At the beginning of the summer, six months after my aunt's death, Iwas in exactly the same position with respect to my stepfather as on that already distant day when, maddened with suspicion by my father's letters, I entered his study, to play the part of the physician who examines a man's body, searching with his finger for the tender spot that is probably a symptom of a hidden abscess.
I was full of intuitions now, just as I was at the moment when he passed me in his carriage with his terrible face, but I did not grasp a single certainty.Would I have persisted in a struggle in which I felt beforehand that I must be beaten?
I cannot tell; for, when I no longer expected any solution to the problem set before me for my grief, a grief, too, that was both sterile and mortal, a day came on which I had a conversation with my mother so startling and appalling that to this hour my heart stands still when I think of it.I have spoken of dates; among them is the 25th of May, 1879.
My stepfather, who was on the eve of his departure for Vichy, had just had a severe attack of liver-complaint, the first since his illness after our terrible conversation in the month of January.Iknow that I counted for nothing--at least in any direct or positive way--in this acute revival of his malady.The fight between us, which went on without the utterance of a word on either side, and with no witnesses except ourselves, had not been marked by any fresh episode; I therefore attributed this complication to the natural development of the disease under which he labored.
I can exactly recall what I was thinking of on the 25th of May, at five o'clock in the evening, as I walked up the stairs in the hotel on the Boulevard de Latour-Marbourg.I hoped to learn that my stepfather was better, because I had been witnessing my mother's distress for a whole week, and also--I must tell all--because to know he was going to the watering-place was a great relief to me, on account of the separation it would bring about.I was so tired of my unprofitable pain! My wretched nerves were in such a state of tension that the slightest disagreeable impression became a torment.I could not sleep without the aid of narcotics, and such sleep as these procured was full of cruel dreams in which I walked by my father's side, while knowing and feeling that he was dead.
One particular nightmare used to recur so regularly that it rendered my dread of the night almost unbearable.I stood in a street crowded with people and was looking into a shop window; on a sudden I heard a man's step approaching, that of M.Termonde.Idid not see him, and yet I was certain it was he.I tried to move on, but my feet were leaden; to turn my head, but my neck was immovable.The step drew nearer, my enemy was behind me, I heard his breathing, and knew that he was about to strike me.He passed his arm over my shoulder.I saw his hand, it grasped a knife, and sought for the spot where my heart lay; then it drove the blade in, slowly, slowly, and I awoke in unspeakable agony.
So often had this nightmare recurred within a few weeks, that I had taken to counting the days until my stepfather's departure, which had been at first fixed for the 21st, and then put off until he should be stronger.I hoped that when he was absent I should be at rest at least for a time.I had not the courage to go away myself, attracted as I was every day by that presence which I hated, and yet sought with feverish eagerness; but I secretly rejoiced that the obstacle was of his raising, that his absence gave me breathing-time, without my being obliged to reproach myself with weakness.
Such were my reflections as I mounted the wooden staircase, covered with a red carpet, and lighted by stained-glass windows, that led to my mother's favorite hall.The servant who opened the door informed me in answer to my question that my stepfather was better, and I entered the room with which my saddest recollections were connected, more cheerfully than usual.Little did I think that the dial hung upon one of the walls was ticking off in minutes one of the most solemn hours of my life!
My mother was seated before a small writing-table, placed in a corner of the deep glazed projection which formed the garden-end of the hall.Her left hand supported her head, and in the right, instead of going on with the letter she had begun to write, she held her idle pen, in a golden holder with a fine pearl set in the top of it (the latter small detail was itself a revelation of her luxurious habits).She was so lost in reverie that she did not hear me enter the room, and I looked at her for some time without moving, startled by the expression of misery in her refined and lovely face.What dark thought was it that closed her mouth, furrowed her brow, and transformed her features? The alteration in her looks and the evident absorption of her mind contrasted so strongly with the habitual serenity of her countenance that it at once alarmed me.But, what was the matter? Her husband was better; why, then, should the anxiety of the last few days have developed into this acute trouble? Did she suspect what had been going on close to her, in her own house, for months past? Had M.
Termonde made up his mind to complain to her, in order to procure the cessation of the torture inflicted upon him by my assiduity?
No.If he had divined my meaning from the very first day, as Ithought he had, unless he were sure he could not have said to her:
"Andre suspects me of having had his father killed." Or had the doctor discerned dangerous symptoms behind this seeming improvement in the invalid?
Was my stepfather in danger of death?
At the idea, my first feeling was joy, my second was rage--joy that he should disappear from my life, and for ever; rage that, being guilty, he should die without having felt my full vengeance.
