Christophe was very near taking Braun"s hands and kissing them and begging his forgiveness. Braun saw Christophe"s downcast expression, and, at once, he was terrified, and refused to see: he cast him a beseeching look and stammered hurriedly and gasped:

"No, no. You know nothing? Nothing?"

Christophe was overwhelmed and said:

"No."

Oh! the bitterness of not being able to lay bare his offense, to humble himself, since to do so would be to break the heart of the man he had wronged! Oh! the bitterness of being unable to tell the truth, when he could see in the eyes of the man asking him for it, that he could not, would not know the truth!...

"Thanks, thank you. I thank you...." said Braun.

He stayed with his hands plucking at Christophe"s sleeve as though there was something else he wished to ask, and yet dared not, avoiding his eyes. Then he let go, sighed, and went away.

Christophe was appalled by this new lie. He hastened to Anna. Stammering in his excitement, he told her what had happened. Anna listened gloomily and said:

"Oh, well. He knows. What does it matter?"

"How can you talk like that?" cried Christophe. "It is horrible! I will not have him suffer, whatever it may cost us, whatever it may cost."

Anna grew angry.

"And what if he does suffer? Don"t I have to suffer? Let him suffer too!"

They said bitter things to each other. He accused her of loving only herself. She reproached him with thinking more of her husband than of herself.

But a moment later, when he told her that he could not go on living like that, and that he would go and tell the whole story to Braun, then she cried out on him for his selfishness, declaring that she did not care a bit about Christophe"s conscience, but was quite determined that Braun should never know.

In spite of her hard words she was thinking as much of Braun as of Christophe. Though she had no real affection for her husband she was fond of him. She had a religious respect for social ties and the duties they involve. Perhaps she did not think that it was the duty of a wife to be kind and to love her husband: but she did think that she was compelled scrupulously to fulfil her household duties and to remain faithful. It seemed to her ign.o.ble to fail in that object as she herself had done.

And even more surely than Christophe she knew that Braun must know everything very soon. It was something to her credit that she concealed the fact from Christophe, either because she did not wish to add to his troubles or more probably because of her pride.

Secluded though the Braun household was, secret though the tragedy might remain that was being enacted there, some hint of it had trickled away to the outer world.

In that town it was impossible for any one to flatter himself that the facts of his life were hidden. This was strangely true. No one ever looked at anybody in the streets: the doors and shutters of the houses were closed. But there were mirrors fastened in the corners of the windows: and as one pa.s.sed the houses one could hear the faint creaking of the Venetian shutters being pushed open and shut again. n.o.body took any notice of anybody else: everything and everybody were apparently ignored: but it was not long before one perceived that not a single word, not a single gesture had been un.o.bserved: whatever one did, whatever one said, whatever one saw, whatever one ate was known at once: even what one thought was known, or, at least, everybody pretended to know. One was surrounded by a universal, mysterious watchfulness.

Servants, tradespeople, relations, friends, people who were neither friends nor enemies, pa.s.sing strangers, all by tacit agreement shared in this instinctive espionage, the scattered elements of which were gathered to a head no one knew how. Not only were one"s actions observed, but they probed into one"s inmost heart. In that town no man had the right to keep the secrets of his conscience, and everybody had the right to rummage amongst his intimate thoughts, and, if they were offensive to public opinion, to call him to account. The invisible despotism of the collective mind dominated the individual: all his life he remained like a child in a state of tutelage: he could call nothing his own: he belonged to the town.

