"I haven't got them," replied Rodolphe, with that perfect calm with

which resigned rage covers itself as with a shield.

She went out. The walls trembled, the ceiling was crushing her, and she

passed back through the long alley, stumbling against the heaps of dead

leaves scattered by the wind. At last she reached the ha-ha hedge in

front of the gate; she broke her nails against the lock in her haste to

open it. Then a hundred steps farther on, breathless, almost falling,

she stopped. And now turning round, she once more saw the impassive

chateau, with the park, the gardens, the three courts, and all the

windows of the facade.

She remained lost in stupor, and having no more consciousness of herself

than through the beating of her arteries, that she seemed to hear

bursting forth like a deafening music filling all the fields. The earth

beneath her feet was more yielding than the sea, and the furrows seemed

to her immense brown waves breaking into foam. Everything in her

head, of memories, ideas, went off at once like a thousand pieces of

fireworks. She saw her father, Lheureux's closet, their room at home,

another landscape. Madness was coming upon her; she grew afraid, and

managed to recover herself, in a confused way, it is true, for she did

not in the least remember the cause of the terrible condition she was

in, that is to say, the question of money. She suffered only in her

love, and felt her soul passing from her in this memory; as wounded men,

dying, feel their life ebb from their bleeding wounds.

Night was falling, crows were flying about.

Suddenly it seemed to her that fiery spheres were exploding in the air

like fulminating balls when they strike, and were whirling, whirling,

to melt at last upon the snow between the branches of the trees. In the

midst of each of them appeared the face of Rodolphe. They multiplied and

drew near her, penetrating, her. It all disappeared; she recognised the

lights of the houses that shone through the fog.

Now her situation, like an abyss, rose up before her. She was panting as

if her heart would burst. Then in an ecstasy of heroism, that made

her almost joyous, she ran down the hill, crossed the cow-plank, the

foot-path, the alley, the market, and reached the chemist's shop. She

was about to enter, but at the sound of the bell someone might come, and

slipping in by the gate, holding her breath, feeling her way along the

walls, she went as far as the door of the kitchen, where a candle stuck

on the stove was burning. Justin in his shirt-sleeves was carrying out a

dish.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024