The Dream (Oxford World's Classics), page 16
‘Mademoiselle, will you not be assembling the mitre?’
‘No, Mother will do that much better… I’ll be delighted if I never have to touch it again.’
‘Aren’t you pleased with your work?’
‘I’m not pleased with anything at all.’
Sternly Hubertine told her to be quiet. She begged Félicien to excuse this skittish little girl, and promised him that the mitre would be ready for collection early the following day. It was in effect a farewell, but he did not leave, and instead looked around the peaceful, shadow-crossed old workroom as if he was being expelled from paradise. Although an illusion, the hours he spent there had seemed so blissful, and he now had the painful sense that his heart had been torn from his body, and discarded there. It was a torture to him that he could not explain how he felt, and would carry away this dreadful uncertainty. At last, he had to go.
The door had scarcely closed when Hubert asked:
‘What’s the matter with you, my child? Aren’t you feeling well?’
‘Oh no, it’s just that I found that boy such a bore. I never want to see him again.’
And Hubertine said, with finality:
‘That’s fine, you’ll never see him again. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be polite.’
Angélique made a hasty excuse, and scarcely had time to flee to her bedroom before bursting into tears. Oh, she was so happy, and yet in such pain! Her poor, dear love, he must have gone away so heartbroken! But she had sworn to the saints that she would love him more deeply than life itself, and he would never know.
Chapter 7
That same evening, just as she was leaving the table, Angélique said she was feeling very unwell, and went up to her bedroom. The emotional turmoil of the morning and the struggle with her own feelings had left her exhausted. She went straight to bed, and burst once more into tears, pulling the sheet over her head in a desperate longing to vanish, to fade out of existence.
The hours passed, and night fell, a sweltering July night, whose leaden calm seeped in through the open window. Vast multitudes of stars glittered in the black sky. It must have been nearly eleven o’clock, and the moon, now in its last quarter, and already quite slender, was set to rise only around midnight.
In the dark room, Angélique was still weeping, her tears falling in an inexhaustible stream, when a creak at the door made her look up.
There was silence, and then a gentle voice called to her:
‘Angélique… Angélique… my darling…’
She recognized the voice of Hubertine, who had doubtless been making ready for bed, with her husband, when she had heard the faint sound of crying and, greatly concerned, had come upstairs, half-dressed, to see what the matter was.
‘Angélique, are you feeling unwell?’
Holding her breath, the young girl made no answer. She felt an overwhelming desire to be alone; it was the only thing that soothed her pain. A word of consolation, a caressing hand, even from her mother, would be torture to her. She pictured her standing on the other side of the door, in bare feet, she guessed, from the soft sound her steps had made over the tiles. Two minutes passed, and she sensed that she was still there, bending forward with her ear to the door, pulling her unfastened nightgown around her with her lovely arms.
Hearing nothing further, not even a breath, Hubertine dared not call out again. She was sure that she had heard sobbing, but if the child had at last fallen asleep, what was the point in waking her? She waited for another minute, perturbed by her daughter’s hidden sorrows, half-guessing their origin, and full of tender solicitude for her. And she made up her mind to go back down, just as she had come up, her hands feeling familiarly for each curve of the staircase, the soft pat of her bare feet the only sound through the dark house.
Then it was Angélique, sitting up in her bed, who listened. The silence was so complete that she could hear the light pressure of her mother’s heels on the edge of every step. The door of the downstairs bedroom opened and closed, and then she heard a faint murmuring, whispers, compassionate and sad, as her parents no doubt conferred about her, discussing their fears and hopes for her, and it carried on interminably, long after they must have put out the light and gone to bed. The nocturnal sounds of the old building had never risen up to her so clearly before. Normally she slept the untroubled sleep of youth, and did not even hear the creaking of the furniture; but now, kept wide awake by her stifled passions, it seemed to her that the whole house throbbed with sorrow and affection. The Huberts must also have been blinking back their tears, choked by the wild and desolate tenderness they shared in their infecundity. Although she couldn’t be sure, she sensed that below her in the warm night the couple continued to lie awake, lapped in their deep love and their deep sorrow, in the long chaste embrace of their evergreen union.
As she sat there listening to the sighs and rustles that rose through the house, she could no longer contain herself, and her tears fell once more—but they were silent tears now, a warm, steady stream flowing like the blood in her veins. A single question had been revolving in her mind since morning, tormenting her to the core: had she been right to plant despair in Félicien’s mind, to send him away with the belief that she did not love him buried in his heart like a dagger? She loved him, and she had caused him pain, and she was suffering terribly because of it. Why must there be such pain? Did the saints demand tears? Would it have angered Agnes to see her happy? She was racked now by doubts. In the past when she had awaited the one man who must inevitably come, she had arranged things much better in her imagination: he would enter, she would recognize him, and the two would go away together to distant lands, for ever. But now that he had actually come, both he and she wept alone, separated evermore. Why was this so? What had happened? Who had demanded this cruel vow from her lips, to love him but never tell him?
