The Necessary Evil by André Couvreur

Author:André Couvreur [Couvreur, André]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

Aline Romé, Madeleine’s cousin, sitting at the table where she was eating lunch with her parents, seemed more impatient than ever that day to finish the meal. Distractedly, she listened to the conversation that had been pivoting for three days around the same subject: the death and funeral of Madame de Jancy.

When the initial surprise had passed and the first tears had been dried, the family had gradually grown accustomed to the sad shock, and the concert of monotonous reflections was now attenuating, with lowered voices and weary, moderated gestures. It was like a remembrance, a prolongation of attitudes struck in the mortuary chamber before the pale and cold cadaver and behind the pomp of the coffin.

Yes, the funeral had gone well, without a single discordant note. Madeleine had shown an astonishing resilience and courage; but she had been suffering since the event. The repercussion of the mental shock seemed to have struck her physically, and her stomach could no longer tolerate any aliment. Monsieur Cartaux, summoned to see the young woman, had not been unduly worried. Anyway, Aline could provide fresh news, since she had been to see her cousin that morning, in company with a chambermaid.

“Isn’t that right, Aline?” asked Madame Romé.

But Aline was not attending to the conversation. Staring into space, lost in the mirages of her reflections, she was kneading a piece of bread in the tips of her slender fingers. Her brown hair, her pale and delicate complexion, her vaguely-arched eyebrows surmounting the bistre of her eyelids went marvelously with mourning-dress, harmonizing with her somber costume.

“Isn’t that right, Aline?” her father repeated, surprised by such inattention.

She did not reply, content to inline her head in a melancholy fashion.

“Come on, child, what’s the matter with you?” Monsieur Romé went on. “You’re not speaking, you’re not listening and you’ve scarcely touched your plate. What’s wrong my dear?”

With the rebelliousness of a spoiled child, to whom everything is permitted, she replied: “You know very well what’s wrong, but you don’t want to admit it. I’m suffering from a liver complaint. Do you think it’s for pleasure that I leave my food—I can’t swallow it. I assure you that I can’t. I’ve got a stabbing pain here”—she pointed at the right side of her waist—and I can scarcely tolerate my corset. Yes, there...”

As she plunged further into her explanation, she felt a blush invading her cheeks. Was she lying? No, not absolutely. But why was she obstinate in that fiction? Why was that young woman, healthy in body, born of sturdy stock, and thus far well-balanced herself, in spite of certain social frequentations that might have been harmful to her if she had not been protected by her education, so persistent in that absurd desire to be, and above all to appear to be, ill, without wanting to reflect on all the anxiety and sadness that the comedy might provoke among those surrounding her?

Since the day when she had seen Armand Caresco for the first time, at Madame Bise’s country property at Les Bolois, she had never ceased to dream about him.

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