What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together.
She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said: "Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a shot.
They met again, some hours later, at the exit of the frivolous swarm. Babbling, peering, trotting along, completing their hair-dressing before a pocket-mirror or before a stray looking-glass, the little seamstresses turned around as they passed and outstared Annette with their tired, sharp, curious eyes; then, ten steps further on, trotting, peering, babbling, they turned about to look at Sylvie who was kissing Annette. And Annette was pained to see that Sylvie had talked.
She took her sister to dine at Boulogne. Sylvie had invited herself. To spare the aunt, who would have exclaimed, "Oh!" and "Ah!" it was arranged on the way that Sylvie should be introduced as a friend. But this didn't prevent her, at the end of dinner, when the old lady was retiring to her own room, conquered by the charms of the little schemer, from calling her "Aunt" as though in familiar playfulness. . . .
Alone, in the great garden, by the light of a summer night. Tenderly intertwined, they walked with little steps, drinking in the fragrance of the weary flowers, exhaled at the close of a fine day. Like the flowers, their souls exhaled their secrets. This time Sylvie responded to Annette's questions, hiding little. She told the story of her life from infancy; and, first of all, her memories of her father. They spoke of him now without embarrassment, and with no mutual envy; he belonged to them both, and they judged him with an indulgent, ironic smile, as a big, amusing, charming fellow, not very substantial, not very well-behaved. . . . (All men are the same!) They bore him no ill-will. . . .
"You see, Annette, if he had been well-behaved, I wouldn't be here. . . ."
Annette pressed her hand.
"Aie! Don't squeeze so hard!"
After that Sylvie spoke of the florist shop, where as a child she had sat under the counter with the fallen flowers and woven her first dreams,—of her early experiences of Paris life, listening to the talk of her mother and the customers; then, when Delphine died (Sylvie had been thirteen), of her apprenticeship to a dressmaker, who had been her mother's friend and who had taken her in; then, after a year and the death of her employer who had been worn out by work (one wears out quickly in Paris!), of her various avatars. Harsh notations, bitter experiences, always gaily told, seen with drollery. In passing she painted types and characters, pricking with a needle on the weft of her narrative, a trait, a witticism, a word, or a face. She did not tell all; she had experimented with life a little more than she admitted, perhaps more than she cared to remember. She caught herself up short at the chapter on her friend,—of her last friend (if there had been other chapters, she kept them to herself.) A medical student, met at a ball in the quartier. (She would willingly go without dinner, to dance!) Not very handsome, but nice; big and brown, with laughing eyes that wrinkled at the corners; turned up nostrils, the nose of a good dog; amusing, affectionate. She described him with no trimmings, but with complaisance, praising his good qualities, as well as poking a little fun at him, satisfied with her choice. She interrupted herself to laugh at certain memories which she recounted, and at others which she did not. Annette, all ears, troubled and interested, was silent save for a few embarrassed words that she slipped in here and there. Sylvie held her hand, and with her other free hand she caressed the ends of Annette's fingers, one by one, while she spoke, as though she were plucking a garland. Perceiving her sister's embarrassment, she loved her for it and was amused by it.
The two young girls were seated on a bench beneath the trees, and they could no longer see each other in the darkness that had fallen. Sylvie, little devil, profited by this to describe scenes that were a trifle indecorous and decidedly amorous, so that she might completely intimidate her big sister. Annette sensed her malice, and did not know whether she should smile or censure; she would have liked to censure, but her little sister was so pretty! There was so much laughter in her voice, her joy seemed so wholesome! Annette scarcely breathed, trying to hide the tumult into which these amorous stories threw her. Sylvie, who could feel beneath her fingers the other's emotions, paused to enjoy the situation and to concoct some new deviltry: leaning towards Annette, she asked her frankly, in a lowered voice, if she too had a sweetheart. Annette started—she had not expected this—and blushed. Sylvie's piercing eyes sought to see her features in the protective gloom, and, failing this, she ran her fingers over Annette's cheek. . . .
"It's on fire," she said, laughing.
Annette laughed awkwardly, and blushed more furiously. Sylvie flung herself on her neck.
"My dear little stupid, what a darling you are! No, you are priceless! Don't be hurt! I'm mistaken. I love you devotedly. Love your Sylvie a little. She's not much good, but such as she is she's yours. Annette, my ducky! Hold out your lips; I love you!"
Passionately Annette clasped her in her arms, taking her breath away. Sylvie, disengaging herself, observed in the tone of a connoisseur:
"You know how to kiss all right. Who taught you?"
Annette rudely shut the girl's mouth with her hand.
"Don't be always joking!"
Sylvie kissed her palm.
"Forgive me, I won't do it any more."
And, with her cheek resting on her sister's arm, Sylvie remained discreetly silent, listening, watching against the obscure transparence of a patch of sky, hollowed out of the semi-darkness by the branches of the trees, Annette's face which was bent toward her as she spoke in a low voice.
Annette was opening her heart. In her turn she was telling of the happy plenitude of her solitary youth, that dawn of a little Diana, passionate but untroubled, who took joy in what she desired no less than in what she possessed, for between the one and the other there was for her only the distance between to-day and to-morrow. And she was so sure of the morrow that she tasted in advance the perfume of jasmine on the trellis, without hastening to gather it.
She described the calm egotism of those years, empty of events but rich in the sweetness of dreams. She told of the intimacy, the absorbing affection, that bound her to her father. And, in telling about herself, she had the singular experience of discovering herself; for, until this moment, she had never had occasion to analyse her past. She was, momentarily, frightened by it. She halted in her narrative; now she had difficulty in expressing herself, now she expressed herself with a troubled, pictorial ardor. Sylvie did not always understand and was amused, but she listened less than she observed the expression of face, voice and body.
Annette now confessed the jealous suffering she had felt at discovery of the second family that her father had hidden from her, and the turmoil into which she had been thrown by the existence of a rival, a sister. With her burning frankness, she dissimulated nothing that had made her blush; her passion reawakened as she evoked it. She said, "I hated you! . . ." in so fierce a tone that she stopped, checked by the sound of her own voice. Sylvie, much less stirred but deeply interested, felt Annette's hand trembling against her cheek, and thought:
"There is fire, underneath there!"
Annette had picked up the thread of the confession that were costing her so dear. And Sylvie was saying to herself:
"How funny she is to tell me all this!"
But she felt growing within her a respect for her strange, big sister; it was mocking, certainly, but infinitely tender, and it made her rub her cheek cajolingly against the sisterly palm. . . .
Annette had come to the point in her narrative at which the attraction of her unknown sister had taken possession of her, despite her resistance, the point at which she had seen Sylvie for the first time. But here frankness could not conquer the emotion of her heart. She tried to go on, stopped, gave it up, and said:
"I can't. . . ."
There was silence. Sylvie was smiling. She stood up, put her face close to her sister's, and, pinching her chin, she whispered very low:
"You are a great lover."
"I!" protested Annette, thoroughly confused.
Sylvie had risen from the bench, and, standing in front of her sister, she pressed Annette's head against her body and said:
"Poor . . . poor Annette! . . ."
