On the Brink of the World's End Read online

  Even so, he tried to wake her. But he soon perceived that his efforts were utterly futile. There was no sign of a return to consciousness. The more he saw the impotence of his efforts, in fact, the more he sensed that his will-power was escaping him—the will-power that as more necessary than ever. His distracted attention could no longer lend itself to any effort, and still, on the floor beside him, Angèle, pale and insensible, was breathing with the same serenity.

  Habituated as he was to the alarming spectacle of lethargy, Laurent was frightened. That woman lying on the floor, unmoving, was almost the image of death. Was he going to be unable to recall her to life? The shock had been too abrupt, the emotion too profound. In extraordinary, almost supernatural, human organisms there are delicate springs that the slightest damage is capable of breaking forever.

  Angèle, Angèle is going to die, to die here, to die because of me!

  That sinister idea passed back and forth through Laurent’s mind with a vertiginous rapidity. In vain he told himself that lethargy of this sort never leads to death, that these crises, although terrifying, are fundamentally devoid of danger. He had forgotten al the lessons of science; he saw before him a cadaver, and the more afraid he was, the more impotent he became. Sinister ideas whirled in his head, tracing redoubtable circles that became ever more restricted, like the immense orbits, always spiraling inwards, that vultures describe when they are about to fall upon their prey.

  A cold sweat beaded Laurent’s forehead.

  “Angèle,” he said, “Wake up! Wake up!”

  But there was nothing, nothing at all. Still that deathly immobility, that terrible mortal silence.

  He lifted up her eyelid; the eye was dull, devoid of gaze.

  “Angèle, Angèle, wake up!”

  Suddenly, in the country, far away, a cock crowed. Another cock replied. A pale, scarcely visible light fringed the horizon.

  Laurent had a sudden inspiration. He understood. Yes, if Angèle is asleep with that profound lethargy, it is in order that Sister Marthe will never know that she has been in Laurent’s room. The mystery of that night of amour must remain unknown to Sister Marthe, unknown to everyone.

  Then, Laurent regained courage. He no longer made any effort to wake Angèle. He took her in his arms and, stepping through the window, went down into the park. He carried her gently, barefoot, in order that no one would hear the gravel creaking. He arrived thus at the door of the chapel, which, fortunately, was not locked.

  When Laurent opened the door, the rusty hinges grated with a noise that seemed resounding. Laurent stopped, his heart palpitating with anguish. He remained thus for a few minutes, holding Angèle’s body in his arms, and dared not move forward.

  Although dawn was beginning to break outside, the church was in profound darkness. The main altar could, however, be vaguely discerned

  Laurent advanced slowly, bearing his precious burden. When he was in front of the gate of the choir, he laid Angèle down on the flagstones, very gently, as one might have laid a cadaver down. He covered her with the thick mantle that she had brought; then, leaning over her, he kissed her chastely on the forehead.

  Adieu, my Angèle, adieu. If there is another existence somewhere—alas, why is it necessary for me not to believe it!—we shall see one another again, my Angèle... Adieu forever, down here.

  But Angèle remained motionless, inert: still that frightful monotony of an impassive respiration, that pallor and that rigidity of the features. Laurent was speaking to her as one might speak to the dead.

  On the threshold of the chapel he looked back. He saw, confusedly, the white form lying on the ground, like a distant specter. He made a desperate gesture, and closed the door.

  IX

  When he was back in his room, he had the sensation of a man who has emerged alive from a great peril. Alive, but torn apart: be bore in his heart one of those profound wounds that time soothes, but never effaces. Nevertheless, he was alive. No shame or scandal would tarnish his life. After all, why should he not resume his work, his hopes of old? Life is still for him what it was three days ago, before the deadly music of the Ave Maria resounded in the silence of the dusk.

  Then again, it is necessary to do something, and in great dolors, action is a consolation.

  At six o’clock in the morning, the General’s victoria was waiting for Laurent at the perron. It departed at a rapid trot. After half an hour, however, Laurent perceived that he had forgotten his valise, containing papers of the utmost importance.

