A life of torment then began. In the course of a fortnight she was only able to call on three occasions; and she arrived panting, having but a few minutes at her disposal, for it so happened that the old lady had just then become very exacting. Claude questioned her, feeling uneasy at seeing her look so pale and out of sorts, with her eyes bright with fever. Never had that pious house, that vault, without air or light, where she died of boredom, caused her so much suffering. Her fits of giddiness had come upon her again; the want of exercise made the blood throb in her temples. She owned to him that she had fainted one evening in her room, as if she had been suddenly strangled by a leaden hand. Still she did not say a word against her employer; on the contrary, she softened on speaking of her: the poor creature, so old and so infirm, and so kind-hearted, who called her daughter! She felt as if she were committing a wicked act each time that she forsook her to hurry to her lover’s.
Two more weeks went by, and the falsehoods with which Christine had to buy, as it were, each hour of liberty became intolerable to her. She loved, she would have liked to proclaim it aloud, and her feelings revolted at having to hide her love like a crime, at having to lie basely, like a servant afraid of being sent away.
At last, one evening in the studio, at the moment when she was leaving, she threw herself with a distracted gesture into Claude’s arms, sobbing with suffering and passion. ‘Ah! I cannot, I cannot—keep me with you; prevent me from going back.’
He had caught hold of her, and was almost smothering her with kisses.
‘You really love me, then! Oh, my darling! But I am so very poor, and you would lose everything. Can I allow you to forego everything like this?’
She sobbed more violently still; her halting words were choked by her tears.
‘The money, eh? which she might leave me? Do you think I calculate? I have never thought of it, I swear it to you! Ah! let her keep everything and let me be free! I have no ties, no relatives; can’t I be allowed to do as I like?’
Then, in a last sob of agony: ‘Ah, you are right; it’s wrong to desert the poor woman. Ah! I despise myself. I wish I had the strength. But I love you too much, I suffer too much; surely you won’t let me die?’
‘Oh!’ he cried in a passionate transport. ‘Let others die, there are but we two on earth.’
It was all so much madness. Christine left Madame Vanzade in the most brutal fashion. She took her trunk away the very next morning. She and Claude had at once remembered the deserted old house at Bennecourt, the giant rose-bushes, the immense rooms. Ah! to go away, to go away without the loss of an hour, to live at the world’s end in all the bliss of their passion! She clapped her hands for very joy. He, still smarting from his defeat, at the Salon, and anxious to recover from it, longed for complete rest in the country; yonder he would find the real ‘open air,’ he would work away with grass up to his neck and bring back masterpieces. In a couple of days everything was ready, the studio relinquished, the few household chattels conveyed to the railway station. Besides, they met with a slice of luck, for Papa Malgras gave some five hundred francs for a score of sketches, selected from among the waifs and strays of the removal. Thus they would be able to live like princes. Claude still had his income of a thousand francs a year; Christine, too, had saved some money, besides having her outfit and dresses. And away they went; it was perfect flight, friends avoided and not even warned by letter, Paris despised and forsaken amid laughter expressive of relief.