Calvary

her which suddenly lit up her whole life and opened up vistas of frenzied sensuality, and although she would thereby communicate to me the consuming passion of her depravity, although I myself relished in all this a sort of infernal criminal voluptuousness, I could not look at Juliette without a shudder!⁠ ⁠… And when leaving her embrace, ashamed and disgusted, I felt the need, often experienced by reprobates, of looking at tranquil, restful sights, and I envied⁠—oh, with what keen regret!⁠—the superior beings who had made purity and virtue the inflexible laws of their life!⁠ ⁠… I dreamed of convents where one spent one’s life in prayer, of hospitals where one devoted oneself to others.⁠ ⁠… I was seized with a mad desire to enter the disreputable joints and preach the gospel to the unfortunate people who wallow in vice there, never hearing a single word of kindness; I promised myself to follow the prostitutes at night, into the shadow of public squares, to console them, to speak to them of virtue with such passionate earnestness, in accents so touching that they would be moved, would burst into tears and would say to me: “Yes, save us.⁠ ⁠…” I liked to spend hours in the Monceau park, watching the children play, discovering a paradise of goodness in the glances of young mothers; I was moved to reconstruct their lives so remote from my own; to live through, while near them, their sacred joys forever lost to me.⁠ ⁠… On Sundays I used to loiter at the railway stations where I mingled with the merry crowds, among petty officials and workingmen leaving town with their families to get a little fresh air for their affected lungs, to gather a little strength to be able to withstand the fatigue of their work during the week. I followed the steps of some laborer whose face interested me; I would have liked to possess his bent back, his deformed hands turned brown through hard work, his stiff walk, his trusting eyes of a house dog.⁠ ⁠… Alas!⁠ ⁠… I would have liked to have everything I did not have, to be everybody that I was not!⁠ ⁠… These wanderings which rendered the realization of my downfall even more painful, did me some good, however, and I used to come home each time with all sorts of courageous resolutions.⁠ ⁠… But in the evening I would see Juliette again, and Juliette was to me the oblivion of all honor and all duty.

Above the houses the sky was brightened by a feeble light announcing the approaching dawn, and at the end of the street, in the shadow, I noticed two glaring points, the two lights of a carriage, vacillating, swerving, approaching, which resembled two errant gas lamps.⁠ ⁠… Hope revived in me for a moment⁠ ⁠… the carriage came nearer, dancing on the pavement, the lights grew larger, the rattling quickened.⁠ ⁠… I thought I recognized the familiar trundling of Juliette’s brougham!⁠ ⁠… But no!⁠ ⁠… Suddenly the carriage turned to the left and disappeared.⁠ ⁠… Within an hour it would already be day!

“She won’t come!⁠ ⁠… This time it is all over, she won’t come!”

I closed the window, lay down again on the sofa, blood surging in my temples, all my members aching.⁠ ⁠… In vain I tried to sleep.⁠ ⁠… I could not do anything but weep, cry out:

“Oh! Juliette! Juliette!”

My chest was burning, I felt the sensation of boiling lava swirling in my head. My thoughts were in confusion, turning into hallucinations. Along the walls of my bedroom weasels were chasing one another, jumping, abandoning themselves to obscene frolics. I was hoping that I would succumb to fever, that it would chain me to my bed, that it would cause my death. To be sick! Ah!⁠ ⁠… yes, to be sick, long, forever! I had visions of Juliette installing herself in my room. She nursed me, she lifted my head to make me take medicine, she saw the doctor to the door, while talking to him in a low voice, and the doctor had a grave air.

“No! No! Madame, not all is lost yet. Calm yourself.”

“Ah! Doctor, save him, save my Jean!”

“Only you can save him, because it is on account of you that he is dying!”

“Ah! What can I do?⁠ ⁠… Tell me, doctor, please!”

“You must love him, you must be good to him.”

And Juliette threw herself into the arms of the physician:

“No! It’s you I love!⁠ ⁠… Come!”

She dragged him, clinging to his lips⁠ ⁠… and in the bedroom they danced and jumped to the ceiling and fell on my bed, enlaced.

“Die, my Jean, please die! Ah! Why does it take you so long to die?”

I fell into a slumber. When I awoke it was broad daylight. Buses were again rolling on the street, hawkers were screaming out their morning yells; I heard the scratching of a broom sweeping against my door in the hallway where people were passing.

I went out, and proceeded in the direction of the Rue de Balzac. As a matter of fact I had no other intention than to see Juliette’s house, to look into its windows and perhaps come across Celestine or Mother Souchard.⁠ ⁠… More than twenty times I passed back and forth on the sidewalk, in front of it. The windows of the dining room were open, and I could see the copper plates which were shining in the shadow. A rug was hanging from the balcony. The windows of the bedroom were closed. What was there behind these closed shutters, behind this white impenetrable wall? A disarranged, untidy bed, the heavy odor of carnal passion, and two outstretched bodies asleep. The body of Juliette⁠ ⁠… and who else? The body of Mr. Everybody.⁠ ⁠… A body that Juliette had picked up casually under a cabaret table or on the street! They were asleep, sated with lust! The caretaker came to shake the rug on the sidewalk. I walked away, for ever since I had left the apartment I avoided the mocking glance of this old woman, I blushed every time my eyes met hers, bulging and vicious, seeming