Short Fiction

saved.”

Gazing at him with anxious eyes, she asked:

“Then what do you advise me to do?”

“To go home and to put up with your life until you can get either a separation or a divorce honourably.”

“Isn’t your advice rather cowardly?”

“No, it is right and reasonable. You occupy a leading position, you have a name to be saved, friends to be kept, and relations to be considered. All this must not be forgotten and lost through mere waywardness.”

She rose and said vehemently:

“Well, there, no; I can’t; it’s finished; it’s finished; it’s finished!” Then, putting her hands on her lover’s shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes, she asked:

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Then, keep me here.”

He exclaimed: “Keep you? In my place? Here? But you must be mad! You would be done for forever; without hope of recovery! You are mad!”

She continued slowly and gravely, weighing every word:

“Listen, Jacques. He has forbidden me to see you again and I am not going through the farce of clandestine meetings. You must either take me or lose me.”

“In that case, my dear Irène, get a divorce and I will marry you.”

“Yes, you’ll marry me in⁠—two years at the soonest. Yours is a patient love!”

“Come, come, think it over. If you live here, he will make you go back tomorrow, because he is your husband and the law is on his side.”

“I did not ask you to keep me here, Jacques, but to take me away, anywhere. I thought you loved me well enough to do that. I was mistaken. Goodbye.”

She turned and went towards the door so quickly that he only caught her as she was going out of the room.

“Listen, Irène⁠—”

She struggled and refused to listen to anything more; with eyes full of tears, she stammered: “Let me go⁠—let me go⁠—let me go⁠—”

He forced her to sit down and again knelt beside her, trying to make her realise the folly, the danger of her plan, by every means in his power. He omitted none of the arguments he ought to use to convince her of her folly, seeking means of persuasion even in the tenderness of his feeling for her.

As she still remained dumb and frozen, he begged her to listen to him, to believe what he said, to follow his advice. When he had finished, she only said:

“Are you ready to let me go away now? Don’t hold me, I can’t get up.”

“Come, Irène⁠—”

“Will you leave go of me?”

“Irène, is this irrevocable?”

“Will you let me go?”

“Then stay. You know you are at home here. We’ll go away in the morning.”

She forced him to let her get up, and said, in a hard voice:

“No. It’s too late. I don’t want sacrifice, I don’t want devotion.”

“Stay. I have done all that I ought to have done, I have said all that I ought to have said. I have no further responsibility for you; my conscience is at ease. Tell me your wishes and I will obey.”

She sat down again, looked at him steadily, then asked quietly:

“Well, then, explain yourself.”

“What? What do you want me to explain?”

“Everything. All that you have been thinking to make you change your mind so completely. Then I shall know what I must do.”

“But I didn’t think at all. It was my duty to warn you that what you were bent on was madness. You won’t give in, so I ask for my share in this madness; more than that, I claim my share.”

“It isn’t natural to change one’s mind so quickly.”

“Listen, my dear, dear friend. It is not a question of sacrifice or devotion. The day I knew that I loved you, I said to myself⁠—and every lover should say the same thing in the same circumstances⁠—the man who loves a woman, who sets out to make a conquest, who is successful and makes her his, contracts a solemn obligation which includes not only himself but the woman he loves. I am referring, of course, to a woman like you, and not to those of easy approach.

“Marriage, with its great social and legal value, is only of very slight moral value in my eyes, taking into consideration the prevailing conditions. Therefore when a woman who is bound by this legal tie does not love her husband and cannot love him, whose heart is free, meets a man she loves and gives herself to him, when a man without other ties takes possession of a woman in this way, I say that this free and mutual consent constitutes a much more binding obligation than the ‘yes’ uttered before the Registrar. I say that if they are both honourable their union must be closer, stronger, saner than if it had been consecrated by every sacrament of the Church.

“The woman takes every risk, and it is because she knows this, because she gives all⁠—her heart, her body, her soul, her honour, her life⁠—because she foresees the wretchedness, the danger, the trouble, because she dares to act boldly, firmly, because she is prepared, determined to face anything⁠—the husband who may kill her, and society who may turn its back on her⁠—these are the reasons why she is worthy of respect in her conjugal infidelity, this is why the lover, in taking possession of her, must also have foreseen every possible complication and must cling to her no matter what may happen. I have nothing more to say. I spoke first as a reasonable man whose duty it was to warn you, now there only remains the man, he who loves you. Give your orders.”

Radiant, she closed his mouth with her lips and whispered:

“Darling, it was not true, nothing has happened, my husband does not suspect anything. But I wanted to see, I wanted to know what you would do⁠—I wanted a New Year’s gift⁠—the gift of your love⁠—another gift besides the necklace you sent me. You have given it to me. Thanks⁠—thanks⁠—Oh, God! how happy I am!”

Madame Hermet

Madmen fascinate me. These beings live in a mysterious land of fantastic