He knew very little about women. They fascinated him and disconcerted him. Rather than know them he preferred to judge them. He idealized some, he condemned others. Towards those who fell into neither of the two categories he remained indifferent. Very young men—and Julien, owing to the slightness of his experience, had remained very young—are always hasty in their judgments. As they are full of themselves and their desires, they seek in others only for what they wish to find. Whether on the moral or the carnal side, naïve persons are like roués in one respect: when they love they are always thinking of themselves and never of the woman. They refuse to see that she exists outside of them. Love is the one test that can teach them. It teaches the few who are capable of learning—but generally to their cost and that of their partners; for when at last they know it is too late. The naïve astonishment, old as the ages, that bewails the irreducible duality which is the bitter fruit of love, that disappointed dream of unity, is the usual result of this initial misunderstanding. For what does "love" mean if it is not "loving someone else"? Without possessing the egoism of Roger Brissot, Julien, through ignorance, had no less difficulty in getting outside of himself; and he had a still more limited view of the feminine universe. He needed to be led prudently by the hand.
Prudent was the one thing Annette was not by nature, and love did not teach her. It gave her the need of a generous confidence. Now that she was sure of loving and being loved, she concealed nothing. Nothing in the man she loved could have repelled her: why should she paint herself up? She was healthy-minded, and she did not blush at being what she was. Whoever loved her should see her as she was! She had clearly seen Julien's naïveté, his lack of understanding, his alarm. She found a tender and malicious pleasure in them. She was glad that she was the first to reveal to him a feminine soul.
One day she went to surprise him in his apartment. His mother opened the door. An old lady, with gray hair tightly drawn across a calm brow that was lighted up by two severe, watchful eyes, she inspected Annette with a distrustful politeness and showed her into a neat, cold little drawing-room with horsehair furniture.
Dull family photographs and pictures from museums added a finishing touch to the freezing atmosphere of the room. Annette waited alone. After a whispered consultation in the adjoining bedroom, Julien dashed in. He was delighted and he was frightened; he did not know what to say. He spoke absent-mindedly. They were sitting in uncomfortable chairs with stiff backs that thwarted every natural movement. Between them was one of those drawing-room tables that you cannot lean upon, tables with sharp edges that hurt your knees. The cold glitter of the carpetless floor and the dead faces under glass, like plants in a herbarium, congealed the words on their lips and made them lower their voices. This drawing-room absolutely froze Annette. Was Julien going to keep her here during the whole of her call? She asked him if he did not want to show her the room where he worked. He could not refuse, he even wanted to do so. But he looked so hesitant that she said, "Would you rather not?"
He protested, explaining that it was not in order, and took her in. It was in much better order than her own rooms had been at the time of Julien's first call, but there was no air of gaiety in Julien's room. It served him both for working and sleeping. Books, a well-known engraving that represented Pasteur, papers on the chairs, a pipe on the table, a student's bed. She noticed overhead a little crucifix with a branch of boxwood. Settled in the badly upholstered arm-chair, she tried to put her host at his ease by gaily recalling to him the memory of their student days. She talked without prudery of what they both knew. But he was distrait, embarrassed by her presence and her freedom of speech; he seemed preoccupied with what was going on in the next room. Annette, embarrassed by contagion, held out bravely and succeeded in making him forget the "what will she think of it?" At last he became quite lively and they had a good laugh. When she got up to go he became awkward again, leading her out. In the corridor they passed the mother's room; the door was ajar; Mme. Dumont, from discretion or in order not to have to speak to the stranger, pretended not to see them. The two women had only exchanged a glance, and they were enemies already. Mme. Dumont, the mother, was shocked by the call of this bold girl with her free and easy ways, her dear voice, her laughter, her animation: she scented danger. And Annette, who, during the visit, had perceived between Julien and herself this invisible presence, had felt angry: passing the room of the old lady who turned her back on her, she spoke and laughed more loudly still. And she jealously thought, "I'm going to take him away from her."
A week later, Julien came in turn, one evening, after dinner. He had had his first discussion with his mother on the subject of Annette; and he meant to assert his will. They were alone. Leopold had taken little Marc to the circus. When Julien left her, a little before eleven o'clock, Annette suggested walking back with him for the pleasure of enjoying together the fresh night air. But when they reached his door, Julien was troubled at the idea of leaving Annette to return alone. She made fun of his fear. None the less, he masted on going back with her again, and she did not protest. She would have him all the longer with her! So they returned by the most roundabout way; and without quite knowing how they got there, they found themselves on a steep bank of the Seine. It was a June night. They sat down on a bench. The poplars rustled above the dark water in which were spread the reddish and yellow lights of the lamps on the bridges. The sky was far away, the stars were feeble, as if the monstrous city had drawn all the life out of them. The darkness was above and the light below. They were silent. Words could no longer express their thoughts, but, without looking at each other, each read the other's mind. Julien's desire set Annette's heart aflame; but his timidity kept him bound and motionless, and he did not dare even to lift his eyes to her. She smiled and watched him, without turning her head, as she kept her eyes upon the red reflexions on the river; he could not make up his mind! Then she leaned towards him and kissed him.
Drunk with love and gratitude, he kissed her in return, while the insidious point of a dull anxiety fastened itself in his brain. A harsh remark of his mother's: "These bold, poverty-stricken girls who are trying to find somebody to marry them. . . ." He had pulled it angrily out not long before, but the tip of the sting had remained under the skin. He was ashamed. Mentally he asked Annette's pardon. He knew that the insulting suspicion was false. He believed in her religiously, but he was troubled. And each new visit troubled him more. Annette's freedom, the freedom of her manners, the freedom of her ideas, the freedom of her opinions on every kind of subject—especially on social morality—her calm lack of prejudices, terrified him. He was as narrow in his way of thinking as in his dress, rather dull in his ideas, inclined to severity. She, on the other hand, was generously indulgent and full of laughter. It did not occur to him that she might be as much of a Puritan as he where she herself was concerned, while with an ironical tolerance she applied to others their own measure. Tolerance and irony disconcerted him. She saw this; and when he expressed himself on some question with an unjust and excessive harshness she did not attempt to oppose his way of thinking; she smiled at this naïve rigidity which did not displease her. Her smile disturbed Julien more than her words. He had the impression that she knew more than he. It was true. But how much more? And just what did she know? What experience had she had?
Like his mother—and some of his mother's spiteful remarks had contributed to make him so—this man of fine but impoverished vitality was vaguely alarmed by the brilliant health, the radiance of this woman. He had the most ardent desire for her, but he was afraid of her. In the walks they took together he felt that he cut a poor figure. Annette's perfect poise in every company added to his embarrassment. And although she would have liked this embarrassment if she had observed it, he was humiliated by it. But she did not observe it. She was utterly absorbed in the song within her. Annette mistakenly thought that no one but herself heard this song; and she did not see Julien's anxious glance when he asked himself, "At whom, at what, is she laughing?"
She seemed so far away!
