When I saw him I was quite overcome, I thought him so handsome; and I remained standing in a corner of the drawing room all the time he was speaking. Children are strange … and terrible. … Oh, yes … I have dreamed of it!
“He came back … many times. … I gazed at him with all my eyes, with all my soul. … I was big for my age … and far more sophisticated than people supposed. He came again often. … I thought of nothing but him. I used to repeat very softly: ‘Henry … Henry de Sampierre!’
“Then they said that he was going to marry you. It was a sore grief to me, sister, oh, a sore, sore grief! I cried for three whole nights, without sleeping. He used to come every day, in the afternoon, after lunch, you remember, don’t you? Don’t speak … listen. You made him cakes, of which he was very fond … with flour, butter and milk. … Oh! I knew just how you made them. … I could make them this moment, if I had to. He would swallow them in a single mouthful, and then he would toss down a glass of wine and then say: ‘Delicious!’ Do you remember how he used to say it?
“I was jealous, jealous. … The day of your wedding was drawing near. There was only a fortnight. I was going mad. I used to say to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, no, I won’t have it. … It is I who will marry him, when I am grown up. I shall never find a man I love so much.’ … And then one evening, ten days before the wedding, you went out with him to walk in front of the house, in the moonlight … and out there … under the pine-tree, the big pine-tree … he kissed you … held you in his arms … for such a long time. … You haven’t forgotten, have you? … It may have been the first time … yes … you were so pale when you came back into the drawing room!
“I saw you; I was there, in the copse. I grew wild with rage! If I could have done it, I would have killed you both!
“I said to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, never! He shall not marry anyone. … I should be too unhappy. …’ Suddenly I began to hate him terribly.
“Do you know what I did then? … Listen. I had seen the gardener make little balls with which to kill stray dogs. He crushed a bottle with a stone, and put the ground glass in a little ball of meat.
“I took a little medicine bottle from Mother’s room, I smashed it up with a hammer, and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glittering powder. … Next day, as soon as you had made the little cakes, I split them open with a knife and put the glass in. … He ate three of them … and I, too, ate one. … I threw the other six into the pond … the two swans died three days later. … Don’t speak … listen, listen. I was the only one who did not die. … But I have always been ill … listen. … He died … you know … listen … that was nothing. … It was afterwards, later … always … that it was most terrible … listen. …
“My life, my whole life … what torture! I said to myself: ‘I will never leave my sister. And I will tell her all, in the hour of my death.’ … There! And since then I have thought every moment of this hour, the hour when I shall have to tell you all. … Now it has come … it is terrible. … Oh! … Sister!
“Every moment the thought has been with me, morning and evening, day and night: ‘I shall have to tell her, some day. …’ I waited. … What torment! … It is done. … Do not say anything. … Now I am afraid. … I am afraid. … Oh, I am afraid! If I were to see him again, presently, when I am dead … see him again … do you dream of seeing him? … See him before you do! … I shall not dare. … I must … I am going to die. … I want you to forgive me. I want you to. … Without it, I cannot come into his presence. Oh, tell her to forgive me, Father, tell her. … I beg you. I cannot die without it. …”
She was silent, and lay panting, still clawing at the sheet with her shrivelled fingers. …
Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands, and did not stir. She was thinking of the man she might have loved so long! What a happy life they would have had! She saw him again, in the vanished long-ago, in the distant past forever blotted out. Oh, beloved dead, how you tear our hearts! Oh, that kiss, her only kiss! She had kept it in her soul. And then, nothing more, nothing more in all her life! …
Suddenly the priest stood up and cried out in a loud shaken voice:
“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”
Then Suzanne let her hands fall apart and showed a face streaming with tears, and, falling upon her sister, she kissed her fiercely, stammering:
“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one. …”
Beside the Bed
A great fire blazed on the hearth. On the Japanese table two teacups faced each other, and the teapot steamed on one side, near a sugar-basin flanked by a decanter of rum.
The Comte de Sallure threw his hat, his gloves, and his fur coat on a chair, while the Comtesse, her evening cloak flung off, smoothed her hair lightly in front of the mirror. She was smiling happily to herself, and tapping the hair that curled above her temples with the tips of her slender fingers, gleaming with rings. Then she turned towards her husband. He looked at her for some minutes, in a hesitant sort of way, as if a secret thought were troubling him.
At last he said:
“And are you satisfied with the homage paid to you this evening?”
She gave him a direct glance, a glance on fire with triumph and defiance, and answered:
“I should
