Chapter II
A long month has passed since my return to Paris. Twice Rose has written to announce her arrival: I waited for her at the station and she did not come. Poor child! We all know how difficult it is to break one's bonds, even the most detested. A thousand invisible ties keep us in the place where chance has set us; and, when we are about to rend them, they become so many unsuspected pangs. Instinct blindly resists all change, as though it were unable to distinguish what reason dimly descries beyond the trials and dangers of the moment. Rose is leaving nothing but wretchedness; in front of her is a fair and pleasant prospect. Nevertheless, she hesitates and she is unhappy.
In my present restless state, I no longer know what I wish. If she came to-morrow, should I be glad or not? I cannot tell. I can no longer tell. Those who do not suffer from this absurd mania for action escape those painful moments when we are at themercy of a distracted will that no longer knows exactly what it ought to want. In absence, our feelings pass through so many contradictory phases! When the hour of return comes, finding it impossible to collect so many conflicting sentiments or to bring back to one point so many different desires, we surrender ourselves to the impression of the moment; and this impression often has nothing in common with what we had previously felt and hoped.
I have done my utmost to make her come. Lately, I have been sending her urgent and encouraging letters daily. Now, the hour is approaching; and my only feeling is one of anguish.
I have told her twenty times that the talk about responsibility which I hear all around me brings a smile to my lips. I have told her how, by making my conduct depend on hers, I relieved myself of all personal anxiety. And to-day my task appears to me so heavy that I can only laugh at my presumption.
It was foolish of me to write to her:
"What are your faults? Teach me to know you. Tell me what you are."
In reality, our faults arise from our circumstances. Events alone set us the questions to which our actions give a definite answer. Up to the present, Rose has not lived; she has been accumulating forces that are now about to come into being. What will they be? Whither will they tend? We can assume nothing in a life that is but beginning; and is it not just this that encourages us to seek and to help? Each of us has only to look back in order to know that, in the shifting soil of characters, we can fix or establish nothing. I found her acquiescing in a shameful servitude; and yet I have faith in the nobility of her soul. She was untruthful; there was no relation between her wishes and her actions, her thoughts and her words. Nevertheless, I do not doubt her essential honesty.
The atmosphere that surrounds us is so often treacherous to our pliant natures! We women are obliged to lie. So long as we have not found our "love," we look in vain for a little confidence. No one believes us, no one receives the best part of our soul. One would think that, for those who listen to us, our sincerest words are poisoned as they pass through our fairest smiles. And, when nature has made us beautiful and gifted, people take pleasurein judging us severely, as they might look at the summer days through dark-tinted window-panes.
We are always refused recognition. The first feeling which any work that we perform arouses is one of doubt. Its merit is disputed. And yet we have devoted a part of our youth to it; we have left with it a little of our freshness and our bloom. Very often, it is the ransom of our sorrow. Our love is written upon it; and it bears the imprint alike of our smiles and of our tears. Do we not know that woman, for all her culture, remains closer than man to her instinct and her "soil?" She is less purely intellectual but more sensitive than man; and, while he can create everything in the silence of his imagination, she has to live and suffer everything that she brings into the world. She conceives and realises with her flesh and with her blood.
A woman said to me, one day:
"If I had to begin life over again, I should not have the courage to avoid a single danger, pain or disappointment. In surmounting them, I have gained a power of resistance which forms the framework of my present and my future. I can see the sparkle of my happiness better when I keep in the shadow of my sad memories; and all that I accomplish, allthat I write seems to me to flow from my past tears."
To refuse recognition to a woman's work is to refuse to recognise her soul, her existence and every throb of her heart!...
Man does not know that torture which every true woman suffers when she feels that those who are listening to her do not hear her real words, that those who are looking at her do not see what she is making every effort to show. Even when she is obeying the simplest impulses of her nature, people distrust what she says and what she does; and in some women, good and kind and beautiful, we see repeated the artless miracle of the flowers that exhaust themselves in giving too much fragrance and too much blossom. How fearful and timid this moral isolation makes us! And how thrice courageous we must be in the hour of realisation! If effort sometimes seems useless to men, what about women, who see themselves ever confronted by a blank wall of scepticism?