He did not cease to see—he saw more clearly than ever—her great intellectual force, her moral energy. At the same time she remained for him a dangerous enigma. He was divided between two opposite feelings, an invincible attraction and an obscure mistrust that were like a remnant of the primitive instinct that recalls to the man and the woman of to-day the original enmity of the sexes, for which the carnal union was a form of combat. That suspicious instinct of defence is strongest perhaps in a man like Julien who is at once keenly intelligent and poor in experience. As it is impossible for him to see a woman just as she is, he sees her now too simply, now as full of snares.
Annette contributed to these oscillations of thought by her way of alternately saying everything and saying nothing, of revealing everything and concealing everything, her bursts of passionate expansiveness and her hermetic silences, which sometimes lasted during a good half of their walk. . . . These terrible silences—what man has not suffered from them?—during which the life of the companion who walks at your side goes down into those regions that you will never know! . . . Not that as a usual thing they cover very profound secrets. If you plunged into them you would find that they did not rise above your heel. But whatever the depth may be, the sheet of silence is opaque: the eye cannot penetrate it. And the tormented spirit of the man has plenty of time to conjure up all sorts of alarming mysteries. The idea would never have entered the head of a Julien that he might be the author of them, that if a woman is silent it is often because she knows so well how little the man understands her. Annette's silence, which was ironical and a little weary on some days, tolerated a false interpretation of her feelings on the part of her lover, for she knew that he loved the false and did not love the true.
"If you wish . . . As you wish! . . . Of course. I am not as I am. I am as you see me."
But these silences of acquiescence only lasted for a time. From the moment Annette perceived that there might be danger in frank explanations (since Julien was unable to understand them) and that it would be more prudent to hold her peace, she spoke. To be silent in order to avoid uselessly annoying Julien, yes. But to deceive him, no. And if there was danger in speaking, all the more reason. That was the time when you couldn't avoid speaking any longer. The greater the risk, the greater was the pride that desired to brave it. This test of love made her heart beat. If the test succeeded, she would love Julien all the more. If it did not succeed? . . . It would succeed. Didn't Julien love her? Let come what might!
She played the game loyally. But there are some men who would prefer to have their partners cheat. When Sylvie learned of Julien's love and the plan for the marriage, she scolded Annette: good heavens, she wasn't thinking of telling the whole truth? Of course it was absolutely necessary for him to learn a part of it. When they were married the official records would be sure to enlighten him. But there was always a way of dressing up the truth. Since this boy loved her he would close his eyes. She had only not to open them! To do so would be really too stupid! Later there would be time to tell each other everything. . . . Sylvie spoke honestly out of her experience. She wished her sister's welfare. (She wished her own too; she would not have been displeased to see them out of her house with all possible speed.) From her point of view one didn't owe the truth to everyone, especially to one's fiancé: it was enough to love him! Annette's truth, of course, was innocent, but men are weak. They cannot endure the full truth. It has to be given to them in small doses. . . .
Annette listened to Sylvie calmly and spoke of something else. Useless to reply: it would only make her more obstinate. Sylvie's morality was not hers, and she preferred not to say what she thought of it. Sylvie was Sylvie. She loved her. . . . But what a look she would have given anyone else who had spoken to her so!
"Poor Sylvie! . . . She judges men from those she has known. But my Julien belongs to another species. He loves me as I am. He will love me as I was. I have nothing to conceal from him. I have never done him an injury. If any injury was done I did it to myself alone."
Fully considering the risks, but trusting in Julien's magnanimity, she made up her mind to speak. She brought up the subject of her past life. With a common modesty, they had always avoided this topic. But more than once, Annette had read in Julien's eyes what he burned and trembled to ask, what he wanted both to know and not to know.
She placed her hand tenderly on Julien's hand and said, "My friend, you have always been so adorably discreet with me. I thank you for it. I love you. . . . But I must tell you at last something you don't know about me, something that I have been. You must know me. I am not free from reproach."
He made an apprehensive gesture that protested against what she was going to say, as if he half wished to prevent it. She smiled.
"Don't be afraid! I haven't committed any great crimes. At least I shouldn't call them so. But perhaps I am too indulgent to myself, for the world regards these matters differently. It is for you to judge. I believe in your judgment. I am what you decide I am."
She began to tell her story. More frightened than she wanted to appear, she had prepared in advance what she intended to say. But simple as she imagined it would be to utter this, it was very painful to her. To overcome this constraint she made herself appear more free from emotion than she was. She even revealed at moments a touch of irony, directed at herself, which scarcely corresponded with the anxiety this recital stirred in her: she resorted to it in order to protect herself. . . . Julien did not understand it at all. He saw in this attitude only a shocking light-mindedness and lack of conscience.
She said first that she was not married. Julien had feared this. To tell the truth, he had even been silently sure of it. But he had always hoped that the contrary would turn out to be the case, and that Annette should tell him this, that doubt should no longer be possible, filled him with consternation. Intensely Catholic at heart, under his superficial liberalism, he had not freed himself from the idea of sin. Instantly he thought of his mother: she would never accept it. He foresaw a struggle. He was very much in love. In spite of the grief that Annette's confession caused him, in spite of the real fall her past weakness signified for him, the "error" of her whom he loved, he loved her, he was ready, in order to have her, to fight against his mother's opposition. But someone must help him; Annette must second him. He was weak; to endure the combat, he needed to summon all his strength, not the least element of which was the strength of illusion. He needed to idealize Annette, and if Annette had been clever she would have helped him to do so.
She saw the grief which her words caused. She had expected it; she was sorry for it, but she could not spare him. Since they were to live together, each would have to take his share of the trials and even the errors of the other. But she did not suspect the conflict that was taking place in him; and if she had thought of it, she would have remained confident of the victory of love.
"My poor Julien," she said, "I am giving you pain. Forgive me. It is hard for me too. You believed that I was better than I am. You gave me a higher place, too high, in your mind. . . . I am a woman. I am weak. . . . At least, if I have made a mistake, I have never deceived anyone else. I have always acted in good faith. I have always done that."
"Yes," he said hastily. "I'm sure of it. He deceived you, didn't he?"
"Who?" asked Annette.
"That wretch. . . . Forgive me! . . . That man who left you."
"No, don't accuse him," she said. "I am the guilty one."
She attached to this word "guilty" only the sense of a warm regret for the pain she was causing him, but he seized upon it greedily. In his confusion he longed to hold fast to the idea that Annette was the victim of a seduction and that she had repented. . . . He had an extreme need of this notion of "repenting"; it was for him a kind of compensation for the hurt he had suffered, a balm for the wound it could not heal but could render endurable; it gave him a moral superiority over Annette of which—to be fair to him—he would never have made use. In short, since he had no doubt about Annette's sin, he also had none about the need of repentance. His Christian nature was imbued with both these ideas. The most liberal Christian never frees himself from them.
But Annette had sprung from a race with a different kind of soul. The Rivières might be pure or impure, in the sense that Christian morality attaches to this word; but if they were pure it was not in obedience to an invisible God or his too visible representatives and their Tables of the Law. It was because they loved purity as moral cleanliness, as beauty. And if they were impure they regarded it as an affair between themselves and their own consciences, not the consciences of others. Annette could not admit that she must give an account of herself to others. If she confessed herself to Julien, it was a gift of love that she was making him. In all honesty, she owed him merely an account of her life. But of her inner life she did not owe him any account. She gave it to him of her own free will. She saw now that Julien would have preferred to have her embellish the truth. But she was too proud to profit by a lying excuse of which she felt no need. On the contrary, when she understood what he wanted her to say she took pains to make it clear that she had given herself to her lover.
