Suddenly, he burst out: “Well, then, no! I won’t have it. Do you hear? I won’t, I forbid you to follow me,” and, carried away by his long-repressed grievances, he relieved his mind by saying: “Hang it all, you have loved me long enough, entirely against my wishes; it would be the last straw to take you with me. Thank you for nothing!”
She did not say a word, but her ghastly white face looked drawn and haggard as if every nerve had been twisted out of shape, and she left the house without saying goodbye.
That night she poisoned herself and for a week her life was despaired of. In the town, people gossiped: they pitied her, excusing her lapse because of the strength of her passion; for feelings that are heroic through their intensity always obtain forgiveness for the sin that is in them. A woman who kills herself is, so to speak, no longer an adulteress, and soon there was general disapproval of Lieutenant Renoldi’s behaviour in refusing to see her again—a unanimous feeling that he was to blame.
People said he had deserted her, betrayed her and beaten her. The Colonel, full of pity, discreetly took his officer to task, and Paul d’Henricel called his friend and said: “Damn it all, old man, one can’t let a woman die; it’s a dirty trick!” Renoldi in a rage told his friend to shut up, and, d’Henricel having made use of the word “infamy,” a duel was fought in which Renoldi was wounded to everybody’s satisfaction, and confined to his bed for some time.
She heard about it and only loved him the more, believing he had fought the duel on her account, but as she was too ill to leave her room she did not see him before the regiment left.
When he had been in Lille about three months Madame Poinçot’s sister called upon him. After long suffering and an unconquerable feeling of despair, the end was near and she wished to see him for one minute, only one minute, before closing her eyes forever.
Absence and time had softened the young man’s anger; he was touched, moved to tears, and started at once for Havre. She seemed to be sinking fast. They were left alone together, and by the bedside of the dying woman for whose death he was responsible, he broke down completely. He sobbed, kissed her with gentle passionate kisses, such as he had never given her before, and stammered: “No, you shan’t die, you’ll get better, we’ll love each other—we’ll love each other forever!”
“Is it true? You do love me?” she murmured, and he, in his grief, swore, promised to wait until she was better, and, full of pity, kissed the shrunken hands of the poor woman, whose heartbeat was ominous.
The following day he returned to the garrison, and six weeks later she joined him, terribly aged, unrecognisable, and more enamoured than ever.
With a feeling of desperation he took her back, and because they were living together like a legally married couple the very colonel who had been indignant when Renoldi had deserted the woman, was now scandalised at the irregularity of the situation as being incompatible with the good example that officers owe to their regiment. First he gave his junior a warning, and then he put on the screw, and Renoldi resigned.
They went to live on the shore of the Mediterranean, the classic sea of lovers.
Another three years passed by and Renoldi, now broken in, was a complete slave to the persistent tenderness of the white-haired woman. He looked upon himself as done for, gone under. For him there could be no hope, no ambition, no satisfaction, no pleasure in life.
Then, one morning, a card was brought in with the name, “Joseph Poinçot. Shipowner, Havre.” The husband! The husband who had said nothing, who realised that you cannot struggle against a woman’s desperate infatuation. What could he want?
Poinçot waited in the garden, since he would not go into the house. He bowed politely but refused to sit down, even on a bench in the avenue, and began slowly and clearly: “Monsieur, I have not come to reproach you, I know too well how it all happened. I have been the victim—we have been the victims—of a kind of—of fatality. I would never have disturbed you in your retreat had there not been a change in the situation. I have two daughters. One of them, the elder, loves a young man who loves her. But the young man’s family object to the marriage on account of the irregular position of my daughter’s mother. I feel neither anger nor malice, but I adore my children. I have, therefore, come to ask you for my wife; I hope that she will now agree to come back to my home—to her home. For my part, I will pretend to forget everything for—for the sake of my daughters.”
Renoldi felt his heart give a wild leap: he was beside himself with joy, like a condemned man who is granted a reprieve. He stammered: “Why, yes—certainly, Monsieur—I myself—believe me—no doubt—it is right, only too right!” He wanted to take hold of the man’s hands, hug him in his arms, kiss him on both cheeks. He continued: “Do come in. You will be more comfortable in the drawing room. I’ll go and fetch her.”
This time Monsieur Poinçot accepted the invitation. Renoldi rushed up the stairs; then, pausing before his mistress’s door, he calmed down and, looking very solemn, said: “You are wanted downstairs: it is something about your daughter.” She pulled herself up: “My daughters? What? What is it? They are not dead?” He replied: “No. But there is some complication which you alone can clear up.” She did not wait for more
