Chapter III: Part 3

"All this troubled me a good deal," M. Maraud said later, "and it troubled me the more because she began to get thin and out of health. She grew feeble, became more and more silent and gentle. She went out to our friends more and more rarely, she avoided going to town unless compelled.... I have no doubt that some terrible, incomprehensible disease had been gradually getting hold of her, body and soul!" And the governess added that that autumn, Madame Maraud, if she went out, invariably put on a thick white veil, which she had never done before, and that, on coming home, she would immediately take it off in front of the glass and would carefully examine her tired face. It is unnecessary to explain what had been going on in her soul during that period. But did she desire to see Emile? Did he write to her and did she answer him? He produced before the court two telegrams which he alleged she sent him in reply to letters of his. One was dated November 10: "You are driving me mad. Be calm. Send me a message immediately." The other of December 23: "No, no, don't come, I implore you. Think of me, love me as a mother." But, of course, the truth that the telegrams had been sent by her could not be proved. Only this is certain, that from September to January the life which Madame Maraud lived was miserable, agitated, morbid.

The late autumn of that year in Constantine was cold and rainy. Then, as is always the case in Algeria, there suddenly came a delightful spring. And a liveliness began again to return to Madame Maraud, that happy, subtle intoxication which people who have already lived through their youth feel at the blossoming of spring. She began to go out again; she drove out a good deal with the children and used to take them to the deserted garden of the villa Hashim; she intended to go to Algiers, and to show the children Blida near which there is in the hills a wooded gorge, the favourite haunt of monkeys. And so it went on until January 17 of the year 1893. On January 17 she woke up with a feeling of gentle happiness which, it seemed, had agitated her the whole night. Her husband was away on business, and in his absence she slept alone in the large room; the blinds and curtains made it almost dark. Still from the pale bluishness which filtered in one could see that it was very early. And, indeed, the little watch on the night table showed that it was six o'clock. She felt with delight the morning freshness coming from the garden, and, wrapping the light blanket round her, turned to the wall.... "Why am I so happy?" she thought as she fell asleep. And in vague and beautiful visions she saw scenes in Italy and Sicily, scenes of that far-off spring when she sailed in a cabin, with its windows opening on to the deck and the cold silvery sea, with doorhangings which time had worn and faded to a rusty silver colour, with its threshold of brass shining from perpetual polishings.... Then she saw boundless bays, lagoons, low shores, an Arab city all white with flat roofs and behind it misty blue hills and mountains. It was Tunis, where she had only once been, that spring when she was in Naples, Palermo.... But then, as though the chill of a wave had passed over her, with a start, she opened her eyes. It was past eight; she heard the voices of the children and the governess. She got up, put on a wrap, and, going out on to the balcony, went down to the garden and sat in the rocking-chair. It stood on the sand by a round table under a blossoming mimosa tree which made a golden arbour heavily scented in the sun. The maid brought her coffee. She again began to think of Tunis, and she remembered the strange thing which had happened to her there, the sweet terror and happy silence of the moment before death which she had experienced in that pale-blue city in a warm pink twilight, half lying in a rocking-chair on the hotel roof, faintly seeing the dark face of the Arab hypnotizer and juggler, who squatted in front of her and sent her to sleep by his hardly audible, monotonous melodies and the slow movements of his thin hands. And suddenly, as she was thinking and was looking mechanically with wide-open eyes at the bright silver spark which shone in the sunlight from the spoon in the glass of water, she lost consciousness.... When with a start she opened her eyes again, Emile was standing over her.

All that followed after that unexpected meeting is known from the words of Emile himself, from his story, from his answers in cross-examination. "Yes, I came to Constantine out of the blue!" he said; "I came because I felt that the Powers of Heaven themselves could not stop me. In the morning of January 17 straight from the railway station, without any warning, I arrived at M. Maraud's house and ran into the garden. I was overwhelmed by what I saw, but no sooner had I taken a step forward than she woke up. She seemed to be amazed both by the unexpectedness of my appearance and by what had been happening to her, but she uttered no cry. She looked at me like a person who has just woken up from a sound sleep, and then she got up, arranging her hair.

"It is just what I anticipated," she said without expression; "you did not obey me!"

And with a characteristic movement she folded the wrap round her bosom, and taking my head in her two hands kissed me twice on the forehead.

I was bewildered with passionate ecstasy, but she quietly pushed me from her and said:

"Come, I am not dressed; I'll be back presently; go to the children."

"But, for the love of God, what was the matter with you just now?" I asked, following her on to the balcony.

"Oh, it was nothing, a slight faintness; I had been looking at the shining spoon," she answered, regaining control of herself, and beginning to speak with animation. "But what have you done, what have you done!"