Julien, who was completely upset, would not listen to her.
"No, no, I don't believe you," he said. "You are too generous. Don't accuse yourself to defend that man who deserves nothing but contempt."
"But I'm not accusing anyone," she said simply.
Her words struck against his consciousness, but he refused to understand.
"You are trying to exonerate him."
"I am not exonerating him. No one's to blame."
Julien struggled. "Annette, I implore you not to talk that way."
"Why?"
"You know very well it's wrong!"
"I know nothing of the kind."
"What? You don't regret anything?"
"I regret making you unhappy. But I didn't know you then, my friend. I was free and alone; I had no obligations except to myself."
"Is that nothing?" he thought. He did not dare to say it.
"But still you regret it?" he said, insistently. "You know very well you made a mistake."
He did not want to accuse her. But he so longed to have her accuse herself.
"Perhaps," she said.
"Perhaps," he took her up, dejectedly.
"I don't know," said Annette.
She saw where Julien wanted to lead her. Perhaps she had made a mistake, if yielding to a transport of sincere love and pity was a mistake. Perhaps, yes. "But if in my heart I can regret a sincere error, I don't need to excuse myself for it. My heart has remained alone with its suffering, communing with it alone in the silence. It must commune now with its regrets. They concern nobody. . . . Regrets? . . . Let's be honest to the end! There are no regrets!" After reflecting, she said, "I don't think I made a mistake."
Perhaps she was exaggerating in reaction against Julien's unconscious pharisaism. (Poor Julien!) But even in the moments when she loved him the most she could not bring herself to utter the word of regret which he was expecting. . . . "I should so much like to say it! But I can't. It isn't true." Regret what? She had acted in accordance not only with her rights but with her happiness. For, costly as the latter had been, she had had it—the child. And she knew (she alone) that this gift of the child, far from dishonoring her, as a stupid public opinion supposed, had purified her, delivered her for a long time from her troubles, brought into her life order and peace. . . . No, for the sake of assuring her future love she would never be base enough to slander her past love. She even felt now a certain gratitude towards this Roger who had only been an agent of her destiny, so inferior to the love and the flame of life he had lighted in her.
Julien felt this jealously. "Ah, you still love that man?" he said.
"No, my friend."
"But you are not angry with him."
"Why should I be angry with him?"
"And you are thinking of him."
"I am thinking of you, Julien."
"But you haven't forgotten him."
"I could not forget anyone who had done me good, even if he ceased to exist. Don't reproach me, you who have done me so much more good!"
Julien was honest enough to respect Annette's frankness, and in his heart he felt her nobility. This for him was an unaccountable spectacle, the unwonted dignity of which revealed to him a new world—the new woman. But another part of his nature was in revolt. His masculine instincts were wounded. His Catholic and bourgeois prejudices were horrified. The idea that he had, that he continued to have, of Annette was poisoned with degrading suspicions. Instead of being surer of a woman who gave up her secret to him with complete loyalty, he was less sure of a woman whose past weakness had been revealed to him. He doubted her fidelity in the future. He thought of that other living man who had possessed her and whose child would be his. He was afraid of being deceived, he was afraid of being ridiculous. He was mortified, and he could not forgive her.
As soon as Annette fully perceived the dangerous struggle that was going on in Julien's mind and saw that the hope she had formed was menaced, she trembled. She was utterly in the grip of the love she had provoked. All her power of loving, all her capacity for happiness, she had centred in this Julien. And in truth she had half deceived herself. But she had only half deceived herself. Julien was not unworthy of her; his qualities were real; they deserved love. Different as they were, they would be able to live together with a little mutual effort to understand and tolerate each other—and a little suffering, no doubt; and was a little suffering too much to pay for a firm affection? Annette would have been good for him; she would have invigorated him; she would have been that great wind of confidence in life that would have swelled his sails and carried him whither he could never have gone without her. And Julien's delicate tenderness, his respect for woman, his moral purity, even that candid religious faith which Annette did not share, would have been wholesome for her; they would have given her passionate nature a basis of security, the peace of home and of a soul of which one is sure.
Ah, the misery of hearts that miss their destiny through a misapprehension which their passion exaggerates, that know it and reproach themselves for it and always will reproach themselves, but will never yield the point that separates them just because they love too much to make a moral concession to which they would disdainfully consent with those to whom they are indifferent!
Annette tormented herself now with the anxieties to which she had given birth in Julien's mind. Was Julien right? . . . She was not infatuated with her own judgment. She tried to understand other ways of judging. Her character was not entirely formed: her moral instinct was strong, but her ideas were not yet established; she reserved the right to revise them. While quite young she had realized how artificial was the morality of those who surrounded her, and she had found nothing upon which to lean, nothing but her reason, which had often deceived her. She was always seeking; she sought for other ways of thinking in which she might breathe freely. And when she encountered a sincere conscience like Julien's she scrutinized it eagerly: would this voice respond to the appeal of her heart? She aspired to believe, this woman in revolt! She was seeking, seeking for her moral homeland. . . . How she would have loved to enter Julien's, to subscribe to its laws, even if they condemned her! But it was not enough to long. She could not do it. What Julien desired simply wasn't human!
"I realize," she said to him tenderly, "that you are judging me as the world judges. I don't reproach you. I admire the rigorous, preservative force of its laws. They have their place in the sum of things and I know that their roots are deep in your family. It is natural for you to obey them. I respect them in you. But, my friend, all the efforts of my will could never make me deny an action, even if it is condemned by everyone, which has given me my child. Dear Julien, how could I deny what is my only consolation, the purest joy perhaps that heaven will grant me in my whole life? Don't try to blight it, but if you love me share my happiness! There is nothing in it that can injure you!"
She knew, even as she spoke, that he did not understand; she only irritated him the more. And she was broken-hearted. But what could she do? Lie to him? It was too dreadful that she had even thought of this humiliating resource. But could she allow the breach to grow wider in this affection that was so dear to her? It was as if this breach had extended to her heart. . . . She was in mortal terror every time she found herself in Julien's presence. What was he going to read to-day in her face?
As for him, he abused her love with all the baseness of a man who is certain that he is loved. He knew that he was hurting her and he went on hurting her. He in turn felt his power, and he began to desire her less now he was sure that she desired him.
She understood it all! She was in despair because she had betrayed her weakness. But she went on. She abandoned herself to a superstitious feeling: if fate intended her to be Julien's wife, she would be, whatever she said; whatever she said, she would lose him if that was her fate.
But secretly she wished to believe that, in exchange for her submission, fate would be favorable to her. Julien would be touched.
"I put myself in your hands. Will you love me the less for that?"
A strange travail was going on in Julien's mind. He loved her—no, he desired her—as much as always. Who could say which it was? (He did not want to know.) . . . In short, he still wanted her. But he was sure now, not only that his mother would never consent to his marriage, but that he himself would never be able to make up his mind to it. For many reasons: bitterness, wounded vanity, moral disapproval, what might be called a jealous repulsion. But he preferred not to dwell on these reasons. "Yes, we know you, but don't show yourselves." His mind arranged expedients to satisfy at once his hidden reasons and his desires. . . . Annette, in the past, had declared herself a free woman in love. He did not approve of this, no; but, after all, since she was as she was, why should she not be just this with him whom she loved?
