Fruitfulness Part 41

The answer she thus gave was the answer of a conservative bourgeoise, who held that it would be more just if the inheritance should go to an illegitimate scion of the house rather than to a stranger. Doubtless the woman, the wife, the mother within her, bled even as she herself acknowledged, but she sacrificed everything to her rancor; she would drive the stranger away even if in doing so her own flesh should be lacerated. Then, too, it vaguely seemed to her that her husband's son must be in some degree her own, since his father was likewise the father of the son to whom she had given birth, and who was dead. Besides, she would make that young fellow her son; she would direct him, she would compel him to be hers, to work through her and for her.

"You wish to know how I shall employ him in the place," she resumed.

"I myself don't know. It is evident that I shall not easily find the hundreds of thousands of francs which may be required. Your figures are accurate, and it is possible that we may never have the money to buy back the property. But, all the same, why not fight, why not try? And, besides--I will admit it--suppose we are vanquished, well then, so much the worse for the other. For I a.s.sure you that if this young man will only listen to me, he will then become the agent of destruction, the avenger and punisher, implanted in the factory to wreck it!"

With a gesture which summoned ruin athwart the walls, she finished expressing her abominable hopes. Among her vague plans, reared upon hate, was that of employing the wretched Alexandre as a destructive weapon, whose ravages would bring her some relief. Should she lose all other battles, that would a.s.suredly be the final one. And she had attained to this pitch of madness through the boundless despair in which the loss of her only son had plunged her, withered, consumed by a love which she could not content, then demented, perverted to the point of crime.

Morange shuddered when, with her stubborn fierceness, she concluded: "For twelve years past I have been waiting for a stroke of destiny, and here it is! I would rather perish than not draw from it the last chance of good fortune which it brings me!"

This meant that Denis's ruin was decided on, and would be effected if destiny were willing. And the old accountant could picture the disaster: innocent children struck down in the person of their father, a great and most unjust catastrophe, which made his kindly heart rise in rebellion.

Would he allow that fresh crime to be committed without shouting aloud all that he knew? Doubtless the memory of the other crime, the first one, the monstrous buried crime about which they both kept silence, returned at that horrible moment and shone out disturbingly in his eyes, for she herself shuddered as if she could see it there, while with the view of mastering him she gazed at him fixedly. For a moment, as they peered into one another's eyes, they lived once more beside the murderous trap, and shivered in the cold gust which rose from the abyss.

And this time again Morange, like a poor weak man overpowered by a woman's will, was vanquished, and did not speak.

"So it is agreed, my friend," she softly resumed. "I rely on you to take Alexandre, in the first place, as a clerk. You can see him here one evening at five o'clock, after dusk, for I do not wish him to know at first what interest I take in him. Shall we say the day after to-morrow?"

"Yes, the evening of the day after to-morrow, if it pleases you, dear madame."

On the morrow Morange displayed so much agitation that the wife of the door-porter of the house where he resided, a woman who was ever watching him, imparted her fears to her husband. The old gentleman was certainly going to have an attack, for he had forgotten to put on his slippers when he came downstairs to fetch some water in the morning; and, besides, he went on talking to himself, and looked dreadfully upset. The most extraordinary incident of the day, however, was that after lunch Morange quite forgot himself, and was an hour late in returning to his office, a lack of punctuality which had no precedent, which, in the memory of everybody at the works, had never occurred before.

As a matter of fact, Morange had been carried away as by a storm, and, walking straight before him, had once more found himself on the Grenelle bridge, where Denis had one day saved him from the fascination of the water. And some force, some impulse had carried him again to the very same spot, and made him lean over the same parapet, gazing, in the same way as previously, at the flowing river. Ever since the previous evening he had been repeating the same words, words which he stammered in an undertone, and which haunted and tortured him. "Would he allow that fresh crime to be committed without shouting aloud what he knew?" No doubt it was those words, of which he could not rid himself, that had made him forget to put on his slippers in the morning, and that had just now again dazed him to the point of preventing him from returning to the factory, as if he no longer recognized the entrance as he pa.s.sed it. And if he were at present leaning over that water, had he not been impelled thither by an unconscious desire to have done with all his troubles, an instinctive hope of drowning the torment into which he was thrown by those stubbornly recurring words? Down below, at the bottom of the river, those words would at last cease; he would no longer repeat them; he would no longer hear them urging him to an act of energy for which he could not find sufficient strength. And the call of the water was very gentle, and it would be so pleasant to have to struggle no longer, to yield to destiny, like a poor soft-hearted weakling who has lived too long.

Morange leant forward more and more, and in fancy could already feel the sonorous river seizing him, when a gay young voice in the rear recalled him to reality.

"What are you looking at, Monsieur Morange? Are there any big fishes there?"

It was Hortense, looking extremely pretty, and tall already for her ten years, whom a maid was conducting on a visit to some little friends at Auteuil. And when the distracted accountant turned round, he remained for a moment with trembling hands, and eyes moist with tears, at the sight of that apparition, that dear angel, who had recalled him from so far.

