Chapter Chapter 17 · Chapter XVII

The next day was cold and damp. A fog, so thick that one could not

discern objects ten steps off, hung over the earth. Sauvresy, after

breakfast, took his gun and whistled to his dogs.

"I'm going to take a turn in Mauprevoir wood," said he.

"A queer idea," remarked Hector, "for you won't see the end of your

gun-barrel in the woods."

"No matter, if I see some pheasants."

This was only a pretext, for Sauvresy, on leaving Valfeuillu, took the

direct road to Corbeil, and half an hour later, faithful to his promise,

he entered the Belle Image tavern.

Jenny was waiting for him in the large room which had always been

reserved for her since she became a regular customer of the house. Her

eyes were red with recent tears; she was very pale, and her marble color

showed that she had not slept. Her breakfast lay untouched on the table

near the fireplace, where a bright fire was burning. When Sauvresy came

in, she rose to meet him, and took him by the hand with a friendly

motion.

"Thank you for coming," said she. "Ah, you are very good."

Jenny was only a girl, and Sauvresy detested girls; but her grief was so

sincere and seemed so deep, that he was touched.

"You are suffering, Madame?" asked he.

"Oh, yes, very much."

Her tears choked her, and she concealed her face in her handkerchief.

"I guessed right," thought Sauvresy. "Hector has deserted her. Now I

must smooth the wound, and yet make future meetings between them

impossible."

He took the weeping Jenny's hand, and softly pulled away the

handkerchief.

"Have courage," said he.

She lifted her tearful eyes to him, and said:

"You know, then?"

"I know nothing, for, as you asked me, I have said nothing to Tremorel;

but I can imagine what the trouble is."

"He will not see me any more," murmured Jenny. "He has deserted me."

Sauvresy summoned up all his eloquence. The moment to be persuasive and

paternal had come. He drew a chair up to Jenny's, and sat down.

"Come, my child," pursued he, "be resigned. People are not always young,

you know. A time comes when the voice of reason must be heard. Hector

does not desert you, but he sees the necessity of assuring his future,

and placing his life on a domestic foundation; he feels the need of a

home."

Jenny stopped crying. Nature took the upper hand, and her tears were

dried by the fire of anger which took possession of her. She rose,

overturning her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.

"Do you believe that?" said she. "Do you believe that Hector troubles

himself about his future? I see you don't know his character. He dream

of a home, or a family? He never has and never will think of anything

but himself. If he had any heart, would he have gone to live with you as

he has? He had two arms to gain his bread and mine. I was ashamed to ask

money of him, knowing that what he gave me came from you."

"But he is my friend, my dear child."

"Would you do as he has done?"

Sauvresy did not know what to say; he was embarrassed by the logic of

this daughter of the people, judging her lover rudely, but justly.

"Ah, I know him, I do," continued Jenny, growing more excited as her

mind reverted to the past. "He has only deceived me once--the morning he

came and told me he was going to kill himself. I was stupid enough to

think him dead, and to cry about it. He, kill himself? Why, he's too

much of a coward to hurt himself! Yes, I love him, but I don't esteem

him. That's our fate, you see, only to love the men we despise."

Jenny talked loud, gesticulating, and every now and then thumping the

table with her fist so that the bottles and glasses jingled. Sauvresy

was somewhat fearful lest the hotel people should hear her; they knew

him, and had seen him come in. He began to be sorry that he had come,

and tried to calm the girl.

"But Hector is not deserting you," repeated he. "He will assure you a

good position."

"Humph! I should laugh at such a thing! Have I any need of him? As long

as I have ten fingers and good eyes, I shall not be at the mercy of any

man. He made me change my name, and wanted to accustom me to luxury! And

now there is neither a Miss Jenny, nor riches, but there is a Pelagie,

who proposes to get her fifty sous a day, without much trouble."

