Chapter IX: Part 9

In his complete belief in his wife's vigorous constitution, he quite failed to understand the Doctor's hints; and the latter, not wishing to tell him the dreadful truth in plain words, could say no more. Besides, he thought that it would be as well to wait a little longer; for just then Chanteau was free from pain, his gout only troubling him in his legs, though these were sufficiently incapacitated to make it necessary to wheel him to bed in his chair.

'If it were not for these wretched legs of mine,' he said, 'I would go upstairs and see her myself.'

'Resign yourself, my friend,' said Abbé Horteur, who in his turn now tried to carry out his office of consoler. 'We each have our own cross to bear, and we are all in the hands of God----'

But he did not fail to notice that these words, so far from consoling Chanteau, only appeared to bore and even disquiet him, so he cut his exhortation short and substituted for it something more efficacious.

'Would you like to have a game at draughts? It will do you good.'

He went in person to take the draught-board from the cupboard. Chanteau was delighted, and shook hands with the Doctor, who then took his departure. The two others were soon deep in their game, quite forgetful of all else in the world, when all at once Minouche, who had probably got tired of seeing the paper ball under her nose, sprang forward, sent it spinning away, and bounded in wild antics after it all round the room.

'What a capricious creature!' cried Chanteau, put out in his play. 'She wouldn't have a game with me on any account a little while ago, and now she prevents one from thinking by playing all by herself.'

'Never mind her, said the priest mildly: 'cats have their own way of amusing themselves.'

Meantime, passing through the kitchen, Doctor Cazenove had experienced sudden emotion on seeing Lazare still sorrowfully brooding on the same chair; and he caught the young man in his big arms and kissed him paternally without saying a word. Just at that moment Véronique came downstairs, driving Matthew before her. The dog was perpetually prowling about the staircase, making a sort of hissing sound, which somewhat resembled the plaint of a bird; and, whenever he found the door of the sick woman's room open, he went in and there vented those sharp notes of his, which were ear-piercing in their persistency.

'Get away with you, do! Be off!' the servant cried. 'That noise of yours isn't likely to do her any good.'

And as she caught sight of Lazare she added: 'Take him for a walk somewhere. He will be out of our way, and it will do you good too.'

It was really an order of Pauline's that Véronique was conveying. The girl had told her to get Lazare to go out and take some long walks. But he refused to go; it even seemed to require an effort on his part to get upon his feet. However, the dog came and stood before him, and began wailing again.

'That poor Matthew isn't as young as he was once,' said the Doctor, who was watching him.

'No indeed!' said Véronique. 'He is fourteen years old now, but that doesn't prevent him from being as wild as ever after mice. Look how he has rubbed the skin off his nose, and how red his eyes are! He scented a mouse under the grate last night, and never closed his eyes afterwards; he turned my kitchen upside down, poking about everywhere. And such a great big dog, too, to worry about such tiny creatures, it's quite ridiculous! But it isn't only mice that he runs after. Anything that's little or crawls, newly hatched chickens or Minouche's kittens, anything of that sort, excites him to such a point that he even forgets to eat and drink. Just now I'm sure he scents something out of the common in the house----'

She checked herself as she caught sight of Lazare's eyes filling with tears.

'Go out for a walk, my lad,' the Doctor said to him. 'You can't be of any use here, and it will do you good to go out a little.'

The young man at last rose painfully to his feet. 'Well, we'll go,' he said. 'Come along, my poor old Matthew.'

When he had accompanied the Doctor to his gig, he set off along the cliffs with the dog. From time to time he had to stop and wait for Matthew, for the dog was really ageing quickly. His hind-quarters were becoming paralysed, and his heavy paws sounded like slippers as he dragged them along. He was now unable to go scooping out holes in the kitchen-garden, and quickly rolled over with dizziness when he set himself spinning after his tail. He had fits of coughing, too, whenever he plunged into the water, and after a quarter of an hour's walk he wanted to lie down and snore. He trudged along the beach just in front of his master's legs.

Lazare stood for a moment watching a fishing-smack coming from Port-en-Bessin, with its sail skimming over the sea like the wing of a gull. Then he went his way. The thought that his mother was dying kept on thrilling him painfully; if ever it left him for a moment, it was only to come back and rack him more violently than before. And it brought him perpetual surprise; it was an idea to which he could not grow reconciled, and which prevented him from thinking of anything else. If at times it lost distinctness he felt the vague oppression of a nightmare, in which he remained conscious of some great impending misfortune. Everything around him then seemed to disappear, and when he again beheld the sands and seaweed, the distant sea and far-reaching horizon, he started as if they were all new and strange to him. Could they be the objects that were so familiar to his eyes? Everything seemed to have changed; never before had he thus been struck by varying forms and hues. His mother was dying! And he walked on and on, trying to escape from that buzzing refrain which was ever sounding in his ears.

Suddenly he heard a deep sigh behind him. He turned and saw the dog completely exhausted, with his tongue hanging from his mouth.