A man is valued by the weight of the forces which he stirs up for and against himself. The forces which woman encounters are nearly all hostile.
I was close upon sixteen. One day, I heard some one say, speaking of some trifling thing of which I was wrongly suspected:
"She is no longer a child. She's a woman now and she's lying."
That was a cruel speech, the sort of speech that influences a whole life. My eyes were gradually opened to the dreary injustice that casts its shadow over the fairest destinies of women. Nothing around them seems clear and natural. Doubt lies in wait for them, calumny rends them. Now my hour was coming: my skirts, touching the ground for the first time, had suggested the suspicion of deceit and hypocrisy.
It was perhaps this wound, inflicted on the soul of the growing girl, that left the most serious mark on my soul as a woman. Thanks to a strange prick of conscience, to a singular need to give to others what I did not obtain, I wanted to trust and I did trust! I gave my confidence passionately, utterly, rapturously! And this made wells of such deep and impetuous joy spring up in me that I felt no bitterness when I saw my confidence marred as it passedthrough others, even as a clear stream is muddied in following its course.
Still, I wanted more; I sought to concentrate in one person, herself generous and confiding, the happiness which I lacked and whose infinite value I suspected. Ah, what a blessed relief when I found her! I was as one who has never seen his face save in distorting mirrors and who suddenly sees himself as he hoped to be. It seems to me that my happiness dates from that day. Before then, I suffered, I was all astray, an ill wind hovered round me; and, on the sands of other lives, there was never a trace of my footsteps where I believed that I had passed. Henceforth, another soul would read mine! Another's eyes would own the candour of my eyes!
It was little more than a child that introduced me to love and kindness. She was treated with iron severity, she was unhappy; I was alone: she became my daily companion. Alas! too early ripe, too intelligent, she was of those who cannot stay. Is it a presentiment that makes them hurry so, or is it rather their eagerness to live, their over-sharpened senses that wear out their strength?
She was not fifteen; but, already matured in body and mind, she attracted immediate attention. Her walk was so superb that I cannot think of her without seeing her come swiftly to me, with that dear smile of hers and with her lovely arms outstretched in greeting. Her limpid eyes obeyed the light, the light of her heart and the light of the sky, whereas her dark hair, always tangled and rebellious, bore witness to the protest of her dauntless spirit. In her company I tasted for the first time the delight of souls that join and blend and unite in mutual trust. In an ecstasy of sincerity, for hours I imagined myself baptising her whole life with my faith. I said to her, over and over again:
"I believe in you.... I believe in you.... Do you understand what that means? It is something greater and better than 'I love you:' it means that one can never be alone again!"
She died a few months later; and for years I was to seek in vain in others' hearts and eyes the pure and limpid faith which reflects everything that bends over it.
One can love people without knowing them fully;one cannot believe in them without mingling one's soul with theirs; and the moral luxury of it is so great that, when we have once known it, if only for a moment, we demand it from all with whom we come in contact.
Roseline, all that I then wished for, that charming bond of tenderness and confidence which should link women together, that difficult and precious happiness which I knew for one hour through that child-soul: that is what I am trying to offer you.
And perhaps you will have something better still, because the assistance which you receive is deliberate and has stood the test. In the place of that artless faith rushing to meet life, you find a soul that has been steeped in it. Rose, may my faith and my soul be your two mirrors. In one, you will see your forces rise even as we catch the first swell of a cornfield at dawn. In the other, they will appear to you enlarged, multiplied, transformed according to nature's laws, ripened by the dazzling suns of noon, utilised by the intellect, ready at last to nourish you and nourish others.