After this, the two sisters saw each other constantly. Not a week went by without their getting together. Sylvie would come to Boulogne in the evening to surprise Annette. More rarely Annette went to Sylvie's. By a tacit agreement they so arranged things that Annette should not meet the friend. They adopted a regular day for lunching together at the creamery, and played at making rendezvous here and there in Paris. They took an equal pleasure in being together. It became a necessity. The hours dragged on the days when they did not see each other; the old aunt could not succeed in breaking Annette's silence, and Sylvie was a sullen puzzle to her sweetheart, who was in no way to blame. The one thing that made the waiting bearable was the thought of all that they would have to say to each other when they met again. But this consolation did not always suffice, and never was Annette happier than on one evening when Sylvie rang her bell, after ten o'clock, saying that she could not wait until the morrow to kiss her. Annette was eager to have her stay with, her; but the little one, who had sworn that she had only five minutes to stay, had gone off on the run, like a shot, without a word, after an hour of prattling.
Annette would have liked Sylvie to enjoy the benefit of her house and her worldly goods. But Sylvie had a brusque way of avoiding all temptations; she had got it into her head—her obstinate little head—that she would accept no monetary loan. On the other hand, she made no fuss about accepting a toilet article, or even "borrowing" it (what she borrowed she forgot to return). It even happened that once or twice she snitched . . . oh! nothing important! . . . And, of course, she would never have touched a bit of money. Money, that's sacred! But a little knickknack, a valueless ornament: she couldn't resist it. Annette had noticed this trick of the littlegazza ladra, and she was embarrassed by it. Why didn't Sylvie ask her? She would have been so happy to give! She tried not to see. But the sisters found their greatest pleasure in exchanging a blouse, a corset cover, underwear: Annette's love fed on this. Sylvie was an expert in the art of fixing her sister's dresses, and her taste modified Annette's more sober taste. The effect was not always very happy, for Annette in her excess of enthusiasm would sometimes exaggerate the imitation beyond what suited her individual style, and Sylvie, amused, would have to restrain her zeal. Much more cautious, she knew how, without admitting it, to profit by what she learned from Annette's sober distinction,—certain shades of speech, gesture and manner; but her copy was so cunning that one would have thought that her model had borrowed from her.
Yet, despite their intimacy, Annette succeeded in becoming familiar with only a part of her sister's life. Sylvie enjoyed her independence, and she liked to make it felt. At bottom she had never completely disarmed herself of her class hostility; Annette saw clearly that she was determined to have no one run her affairs or enter into her life save when she pleased. Besides, Sylvie's self-love had not failed to observe that her sister did not approve of everything about her. Notably her love affair. Although Annette tried to accept it, she did not know how to dissimulate the embarrassment that this subject caused her. Either she fled from it, or, when she was compelled to speak of it, with the sincere desire of pleasing Sylvie, there was a forced note in her tone that Sylvie detected; and she, with a word, would change the subject. This made Annette sad. With all her heart she wanted Sylvie to be happy, happy in her own way. And she did not wish to show that this way was not the one she would have preferred. But she did show it, indubitably. When one's feelings are strong, one is not very adroit. Sylvie was hurt by this, and she took revenge in silence. It was only by chance that Annette learned, several weeks after their occurrence, of certain important events in her young sister's life.
As a matter of fact it was impossible to make Sylvie acknowledge their importance; and, indeed, her elastic temperament may have thrown them off easily, but it was possible, too, that her pride made her pretend that this was so more than was really the case. It was incidentally that Annette learned that "for some time" (impossible to be precise: it was "ancient history") the friend had not been on the scene, the liaison had been broken. Sylvie did not seem at all affected by this; Annette was much more so, but it was not with regret. Awkwardly she tried to find out what had happened. Sylvie shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said:
"Nothing happened. It's happened, that's all."
Annette should have rejoiced, but these words of her sister hurt her. . . . What a strange feeling! How wrong she was! . . . Oh! that word "happen" . . . in the world of the heart! And she could laugh as she said it! . . .
But this great news (it was great news for Annette) was followed shortly by another discovery. One day when Annette announced her intention of coming to meet her sister when the shop let out, Sylvie remarked calmly:
"No, no, I'm not there any more. . . ."
"What?" exclaimed Annette in astonishment. "Since when?"
"Oh, quite a while. . . ."
(Still the same trick of avoiding an exact accounting! It might as well have been last evening as last year!)
"What happened?"
"The same riling that happens every year (just as inMalbrough. . . "sà Paques ou à la Trinité. . ."): The dead season comes immediately after the Grand-Prix. The employers all back the wrong horse, so as to have a generous excuse for giving us the gate."
"But where are you then?"
"Oh, I'm here and there. I run about and do a little bit of everything."
Annette was in consternation.
"Then you haven't any job, and you didn't tell me!"
With a little air of superiority, Sylvie explained (at heart not at all displeased by the emotion she had produced) that she slapped together cheap costumes for others to finish, hemmed little dresses, and sewed up men's trousers. And she made a great joke of it all in the telling. But Annette did not laugh. Pressing her inquiry further, she found that her sister was at her wits' end to find work and that she sometimes accepted tasks that were overtiring and disheartening. Now she understood why Sylvie had seemed pale "for some time"; why she had not come to see her for a number of days, offering feeble excuses and absurd lies, in order, no doubt, to spend a part of the night wearing out her fingers and her eyes in sewing. Sylvie, in her joking tone of affected indifference, continued to recount her little misadventures. But she saw that her sister's lips were trembling with anger. And, abruptly, Annette burst out:
"No! It's shameful! I can't, I simply can't bear it! What! you say you love me, and you yourself wanted us to be friends, you pretend to be one, and then you hide from me the most serious things that concern you! . . ."
Sylvie's curled lip said, "Pshaw! What of it! . . ." But Annette did not let her speak; the torrent was loosed.
"I had confidence in you, I thought that you would tell me about your trials and troubles as I tell you about mine, that we would share everything. And then you push me to one side as though I were a stranger; I know nothing, nothing! Except by chance, I should never have learned that you were in trouble, that you are hunting a job, that you are ruining your health; and you would take on any sort of work rather than tell me about it, when you know that it would be a joy for me to help you. . . . It's wrong, wrong! You have hurt me. It's a lack of frankness, a lack of friendship! But I won't stand it any longer! No! . . . To begin with you are coming to live with me, and you are going to stay here until the dead season is over. . . ."
Sylvie shook her head.
"You are coming, don't say no! Now listen to me, Sylvie; I won't forgive if you don't. If you say no, I will never see you again, in all my life. . . ."
Without taking the trouble to excuse herself or to explain, Sylvie, smiling and obstinate, answered:
"No, my dear, no."
She was quite pleased at Annette's agitation. Her big sister, who had tried to defeat her, was now no longer mistress of herself, she was almost in tears. Sylvie: was thinking: "How much prettier she is when she is animated!"
Her face purple with anger, Annette kept repeating, beseeching imperiously:
"Stay! . . . You will stay. . . . I want you to. . . . It's agreed? . . . You are going to stay? . . . You're staying? . . . Answer me! . . . It's yes? . . ."
And with the same exasperating smile, the little donkey replied:
"It's no, dearest."
Annette turned away from her, violently.
"Then, it's all over."
And turning her back, she went to the window, where she seemed oblivious to Sylvie's presence. The younger girl waited for a moment, then she got up and said in a wheedling voice:
"So long, Annette."
Annette did not turn around.
"Farewell," she replied.
