She had looked at me as she pronounced and emphasized these last few words, as if they ought to awaken in me an association of ideas. She saw that I made no sign. A look of astonishment passed over her face and she continued—
“Does that name tell you nothing? I thought that Jacques, who confides in you, would have told you that as well. Well”—she dropped her voice still lower, “that is where we have our place of meeting. When he became my lover, I should so much have liked to have belonged to him at his own place, among the objects in the midst of which he lived, so that at every minute, every second, these mute witnesses of our happiness would recall me to his memory! He did not wish it to be so. I understand the reason to-day; he was already thinking of the rupture. At that time I believed everything he told me, and did everything he asked me to do. He assured me that the rooms in the Rue Nouvelle had been fitted up by him for me alone, and that he had put there the old furniture from the room in which he wrote his early books: the room he lived in before moving to the Place Delaborde. How stupid I was! How stupid I was! But it is abominable to lie to a poor girl who has only her heart, who surrenders it entirely as well as her person and would despise herself for any distrust as if it were a crime! Ah! it is very easy to deceive any one who surrenders herself like that.”
“But are you sure he deceived you?” I asked.
“Am I sure of it? You too—-” she replied in tones of passionate irony. “Besides, I defy you to defend him when you hear the whole story. I was, as I have just told you, near the Rue Nouvelle with my dress torn. I must add, too, that in my foolishness I had left all sorts of little things belonging to me in the rooms there, even needles and silk. It had been one of my dreams, too, that this place might become a beloved refuge for both of us, where Jacques would work at some beautiful love-drama, written near me and for me, while I should be there to employ myself—as his wife! It occurred to me to go there and mend my torn flounce. I want you to believe me when I swear to you that there was no idea of spying mixed up in my plan.”
“I know it,” I replied to her, and to spare her the details of a confidence which I saw caused her great physical suffering, I asked her: “And you found the room in disorder as you told me?”
“It was more terrible,” she said, and then had to remain silent for a second to gain strength to continue: “The way in which these apartments had been selected ought long ago to have told me that Jacques used them for others as well as me. They are in a large double house, the rooms face the street and are far enough from the porter’s lodge for any one to ascend the staircase without being seen. What would be the use of all these precautions if I were the only person to go there? Am I not free? Am I afraid of any one but mother seeing me enter? Then there was the porter’s glances, his indefinable expression of politeness and irony, and his servility to Jacques, all of which would have proved to any one else that the rooms had been for years in his occupation. I can see it so clearly while I am talking to you! I cannot realize how I was so long deceived! But I am losing myself, ideas keep rushing into my head. I had got as far as the Rue Nouvelle with my dress torn. I had no key. Jacques had never given it to me in spite of my requests. What another sign, too! I knew that the porter kept one key so that he and his wife might look after the place. An inside bolt allowed, when once a person was inside, of the door being fastened against any intruder, so that very often Jacques did not trouble to take the second key which was kept in one of his drawers, and you may imagine I went to the porter’s lodge as little as possible. I preferred, when I followed Jacques there, to go straight upstairs and ring. Without these details what happened to me would be unintelligible to you though it is so simple. This time I went to the lodge for the key. There was no one there. The porter and his wife were probably busy elsewhere, and the last person who went out had neglected to shut the door. I saw our key in its usual place and took it without the least scruple, and making as I did so a little motion of joy at avoiding the porter. I must repeat—I swear it to you—that I was absolutely ignorant of the incident I was about to encounter. I entered the rooms with a certain feeling of melancholy, as you may imagine! It was a fortnight since I had been there with Jacques. The windows were closed. The little drawing-room with its tasteful tapestry and furniture was still the same, and so was the bedroom with its red furniture. I found out, on looking in a drawer where I had put my work-basket with my odds and ends, that it was no longer there, and I was somewhat astonished. But there was still a dressing-room and a little room which we sometimes used as a dining-room. I thought that perhaps the porter, when cleaning, had moved the things into the little room and forgotten to replace them. I looked there, found the work-basket, and began to mend my skirt. I took it off to do it more quickly. Suddenly I seemed to hear the opening of doors. I had taken the key out of the lock without shooting the bolt. My first thought was that Jacques was the unexpected visitor. Had he not told me, and I had believed him, as usual, that he sometimes came there to work out of remembrance of me and to assure himself more solitude? I had not time to give myself up to the sweet emotion this thought awakened in my heart. I could recognize two voices, his and the other woman’s.”
“The voice of Madam de Bonnivet?” I asked as she remained silent after the last few words, which were hardly audible. I was as much moved by her story as she was herself. She bent her head to signify “yes” and maintained her silence, so I dare not insist. The tragedy of the situation, the facts of which she had placed before me so simply, crushed me. She went on—
“I cannot describe to you what passed in me when I heard this woman, who, thinking herself alone with her lover, was laughing loudly and talking familiarly to him. I felt a sharp pain, as if the keen point of a knife had wounded me in the inmost part of my being, and I began to tremble in the whole of my body on the chair upon which I was sitting. But even now at the thought, look at my hands! I desired to get up, to go to them, and to drive them away, but I could not. I could not even cry out. It seemed to me as if my life suddenly stood still in me. I heard and listened. It was a pain greater than death, and I really thought I should die where I sat! But here I am, and do you know the reason? In that small room where I stayed like that without moving, after the first moment of fearful pain had passed, I was overcome by disgust, by inexpressible repugnance and horror which was absolutely nauseating. Without a doubt if I had distinctly heard the words of this man and woman the need of immediate vengeance would have been too strong for me; but the indistinct, confused murmur, consisting of words I could hear and words I could not hear, combined with the picture of what I guessed was taking place on the other side of the wall, besides the unutterable suffering it caused me, gave me an impression of something very dirty, very ignoble, very disgusting, and very abject. There was one phrase in particular, and such a phrase which made me feel that I despised Jacques more than I loved him, and at the same time—how strange the heart is!—I could only grasp the idea that if I entered the room he would think that I came there to spy upon him. That pride in my feelings ended by dominating everything else. I remained motionless in this small room for perhaps an hour. Then they departed and I went into the room they had just left. The bed was in disorder, but the pillows and bedclothes were the same. Ah,” she groaned, uttering a cry which rent my heart, and pressing her fingers into her eyes as if to crush the eyeballs and with them a horrible vision of other infamous details which she would not, could not mention then she cried: “Save me from myself, Vincent. My friend, my only friend, do not leave me; I believe my head will burst and I shall go mad! Oh, that bed! that bed! our bed!”
She got up as she said these words, rushed towards me and buried her head against my shoulder, seizing me with her hands in an agony of supreme grief. Her face contracted and turned up in a spasm of agony, and I had only just time to catch her. She fell unconscious into my arms.
Without doubt this unconsciousness saved her, with the help of the torrent of tears which she shed when she recovered her senses. I saw her reawaken to life and realize her misery. Her confidences and the period of unconsciousness which followed them had moved me so deeply that I could find nothing to say except those commonplace words used to comfort a suffering person; and there is such difficulty in making use even of those when one takes into account the legitimate reasons the person has for suffering. Camille did not allow me to exhaust myself for long in these useless consolations.