"What! is it you, my pet!" he exclaimed. "No, no, there are no big fishes. I think that they hide at the bottom because the water is so cold in winter. Are you going on a visit? You look quite beautiful in that fur-trimmed cloak!"

The little girl began to laugh, well pleased at being flattered and loved, for her old friend's voice quivered with adoration.

"Yes, yes, I am very happy; there are to be some private theatricals where I'm going. Oh! it is amusing to feel happy!"

She spoke those words like his own Reine might formerly have spoken them, and he could have gone down on his knees to kiss her little hands like an idol's.

"But it is necessary that you should always be happy," he replied. "You look so beautiful, I must really kiss you."

"Oh! you may, Monsieur Morange, I'm quite willing. Ah! you know the doll you gave me; her name's Margot, and you have no idea how good she is.

Come to see her some day."

He had kissed her; and with glowing heart, ready for martyrdom, he watched her as she went off in the pale light of winter. What he had thought of would be too cowardly: besides, that child must be happy!

He slowly quitted the bridge, while within him the haunting words rang out with decisive distinctness, demanding a reply: "Would he allow that fresh crime to be committed without shouting aloud what he knew?" No, no! It was impossible: he would speak, he would act. Nevertheless, his mind remained clouded, befogged. How could he speak, how could he act?

Then, to crown his extravagant conduct, utterly breaking away from the habits of forty years, he no sooner returned to the office than, instead of immediately plunging into his everlasting additions, he began to write a long letter. This letter, which was addressed to Mathieu, recounted the whole affair--Alexandre's resurrection, Constance's plans, and the service which he himself had promised to render her. These things were set down simply as his impulse dictated, like a kind of confession by which he relieved his feelings. He had not yet come to any positive decision as to how he should play the part of a justiciar, which seemed so heavy to his shoulders. His one purpose was to warn Mathieu in order that there might be two of them to decide and act.

And he simply finished by asking the other to come to see him on the following evening, though not before six o'clock, as he desired to see Alexandre and learn how the interview pa.s.sed off, and what Constance might require of the young man.

The ensuing night, the ensuing day, must have been full of abominable torment for Morange. The doorkeeper's wife recounted, later on, that the fourth-floor tenant had heard the old gentleman walking about overhead all through the night. Doors were slammed, and furniture was dragged about as if for a removal. It was even thought that one could detect cries, sobs, and the monologues of a madman addressing phantoms, some mysterious rendering of worship to the dead who haunted him. And at the works during the day which followed Morange gave alarming signs of distress, of the final sinking of his mind into a flood of gloom.

Ever darting troubled glances around him, he was tortured by internal combats, which, without the slightest motive, made him descend the stairs a dozen times, linger before the machinery in motion, and then return to his additions up above, with the bewildered, distracted air of one who could not find what he sought so painfully. When the darkness fell, about four o'clock on that gloomy winter day, the two clerks whom he had with him in his office noticed that he altogether ceased working.

From that moment, indeed, he waited with his eyes fixed upon the clock.

And when five o'clock struck he once more made sure that a certain total was correct, then rose and went out, leaving the ledger open, as if he meant to return to check the next addition.

He followed the gallery which led to the pa.s.sage connecting the workshops with the private house. The whole factory was at that hour lighted up, electric lamps cast the brightness of daylight over it, while the stir of work ascended and the walls shook amid the rumbling of machinery. And all at once, before reaching the pa.s.sage, Morange perceived the lift, the terrible cavity, the abyss of murder in which Blaise had met his death fourteen years previously. Subsequent to that catastrophe, and in order to prevent the like of it from ever occurring again, the trap had been surrounded by a bal.u.s.trade with a gate, in such wise that a fall became impossible unless one should open the gate expressly to take a plunge. At that moment the trap was lowered and the gate was closed, and Morange, yielding to some superior force, bent over the cavity, shuddering. The whole scene of long ago rose up before him; he was again in the depths of that frightful void; he could see the crushed corpse; and he could feel the gust of terror chilling him in the presence of murder, accepted and concealed. Since he suffered so dreadfully, since he could no longer sleep, since he had promised his dear dead ones that he would join them, why should he not make an end of himself? Two days previously, while leaning over the parapet of the Grenelle bridge, a desire to do so had taken possession of him. He merely had to lose his equilibrium and he would be liberated, laid to rest in the peaceful earth between his wife and his daughter. And, all at once, as if the abyss itself suggested to him the frightful solution for which he had been vainly groping, in his growing madness, for two days past, he thought that he could hear a voice calling him from below, the voice of Blaise, which cried: "Come with the other one! Come with the other one!"

He started violently and drew himself erect; decision had fallen on him in a lightning flash. Insane as he was, that appeared to him to be the one sole logical, mathematical, sensible solution, which would settle everything. It seemed to him so simple, too, that he was astonished that he had sought it so long. And from that moment this poor soft-hearted weakling, whose wretched brain was unhinged, gave proof of iron will and sovereign heroism, a.s.sisted by the clearest reasoning, the most subtle craft.