Her hands were clenched. If she had moved, Heaven knows what would have happened! She would have wept, cried out. . . . She did not stir, haughty and icy. Sylvie, somewhat embarrassed, and not a little disturbed, but amused in spite of everything, took her departure; once behind the door, she thumbed her nose.
She was not very proud—but a little proud, just the same—of her fine resistance. No more was Annette proud of her rage. In consternation she told herself now that she had burned her bridges: instead of conquering Sylvie by tact and patience, she had practically driven her away. Sylvie would never come back, that was a certainty. Annette, in her dilemma, had closed the door in her sister's face. And she had forbidden herself to reopen it to her. After all her declarations, she could not go after Sylvie! It would be a confession of defeat. Her pride wouldn't permit it; no more would her sense of justice. For Sylvie had behaved badly. . . . No, no, she would not go! . . .
She put on her hat and went straight to Sylvie's.
Sylvie had returned home. Thoughtfully she was examining the perplexing situation. She found it stupid, but she saw no way out; for she did not dream of bending to Annette's will, and no more could she believe that Annette would yield. At bottom she did not think the Duckling was wrong. But she did not wish to give in. Sylvie was not insensible to the blessings of fortune. Without its being apparent, Annette's wealth had awakened in her quite a little temptation and envy. (One can't help it, even when one is not—almost not—envious! When one has a young body, filled with fine little desires, can one help thinking what one would do with wealth, and how much better one would know how to enjoy it than the stupid people who have had it thrust into their mouths, all nicely cooked! . . . ) She did not admit it to herself, but she begrudged Annette her fortune, a little. Yet, if it was any fault of hers, Annette was trying to win forgiveness for it. But the point was that Sylvie would not pardon her. Oh! no one confesses these things to himself. Every one cherishes in his breast, well hidden, five or six little monsters. One does not boast of them, one seems not to see them; but one is in no hurry at all to get rid of them. . . . A more easily confessed feeling was that Sylvie, tempted by gifts that were denied her, liked to enjoy the luxury of appearing to disdain them. But, as a matter of fact, this luxury was devoid of charm; and it proved of scant service. No, it was decidedly true that Sylvie took no very keen pleasure in her victory. There was nothing to strut about; if she had won, it was at her own cost. What made this conclusion the more painful was that her situation was, in reality, decidedly unpleasant; and Sylvie was having a deal of difficulty in extricating herself from the scrape. The number of girls out of work was considerable, and naturally the employers took advantage of the situation. Nor was her health so splendid. The crushing heat of a torrid July, late hours, poor food, and bad drinking water had brought on an attack of enteritis which had left her in a weakened condition. Under the gridiron of her roof that was roasted by the sun, with blinds closed, Sylvie, half undressed, with burning skin, seeking some cool thing on which to lay her hands, was thinking how comfortable it would be in the Boulogne house; and as she was abundantly endowed with irony, in default of other gifts, she was making fun of her own stupidity. She had done well! . . . And to think that she and Annette were in accord, at bottom! Now they were at logger-heads. Good Heavens! how stupid they were! Neither one would give in! . . .
And being perfectly sure that she would not yield, that she would be stupid to the last, she was smiling, curling her pale lips, when she heard Annette's impetuous steps in the hall. She recognized them immediately, and bounded to her feet.
"Annette was coming back! . . . The darling girl! . . ."
She hadn't waited for her. . . . Annette was certainly "the best ever! . . ."
Annette was already in the room. Flushed with excitement and with the heat of her journey, she had no idea what she was going to do; but the moment she entered she knew immediately. Suffocated by the furnace-like atmosphere which pervaded the half-darkened room, she was again seized by a passionate anger. She marched up to Sylvie, who flung herself on her neck; she seized the girl's damp shoulders in impatient hands, and, without responding to her kisses, she said in an exasperated voice:
"I'm taking you away. . . . Get dressed! And don't argue!"
Sylvie argued just the same, in order not to lose the habit. She made a protesting face. But she surrendered herself. Annette imperiously dressed her, put on her shoes, buttoned her blouse, abruptly clapped her hat on her head, shoved her about like a parcel. Sylvie kept saying, "No, no, no," uttering indignant little cries for form's sake; but she was delighted at being bullied. When Annette had finished, Sylvie seized both her hands and kissed them, leaving the mark of her teeth upon them; then, laughing happily, she said:
"There's nothing else to do. . . . Madame Tempest! I surrender. . . . Carry me off!"
Annette carried her off. She had taken the girl's arm in her strong hands, that gripped like a vise. They got into a taxi. When they arrived, Sylvie said to Annette:
"Now I can tell you: well . . . I was dying to come."
"Why were you so bad?" demanded Annette, grumbling and happy.
Sylvie took Annette's hand, and with the curved index finger she tapped her own round little forehead.
"Yes, there's mischief in there!" exclaimed Annette.
"Just like yours," said Sylvie, showing her their two obstinate foreheads in the mirror. They were smiling at each other.
"And," added Sylvie, "we know whom that comes from."
Sylvie's room had been awaiting her for a long time. Even before knowing of Sylvie's existence, Annette had kept the cage ready for the friend who would come. The friend had not come; barely had her shadow been glimpsed, on two or three occasions. Annette's personality, which was sufficiently individual, her manners, alternately chilly and ardent, the impetuous character of the outbursts that overcame a reserved nature; and a certain quality that was strange, exigent and imperious, which, without her suspecting it, showed in flashes, even when she was permeated by the desire to give herself with a passionate humility,—all these things frightened away the young girls of her own age, who without doubt esteemed her and appreciated her essence (so to speak), but prudently and from a distance. Sylvie was the first to take possession of the friendly cage. One may be certain that she did not worry about it, and that it would not disturb her to leave it when the day came that she so pleased. She was not much intimidated by Annette. She did not even feel any surprise at the room in which she was installed. On her first visit, from certain little marks of ingenious affection, and from Annette's awkward confusion in showing it to her, she had guessed that it must be meant for her.
Now that she admitted her defeat—to her own gain—she no longer offered the least resistance. Still languid from her attack of enteritis, the little convalescent abandoned herself to the coddling with which her sister surrounded her. The doctor who was called in had found her anemic, and had recommended a change of air, a visit to the mountains. But neither of the girls was in a hurry to leave the common nest; and, cajolers that they were, they knew how to make the doctor say that, after all, Boulogne was well enough, and even, in a sense, that it was better for Sylvie first to regain her strength by a complete rest, before seeking the tonic of keen mountain air.
So Sylvie could indulge herself, and idle in bed. It was so long since she had been able to do that! It was delicious to sleep her fill, to make up for all the sleeps that she had lost, and—most delicious of all—to rest without sleeping, her limbs stretched out between the fine, soft sheets, her body experiencing the ultimate in drowsiness and happiness, while she searched with her foot for cool corners in the bed. And to dream, to dream! . . . Oh! they didn't go far, those dreams! Like a fly on the ceiling, they turned round and round. They did not even come to the end of a phrase. Twenty times, with sticky tongue, they repeated a story, a project, a memory of the shop, of love, or of a hat. In the midst of it they jumped head first again into the pool of sleep. . . .
"But see here, Sylvie, see here . . ." (she would protest dreamily), "That's no life. . . . Please get out of it!"
Half opening one eye, she would see her sister leaning over her, and she would make an effort (the words barely came out) to say:
"Annette! Wake me up."