'Ah! my poor old Matthew,' he said to him, 'you can't get on any farther. Well, we'll go back again. However far I may go, I shan't rid myself of my thoughts.'

That evening they hurried over dinner. Lazare, who could only swallow a few mouthfuls of bread, hastened away upstairs to his own room, excusing himself to his father by alleging some pressing work. When he reached the first floor, he went into his mother's room, where he forced himself to sit for some five minutes before kissing her and wishing her good-night. She seemed to be forgetting all about him, and never expressed the least anxiety as to what he might be doing during the day. When he bent over her, she offered him her cheek and seemed to consider his hasty good-night quite natural, absorbed as she was in the instinctive egotism which attends the approach of death. And Pauline took care to cut his visit as short as possible by inventing an excuse for sending him out of the room.

But in his own big room on the second floor his mental torment increased. It was in the night, the long weary night, that his anguish weighed heaviest upon him. He took up a supply of candles, so that he might never be without a light, and he kept them burning, one after another, till morning, terror-stricken by the thought of darkness. When he got into bed he tried in vain to read. His old medical treatises were the only books that had now any interest for him; but they filled him with fear, and he ended by throwing them away. Then he remained lying upon his back, with his eyes wide open, solely conscious of the fact that close to him, on the other side of the wall, there was an awful presence which weighed upon him and suffocated him. His dying mother's panting breath was for ever in his ears, that panting breath which had become so loud that for the last two days he had heard it whenever he climbed the staircase, which he never ascended now without hastening his steps.

The whole house seemed full of that plaint, which thrilled him as he lay in bed; the occasional intervals of quiet inspiring him with such alarm that he would run barefooted to the landing and lean over the banisters to listen. Pauline and Véronique, who kept watch together below, left the door of the room open for the sake of ventilation, and Lazare could see the pale patch of sleepy light which the night lamp threw upon the tiled floor, and could again hear his mother's heavy panting, which became louder and more prolonged in the darkness. When he went back to bed he, too, left his door open, and so intently did he listen to his mother's breathing that even in the snatches of sleep into which he fell towards morning he was still pursued by it. His personal horror of death had vanished again as at the time of his cousin's illness. His mother was going to die; everything was going to die! He abandoned himself to the contemplation of that collapse of life without any other feeling than one of exasperation at his powerlessness to prevent it.

The next morning saw the commencement of Madame Chanteau's death agony, a loquacious agony which lasted for twenty-four hours. She was calm, the dread of poison no longer terrified her, but she rambled on rapidly in a clear voice, without raising her head from her pillow. What she said was in no way conversation; she did not address herself to anyone; it was as though, in the general derangement of her faculties, her brain hastened to finish its work like a clock running down. That flood of rapid words seemed to be indeed the last tick-tack of the unwound chain of her mind. The events of her past life defiled before her; but she never said a word about the present, about her husband, or her son, or her niece, or her home at Bonneville, where, with her ambitious nature, she had suffered for ten long years. She was still Mademoiselle de la Vignière, giving music-lessons in the most distinguished families in Caen, and she familiarly spoke of people whom neither Pauline nor Véronique had ever heard of. She broke out into long rambling stories, whose details were incomprehensible even to the servant who had grown old in her service. She seemed to be emptying her brain of the recollections of her youth before she died; just as one may turn the faded letters of former days out of a desk in which they have long been lying.

In spite of her courage, Pauline could not help shuddering slightly as all those little involuntary confessions were poured out in the very throes of death. It was no longer difficult, panting breathing that filled the room, but a weird, rambling babble, of which Lazare caught fragments as he passed the door. But, however much he might turn them over in his mind, he was unable to understand them, and grew full of alarm, as though his mother were already speaking from the other side of the grave amidst invisible beings to whom she was relating those strange stories.

When Doctor Cazenove arrived he found Chanteau and Abbé Horteur playing draughts in the dining-room. From all appearances, they might still have been engaged on the game which they had commenced the day before, and have never stirred from the room since the Doctor's previous visit. Minouche sat near them, intently studying the draught-board. The priest had arrived at an early hour to resume his duties as consoler. Pauline no longer felt that his proposed visit to her aunt would be attended with inconvenience; and so, when the Doctor went upstairs to see her, the priest accompanied him to the sick woman's bedside, presenting himself simply as a friend anxious to know how she was getting on.

Madame Chanteau recognised them both, and, having been raised up on her pillows, she smilingly welcomed them with all the airs of a Caen lady holding a reception. The dear Doctor was surely quite satisfied with her, she said; she would soon be able to leave her bed. Then she questioned the Abbé about his own health. The latter, who had come upstairs with the intention of fulfilling his priestly duties, was so overcome by the dying woman's rambling chatter that he could not open his mouth; and, besides, Pauline, who was in the room, would have stopped him if he had mentioned certain subjects. The girl had sufficient control over herself to feign confident cheerfulness. When the two men went away, she accompanied them to the landing, where the Doctor, in low tones, gave her instructions as to what she should do at the last moment. Such words as 'rapid decomposition' and 'carbolic acid' were frequently mentioned, while the ceaseless chatter from the dying woman still buzzed through the open doorway.

