“Will you have the kindness to leave me to myself?” said Clotilde to him.
He already had his hand on the revolver in his pocket.
“Why?” asked he, with an effort.
“Because I wish to be alone.”
He thought that she wanted to change her dress, and that she would not even let him see her bare arms, so repugnant he felt was he to her. For an instant he looked at her with his dim eyes, and beheld her so tall, so beautiful, with a complexion clear as marble, her hair gathered up in deep, golden tresses. Ah! if she had only consented, how everything might have been arranged! He rose stumblingly from his chair, and, opening his arms, tried to take hold of her.
“What, now?” murmured she, greatly surprised. “What’s the matter with you? Not here, surely. Have you the other one no longer, then? It is going to begin again, that abomination?”
And she exhibited such utter disgust, that he drew back. Without a word, he left her, stopping in the ante-room as he hesitated for a moment; then, as there was a door facing him, the door of the closet, he pushed it open; and, without the slightest hurry, he sat down. It was a quiet spot, no one would come and disturb him there. He placed the barrel of the little revolver in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Meanwhile, Clotilde, who had been struck since the morning by his strange manner, had listened to ascertain if he were obliging her by returning to Clarisse. On learning where he had gone, by a creak peculiar to that door, she no longer bothered herself about him, and was at length in the act of ringing for Clémence, when the dull report of a fire-arm filled her with surprise. Whatever was it? it was just, like the noise a saloon rifle would make. She hastened to the ante-room, not daring at first to question him; then, as a strange sound issued from where he was, she called him, and, on receiving no answer, opened the door. The bolt had not even been fastened. Duveyrier, stunned by fright more than by the injury he had received, remained squatting, in a most lugubrious posture, his eyes wide open, and his face streaming with blood. He had missed his object. After grazing his jaw, the bullet had passed out again through the left cheek. And he no longer had the courage to fire a second time.
“What! that is what you come to do here?” cried Clotilde quite beside herself. “Just go and kill yourself outside!”
She was most indignant. Instead of softening her, this spectacle threw her into a supreme exasperation. She bullied him, and raised him up without the least precaution, wishing to carry him away so that no one should see him in such a place. In that closet! and to miss killing himself too! It was too much.