Annette would say, "Little rascal!" and laugh, shaking her. Sylvie would play the baby.
"Oh, dear mamma, what have I done to be so sleepy?"
Annette's great love overflowed in maternal transports. Seated on the bed, it seemed to her that the dear head which she pressed against her breast was that of her daughter. Sylvie surrendered, with little plaintive protests:
"But how shall I ever be able to go back to work, afterwards?"
"You shan't work any more."
"Why, yes, I will, the idea!" Sylvie rebelled.
In an instant she was awake; pulling herself away from her sister, sitting up straight, the tousled girl fixed Annette with a look that defied her.
"So she still thinks that we want to keep her here by force! Get along with you, my girl!" said Annette, laughing. "Go, if your heart tells you to! No one is keeping you."
"If that's the case, I'll stay!" exclaimed the spirit of contradiction. And Sylvie slipped down into the bed again, tired from her effort.
But this indolence lasted for only a few days; and after that, when she was satiated with sleep, there came the time when it was impossible to keep her quiet. She traipsed about all day long, half-dressed: in her sister's slippers that were too big for her bare feet, in her sister's peignor that she tucked up toga fashion, with bare arms and legs, she went from room to room, looking at everything, exploring everything. She had not much notion of "thine." ("Mine" was another matter!) Annette having said to her, "You are at home," she had taken her at her word. She rummaged everywhere. She tried everything. She splashed for hours in the bath room. There was not a corner that she left uninspected. Annette found Sylvie with her nose in her papers, but these had bored her very quickly. And the amazed aunt received the invasion of the little half-dressed figure who ferreted about amongst all the furniture, moved everything around, addressed a few pretty words to their owner (who was following her every movement in fear and trembling) and then left everything in disorder, and the old lady at once scandalized and charmed.
The house was filled with an inexhaustible babble, with a chattering that had neither head nor tail, no end, and no reason to end. In no matter what place, in no matter what costume, perched on the arm of an easy chair, or comb in hand arranging their hair, or abruptly halted upon a step of the stairs, or in bathrobes after the morning tub,—the two friends talked, talked, talked; and, once started, this might last for hours or days. They forgot to go to bed; their aunt protested in vain, coughed, rapped on the ceiling. They tried to put a mute on their voices, to stifle their laughter; but at the end of five minutes . . . Pouf! Sylvie's little hautboys began to shrill, and there sounded the happy or indignant exclamations of Annette, who was always getting into a tangle, and whom the younger girl could easily put up a tree. This time the raps on the ceiling became really annoyed. Then they decided to "hit the hay"; but they still kept it up while they undressed. The two rooms adjoined, the doors were left open, and they were constantly crossing their frontiers, talking in skirts, talking without skirts; and they would have talked all night long, from one bed to the other, had not the sleep of youth come suddenly to put an end to their cluckling. It swooped down upon them in a flash, as a sparrow-hawk upon a chicken. They fell back upon their pillows, with open mouths, in the middle of a phrase. Annette slept like a lump; her sleep was heavy, frequently disturbed, stormy, drenched with dreams; she rumpled the sheets, she talked in her sleep, but she never awakened. Sylvie, a light sleeper with a tiny snore (if you had told her that, she would have cloaked herself in wounded dignity), would awake and listen in amusement to her sister's gibberish; sometimes she would get up and go over to the bed where Annette lay prostrate, with the sheets thrust up in a mountain by her crossed knees; and, bending over in the light of the night-lamp (for Annette could not sleep without a light), Sylvie would fascinatedly watch the dull, heavy but strangely passionate, sometimes tragic face of the sleeper who was drowning in the ocean of her dreams. She no longer recognized her. . . .
"Annette? That? That's my sister? . . ."
She wanted to waken her abruptly and put her arms about her neck.
"Wolf, are you there?"
But she was too sure that the wolf was there to try the experiment. Less pure and more normal than her dangerous elder sister, she played with fire, but she was not burned by it.
They studied each other at length, while they were dressing and undressing, comparing themselves curiously. Annette had fits of primitive modesty that amused Sylvie, who was at once freer and franker. Annette often appeared cold, one would have said almost hostile; she went into tantrums, or she wept without cause. The fine Lyonnaise poise, of which she had formerly been so proud, seemed definitely lost. And the worst of it was—that she did not at all regret it.
Their confidences went further, now. It would not be easy to reproduce them all. It comes quite naturally to young girls who love each other to calmly say audacious things in their conversation, things that in their mouths preserve a semi-innocence, but which would have none were they repeated by another. In these talks the difference of their two natures was clearly shown: the laughing, child-like, perfectly assured unmorality of the one; and the passionate, disquieting, electrically charged seriousness of the other. There were clashes; Annette was exasperated by the greedy levity and wilful bawdiness with which Sylvie discussed amorous subjects. Audacious in her soul, she was reserved in her words; it seemed that she feared to hear what she thought. She had fits of shutting herself up in a double tower, in a fierce dumbness that she herself did not quite understand. Sylvie understood it much better. After she had lived with her for fifteen days, Sylvie knew Annette better than Annette knew herself.
Yet it was not that her mental faculties lifted her above the average of an agreeable Paris working girl. Aside from a practical sense that was very sound and cautious—but from which she never drew the most possible profit, because she almost always preferred to obey her caprices—she did not emerge from her own sphere to any great extent. Certainly everything amused her, but nothing really interested her except fashions. As for everything that had to do with art—pictures, music, books—she never got beyond the most ordinary stage of appreciation, and sometimes she didn't reach that. Annette was often embarrassed by her taste. Sylvie would realize it, and say:
"Ouf! I've put my foot in it again. . . . Well, tell me someone who behaves properly in society! . . ."
(She spoke of a picture as one speaks of a hat.)
"What should one admire? Once I know, I shall be able to do it as well as anyone else. . . ."
But on other occasions she was not so conciliatory; she held out stoutly for the hero of some newspaper serial or for some insipid romance which was to her the last word in art and sentiment. However, she obliged her elder sister to discover the value, or rather the artistic promise, of a genre that Annette had always insisted on running down without knowing anything about it: the movies, which Sylvie adored, indiscriminately.
It sometimes happened, too, that although she was incapable of feeling the beauty of a book which they were reading together, Sylvie understood better than Annette the power of certain pages, whose strange truth disconcerted her sister; for Sylvie knew life better than Annette did. And that is the Book of Books. Read it not who will. Everyone carries it in himself, written from the first to the last line. But to decipher it, one must be taught the language by the harsh master Experience. Sylvie had received lessons from him at an early age; she read fluently. Annette was beginning late. Slower to reach her, the lessons were to sink deeper.
The summer, this year, was excessively hot. By the middle of August the beautiful trees in the garden were already parched. In the close nights, Sylvie gasped for a passing breath of air. She had recuperated, but she was still wan and had little appetite. She was always a small eater, and if she could have had her way she would have frequently dined on nothing but an ice and fruit. But Annette kept watch over her, Annette grumbled. She was kept busy. Finally she decided on the trip to the mountains, that had been put off from week to week with the underlying hope that it might be avoided. She would have liked to keep her sister entirely to herself, all summer long.
