Claude's Confession and Other Early Novels of Émile Zola. Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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her; her arms, still stiff and wide open, were thrown over the edges of the bed. I could not at first judge of her beauty: her head, thrown backward, was concealed by her flood of hair.
I took her in my arms, straightened out her limbs and placed her upon her back. Then I drew away the hair from her face. She was ugly: her closed eyes had no lashes, her temples were low and retiring, her mouth large and sunken. Premature old age had effaced the outlines of her features and left upon her whole countenance an imprint of lassitude and avidity.
She was sleeping. I heaped over her feet all the rags within my reach; then I raised her head by putting under it more old clothes which I had found and rolled into a bundle. My science being limited to these cares, I decided to wait until she awoke. I feared lest she might have another attack, fall and wound herself.
I examined the garret. On entering I had noticed a strong perfume of musk, which, mingling with the sharp odor of the dampness, struck strangely upon the sense of smell. Upon the mantelpiece was a row of vials and little pots, still greasy with aromatic oils. Above hung a cracked looking-glass, with the amalgam at the back gone in broad patches. In addition, the walls were bare. Many things lay about on the floor: satin shoes down at the heel, dirty linen, faded ribbons, rags of lace. As I went along, scattering the tatters with my foot to make a passage for myself, I came across a handsome dress of blue silk, ornamented with bows of velvet. It had been thrown into a corner among the other gewgaws, rolled up, rumpled, stained yet with the mud of the town. I raised it and hung it on a nail.
Weary and finding no chair, I sat down on the foot of the bed. I began to understand where I was. The girl still slept; she was now plainly visible. I thought I had made a mistake in declaring her ugly, and looked at her with greater attention. An easier sleep had brought to her lips a vague smile; her features were relaxed; her past suffering had given a sort of gentle and sad beauty to her ugliness. She reposed, sorrowful and resigned. Her soul seemed to have taken advantage of her rest to mount to her face.
I was amid unclean want, a strange assemblage of blue silk and filth. This garret was the infamous den of famished luxury selling its satiety; this girl was one of those old wretches of twenty, no longer having anything of the woman about them but the fatal stamp of their sex, vending that mortality which Heaven has left them in withdrawing their souls. How could so much slime be in a single being, so many stains on a single heart! God roughly smites His creature when He allows her to tear her robe of innocence and assume the wretched garments of vice! In our visions of love, we never dreamed that some night we should find a miserable bed in a garret full of gloom, and, upon that bed, a girl of the gutter, asleep and half clad!
The unfortunate creature was evidently under the caressing wing of a dream; gentle and regular breath escaped from her lips; over her languidly closed eyelids at times ran a faint quiver. I leaned upon the bed; my glance could not loosen itself from that pale face, beautiful with a strange beauty. I know not what fascination was exerted upon me by this peaceful sleep of vice, these faded features, stamped in their repose with an angelic mildness. I said to myself that this slumbering girl was receiving a visit from her sixteenth year, and that thus purity itself was before me. This thought filled my mind; if any other mingled with it I did not know it. I no longer felt the cold, but I trembled. My veins throbbed with an unknown fever. My reverie rambled on, more uneasy and more sorrowful.
The girl uttered a sigh, and turned over. She threw back the coverlet, exposing her bust.
My dreams had shown me only chaste statues, always veiled by dazzling brightness. I had seen but the arms of washerwomen, gayly beating their linen. Sometimes, perhaps, my glance had strayed over the white and delicate neck of a danseuse, when, getting the better of my heart, I had felt my thoughts troubled by the sweep of her flaxen tresses.
This roughly uncovered bust made me blush, and filled me with such anguish that I was on the point of weeping. I was ashamed for the young woman’s sake; I felt my purity departing as I gazed at her. Nevertheless, I could not turn away my eyes; I followed the gentle undulations of her breast, and was dazzled by its whiteness. My senses were still silent; my mind alone was intoxicated. My impressions had a charm so strange that I can now compare them only to the holy horror that shook me the day I beheld a corpse for the first time. My imagination had represented death to me. But when I saw that bluish face, that black and open mouth, when destruction showed itself in its energetic grandeur, I could not withdraw my glances from the dead, for I was quivering with a sorrowful delight, I was attracted by I know not what glimmer of reality.
Thus, the first bare throat held me palpitating with an emotion I am unable to define.
And it was a bust bruised by harsh caresses upon which my eyes rested! Ah! when I now think of it, of that frightened ecstasy which restrained my breath, when I again see myself bent over that infamous couch, uneasy and blushing, I ask myself with anguish who will restore to me that first glance that I may bend and blush over the couch of purity! I ask myself who will restore to me the instant when the veil falls from the shoulders of the bride, when the bridegroom comprehends that the choicest gift of Heaven is his and bows his head, dazzled by the knowledge! I have drunk to intoxication from a perilous cup; I shall never realize what splendor a bride has in the eyes of a young and innocent husband.
The girl awoke and smiled, without seeming astonished to find me near her. Her smile was vague, as if addressed to a crowd, as if weary of being upon her lips. She did not speak, but put out her arms towards me.
In the morning, when I returned to my garret, I found my candles entirely burned away and the fire on my hearth long dead. The chamber was cold and sombre: I no longer had either flame or brightness.
CHAPTER V.
PAQUERETTE.
BROTHERS, where is the sweetheart, queen of the lakes and clouds, or the harvest brunette whose glance is so deep as to suffice for a life of love?
Well, all is over: I have belied my youth; I am the fiancé of vice. The remembrance of my first hour of love is closely bound to that of an infamous den, of a couch over which strange kisses float. When, during the May nights, I shall evoke my fiancée, I shall see arise a half-clad, cynical girl, awaking and putting out her arms towards me. This pale and stained spectre will be a participant in all my love-affairs. It will stand between my mouth and that of my bride, claiming the kisses of my soiled lips. When I am asleep, it will visit me in a horrible dream. When my sweetheart shall whisper in my ear some delicious word, it will be there to tell me that it was the first to talk thus to me. When I shall lean my head upon the shoulder of my bride, it will present to me its shoulder on which I once reposed. Thus it will ever freeze my heart with the accursed remembrance of our betrothal.
Yes, that night has sufficed to deprive me of supreme peace. My first kiss has not awakened a soul. I have not felt the holy ignorance of pure caresses, my timid lips have not found lips as timid as themselves. I shall never experience that simple playfulness, that innocence of a couple who know not the ways of the world. They tremble, embrace, and weep for joy. But, as they kiss each other, hesitatingly, they realize that they are one, that their hearts beat in unison, and that God has joined them for the voyage of life.
Then, when this knowledge has come, when they have in a kiss divined the law of the Omnipotent, what must be their delight to owe to each other this revelation, this infinitude of joy! They have participated in a common blessing: they have put on their white robes and now are clad like the cherubim. Mingling their very breath, smiling with the same smile, they repose in their union. Holy hour, in which hearts beat more freely, finding a heaven to which they can ascend. Sainted hour, in which ignorant love suddenly learns the full measure of its strength, believes itself the master of the universe and is intoxicated with its first flight. Brothers, may God keep for you that hour, the remembrance of which perfumes one’s entire life. It will never be mine.
Such is fate. It is rare that two pure hearts meet; nearly always one heart of any twain can no longer give its ecstasy in its flower. To-day, most young men of twenty like ourselves, who are eager to