It was enough for Anna to have stayed away from church two Sundays running to arouse suspicion. As a rule no one seemed to notice her presence at service: she lived outside the life of the place, and the town seemed to have forgotten her existence.--On the evening of the first Sunday when she had stayed away her absence was known to everybody and docketed in their memory. On the following Sunday not one of the pious people following the blessed words in their Bibles or on the minister"s lips seemed to be distracted from their solemn attention: not one of them had failed to notice as they entered, and to verify as they left, the fact that Anna"s place was empty. Next day Anna began to receive visits from women she had not seen for many months: they came on various pretexts, some fearing that she was ill, others a.s.suming a new interest in her affairs, her husband, her house: some of them showed a singularly intimate knowledge of the doings of her household: not one of them--(with clumsy ingenuity)--made any allusion to her absence from church on two Sundays running. Anna said that she was unwell and declared that she was very busy. Her visitors listened attentively and applauded her: Anna knew that they did not believe a word she said.

Their eyes wandered round the room, prying, taking notes, docketing.

They did not for a moment drop their cold affability or their noisy affected chatter: but their eyes revealed the indiscreet curiosity which was devouring them. Two or three with exaggerated indifference inquired after M. Krafft.

A few days later--(during Christophe"s absence),--the minister came himself. He was a handsome, good-natured creature, splendidly healthy, affable, with that imperturbable tranquillity which comes to a man from the consciousness of being in sole possession of the truth, the whole truth. He inquired anxiously after the health of the members of his flock, politely and absently listened to the excuses she gave him, which he had not asked for, accepted a cup of tea, made a mild joke or two, expressed his opinion on the subject of drink that the wine referred to in the Bible was not alcoholic liquor, produced several quotations, told a story, and, as he was leaving, made a dark allusion to the danger of bad company, to certain excursions in the country, to the spirit of impiety, to the impurity of dancing, and the filthy l.u.s.ts of the flesh.

He seemed to be addressing his remarks to the age in general and not to Anna. He stopped for a moment, coughed, got up, bade Anna give his respectful compliments to M. Braun, made a joke in Latin, bowed, and took his leave.--Anna was left frozen by his allusion. Was it an allusion? How could he have known about her excursion with Christophe?

They had not met a soul of their acquaintance that day. But was not everything known in the town? The musician with the remarkable face and the young woman in black who had danced at the inn had attracted much attention: their descriptions had been spread abroad; and, as the story was bandied from mouth to mouth, it had reached the town where the watchful malice of the gossips had not failed to recognize Anna. No doubt it amounted as yet to no more than a suspicion, but it was singularly attractive, and it was augmented by information supplied by Anna"s maid. Public curiosity had been a-tip-toe, waiting for them to compromise each other, spying on them with a thousand invisible eyes.

The silent crafty people of the town were creeping close upon them, like a cat lying in wait for a mouse.

In spite of the danger Anna would in all probability not have given in: perhaps her consciousness of such cowardly hostility would have driven her to some desperate act of provocation if she had not herself been possessed by the Pharisaic spirit of the society which was so antagonistic to her. Her education had subjugated her nature. It was in vain that she condemned the tyranny and meanness of public opinion: she respected it: she subscribed to its decrees even when they were directed against herself: if they had come into conflict with her conscience, she would have sacrificed her conscience. She despised the town: but she could not have borne the town to despise herself.

Now the time was coming when the public scandal would be afforded an opportunity of discharging itself. The carnival was coming on.

In that city, the carnival had preserved up to the time of the events narrated in this history--(it has changed since then)--a character of archaic license and roughness. Faithfully in accordance with its origin, by which it had been a relaxation for the profligacy of the human mind subjugated, wilfully or involuntarily, by reason, it nowhere reached such a pitch of audacity as in the periods and countries in which custom and law, the guardians of reason, weighed most heavily upon the people.