In the first place he prepared everything, set the catch to prevent the trap from being sent up again in his absence, and also a.s.sured himself that the bal.u.s.trade door opened and closed easily. He came and went with a light, aerial step, as if carried off his feet, with his eyes ever on the alert, anxious as he was to be neither seen nor heard. At last he extinguished the three electric lamps and plunged the gallery into darkness. From below, through the gaping cavity the stir of the working factory, the rumbling of the machinery ever ascended. And it was only then, everything being ready, that Morange turned into the pa.s.sage to betake himself to the little drawing room of the mansion.

Constance was there waiting for him with Alexandre. She had given instructions for the latter to call half-an-hour earlier, for she wished to confess him while as yet telling him nothing of the real position which she meant him to take in the house. She was not disposed to place herself all at once at his mercy, and had therefore simply expressed her willingness to give him employment in accordance with the recommendation of her relative, the Baroness de Lowicz. Nevertheless, she studied him with restrained ardor, and was well pleased to find that he was strong, st.u.r.dy, and resolute, with a hard face lighted by terrible eyes, which promised her an avenger. She would finish polishing him up, and then he would suit her perfectly. For his part, without plainly understanding the truth, he scented something, divined that his fortune was at hand, and was quite ready to wait awhile for the certain feast, like a young wolf who consents to be domesticated in order that he may, later on, devour the whole flock at his ease.

When Morange went in only one thing struck him, Alexandre's resemblance to Beauchene, that extraordinary resemblance which had already upset Constance, and which now sent an icy chill through the old accountant as if in purposing to carry out his idea he had condemned his old master.

"I was waiting for you, my friend; you are late, you who are so punctual as a rule," said Constance.

"Yes, there was a little work which I wished to finish."

But she had merely been jesting, she felt so happy. And she immediately settled everything: "Well, here is the gentleman whom I spoke about,"

she said. "You will begin by taking him with you and making him acquainted with the business, even if in the first instance you can merely send him about on commissions for you. It is understood, is it not?"

"Quite so, dear madame, I will take him with me; you may rely on me."

Then, as she gave Alexandre his dismissal, saying that he might come on the morrow, Morange offered to show him out by way of his office and the workshops, which were still open.

"In that way he will form an acquaintance with the works, and can come straight to me to-morrow."

Constance laughed again, so fully did the accountant's obligingness rea.s.sure her.

"That is a good idea, my friend," she said. "Thank you. And au revoir, monsieur; we will take charge of your future if you behave sensibly."

At this moment, however, she was thunderstruck by an extravagant and seemingly senseless incident. Morange, having shown Alexandre out of the little salon, in advance of himself, turned round towards her with the sudden grimace of a madman, revealing his insanity by the distortion of his countenance. And in a low, familiar, sneering voice, he stammered in her face: "Ha! ha! Blaise at the bottom of the hole! He speaks, he has spoken to me! Ha! ha! the somersault! you would have the somersault! And you shall have it again, the somersault, the somersault!"

Then he disappeared, following Alexandre.

She had listened to him agape with wonder. It was all so unforeseen, so idiotic, that at first she did not understand it. But afterwards what a flash of light came to her! That which Morange had referred to was the murder yonder--the thing to which they had never referred, the monstrous thing which they had kept buried for fourteen years past, which their glances only had confessed, but which, all of a sudden, he had cast in her teeth with the grimace of a madman. What was the meaning of the poor fool's diabolical rebellion, the dim threat which she had felt pa.s.sing like a gust from an abyss? She turned frightfully pale, she intuitively foresaw some frightful revenge of destiny, that destiny which, only a moment previously, she had believed to be her minion. Yes, it was surely that. And she felt herself carried fourteen years backward, and she remained standing, quivering, icy cold, listening to the sounds which arose from the works, waiting for the awful thud of the fall, even as on the distant day when she had listened and waited for the other to be crushed and killed.

Meantime Morange, with his discreet, short step, was leading Alexandre away, and speaking to him in a quiet, good-natured voice.

"I must ask your pardon for going first, but I have to show you the way.

Oh! this is a very intricate place, with stairs and pa.s.sages whose turns and twists never end. The pa.s.sage now turns to the left, you see."

Then, on reaching the gallery where the darkness was complete, he affected anger in the most natural manner possible.

"Ah! well, that is just their way. They haven't yet lighted up this part. The switch is at the other end. Fortunately I know where to step, for I have been going backwards and forwards here for the last forty years. Mind follow me carefully."

Thereupon, at each successive step, he warned the other what he ought to do, guiding him along in his obliging way without the faintest tremor in his voice.

"Don't let go of me, turn to the left.--Now we merely have to go straight ahead.--Only, wait a moment, a barrier intersects the gallery, and there is a gate.--There we are! I'm opening the gate, you hear?--Follow me, I'll go first."

Morange quietly stepped into the void, amid the darkness. And, without a cry, he fell. Alexandre who was close in the rear, almost touching him so as not to lose him, certainly detected the void and the gust which followed the fall, as with sudden horror the flooring failed beneath them; but force of motion carried him on, he stepped forward in his turn, howled and likewise fell, head over heels. Both were smashed below, both killed at once. True, Morange still breathed for a few seconds. Alexandre, for his part, lay with his skull broken to pieces and his brains scattered on the very spot where Blaise had been picked up.