'You think, then, that she will see the day out?' the girl inquired.

'Yes, I feel sure that she will live till to-morrow,' Cazenove answered. 'But don't lift her up any more, or she might die in your arms. I shall come again this evening.'

It was settled that Abbé Horteur should remain with Chanteau and gradually prepare him for the fatal issue. Véronique stood listening near the door while this was being agreed upon, and her face assumed a scared expression. Ever since the probability of her mistress's death had become clear to her she had scarcely opened her lips, but sought to render all possible service with the silent devotion of a faithful animal. But the conversation was hushed, for Lazare, wandering over the house, now came up the staircase; he had lacked the courage to be present at the Doctor's visit and to inquire the truth as to his mother's danger. However, the mournful silence with which he was greeted forced the knowledge upon him in spite of himself, and he turned very pale.

'My dear boy,' said the Doctor, 'you had better come along with me. I will give you some lunch and bring you back with me in the evening.'

The young man turned yet more pallid and replied: 'No, thank you; I would rather not go away.'

From that moment Lazare waited, feeling a terrible pressure upon his breast, as if an iron band were drawn tightly round him. The day seemed as though it would never end, and yet it passed away without any consciousness on his part of how the hours went by. He had no recollection of how he had spent them, wandering restlessly up and down the stairs, and gazing out upon the distant sea, the sight of whose ceaseless rocking dazed him yet more. At certain moments the irresistible flight of the minutes seemed to be materialised, and to become the onslaught of a mass of granite driving everything into the abyss of nothingness. Then he grew exasperated and longed for the end, in order that he might be released from the strain of that terrible waiting. About four o'clock, as he was once more creeping up to his own room, he turned suddenly aside and entered his mother's chamber. He felt a desire to see her and kiss her once again. But, as he bent over her, she went on pouring out her incoherent talk, and did not even turn her cheek towards him in that weary manner with which she had received him ever since the beginning of her illness. Perhaps she did not see him, he thought; indeed, it was no longer his mother who lay there with that livid face and lips already blackened.

'Go away,' Pauline said to him gently. 'Go out for a little while. I assure you that the hour has not yet come.'

And then, instead of going up to his room, Lazare rushed downstairs and out of the house, ever with the sight of that woeful face, which he could no longer recognise, before him. He told himself that his cousin had lied, that the hour was really at hand; but then he was stifling, and needed space and air, and so he rushed on like a madman. The thought that he would never, never again see his mother tortured him terribly. But he fancied he heard some one running after him, and when he turned and saw Matthew, who was trying to overtake him at a heavy run, he flew without cause into a violent passion, and picked up stones and hurled them at the dog, storming at him the while, to drive him back to the house. Matthew, amazed at this reception, trotted back some distance, and then turned and gazed at his master with his gentle eyes, in which tears seemed to glisten. He persisted in following Lazare from a distance, as though to keep watch over his despair, and the young man found it impossible to drive him away. But the immensity of the sea had an irritating effect upon Lazare, and he fled into the fields and wandered about them, looking for out-of-the-way corners where he could feel alone and concealed. He prowled up and down till night fell, tramping over ploughed land, breaking his way through hedges. At last, worn out, he was returning homewards, when he beheld a sight which thrilled him with superstitious terror. At the edge of a lonely road there stood a lofty poplar, black and solitary, over which the rising moon showed like a yellow flame; and the tree suggested a gigantic taper burning in the dusk at the bedside of some giantess lying out there across the open country.

'Come, Matthew! Come!' he cried in a choking voice. 'Let us get on!'

He reached the house running, as he had left it. The dog had ventured to draw near, and licked his hands.

Although the night had now fallen, there was no light in the kitchen. It was empty and dark, with only the glow of the charcoal embers reddening the ceiling. The gloom weighed upon Lazare, and he lacked the courage to go further. Overcome with fear and emotion, he remained standing amidst the litter of pots and dusters, and strained his ears to catch the sounds with which the house was quivering. On one side he heard a slight cough; it came from his father, to whom Abbé Horteur was talking in low continuous tones. But what most frightened the young man was the sound of hushed voices and hasty steps on the stairs, and a muffled noise on the upper floor, which he could not account for, though it suggested something being hurriedly accomplished with as little noise as possible. He did not dare to go and see what it meant. Could it be all was over? He was still standing there perfectly motionless, without courage enough to go and inquire the truth, when he saw Véronique come down. She rushed into the kitchen, lighted a candle, and carried it away with her so hurriedly that she neither spoke to the young man nor looked at him. The kitchen, after being lighted for a moment, relapsed into darkness. Up above the stir was ceasing. Once more did the servant come down, this time to get a bowl, and again she displayed silent, desperate haste. Lazare no longer felt any doubt. All must be over. Then, overcome, he sank down upon the edge of the table, and waited amidst that darkness, without knowing for what he was waiting, his ears buzzing the while in the deep silence that had just fallen.