He did not put it to her as bluntly as this. He pleaded all the things that made marriage impossible (he brought forth new ones as fast as she refuted them): the insurmountable obstacles, his mother's opposition, the necessity of living with his mother, his financial straits, with Annette accustomed to wealth, to society—poor Annette, reduced for two years to giving private lessons!—the difference in their minds and temperaments. . . . (This last argument came up just at the end, to the dismay and terror of Annette, when she believed she had surmounted the others.) With obstinate unfairness, Julien depreciated himself, the better to mark the difference between them. It was enough to make one laugh and weep. It was pitiable to see him looking for all these poor pretexts for escaping, while she, forgetting her pride, pretended not to understand, wore herself out finding replies, struggled feverishly to keep him from leaving her.
He was not leaving her. He did not refuse to take. He refused to give.
When Annette perceived the object of all these barricades and what he wanted of her, she had a feeling less of revolt than of prostration. She did not have enough strength left to be indignant. To struggle was no longer worth the trouble. That was what he wanted! . . . He! . . . Wretched soul! . . . So he didn't know himself? So he didn't realize how he appeared in her eyes? If he had been loved it was just because of his solid integrity. It wasn't at all, not at all, becoming for him to play the Don Juan, the libertine, the free lover! (For, in spite of her grief, Annette's mind kept its ironical clearness, and it never failed to seize the comic that was mingled with the tragic in life.)
"My friend," she thought, tenderly, pityingly, disgustedly, "I loved you better when you condemned me. Your rather narrow but lofty idea of love gave you the right to do so. But now you no longer have that right. What have I to do with this inferior love you are proposing to me to-day, this love without trust? If trust is lacking there is nothing left between us."
Every love has its essence: where one blossoms, another withers. Carnal love dispenses with respect. The love that is based on respect cannot lower itself to ample enjoyment.
"Why," cried Annette in her heart, which was rising in revolt, "I would rather be the mistress of the first passer-by who pleased me than of you, you whom I love!"
For with him it would be degrading. Everything or nothing!
To Julien's suggestions she thus opposed a firm, affectionate refusal that hurt him. They continued to love one another, while judging each other severely; and neither of them could resign himself to the loss of their happiness. There they were, appealing to each other, desiring each other, even offering themselves—incapable as they were of pronouncing the word that would bring them together—the one through inner weakness, that moral debility which with rare exceptions (if a man can dare to say it) belongs to man, and which he does not recognize, the other through that deep-seated pride which belongs to woman and which she does not confess either: for the two sexes have been so deformed by the moral conventions of a society built upon the victory of man that they have both forgotten their real character. The weaker of the two is not always by nature the one who calls himself so. The woman is richer in the energies of the earth, and if she is caught in the snare that man has thrown over her she remains a captive who has not surrendered.
Julien dimly perceived the justice of Annette's motives, and he did not question their honesty, but he could not do violence to the timidity of his own heart. He followed the opinion of the world, which he respected less than Annette. By himself he would have accepted Annette's past, but he could not accept it under the eye of the world; and he persuaded himself that this was the eye of his own conscience. He did not have the courage to take for a wife this woman whom he desired; and his pusillanimity he called dignity. He was not able to delude himself completely; and he was angry with Annette because he had not been able to delude her either. He ought to have broken with her, but he would not consent to this. And when Annette spoke of leaving him he held her back, hesitated, suffered, caused her suffering. He was no more willing to accept her than to give her up. He played the cruel game of keeping up her hope, which he later killed. He shunned her when she was most loving and was most loving when she resigned herself. Annette went through painful crises of wounded affection. She ate her heart out. Sylvie saw this and finally extorted the truth from her. She had seen Julien and she had made up her mind about him. "He is one of those people," she said, "who never make a decision till they are forced to do so. You can do it; make him consent. He will be grateful to you later."
But Annette had suffered too much from the thought that Julien might reproach her some day (even if he never expressed it) if she married him. When it was no longer possible to ignore the irremediable weakness of his character and the futile hope of a lasting decision from which his troubled spirit would no longer try to draw back, she settled the question in good earnest. She wrote to Julien and told him not to prolong this useless torment any further. She was suffering, he was suffering, and they had to live. She had to work for her child, and he had his own work. She had taken him away from it too long. They had both been using up their strength, and they had none too much of it. Since they could not do each other the good they had hoped for, let them not do each other harm. They must not see each other any more. She thanked him for all that he had been to her.
Julien did not answer. Silence fell between them. But in their hearts, bitterness, regret, wounded passion still fought with one another.
Their love had not remained a secret from those who were close to them. Leopold had watched it with an annoyance he had not been able to conceal from Sylvie. His painful memory of that far from brilliant adventure of his had left in his mind an involuntary resentment which had not become less active a few months later. Far from it. For he found it possible to pretend to himself that he had forgotten the reason for it. Sylvie, already on the watch, was struck by his strange behavior: she observed him and she found it impossible to doubt that he was jealous. In accordance with the admirable logic of the heart, she was angry with Annette. She took a violent dislike to her. In a measure the state of her health explained these violent reactions. But the unfortunate thing in such cases is that the reverberation is prolonged beyond the condition that has caused them.
In October Sylvie gave birth to a little girl. Joy for everybody. Annette became as passionately attached to the child as if it had been her own. It gave Sylvie no pleasure to see it in her arms, and she no longer tried to conceal the hostility that she had hitherto repressed. Annette, who, for a few weeks, had been listening to unkind words from her sister, which she attributed to the passing illness, was no longer able to doubt Sylvie's estrangement. She said nothing, avoiding any occasion for annoying her. She hoped for a return of the old affection.
Sylvie was on her feet again. The relations between the two sisters remained apparently the same, and an outsider would not have noticed any change. But Annette observed in Sylvie a cold animosity that hurt her. She would have liked to take her hands and ask her, "What's the matter? What have you against me? Tell me, dear!"
But Sylvie's look froze her. She did not dare. She felt intuitively that if Sylvie spoke she would say something irreparable. It was much better to remain silent. Annette felt in her sister a wish to be unjust against which she could do nothing.
One day Sylvie said to Annette that she wanted to have a talk with her. Annette, with her heart beating, wondered, "What is she going to say to me?"
Sylvie said nothing that could offend Annette, not a word of her grievances. She talked to her about getting married.
Annette gently changed the subject. But Sylvie was insistent and suggested a match: a friend of Leopold, a sort of business agent, a journalist in some vague way, with a certain style, the manners of a man of the world, and varied, too varied, resources, who sold automobiles and wrote advertisements, acted as an intermediary between the manufacturers and their customers in clubs and drawing-rooms, and received commissions from both sides. It was a proof that Sylvie had changed greatly in relation to her sister that she could offer her such a choice, and Annette was aware of the lack of affection this deliberate slight indicated. With a gesture she stopped the description of the candidate. Sylvie took it in bad part, asking if Annette found the suggested suitor beneath her pretensions. Annette said that she had no pretensions except to live alone. Sylvie replied that this was easy to say, that it was all very well to want to live alone, but that first one had to have the power to do so.
