Fromont and Risler, vol 3 | Page 6

her eyes in his, her lips near his,
trembling from head to foot.
A criminal love?--Whom did she love, in God's name?
Frantz was afraid to question her.
Although suspecting nothing as yet, he had a feeling that that glance,
that breath, leaning toward him, were about to make some horrible
disclosure.
But his office of judge made it necessary for him to know all.
"Who is it?" he asked.
She replied in a stifled voice:
"You know very well that it is you."
She was his brother's wife.
For two years he had not thought of her except as a sister. In his eyes
his brother's wife in no way resembled his former fiancee, and it would
have been a crime to recognize in a single feature of her face the
woman to whom he had formerly so often said, "I love you."
And now it was she who said that she loved him.
The unhappy judge was thunderstruck, dazed, could find no words in
which to reply.
She, standing before him, waited.
It was one of those spring days, full of heat and light, to which the
moisture of recent rains imparts a strange softness and melancholy. The

air was warm, perfumed by fresh flowers which, on that first day of
heat, gave forth their fragrance eagerly, like violets hidden in a muff.
Through its long, open windows the room in which they were inhaled
all those intoxicating odors. Outside, they could hear the Sunday organs,
distant shouts on the river, and nearer at hand, in the garden, Madame
Dobson's amorous, languishing voice, sighing:
"On dit que tu te maries; Tu sais que j'en puis mouri-i-i-r!"
"Yes, Frantz, I have always loved you," said Sidonie. "That love which
I renounced long ago because I was a young girl--and young girls do
not know what they are doing--that love nothing has ever succeeded in
destroying or lessening. When I learned that Desiree also loved you, the
unfortunate, penniless child, in a great outburst of generosity I
determined to assure her happiness for life by sacrificing my own, and I
at once turned you away, so that you should go to her. Ah! as soon as
you had gone, I realized that the sacrifice was beyond my strength.
Poor little Desiree! How I cursed her in the bottom of my heart! Will
you believe it? Since that time I have avoided seeing her, meeting her.
The sight of her caused me too much pain."
"But if you loved me," asked Frantz, in a low voice, "if you loved me,
why did you marry my brother?"
She did not waver.
"To marry Risler was to bring myself nearer to you. I said to myself: 'I
could not be his wife. Very well, I will be his sister. At all events, in
that way it will still be allowable for me to love him, and we shall not
pass our whole lives as strangers.' Alas! those are the innocent dreams a
girl has at twenty, dreams of which she very soon learns the
impossibility. I could not love you as a sister, Frantz; I could not forget
you, either; my marriage prevented that. With another husband I might
perhaps have succeeded, but with Risler it was terrible. He was forever
talking about you and your success and your future--Frantz said this;
Frantz did that--He loves you so well, poor fellow! And then the most
cruel thing to me is that your brother looks like you. There is a sort of
family resemblance in your features, in your gait, in your voices

especially, for I have often closed my eyes under his caresses, saying to
myself, 'It is he, it is Frantz.' When I saw that that wicked thought was
becoming a source of torment to me, something that I could not escape,
I tried to find distraction, I consented to listen to this Georges, who had
been pestering me for a long time, to transform my life to one of noise
and excitement. But I swear to you, Frantz, that in that whirlpool of
pleasure into which I then plunged, I never have ceased to think of you,
and if any one had a right to come here and call me to account for my
conduct, you certainly are not the one, for you, unintentionally, have
made me what I am."
She paused. Frantz dared not raise his eyes to her face. For a moment
past she had seemed to him too lovely, too alluring. She was his
brother's wife!
Nor did he dare speak. The unfortunate youth felt that the old passion
was despotically taking possession of his heart once more, and that at
that moment glances, words, everything that burst forth from it would
be love.
And she was his brother's wife!