"Yes, yes, let us go."
XLII.
A strange anxiety harassed me. Sometimes it was like a sort of keen pleasure, a kind of confused joy; sometimes it was like an exasperating impatience and unbearable frenzy; sometimes it was a desire to see some one, to search for some one, to speak, to unbosom myself. At times it was a desire for solitude, a desire to run and shut myself up in some place where I would be alone with myself, where I could look into my soul clearly, where I could follow the development of my idea, examine and study the details of the approaching event, make my preparations. These divers and extraordinary impulses, and still other impulses, innumerable, indefinable, inexplicable, succeeded each other impetuously in my soul with an extraordinary acceleration of my inner life.
The flash that had traversed my brain, that ray of sinister light, seemed all at once to have illuminated a pre-existent state of consciousness, seemed to have awakened a deep layer of my memory. I felt that it was a recollection. But, despite several efforts that I made, I could not recover the origin of this recollection or discover its nature. Without doubt I remembered. Was it the remembrance of something read long ago? Had I found in some book the description of a similar case? Or had some one told me the particulars as having occurred in actual life? Or was that sensation of remembrance illusory; was it only the effect of a mysterious association of ideas? What is certain is, that the means, it seemed to me, had been suggested to me by some strange person. It seemed to me that, all at once, some one had relieved me of all my perplexities by saying: "This is how it must be done—what the other did in your place." Who was that other? I must certainly have known him in some manner. But, in spite of all my efforts, I could not separate him from myself, render him objective. It is impossible for me to define with exactness the singular state of consciousness in which I found myself. I had the complete notion of a fact in all the circumstances of its development; in other words, I had the notion of a series of acts by which a man had succeeded in putting a certain project in execution. But that man, my predecessor, was unknown to me, and I could not associate with that notion the images relative thereto without putting myself in that man's place. It was therefore I whom I saw accomplishing the special acts already accomplished by another, imitating the conduct assumed by another in a case similar to mine. The feeling of the initial spontaneity was lacking.
When I left Juliana's room, I passed a few minutes in uncertitude, wandering aimlessly along the corridors. I met no one. I walked toward the nursery; I listened at the door; I heard my mother speaking in a low voice; I went away.
Perhaps she had not left the cradle? Had the infant had a more serious attack of coughing? I well knew the bronchial catarrh to which new-born babes are subject, that terrible malady, with its insidious progress. I remembered the danger that Maria had run in her third month; I remembered all the symptoms. At the beginning Maria had sneezed several times, coughed lightly; she had shown a strong tendency to sleep. "Who knows?" I thought. "The good God may perhaps intervene in time, and I may be saved." I retraced my steps; I listened again; I heard my mother's voice again; I entered.
"Well, how is Raymond?" I asked, without dissimulating my emotion.
"He is doing well. He is quiet; he has not coughed again; his breathing is regular and temperature normal. Look! he has taken the breast."
In fact, my mother seemed to be reassured, tranquillized.
Anna, seated on the bed, was nursing the infant, who drank eagerly, and, at times, during the aspiration, his lips made a slight noise. Anna's face was bent down, her eyes fixed on the carpet, motionless as bronze.