether she turned to right or to left, whether she went straight on through the flower-beds, and how far her ramble extended. Amidst all the noisy life of the Paradou, amidst the soughing chorus of the trees, the rustling of the streams, and the ceaseless songs of the birds, he could distinguish the gentle pit-pat of her shoes so plainly that he could have told whether she was stepping over the gravel near the rivers, the crumbling mould of the forest, or the bare ledges of the rocks. In time he even learned to tell, from the sound of her nervous footfall, whether she came back hopeful or depressed. As soon as he heard her step on the staircase, he hurried from the window, and he never let her know that he had thus followed her from afar in her wanderings. But she must have guessed it, for with a glance she always afterwards told him where she had been.
‘Stay indoors, and don’t go out,’ he begged her, with clasped hands, one morning when he saw her still unrecovered from the fatigue of the previous day. ‘You drive me to despair.’
But she hastened away in irritation. The garden, now that it rang with Albine’s footfalls, seemed to have a more depressing influence than ever upon Serge. The pit-pat of her feet was yet another voice that called him; an imperious voice that echoed ever more and more loudly within him. He closed his ears and tried to shut out the sound, but the distant footsteps still echoed to him in the throbbings of his heart. And when she came back, in the evening, it was the whole park that came back with her, with the memories of their walks together, and of the slow dawn of their love, in the midst of conniving nature. She seemed to have grown taller and graver, mellowed, matured by her solitary rambles. There was nothing left in her of the frolicsome child, and his teeth would suddenly set at times when he looked at her and beheld her so desirable.
One day, about noon, Serge heard Albine returning in hot haste. He had restrained himself from listening for her steps when she went away. Usually, she did not return till late, and he was amazed at her impetuosity as she sped along, forcing her way through the branches that barred her path. As she passed beneath his window, he heard her laugh; and as she mounted the stairway, she panted so heavily that he almost thought he could feel her hot breath streaming against his face. She threw the door wide open, and cried out: ‘I have found it!’
Then she sat down and repeated softly, breathlessly: ‘I have found it! I have found it!’
Serge, distracted, laid his fingers on her lips, and stammered: ‘Don’t tell me anything, I beg you. I want to know nothing of it. It will kill me, if you speak.’
Then she sank into silence with gleaming eyes and lips tightly pressed lest the words she kept back should spring out in spite of her. And she stayed in the room till evening, trying to meet Serge’s glance, and imparting to him, each time that their eyes met, something of that which she had discovered. Her whole face beamed with radiance, she exhaled a delicious odour, she was full of life; and Serge felt that she permeated him through all his senses. Despairingly did he struggle against this gradual invasion of his being.
On the morrow she returned to his room as soon as she was up.
‘Aren’t you going out?’ he asked, conscious that he would be vanquished should she remain there.
‘No,’ she said; she wasn’t going out any more. As by degrees she recovered from her fatigue he felt her becoming stronger, more triumphant. She would soon be able to take him by the hand and drag him to that spot, whose charm her silence proclaimed so loudly. That day, however, she did not speak; she contented herself with keeping him seated on a cushion at her feet. It was not till the next morning that she ventured to say: ‘Why do you shut yourself up here? It is so pleasant under the trees.’
He rose from her feet, and stretched out his arms entreatingly. But she laughed at him.
‘Well, well, then, we won’t go out, since you would rather not… But this room has such a strange scent, and we should be much more comfortable in the garden. It is very wrong of you to have taken such a dislike to it.’
He had again settled himself at her feet in silence, his eyelids lowered, his features quivering with passionate emotion.
‘We won’t go out,’ she repeated, ‘so don’t worry. But do you really prefer these pictures to the grass and flowers in the park? Do you remember all we saw together? It is these paintings which make us feel so unhappy. They are a nuisance, always looking and watching us as they do.’
