Thre Death of Olivier Becaille [1]
same floor. She had been most obliging
since our arrival and had evidently become interested in our
concerns. On her own side she had lost no time in telling us her
history. A stern landlord had sold her furniture during the
previous winter to pay himself his rent, and since then she had
resided at the lodginghouse in the Rue Dauphine with her daughter
Dede, a child of ten. They both cut and pinked lamp shades, and
between them they earned at the utmost only two francs a day.
"Heavens! Is it all over?" cried Mme Gabin, looking at me.
I realt. Death ever rose between
me and all I loved; I can remember how the thought of it poisoned
the happiest moments I spent with Marguerite. During the first
months of our married life, when she lay sleeping by my side and I
dreamed of a fair future for her and with her, the foreboding of
some fatal separation dashed my hopes aside and embittered my
delights. Perhaps we should be parted on the morrow--nay, perhaps
in an hour's time. Then utter discouragement assailed me; I
wondered what the bliss of being united availed me if it were to end
in so cruel a disruption.
My morbid imagination reveled in scenes of mourning. I speculated
as to who would be the first to depart, Marguerite or I. Either
alternative caused me harrowing grief, and tears rose to my eyes at
the thought of our shattered lives. At the happiest periods of my
existence I often became a prey to grim dejection such as nobody
could understand but which was caused by the thought of impending
nihility. When I was most successful I was to general wonder most
depressed. The fatal question, "What avails it?" rang like a knell
in my ears. But the sharpest sting of this torment was that it came
with a secret sense of shame, which rendered me unable to confide my
thoughts to another. Husband and wife lying side by side in the
darkened room may quiver with the same shudder and yet remain mute,
for people do not mention death any more than they pronounce certain
obscene words. Fear makes it nameless.
I was musing thus while my dear Marguerite knelt sobbing at my feet.
It grieved me sorely to be unable to comfort her by telling her that
I suffered no pain. If death were merely the annihilation of the
flesh it had been foolish of me to harbor so much dread. I
experienced a selfish kind of restfulness in which all my cares were
forgotten. My memory had become extraordinarily vivid. My whole
life passed before me rapidly like a play in which I no longer acted
a part; it was a curious and enjoyable sensation--I seemed to hear a
far-off voice relating my own history.
I saw in particular a certain spot in the country near Guerande, on
the way to Piriac. The road turns sharply, and some scattered pine
trees carelessly dot a rocky slope. When I was seven years old I
used to pass through those pines with my father as far as a
crumbling old house, where Marguerite's parents gave me pancakes.
They were salt gatherers and earned a scanty livelihood by working
the adjacent salt marshes. Then I remembered the school at Nantes,
where I had grown up, leading a monotonous life within its ancient
wallis and yearning for the broad horizon of Guerande and the salt
marshes stretching to the limitless sea widening under the sky.
Next came a blank--my father was dead. I entered the hospital as
clerk to the managing board and led a dreary life with one solitary
diversion: my Sunday visits to the old house on Piriac road. The
saltworks were doing badly; poverty reigned in the land, and
Marguerite's parents were nearly penniless. Marguerite, when merely
a child, had been fond of me because I trundled her about in a
wheelbarrow, but on the morning when I asked her in marriage she
shrank from me with a frightened gesture, and I realized that she
thought me hideous. Her parents, however, consented at once; they
looked upon my offer as a godsend, and the daughter submissively
acquiesced. When she became accustomed
since our arrival and had evidently become interested in our
concerns. On her own side she had lost no time in telling us her
history. A stern landlord had sold her furniture during the
previous winter to pay himself his rent, and since then she had
resided at the lodginghouse in the Rue Dauphine with her daughter
Dede, a child of ten. They both cut and pinked lamp shades, and
between them they earned at the utmost only two francs a day.
"Heavens! Is it all over?" cried Mme Gabin, looking at me.
I realt. Death ever rose between
me and all I loved; I can remember how the thought of it poisoned
the happiest moments I spent with Marguerite. During the first
months of our married life, when she lay sleeping by my side and I
dreamed of a fair future for her and with her, the foreboding of
some fatal separation dashed my hopes aside and embittered my
delights. Perhaps we should be parted on the morrow--nay, perhaps
in an hour's time. Then utter discouragement assailed me; I
wondered what the bliss of being united availed me if it were to end
in so cruel a disruption.
My morbid imagination reveled in scenes of mourning. I speculated
as to who would be the first to depart, Marguerite or I. Either
alternative caused me harrowing grief, and tears rose to my eyes at
the thought of our shattered lives. At the happiest periods of my
existence I often became a prey to grim dejection such as nobody
could understand but which was caused by the thought of impending
nihility. When I was most successful I was to general wonder most
depressed. The fatal question, "What avails it?" rang like a knell
in my ears. But the sharpest sting of this torment was that it came
with a secret sense of shame, which rendered me unable to confide my
thoughts to another. Husband and wife lying side by side in the
darkened room may quiver with the same shudder and yet remain mute,
for people do not mention death any more than they pronounce certain
obscene words. Fear makes it nameless.
I was musing thus while my dear Marguerite knelt sobbing at my feet.
It grieved me sorely to be unable to comfort her by telling her that
I suffered no pain. If death were merely the annihilation of the
flesh it had been foolish of me to harbor so much dread. I
experienced a selfish kind of restfulness in which all my cares were
forgotten. My memory had become extraordinarily vivid. My whole
life passed before me rapidly like a play in which I no longer acted
a part; it was a curious and enjoyable sensation--I seemed to hear a
far-off voice relating my own history.
I saw in particular a certain spot in the country near Guerande, on
the way to Piriac. The road turns sharply, and some scattered pine
trees carelessly dot a rocky slope. When I was seven years old I
used to pass through those pines with my father as far as a
crumbling old house, where Marguerite's parents gave me pancakes.
They were salt gatherers and earned a scanty livelihood by working
the adjacent salt marshes. Then I remembered the school at Nantes,
where I had grown up, leading a monotonous life within its ancient
wallis and yearning for the broad horizon of Guerande and the salt
marshes stretching to the limitless sea widening under the sky.
Next came a blank--my father was dead. I entered the hospital as
clerk to the managing board and led a dreary life with one solitary
diversion: my Sunday visits to the old house on Piriac road. The
saltworks were doing badly; poverty reigned in the land, and
Marguerite's parents were nearly penniless. Marguerite, when merely
a child, had been fond of me because I trundled her about in a
wheelbarrow, but on the morning when I asked her in marriage she
shrank from me with a frightened gesture, and I realized that she
thought me hideous. Her parents, however, consented at once; they
looked upon my offer as a godsend, and the daughter submissively
acquiesced. When she became accustomed