The town in which Anna lived was therefore one of its most chosen regions. The more moral stringency paralyzed action and gagged speech, the bolder did action become and speech the more untrammeled during those few days. Everything that was secreted away in the lower depths of the soul, jealousy, secret hate, lewd curiosity, the malicious instincts inherent in the social animal, would burst forth with all the vehemence and joy of revenge. Every man had the right to go out into the streets, and, prudently masked, to nail to the pillory, in full view of the public gaze, the object of his detestation, to lay before all and sundry all that he had found out by a year of patient industry, his whole h.o.a.rd of scandalous secrets gathered drop by drop. One man would display them on the cars. Another would carry a transparent lantern on which were pasted in writings and drawings the secret history of the town. Another would go so far as to wear a mask in imitation of his enemy, made so easily recognizable that the very gutter-snipes would point him out by name. Slanderous newspapers would appear during the three days. Even the very best people would craftily take part in the game of _Pasquino_. No control was exercised except over political allusions,--such coa.r.s.e liberty of speech having on more than one occasion produced fierce conflict between the authorities of the town and the representatives of foreign countries. But there was nothing to protect the citizens against the citizens, and this cloud of public insult, constantly hanging over their heads, did not a little help to maintain the apparently impeccable morality on which the town prided itself.

Anna felt the weight of that dread--which was quite unjustified. She had very little reason to be afraid. She occupied too small a place in the opinion of the town for any one to think of attacking her. But in the absolute isolation in which of her own choice she lived, in her state of exhaustion and nervous excitement brought on by several weeks of sleepless nights and moral suffering, her imagination was apt to welcome the most unreasoning terrors. She exaggerated the animosity of those who did not like her. She told herself that suspicion was on her track: the veriest trifle was enough to ruin her: and there was nothing to a.s.sure her that it was not already an accomplished fact. It would mean insult, pitiless exposure, her heart laid bare to the mockery of the pa.s.sers-by: dishonor so cruel that Anna was near dying of shame at the very thought of it. She called to mind how, a few years before, a girl, who had been the victim of such persecution, had had to fly the country with her family.... And she could do nothing, nothing to defend herself, nothing to prevent it, nothing even to find out if it was going to happen. The suspense was even more maddening than the certainty. Anna looked desperately about her like an animal at bay. In her own house she knew that she was hemmed in.

Anna"s servant was a woman of over forty: her name was Babi: she was tall and strong: her face was narrow and bony round her brow and temples, wide and long in the lower part, fleshy under the jaw, roughly pear-shaped: she had a perpetual smile and eyes that pierced like gimlets, sunken, as though they had been sucked in, beneath red eyelids with colorless lashes. She never put off her expression of coquettish gaiety: she was always delighted with her superiors, always of their opinion, worrying about their health with tender interest: smiling when they gave her orders: smiling when they scolded her. Braun believed that she was unshakably devoted. Her gushing manner was strongly in contrast with Anna"s coldness. However, she was like her in many things: like her she spoke little and dressed in a severe neat style: like her she was very pious, and went to service with her, scrupulously fulfilling all her religious duties and nicely attending to her household tasks: she was clean, methodical, and her morals and her kitchen were beyond reproach. In a word she was an exemplary servant and the perfect type of domestic foe. Anna"s feminine instinct was hardly ever wrong in her divination of the secret thoughts of women, and she had no illusions about her. They detested each other, knew it, and never let it appear.

On the night of Christophe"s return, when Anna, torn by her desire and her emotion, went to him once more in spite of her resolve never to see him again, she walked stealthily, groping along the wall in the darkness: just as she reached Christophe"s door, instead of the ordinary cold smooth polished floor, she felt a warm dust softly crunching under her bare feet. She stooped, touched it with her hands, and understood: a thin layer of ashes had been spread for the s.p.a.ce of a few yards across the pa.s.sage. Without knowing it Babi had happed on the old device employed in the days of the old Breton songs by Frocin the dwarf to catch Tristan on his way to Yseult: so true it is that a limited number of types, good and bad, serve for all ages. A remarkable piece of evidence in favor of the wise economy of the universe!--Anna did not hesitate; she did not stop or turn, but went on in a sort of contemptuous bravado: she went to Christophe, told him nothing, in spite of her uneasiness: but when she returned she took the stove brush and carefully effaced every trace of her footsteps in the ashes, after she had crossed over them.--When Anna and Babi met next day it was with the usual coldness and the accustomed smile.