Upstairs, for two hours past, Madame Chanteau's last agony--an agony so awful that it thrilled Pauline and Véronique with horror--had been following its course. Her dread of poison having reappeared, she raised herself up in bed, still wildly rambling on, gradually mastered by furious delirium. She wished to jump out of bed and escape from the house, where someone wanted to kill her; and it was all that the young girl and the servant could do to restrain her.

'Let me go! I shall be murdered! I must escape at once, at once!'

Véronique tried to calm her.

'Oh! Madame, don't you see us? You can't suppose that we should let any harm come to you.'

The dying woman, exhausted by her violent struggles, lay for a moment panting. Her dim eyes wandered anxiously round the room, as though she were looking for something. Then she resumed:

'Shut up the secrétaire! It is in the drawer. Ah! there she is coming upstairs! Oh! I am afraid! I tell you that I can hear her! Don't give her the key. Let me go, at once, at once!'

Then again she began to struggle, while Pauline held her in her arms.

'Aunt, there is no one here. There are only ourselves.'

'No! no! Listen! There she is! Oh, God! God! I shall die! The hussy has made me drink it all--I am going to die! I am going to die!'

Her teeth chattered, and she sought protection in the arms of her niece, whom she did not recognise. Pauline mournfully strained her to her heart, no longer fighting against that horrible suspicion, but resigning herself to the knowledge that her aunt would carry it to her grave.

Fortunately Véronique was watching, and threw her arms forward crying:

'Take care, Mademoiselle! Take care!'

It was the supreme convulsive struggle. By a violent effort Madame Chanteau had succeeded in throwing her swollen legs out of bed, and, but for the servant's presence, she would have fallen on the floor. Her whole body was shaken by delirium; she broke into incoherent spasmodic cries, while her fists clenched as though she were engaging in a close struggle, defending herself against some phantom that clutched her by the throat. At that supreme moment she must have understood that she was dying; there was an expression of intelligence in her eyes which horror dilated. For a moment a frightful spasm of pain made her press her hands to her breast. Then she fell back on her pillow and turned black. She was dead.

Deep silence fell. Pauline closed her aunt's eyes, but she was exhausted, and incapable of doing anything further. When she left the room, leaving there both Véronique and Prouane's wife, whom she had sent for after the Doctor's visit, her strength gave way; she was obliged to sit down for a moment on the stairs, and no longer felt the courage to go and tell Lazare and Chanteau the truth. The walls seemed to be turning round her. A few minutes went by; then she again laid her hand upon the banister, but on hearing Abbé Horteur's voice in the dining-room she preferred to enter the kitchen. And there she found Lazare, whose gloomy face showed against the red glow of the embers in the grate. Without speaking a word she stepped towards him and opened her arms. He understood, and threw himself upon the young girl's shoulder, while she pressed him to her in a long embrace. They kissed each other on the face, while she wept silently; but he was unable to shed a single tear; emotion was stifling him, he could scarcely breathe. At last the girl unclasped her arms, saying the first words that came to her lips:

'Why are you here without a light?'

He made a gesture, as though to signify that he had no need of any light in his great sorrow.

'We must light a candle,' she said.

Lazare had fallen upon a chair again, incapable, as he was, of keeping on his feet. Matthew restlessly wandered about the yard, sniffing the damp night air. At last he came back into the kitchen and looked keenly at them in turn, and then went and rested his head on his master's knee, remaining there and silently questioning him, with his eyes fixed upon the young man's. Lazare began to tremble at the dog's persistent gaze, and suddenly the tears gushed from his eyes and he burst into sobs, throwing his arms the while round the neck of the old dog which his mother had loved for fourteen years. And he began to stammer in broken words:

'Ah! my poor old fellow! my poor old fellow! We shall never see her again!'

Notwithstanding her emotion, Pauline had succeeded in finding and lighting a candle. She made no attempt to console Lazare; she was glad to find him able to shed tears. There was still a painful task before her, that of informing her uncle of his wife's death. Just as she was making up her mind to go into the dining-room, whither Véronique had taken a lamp at the beginning of the evening, Abbé Horteur had managed to explain to Chanteau, in long ecclesiastical phrases, that there was no chance of his wife's recovery, and that her death was only a question of hours. And so when the old man saw his niece enter the room, overcome with emotion and her eyes red from weeping, he knew what had happened, and his first words were:

'_Mon Dieu_! there was only one thing that I would have asked for: I should have liked to see her once more while she lived!--But, ah, these wretched legs of mine! These wretched legs!'

He said scarcely anything else. He shed a few bitter tears which quickly dried, and vented a few sighs, but he speedily returned to the subject of his legs, falling foul of them and ending by pitying himself. For a few moments they discussed the possibility of carrying him to the first floor in order that he might give the dead woman a last kiss; but, apart from the difficulties of the task, they considered that the emotion of such a farewell might have a dangerous effect on him; and, besides, he did not seem very anxious about the matter himself. So he remained in the dining-room near the draught-board, without knowing how to occupy his poor weak hands, and not even having his head clear enough, he said, to be able to read and understand the newspaper. When they carried him to bed, old memories seemed to awaken in him, for he shed many tears.