I could not find the children anywhere; it was empty and quiet in the house. I sat in the dining-room, and heard her suddenly begin to sing in a distant room in a strong, melodious voice, but I did not understand then the full horror of that singing, because I was trembling with nervousness. I had not slept at all all night; I had counted the minutes while the train was hurrying me to Constantine; I jumped into the first carriage I met, raced out of the station; I did not expect as I came to the town.... I knew I, too, had a foreboding that my coming would be fatal to us; but still what I saw in the garden, that mystical meeting, and that sudden change in her attitude towards me, I could not expect that! In ten minutes she came down with her hair dressed, in a light grey dress with a shade of blue in it.

"Ah," she said, while I kissed her hand, "I forgot that to-day is Sunday; the children are at church, and I overslept.... After church the children will go to the pine-wood--have you ever been there?"

And, without waiting for my answer, she rang the bell, and told them to bring me coffee. She began to look fixedly at me, and, without listening to my replies, to ask me how I lived, and what I was doing; she began to speak of herself, of how, after two or three very bad months during which she had become "terribly old"--those words were uttered with an imperceptible smile--she now felt so well, as young, as never before.... I answered, listened, but a great deal I did not understand. Both of us said meaningless things; my hands grew cold at the thought of another terrible and inevitable hour. I do not deny that I felt as though I were struck by lightning when she said "I have grown old...." I suddenly noticed that she was right; in the thinness of her hands, and faded, though youthful, face, in the dryness of some of the outlines of her figure, I noticed the first signs of that which, painfully and somehow awkwardly--but still more painfully--makes one's heart contract at the sight of an ageing woman. Oh yes, how quickly and sharply she had changed, I thought. But still she was beautiful; I grew intoxicated looking at her. I had been accustomed to dream of her endlessly; I had never for an instant forgotten when, in the evening of July 11, I had embraced her knees for the first time. Her hands, too, trembled slightly, as she arranged her hair and spoke and smiled and looked at me; and suddenly--you will understand the whole catastrophic power of that woman--suddenly that smile somehow became distorted, and she said with difficulty, but yet firmly:

"You must go home, you must rest after your journey--you are not looking yourself; your eyes are so terribly suffering, your lips so burning that I cannot bear it any longer.... Would you like me to come with you, to accompany you?"

And, without waiting for my answer, she got up and went to put on her hat and cloak....

We drove quickly to the villa Hashim. I stopped for a moment on the terrace to pick some flowers. She did not wait for me, but opened the door herself. I had no servants; there was only a watchman, but he did not see us. When I came into the hall, hot and dark with its drawn blinds, and gave her the flowers, she kissed them; then, putting one arm round me, she kissed me. Her lips were dry from excitement, but her voice was clear.

"But listen ... how shall we ... have you got anything?" she asked.

At first I did not understand her; I was so overwhelmed by the first kiss, the first endearment, and I murmured:

"What do you mean?"

She shrank back.

"What!" she said, almost sternly. "Did you imagine that I... that we can live after this? Have you anything to kill ourselves with?"

I understood, and quickly showed her my revolver, loaded with five cartridges, which I always kept on me.

She walked away quickly ahead of me from one room to the other. I followed her with that numbness of the senses with which a naked man on a sultry day walks out into the sea; I heard the rustle of her skirts. At last we were there; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the strings of her hat. Her hands were still trembling and in the half-light I again noticed something, pitiful and tired in her face....

But she died with firmness. At the last moment she was transformed; she kissed me, and moving her head back so as to see my face, she whispered to me such tender and moving words that I cannot repeat them.

I wanted to go out and pick some flowers to strew on the death-bed. She would not let me; she was in a hurry and said:

"No, no, you must not ... there are flowers here ... here are your flowers," and she kept on repeating: "And see, I beseech you by all that is sacred to you, kill me!"

"Yes, and then I will kill myself," I said, without for a moment doubting my resolution.

"Oh, I believe you, I believe you," she answered, already apparently half-unconscious....

A moment before her death she said very quietly and simply:

"My God, this is unspeakable!"

And again:

"Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me--for the last time."

She herself put the revolver to her head. I wanted to do it, but she stopped me:

"No, that is not right; let me do it. Like this, my child.... And _afterwards_ make the sign of the cross over me and lay the flowers on my heart...."

When I fired, she made a slight movement with her lips, and I fired again....

She lay quiet; in her dead face there was a kind of bitter happiness. Her hair was loose; the tortoise-shell comb lay on the floor. I staggered to my feet in order to put an end to myself. But the room, despite the blinds, was light; in the light and stillness which suddenly surrounded me, I saw clearly her face already pale.... And suddenly madness seized me; I rushed to the window, undid and threw open the shutters, began shouting and firing into the air.... The rest you know...."

* * * * *

[In the spring, five years ago, while wandering in Algeria, the writer of these lines visited Constantine.... There often comes to him a memory of the cold, rainy, and yet spring evenings which he spent by the fire in the reading-room of a certain old and homely French hotel. In the heavy, elaborate book-case were much-read illustrated papers, and in them you could see the faded photographs of Madame Maraud. There were photographs taken of her at different ages, and among them the Lausanne portrait of her as a girl.... Her story is told here once more, from a desire to tell it in one's own way.]

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