All Veziers-le-Rethel had followed the funeral procession of M. Badon-
Leremince to the grave, and the last words of the funeral oration
pronounced by the delegate of the district remained in the minds of all:
"He was an honest man, at least!"
An honest man he had been in all the known acts of his life, in his
words, in his examples, his attitude, his behavior, his enterprises, in
the cut of his beard and the shape of his hats. He never had said a word
that did not set an example, never had given an alms without adding a
word of advice, never had extended his hand without appearing to bestow a
benediction.
He left two children, a boy and a girl. His son was counselor general,
and his daughter, having married a lawyer, M. Poirel de la Voulte, moved
in the best society of Veziers.
They were inconsolable at the death of their father, for they loved him
sincerely.
As soon as the ceremony was over, the son, daughter and son-in-law
returned to the house of mourning, and, shutting themselves in the
library, they opened the will, the seals of which were to be broken by
them alone and only after the coffin had been placed in the ground.
This wish was expressed by a notice on the envelope.
M. Poirel de la Voulte tore open the envelope, in his character of a
lawyer used to such operations, and having adjusted his spectacles, he
read in a monotonous voice, made for reading the details of contracts:
My children, my dear children, I could not sleep the eternal sleep
in peace if I did not make to you from the tomb a confession, the
confession of a crime, remorse for which has ruined my life. Yes,
I committed a crime, a frightful, abominable crime.
I was twenty-six years old, and I had just been called to the bar in
Paris, and was living the life off young men from the provinces who
are stranded in this town without acquaintances, relatives, or
friends.
I took a sweetheart. There are beings who cannot live alone. I was
one of those. Solitude fills me with horrible anguish, the solitude
of my room beside my fire in the evening. I feel then as if I were
alone on earth, alone, but surrounded by vague dangers, unknown and
terrible things; and the partition that separates me from my
neighbor, my neighbor whom I do not know, keeps me at as great a
distance from him as the stars that I see through my window. A sort
of fever pervades me, a fever of impatience and of fear, and the
silence of the walls terrifies me. The silence of a room where one
lives alone is so intense and so melancholy It is not only a silence
of the mind; when a piece of furniture cracks a shudder goes through
you for you expect no noise in this melancholy abode.
How many times, nervous and timid from this motionless silence, I
have begun to talk, to repeat words without rhyme or reason, only to
make some sound. My voice at those times sounds so strange that I
am afraid of that, too. Is there anything more dreadful than
talking to one's self in an empty house? One's voice sounds like
that of another, an unknown voice talking aimlessly, to no one, into
the empty air, with no ear to listen to it, for one knows before
they escape into the solitude of the room exactly what words will be
uttered. And when they resound lugubriously in the silence, they
seem no more than an echo, the peculiar echo of words whispered by
ones thought.
My sweetheart was a young girl like other young girls who live in
Paris on wages that are insufficient to keep them. She was gentle,
good, simple. Her parents lived at Poissy. She went to spend
several days with them from time to time.
For a year I lived quietly with her, fully decided to leave her when
I should find some one whom I liked well enough to marry. I would
make a little provision for this one, for it is an understood thing
in our social set that a woman's love should be paid for, in money
if she is poor, in presents if she is rich.
But one day she told me she was enceinte. I was thunderstruck, and
saw in a second that my life would be ruined. I saw the fetter that
I should wear until my death, everywhere, in my future family life,
in my old age, forever; the fetter of a woman bound to my life
through a child; the fetter of the child whom I must bring up, watch
over, protect, while keeping myself unknown to him, and keeping him
hidden from the world.
I was greatly disturbed at this news, and a confused longing, a
criminal desire, surged through my mind; I did not formulate it, but
I felt it in my heart, ready to come to the surface, as if some one
hidden behind a portiere should await the signal to come out. If
some accident might only happen! So many of these little beings die
before they are born!
Oh! I did not wish my sweetheart to die! The poor girl, I loved
her very much! But I wished, possibly, that the child might die
before I saw it.
He was born. I set up housekeeping in my little bachelor apartment,
an imitation home, with a horrible child. He looked like all
children; I did not care for him. Fathers, you see, do not show
affection until later. They have not the instinctive and passionate
tenderness of mothers; their affection has to be awakened gradually,
their mind must become attached by bonds formed each day between
beings that live in each other's society.
A year passed. I now avoided my home, which was too small, where
soiled linen, baby-clothes and stockings the size of gloves were
lying round, where a thousand articles of all descriptions lay on
the furniture, on the arm of an easy-chair, everywhere. I went out
chiefly that I might not hear the child cry, for he cried on the
slightest pretext, when he was bathed, when he was touched, when he
was put to bed, when he was taken up in the morning, incessantly.
I had made a few acquaintances, and I met at a reception the woman
who was to be your mother. I fell in love with her and became
desirous to marry her. I courted her; I asked her parents' consent
to our marriage and it was granted.
I found myself in this dilemma: I must either marry this young girl
whom I adored, having a child already, or else tell the truth and
renounce her, and happiness, my future, everything; for her parents,
who were people of rigid principles, would not give her to me if
they knew.
I passed a month of horrible anguish, of mortal torture, a month
haunted by a thousand frightful thoughts; and I felt developing in
me a hatred toward my son, toward that little morsel of living,
screaming flesh, who blocked my path, interrupted my life, condemned
me to an existence without hope, without all those vague
expectations that make the charm of youth.
But just then my companion's mother became ill, and I was left alone
with the child.
It was in December, and the weather was terribly cold. What a
night!