She was especially upset by the thought that it was all her fault, that she had behaved atrociously. Perhaps her old vicious urges were reviving? It was a shock for her to recall how she had feigned indifference towards Félicien, greeted him with mockery, and taken a mean delight in painting a false picture of herself. Her tears flowed with renewed intensity, and her heart melted with immense, unending pity for all the unintended suffering she had caused. She saw him in her mind’s eye once more, walking away: she recalled the desolation on his face, the anguish in his eyes, and the way his lips had trembled; and she followed him through the streets to his home, a pallid figure, mortally wounded by her, the blood trickling out of him, drop by drop. Where was he right at this moment? Shivering away, somewhere, in a fever? She wrung her hands in despair, at a loss as to how she could make amends for the suffering she had caused. The idea of inflicting pain—why, it was utterly repulsive to her! She would have liked to perform some act of kindness, there and then, and spread a little happiness around her.
Midnight was about to strike. The great elms in the bishop’s garden hid the moon on the horizon, and the room remained plunged in darkness. Her head fell back on the pillow, her mind emptied, and she tried to sleep; but sleep wouldn’t come, and tears continued to seep from her closed eyelids. Thoughts began to stir in her mind, and she recalled how for the past fortnight she had found violets on the balcony, in front of the window, when she came up to bed. Every evening there was a new bunch of violets. Undoubtedly Félicien was tossing them up there from the Clos-Marie, for she remembered having told him that violets alone brought her comfort, through some peculiar power they had, while the scents of other flowers caused her the most terrible migraines. In this way, he offered up to her balmy nights of restful sleep, overflowing with pleasant dreams. That night she had the happy idea of taking up the flowers, which she had earlier placed by her bedside, and bringing them into the sheets with her, laying them out next to her cheek so that they might soothe her as she breathed in their perfume. Thanks to the violets, her tears at last dried up. She still did not sleep, but remained with eyes closed, bathed in a fragrance that came from him, happy to lie there waiting in the complete surrender of her being.
Great ripples brushed over her skin. Midnight was striking, and she opened her eyes, startled to find her bedroom bathed in bright light. The moon was slowly rising over the tops of the elms, extinguishing the stars and blanching the sky. Through the window she could see the apse of the cathedral gleaming very white, seeming to cast down a pale shimmer that filled her bedroom with a cool milky light as of the dawn. The white walls, the white joists, the great bare expanse of white, seemed to grow brighter, swelling and expanding as though in a dream. Yet she could still make out the old dark oak furniture, the wardrobe, the chest, and the chairs, the carved figures on them reflecting gleams of light. But it was her bed, her square bed, regal in expanse, that struck her with wonder, as though she were seeing it for the first time, with its rising columns and its canopy of antique pink chintz, enveloped in such a dense haze of moonlight that she had the impression she was lying on a cloud, high up in the heavens, borne aloft on silent and invisible wings. For a brief moment it felt as though the whole bed was swaying; but then her eyes adapted, and she saw that it was in its usual corner. She lay with her head perfectly still in the middle of this moonlit lake, her eyes wandering all around, the bunch of violets by her lips.
What was she waiting for? Why couldn’t she sleep? She was certain of it now: she was waiting for somebody. If she had stopped crying, it was only because he was about to appear. This comforting light, which put dark and dismal dreams to flight, heralded his coming. He was about to arrive, the harbinger moon had appeared before him only so as to irradiate them with this dawn-like light. The room was hung with white velvet; they would be able to see one another clearly. So then she got out of bed, and dressed: she put on just a white dress, the muslin dress she had worn on the day of her visit to the ruins of Hautecœur. She did not even tie up her hair, which hung down over her shoulders. Inside her slippers, her feet remained bare. She waited.
At that moment Angélique did not know exactly how he would arrive. He would not be able to come up to her, of course; they would simply see each other at a distance, she leaning on the balcony railing, and he standing below in the Clos-Marie. However, she then sat down, as if she had realized that there was no point in going to the window. Couldn’t he simply pass through the walls, like the saints in the Legend? She waited, but she was not alone in her vigil, she felt them all around her, the white host of virgins who had encircled her since childhood. They came in with the moonlight, from the tall, mysterious, blue-crested trees in the bishop’s garden, and from secluded corners of the cathedral, weaving through its forests of stone. From every part of this familiar and cherished vista, from the Chevrotte, the willows, and the grasses, the young girl could hear her dreams stream back to her—hopes, desires, everything of herself that she had invested in the objects around her as she had gazed at them each day, and the objects were now returning these aspirations to her. Never had the voices of the invisible realms spoken to her so loudly. As she listened intently to these sounds from the beyond, she made out, in the depths of the breathless, stifling night, the slight rustle that was, she sensed, the rippling of Agnes’s dress, as the guardian of her body stood beside her. She was cheered to know that Agnes was there, with all the others. She waited.
Time passed, but Angélique did not notice. It seemed perfectly natural when Félicien arrived, swinging his legs over the balcony railing. His tall figure was silhouetted against the pale sky. He did not come in, but remained standing in the gleaming frame of the window.
‘Don’t be afraid… It’s me, I’ve come.’