Then came two long nights and a day that seemed endless: those terrible hours during which death dwells in the house. Cazenove had only returned to certify the death, once more surprised by the rapidity with which the end had come. Lazare did not go to bed the first night, but spent his time till morning in writing to his relations at a distance. The body was to be taken to the cemetery at Caen and buried in the family vault there. The Doctor had kindly promised to see to all the formalities, and the only painful matter in connection with them was the necessity for Chanteau, as Mayor of Bonneville, to receive the declaration of his wife's death. As Pauline had no suitable black dress, she hastened to make one out of an old skirt and a merino shawl, which she cut into a bodice. In the midst of these occupations the first night and the following day passed; but the second night seemed endless, rendered the more interminable by the mournful prospect of the morrow. No one was able to get any sleep; the doors remained open, and lighted candles were left upon the stairs and tables, while even the most distant rooms reeked of carbolic acid. They were all in the grasp of grief, and went about with blurred eyes and clammy lips, feeling but one dim need, that of clutching hold of life once more.

At last, about ten o'clock the next morning, the bell of the little church on the other side of the road began to toll. Out of respect to Abbé Horteur, who had behaved so well and kindly under the sad circumstances, the family had determined that the religious ceremony should be performed at Bonneville, before the body was removed to the cemetery at Caen. As soon as Chanteau heard the bell toll, he began to wriggle about in his chair.

'I must see her go away, at any rate,' he repeated, 'Oh! these wretched legs of mine! What a misery it is to have such wretched legs as mine are!'

It was to no purpose that they tried to keep him from beholding the mournful spectacle. As the bell began to toll more quickly, he grew angry and exclaimed:

'Wheel me out into the passage. I can hear them bringing her down. Be quick! be quick! I must see her go away!'

Pauline and Lazare, who were in full mourning and had already put on their gloves, were obliged to do as he bade them. Standing, the one on his right and the other on his left, they wheeled the arm-chair to the foot of the staircase. Four men were just bringing the corpse downstairs, bending beneath its great weight. As Chanteau caught sight of the coffin, with its new wood and glittering handles and large brass name-plate, he made an instinctive effort to rise, but his leaden legs kept him down, and he was obliged to remain seated in his chair, shaken by such a convulsive trembling that his very jaws chattered. The narrowness of the staircase made the descent difficult, and he gazed at the big yellow box as it slowly came towards him, and, as it passed his feet, he bent over to read the inscription on the plate. There was more room in the passage, whence the bearers moved quickly towards the bier, which was standing before the door. Chanteau's eyes were still fixed on the coffin, and with it he saw forty years of his life depart, happy years and unhappy years, which he sadly regretted, as one ever does regret one's youth. Pauline and Lazare were weeping behind his chair.

'No, no! Leave me here!' he said to them, as he saw them prepare to wheel him back again to his place in the dining-room. 'You go along; I will stay here and watch.'

The bearers had laid the coffin on the bier, which was lifted by some other attendants. The little procession was formed in the yard, which was full of people of the neighbourhood. Matthew, who had been shut up since early morning, was whining from under the door of the coach-house amidst the profound silence; while Minouche, seated on the kitchen window-sill, examined with an air of surprise both the concourse of people and the box that was being carried away. As they still continued to linger, the cat grew tired of watching and began to lick her stomach.

'You are not going, then?' Chanteau said to Véronique, whom he had just perceived near him.

'No, sir,' she replied in a choking voice. 'Mademoiselle told me to stay with you.'

The church-bell was still tolling, and at last the coffin left the yard, followed by Pauline and Lazare, whose blackness seemed intensified by the sunlight. And, sitting in his invalid's chair in the open doorway of the hall, Chanteau watched his wife's body being borne away.

VII

The funeral matters and certain business affairs that had to be attended to detained Lazare and Pauline in Caen for a couple of days. When they set out on their journey home, after paying a farewell visit to the cemetery, the weather had broken up and there was a strong gale blowing. They left Arromanches in a storm of rain, and the wind blew so strongly that it threatened to carry the hood of their trap away. Pauline thought of her first journey when Madame Chanteau had brought her from Paris. It was just such a stormy day as this, and her poor aunt had kept warning her not to lean out of the conveyance, while perpetually refastening a muffler that she wore round her neck. Lazare, too, in his corner of the trap, sat thinking of the past, and in his mind's eye saw his mother waiting to welcome him after each of his journeys along that road as she had ever done. One December, he remembered, she had walked a couple of leagues to meet him, and he had found her seated on yonder milestone. Thus reflecting, amidst the rain which poured unceasingly, the girl and her cousin did not exchange a single word between Arromanches and Bonneville.

Just as they were reaching home, however, the downpour stopped, but the wind's violence increased, and the driver was obliged to alight from his seat and take hold of the horse's bridle. At the moment of reaching the house Houtelard, the fisherman, ran past them.

'Ah! Monsieur Lazare!' he cried; 'it's all done for this time! The sea's breaking all your timbers to bits down yonder!'

