A Tragic Idyl

by Paul Bourget

Pierre read again and again the simple, awkward sentences that were yet so eloquent to him. He felt in them all the passionate fondness Louise Brion had for Ely. He was touched by them as all unhappy lovers are touched by proofs of devotion shown to their mistress. He felt such a longing to know that she was loved, protected, and cared for, although at the same moment he hated her with the most implacable hatred, although he was ready to condemn her with all the madness of rage. And what devotion could be greater than this shown by the pure-minded Louise in going from weakness to weakness so far as to charge herself with a letter from Ely to Hautefeuille. She had longed to go in person to the Hôtel des Palmes to ask for Pierre, to speak with him, to give him the envelope herself, but she had not dared. Perhaps she would have failed had she done so, whereas this indirect expedient conquered the young man's scruples. The emotions that the simple note had aroused left him powerless to contend with the flood of loving souvenirs that swept over him. He opened the second envelope and read:—

"PIERRE—I do not know whether you will even read these few words, whether I am not writing them in vain, just as the tears that I have shed in thinking of you ever since that frightful day have been shed vainly. I do not know whether you will let me tell you once more how I love you, whether you will let me tell you that I never loved any one in the world except you, that I feel I shall never love any one else. But I must tell it to you with the hope that my plea may reach you, the humble plea of a heart that suffers less from its own pain than from the knowledge that it has caused you to suffer. When I received back the other letter I wrote,—the one that you would not open,—my heart bled at the thought that you must have been mad with pain, or you would not have been so harsh with me. And I felt nothing except that you were suffering.

"No, my beloved, I cannot speak to you in any other way than I have done since the hour when I called you to me to ask you to go away, the hour when I took you in my arms. I have tried to conquer my feelings. It caused me too much pain not to disclose all that I felt. If you do not read these lines, you will not hate me for the loving words I have said to you, for you will not know of them. But if you read them—ah! if you read them you will remember the hours which passed so quickly on the seashore in the shade of the calm pines at the Cap d'Antibes, the hours spent upon the deck of the yacht, hours spent at Genoa before you were struck down by the terrible blow, hours when I could still see you happy, when I could still make you happy! You do not know, sweetheart, you cannot know, what it is for a woman to make the man she loves happy! If I did not tell you at once what you know to-day, it was because of the certainty that never again should I see in your eyes the clear light of complete happiness which shone from your enraptured soul—a light that I have seen so much and loved so much.

"Understand me, beloved, I do not wish to excuse my crime. I was never worthy of you. You were beauty, youth, and purity—all that is best, tenderest, and most loving in this world. I had lost the right to be loved by such a man as you. I ought to have told you the first day I met you. Then, if you had wished for me, you could have taken me and left me like a poor being that only lived for you, that was only made to please you a moment, to distract you and then say good-by. I thought of it, believe me, and I have paid very dearly for the movement not of pride, but of love. I had a horror of being despised by you. And then the woman that you had called into being in me was so different from what I had been before I knew you. I said to myself, 'I am not deceiving him.' And, believe me, I did not lie when I told you that I loved you. My heart was so completely changed. All! how I loved you! How I loved you! You will never know how much nor even I myself. It was something so deeply implanted in my heart, it was so sad when I thought of what might have been if I had only waited for you.

"You see, Pierre, that I speak of myself in the past as one speaks of the dead. Do not be afraid. I have not any idea of ending my life. I have caused you too much sorrow to increase your suffering by remorse. I live, and I shall live, if that can be called living in a being who has known you, who has loved and been beloved by you, and who has lost you. I know that you are leaving Cannes, that you are going away to-morrow. I cannot think that you will leave me forever without speaking to me. My hand trembles even in writing. I cannot find the words with which to explain my thoughts. Yet it will be too cruel if you leave me without giving me the opportunity of making what excuse I have for the life I once led. If you were near me for only one hour, you could go away and then you would think differently of me. What once was can never be again. But I wish to carry with me into the solitude which will surround my life in future the consolation of thinking that you see me as I am, and that you do not believe me capable of something I have never committed. My beloved, the time is so short. You leave to-morrow. When you read this letter, if you do read it, we shall not even have an entire day to be in the same city. If you do read my poor letter, if it touches you, if you find that my request is not too great, come to me at the hour you used to come. At eleven o'clock I will wait for you in the hothouse. If you condemn me without any appeal, if you refuse to grant me this last interview, good-by again, and again good-by. Not a reproach will ever find place in my heart, and I shall always say forever and ever, 'Thanks, my beloved, for having loved me.'"

"I will not go," said the young man to himself, when he had finished reading the pages, eloquent with a passionate emanation of love. He repeated: "I will not go." But he felt that he was not frank with himself. He knew that he could not resist. He knew that he would yield to her imploring appeal, that he would obey the voice of the woman, a voice whose music rang in every word of her letter, a voice that implored him, that told of her adoration, that soothed his wounded heart like a sad caress sweet as death.

But the nearer Pierre drew to the meeting-place the more he felt an unspeakable sadness. His action appeared to him so culpable when he realized all its infamy that he was overwhelmed. And yet he would not draw back. On and on he went. The love potion the words of the letter had poured into his veins continued to dominate his failing will. He went on, but the contrast between this despicable, clandestine walk to a woman that he despised, to a woman who made him despise himself for longing for her, was very different from the pilgrimages he used to make toward the same villa, along the same road, filled with a happy fervor.

And Olivier? Heaven! if Olivier could see him at present! If Olivier, whom he was betraying so cruelly, could only see him!

The tension of his nerves was so great, he was so shaken by the double emotions of love and remorse, that the tiniest noise startled him. The surrounding objects took on an aspect that was both menacing and fantastic. His heart beat and his nerves quivered. He was afraid. He seemed to hear footsteps following him in the night, and he stopped to listen. At the moment that he was going to ascend the slope by which he had been accustomed to enter Ely's garden, the idea that he was being followed became so strong that he retraced his steps, peering about along the road, among the bushes and heaps of stones. He avoided the strong rays of light of an electric lamp standing on one of the pillars of the fence as though he had been a robber.

His examination, however, was fruitless. But the idea was so strong that he was afraid to enter by the same path. It appeared too open, too easy of access. He began to run, as though he had really been followed, around the little park which ended the garden of the villa at its upper end. A wall enclosed a part of it. With the help of the branches of an oak growing at its foot, he climbed over. While still on the coping he listened again. He heard but the sound of the dying breeze, the quivering of the foliage, the vast silence of night, and far, far away, the barking of a dog in some isolated house. He thought he must have been dreaming, and slipped down on the other side of the wall. It was about three metres in height, and he was lucky enough to fall upon a spot of soft earth. Then he made his way toward the house.

A few minutes later he was at the door of the greenhouse. He pushed it open gently and Ely's hand took his own.

But what would have been his thoughts if he had known that his fears were well founded, if he had known that he had been followed since he left the hotel, that the witness whose presence he had felt so near him in the dark, until the moment he began to run, was none other than Olivier?

The house stood closed and silent in all the mystery of its shadows, with isolated spots of light where the lamp shone full upon it. The same vast silence of night that had oppressed Pierre while upon the wall, the silence broken by the distant baying of a dog, still enveloped the country. The trees still quivered, and the flowers poured forth their perfume. The stars still shone, and Olivier remained motionless at the edge of the garden, in the place where he had thrown himself down so that his friend might not see him.