  “Let’s go back,” he said to the coachman. “I’ll take the evening train.”

  “Oh, good God!” George said to him, “how fortunately you’ve arrived! It’s a true stroke of luck that you forgot your manuscript. Can you imagine that Sister Marthe has been found half-dead, lying in the church. She was unconscious. They tried to wake her, but haven’t yet succeeded. Now she’s at the convent; the superior and the curé are with her. Come quickly, you might perhaps be able to revive her.”

  “But how did Sister Marthe come to be in the church like that, at six o’clock in the morning?”

  “In truth, no one knows,” said George. “She must have got up during the night—it appears that she walks in her sleep—to go and say her prayers; then the cold must have seized her, and she lost consciousness.”

  They had arrived at the school. They found a small gathering of women and children there. George and Laurent went in.

  The lethargy was as profound as before. Nothing could give any indication of whether it would last for days, months or minutes. But Laurent had recovered his composure; he knew that lethargies are inoffensive, in spite of the terror they inspire. For Sister Marthe, there was no danger. It was a matter of a few hours. And assuredly, Sister Marthe would come back, utterly unconscious of the events that Angèle had lived.

  So, in spite of the insistences of all the people surrounding Sister Marthe’s bed, he did not want to employ any means to awaken her.

  “Anything we do,” he said, “can only have inconveniences. She will wake up on her own. If we allow her lethargy to dissipate, Sister Marthe, when she wakes up, will be neither fatigued nor ill; whereas, by provoking an abrupt awakening, we would risk bringing on a long and redoubtable crisis.”

  Toward midday, suddenly, Sister Marthe made a movement. Her respiration, absolutely regular until then, was suspended momentarily. She uttered a long and profound sigh; then, opening her eyes, she looked around. She was still clad in her white dress; her first movement was to palpate and look at the dress.

  “What!” she said dazedly, intimidated by the sight of all the people around her. “What is it? What’s happened? In the name of Heaven, what is it?”

  “Thank God, my daughter,” the superior said to her. “You’ve escaped a great peril.”

  “What peril? I don’t understand.”

  The superior asked the others to leave. Then, when she was alone with Sister Marthe, she told her that at six-thirty in the morning, she had not been found in her bed, and that they had searched everywhere; finally, she had been found lying on the floor in the chapel, as if dead.

  Sister Marthe was nonplussed. Her gaze lost in space, she tried to understand, to remember, to grasp some shred of all that had happened of which she was unaware, and which fled before her—but she could not recover anything. She remembered that, the previous night, as usual, she had lain down in her little bed. She had slept tranquilly, and yet, something strange and inexplicable must have happened, since she found herself, at midday, dressed in white, with all those strange people round her bed.

  “Thank God, my daughter. God has worked a miracle for you and saved you.”

  “Not only am I saved,” said Sister Marthe, smiling, “but I’m no longer ill, and I feel well enough to take the class today.”

  At that moment, Laurent came in. He tried in vain to make Sister Marthe understand that it would be better for her to rest. She claimed that she was no longer suffering, that she was not ill, that peo
ple had already been too occupied with her and that it really was not worth the trouble of continuing to talk about that ridiculous incident.

  With that, Laurent ceased his exhortations. That same evening, entirely reassured, he left for Paris—and this time, he did not leave any manuscript behind in his room.

  X

  Which of us has not amused himself by throwing a stone into the tranquil mirror of a lake? The water splashes up, and all around, a wave forms, and then another, and then yet another. They spread rapidly, reach the bank, rebound there, return to the center, and then, again, in tightly-packed circles, return to the edge. And that agitation continues for a long time. For a long time, the serenity of the water is lost.

  Is our soul not like the pure water of that lake? Let an unexpected event—an amorous passion, for example—fall upon us, and that is it, forever, for the serenity of the soul. But we are more unfortunate than the stupid lake. The lake forgets, but for us, it is necessary to remember. The odious power of memory! An ancient dolor bites as cruelly as a recent dolor.

