The Immortal by Alphonse Daudet (short story to read txt) 📖

And that there might be no mistake about it, that he might not attribute what she said only to the exasperation of a woman wounded and humiliated in her wifely pride and her blind maternal devotion, she recalled the details of his election, and reminded him of his famous remark about Madame Astier's veils that smelt of tobacco, though he never smoked, 'a remark, my dear, that has done more to make you notorious than your books.'
He gave a low deep groan, the stifled cry of a man who stays with both hands the life escaping from a mortal rent The sharp little voice went on unaltered. 'Ah well, pack your trunk, do, once for all! Let the world hear no more of you. Fortunately your son is rich and will give you your daily bread. For you need not be told that now you will find no publisher or magazine to take your rubbish, and it will be due to Paul's supposed infamy that you escape starvation.'
'This is more than I can bear,' muttered the poor man as he fled away, away from the lashing fury. And as he felt his way along the walls, and passed through the passage, down the stairs, across the echoing court, he muttered almost in tears, 'More than I can bear, more than I can bear.'
Whither is he going? Straight before him, as if in a dream. He crosses the square and is half over the bridge, before the fresh air revives him. He sits down on a bench, takes off his hat and pulls up his coat sleeves to still the beating of his pulses; and the regular lapping of the water makes him calmer. He comes to himself again, but consciousness brings only memory and pain. What a woman! what a monster! And to think that he has lived five-and-thirty years with her and not known her! A shudder of disgust runs over him at the recollection of all the horrors he has just heard. She has spared nothing and left within him nothing alive, not even the pride which still kept him erect, his faith in his work and his belief in the Academie. At the thought of the Academie he instinctively turned round. Beyond the deserted bridge, beyond the wider avenue which leads to the foot of the building, the pile of the Palais Mazarin, massed together in the darkness, up-reared its portico and its dome, as on the cover of the Didot books, so often gazed upon in his young days and in the ambitious aspirations of his whole life. That dome, that block of stone, had been the delusive object of his hopes, and the cause of all his misery.
It was there he sought his wife, feeling neither love nor delight, but for the hope of the Institute. And he has had the coveted seat, and he knows the price!
Just then there was a sound of steps and laughter on the bridge; it came nearer. Some students with their mistresses were coming back to their rooms. Afraid of being recognised, he rose and leant over the parapet; and while the party passed close to him without seeing him, he reflected with bitterness that he had never amused himself, never allowed himself such a fine night's holiday of song beneath the starlight. His ambition had always been fixed unbendingly on the approach to yonder dome, the dome, as it were, of a temple, whose beliefs and whose ritual he had respected in anticipation.
And what had yonder dome given him in return? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Even on the day of his admission, when the speeches were over and the double-edged compliments at an end, he had felt the sensation of emptiness and deluded hope. He had said to himself as he drove home to change his green coat, 'Have I really got in? Why, it can't be like this.' Since then, by dint of constant lying to himself and echoing, with his colleagues, that it was delightful, delicious, he had ended by believing so. But now the veil had fallen away, and he saw the truth; and he would have liked to proclaim with a thousand tongues to the youth of France, 'The Academie is a snare and a delusion. Go your way and do your work. Sacrifice nothing to the Academie, for it has nothing to offer you, neither gift, nor glory, nor the best thing of all, self-contentment. It is neither a retreat nor a refuge; it is a hollow idol, a religion that offers no consolations. The great troubles of life come upon you there as elsewhere; under that dome men have killed themselves, men have gone mad there! Those who in their agony have turned to the Academie, and weary of loving, or weary of cursing, have stretched forth their arms to her, have clasped but a shadow.'
The old schoolmaster was speaking aloud, bareheaded, grasping the parapet with both hands as in old days he used to hold the edge of his desk at lessons. The river rolled on below, tinged with hues of night, between its rows of winking lamps. An uncanny thing is the speechless life of light, moving, and looking, and never saying what it means. On the quay the song of a drunken man died quavering away in the distance, 'When Cupid... in the morn... awakes.' The accent showed that the merry singer was an Auvergnat making his way back to his coal-barge. It reminded him of Teyssedre, the polisher, and his glass of good wine. He saw him wiping his mouth on his shirt-sleeve. 'It's the only real good in life.' Even a humble natural joy like that he had never known; he must needs envy even Teyssedre. Absolutely alone, with no refuge, no breast on which to weep, he realised that 'that woman' was right, and 'the trunk had better be packed for good and all, Leonard.'
In the morning some policemen found on a bench on the Pont des Arts a wide-brimmed hat, one of those hats which preserve something of the expression of their owner. Inside was a large gold watch and a visiting card--'Leonard Astier-Rehu, Permanent Secretary of the Academie Francaise.' Right across the line of print had been written in pencil the words, 'I die here of my own will.' Of his own will indeed it was! Even better than the little phrase in the large, firm handwriting did the expression of his features--the set teeth, the projection of the lower jaw--declare his fixed determination to die, when after a morning's search the dredgers found the body caught in the wide meshes of an iron net surrounding some baths for women, quite close to the bridge.
It was taken first to the emergency-station, where Picheral came to identify it, a strange sight himself, as he fluttered along the wide bank, with bare bald head and in a frock coat. It was not the first time that a Permanent Secretary had been taken out of the Seine; the same thing had occurred in the time of Picheral's father, under very similar circumstances. And Picheral the son did not seem much affected, only annoyed that he could not wait till the evening to carry Astier-Rehu home. But it was necessary to take advantage of the absence of Madame Astier (who was breakfasting with her son) so as to spare her too great a shock.
The clock of the Palais Mazarin was striking one, when with the heavy tramp of the bearers the stretcher from the station was brought under the archway, marking its road with ominous splashes of water. At the foot of Staircase B there was a halt to take breath. Over the dazzling court was a great sharp-lined square of blue sky. The covering of the stretcher had been raised, and the features of Leonard Astier-Rehu were visible for the last time to his colleagues on the Dictionary Committee, who had just broken up their meeting in sign of mourning. They stood round, with their hats off, not a little shocked. Other people also stopped to see what it was, workmen, clerks, and apprentices, for the Institute serves as a passage from the Rue Mazarin to the quay. Among them was kind-hearted Freydet, who, as he wiped his eyes, thought in his heart, and was ashamed to think it, that here was another vacancy. Old Jean Rehu was just coming downstairs for his daily constitutional.
He had heard nothing, seemed surprised to see the crowd beneath him as he stood on one of the lower steps, and came nearer to look, in spite of the scared gestures of those who tried to keep him back. Did he understand? Did he recognise the corpse? His face remained calm, so did his eyes, as expressionless as those of the bust of Minerva under her helmet of bronze. And after a long look, as they turned the striped canvas down over the poor dead face, he went on, upright and proud, with his tall shadow stalking beside him, a 'deity' deathless indeed, while a half-mad senile shake of the head seemed to say: 'That's another of the things I have seen.'
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Publication Date: 11-25-2009

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