Calvary: A Novel

by Octave Mirbeau

But this Juliette whom I loved, was she not altogether different, was she not the Juliette that I had myself created, that had been born of my own imagination, that had originated in my own brains, whom I had endowed with a soul, with a spark of divinity, whom I had fashioned into being with the ideal essence of angels?... And did I not still love her as one does a beautiful book, a beautiful verse, a beautiful statue, a visible and tangible realization of an artist's dream!... But this other Juliette!... This one here?... This pretty, senseless, ignorant animal, this knick-knack, this piece of cloth, this nothing?...

I studied her carefully while she was polishing her nails.... Oh, how I would have liked to break this neck and sound its emptiness, to open this heart and probe its nothingness! And I said to myself: "What sort of a life will mine be with this woman whose tastes are only for pleasure, who is happy only when she is dressed up, whose every wish costs a fortune, who in spite of her chaste appearance, has an instinctive predilection for vice; who used to leave unhappy Malterre every evening, without a single regret, without a single thought; who will leave me tomorrow, perhaps; this woman who is a living denial of my aspirations, of my ideals; who will never, never enter into my intellectual life; and lastly this woman who already weighs upon my intelligence like folly, upon my whole being like a crime."

I had a notion to flee, to tell Juliette: "I am going out, I'll be back in an hour," and never to return to this house where the very ceiling was more oppressive to me than the lid of a coffin, where the air stifled me, where the very furniture seemed to say to me: "Leave this place" ... But no!... I loved her, and it was this very Juliette that I loved, not the other one who has gone the way of all dreams!... I loved her with all her qualities which made me suffer, I loved her in spite of all her lack of understanding, I loved her with all her frivolity, with all her suspected perversions; I loved her with that tormenting love which a mother has for her afflicted child.

Have you ever met a poor creature huddled up behind the door on some wintry day, a wretched human being with chapped lips and chattering teeth, shivering in his tattered rags?... And when you met him, were you not carried away by a feeling of keen pity, and did you not have a desire to take him and warm him against your breast, give him something to eat, cover his shivering body with warm clothes?... That is how I loved Juliette; I loved her with an immense pity ... ah, don't laugh, with a mother's pity, with an endless pity!...

"Aren't we going out, my dear? It would be so nice to take a stroll through the Bois."

And casting her eyes on the blank sheet of paper on which I had not written a line:

"Is that all you wrote?... Well!... You do not seem to have worked very hard.... And here I have been sitting around all this time to inspire you to work!... Oh, well, I know you won't get anywhere.... You are too lazy!"

Ere long we began going out every day and every evening. I did not resist any longer, almost happy to escape from the deadly aversion and despondent thoughts with which our apartment inspired me, escape from the symbolic vision of the old man, from myself.... Ah, above all from myself. In a crowd, in the tumult, in this feverish haste of a pleasure-hunting life I hoped to find forgetfulness, to be able to dull my feeling, to subdue my rebellious spirit, to suppress the voice of my past which I heard grumbling within me. And since I could not raise Juliette to my level I lowered myself down to her own.

Ah, those serene heights where the sun was reigning and toward which I had been climbing slowly with such terrific effort!... I must descend into the pit at one dash, in a single, instantaneous, inevitable downfall, even if I crushed my head against the rocks or disappeared in the bottomless mire. With me it was no longer a question of escape. If occasionally the idea did pierce the haze of my mind, if, in the errings of my will-power, I sometimes did perceive a distant way out where duty seemed to call me, I, in order to break away from the idea, in order not to rush hastily toward that end, clung tenaciously to the false pretenses of honor.... Could I leave Juliette! I who insisted that she leave Malterre!... What will become of her when I am gone?... Why no, no!—I was lying to myself.... I did not want to leave her because I loved her, because I pitied her, because.... But was it not myself that I loved, myself that I pitied?... Ah, I no longer knew! I no longer knew!

And then again you should not think that the abyss into which I had fallen was a sudden revelation to me.... Don't you believe it! I saw it from afar, I saw its black opening yawning fearfully, and I ran toward it. I leaned over the edge to inhale the infected odor of its filth, I said to myself: "There is where wasted lives and corrupted beings are dashed and swallowed up.... Here one can never come up again, never!" And I plunged into it....