  Laurent had the rude experience of that. He had said: “I shall forget; I shall work,” but work can only bring forgetfulness when one is already indifferent.

  So, Laurent tried to go back to work. He recommenced his scientific research, went to the theater, visited his friends; but science, friends and the theater seemed equally unsupportable to him.

  Once, he had paid court to a certain young widow, very flirtatious, who had sent him away. In order to distract himself, he wanted to attempt the adventure again. At the first visit, he was well received—perhaps even too well received. Although he was far from being conceited, he was not blind. He understood easily that if he persisted…but he did not persist. He did not care to play the comedy of amour. Had he not, in the chapel of Plancheuille, felt the palpitation of true love? His caprice for the young widow had suddenly flown away, as soon as he realized that she would yield to his persistence.

  He spent two months thus, very sad, with the heavy sadness that weighs upon us all the more, the more we find the cause to be absurd. He could not think about anything but Angèle. He could not forgive himself for having been so prudent, so reserved, so sage. What good had it done him, that sagacity? He had wanted to avoid being unhappy, and now he was more unhappy than ever. No, truly, it was necessary to put an end to it. It was necessary not to allow himself to be eaten away by an inept torment that was taking the best part of life. At all costs, he had to free himself from that obsession, and for that, he had to see Angèle again.

  On the first of November, abruptly, he set off once again for Plancheuille.

  The General uttered a cry of joy when he saw Laurent. He was alone, entirely alone, because George was traveling in Italy with his young wife.

  “Decidedly,” he said to Laurent, “you have it in for my pheasants. Well, we’ll have a word with them. But truly, you’ve had an admirable idea, all the more so because you’ll be able to collect yourself here, work, put your documents in order. Here, complete liberty. Perhaps you’ve brought a few books? Yes—well, that’s perfect. You’ll be able to work at your ease. Why don’t you stay with me until the first of January?”

  “I won’t say no, General, unless my patients call me back.”

  “Your patients! Your principal patient is me. I have gout and rheumatism—what you physicians call gouty rheumatism. Then again, I cough like a damned soul. Now, I only want to be cared for by you, and it would be lacking in duty and in friendship to abandon me. Besides which, don’t imagine that you’ll have any lack of patients in Plancheuille? You have some reputation in the locality, since you cured Sister Marthe.”

  “In fact, that’s true,” said Laurent, affecting a detached manner. “How has Sister Marthe been these last two months?”

  “As well as can be. I don’t know what you prescribed for her, but your prescription has worked marvels. She was very ill—consumptive, it’s said—but now she’s cured, or very nearly. In any case, in order that you have news of her, I’ll invite our worthy curé to dine with us at the château this evening. He’s an excellent fellow, who speaks of you with a genuine sympathy. We’ll play a game of whist this evening. Confess that you’ve done well to come.”

  “In truth, General, I left Paris in quite a bad way. I had a host of black butterflies in my head, making a diabolical racket. But now I’m here, they’ve flown away, is if by a miracle, and the appetite for broad daylight has returned.”

  In fact, as soon as he had seen the turrets of Plancheuille and the white wall of the little again, Laurent had suddenly felt as if transformed.

  He was almost frightened by that sudden change, which revealed a most abnormal state of mind, and a more profound disturbance than he had been able to suspect. What! That history of Angèle, that romantic adventure, which ought to have been one of the fleeting episodes of his life, takes such a vast place?

  Why that tremor, that frisson, that gleam of hope on finding this room again? It is by that window that Angèle entered; it was in that armchair that she sat down. There is the chapel where I heard her for the first time. There is the path where her white form, in the night, came toward me. Further away is the village, and she is there, and if I wanted...

  But he did not want to. He imposed that sacrifice upon himself. He kept the General company all day, and went walking with him.

  They came back at five o’clock. While they were playing a game of billiards, the sound of the organ suddenly became audible. Laurent went pale, and then blushed.