They repaired to a spot in the Grisons that Annette remembered from a former visit as having a good, simple hotel, in a pastoral, restful setting of old Switzerland. But a few years had transformed everything. The hotel was swarming with people. It was a city of pretentious palaces. Automobile roads cut through the fields; and, in the depths of the woods, one could hear the grinding of an electric tramway. Annette wished to flee. But they were tired from a night and day of suffocating travel; they did not know where to go, and all they asked was to lie stretched out without stirring. Where they were, even if everything else had changed, the air at least had preserved its crystalline purity; Sylvie sucked it in with her tongue, as though she were licking a Parisian ice from a glass cup while she stood beside the cart of an ambulatory merchant in the midst of a roaring street. They told themselves they would stay for a few days, until it became a little cooler. And then they got used to it. They discovered the charm of the place.
It was a lively season. A tennis tournament was attracting the alert youth of three or four nations. There were informal dances, little plays. A buzzing swarm was loafing, flirting, showing off. Annette could have done without it; but Sylvie was frankly entertained, and the pleasure that she showed communicated itself to her sister. Both were high-spirited and had no reason to frown on the diversions of their age.
Young, gay and attractive, each in her own way, it was not long before they were very much surrounded. Annette was blooming. In the open air and at sports she showed to her best advantage. Strong, strapping, fond of walking and all active games, she was a brilliant tennis partner, with a sure eye, supple wrist, quick hand, and lightning-like return. Usually restrained in her gestures, she displayed, when occasion demanded, admirable nerve and furious bursts of speed. Sylvie, marvelling, clapped her hands as she watched her leap about; she was proud of her sister. She admired her the more because she felt incapable of imitating her: this svelte Parisienne was inept at all sports, and she did not particularly understand their attraction. They called for too much action! She found it more agreeable—and above all, more prudent—to remain a spectator. But she did not waste her time. . . .
She formed a little court, over which she queened it as though she had done nothing else all her life. Sly one that she was, she knew how to copy from the fashionable young women she observed all those mannerisms that were well-bred, smart, and easily borrowed. Looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth, deliciously distrait, her eyes and ears were always open; she missed nothing. But Annette still remained her best model. With a sure instinct, she knew not only how to copy her in many a detail, but how to improve the copy by slight changes, and even in certain cases how to take the opposite tack,—oh! just enough to appear incorrect, by one refinement the more. She showed still more intelligence by never overstepping the limits within which she felt solid ground beneath her feet. In her own province she was perfect, in manners, bearing, and tone. Exquisite distinction raised to an extravagant point. Annette could not help laughing when she heard Sylvie, with charming aplomb, retailing to her court little tid-bits with which Annette had stuffed her the evening before. Sylvie would slip her a sly wink. It would not have done, certainly, to push her too far in conversation. For all her wit and excellent memory, she would have gotten her foot into it; but she didn't slip, she watched her step. And then, too, she knew how to choose her partners. The majority of them were young sportsmen from foreign lands: Anglo-Saxons, Roumanians, who were more sensitive to a mistake in play than to an error in language. The great favorite of the little feminine circle was an Italian. Bearing the sonorous name of an old Lombard family (extinct for centuries, but the name never dies), he was of a type that is very common among the youth of the Peninsula, and which is characteristic of a period rather than of a race. In it one finds curiously blended the American of Fifth Avenue, and the condottiere of the fourteenth century, which gives to the ensemble a rather grand air—(Operatic). A handsome fellow, tall and straight, well built, with a round head and clean shaven face, very brown skin, fiery eyes, a great conquering nose, bluish nostrils, and a heavy jaw, Tullio walked with supple loins and chest thrust out. His manners were a mixture of hauteur, obsequious courtesy, and brutality. An irresistible man. He had but to stoop to gather hearts. He did not stoop. He waited for them to be placed in his hand.
Perhaps it was precisely for the reason that Annette did not offer hers to him that he first fixed his choice on her. A tennis champion himself, he appreciated the physical qualities of the robust girl, and when he talked with her he discovered other sports for which they had a common liking: horseback riding and canoeing, which Annette had gone into with the passion that she brought to everything. With his big nose he sensed the over-abundant energy that coursed through her virgin body; and he desired it. Annette perceived this desire, and she was at once offended and captivated. Her intense physical life, which had been curbed by years of semi-claustration, was awakening under the flame of this superb summer, in the midst of these young people who thought only of pleasure, and in the excitement of these vigorous sports. The last weeks spent with Sylvie, their free conversations, and the excessive affection with which she was saturated, had considerably perturbed her nature,—that nature which she so little understood, unsuspecting its depths. The house was ill defended against an assault of the senses. For the first time, Annette experienced the sting of sexual passion. It caused her shame and anger, as though someone had slapped her face. But this did not make the desire wane. Instead of hiding herself, she faced the onslaught with a cold pride and a trembling heart. As for Tullio, who always cloaked a rapacious desire beneath a perfect deference, he was the more enamoured when he saw that she understood and was ready to oppose him. This was another match, differently passionate! Harsh challenges were exchanged, there were sharp passages at aims, without any sign of these things on the surface. As he bowed with masculine politeness to kiss her hand, while she was smiling at him with a haughty grace, she read in his eyes:
"I shall have you."
And her shut lips answered him:
"Never!"
Sylvie was following the duel with the eyes of a lynx; and while she found it amusing, she felt that she would like to play a part in it. What part? Really, she had no idea on that point. . . . Well, to amuse herself, and to second Annette of course, that went without saying! The boy was good-looking; Annette was good-looking too. How beautifying a strong feeling always is! That burning pride, that little bull's forehead ready for combat, those waves of red and white that Sylvie imagined she could see passing over Annette's body, like shivers. . . . The man was priding himself on his play. . . .
". . . Nothing to be done, my lad; no, no, you won't get her if she doesn't want you to! But does she want it? Doesn't she want it? Make up your mind, Annette! He's caught. Finish him off! . . . The stupid! She doesn't know. . . . All right, we're going to help her. . . ."
Their acquaintance was founded on praises of Annette. They both admired her. The Italian was definitely conquered. Radiant, with her eyes shining, Sylvie was entirely of his opinion. She was very adroit in her praising of Annette; but she was no less so in arming herself with all her charms. And once she had brought them into play, there was no way of stopping them. In vain she would say to them:
"Now, be quiet. That's enough. You are going too far. . . ."
But her charms no longer listened, there was nothing to do but to let them have their way. . . . And it was so amusing! Naturally, that idiot had taken fire immediately. How silly men are! He thought that if anyone was nice to him, it must be for his beauty. . . . But he was handsome, just the same. . . . And now what would the fish do, between two hooks? Was he going to presume to gobble them both? What was he going to decide? . . . "Well, old chap, make a choice!"