The sea was not visible from that bend of the road. The young man, who had raised his head, had just caught sight of Véronique standing on the terrace and gazing towards the shore. On the other side, sheltering himself behind his garden wall, for fear lest the wind should rend his cassock, Abbé Horteur stood straining his eyes in the same direction. He bent forward and cried:

'It's washing your piles away!'

Thereupon Lazare walked down the hill, followed by Pauline, in spite of the storminess of the weather. When they came to the foot of the cliff they were amazed by the sight which they beheld. It was one of the September flood-tides, and the sea was rushing up in wild commotion. No warning had been issued of any probable danger, but the gale, which had been blowing from the north since the previous day, had thrown the sea into such tumult that mountains of water towered up in the distance and, rolling onward, broke with a mighty roar over the rocks. In the far distance the sea looked black beneath the shadow of the clouds which raced over the livid sky.

'Get into the trap again,' said the young man to his cousin. 'I will just see how things look, and come back directly.'

Pauline made no reply, but followed Lazare as far as the shore. There the piles and a great stockade which had been recently constructed were being subjected to a frightful assault. The waves, which ever seemed to be growing larger, rushed against them in quick succession, like so many battering-rams. They came on like an innumerable army; fresh masses sprang forward without a moment's cessation. Their huge green backs, crested with foam, curved on every side, and sped forward with giant strength; and, as these monsters dashed against the stockades, they burst into a mighty rain of drops, then fell in a mass of white boiling foam, which the sea seemed to suck in and carry away. The timbers cracked beneath the violence of each of those furious onsets. The supports of one groyne were already broken, and a great central beam, still secured at one end, swayed hopelessly like the dead trunk of a tree whose branches had been stripped off by grape-shot. Two others offered more resistance, but they were shaking in their fixings, as though gradually overpowered in that surging grasp, which seemed bent on wearing out their strength in order to dash them to pieces.

'I told you how it would be!' repeated Prouane, who was very drunk, and stood leaning against the broken shell of an old boat. 'I told you how it would be when the wind blew like this. A lot the sea cares about that young man and his bits of sticks!'

Jeers greeted these words. All Bonneville was there, men, women, and children; and they were all very much amused at seeing the thundering slaps which fell upon the stockades. The sea might smash their hovels to fragments; they still loved it with an admiring awe, and they would have felt it a personal insult if the first young man who tried had been able to conquer it with a few beams and a couple of dozen bolts. And they grew excited as with a feeling of individual triumph as they saw the sea at last awake, unmuzzle itself, and throw its great jaws forward.

'Look! look!' cried Houtelard. 'That's a smasher! It has swept a couple of beams away!'

They called to each other, and Cuche tried to reckon up the waves.

'It will take three more, and then you'll see! There's one! That's loosened it! There's two! Ah! that's swept it away! Two have sufficed to do it, you see! Ah, the old hussy she is!'

He referred to the sea, uttering the word 'hussy' as if it were a term of endearment. Affectionate oaths arose, children began to dance whenever a heavier wave than usual crashed and snapped another of the timbers. Yet another broke, and yet another; there would soon be not one left, they would all be crushed like fleas. But though the tide still rose, the great stockade still remained firm. It was the sea's struggle against this which was most anxiously awaited, for it would be the decisive contest. At last the mounting waves dashed between the timbers, and the spectators prepared themselves to laugh.

'It's a pity the young man isn't here,' said that rascal Tourmal in a jeering voice, 'or he might lean against it and try to keep it up.'

A 'Hush!' made him silent, for some of the fishermen had just caught sight of Lazare and Pauline. The latter, who were very pale, had heard Tourmal's sneer, and they continued to gaze at the disaster in silence. It was a mere trifle, the smashing of those beams, but the tide would go on rising for another two hours, and the village would certainly suffer if the stockade did not hold out. Lazare had passed his arm round his cousin's waist, and was holding her close to him to protect her from the squalls which, as cutting as scythe-blades, blew against them. A mournful gloom fell from the black sky and the waves howled, and the two young people, in their deep mourning, remained motionless amidst the flying foam and the clamour that was ever growing louder. Around them the fishermen were now waiting, still with a jeering expression on their lips, but feeling increasing anxiety.

'It won't last much longer now!' Houtelard murmured. The stockade still resisted, however. At each wave that struck it its black, pitch-coated timbers still showed forth amidst the white waters. But as soon as one of the beams was broken, the adjoining ones began to fall away, piece by piece. For fifty years past the oldest men there had not known such a heavy sea. Soon they had to retire, the beams which had been torn away were dashed violently against the others, and gradually wrought the complete destruction of the stockade, whose fragments were furiously hurled ashore. There was but one left upright, standing there like a post marking a sandbank. The Bonneville folks had given over laughing now; the women were carrying off their crying children. The 'hussy' had fallen upon them again, and the stupor that came of despairing resignation to the ruin which was certainly at hand now fell on that little spot, nestling so closely to the sea which both supported and destroyed it. There was a hasty retreat, a gallop of heavy boots. Everyone took refuge behind the walls of shingle, by which alone the houses were now protected. Some of the piles here were already yielding, planks had been knocked out, and enormous waves swept right over the walls which were too low to stay their course. Soon there was nothing left to offer resistance, and a mass of water, dashing against Houtelard's house, smashed the windows and deluged the kitchen. Then there came perfect rout, and only the victorious sea remained dashing unimpeded up the beach.