Then I met men, I met other women, without ever attaining the wish of my heart. They came and went. But, at each soul that I lost, I found my own a little more and I remember most gratefully those who were the most cruel. This man was ill and unconscious of his actions; that woman was wicked; that man too frivolous; and another was a liar....
A liar! Even to-day, among those withered attachments which it pleases me to evoke, this last arrests my thoughts. For it was he—O singular contrast!—who, by his lying and duplicity, finished the work begun by the frank confidence of the child.
He was a liar.—Lying came to him so easily and naturally that he himself did not discriminate between what he had done and what he had said, between what he had actually experienced and the life which he pretended to have lived. His was a strange nature, which, in its eagerness to seem, forgot to be, a nature which, no longer distinguishing its frontiers from another's, lost in the end its own domain! A strange example of a strayed consciousness which, knowing no dividing line, attributed the acts of others to itself, spoke from their hearts and led theirexistences! He walked through life as one walks through a gallery whose walls are panelled with mirrors. He could not take a step without thinking that he was taking a thousand; and his vanity enhanced his least actions to such a degree that he actually believed himself the lover of a woman if he merely kissed her hand. It was thus that he boasted of making innumerable conquests at every hour of the day; and, to hear him talk, always tired and exhausted with love, he was a wreck at twenty, as the price of his inordinate exploits. Enamoured of his appearance, he saw nothing beyond the blankness of his little soul, or rather he made it the origin and the end of everything. Poor empty head! Wretched puppet, whose spring was the vanity which every passer-by could set in motion at will!
At a time when I myself did not know it, he had cleverly discovered what he must appear to be in order to arouse my enthusiasm, thus offering me the illusion of that faith which I aspire to awaken in you, my Roseline. Certainly, I owe him much! If an exact copy of a masterpiece can stir us as deeply as the original, the perfect impersonation of a fine intellect and a noble character can influence us very happily. How grateful I am to him for the troublewhich he took to give me a representation of virtues which he did not possess! They were painted on his soul in such relief, a relief which no reality gives, as I was afterwards to learn! The artificial lilies that decorate the chapel of the church hard by have an assurance that is absent from those which will soon fade over there, on the table. The false boasts an unvarying brilliance, an imposing emphasis which we never find in the true. And, no doubt, the qualities of which he vouchsafed me the sight would never have had such value in my eyes, if his fatuousness had not displayed them to my youthful admiration as one shows an object behind a magnifying-glass.
And what does it matter to me now that they were false, those gifts with which that soul seemed laden, if for a moment I pictured them as real! After the error was dispelled, the image which I once thought true remained in me. It had determined my tastes, fixed my opinions, set my mind at rest. Subsequently, I was to try and refashion the perfection of which I had beheld the mirage and, with still greater ardour, I was to pursue in others and conquer at last the reality of the once-known happiness which I thought that I had found in him.
We are none the poorer when a sad truth takes theplace of a beautiful dream. Knowledge has already filled the void which the lost illusion leaves behind it....
Let us seek then, Rose, let us seek even after we have found! Whether we be denied or heard, let us go on seeking! When we have lovingly performed the little things necessary that a flower may peradventure blossom, if it does not give us what we hoped for, does that prevent us from loving another exactly like it and from tending it with all the greater skill and care?
Our ignorance must be renewed in the presence of each life that touches ours. May the quest suffice to keep our faith eternally young, that wonderful, childlike faith which alone encourages, finds and sets free.
Chapter III
It was eleven o'clock when I went to meet Rose this morning; but the day was so dark and the fog so dense that the street-lamps were still lit.
It was gloomy and depressing. Wrapped in a long cloak and huddled in a corner of the cab, I shivered with cold and nervousness. I reread her telegram, dispatched from a railway-station before daybreak; and the pathos of those few words went to my heart:
"Am starting. Ran away yesterday."Your Baby."
"Am starting. Ran away yesterday.
"Your Baby."
Yesterday? Then she had spent the night at an inn? Why?