She did not facilitate his choice for him by effacing herself in favor of Annette. And no more did Annette. From now on she instinctively redoubled her efforts in order to eclipse Sylvie. The two sisters were devoted to each other. Sylvie was as proud of the praise given Annette as Annette was of the impression produced by Sylvie. They took counsel together; each supervised the details of the others toilet. With an unerring sense, they knew how to serve as a foil to each other. At the evening parties in the hotel they attracted all eyes. But, in spite of themselves, they came to be looked upon as rivals. And when they danced, neither one could help evaluating the success of the other, no matter how severely both forbade themselves to do this. Especially success with the man who was, decidedly, preoccupying them much more than they would have wished. . . . And he preoccupied them the more now that he was uncertain which of them preoccupied him the more. Annette began to feel vaguely miserable when she saw Tullio in ardent attendance upon her sister. Both girls were good dancers, each in her own manner. Annette did all that she could to establish her superiority; and it was certain that she danced better in the eyes of the connoisseurs. But Sylvie, while less correct, had more abandon; and as soon as she realized Annette's intention she became irresistible. Nor did Tullio resist. To Annette came the sorrow of seeing herself forsaken. After a succession of dances with Sylvie, Tullio and she went out together, talking and laughing, into the fine summer night. Annette could no longer control herself. She too had to quit the room. Without daring to follow them into the garden, she tried to catch sight of them from the glassed-in gallery that led into the garden; and she did see them, on the path,—she saw them bending towards each other, exchanging kisses as they walked.
But the pain of this was nothing to what followed. When Annette, sitting in the dark after having gone up to her room, saw Sylvie come in, all animation, and when Sylvie exclaimed at finding her alone in the darkness, kissed her cheek, and showed a thousand and one signs of usual affection; when Annette, after giving the excuse of a sudden headache that had obliged her to retire, asked Sylvie how she had spent the rest of the evening and if she had gone walking with Tullio, Sylvie ingenuously replied that she had not gone walking and that she did not know what had become of Tullio; that besides Tullio was beginning to bore her, and then she didn't like men who were too handsome, and besides he was foppish, and he was a little too dark. . . . Upon which she went to bed, humming a waltz.
Annette did not sleep. Sylvie slept soundly; she had no suspicion of the tempest she had unchained. . . . Annette was the prey of unleashed demons. What had happened was a catastrophe, a double catastrophe. Sylvie was her rival, and Sylvie was lying to her. Sylvie, her beloved! Sylvie, her joy and her faith! . . . Everything was crumbling. She could no longer love her. No longer love her? Could she, could she no longer love her? . . . Oh, how deep-rooted that love was, so much more so than she had thought! . . . But is it possible to love someone whom one distrusts? Oh! Sylvie's treachery wouldn't be anything. . . . There was something else. It was. . . . It was. . . . Go ahead, say what it was! . . . Yes, it was that man, whom Annette did not respect, whom she did not love, and whom she loved now. . . . Loved? No! . . . Whom shewanted. A fever of jealous pride demanded that she take him, that she tear him away from theother; and, above all, that the other should not tear him away from her. . . . ("The other" that was what Sylvie had become for Annette! . . .)
That night she did not rest a single hour. The sheets burned her skin. And from the neighboring bed there rose the light breathing of the sleep of innocence.
When they found themselves face to face the next morning, Sylvie saw at a glance that everything had changed; and she did not understand what had happened. Annette, with circles under her eyes, pale, hard and haughty, but strangely more beautiful (at once more beautiful and more homely, as though all her secret forces had arisen in answer to a summons)—Annette, helmeted in pride, cold, hostile, with a wall about her, looked at Sylvie and listened while she chattered as usual, then scarcely said good-morning, and left the room. . . . Sylvie's babble stopped in the middle of a word. She too went out, and with her eyes followed Annette who was descending the stairs. . . .
She understood. Annette had caught sight of Tullio, who was seated in the hall, and crossing the room she went straight to him. He too recognized that the situation had changed. She sat down beside him. They talked banalities. With her head up, disdainful, she stared straight ahead, avoiding looking at him. But he had no doubt: it was he she was staring at. Under her bluish eyelids, that glance, which she was hiding as though to avoid a too intense light, was saying:
"Do you want me?"
And he, relating an insipid story in a satisfied tone, while he contemplated his finger nails,—he, like a big cat, was peering sidelong at that body with its firm breasts, and asking:
"So you want it too?"
"I want you to want me," was the reply.
Sylvie did not hesitate. Making a turn of the hall, she came and took a chair between Annette and Tullio. Annette's irritation was betrayed in a glance, in only one: that was enough. Sylvie received its contempt full in the face. She blinked her eyelids and pretended not to see, but she bristled like a cat that has felt an electric current; she smiled, and held herself ready to bite. The three-handed, fair-spoken duel began. Annette, ignoring Sylvie's presence, taking no notice of what she said, talked over her head to Tullio, who was embarrassed; or, when she was compelled to listen—for the other had a glib tongue—she called attention with a smile or an ironic word to one of those minute grammatical errors that still adorned Sylvie's discourse (for, despite her skill, the little gossip had not succeeded in weeding them all from her garden). Sylvie, mortally wounded, no longer saw her sister, she saw only a rival, and she thought:
"You'll get yours."
And, showing her teeth:
"A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye. . . . No, both eyes for one. . . ."
And she threw herself into the fray. Imprudent Annette! Sylvie was not hampered, as she was, by her pride: any weapon was good enough for her, so long as she won. Annette, armored in pride, would have thought herself degraded had she allowed Tullio to glimpse a shadow of her desires. Sylvie was embarrassed by no such scruples; she was going to play with the gentleman the game that flattered him most. . . .
"Which do you prefer? Do you like to inspire a fine disdain, or admiration? . . ."
She knew man: the vain animal. Tullio adored incense, and she gave him full measure. With a calm, ingenuous impudence the little rogue listed the perfections of the young Gattamelata of the Palace Hotel: body, mind, and clothing. Clothing principally, for she was right in thinking that this was his chief pride. All homage pleased him. To be sure. But that he was handsome was no credit to him; and as regarded his mind, his great name was a guarantee of that. But his dress was his individual work, and he was susceptible to the approbation of an expert Parisienne. With the eye of a connoisseur, secretly amused at certain glaring naïvetés of taste, Sylvie admired everything from top to bottom. Annette blushed from shame and anger; her small sister's ruse seemed so crude to her that she asked herself: "Can he possibly bear it?"
He bore it very well: Tullio was lapping up milk. When she had descended, step by step, from the orange cravat to the lilac belt, to the shoes of green and gold, Sylvie suddenly stopped: she had an idea. While going into raptures over the delicacy of Tullio's feet (he was very proud of them), she exhibited her own, which were decidedly pretty. With a roguish coquetry she put them next to Tullio's, she compared them, showing her leg up to the knee. Then, turning to Annette, who was disdainfully leaning back in her rocking chair, she said with a delicious smile:
"Let's see yours too, dear!"
And with a rapid gesture she uncovered them, along with Annette's thick ankles and the rather heavy columns of her legs. For two seconds only. Annette clutched at the malicious little claw, and it withdrew, contented. Tullio had seen. . . .
Nor did she stop there. All morning long she brought about apparently unpremeditated comparisons from which Annette did not emerge to advantage. Under pretext of appealing to Tullio's superior taste regarding a collar, a blouse, or a scarf, she managed to draw attention to what was certainly not her worst feature, and not Annette's best. Annette, boiling within, pretending not to understand, had to hold herself back to keep from strangling her. Between two of her tricks, Sylvie, ever charming, would press her fingers to her mouth and throw Annette a kiss. But there were times when their flashing eyes clashed. . . .
(Annette)—"I loathe you!"
(Sylvie)—"Possibly. But it's me he loves."
"No, no!" Annette would cry.
"Yes, yes!" retorted Sylvie.