"No," said Sauvresy, "you will not need--"

"What? To work? But I like work; I am not a do-nothing. I will go back

to my old life. I used to breakfast on a sou's worth of biscuit and a

sou's worth of potatoes, and was well and happy. On Sundays, I dined at

the Turk for thirty sous. I laughed more then in one afternoon, than in

all the years I have known Tremorel."

She no longer cried, nor was she angry; she was laughing. She was

thinking of her old breakfasts, and her feasts at the Turk.

Sauvresy was stupefied. He had no idea of this Parisian nature,

detestable and excellent, emotional to excess, nervous, full of

transitions, which laughs and cries, caresses and strikes in the same

minute, which a passing idea whirls a hundred leagues from the present

moment.

"So," said Jenny, more calmly, "I snap my fingers at Hector,"--she had

just said exactly the contrary, and had forgotten it--"I don't care for

him, but I will not let him leave me in this way. It sha'n't be said

that he left me for another. I won't have it."

Jenny was one of those women who do not reason, but who feel; with whom

it is folly to argue, for their fixed idea is impregnable to the most

victorious arguments. Sauvresy asked himself why she had asked him to

come, and said to himself that the part he had intended to play would be

a difficult one. But he was patient.

"I see, my child," he commenced, "that you haven't understood or even

heard me. I told you that Hector was intending to marry."

"He!" answered Jenny, with an ironical gesture. "He get married."

She reflected a moment, and added:

"If it were true, though--"

"I tell you it is so."

"No," cried Jenny, "no, that can't be possible. He loves another, I am

sure of it, for I have proofs."

Sauvresy smiled; this irritated her.

"What does this letter mean," cried she warmly, "which I found in his

pocket, six months ago? It isn't signed to be sure, but it must have

come from a woman."

"A letter?"

"Yes, one that destroys all doubts. Perhaps you ask, why I did not speak

to him about it? Ah, you see, I did not dare. I loved him. I was afraid

if I said anything, and it was true he loved another, I should lose him.

And so I resigned myself to humiliation, I concealed myself to weep, for

I said to myself, he will come back to me. Poor fool!"

"Well, but what will you do?"

"Me? I don't know--anything. I didn't say anything about the letter, but

I kept it; it is my weapon--I will make use of it. When I want to, I

shall find out who she is, and then--"

"You will compel Tremorel, who is kindly disposed toward you, to use

violence."

"He? What can he do to me? Why, I will follow him like his shadow--I

will cry out everywhere the name of this other. Will he have me put in

St. Lazare prison? I will invent the most dreadful calumnies against

him. They will not believe me at first; later, part of it will be

believed. I have nothing to fear--I have no parents, no friends, nobody

on earth who cares for me. That's what it is to raise girls from the

gutter. I have fallen so low that I defy him to push me lower. So, if

you are his friend, sir, advise him to come back to me."

Sauvresy was really alarmed; he saw clearly how real and earnest Jenny's

menaces were. There are persecutions against which the law is powerless.

But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest air he could assume.

"Hear me, my child," said he. "If I give you my word of honor to tell

you the truth, you'll believe me, won't you?"

She hesitated a moment, and said:

"Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you."

"Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who is

immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future."

"He tells you so; he wants you to believe it."

"Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no other

affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he were my

brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you how he spends

his time every hour of every day as well as what I do myself."

Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the words

on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently, looking at

Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not observe this, being

inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity. This proof, which Jenny

talked about, worried him.

"Suppose," said he, "you should show me this letter."

She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.

"To you?" she said, shuddering. "Never!"

If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts, it

often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at a

certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect's wing

awakens one.

Jenny's shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister

light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his happiness,

his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing eye and trembling

lips.

"Give me the letter," said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled with

terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn the matter

into a joke.

"Not to-day," said she. "Another time; you are too curious."

But Sauvresy's anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had had

a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:

"The letter, I demand the letter."

"Impossible," said Jenny. "Because," she added, struck with an idea, "I

haven't got it here."

"Where is it?"

"At my room, in Paris."