Alas, in such circumstances, do not we women usually behave like that, blindly and illogically? We prepare everything, we look out the trains and choose the most favourable time for flight; we announce theminute of our arrival to those expecting us; everything is ready, everything is decided.... Then the appointed day arrives. The hour strikes, the hour passes and we do not stir. We have been kept by some meaningless trifle which is magnified in our excitement and acquires an importance which it never had before: a word, a look from those whom we are going to desert. We forgive them when we are on the point of leaving them for ever. We invest them with a little of our own gentleness and kindness. Even as the colour of things blurs and fades when our eyes are dim with tears, so the hardest people do not appear so to the anxious heart of a woman. And pity gains the upper hand, time slips by and we put off to the morrow and, on the morrow, we put off again....
Then, one day, we depart all at once, for no definite reason, depart empty-handed, with an impassive face and without looking round. We perform the most energetic action almost without knowing it, for even our will shirks the too-heavy task. It dreads the preparations, it would like to be able to tell us feebly that nothing is done, that nothing is decided, that we can still go back to the past; and this is enough to hurry our steps towards the future. Wego, we walk on and on, we walk till we are tired. Then does it not seem as if each minute shifted the problem of our destiny a little more? And in a few hours would it not need more courage to return than to continue our road?
But it is nearly always so, by little unforeseen acts, by fear as much as by weakness, that we perform the inaugural act of our enfranchisement. We flee bewildered, like poor beasts that have broken loose; and the first movements of our liberty echo in our hearts with a melancholy sound of dangling chains.
My dear Rose!... As I go through the damp, dark station, I am already picturing her fright....
The train arrives, full of passengers, who hurry towards the exit in surging black masses. How shall I recognise her in this crowd, in the fog? I do not know what she will look like. A lady? A servant? A servant, I expect, because she will have had nothing ready. I hope so; and I look out eagerly for a black knitted hood on a head of golden hair. I am afraid lest she should not see me in her excitement and nervousness. The flood of passengersseparates on either side of the ticket-collector; and I keep close to him, standing desperately on tip-toe....
The crowd has passed and I have not caught sight of her. There are still a few people coming from the far end of the train; it is so dark that I can hardly see.... There is a tall figure all over feathers in the distance, but it cannot be ... And yet ... yes, yes, it is she! Gracious goodness, what a sight!... I feel that it would be better to laugh, but I can't; and I am furious with myself for keeping a grave face. It is Rose! Rose dressed like a Sainte-Colombe lady!
She comes along, calmly, smiling and self-possessed; and I am now able to distinguish the painful hues of that appalling garb: the little red-velvet hat, studded with glass stones of every imaginable colour and trimmed with green feathers of the most aggressive shade and style; the serge skirt, too short in front; the black jacket, quite simple, it is true, but so badly cut that it murders the figure of the lovely girl! She has a large basket, carefully corded, on her arm. I really suffer tortures while she kisses me effusively and says, gaily:
"You are looking very well, dearest; but you'reupset: what's the matter?" And, before I have time to answer, she adds in a triumphant tone, "I have a great surprise for you. Look in the basket, look!"
I need not trouble: at that moment there comes from the basket a pandemonium of terrified quacks and flapping wings.
"Yes," Rose continues, laughing merrily, "I stole the old woman's best two ducks and that's why I'm here.... But first I must tell you, I have been looking after them for a month, fattening them for your benefit; I would not go before they were just right. And what do you think? All of a sudden, she said, at dinner, that she was going to market to-day to sell them! It gave me an awful turn. As soon as I could leave the kitchen, I flew to the poultry-yard and I took the train to —— and slept there. Luckily, I had already sent my trunk to an hotel."
I looked at Rose in stupefaction:
"Your trunk?"
