Strong as Death

“Dear me! anything you like! Give her a volume of Victor Hugo.”

“‘La Legende des Siecles?’”

“That will do.”

“Little one, sit down here,” he continued, “and take this volume of verse. Look for page – page 336, where you will find a poem entitled ‘Les Pauvres Gens.’ Absorb it, as one drinks the best wines, slowly, word by word, and let it intoxicate you and move you. Then close the book, raise your eyes, think and dream. Now I will go and prepare my brushes.”

He went into a corner to put the colors on his palette, but while emptying on the thin board the leaden tubes whence issued slender, twisting snakes of color, he turned from time to time to look at the young girl absorbed in her reading.

His heart was oppressed, his fingers trembled; he no longer knew what he was doing, and he mingled the tones as he mixed the little piles of paste, so strongly did he feel once more before this apparition, before that resurrection, in that same place, after twelve years, an irresistible flood of emotion overwhelming his heart.

Now Annette had finished her reading and was looking straight before her. Approaching her, Olivier saw in her eyes two bright drops which, breaking forth, ran down her cheeks. He was startled by one of those shocks that make a man forget himself, and turning toward the Countess he murmured:

“God! how beautiful she is!”

But he remained stupefied before the livid and convulsed face of Madame de Guilleroy. Her large eyes, full of a sort of terror, gazed at her daughter and the painter. He approached her, suddenly touched with anxiety.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“I wish to speak to you.”

Rising, she said quickly to Annette; “Wait a moment, my child; I have a word to say to Monsieur Bertin.”

She passed swiftly into the little drawing-room near by, where he often made his visitors wait. He followed her, his head confused, understanding nothing. As soon as they were alone, she seized his hands and stammered:

“Olivier! Olivier, I beg you not to make her pose for you!”

“But why?” he murmured, disturbed.

“Why? Why?” she said precipitately. “He asks it! You do not feel it, then yourself? Why? Oh, I should have guessed it sooner myself, but I only discovered it this moment. I cannot tell you anything now. Go and find my daughter. Tell her that I am ill; fetch a cab, and come to see me in an hour. I will receive you alone.”

“But, really, what is the matter with you?”

She seemed on the verge of hysterics.

“Leave me! I cannot speak here. Get my daughter and call a cab.”

He had to obey and reentered the studio. Annette, unsuspicious, had resumed her reading, her heart overflowing with sadness by the poetic and lamentable story.

“Your mother is indisposed,” said Olivier. “She became very ill when she went into the other room. I will take some ether to her.”

He went out, ran to get a flask from his room and returned.

He found them weeping in each other’s arms. Annette, moved by “Les Pauvres Gens,” allowed her feelings full sway, and the Countess was somewhat solaced by blending her grief with that sweet sorrow, in mingling her tears with those of her daughter.

He waited for some time, not daring to speak; he looked at them, his own heart oppressed with an incomprehensible melancholy.

“Well,” said he at last. “Are you better?”

“Yes, a little,” the Countess replied. “It was nothing. Have you ordered a carriage?”

“Yes, it will come directly.”

“Thank you, my friend – it is nothing. I have had too much grief for a long time.”

“The carriage is here,” a servant announced.

And Bertin, full of secret anguish, escorted his friend, pale and almost swooning, to the door, feeling her heart throb against his arm.

When he was alone he asked himself what was the matter with her, and why had she made this scene. And he began to seek a reason, wandering around the truth without deciding to discover it. Finally, he began to suspect. “Well,” he said to himself, “is it possible she believes that I am making love to her daughter? No, that would be too much!” And, combating with ingenious and loyal arguments that supposititious conviction, he felt indignant that she had lent for an instant to this healthy and almost paternal affection any suspicion of gallantry. He became more and more irritated against the Countess, utterly unwilling to concede that she had dared suspect him of such villainy, of an infamy so unqualifiable; and he resolved, when the time should come for him to answer her, that he would not soften the expression of his resentment.

He soon left his studio to go to her house, impatient for an explanation. All along the way he prepared, with a growing irritation, the arguments and phrases that must justify him and avenge him for such a suspicion.

He found her on her lounge, her face changed by suffering.

“Well,” said he, drily, “explain to me, my dear friend, the strange scene that has just occurred.”

“What, you have not yet understood it?” she said, in a broken voice.

“No, I confess I have not.”

“Come, Olivier, search your own heart well.”

“My heart?”

“Yes, at the bottom of your heart.”

“I don’t understand. Explain yourself better.”

“Look well into the depths of your heart, and see whether you find nothing there that is dangerous for you and for me.”

“I repeat that I do not comprehend you. I guess that there is something in your imagination, but in my own conscience I see nothing.”

“I am not speaking of your conscience, but of your heart.”

“I cannot guess enigmas. I entreat you to be more clear.”

Then, slowing raising her hands, she took the hands of the painter and held them; then, as if each word broke her heart, she said:

“Take care, my friend, or you will fall in love with my daughter!”

He withdrew his hands abruptly, and with the vivacity of innocence which combats a shameful accusation, with animated gesture and increasing excitement, he defended himself, accusing her in her turn of having suspected him unjustly.

She let him talk for some time, obstinately incredulous, sure of what she had said. Then she resumed:

“But I do not suspect you, my friend. You were ignorant of what was passing within you, as I was ignorant of it until this morning. You treat me as if I had accused you of wishing to seduce Annette. Oh, no, no! I know how loyal you are, worthy of all esteem and of every confidence. I only beg you, I entreat you to look into the depths of your heart and see whether the affection which, in spite of yourself, you are beginning to have for my daughter, has not a characteristic a little different from simple friendship.”

Now he was offended, and, growing still more excited, he began once more to plead his loyalty, just as he argued all alone in the street.