Babi used sometimes to receive a visit from a relation who was a little older than herself: he fulfilled the function of beadle of the church: during _Gottesdienst_ (Divine service) he used to stand sentinel at the church door, wearing a white armlet with black stripes and a silver ta.s.sel, leaning on a cane with a curved handle. By trade he was an undertaker. His name was Sami Witschi. He was very tall and thin, with a slight stoop, and he had the clean-shaven solemn face of an old peasant.

He was very pious and knew better than any one all the t.i.ttle-tattle of the parish. Babi and Sami were thinking of getting married: they appreciated each other"s serious qualities, and solid faith and malice.

But they were in no hurry to make up their minds: they prudently took stock of each other,--Latterly Sami"s visits had become more frequent.

He would come in unawares. Every time Anna went near the kitchen and looked through the door, she would see Sami sitting near the fire, and Babi a few yards away, sewing. However much they talked, it was impossible to hear a sound. She could see Babi"s beaming face and her lips moving: Sami"s wide hard mouth would stretch in a grin without opening: not a sound would come up from his throat: the house seemed to be lost in silence. Whenever Anna entered the kitchen, Sami would rise respectfully and remain standing, without a word, until she had gone out again. Whenever Babi heard the door open, she would ostentatiously break off in the middle of a commonplace remark, and turn to Anna with an obsequious smile and wait for her orders. Anna would think they were talking about her: but she despised them too much to play the eavesdropper.

The day after Anna had dodged the ingenious trap of the ashes, as she entered the kitchen, the first thing she saw in Sami"s hand was the little broom she had used the night before to wipe out the marks of her bare feet. She had taken it out of Christophe"s room, and that very minute, she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to take it back again; she had left it in her own room, where Babi"s sharp eyes had seen it at once. The two gossips had immediately put two and two together.

Anna did not flinch. Babi followed her mistress"s eyes, gave an exaggerated smile, and explained:

"The broom was broken: I gave it to Sami to mend."

Anna did not take the trouble to point out the gross falsehood of the excuse: she did not seem even to hear it: she looked at Babi"s work, made a few remarks, and went out again impa.s.sively. But when the door was closed she lost all her pride: she could not help hiding behind the corner of the pa.s.sage and listening--(she was humiliated to the very depths of her being at having to stoop to such means: but fear mastered her).--She heard a dry chuckle of laughter. Then whispering, so low that she could not make out what was said. But in her desperation Anna thought she heard: her terror breathed into her ears the words she was afraid of hearing: she imagined that they were speaking of the coming masquerades and a charivari. There was no doubt: they would try to introduce the episode of the ashes. Probably she was wrong: but in her state of morbid excitement, having for a whole fortnight been haunted by the fixed idea of public insult, she did not stop to consider whether the uncertain could be possible: she regarded it as certain.

From that time on her mind was made up.

On the evening of the same day--(it was the Wednesday preceding the carnival)--Braun was called away to a consultation twenty miles out of the town: he would not return until the next morning. Anna did not come down to dinner and stayed in her room. She had chosen that night to carry out the tacit pledge she had made with herself. But she had decided to carry it out alone, and to say nothing to Christophe. She despised him. She thought:

"He promised. But he is a man, he is an egoist and a liar. He has his art. He will soon forget."

And then perhaps there was in her pa.s.sionate heart that seemed so inaccessible to kindness, room for a feeling of pity for her companion.

But she was too harsh and too pa.s.sionate to admit it to herself.