She went on, with her eyes full of cunning:
"Oh, your baby was rather clever!... As the old woman never paid me during the whole of the four years, I worked out what a farm-servant gets a year and I decided that I was justified in openingan account in her name with one of our customers who keeps a big drapery-store. And so I now have a trunk and a complete outfit, as well as these pretty things which I have on. It was only fair, wasn't it?"
I turned away my head without a word. It was certainly quite fair; but I felt my cheeks flushing scarlet.
Rose gave a yawn which ended in a groan:
"I'm starving. Suppose we had some lunch; we could come back for the trunk afterwards."
I eagerly agreed and hurried her to the exit. From the top of the stairs, I saw that the fog had lifted at last; the gas-lamps had been put out and the street lay before us in a melancholy, wan light. The pavements were covered with mud and the houses showed yellow and smoke-grimed. Then I looked at Rose and my torture suddenly became more than I could bear. I placed her in front of me and feverishly unbuttoned the clumsy jacket, which was too tight at the neck, too narrow across the shoulders and gave her no waist at all. It fell away on either side; her bust showed full and uncompressed in a light-coloured blouse; and I breathed more freely.
"Now, take off your hat."
She slowly obeyed; and the gloomy station and the wretched, grimy day were suddenly illuminated. Oh, those lovely fair curls, which had been crushed and pushed away under the hideous hat with its too narrow brim, what bliss it was to see them again full of life and laughter! There they were in their graceful, natural clusters, some drooping over her forehead, some brushing her cheeks, others kissing her neck and ears! How pretty she was! I recognised my Rose at last in her soft, golden, shimmering, impalpable, incredible tresses. I passed my fingers lightly over that silk for love's loom, while my eyes feasted on its delicate colour. No, indeed, nothing was lost. Rose was beautiful, more beautiful than ever; and the glad words came crowding to my lips. I forgave her and was angry with myself for my coldness.
Poor child, she did not know! She had thought, no doubt, that, to go to Paris, she must absolutely have a hat; and how was she to choose one in a village-shop? And I told her over and over again how fond I was of her.
Rose, a little uncomfortable, with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes, stood awkwardly turning the unfortunateobject in her hands. I looked round: a few people, intent on their business, were hurrying this way and that; there was no one on the staircase. Then, bursting with laughter, I dashed the hat to the floor and, with the tip of my shoe, precipitated it into space....
"Come over to the other side," I said to Rose. "Quick!... Suppose they brought it back!"
Good-natured as always and pleased at my amusement, she laughed because I laughed; and, while we ran to the other exit, the masterpiece of Sainte-Colombe millinery rolled and rolled and hopped from stair to stair.
The bustle of the restaurant and the noise of the street outside affected me tremendously. I was nervous and excited, with a wild desire to laugh at everything and nothing. I asked Rose all sorts of questions; and, whenever any one passed:
"Look!" I said. "Do look!... You're not looking!... There, that's a pretty dress, a regular Parisienne!... And, over there, by the door: don't you see that queer woman?"
The girl looked and then turned to me and, before I could prevent her, bent down and kissed my hand. I wanted to say:
"You mustn't do that, Rose!"
But it was the first charming impulse she had shown: how could I scold her? Oh, what a miserable thing our education is; and how often should I not find myself in some ridiculous dilemma!
Besides, I wished this first day of hers to be all happiness and expectation! And, while we gaily discussed plans for the future, I tried to guess what she must be feeling, I scrutinised her movements, I interpreted her words. But it appeared too soon yet; and it was I, alas, I who had the best part of her happiness! My eyes fell on her chapped and swollen hands. She noticed it and murmured, sadly:
"It's the beetroots. You understand, it's the hard season now."
"But the beetroot-days are past, my Roseline! The bad seasons are over, over for good, over for good and all!"
And I laid stress on every syllable; and, though I was whispering in her ear, I heard the words "for good and all" bursting from my lips like a triumphant shout.
She smiled and went on eating, doing her best to eat nicely, with her elbows close to her sides and her hands by her plate. Heaven above, did she understand what I said?