  “Well,” said the General, “that’s your pupil playing the organ. It’s the same every evening. It seems that she’s made progress since your last lessons. Tomorrow, if you like, you can recommence.”

  During dinner, they talked again about Sister Marthe. It was like a universal conspiracy; everyone at Plancheuille seemed to want to sing the praises of the young nun to Laurent, as if he had any need to be reminded of her. The curé never stopped talking about her, marveling at her recovery, and he repeated in the smallest details everything he knew about the famous episode of the lethargy.

  “If you wish, Doctor, we’ll go to see her tomorrow, after her class. You can see for yourself that she’s much better.”

  “Is it with arsenic that you treated her?” the General asked.

  “Oh, truly,” said Laurent, “it’s necessary not to cry victory too soon. And you’ll recall, Monsieur le Curé, that a great physician, living in a century less skeptical than ours, was accustomed to say when he saved a patient: ‘I bandaged him; God has healed him.’”

  “Bravo,” said the curé. “Well said and well thought, without wordplay.”

  The next day, outside the school, Laurent found the curé in conversation with the superior.

  “Ah. Monsieur le Docteur,” said the excellent woman, “we’re very happy to see you again. Your presence has been a benefit for us. You’ll see what a miraculous change has taken place in the health of our Sister Marthe. Above all, though, don’t talk to her about her crisis of somnambulism, because she’s ashamed of it, poor child, and it’s a subject of conversation that horrifies her.”

  Sister Marthe came in. Laurent tried not to appear emotional. He affected the solemn and indifferent gravity of a physician called upon to make a diagnosis. In fact, though, the presence of Sister Marthe moved him profoundly. He devoured her with his gaze, as if he had not dared to hope that he would see her again.

  Yes, it’s really her. There are her adorable hands, which knotted around my neck. There is the supple body that pressed against mine. Angèle or Sister Marthe or both together? How did that meek nun, so timid, so humble, dare to talk to me about love, and demand love of me?

  “It appears, Sister, that you’re on the way to recovery?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le Docteur, thanks to you, and I’m glad to be able to express all my gratitude to you. I carry out your recommendations faithfully: two drops of arsenical liquor every morning.”

  “Well, Siste
r, it’s necessary to continue. But before then, permit me to listen for a moment.”

  He applied his ear gently to Sister Marthe’s chest. She smiled with resignation, perhaps with a slight ennui, thinking that too much attention was being paid to her.

  The curé and the superior waited anxiously. “Well?” they said, when Laurent had finished his auscultation.

  “Well,” said Laurent, “I’m astonished myself to observe such considerable progress. There’s still a small lesion here on the right, but it’s very slight. The amelioration is striking, unexpected; a few more months of the same regime, and all will be well—even very well.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur le Docteur,” said Sister Marthe.

  As she prepared to leave, Laurent stopped her. “And the organ lessons, Sister? Would you like to resume them?”

  Sister Marthe looked at the superior, as if to request authorization or advice—but the curé had already replied: “Certainly, my child, it’s necessary to continue. And I hope, for my part, that Monsieur Laurent Verdine will stay here long enough for you to be able to play the Ave Maria as well as he does himself.”

  “You trying to make fun of me,” said Sister Marthe. “I have no need to be an artiste; it’s sufficient that I help the little girls to sing canticles at catechism.”

  XI

  If Laurent thought that, in order to liberate himself from the memory of Angèle, it was sufficient for him to return to Plancheuille, Laurent has made a terrible mistake. Scarcely has he heard Sister Marthe’s voice than he has been recaptured entirely. Now he no longer has but one desire, that of recovering Angèle. With an increasing impatience, he waits in the chapel for the moment when Sister Marthe will arrive.

  He heard the door opening. It was Sister Marthe; he made out the soft sound of her footsteps on the flagstones, the trailing of her robe, the clicking of the crucifix that was hanging by her side. He did not raise his eyes, but he felt troubled to the utmost depths of his soul. His heart was beating forcefully, and he savored the delicious moment—who has not known it?—when the beloved, adored woman, finally arrives after a long wait.