She wasn’t afraid of him, she was just thinking that he had turned up on time.
‘You climbed up the timbers, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, up the timbers.’
She laughed at the simplicity of it all. He had at first hoisted himself onto the awning over the door, and had then shinned up the bracket, the foot of which rested on the string-course of the ground floor, and had reached the balcony without any difficulty.
‘I was waiting for you. Come close to me.’
Félicien, who had arrived in an agitated mood, full of wild resolutions, did not move, taken aback at this sudden fulfilment of his hopes. Angélique was sure now that the female saints had not forbidden her to love, for she could hear them right beside her, welcoming him with fond laughter that purled as softly as the night breeze. Where had she picked up the absurd idea that Agnes would be angry? Beside her, Agnes was radiant with joy—a joy that seemed to flow down Angélique’s shoulders and enfold her like two vast wings. All the women who had died for love had great compassion for sorrowing virgins, and returned to roam the warm night air, keeping invisible watch over the tear-stained passions of girls like her.
‘Come to me, I was waiting for you.’
Reeling, Félicien entered. He had said to himself that he wanted her, that he would take her in his arms and clasp her to him, even if she should scream. But finding her in such a gentle mood, he became once more, on entering the pure, white room, shyer and weaker than a child.
He had taken three steps. But he was trembling all over, and fell to his knees, still some distance away from her.
‘If you only knew the appalling tortures I’ve been through! I have never suffered like this before—the only true pain is believing that you are not loved!… I am prepared to lose everything I have, and end up a beggar on the streets, dying of hunger and crippled by illness. But I can’t bear to spend a single day more with this pain eating up my heart, thinking that you don’t love me… Be kind—spare me…’
She listened to him silently, overwhelmed by pity, but happy at the same time.
‘What a state I was in when I left you this morning! I thought that you had changed for the better, that you had understood. And yet you were just the same as on that first day, utterly indifferent to me. You treated me no more kindly than a visiting customer, and cruelly refused to talk to me about anything apart from base matters of money… I stumbled down the staircase. Outside, I started running, and was afraid I would burst into tears. And then, when I got home, I started to go upstairs, but felt I would suffocate if I shut myself away in my room… So I fled into the open countryside, taking roads at random, first one, and then another. Night fell, and I was still walking. But my pain went everywhere with me, gnawing at me constantly. When you are in love, you can never flee the pain… Look! This is where you drove in the knife, and its tip kept burying itself deeper.’
He groaned loudly, remembering all that he had suffered.
‘I lay in the grass for a long time, knocked flat by my pain like a tree that’s been felled… And nothing else existed, apart from you. I was completely crushed by the thought that I would never have you. I started to go numb all over, and my mind was filled with crazed thoughts… And that’s why I’ve come back to you. I don’t remember which roads I took, or how I’ve come to be in this room. Please forgive me, I would’ve torn down the doors with my bare hands, I would’ve climbed up to your window in broad daylight…’
She stood in the shadows. Kneeling in the moonlight, he was unable to see her, or her face which was pale now with repentance and tenderness. She was so choked with emotion that she could not speak. He assumed that she was unsympathetic, and clasped his hands together.
‘This all goes back a very long time… One evening I caught sight of you standing here at the window. You were only a vague pale outline, and I could scarcely make out your face, and yet I could see you, I could tell what you were really like. But I was very shy, and wandered about for many nights without finding the courage to come and meet you in broad daylight… And, what’s more, I liked this mysterious side of you, and was happy to dream about you, as though you were some unknown person I would never meet… Later, when I found out who you were, it was impossible to resist the lure of knowing and possessing a dream. It was then that my obsession began, and it grew with every meeting. Do you remember the first time, in the field, that morning when I was inspecting the window? I had never felt so clumsy, and you were right to make fun of me… I started to make you feel uneasy then, and my clumsiness continued when I followed you on your visits to the poor. At that stage I was no longer in control of myself, and was surprised and horrified by the things I did… When I showed up with the order for the mitre, I was driven on by some invisible force, as by myself I would never have dared, I was so sure that you didn’t like me… If you could only understand how miserable I am! You don’t need to love me, but just let me love you. You can be cold, you can be unkind, but I’ll still love you exactly as you are. I ask only to be allowed to see you, even if I haven’t the slightest hope, just for the joy it gives me to be here, like this, at your knees.’
He fell silent, his courage wavering, no longer believing that he could find words to sway her. He was not aware that a smile was playing on her lips, an invincible smile, slowly spreading. Oh, the darling boy! He was so innocent and trusting—he had just recited this shining, passionate plea, his heart’s prayer, adoringly before her, as though before the dream of his youth! And to think that she had at first fought against her desire to see him again, and then sworn to love him without his ever knowing! A profound silence ensued; the saints never forbade love when two people loved like this. Behind her, there was a pulse of brightness, no more than a faint ripple, as the moonlight lapped over the floor tiles. An invisible finger, doubtless that of her guardian, touched her mouth, unsealing her vow. Now she could speak once more, and all the powers and emotions that drifted in the air around her were given voice.