There are some people who seem detached from themselves. They do something; and the whole flood of their life does not surge into the action! They draw near to the object of their love; and their whole soul does not fill their eyes! Their soul is not on their lips, to breathe love; it is not at their finger-tips, to seize upon happiness; it is not there to watch life, to attract all that passes, eagerly, greedily and rapturously! Then where is it and what is it doing outside this dear, delightful earth?...
And yet woman, the creature who learns through love the admirable gift of life, knows better than man how to throw the whole of herself into fleeting moments. She lives nearer to the edge of her actions. Her mind, which rarely attaches itself to abstract things, seems to float around her in search of every sensation. Woman passes and has seen everything;she remembers and she quivers as though the caressing touch were still upon her. Her light and charming soul drinks eternity straight out of the present; and through a man's kisses she has known the art of absolute oblivion.
I am afraid that Rose is not much of a woman. Ah, were I in her place, I should be wild with excitement, out of my mind with joy, as though I were hearing my own name spoken for the first time!
After lunch, our shopping was a difficult matter. Rose, with her uncommon figure, could hardly find anything ready-made to suit her. I had to hunt about and to contrive with thought, for I would not wait a single day. I was careful to select the quietest and most usual things for her, so as to conceal her rusticity as far as possible. The neat dark-velvet toque could have its position altered on her head without much harm. The black veil would tone down the vividness of a complexion too long exposed to the open air; and its fine plain net would set off the admirable regularity of her features. Lastly, the deep leather belt to her tailor-made frockand the well-starched collar and cuffs would more or less hide the effort which it cost her to hold herself upright.
Two hours later, I introduced Rose to her new home. We climbed a dark, interminable staircase. I held a flickering candle in my hand; and, all out of breath, I explained to her the advantages of this boarding-house, a quiet place where her privacy would not be invaded and where she could make useful acquaintances if she wished....
At last, we reached the fifth floor. The daylight had faded. A sea of roofs was beneath us; and, through the panes above our heads, a great red sky cast lurid gleams over our faces and hands. The girl gave a start of pleasure as she entered her room. It was peaceful and white; but the flaming fire and sky at that moment turned it quite rosy, smiling and aglow. From the rather high window we could see nothing but space. I had placed a writing-table underneath it, with some books and a few flowers in a dainty crystal bowl. On the walls, several photographs of Italian masterpieces disguised the uglinessof the typical boarding-house paper. The chimney-mantel was bare and the furniture very simple.
We were both happy, both talking at once, Rose exclaiming:
"It's really too lovely, too beautiful!"
And I was saying:
"I should have liked to have a room for you arranged after my own taste, but I had to keep within bounds. So I brought a few little things, as you see, and bundled the ugly pictures, the tin clock and the plush flowers into the cupboards. But come and see the best part of it."
I threw open the window; and, leaning out, we beheld a great expanse beyond the enormous gutter that edged the roof. Unfortunately, the last glow of the sunset was swiftly dying away in the mist rising from the Seine. Opposite us, on the other bank, the Louvre became a heavy, shapeless mass; on the right, Notre-Dame was nothing but a shadowy spectre; here and there, in a chance, lingering gleam, we could just distinguish a steeple, a turret, a house standing out above the rest.
"We came in too late, Rose; we can see nothing; but how wonderful it all is! The sound of the quays and bridges hardly reaches us, the city might beveiled; at this height, its activity is like a dream and I seem to be living over again those quiet moments which we used to spend side by side at Sainte-Colombe. Are you happy?"
Smiling and with her eyes still fixed on the sky, she says:
"Yes."
"Perfectly?"
"Yes."
"You are not afraid of the future?"
"Not for my sake, but I am for yours."
I question her with my eyes; and she adds:
"I am afraid that I shall never be what you want."
