The Kill - Emile Zola [100]
“Oh, yes I was!” he replied, a bit embarrassed. “Only I didn’t know, you understand. . . . I didn’t dare.”
He was lying. The idea of possessing Renée had never occurred to him in any clear way. He had allowed his dissolute habits to rub off on her but had never really desired her. He was too lackadaisical for such effort. He had accepted Renée because she pressed herself on him, and he had slipped into her bed without wanting to or realizing in advance what he was doing. Having once rolled in her sheets, he stayed because it was warm and because it was typical of him to abandon himself whenever he fell into a hole. At first his ego was gratified. She was the first married woman he had had. He gave no thought to the fact that her husband was his father.
Renée, however, sinned with all the ardor of a heart that seeks love beneath its station. She, too, had slid down a slippery slope, yet she had not remained passive the whole way down. Desire had awakened in her too late to combat it, after the fall had become ineluctable. All at once she saw that fall as a necessary consequence of her boredom, a rare and extreme pleasure that alone could rouse her weary senses, her ravaged heart. It was during that autumn drive, as slumber descended on the Bois at dusk, that vague thoughts of incest had first come to her, like a tickling that sent a strange new shiver through her flesh. That same night those thoughts had taken on a more definite shape, had risen up ardently before her in the flames of the conservatory as she stood, half-intoxicated by the dinner and lashed by jealousy, spying on Maxime and Louise. At that moment she craved sin, the sin that no one commits, the sin that would fill her empty life and plunge her at last into the hell of which she had been frightened ever since she was a little girl. By the next day she craved it no more, overcome by a strange feeling of remorse and lassitude. It seemed to her that she had already sinned, that it wasn’t as good as she had expected, and that it really would be too sordid to go through with it in reality. The crisis had had to come as a caprice of fate, of its own accord, independent of the will of the two individuals involved—two comrades who were destined one fine night to make a mistake, to end up making love rather than shaking hands. After that mindless fall, however, her dreams of unknown pleasures had revived, and she had taken Maxime into her arms again because she was curious about him and about the cruel pleasures of a love she regarded as a crime. Her will accepted the incest, demanded it, and intended to savor it to the end, to the point of remorse—if remorse ever came. She was active and conscious of what she was doing. She loved with all the fervor of a celebrated socialite, with all the anxious prejudices of a lady of the bourgeoisie, and with all the conflicts, joys, and antipathies of a woman drowning in self-contempt.
Maxime returned night after night. He entered by way of the garden around one o’clock. Usually Renée was waiting for him in the conservatory, which he had to cross to reach the small salon. They were in any case supremely impudent, barely troubling to hide themselves and neglecting the commonest precautions of adulterers. Of course this corner of the mansion was theirs. Only Baptiste, the husband’s valet, was allowed to enter, and Baptiste, a serious sort of man, vanished the moment his duties were discharged. Maxime joked that he probably went off to write his memoirs. One night, however, shortly after Maxime arrived, Renée pointed out the valet solemnly making his way across the salon, candlestick in hand. With his ministerial bearing, and his face illuminated by the yellow light of burning wax, the tall servant looked even more proper and austere than usual. Leaning forward, the lovers watched him blow out his candle and head for the stables, where the horses and grooms