Calvary: A Novel

by Octave Mirbeau

Rudely I drag her toward the carriage ... and we get in.... Huddled up in two, she sits there right close to me, sobbing.... What am I going to do now?... I don't know.... In truth I don't know. I don't ask myself any questions. I don't think of anything.... It seems as though a mountain of stone has descended upon me.... I feel the heavy rocks on which my neck has crashed, against which my flesh has been bruised.... Why, with all the black despair in which I find myself, do these high walls rise up towards heaven? Why these dismal birds flying about in unexpected sunshine?... Why is this thing crouched down beside me crying?... Why?... I don't know....

I am going to kill her.... She is in her bedroom without lights, in bed.... I am in the dressing room pacing up and down ... I am walking back and forth with constrained breath, my head on fire, with clinched fists eager to inflict punishment.... I am going to kill her!... From time to time I stop near the door and listen.... She is crying.... And in a minute I will enter.... I will enter and pull her off the bed, drag her by the hair, knock her senseless, break her neck against the marble edges of the fireplace.... I want the room to be red with her blood.... I want to see her body beaten into lumps of battered flesh which I shall throw out with the rest of the rubbish and which the garbage man will take away tomorrow.... Cry, cry!... In a minute you'll howl, my dearest!... Haven't I been stupid!... To think of everything but that!... To fear everything except that!... To say to myself: "she will leave me" and never, never: "she will deceive me...." To have failed to divine the nature of this den, this old man, all this filth!... Really I had never thought of it before, blind fool that I was. She must have laughed when I implored her not to leave me!... To leave me.... Ah! yes, to leave me!... She did not want to, of course.... Now I understand it.... I inspired her neither with probity of heart nor with decency of conduct; I was to her just a label, a trade mark ... a mark of superior value!... Yes, when they saw her in my arms and therefore priced her more highly, she could sell herself for much more than she would have received if, like a nocturnal ghoul, she had roamed the sidewalks and haunted the obscene shadows of the streets.... She had swallowed my fortune in one gulp.... Her lips had rendered my mentality sterile at the first touch—. Now she is gambling with my honor, that is consistent.... With my honor!... How could she know that I had none left?...

But am I really going to kill her?... When one is dead, everything is forgotten!... One bares one's head before the coffin of a criminal, one bows in sadness before the dead body of a prostitute.... In the churches, believers kneel down and pray for those who have suffered, for those who have sinned.... At the cemeteries reverence watches over the graves and the cross protects them.... To die is to be forgiven!... Yes, death is beautiful, holy, noble!... Death is the beginning of the great eternal light.... Ah, to die!... to stretch oneself out on a mattress softer than the softest moss in birds' nests.... To think no more.... To hear the noise of life no longer!... To feel the infinite sweetness of nothingness!... To be a soul!...

I shall not kill her.... I shall not kill her because she has to suffer ... terribly, always.... Let her suffer in all her beauty, in all her pride, in her exposed carnality of a prostitute!... I shall not kill her, but I shall disfigure her to such an extent, I shall make her look so repulsive that people, frightened, will flee at the sight of her.... And every evening I shall compel her to appear on the streets, at the theatre, everywhere with her nose crushed, her eyes bulging out from under eyelids fringed with black rings, without a veil!...

Suddenly sobs from my throat.... I fling myself on the couch, biting the cushion, and cry and cry!... Minutes, hours pass and I am still crying!... Ah! Juliette, vile Juliette!... Why did you do that?... Why?... Could you not say to me: "Here now, you are not rich any more and all I want of you is money.... Leave me!" That would have been cruel, it might have meant my death.... But what of it?... It would have been better.... How can I look into your face now?... How can our mouths ever touch each other?... There is now between us the thick wall of that wicked place!... Ah! Juliette!... Wretched Juliette!...