Babi told Christophe that her mistress had bade her to make her excuses as she was not very well and wished to rest. Christophe dined alone under Babi"s supervision, and she bored him with her chatter, tried to make him talk, and protested such an extraordinary devotion to Anna, that, in spite of his readiness to believe in the good faith of men, Christophe became suspicious. He was counting on having a decisive interview with Anna that night. He could no more postpone matters than she. He had not forgotten the pledge they had given each other at the dawn of that sad day. He was ready to keep it if Anna demanded it of him. But he saw the absurdity of their dying together, how it would not solve the problem, and how the sorrow of it and the scandal must fall upon Braun"s shoulders. He was inclined to think that the best thing to do was to tear themselves apart and for him to try once more to go right away,--to see at least if he were strong enough to stay away from her: he doubted it after the vain attempt he had made before: but he thought that, in case he could not bear it, he would still have time to turn to the last resort, alone, without anybody knowing.

He hoped that after supper he would be able to escape for a moment to go up to Anna"s room. But Babi dogged him. As a rule she used to finish her work early: but that night she seemed never to have done with scrubbing her kitchen: and when Christophe thought he was rid of her, she took it into her head to tidy a cupboard in the pa.s.sage leading to Anna"s room.

Christophe found her standing on a stool, and he saw that she had no intention of moving all evening. He felt a furious desire to knock her over with her piles of plates: but he restrained himself and asked her to go and see how her mistress was and if he could say good-night to her. Babi went, returned, and said, as she watched him with a malicious joy, that Madame was better and was asleep and did not want anybody to disturb her. Christophe tried irritably and nervously to read, but could not, and went up to his room. Babi watched his light until it was put out, and then went upstairs to her room, resolving to keep watch: she carefully left her door open so that she could hear every sound in the house. Unfortunately for her, she could not go to bed without at once falling asleep and sleeping so soundly that not thunder, not even her own curiosity, could wake her up before daybreak. Her sound sleep Was no secret. The echo of it resounded through the house even to the lower floor.

As soon as Christophe heard the familiar noise he went to Anna"s room.

It was imperative that he should speak to her. He was profoundly uneasy.

He reached her door, turned the handle: the door was locked. He knocked lightly: no reply. He placed his lips to the keyhole and begged her in a whisper, then more loudly, to open: not a movement, not a sound.

Although he told himself that Anna was asleep, he was in agonies. And as, in a vain attempt to hear, he laid his cheek against the door, a smell came to his nostrils which seemed to be issuing from the room: he bent down and recognised it; it was the smell of gas. His blood froze.

He shook the door, never thinking that he might wake Babi: the door did not give.... He understood: in her dressing-room, which led out of her room, Anna had a little gas-stove: she had turned it on. He must break open the door: but in his anxiety Christophe kept his senses enough to remember that at all costs Babi must not hear. He leaned against one of the leaves of the door and gave an enormous shove as quietly as he could. The solid, well-fitting door creaked on its hinges, but did not yield. There was another door which led from Anna"s room to Braun"s dressing-room. He ran to it. That too was locked: but the lock was outside. He started to tug it off. It was not easy. He had to remove the four big screws which were buried deep in the wood. He had only his knife and he could not see: for he dared not light a candle; it would have meant blowing the whole place up. Fumblingly he managed to fit his knife, into the head of a screw, then another, breaking the blades and cutting himself; the screws seemed to be interminably long, and he thought he would never be able to get them out: and, at the same time, in the feverish haste which was making big body break out into a cold sweat, there came to his mind a memory of his childhood: he saw himself, a boy of ten, shut up in a dark room as a punishment: he had taken off the lock and run out of the house.... The last screw came out. The lock gave with a crackling noise like the sawing of wood. Christophe plunged into the room, rushed to the window, and opened it. A flood of cold air swept in. Christophe b.u.mped into the furniture in the dark and came to the bed, groped with his hands, and came on Anna"s body, tremblingly felt her legs lying still under the clothes, and moved his hands up to her waist: Anna was sitting up in bed, trembling. She had not had time to feel the first effects of asphyxiation: the room was high: the air came through the c.h.i.n.ks in the windows and the doors, Christophe caught her in his arms. She broke away from him angrily, crying:

"Go away!... Ah! What have you done?"

She raised her hands to strike him: but she was worn out with emotion: she fell back on her pillow and sobbed: