CHAPTER XXVI.

      Table of Contents

      AT MARIE’S BEDSIDE.

      I TAKE a sad pleasure in being in Marie’s chamber. In the morning, I go there and sit upon the edge of the dying girl’s bed; I live there as much as possible, departing with regret. Everywhere else, I belong to Laurence, everywhere else, I am feverish, excited and tormented. I hasten to reach this spot of pacification, I enter it with the feeling of confidence and comfort experienced by an invalid who is going to breathe a milder atmosphere, by which he expects to be cured.

      I love death. The chamber is lukewarm, damp; the light there is gray and softened, made up of shadow and white brightness; everything there floats in a final languor, in a soft and dreamy half transparency. One does not know how sweet to a bleeding heart is the silence which reigns in a chamber where a young girl is dying. This silence is a strange, peculiar silence, full of exquisite mildness, full of restrained tears. The sounds — the clink of a glass, the crackling of a piece of furniture — are subdued, drag along like half stifled complaints; the cries from without enter in murmurs of pity, of compassionate encouragement. Everything is held in check, noise as well as light; everything is filled with grief and hope. And, in the shadow, amid the silence, one hears a vague despair which comes from one knows not where, and which accompanies the broken breath of the dying girl.

      I gaze at Marie. I feel myself penetrated, little by little, by that invisible breath of consoling pity which fills the chamber. My eyes rest from their tears in that pale brightness; my ears, amid the quivering silence, forget for an hour the sound of my sobs. All the gentleness, all the delicate attentions, all the faintly uttered and caressing words, intended for Marie, seem as if addressed to me; they subdue the sound of voices and footsteps; they question, they reply, affectionately; they avoid sharp and painful sensations; and, as for me, I believe, at times, that all these considerate precautions are taken that my poor being, full of suffering, may not burst asunder. I imagine that I am dying, that they are taking care of me; I seize my share of the care and consolation; I steal from Marie half of her agony and of the pity it causes; I go there, beside a dying girl, to profit by the regrets and tenderness which men accord to the last hours of a soul. I am curing my love through death.

      I feel that it is the need of being pitied, of being caressed, which pushes me into this chamber. I find here the atmosphere, the pity, necessary for me. Life is too sharp for my painful flesh and my wounded heart; the bright sunlight irritates me; I am at ease only in the restorative seclusion of the tomb. If, some day, I emerge from my despair, I ought to thank God for having permitted me to live thus, seated at the foot of a bed of death, for having allowed me to share the pacification of a dying creature. I will live, because a child expired at my side.

      I gaze at Marie. The fever purifies her flesh from day to day. She is growing younger, she is becoming a little girl, amid the exhaustion of her blood. Her deeply sunken face expresses an ardent longing, the longing for the end, for rest; her eyes are enlarged, her pallid lips remain half open as if to facilitate the passage of the final breath. She is waiting, resigned, almost smiling, as ignorant of death as she has been ignorant of life.

      Sometimes, we look each other in the face for long hours. I know not what thought then arrests the cough upon her lips; she seems filled with a single idea, which suffices to keep her awake, to give her more life and more calmness. Her countenance grows tranquil, pink flushes appear upon her cheeks; her limbs beneath the bed clothes have less stiffness; Marie, under the influence of my glance, stretches herself out, shakes off the iron grasp of death. As for me, I am absorbed in her, I share her sufferings; little by little, it seems to me that I pass in through her half open lips and that I become a part of this sick creature; I experience a gentle and bitter sensation at languishing with her, at slowly sinking away; I feel the inexorable disease take possession of my entire body, shake me with increasing violence, in proportion as my glances penetrate deeper and deeper into those of Marie; I say to myself that I shall die simultaneously with her, and a great flood of joy sweeps through me.

      Oh! what strange fascination and what wonderful pacification I experience! Death is powerful; it has biting temptations, irresistible attractions. One must not lean over the eyes of a dying creature, for they are full of light and so deep that their abysses make one dizzy. One wishes to see what those enlarged eyes behold, one is seized with frightful curiosity in regard to the unknown. Every time Marie looks at me, I desire to die, to leave this world with her, in order that I may know what she will know; I imagine that she is soliciting me, that she is begging me not to abandon her, that she is dreaming we will go away in company, taking the risk of the same annihilation or the same splendor.

      Then, I forget, I forget Laurence. Though I see Laurence in everything, waking or sleeping — in the objects which surround me, in that which I eat and in that which I drink — I do not see Laurence in the depths of Marie’s eyes. I see there only that blue glimmer, paler now, which I saw one night while my lips touched the poor child’s lips. That blue glimmer does not speak to me of my love, does not speak to me of my grief; it is the only thing at which I can gaze without weeping. This is the reason I love Marie’s chamber, this is the reason I love the dying girl with her dilated eyes which have more purity, more gentleness, than the sky, for the sky, when I lift my face towards it, speaks to me of Laurence. I am about to lose myself in this oblivion, in this clear and serene light which is so pure. Perhaps, thereby, my heart will be cured.

      When the night comes on and I can no longer see the blue glimmer in Marie’s eyes, I open the window, I gaze at the black wall. The square patch of yellow light is there, empty or peopled, still and sad or filled with silent movements. I feel a sharp sensation on finding myself again, after several hours of forgetfulness, face to face with reality, face to face with my jealousy and my anguish. Every evening, I recommence the painful and colossal task of giving a meaning to those dark stains which increase in size and roll in a bewildering way over the surface of the wall. I have converted this search into a dolorous recreation. I apply myself to it with an anxious patience, an obstinacy full of fever, and each night I am drawn back to the window, though I promise myself daily that I will no longer risk my reason there.