As Serge gradually leant more closely against her, she passed her arm round his neck and laid his head upon her lap, while murmuring in yet a lower tone: ‘There is a little corner there I know, where we might be so very happy. Nothing would trouble us there; the fresh air would cool your feverishness.’
Then she stopped, as she felt him quivering. She was afraid lest she might again revive his old fears. But she gradually conquered him merely by the caressing gaze of her blue eyes. His eyelids were now raised, and he rested there quietly, wholly hers, his tremor past.
‘Ah! if you only knew!’ she softly breathed; and seeing that he continued to smile, she went on boldly: ‘It is all a lie; it is not forbidden. You are a man now and ought not to be afraid. If we went there, and any danger threatened me, you would protect me, you would defend me, would you not? You could carry me off on your back, couldn’t you? I am never the least afraid when I have you with me. Look how strong your arms have grown. What is there for any one with such strong arms as yours to be afraid of?’
She caressed him beguilingly as she spoke, stroking his hair and neck and shoulders with her hand.
‘No, it is not forbidden,’ she resumed. ‘That is only a story for stupids, and was invented, long ago, by some one who didn’t want to be disturbed in the most charming spot in the whole garden. As soon as you sat down on that grassy carpet, you would be happy and well again. Listen, then, come with me.’
He shook his head but without any sign of vexation, as though indeed he liked thus being teased. Then after a short silence, grieved to see her pouting, and longing for a renewal of her caresses, he opened his lips and asked: ‘Where is it?’
She did not answer him immediately. Her eyes seemed to be wandering far away: ‘It is over yonder,’ she murmured at last. ‘I cannot explain to you clearly. One has to go down the long avenue, and then to turn to the left, and then again to the left. We must have passed it at least a score of times. You might look for it for ever without finding it, if I didn’t go with you to show you. I could find my way to it quite straight, though I could never explain it to you.’
‘And who took you there?’
‘I don’t know. That morning the trees and plants seemed to drive me there. The long branches pushed me on, the grass bent down before me invitingly, the paths seemed to open expressly for me to take them. And I believe the animals themselves helped to lead me there, for I saw a stag trotting on before me as though he wanted me to follow; while a company of bullfinches flitted on from tree to tree, and warned me with their cries whenever I was about to take a wrong direction.’
‘And is it very beautiful?’
Again she did not reply. Deep ecstasy filled her eyes; at last, when she was able to speak again, she said: ‘Ah! so beautiful, that I could never tell you of it. I was so charmed that I was conscious only of some supreme joy, which I could not name, falling from the leaves and slumbering amid the grass. And I ran back here to take you along with me that I might not be without you.’
Then she clasped her arms round his neck again, and entreated him passionately, her lips almost pressed to his own.
‘Oh! you will come!’ she stammered; ‘you must come; you will make me so miserable if you don’t. You can’t want me to be miserable… And even if you knew that you would die there, even if that shade should be fatal to both of us, would you hesitate or cast a regretful look behind? We should remain there, at the foot of the tree, and sleep on quietly for ever, in one anther’s arms. Ah! would it not be bliss indeed?’
‘Yes, yes!’ he stammered, transported by her passionate entreaties.
‘But we shall not die,’ she continued, raising her voice, and laughing with the laugh which proclaims woman’s victory; ‘we shall live to love each other. It is a tree of life, a tree whose shadow will make us stronger, more perfect, more complete. You will see that all will now go happily. Some blessed joy will assuredly descend on us from heaven! Will you come?’
His face paled, and his eyelids quivered, as though too powerful a light were suddenly beating against them.
‘Will you come? will you come?’ she cried again, yet more passionately, and already half rising to her feet.
He sprang up and followed her, at first with tottering steps and then with his arm thrown round her waist, as if he could endure no separation from her. He went where she went, carried along in the warm fragrance that streamed from her hair. And as he thus remained slightly in the rear, she turned upon him a face so radiant with love, such tempting lips and eyes, which so imperiously bade him follow, that he would have gone with her anywhere, trusting and unquestioning, like a dog.