"But do you think I can't?"
"You? I challenge you to do it!"
"You are unjust. I can earn my living."
"With the help of other people."
In the tone, even more than in the words, there was something intentionally wounding. Annette blushed, but she did not take her up; she did not want to bring about an open quarrel.
During the following weeks, Sylvie's ill-humor was very noticeable. Any pretext served her, the least disagreement in conversation, a detail in dress, Annette's lateness at dinner, the noise little Marc made on the stairs. They never went out together any more. If they had arranged for a walk on Sunday, she set out with Leopold, without saying anything to Annette, using the latter's unpunctuality as an excuse. Or at the last moment she would call off the party they had planned.
Annette saw that her presence was a burden. She spoke timidly of looking for an apartment in some other quarter that would be less remote from her pupils. She hoped they would protest, beg her to remain. They pretended not to have heard her.
She was cowardly; she stayed on. She clung to this affection which she felt was escaping her. It was not only Sylvie whom she did not want to leave. She was attached to little Odette. She endured more than one painful affront without seeming to notice it. She lengthened the intervals between her visits.
Even so, they were too frequent for Sylvie. She certainly had not returned to her normal state. An unwholesome jealousy was working in her. Once when Annette was innocently playing with Odette, without noticing a dry warning that Sylvie had given her to stop, the latter rose, irritated, and snatched the little girl from her arms. "Go away!" she said.
There was such animosity in her eyes that Annette, struck by it, said to her, "But what have I done? Don't look at me that way! I can't bear it. Do you want me to go away? Do you want me not to come back any more?"
"At last you understand," said Sylvie, cruelly.
Annette turned pale. "Sylvie!" she cried.
With a cold rage, Sylvie went on: "You are living at my expense. Very well. That's all right. But that's enough. My husband and my daughter are mine. Hands off!"
Annette, with white lips, repeated, in an agonized tone, "Sylvie, Sylvie!"
Then suddenly a transport seized her too. "You wicked thing!" she cried. "You will never see me again!"
She ran to the door and went out.
Ashamed of her violence, Sylvie pretended to laugh.
"We shall see her again this evening."
Annette left Sylvie's apartment intending never to enter it again. She was weeping. She was burning with shame and rage. These two passionate natures could not cease to love each other without almost hating each other.
Impossible for Annette to remain under the same roof with her! If she had had the means she would have moved the next day. Happily for her, she had to yield to practical necessities: to give notice, to look for another apartment. In her first fury she would have preferred to place her furniture in storage and camp out in a hotel. But this was not the moment to squander her money. She had very little laid aside; what she earned was spent as she went along; even when she had no recourse to her sister's aid, the feeling that she could appeal to her in case of need gave her a security that spared her any too keen anxieties over the future. When she came to reckon up what she must have in order to live, she was obliged to recognize, to her mortification, that if she were thrown upon her own resources her actual work would not suffice to support her. Living with her sister and taking some of their meals together lightened her expenses. The child's clothes were given him by Sylvie, and Annette paid only for the material of her own dresses. And this was not to mention the things she borrowed or those which, while they belonged to one, served for two, the small gifts, the Sunday excursions, the little extra pleasures that brightened the daily monotony. And then the credit which her sister enjoyed in the neighborhood gave Annette the benefit of a certain latitude in paying her bills. Now she would have to count upon paying cash for everything. The beginning would be hard. The moving, the deposit, the expenses of settling. And the great question, who was going to look after the child? A contradictory question: for she had to earn money for the child, and in order to earn it she had to leave home, and who would take care of him? Annette had to admit that she would never have surmounted these difficulties if they had come earlier, when Marc was very young. How did other women manage? Annette was sorry for the unhappy souls, and she felt humiliated.
Place the child in a boarding-school? He was old enough to go to school now. But she was unwilling to shut him up in one of those menageries. What she had heard about those old-time institutions (things have been somewhat improved since then), what she instinctively surmised about this physical and moral promiscuity, had led her to regard it as a crime to put one's child into them. She wanted to believe that the boy would be unhappy there. Who could say? Perhaps he would have been very glad to get away from her. But what mother can believe that she is a burden to her child? She was not even willing to leave him at one of these schools for his meals. She told herself that this was because of Marc's delicate health; he needed special food; she had to watch over his diet. But it was extremely fatiguing to come home from lunch when her lessons obliged her sometimes to run to the other end of Paris. Going, coming, always in movement. And the lessons did not bring in enough money. Some urgent expense was always turning up upon which she had not reckoned. The boy was growing very large, and Annette regretted that he was not like those little beans which never grow faster than their shells. She had to clothe him. Nor could she permit herself to neglect her own appearance; her occupation would have prevented this if her pride had not done so. So she had to find new resources. Copying to be done at home, the work of some foreigner or a translation to be revised (an ungrateful task, poorly remunerated); secretarial work, one or two mornings in the week (also poorly remunerated); but all these things, taken together, were enough. To earn money by any means! Annette did many things at once. She made herself hated by the hungry rivals whom she thrust out of her way in her pursuit of bread. But this time the devil could take the hindmost. No more sentimentality! She had no time for it. You cannot go back and pick up those who have fallen. It was true that she sometimes had the vision in passing of some strained face that stared at her with hostile eyes, some evicted competitor whom she would gladly have helped in other days. A pity, but she did not have the time. She had to get there first. She knew now where to find work, and she knew the shortest way to it. Her diplomas, her degree, gave her an assured superiority. And she was not unaware that she had advantages on another side, the personal side, her eyes, her voice, her way of dressing, her skill in handling her clients. Between her and other applicants they rarely hesitated. Those that were sacrificed could not forgive her.
Her new life was established on a healthily rigorous system. No empty room for useless thoughts. From one day to another, every day was as full as a nut, full and hard. After the trepidation of the first weeks, when she did not know whether she could manage to live and keep her child alive, she became used to it, she grew more confident, she even ended by finding pleasure in the difficulties she had overcome. No doubt, in the rare moments when the necessity of acting no longer held her mind tense, when at night she laid her head on her pillow, there were times before she went to sleep when her accounts, the thought of her budget, weighed upon her. . . . If she dropped on the road? . . . If she fell ill? . . . I won't. . . . Peace, I must sleep. . . . Happily, she was tired; sleep did not keep her waiting And when the day returned, there was no longer room for those "ifs" and apprehensions. No more room for that which enervated, enfeebled, broke the soul. Penury and toil put everything in its proper place—that which belonged to the necessary and that which belonged to luxury.
The necessary: daily bread. Luxury: the problems of the heart. . . . Could she have imagined it? These problems seemed to her now of secondary importance. All very well for those who have too much time on their hands! She had neither too much nor too little. Just enough. One thought for each thing she did, and not one to spare. So, full of strength, she felt like a well-trimmed ship that is launched on the waves.
