In the course of the minute searches which, during his mother's absences, he had devoted to the apartment he had found a revolver. It was Noémi's; Annette had picked it up after she had left and placed it, too carelessly, in a drawer. He had appropriated it and hidden it. His mind was made up. As, with a child, an act, whenever it is possible, immediately follows the thought, Marc meant to carry out his resolution at once. Re-entering the apartment as noiselessly as he had gone out, he shut himself up in his room and loaded the revolver as he had seen a schoolmate do: the latter, who was hardly older than himself, had carried one of these dangerous playthings in his pocket and, holding it between his legs, in the Greek class, had explained to his attentive neighbors how to handle it. The weapon was ready now. Marc was prepared to fire. . . . Where should he place himself? He must not miss. There, standing before his mirror. . . . But afterwards where would he fall? . . . It would be better to sit here, leaning on the table, with the mirror in front of him. He unhooked the mirror, placed it on the table, and propped it up with a dictionary. . . . There, he could see himself perfectly. He took the revolver and pressed it. . . . Where? Against the temple; they say that's the best place. . . . Would it hurt very much? He did not give a thought to his mother. His passion, his sufferings and the preparations completely occupied him. . . . His eyes in the mirror touched his heart. . . . Poor Marc! . . . He felt the need of expressing, of making known before he disappeared, what he had suffered from the world and how much he despised it. . . . The need of avenging himself, of leaving regrets behind him, of arousing admiration. . . . He hunted up a big sheet of school-paper, folded it across—he was in a hurry—and wrote in his uncertain, laborious, childish script, "I cannot live any longer, for she has betrayed me. The whole world is wicked. I don't love anything any longer, so I would rather die. All women are liars. They are mean. They don't know how to love. I despise her. When they bury me I ask them to put this paper over me: 'I die for Noémi.'"
At this dear name he wept; he pressed his handkerchief against his mouth in order not to make a noise. He wiped away his tears, reread his lines, and thought gravely, "I mustn't compromise her."
Then he tore up the sheet and began again. Almost in spite of himself he breathlessly dashed off his despairing lines. When he reached the sentence "They don't know how to love," he continued, "I have known and I die." In the midst of his grief he was very much pleased with this phrase: it almost consoled him. It disposed him to be kind to those he was leaving behind him, and he ended generously, "I forgive you all." He added his signature. A few seconds more and all would be over; he would be delivered, and he saw in advance the fine effect it would produce. But just as he was passing the pen once more over the childish flourishes where the ink had failed, the door of the little room opened suddenly behind him. He had just enough time to hide the weapon and the papers under his arms. Annette saw only the mirror placed against the dictionary and she thought Marc was admiring himself. She made no comment. She seemed terribly tired and, in a low voice, as if she were exhausted, she said she had forgotten to buy milk for dinner and that Marc would be very kind if he would spare her the trouble of climbing up and down the four flights by going after it. As for him, he had only one idea, that she should not see what his arms covered. He did not wish to move and replied roughly that he did not have the time; he was busy. With a sad smile, Annette closed the door and went out.
He heard her slowly descending the stairs. (She had looked worn out.) He was seized with remorse. He could not forget the expression of her face and her tired voice. . . . He threw the revolver hastily into a drawer, buried the farewells to life under a pile of books and rushed out of the apartment. He jostled his mother on the stairs and called to her, in a cross voice, that he was going to do the errand. Annette came upstairs again, her heart somewhat lightened. She was thinking that the boy was not as contrary as he seemed. But she had been pained by his rudeness and his harshness. Heavens, how unaffectionate he was! . . . Well, so much the better for him! Poor child, he would suffer less from life. . . .
When Marc came back, he had quite forgotten his intention to commit suicide. It gave him no pleasure to find the famous Testament, imperfectly hidden, on his table. He hastened to place it completely out of sight in the bottom of a band-box. He dismissed the depressing thought. He felt now how cowardly, how cruel, it would have been to his mother, whose health worried him. But he expressed his concern clumsily; he did not know how to ask her about it and she did not know how to reply. Through misplaced pride he did not want to show his real feelings; it would have seemed as if he were awkwardly performing a mere polite duty. And she, as proud as himself, did not want to worry him, and she turned the conversation away from it. So they both fell back into their silence. Freed from his anxiety, Marc now felt that he had the right to be angry with his mother because for her he had sacrificed his suicide. . . . He was well aware that he no longer felt the least desire for this; but he needed to avenge himself for what he had suffered. When you cannot avenge yourself on others you do so on your mother; she is always there, at hand, and she does not strike back.
