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.
CHAPTER XXVII
[MARIE'S DEATH]
I have reached that plenitude of despair which is almost rest. I cannot suffer additionally; this certainty that nothing can augment my tears is a solace. My being has torn itself to such an extent that it has stopped in pity. To-day, I can only wipe away my tears.
And yet I feel that I have need of Heaven to be cured. I have the brutishness of pain, I have not the tranquil joy of health. If my wounds cannot be enlarged, they cannot remain open, bleeding drop by drop, with inexorable suffering.
Brothers, the hand which is to close them is a terrible hand, the hand of death and truth.