She was in her thirty-third year, and nothing had yet wasted her energies. She perceived that she not only did not need protection but that she was stronger without it. The difficulty of her life invigorated her. And its first benefit was in liberating her from the obsession of Julien, from the nostalgia of love, which, dull or violent, had poisoned all her past years. She realized how satiated she was with sentimental dreams, sweet things, tender things, hypocritical sensuality; merely to think of them was repugnant to her. To be occupied with the rough facts of life, to undergo its wounding contact, to be obliged to be hard herself—that was good, it was vivifying. A whole part of herself, the best part perhaps, certainly the healthiest, was born again.
She no longer dreamed. She no longer tormented herself, even about her child's health. When he was ill she did what had to be done. She did not think about it beforehand. She no longer thought about it, indefinitely, afterwards. She was ready for everything, she was confident. And that was the best medicine. Dining these first years of desperate toil she was not ill a single day, and the child caused her no real anxiety.
Her intellectual life was no less curtailed than her emotional life. She scarcely had time to read any longer. She might have suffered from this, but she did not. Her mind made up the deficiency from its own resources. She had enough to do to sort and arrange her new discoveries. For during these first months she discovered a great deal; she discovered everything. And yet in what respect had things changed? As for work, she had been very familiar with that—or she had thought she was familiar with it. And this city, these people were just the same to-day as yesterday.
Between one day and the next, however, everything had changed. From the moment she had begun to seek her bread she had made the real discovery. It had not been love, not even maternity. She carried these things within her, but her life had expressed only a small portion of herself. Hardly had she passed into the camp of poverty, however, than she discovered the world.
The world varies, according as one considers it from above or from below. Annette was in the street now, between the rows of houses that stretched away on both sides: she saw the asphalt, the mud, the menace of the motor-cars and the flood of passers-by. She saw the sky above (rarely luminous)—when she had the time! The space between vanished: all that had formed the object of her life hitherto, society, conversation, theatres, books, the luxury of pleasure and the intelligence. She knew very well that they were there and she might have enjoyed them, but she had other things to think about. Watching her steps, looking out for herself, hurrying. . . . How all these people ran! . . . From above one saw nothing but the meandering of the river: it seemed calm, and one did not notice the strength of the current. The race, the race for bread. . . .
A thousand times Annette had thought of the state in which she found herself to-day, in the world of toil and poverty. But what she had thought then bore no resemblance to what she thought now that she was taking part in it.
Yesterday she had believed in the democratic axiom of the Rights of Man, and it had seemed to her unjust that the masses should be deprived of them. To-day, the injustice—if there remained any question of just and unjust—was that rights existed for the privileged. There are no rights. Man has no right to anything. Nothing belongs to him. He has to conquer everything anew every day. That is the Law: "Thou shalt earn thy bread in the sweat of thy brow." Rights are the deceitful invention of a fallen combatant, to sanction the spoils of his past victory. Rights are nothing but the strength of yesterday, heaping up its treasures. But the living right, the only one, is work. The conquest of every day. . . . What a sudden vision of the human battlefield! It had no terrors for Annette. The courageous soul accepted this combat as a necessity; and she found it just because she was "in form," young and robust. If she conquered, so much the better! If she was conquered, so much the worse! (She would not be conquered. . . .) She had not given up pity, but she had given up weakness. The first of her duties was "Don't be pusillanimous!"
By the new light of this law of labor, everything became dear to her. The old faiths were put to the test, and a new morality rose on the ruins of the old, cemented on this heroic foundation. The morality of freedom, the morality of strength, not of Pharisaism and debility. And examining under this light the doubts that troubled her, especially that which lay deepest in her heart, "Have I the right to my child?" she answered, "Yes, if I can keep him alive, if I can make a man of him. If I can do this, everything will be all right. If I cannot, everything will be wrong. This is the only morality; everything else is hypocritical."
This inflexible decision redoubled her vigor and her joy in the struggle.
She was meditating in this fashion one day as she was walking about Paris, going from one task to another. The walking excited her mind. Now that her daily activity was methodically regulated, her dreams resumed their rights. But they were waking dreams, clear, precise, dreams that had nothing misty about them. The more limited her time was, the more she made of these slight intervals; like ivy the hours climbed up, covering the walls of the days. Annette brought her enlarged conceptions of the true human morality face to face with the experiences of her day. Work and poverty had opened her eyes. She had a new perception of the untruthfulness of modern life which she had not seen when she was caught in it. The monstrous futility of this life—nine-tenths of this life—particularly for women. . . . Eating, sleeping, procreating. . . . Yes, a tenth part had some use. But the rest? . . . This "civilization"? What people call "thinking"? Is man—vulgus umbrarum—really made for thought? He wants to persuade himself that he is, he puts himself into the attitude for it, and he believes that he holds it, as by consecrated exploits. But he does not think. He does not think over his newspaper, or in his office, before the wheel on which his everyday activities revolve. The wheel turns with him, turns empty. Did they think, those young girls whom Annette had undertaken to teach? What was the meaning of the words they heard, read, uttered? To what did their life reduce itself? A few immense, depressing instincts brooding in their torpor under a mass of playthings. Desire and enjoyment. . . . Thought was also one of their playthings. Who was deceived by it? Themselves. The garment of this civilization, its luxury, its art, its movement and its noise—(that noise! one of its masks, to make itself believe that it was hurrying toward some end! what end? It hurried in order to stupefy itself)—what lay beneath it? Emptiness. People gloried in it. They gloried in their tinsel, in their chatter, in their trinkets. How rare were the men who revealed the shining light of Necessity! To the eternal brute in man the voice of its gods and its sages says nothing or is only one triviality the more. It never escapes from the confines of its desire and boredom. Like man himself, human society is a meretricious structure. Custom holds it together. A touch can lay it in ruins. . . .
Tragic thoughts. But they could not depress the ardent Annette. It is the inspiration within that gives joy or sadness, not ideas. Under an untroubled sky an anæmic soul perishes of melancholy. A vigorous soul, exposed to storms, wraps itself as happily in shadows as in sunlight. It knows quite well that they alternate. Annette came home sometimes crushed with fatigue and the feeling of a dark future. She would go to bed and sleep; in the middle of the night some ridiculous dream would wake her up laughing. Or, more often, in the evening, as she sat with her brow bent over her work and the fingers followed their path, her brain, following its path in turn, would suddenly pick up some absurd thought and she would be full of merriment. She had to take care not to laugh too loudly in order not to awaken Marc. "I'm an idiot," she said, as she dried her eyes. But her heart was lightened. These childish relaxings, these sudden reactions, were a wholesome heritage that came to her from her family. When the heart is full of clouds, the wind of joy rises and drives them away.
No, she had no need of distractions, books. Annette had enough to read in herself. And the most thrilling of books was her son.
He was approaching his seventh year. He had adjusted himself to the change of his surroundings much more readily than might have been expected. Disagreeable or not, it was a change. He had cast his skin like a little snake. Ungrateful childhood! All Sylvie's indulgences and all her petting—she was so certain of her power over him!—were as if they had never been. After forty-eight hours he no longer even thought of them.
What pleases or displeases a child is never what you expect. The first thing Marc appreciated in his new life was the school whither his mother sent him pityingly—and the hours of solitude when there was nobody to watch him.
