André’s Disease
The lawyer’s house looked on to the Square. Behind it, there was a nice, well-kept garden, extending to the Passage des Piques, which was almost always deserted, and from which it was separated by a wall.
At the bottom of that garden Maître Moreau’s wife had promised, for the first time, to meet Captain Sommerive, who had been making love to her for a long time.
Her husband had gone to Paris for a week, so she was quite free for the time being. The Captain had begged so hard, and had used such loving words; she was certain that he loved her so ardently, and she felt so isolated, so misunderstood, so neglected amid all the law business which seemed to be her husband’s sole pleasure, that she had given away her heart without even asking herself whether she would give anything else some day.
Then, after some months of Platonic love, of pressing of hands, of quick kisses stolen behind a door, the Captain had declared that he would ask permission to exchange, and leave the town immediately, if she would not grant him a meeting, a real meeting in the shadow of the trees, during her husband’s absence. So she had yielded to his importunity, as she had promised.
Just then she was waiting, close against the wall, with a beating heart, trembling at the slightest sound, and when she heard somebody climbing up the wall, she very nearly ran away.
Suppose it were not he, but a thief? But no; someone called out softly, “Mathilde!” and when she replied, “Étienne!” a man jumped on to the path with a crash.
It was he! What a kiss!
For a long time they remained in each other’s arms, with united lips. But suddenly a fine rain began to fall, and the drops from the leaves fell on to her neck and made her start. Whereupon he said:
“Mathilde, my adored one, my darling, my angel, let us go indoors. It is twelve o’clock, we can have nothing to fear; please let us go in.”
“No, dearest; I am too frightened. Who knows what might happen?”
But he held her in his arms, and whispered in her ear:
“Your servants sleep on the third floor, looking on to the Square, and your room, on the first, looks on to the garden, so nobody can hear us. I love you so that I wish to love you entirely, from head to foot.” And he embraced her vehemently, maddening her with his kisses.
She resisted still, frightened and even ashamed. But he put his arms round her, lifted her up, and carried her off through the rain, which was by this time descending in torrents.
The door was open; they groped their way upstairs; and when they were in the room she bolted the door while he lit a match.
Then she fell, half fainting, into a chair, while he kneeled down beside her and slowly he undressed her, beginning with her shoes and stockings in order to kiss her feet.
At last, she said, panting:
“No! no! Étienne, please let me remain a virtuous woman; I should be too angry with you afterwards; and after all, it is so horrid, so common. Cannot we love each other with a spiritual love only? Oh! Étienne!”
With the skill of a lady’s maid and the speed of a man in a hurry, he unbuttoned, untied, unhooked and unlaced without stopping, and when she tried to get up and run away, she suddenly emerged from her dress, her petticoat and her underclothes as naked as a hand thrust from a muff. In her fright she ran to the bed in order to hide herself behind the curtains; but it was a dangerous place of refuge, and he followed her. But in haste he took off his sword too quickly, and it fell on to the floor with a crash. And then a prolonged, shrill child’s cry came from the next room, the door of which had remained open.
“You have awakened André,” she whispered, “and he won’t be able to go to sleep again.”
Her son was only fifteen months old and slept in a room opening out of hers, so