They exchanged challenging glances. But Annette was not strong enough to hide her animosity for long beneath a smile, like that little snake beneath the flowers. Had she remained, she would have screamed. Abruptly she left the field free to Sylvie. She went off with her head high, flinging a last look of defiance at her sister. And Sylvie's mocking eyes replied:
"Who laughs last, laughs best."
The battle continued the next day, and the days following, beneath the eyes of an amused gallery; for the people in the hotel had seen how things stood; twenty pairs of idle eyes were watching, bets were made. The two rivals were too much preoccupied with their own game to give a thought to that of the others.
The truth was that, for them, it was a game no longer. Sylvie, as well as Annette, was seriously involved. A demon troubled them, goading their senses. Tullio, proud of his victory, had no trouble adding fuel to the flame. He was really handsome, he did not lack wit, he burned with the desires that he had fired: he was worth conquering. None knew it better than he.
Every evening the two hostile sisters met in their rooms. They hated each other; yet they pretended not to know it. Bed neighbors at night, their position would have become untenable had they admitted the fact to themselves; it would have come to a public rupture, a thing they wished to avoid. They so arranged it that they came and went at different times, talked no longer, pretended not to see each other; or, as that was practically impossible, they would coldly say, "Good-morning," and "Good-evening," as though nothing were the matter. The most straightforward, sensible thing would have been to come to an understanding. But they did not wish to. They could not. When passion is unleashed in a woman there is no longer any question of straightforwardness, still less of common sense.
In Annette passion had become a poison. A kiss that Tullio, profiting by his strength, had violently imprinted upon the mouth of the proud girl, one evening at a turn in the path, had unchained in her a sensual torrent. Humiliated and enraged, she fought against it. But she was the less capable of resistance because it was the first time the flood had invaded her. Misfortune of too well defended hearts! When passion enters, the chastest is the most abandoned. . . .
One night, in one of those fits of feverish insomnia that were consuming her, Annette slipped into sleep while thinking she was still awake. She saw herself lying on her bed, with open eyes; but she could not budge, her limbs were bound. She knew that Sylvie, at her side, was pretending to sleep, and that Tullio was going to come. She could already hear the floor creak in the corridor, and the shuffle of cautious steps advancing. She saw Sylvie raise herself from the pillow, swing her legs from under the sheets, get up, and slip towards the door that half opened. Annette wanted to get up too, but she could not. As though she had heard her, Sylvie turned around, came back to the bed, looked at her, leaned over to see her better. She was not at all, not at all, like Sylvie: she did not resemble her, and yet it was Sylvie; she laughed wickedly, uncovering her teeth; she had long black hair, straight and stiff, that fell over her face when she leaned down, and brushed Annette's mouth and eyes. Annette felt on her tongue the taste of a rough mane and its hot odor. The face of her rival came closer, closer. Sylvie opened the bed, and got into it. Annette felt a hard knee pressing against her hip. She was suffocating. Sylvie had a knife; the chill blade grazed Annette's throat, and she struggled, screamed. . . . She found herself in the quiet of her room, sitting up in bed, the sheets in confusion. Sylvie was sleeping peaceably. Annette, quelling the beating of her heart, listened to her sister's reassuring breathing; and still she trembled from hate and horror. . . .
She hated. . . . But whom? . . . And who was it that she loved? She appraised Tullio, she did not respect him, she mistrusted him, she had no confidence in him whatsoever. And yet for this man whom she had known only two weeks, who was nothing to her, she was ready to hate her sister, the person she had loved best of all, whom she still loved. . . . (No! . . . Yes! . . . whom she still loved. . . .) To this man she had sacrificed, offhand, all the rest of her life. . . . But how . . . how could that be possible! . . .
She was aghast; but she could only admit the omnipotence of her madness. At certain moments a flash of good sense, an ironical start, a returning wave of her old affection for Sylvie would lift her head above the stream. But a jealous glance, the sight of Tullio whispering with Sylvie, was enough to plunge her back again. . . .
It was obvious that she was losing ground. It was precisely for that reason that her passion was maddened. She was clumsy. Annette did not know how to hide her wounded dignity. Tullio, kindly prince, had consented not to choose between them; he deigned to toss his handkerchief to both. Sylvie picked it up in a trice; she did not stand on ceremony; later she would make Tullio dance to her liking. She was not bothered when she saw this Don Juan snatching a few kisses from Annette in the arbor. And even if it had displeased her, she saw no reason why she had to show it. One could dissimulate. . . . But Annette was incapable of it. She would countenance no division of favors, and she allowed herself to show only too plainly the repulsion which Tullio's equivocal play aroused in her.
Tullio was beginning to cool towards her. This serious passion embarrassed him, bored him. A little seriousness in love is all right. But not too much; that makes it a burden, and not a pleasure. He thought of passion as a prima donna who, after singing her great cavatina, returns with extended arms to salute the public. But Annette's passion did not seem to know that the public existed. She played only for herself. She played badly. . . .
She was too sincere, too truly in love to remove the traces of her suffering, of her torments, and those ordinary blemishes that a more attentive woman effaces or mitigates more than once a day. She did not appear at all to advantage. She became even homely, in the measure that she felt herself beaten.
The triumphant Sylvie, sure of her victory, watched the disabled Annette with ironical satisfaction, spiced with a grain of malice, and, at bottom, a little pity. . . .
"Well, have you had enough? Is that what you wanted? You're certainly a sight! . . . A poor beaten dog. . . ."
And she wanted to run and hug her. But when she approached, Annette displayed so much animosity that Sylvie turned her back in vexation, grumbling:
"You don't want me to, my girl? . . . Have it your own way! Look after yourself! I'm all right! . . . Everyone for himself, and that for the others! After all, if the fool is suffering, it's her own fault! Why is she always so ridiculously serious?"
(That was what they were all thinking.)
Annette ended by withdrawing from the combat. Sylvie and Tullio were getting up a program of tableaux, in which Sylvie could show off all her charms, and a few more besides. . . . (She was a little Parisian magician who, with a shred of material, could transform herself into a series of "doubles," all much prettier than the original, but which, by completing that original, made it appear more charming than them all, since it gave birth to them all.) . . . To try to fight her on this ground would have been disastrous for Annette. She knew it only too well: she was beaten in advance; what would she have been afterwards? She asked to be left out of the entertainment, giving her health as an excuse: her ill appearance was excuse enough. And Tullio did not insist. Scarcely had she refused when she suffered the more at having retired fully armed from the battle. Even when hope is dead, a struggle engenders fresh hope. Now she had to leave Tullio and Sylvie alone together for a part of the day. In order to embarrass them she obliged herself to attend all the rehearsals. She didn't embarrass them much. On the contrary she stimulated them, especially that brazen girl, who insisted on rehearsing ten times a scene that showed the abduction of a fainting odalisque by a Byronian corsair with eyes of sombre fire, gnashing teeth,—fatal, feline, ready to leap like a jaguar. Tullio played the rôle as though he were going to put the whole Palace Hotel to fire and sword. As for Sylvie, she might have given points to the twenty thousand houris who hold the Prophet's beard in Paradise.
The evening of the performance arrived. Annette, hidden away in the last row of the hall, happily forgotten in the midst of the enthusiasm, could not stay until the end. She left in torture. Her head was afire; her mouth was bitter; she was chewing the cud of her suffering. Love scorned was gnawing at her vitals.