Annette had established herself in a little apartment on the fifth floor on the populous Rue Monge. A steep stairway, small rooms, noise from without; but there was space above the roofs, and she needed this. The noise did not disturb her; she was a Parisian, accustomed to movement; it was almost necessary to her; she could think all the better in the midst of the hurly-burly. Perhaps her nature had also been transformed with maturity: the plenitude of physical life and regular work had given her a poise, a nervous solidity, which she had never known, but which would not endure forever.
The apartment consisted, on the street side, of Annette's bedroom, which served as a sitting-room (the bed formed a divan), Marc's little room, and a narrow recess, a sort of corner-closet. Across the passage, which was dark at midday, was the dining-room over the court and a kitchen that was practically filled by the stove and the sink.
Between the mother's room and that of the child the door remained open, and Marc was too small to protest. He was at the undecided age that floats between the sexlessness of early infancy and the first uncertain awakening of the little man. He was no longer in the one stage and not yet in the other. He would still run from his own bed to his mother's on Sunday morning; and on great days he would allow her to dress him from head to foot. On other days he would have fits of rudeness and shyness. And he was full of curiosity also. Especially he had attacks of secretiveness which he did not wish to have disturbed. He would slyly shut his door. Annette would open it again. He could not make a movement that she did not hear. It was unbearable! So he wouldn't move at all. Then she would forget him for a little while. Not for long! . . .
Happily, Annette was not always there. She had to go out. Marc went to his school, which was not far away. Annette took him there in the morning, and when she was free (rarely) in the afternoon. But she could not come for him to take him home again, for this was the hour of her lessons. He had to come home alone, and this made her anxious. She had tried to arrange with a neighboring family for the servant to bring Marc home when she brought their child. But this did not suit Marc, and he slipped away beforehand. So, proud and timorous, he would come back alone and all alone shut himself up in the apartment. Good times till his mother's return! Annette scolded him for his independence. But although she would never have admitted to herself that she had this evil feeling, she was not too sorry that he should be able to get along without comrades. She distrusted comrades. She did not want anyone to spoil her son. . . . Her son! Was she quite sure that he was hers? Of course she made an effort to repress her egotistical love. No longer, as in the days when he was very small, did she feel the blind, gluttonous need of absorbing the little being in her passion. She saw in him now a personality. But she persuaded herself that she had the key of this personality, that she knew better than he its laws and its happiness; she wanted to carve it in the image of her secret God. Believing, like most mothers, that she was incapable of creating what she desired herself, she dreamed of creating it through him who had sprung from her blood. (That eternal dream, eternally frustrated, of Wotan!)
But in order to shape him, she had to catch him. Not let him escape! She did everything to envelop him. Too much. Every day he escaped more. She had the discouraging impression that every day she knew him less. One thing she knew well: his body, his physical health, his illnesses, the least symptoms. She had an intuition that never deceived her. She would hold him before her, bathe him, touch him, care for him . . . this dear fragile body of the little hermaphrodite. He looked transparent. But what was inside him? She devoured him with her eyes and her hands; he was entirely at her mercy.
"Heavens, how I love you, little monster! And do you love me?"
"Yes, Mamma," he replied politely.
But what was he thinking in his heart?
At seven Marc had scarcely a feature of his family. In vain had Annette explored him, sought for some resemblance, tried to imagine one. . . . No, he was not like her, either in the shape of his forehead, or in his eyes, or in that swelling of the lips, so characteristic of the Rivières, and especially of Annette, as if the will, the inner ardor, had expanded them. The only point in common was the color of the iris, and this was lost in a strange world. . . . What world? . . . The father's? The Brissots'? Scarcely. At least, not yet. Jealously Annette said, "Never!"
And yet would she have been so displeased to find some trace of Roger in her son's features? Would it not have given her an obscure pleasure? She remembered the man to whom she had given herself with a mixture of bitterness and unconfessed attraction—an attraction less for the real Roger than for him of whom she had dreamed. In fact, it was to this dream that she had given herself. If she had seen him again in the image of her son, she would have had a strange feeling of victory, the feeling that she had wrested from him this form she loved in order to animate it with her own soul. Yes, as long as Marc's spirit was like her own, she would have been glad to find Roger's features in him.
But he resembled neither Roger nor herself. Roger's face, which lacked the original expression of the Rivières, had a simple, regular beauty of line: it was an easy book to read. But this child's face, the meaning of this expression . . . how describe it? It was so fleeting. . . .
Pretty, delicate features, but not well proportioned, the narrow brow, the effeminate chin, eyes a little aslant, the nose—whose did it resemble, this long, tapering, finely arched nose?—and the wide, thin mouth with pale, slightly crooked lips? . . . Even when he was motionless he seemed to be moving; his air was uncertain and changing. . . . No doubt he was seeking for his form: he was still fluctuating, but in what direction would he decide to go? Or would he decide not to have any direction?
Since his serious illness, he had been a child who at a first glance would have been called nervous and impressionable (as perhaps he was). But as you watched him, he disconcerted you with his calm ways, his air of indifference, his reserved expression. Not disagreeable, not sulky, not saying no. . . . "Yes, Mamma." . . . But you saw at once that he was not paying any attention to what you said. He had not heard it. . . . Or had he heard it? It was hard to be sure. . . . And he looked at his mother to see what was going to happen next, and she looked at him. . . . The little sphinx! . . . All the more a sphinx because he didn't know that he was one. He knew no more about himself than Annette knew about him, though this was the last thing to cause him any anxiety. When you are seven you have ceased trying to understand yourself and have not yet begun to do so again. On the other hand, he was trying to understand her, his mistress and servant. And he had the time for this because she shut him up with herself for days together. They observed one another mutually. But she was no match for him.
Annette deceived herself in thinking that he did not resemble any one she knew. There were astonishing similarities between his spirit and that of his grandfather Rivière. But Annette, though this occurred to her, had known very little about her father. He had charmed her so much that she had never seen the real Raoul Rivière. She had merely had a few suspicions, especially since she had read the famous correspondence. She had not wanted to dwell on this. Even if she had to bolster them up, she preferred to keep the pious and tender memories that had been momentarily shaken. Besides, she had only known the Raoul of the last phase. But if old Rivière had been able to return and inspect the little love-child, as he would have known so well how to do, he would have said, "I am beginning again."
He was not beginning again. Nothing ever begins again. He had merely come back in certain details.
What mischievous tricks blood plays! Over Annette's head the two confederates shook hands. And one of the most striking traits which the frank Annette had transmitted from the grandfather to the grandchild was a remarkable aptitude for dissembling. Not through any need to deceive. Raoul Rivière had enough good-natured contempt for his contemporaries and felt strong enough never to have any fear of showing himself, when it pleased him, quite without disguise. (It had often pleased him, and people would quote ferocious words of his that carried all before them.) No, this was a gratuitous pleasure, a delight in the burlesque, a theatrical tendency, a malicious taste for concealing his moral identity in order to mystify people. The child, innocently of course, had inherited this. His soul, which was still full of inconsistencies and very heterogeneous, with nothing of the buffoon in its depths, had slipped at birth into this malicious attitude, and it used the organs that Nature had made for it. Just as it would have tried its beak, its claws or its wings if it had passed into the body of a woolly or feathered animal, so, enveloped as it were in a fold of one of old Rivière's coats, it revealed once more the wiles of the grandfather.
