They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log; the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
Prayers were over; it was bedtime; my co-inmates were all retired. I still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot many hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had made for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there, when certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of hearing—there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could be sacred?
Soon after eleven o’clock—a very late hour in the Rue Fossette—the door unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp’s flame invaded the moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long. She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual circumstances, no yoke could now be borne—no curb obeyed.
“It is more than time for retirement,” said Madame; “the rule of the house has already been transgressed too long.”
Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my way, I put her out of it.
“Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,” said she, trying to speak softly.
“No!” I said; “neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me.”
“Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative.”
“Madame,” I broke out, “you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity, your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or disappointment—and, perhaps, you have—nay, I know you have—seek your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me, however. Leave me, I say!”
“I must send another to watch you, Meess; I must send Goton.”
“I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my troubles. Oh, Madame! in your hand there is both chill and poison. You envenom and you paralyze.”
“What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry.”
“Dog in the manger!” I said; for I knew she secretly wanted him, and had always wanted him. She called him insupportable: she railed at him for a dévot: she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame’s secrets I had entered—I know not how; by an intuition or an inspiration which came to me—I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a rival. She was my rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my power, because in some moods, such as the present—in some stimulated states of perception, like that of this instant—her habitual disguise, her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and ignoble. She quietly retreated from me; meek and self-possessed, though very uneasy, she said, “If I would not be persuaded to take rest, she must reluctantly leave me.” Which she did incontinent, perhaps even more glad to get away, than I was to see her vanish.
This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which ever occurred between me and Madame Beck; this short night-scene was never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.
That night passed: all nights—even the starless night before dissolution—must wear away. About six o’clock, the hour which called up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror-glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple.
On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me—my heart seemed discovered to them; I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I despaired.
“Isabelle,” the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached me. Would she, too, mock me!
“Que vous êtes pâle! Vous êtes