'Don't go inside!' the men shouted to Houtelard. 'The roof will fall in.'

Lazare and Pauline had slowly retired before the flood. It was impossible to render any assistance, and, climbing the hill homewards, they were about half-way up it when the girl turned, and gave a last look at the threatened village.

'Poor people!' she murmured.

But Lazare could not pardon them for their idiotic laughter. He was wounded to the heart by that disaster, which for him was a personal defeat; and, making an angry gesture, he at last opened his mouth and growled:

'Let the sea lie in their beds, since they're so fond of it! I certainly won't try to prevent it!'

Véronique came to meet them with an umbrella, for the rain had begun falling heavily again. Abbé Horteur, who was still sheltering himself behind his wall, called a few words to them which they could not catch. The frightful weather, the destruction of the stockade, and the woe and danger in which they were leaving the village, cast additional sadness upon their return home. The house seemed cold and bare as they entered it; nothing but the wind, with its ceaseless moaning, disturbed the silence of the mournful rooms. Chanteau, who was dozing before a coke-fire, began to cry as soon as they appeared. They refrained from going upstairs to change their clothes, in order that they might escape the terrible associations of the staircase. The table was already laid and the lamp lighted, so they sat down to dinner immediately.

It was a sinister night; the deafening shocks of the waves, which made the walls tremble, broke in upon the few words that were spoken. When Véronique brought the tea into the room she announced that Houtelard's house and five others were already swept away, and that half the village would certainly share the same fate this time. Chanteau, in despair at not yet having recovered his mental equilibrium after the sufferings he had gone through, silenced her by saying that he had enough troubles of his own, and didn't want to hear about those of other people. When they had put him to bed, the others went off to rest also, worn out as they were with fatigue. Lazare kept a light burning till morning; and half a score times at least during the night Pauline anxiously slipped out of bed and gently opened her door to listen; but only death-like silence now ascended from the first floor.

The next day there commenced for the young man a succession of those lingering, poignant hours which come in the train of great sorrows. He awoke with the sensation of recovering from unconsciousness after some painful fall, from which his body was still stiff and bruised. Now that the troubled dreams which had oppressed him had passed away, his mind vividly recalled the past. Each little detail presented itself clearly before him, and he lived all his griefs again. The reality of death, which had never been within his personal experience, was brought home to him by the loss of his poor mother, who had been so suddenly carried off after a few days' illness. His horror of ceasing to be seemed to assume a more tangible form. There had been four of them, but now there was a yawning gap in their midst, and three of them were left behind to shiver painfully in their wretchedness, and cling desperately to each other in their attempts to regain some fragment of lost vital warmth. This, then, was death: this was the 'Nevermore'--a circling of trembling arms around a shadow, of which naught remained save a wild regret.

Every hour, as the image of his mother arose before him, Lazare seemed to be losing her over again. At first he had not suffered so much, not even when his cousin had come downstairs and thrown herself into his arms, nor during the prolonged misery of the funeral. It was only since his return to the empty house that he had felt the full weight of his loss; and he grew wild with remorse that he had not wept more and manifested greater grief while there yet remained in the house something of her who was now for ever gone.

Sometimes he would almost choke with sobs as he reproached himself with not having loved his mother sufficiently. He was perpetually recalling her; and her form was ever before his eyes. When he went up the stairs he half expected to see her come out of her room with the quick, short steps with which she had been wont to hurry along the landing. He often turned, fancying he heard her behind him, and he was so absorbed in thinking of her that sometimes he even felt sure that he heard the rustling of her dress behind the door. At night he did not dare to extinguish his candle, and in the dim light he fancied that he heard furtive sounds approaching his bed, and a faint breath hovering over his brow. His grief, instead of being assuaged, grew keener; at the least recollection came a nervous shock, a vivid but fugitive apparition, which, as it faded away, left him in all the anguish which the thought of death inspired.

Everything in the house reminded him of his mother. Her room remained untouched; nothing had been changed, a thimble was still lying upon the table beside a piece of embroidery. The clock on the mantelpiece had been stopped at twenty-three minutes to eight, the time of her death. He usually shunned the room, though sometimes, as he was hastily rushing upstairs, a sudden impulse constrained him to enter it; and then, as his heart throbbed wildly within him, it seemed to him that the old familiar furniture--the secrétaire, the table, and especially the bed--had acquired an awe-inspiring aspect, which made them different from what they had formerly been. Through the shutters, which were kept closed, there filtered a pale light, whose vague glimmer added to his distress as he went to kiss the pillow on which his mother's head had lain in the icy cold of death. One morning when he went into the room he paused astounded. The shutters had been thrown wide open and the full light of day poured into the chamber. A bright sheet of sunshine streamed over the bed to the very pillow, and the room was decked with flowers, placed in all the vases that the house possessed. Then he recollected that it was an anniversary, the birthday of her who had departed; a day which had been observed every year, and which his cousin had remembered. There were only the flowers of autumn there--some asters, marguerites, and the last lingering roses, already touched by frost--but they were sweetly redolent of life, and they set joyous colours round the lifeless dial, which seemed to mark the arrest of time's progress. That pious womanly observance filled Lazare with emotion, and for a long time he remained there weeping.