She went into the fields that surrounded the hotel; but she could not go far away, she kept circling around that lighted hall. The sun had set, darkness was falling. With an animal instinct she smelled out the door by which the two would certainly make their exit; a little side door that enabled the actors, without coming through the hall, to regain the dressing rooms in another wing of the building. They actually did come out, and before they had gone far they lingered in the shadow of the field to talk. Hidden behind a clump of trees, Annette could hear Sylvie laughing, laughing . . .
"No, no, not to-night!"
And Tullio was insisting: "Why not?"
"First of all, I want to sleep."
"There's plenty of time to sleep!"
"No, no, never enough! . . ."
"Well then, to-morrow night."
"It's the same for the other nights. And then I'm not alone at night; I'm spied on."
"Then it will never be?"
And that little rascal of a Sylvie replied, twisting with laughter:
"But I'm not afraid of the daylight! Are you afraid of it? . . ."
Annette could listen no longer. A storm of disgust, fury, and unhappiness swept her away, running, into the night, into the fields. Perhaps they heard the noise of her mad flight and the crackling of branches, like that which follows on the heels of a fleeing animal. But she no longer cared whether she was heard or not. Nothing mattered any more. She was fleeing, fleeing. . . . Whither? She did not know. She never knew. . . . She ran through the night, moaning. She did not see ahead of her. She ran on for five minutes, twenty minutes, an hour? She never knew how long. . . . Until her foot struck a root, and she fell full length, her head against a tree trunk. . . . And then she screamed, she howled, with her mouth against the ground, like a wounded beast.
Around her, the night. A sky without moon or stars, black. A mute earth, untroubled by a breath or by the cries of insects. Only the sound of a trickle of water over the pebbles, dripping at the foot of the slim fir against which Annette had struck her forehead. And from the depths of the gorge that cut the high, abrupt plateau, there rose the fierce rumbling of a mountain stream. Its plaint mingled with the plaint of the wounded woman. They seemed the eternallamentoof the earth. . . .
So long as she cried, she did not think. Her body, shaken by convulsive sobs, was ridding itself of the burden of evil that had crushed it down for days. The mind was silent. Then the body, exhausted, ceased to moan. Mental misery rose to the surface. And Annette again became conscious of her forsakenness. She was alone and betrayed. The circle of her thoughts could stretch no further. She had not the strength to reassemble their dispersed company. She had not even the strength to get up. Stretched out, she abandoned herself to the earth. . . . Oh! if only the earth wished to take her! . . . The rumbling of the mountain stream was speaking, thinking for her.
It was bathing her wound. After a period (long, no doubt) of prostrate suffering, Annette slowly raised her stricken body. The bruise on her forehead pained her sharply enough, and preoccupation with this hurt eased her mind. She dipped her scratched hands in the rivulet, she pressed them against her wounded, burning forehead. And so she remained seated, her eyes and forehead sunk in her wet palms, feeling the penetration of that icy purity. . . . And her grief became a distant thing. . . . She observed its moaning as might a stranger; and she no longer understood the meaning of those transports. She was thinking:
"Why? . . . What's the good? . . . Is it worth the pain? . . ."
And in the night the torrent answered:
"Folly, folly, folly . . . all is vain . . . all is nothing . . ."
And Annette smiled a bitter smile of pity.
"What was it that I wanted? . . . I don't even know, any more. . . . Where is it, that great happiness? Take it who will. . . . I shall not dispute it. . . ."
And then suddenly there returned to her in waves pictures of that happiness that she had desired, hot gusts of those desires by which her body was, and for a long time would be, possessed, even while her reason denied them. In the path traced by their bitter goad, they trailed after them a musty smell of jealous rages. . . . She suffered their attack in silence, bent over as beneath the wing of a passing wind. Then, raising her head, she said aloud:
"I have been wrong. . . . It is Sylvie he loves. . . . That is as it should be. She is better made for love. She is much prettier. I know it, and I love her. I love her because she is so. So I should be happy in her happiness. I am an egotist. . . . Only why, why has she lied to me? All the rest, but not that! Why has she deceived me? Why didn't she tell me frankly that she loved him? Why has she treated me like an enemy? Oh! And then all those things about her that I would rather not see, that are not very nice, not very good, not very beautiful! . . . But she is not to blame. How could she know? What a life she must have led from childhood! And have I the right to reproach her? . . . Were the feelings that I had any nicer? . . . That I had? That I have! . . . I know perfectly well that they are still there. . . ."
She sighed, worn out. Then she said:
"Come, this must end! I am the elder. And the greater folly is mine! . . . Let Sylvie be happy!"
But after having said, "Come," she still remained for a while without stirring. She hearkened to the silence and dreamed, sucking the knuckles of her bruised fingers. And then she sighed, stood up without a word, and began to walk.
She was returning, through the night. The moon had not yet appeared; it was still far off, but one could feel it rising behind the horizon, from an abyss of shadows. A feeble light edged the summits that encircled the plateau like the edges of a cup; and, minute by minute, their black profiles grew clearer against an aureoled background. Annette walked unhurriedly; and her breast, breathing regularly once more, was drinking in the scent of new-mown meadows.
Far off in the darkness, she heard precipitate steps upon the road. Her heart pounded. She halted. She recognized them, and then walked forward again, at a quicker pace, to meet them. Someone had heard on the other side, too. An anxious voice called:
"Annette!"
Annette did not reply, she could not; she was seized with the joy that coursed through her: all of her suffering, all was effaced. She did not answer, but she walked faster, still faster. And the other was running now. She repeated, "Annette!" in an agonized voice.
In the vague phosphorescence of the moon, that was climbing up behind the great dark wall, an indistinct figure emerged from the whitening shadow. Annette cried, "Darling!" and flung herself forward with outstretched arms, like a blind person. . . .
In their haste to be united, their bodies collided. Their arms went around each other. Their lips sought, and found . . .
"My own Annette!"
"My own Sylvie!"
"My sister! my love!"
"My little darling!"
In the darkness they were running their hands caressingly over cheeks and hair, over neck and shoulders, once more taking possession of happiness, of the friend who had been lost.
"Darling!" exclaimed Sylvie, feeling Annette's bare shoulders, "you haven't your cloak! You have nothing around you! . . ."
Annette realized that as a matter of fact she was clad only in her evening dress; and, seized by a chill, she shivered.
"You are mad! you are mad!" cried Sylvie, enveloping her, clasping her in her cape. And her hands, continuing their inspection, took note of damages.
"Your dress is torn. . . . What in the world have you been doing? What has happened? . . . And your hair is down over your face. And here, here, what's the matter with your forehead? . . . Annette, did you fall? . . ."
Annette did not respond. With her mouth on Sylvie's shoulder, she abandoned herself and wept. Sylvie made her sit down beside her on a bank by the road. The moon, clearing the barrier of the mountains, lighted up Annette's injured forehead, and Sylvie covered it with kisses.
"Tell me what you have been doing. . . . Tell me what's happened. . . . My treasure, my little lamb, I was so upset when I went to your room and didn't find you there! I called you everywhere. . . . I've been hunting for you for an hour. . . . Oh! I was so miserable. . . . I was afraid, I was afraid. . . . I can't say what I was afraid of. . . . Why did you go off? Why did you run away? . . ."
Annette did not wish to reply.