Marc was guarded in the presence of grown-ups, and he could read in them everything that concerned him. On that side his faculty of attention was keen. When he saw what they imagined he was, he became it—at least unless they irritated him or he wanted to amuse himself and was seized with the whim of being contrary.
One of his occupations was to take apart the mechanism of these living playthings, look for their hidden springs, their weak points, try them, play with them, make them go. This was not very difficult, for they were stupid and unsuspicious. And first of all, his mother.
She puzzled him. There was something enigmatic about her. He had heard allusions to this subject in Sylvie's workshop, when he was sitting under the feet of the working-girls, who were not thinking of him. He did not understand much of it. But this added to the mystery, and he interpreted it. Divining, discovering. In this alert little ferret-like body, motionless, with shining eyes, the mind was always working.
Now that he was shut up with her, often for days, because of his ill-health, his winter colds and the greedy affection of his mother, she was his principal resource. He watched her curiously while he sang to himself, moving about, pursuing his other occupations—for a child's intelligence, like its body, is lithe and hard to hold. No matter if he is facing the other way, he sees you with eyes in the back of his head, and his cat's ears turn like weathercocks at the sound of your voice. If this all-observing attention chases three or four hares at a time, it never loses the trail, it amuses itself, it knows very well that to-morrow it will begin again. . . . The hare allowed herself to be caught. Expansive, easily carried away, prodigal in her feelings, Annette was never niggardly. She spent herself without calculation.
At one moment she spoke to him as to a very little child, and she hurt his feelings: he thought her ridiculous. Again she would speak to him as to a companion of her thoughts, too old for his age, and she wearied him: he thought her a bore. Sometimes she let herself think out loud, carried on a monologue before him, as if he could understand it. Then he thought her queer, and he watched her with a severe, mocking look. He did not understand her; but people who do not understand never surrender their right to judge.
He had adopted an artificial attitude that was convenient for him because he could apply it to all cases: the impertinent, absent-minded politeness of a well-brought-up child who appears to listen because he must, but who is not in the least interested in all these things, who has his own concerns and, when you speak to him, waits till you have finished. At other times he amused himself playing at kissing her so as to give her pleasure. He knew that his mother was nearly bursting with happiness. The foolish woman responded with all her heart. When she fell into his snares, he had a sort of affectionate contempt for her. When she busied herself in a way that he had not foreseen, he was annoyed, but he had more respect for her.
He was incapable of playing one part very long. A child is too yielding and is always jumping from one thing to another. A moment after he had pretended to be so warm-hearted and had enchanted her with his effusions, he unblushingly betrayed his indifference in the harshest way. Annette was completely upset.
There came a time when she ceased to be deceived or provoked any longer, especially at the rare moments when a vague suspicion warned her that Marc was obstinately posing. Then, nervously and violently—we ask modern pedagogues to forgive us—she spanked him. Truly she was going against all good principles and affronting the dignity of her child! From the point of view of an Anglo-Saxon, poor Annette dishonored herself forever. But we old French people don't go quite so far as that.Qui bene amat. . . . The maxim still flourishes in bourgeois families that have preserved some tincture of Latin. We have all been "well loved." And at bottom we believe, three-quarters of the time, like Annette's boy, that we are getting more than our deserts. But it is also true that if, like him, we continue to love those who spank us, the spanking results in their losing a little of their prestige. Let us admit that perhaps it is for this reason that we—Marc and we—provoke them!
He had a fine time afterwards playing the part of the outraged victim. And Annette reproached herself for abusing her power. She felt that she was at fault. She would try to find a way back into his good graces. He would wait for her to come to him. . . .
The triumph of weakness! It is a weapon that women are expert in handling. But the most feminine of the two in this case was the child. This young morsel of flesh, still all bathed in the maternal milk, was more than half feminine, and it had all the wiles and tricks of a girl. Annette was disarmed. Beside the little rogue she was the strong sex. The stupid strong sex, which is ashamed of its strength and tries to win forgiveness for itself. The contest was not equal. The child made a fool of her.
But he was no artful comedian amusing himself. Like his grandfather, he had more than one nature. Very few had been able to see what lay hidden beneath the mocking mask of old Rivière, the drama concealed by that jesting cynicism, that appetite for play-acting which is sometimes characteristic of conquering spirits. Raoul had had his dark depths which he never revealed. They exist more often than one might suppose under the Gallic laugh. One keeps them to oneself. Annette, who had her own secrets, had never told them to her father, and his secrets she had known no more than she knew those of her son. They all remained walled up in their own inner lives. A strange reserve. People blush less at exposing their vices and their appetites—Raoul had fairly paraded his—than the tragedy of the soul.
Of this latter Marc had his share. A child who lives alone, without brothers or companions, has time to wander about these caves of life. Very deep and vast were the caves of the Rivières. The mother and the child might have met in them. But they did not see each other; they passed very close to each other more than once, imagining that they were very far apart. Both of them, with eyes bandaged, Annette's by the demon of passion that still held her, the child by the egoism that was natural to his age—both were in the dark. But Marc as yet was only at the entrance of the cavern; he was not, like Annette, seeking for the Way out, bruising himself against the walls; he was crouching on one of the first steps, dreaming of the future. Incapable of explaining it to himself, he was building his life.
He had not had to go far to find the redoubtable wall before which the terrified ego recoils. Death. The wall rose on all sides. Illness skirted it like an encircling road. It was vain to seek for a passage through it. The wall was massive and had no breach. It had not been necessary for any one to tell Marc that the wall was there. Instantly, in the shadow, he had scented it, like a horse with his mane rising. He had spoken to no one about it. No one had spoken to him. The whole world was in agreement on the subject.
Annette, like the young women of to-day, was a bad teacher who, as a girl, had heard a great deal of talk about teaching, and was not unwilling to talk about it as a matter of conscience. She attached more importance to the method of bringing up children than the mothers of former days who had gone about it blindly. But once the child was there, she had found herself helpless before the thousand and one surprises of life, incapable of playing her part, making up theories which she did not apply, or which she abandoned at the first attempt. In the end she had let them all go and fallen back upon instinct.
The religious problem was one of those that had troubled her, and she had not been able to reach any practical solution of it for the child. Most of the friends of her youth, in the rich, republican bourgeoisie, had been brought up with religion by their mothers, without religion by their fathers. They did not even feel the clash of the two conceptions. (The two get along together very well in the world, like many other contradictory facts, for neither feeling has a third dimension.) She herself had gone to church, as she had gone to school: she had taken her first communion, as she had taken her diploma, conscientiously, without emotion. The ceremonies at which she had been present in her wealthy parish seemed to her to belong to the order of the world. She had separated from them when she separated from the world.
Modern society—and the Church is one of its pillars—has succeeded so well in denaturing and weakening the great human forces that Annette, who bore within her a richer faith than that of a hundred devotees, imagined she was not religious. For she confounded religion with prayer-wheels and the ceremonies of an obsolete exoticism, a luxury of soul for the rich, a snare for the eyes and that consolation for the heart of the poor which assures the foundations of their poverty and of society.