Calmly, almost mechanically, he opened a drawer and took out of a leather case a small revolver his sister had given him to carry in his pocket when coming home late from the theatre. It was not loaded, and, taking out a packet of cartridges, he weighed one in the palm of his hand. Poor human machine, how little is required to bring you to a standstill! He loaded the revolver and unbuttoned his shirt; then, feeling for the place where his heart throbbed within him, he pressed the barrel against it.
'No,' he said, in a firm tone, 'not before I have tried.'
These words were the outcome of an idea which had repeatedly entered his mind, and which, repeatedly rejected as a crazy one, now took shape and form with the precision our thoughts assume in moments of important action. He put the revolver back in the drawer, and sitting down in his arm-chair—Suzanne's arm-chair—he plunged into that abyss of tragic thought in which visions stand out in bold relief, arguments follow on each other with lightning rapidity, and desperate resolutions are adopted. 'My love!' he repeated to himself, remembering the words of Suzanne's letter. Yes, in spite of her lies, in spite of the play she had acted—the innumerable scenes of which now passed through his mind—in spite of her base connection with Desforges, she had truly and passionately loved him. If that love were not sincere, then the story of the past few months was perfectly unintelligible! What other motive could have thrown her into his arms? It could not have been an interested one. He was so poor, so humble, so utterly beneath her. Neither was it the glory of enslaving a fashionable author, for she had herself begged that their relations should be kept a secret. It could not be vanity, for she had not stolen him from any rival, nor had she held out long to give her conquest more value. No—monstrous as that love might be, mingled as it was with corruption and deceit, there was no doubt that she had loved him and that she loved him still. That soul whose moral leprosy had struck him with horror was yet capable of some kind of sincerity. There was still something within this woman better than her life, better than her actions. René at length consented to listen to the voice which pleaded for his mistress, and calmly and dispassionately did he now weigh the crime of venality that had at first so disgusted him.
His visits to the Komof mansion and his intimate relations with Suzanne had opened his eyes to a new world and initiated him into the mysteries of the highest forms of luxury and refinement. The false notions of high life which the unsophisticated bourgeois poet had at first entertained were soon dispelled by a more correct idea of the frightful extravagance which fashionable existence in Paris involves. Now, whilst his love was struggling for life and attempting to justify Suzanne, or at least to understand her, to discover in her something to save her from utter contempt, he began to see, thanks to his truer knowledge of the world, the tragedy in which this woman had played a leading part. Claude had summed up the situation briefly in these words: 'Seven years ago the Moraines were ruined.' Ruined! That word was now synonymous in René's ears with all the privation and humiliation it generally brings. Suzanne had been brought up in luxury to lead a life of luxury. It was as necessary to her as the air she breathed. Her husband had no doubt been the first to urge her to adopt her sinful expedient—so at least did the poet continue to judge poor Paul. Desforges had presented himself, and she had sinned, but not from love. When at length love did come to her could she break her chains? Yes—she could, by proposing to him, René, that each should give up all that bound them here, and that they two should go and live together for ever!
'Give up all! . . . They two! . . . Live together!' He caught himself uttering these words as in a dream. Was it too late? What if he went to Suzanne now and offered to sacrifice all to their love, to wipe out all the past except that love, and to bind up and identify with it their whole being, their whole present, their whole future? What if he said: 'You swear that you love me, that this love is the one and only truth in your heart. Prove it. You have no children, you are free. Take my life and give me yours. Go with me, and I will forgive you and believe in you. . . . I am going mad,' he said, suddenly bringing his mind to a standstill as this idea presented itself so clearly that he could actually see Suzanne listening to him. Mad? But why? The stories he had read in his youth about the redemption of fallen women by love—an idea of such sublime conception that it has attracted the greatest writers—came back to him. Balzac's Esther, the most divine character of an amorous courtesan ever painted, had often figured in his dreams of long ago, and natures like his, in which literary impressions precede those of life itself, never altogether lose the impress of such dreams.
He loved Suzanne, and Suzanne loved him. Why should he not attempt to save her, in the name of that sublime passion, from the infamy that covered her, and try to drag himself away from the dark abyss of death towards which he felt drawn? Why should he not offer her this unique opportunity of repairing the hideous wretchedness of her fate? But she—what answer would she make? 'I shall know then whether she loves me,' continued René. 'Yes—if she loves me, how eagerly will she seize this means of escaping from the horrible luxury to which she is chained! And if she says no?' A thrill of terror shot through him at the thought. 'It will be time enough to act then,' he concluded.
The whirlwind of passion let loose by the sudden conception of this plan raged for nearly three hours. As his thoughts swayed hither and thither the poet seemed unconscious of the fact that his mind was already made up, and that the fluctuations only served to disguise from him the one feeling that dominated all the rest—a furious longing, amounting almost to a necessity, to have his mistress back. Even had this plan of elopement been more irrational, more impracticable, and less likely to succeed, he would have taken it up as the most reasonable, the easiest, and most certain of success, simply because it was the only one that reconciled the irrepressible ardour of his love with that dignity his still unsullied honour would never compromise.
'To action,' he said at last. He sat down to his table and wrote Suzanne a note in which he asked her to be at home the next day at two o'clock. He took the letter to the post himself, and immediately experienced that relief which invariably follows upon some definite resolve. He who for a whole week, and ever since his first wild fit of grief, had felt himself unable to put forth the least energy, and incapable even of opening the manuscript of his 'Savonarola,' at once set about preparing everything, as if there could be no doubt what Suzanne's reply would be. He counted out the money he had in his drawer; there was a little over five thousand francs. That would suffice for the initial expenses. And afterwards? He made a calculation of the amount to which he was entitled out of the patrimony that had never been divided between Emilie and himself. The great thing was to get over the first two years, during which he would finish his play and have it staged. Immediately after that he would publish his novel, which the success of his piece would help on, just as one wave sweeps on another, and then would come his collection of poems. A boundless horizon of work and of triumph seemed to lie before him. Of what efforts would he not be capable, sustained by the divine elixir of happiness and by the desire to provide Suzanne with that luxury she would have sacrificed for him? When his sister entered his room she surprised him arranging his papers, putting his books in order, and sorting some prints.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'You can see that,' he replied, 'I'm getting ready to go.'