So they remained walled-up, each one absorbed in his own grief. And Marc, whose own sorrow had begun to weigh upon him, felt his animosity against Annette's increasing. He was relieved when he heard the door-bell announcing Aunt Sylvie—for he knew her ring. She had come to take him to a performance of Isadora's, for she had suddenly gone crazy over dancing. In spite of the duty that he felt to retain in his soul and also on his face—especially on his face—the fatal mark of the ordeal through which he had passed, he could not hide his joy at escaping. He ran to dress, leaving the door open so as to lose none of the gay talk of his aunt, who, the moment she had arrived, had launched into a frivolous story. And Annette, who was forcing herself to smile, though she was broken-hearted, thought, "Can this be the woman who cried her heart out a year ago over her child's body? Has she forgotten?"
She did not envy this elasticity. But her son's laugh, as he answered Sylvie's sallies from the other room, evidenced an equal gift of forgetfulness. Annette, who was pained by this apparent heartlessness, did not know that she too possessed this cruel and marvellous gift. When Marc reappeared, beaming, ready to start, she could not command her face enough to conceal her harsh disapproval. Marc was more hurt by this than he would have been by out-and-out censure. He avenged himself by exaggerating his gaiety. He became almost noisy and seemed in such a hurry to get away that he forgot to say good-bye to his mother. He thought of it after he had gone out. Should he go back? Let her worry! He pouted. It comforted him to leave behind him that reproachful face, that sadness, the depressing atmosphere he felt in the house, and the disturbing traces of the day's troubles. . . . That immense day! . . . A whole world! . . . Several lifetimes in a few hours, the peak of joy and the depths of despair. . . He ought to have been crushed under such a load of emotions, but it weighed no more on the elastic adolescent than a bird weighs on a branch. The bird flies away, the branch swings back and sways in the wind. They had flown away, the joys and sorrows of the day that was past! Only a dream remained of them. To enjoy the new joys and the new sorrows, he hastened to efface it.
But Annette, who had no means of knowing what was passing through his head, Annette, who, like him, was a passionate soul, attributed everything to herself; and, as she listened to his laughter receding down the stairs, she was struck to the heart by his joy at leaving her. She thought he hated her, for her passion always exaggerated things in every way. . . . She was a burden on him, yes, that was quite clear. He longed to be free from her. When she was dead he would be happier. . . . Happier! . . . She would be happier too. It stabbed her through and through, this absurd thought that her son, her child, might desire her death. . . . (Absurd? Who can tell? In his innermost heart, in a moment's madness, what child has not desired his mother's death?) . . . The terror of this intuition, striking Annette at this moment when she was holding on to life with one weak hand, was a mortal blow to her.
All day she had been devastated by the furious return of her passion. Now that her decision had been made and carried out, the irreparable deed consummated, now that she had deliberately done her duty, she no longer had the strength to resist the attack of the enemy within. And the enemy had rushed upon her like a torrent.
She was a party to it. She had opened the gates to it. When all is lost, one has at least the right to enjoy one's despair! My suffering concerns only myself. Let me feel the whole of it. Bleed, bleed, my heart! Let me stab you by forcing you to see again all you have lost! Philippe. . . . He was there before her. . . . The evocation was so strong that she saw him, spoke to him, touched him. . . . He, everything that she loved in him, the attraction of that which resembles and that which is opposed to us, the antagonistic union, burning with the double fire of love and combat, the embrace and the struggle: they are the same thing. And this illusory embrace had such a carnal violence that the possessed soul, possessed by love, bent like Leda beneath the swan. The flood of passion ebbed despairingly. Then came those agonies that are part of the life of every woman who is made for love and to whom her share of love has been refused—agonies that come at this time of life when, if a love dies, she thinks that love itself is dying. On this night Annette, alone in her room, abandoned by her son, with her passion mutilated, suffered tortures in the destitution of her heart, and the haunting belief that love was lost forever, that life was lost without love, gripped her by the throat. It did not give her a moment's respite. She drove it away; it returned. Annette tried in vain to fill her mind with other things. She picked up her work, tossed it aside, got up, sat down. With her head on the table, she wrung her hands. The fixed idea maddened her. She had reached that point of suffering when to escape from herself a woman is ready for the worst aberrations. Annette felt that she was on the verge of madness, and she was aware, in her delirium, of a savage impulse, the frightful desire to go down into the street and to debase herself in her fury, destroy her body and her tortured heart, prostitute herself to the first man she met. When she became aware of this bestial thought, she cried out in horror; and as a result of this horror the infamous idea would not relax its grip. Then, like her son, she thought of killing herself. She could no longer control her obsession. . . .