"Come, then, let us go there."

She saw that she was caught; and she could find no more excuses,

quick-witted as she was. She might, however, easily have followed

Sauvresy, put his suspicions to sleep with her gayety, and when once in

the Paris streets, might have eluded him and fled. But she did not think

of that. It occurred to her that she might have time to reach the door,

open it, and rush downstairs. She started to do so. Sauvresy caught her

at a bound, shut the door, and said, in a low, hoarse voice:

"Wretched girl! Do you wish me to strike you?"

He pushed her into a chair, returned to the door, double locked it, and

put the keys in his pocket. "Now," said he, returning to the girl, "the

letter."

Jenny had never been so terrified in her life. This man's rage made her

tremble; she saw that he was beside himself, that she was completely at

his mercy; yet she still resisted him.

"You have hurt me very much," said she, crying, "but I have done you no

harm."

He grasped her hands in his, and bending over her, repeated:

"For the last time, the letter; give it to me, or I will take it by

force."

It would have been folly to resist longer. "Leave me alone," said she.

"You shall have it."

He released her, remaining, however, close by her side, while she

searched in all her pockets. Her hair had been loosened in the struggle,

her collar was torn, she was tired, her teeth chattered, but her eyes

shone with a bold resolution.

"Wait--here it is--no. It's odd--I am sure I've got it though--I had it

a minute ago--"

And, suddenly, with a rapid gesture, she put the letter, rolled into a

ball, into her mouth, and tried to swallow it. But Sauvresy as quickly

grasped her by the throat, and she was forced to disgorge it.

He had the letter at last. His hands trembled so that he could scarcely

open it.

It was, indeed, Bertha's writing.

Sauvresy tottered with a horrible sensation of dizziness; he could not

see clearly; there was a red cloud before his eyes; his legs gave way

under him, he staggered, and his hands stretched out for a support.

Jenny, somewhat recovered, hastened to give him help; but her touch made

him shudder, and he repulsed her. What had happened he could not tell.

Ah, he wished to read this letter and could not. He went to the table,

turned out and drank two large glasses of water one after another. The

cold draught restored him, his blood resumed its natural course, and he

could see. The note was short, and this was what he read:

"Don't go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg; or rather, return before breakfast.

He has just told me that he must go to Melun, and that he should return

late. A whole day!"

"He"--that was himself. This other lover of Hector's was Bertha, his

wife. For a moment he saw nothing but that; all thought was crushed

within him. His temples beat furiously, he heard a dreadful buzzing in

his ears, it seemed to him as if the earth were about to swallow him up.

He fell into a chair; from purple he became ashy white. Great tears

trickled down his cheeks.

Jenny understood the miserable meanness of her conduct when she saw this

great grief, this silent despair, this man with a broken heart. Was she

not the cause of all? She had guessed who the writer of the note was.

She thought when she asked Sauvresy to come to her, that she could tell

him all, and thus avenge herself at once upon Hector and her rival.

Then, on seeing this man refusing to comprehend her hints, she had been

full of pity for him. She had said to herself that he would be the one

who would be most cruelly punished; and then she had recoiled--but too

late--and he had snatched the secret from her.

She approached Sauvresy and tried to take his hands; he still repulsed

her.

"Let me alone," said he.

"Pardon me, sir--I am a wretch, I am horrified at myself."

He rose suddenly; he was gradually coming to himself.

"What do you want?"

"That letter--I guessed--"

He burst into a loud, bitter, discordant laugh, and replied:

"God forgive me! Why, my dear, did you dare to suspect my wife?"

While Jenny was muttering confused excuses, he drew out his pocket-book

and took from it all the money it contained--some seven or eight hundred

francs--which he put on the table.

"Take this, from Hector," said he, "he will not permit you to suffer for

anything; but, believe me, you had best let him get married."

Then he mechanically took up his gun, opened the door, and went out. His

dogs leaped upon him to caress him; he kicked them off. Where was he

going? What was he going to do?