The dining-room, the kitchen, and the terrace, too, equally reminded him of his mother. All the little objects he saw lying about suggested her to him. He was quite beset by his mother's image, though he never spoke of it, and indeed, with a feeling of uneasy shame, tried to conceal the constant torture which he experienced. He even avoided mentioning his mother's name, so that it might have been supposed that he had already forgotten her, whereas all the time never a moment passed without memory bringing a bitter pang to his heart. It was only his cousin who penetrated his secret, and when she spoke to him about it he took refuge in falsehoods, protesting that he had put out his light at midnight, and had been very busy over some work or other. And he almost worked himself into an angry passion if he were further pressed. He took refuge in his room, and there abandoned himself to his reflections, feeling calmer in that retreat where he had grown up, free from the fear of revealing to others the secret of his distress.

At first he had tried to force himself to go out and resume his long walks, thinking that by doing so he would at any rate escape Véronique's grumpy taciturnity and the painful sight of his father, who lay listlessly in his chair, not knowing how to occupy himself. But he now felt an invincible distaste for walking; out of doors he grew weary with a weariness that almost amounted to discomfort. The sea with its perpetual surging, its stubborn waves that broke against the cliffs twice a day, irritated him as being a mere senseless force that recked nothing of his grief, and had gone on wearing the same rocks away for centuries, without ever shedding a single tear for the death of a human being. It was too vast, too cold; and he hurried back home again and shut himself up in his room, that he might feel less conscious of his own littleness, less crushed between the boundlessness of sea and sky. There was only one spot that had any attraction for him, and that was the graveyard which surrounded the church. His mother was not there, but he could think of her there with a melting tenderness; and, despite his horror of death, the place had a singularly calming effect upon him. The tombs lay asleep, as it were, amongst the grass; there were yew-trees which had sprung up in the protecting shade of the church, and not a sound was to be heard save the call of the curlews, hovering in the wind from the open. There he forgot himself for hours amongst the old tombstones, whence the very names of those who had long since passed away had been obliterated by the heavy rains from the west.

If Lazare had felt any belief in another world, if he had been able to think that he would one day again meet those he loved at the other side of the grave's black wall, he would have been far happier; but this consolation was denied him, he felt no doubt as to death being the end and extinction of individual life. And yet his own individuality, which ill-brooked the thought of being snuffed out, rose up in mutiny against his convictions. What joy there would have been in entering upon a fresh life elsewhere, far away amongst the stars, a new existence in which he would have been once again surrounded by all he loved! Ah! if he could only believe in that, how the agony he now suffered would be turned to sweetness, in looking forward to rejoin lost loved ones! How thrilling would be their kisses at meeting, and what blessedness it would be to live all together again in some realm where there would be no more death! He was racked with agony at the thought of the charitable falsehoods of creeds compassionately designed to hide the terrible truth from those too weak to bear it. No! Death was the end of everything; nothing that we had loved could ever bud into fresh life, the good-bye was said for ever. Oh! those awful words--'for ever'! It was they that carried his brain into the dizzy vertigo of empty nothingness.

One morning, as Lazare was brooding beneath the shadow of the yews, he caught sight of Abbé Horteur at the bottom of his vegetable garden, which was only separated from the graveyard by a low wall. Wearing an old grey blouse and a pair of wooden shoes, the priest was digging a cabbage-bed; and, with his face browned by the keen sea air and the back of his neck scorched by the sun, he looked like an old peasant bending over his work. With a miserable stipend, and without any casual remuneration in the shape of fees in that little out-of-the-way parish, he would have died of sheer starvation if he had not been able to eke out his livelihood by growing a few vegetables. What little money he had went in charity, and he lived quite alone, assisted only by a young girl from the village, and often obliged to cook his own meals. To make matters worse, the soil of that rocky spot was scarcely good for anything, and the wind withered the young plants, so that it was scarcely worth while to cultivate the stony ground for the sake of the meagre return he got. When he put his blouse on, he always tried to keep himself from notice, for fear lest it should give anyone cause to scoff at religion; and Lazare, knowing this, was about to withdraw when he saw him take his pipe out of his pocket, fill it with tobacco, and then light it with a loud smacking of his lips. Just as he was enjoying his first puffs, however, the Abbé caught sight of the young man. He then made a hasty movement, as though he wished to hide his pipe, but finally broke into a laugh, and called:

'Ah! you are enjoying the fresh air. Come in and have a look at my garden.'

And, as Lazare came up to him, he added gaily: