Monsieur Jocaste
Madame, do you recollect our great quarrel one evening in the little Japanese drawing room, about the father who committed incest? Do you recollect how indignant you were, the violent words you flung at me, and how angry you became, and do you also remember all I said in defence of that man? You blamed me. I appeal against you.
No one in the world, you declared, no one could uphold the infamous deed which I defended. Today I am going to tell this tale to the public.
Perhaps someone might be found who, although not excusing the brutal deed, would understand that one cannot struggle against certain fatalities that seem to be horrible fantasies of all-powerful nature.
When sixteen years old she had been married to a hard-hearted old man, a business man who married her for her money. She was a darling blonde creature, gay and dreamy at the same time, and yearning for an ideal happiness. Disillusion fell on her heart and broke it. Suddenly she understood life—no future, the destruction of her hopes, and one wish alone took possession of her soul, and that was to have a child to claim her love.
But she did not have one. Two years passed. She fell in love with a young man twenty-three years old, who was wildly in love with her. For some time she firmly resisted his advances. He was called Pierre Martel.
But one winter’s evening they found themselves alone, at her house. He had come to drink a cup of tea. Then they sat down near the fire, on a low seat. They scarcely spoke. They were passionately in love with each other, stung with desire their lips thirsted wildly for other lips, their arms trembled with a desire to open and embrace someone.
The lamp, draped with lace, shed a cosy light in the silent drawing room.
Although they were both embarrassed they occasionally exchanged a few words, but when their eyes met their hearts trembled.
How can acquired sentiments withstand the violence of instinct? How can the appearance of reserve withstand the irresistible desires of nature?
It happened that their fingers touched. And that was enough. They were overcome by passion. They embraced, and she yielded.
She became pregnant. By her husband, or by her lover. How did she know? Doubtless by her lover.
Then she became very much frightened and felt sure that she would die in her confinement, and she insisted on the man who was the cause of her being in this condition to swear over and over again to watch over the child during its whole life, to refuse it nothing, to be everything to it, yes, everything, and, if necessary, even to commit a crime in order to insure its happiness.
She carried this to an absurd extent. She became more and more worked up as her confinement drew near.
She died giving birth to a girl.
The young man was in the depths of despair, in fact his despair was so great that he could not hide it; perhaps the husband suspected something; perhaps he knew that he could not have been the father of the girl! He forbade the house to the man who thought himself the real father, hid the child from him, and had it brought up in seclusion.
Many years passed.
Pierre Martel forgot all about it, as one forgets everything. He became rich, but he could not love anyone now, and he had not married. His life was ordinary; that of a happy, quiet man. He had never heard a word about the husband he had deceived, nor about the young girl he thought was his.
Well, one morning he received a letter from a comparative stranger, who happened to mention the death of his old rival, and he was somewhat disturbed, and filled with remorse. What had become of this child, his child? Could he do nothing for her? He inquired about her. She had been brought up by an aunt, and she was poor, miserably poor.
He wanted to see her and to help her. He called on the only relation of the orphan.
Even his name awoke no memory. He was forty years old and still looked like a young man. He was received, but he did not dare to say that he had known her mother, fearing it would give rise to suspicion later on.
Well, as soon as she entered the little sitting-room where he anxiously awaited her coming, he trembled for he was all but overcome by surprise. It was she, the other woman! the woman who was dead!
She was the same age, had the same eyes, the same hair, the same figure, the same smile, the same voice. The illusion was so real that it maddened him; all the tumultuous love of days gone by sprang up from the depths of his heart. She likewise was both gay and unaffected. At once they became friends and shook hands.
On returning home he found that the old wound had been opened again, and he wept desperately; he held his head in his hands and wept for the woman who had died, haunted by memories and by the familiar words she used to say; he was plunged in despair from which there was no escape.
He visited the house in which the young girl resided. He could no longer live without her, without her merry talk, the rustle of her gown, the intonation of her voice. And now in his thoughts and in his heart he confounded the two women, the one gone before and the living one, forgetting distance, the time that had elapsed, and death; always loving that one in this one, and this one in memory of the other, not