I remember her going out.... I recollect everything!... I recall how she was dressed in her gray dress, the shadow of her hand dancing strangely on the back of her neck.... I see her as clearly as if she were before me now, and even more so.... She was sad, she was crying.... I am sure it was not mere imagination on my part ... she was actually crying, for my cheek was wet with her tears! Whom was she crying over, me or herself? Ah! ... who knows?... I remember.... I said to her: "Don't go out, my Juliette!..." She replied: "Embrace me closely, very closely, more closely yet!..." And her caresses had the passion of despair in them, a kind of shrivelling grip, a sort of fear as if she had wanted to cling to me, to seek tremblingly protection in my arms.... I can see her eyes, her beseeching look.... They seemed to implore me: "Something abominable is drawing me on.... Hold me back!... I am close to your heart ... do not let me go!..." And instead of taking her in my arms, carrying her away, hiding her and loving her so as to make her giddy with happiness, I opened up my arms and let her go!... She sought refuge in my love, and I denied it to her.... She cried to me: "I adore you, I adore you!..." And I stood there like a fool, amazed as is a child at the unexpected flapping of the wings of a captive bird that has just escaped.... I did not understand that sadness, those tears, those caresses, those words more tender than usual, that trembling.... It is only now that I hear those silent, melancholy words: "My dear Jean, I am a poor little woman, a little foolish and so weak!... I had no idea of anything big or worth while.... Who was there to teach me what chastity, duty, virtue meant!... When I was a child yet, evil surroundings contaminated me, and vice was taught to me by the very people who were supposed to be my guardians.... Still I am not wicked and I love you.... I love you more than I ever loved you!... My beloved Jean, you are strong, you know many beautiful things which I don't.... Well, protect me!... An overpowering desire draws me there.... The trouble is I have seen too much jewelry, too many gowns and other exquisite and expensive trifles which you can't buy me any longer but which others have promised to get me!... I have an instinctive feeling that it's wrong and that it will cause you suffering.... Well, subdue me!... I ask for no other chance than to be good and virtuous.... Teach me how!... Beat me ... if I resist!..."

Poor Juliette!... It seems to me that she is down on her knees before me, with clasped hands.... Tears are rolling from her eyes, from her big eyes downcast and sweet.... Tears are streaming from her eyes endlessly as they used to stream from the eyes of my mother in the past.... And at the thought that I wanted to kill her, that I wanted to disfigure her delightful and sorrowful face through horrible mutilation, I am seized with remorse and my wrath gives way to pity.... She goes on.... "Forgive me!... Oh! my Jean you must forgive me.... It is not my fault, I assure you.... Try to recall.... Did you ever warn me, even once?... Did you ever show me even once the way which I should follow? Through weakness, through fear of losing me, through excessive and criminal kindness, you have yielded to all my whims, even the most wicked ones.... How could I know that it was wrong, when you have never told me anything?... Instead of stopping me on the brink of the precipice where I was headed, you yourself have pushed me into it.... What example have you placed before my eyes?... Whither have you led me?... Have you ever tried to take me out of this alarming atmosphere of debauchery?... Why didn't you chase Jesselin or Gabrielle out of our house, all those degenerates whose very presence only helped to increase my wickedness?... To breathe into me a particle of your own soul, to send a ray of light into the darkness of my brains—that is what you should have done!... Yes, you should have given me another life, you should have made me over again!... I am guilty, my Jean!... And I am so ashamed of myself that I can never hope to be able to atone for the infamy of this evil hour even with a whole life of sacrifice and repentance.... But you!... Is your conscience satisfied that you have done your duty?... I dread not the expiation of my sins.... On the contrary I welcome it, I want it.... But you?... Can you sit in judgment over a crime which I admit I have committed, but in which you, too, have had a part since you have not done anything to prevent it!... My dear beloved, listen to me.... This body which I have attempted to defile horrifies you; hereafter you will not be able to look at it without rage and anguish.... All right then, let it perish!... Let it rot in the oblivion of a graveyard!... There shall be left to you my soul, it belongs to you, for it has never forsaken you, for it loves you.... See how white and pure it is...."

A knife glistens in Juliette's hands.... She is going to kill herself with it.... I grasp her arms, I shout: "No, no, Juliette, no, I don't want you to!... I love you!... No, no.... I don't want you to!"

My arms are brought together in an embrace, but I enclose nothing but space.... I look around me, frightened, the place is empty!... I look again.... The gas is burning with a yellow flame over the dressing table ... rumpled skirts are strewn all over the carpet ... shoes lie scattered about.... And pale daylight is stealing into the room through the open spaces in the shutters.... I begin to fear in earnest that Juliette may kill herself, for otherwise why should this vision arise before me?... On tiptoe, quietly I walk toward the door and listen.... A feeble sigh reaches my ear, then a wailing, then a sob.... And like a fool I rush into the room.... A voice speaks to me in the darkness, the voice of Juliette:

"Ah! my Jean! My dear little Jean!"