I put my hand on her shoulder and said:
"You will be what you are to be; and that is the main thing. It seems to me at this moment that the greatest ideas are nothing, that the fairest dreams are childish compared with the simple reality of a human being's first taste of happiness. You were hidden; and I bring you to the light. You were a prisoner; and I set you free. I see nothing to fetter you; and that is all I ask. The life of a beautiful woman should be like a star whose every beam is the source of a possible joy.... I am glad, for this is the day of your first deliverance."
Rose murmured:
"What will the second be, then?"
I hesitated for a moment. Then I replied:
"It is difficult to say, dear; you will come to know gradually. I might answer, that of your mental or moral life; but I do not wish to lay down any rule. You are about to start on life's journey; I do not wish to trace your road with words. How much more precious your smallest actions are to me!"
I closed the window and went and sat in a chair by the fire-place. Rose, standing with uplifted arms in front of the glass, took off her hat and veil, then undid her mantle and her scarf and put everything carefully away in the wardrobe. My eyes followed her quiet movements and my heart rested on each of them. I spoke her name and she came and sat at my feet, against my knees, with her soft, fair head waiting for my caress.
It was now night; the fire lit our faces, but the room was dark wherever the flames did not cast their gleams. A chrysanthemum on a longer stalk than the others bent its petals into the light. Opposite the fire-place, within the shade of the bed-curtains, stood a white figure from the Venice Accademia, an allegory representingTruth. We could not see themirror which she holds nor the details that surround her. The pedestal that raises her above mankind was also invisible; only the nude body of the woman invited and retained the light.
I called Rose's attention to her:
"Look, she is more interesting like that. In the doubt which the shadow casts around her, I see in her a more human and a truer truth."
After a moment's contemplation, Rose said, gravely:
"I will never hide one of my thoughts from you."
Her statement makes me smile; but why disappoint her? She did not yet know that those who are most sincere find it more difficult than the others to say what they think. Words, in their souls, are like climbing plants which, sown by chance in the middle of a roadway, waver and grope, send out tendrils here and there in despair and end by entangling themselves with one another. Whereas most people, just as we provide supports for flowers, bestow certainties and truths upon their words to which they cling, the sincere refuse to yield to any such illusions. They hesitate, stammer and contradict themselves without ceasing....
I drew her head down on my knees; and, softly, in little sentences interrupted by long pauses, we spoke of the new life that was opening before her. Soon she said nothing more. The fire went out, the room became dark and a clock outside struck six. I whispered:
"I am going, darling...."
She did not move and I saw that she was asleep. Then I gently released myself, put a pillow under her head and a wrap over her shoulders and was almost at the door, when suddenly I pictured her awakening. It would not do for her to open her eyes in the dark, to feel lost and alone in an unknown house. I lit the lamp, drew the blinds and made up the fire.
Roseline was sleeping soundly. Her breathing was hardly perceptible. At times, a deep sigh sent a quiver through her placid beauty, even as a keener breath of air ripples the surface of a pool.
What would she do if she should soon awake?... I looked around. Everything was peaceful and smiling; the flowers looked fresh and radiant in thelight; the books on the table seemed to be waiting.... I searched among them for some page to charm her imagination and guide her first dreams along pleasant paths....
Chapter IV
Rose is sitting by the fire with her bare feet in slippers and a dressing-wrap flung loosely round her.
"Are you ill?"
"No," she says, smiling.
And her cool hands, pressing mine, and her gay kisses on my cheeks are no less reassuring than the actual reply.
"But why are you not dressed?"
"I don't know; time passed and I let them bring my lunch up to me."
I look round the darkened bedroom. Through the blind which I lowered yesterday, the light enters timidly, in a thousand broken little shafts; on the table, the books still lie as I placed them; on the chimney-shelf, the flowers, withered by the heat of the fire, are fading and drooping.
All these things which had been left untouched were evidence of a lethargy that hurt me. All the emotionswhich I had been picturing Rose as experiencing since the day before had not so much as brushed against her. One by one, they dropped back sadly upon my heart.
I rose, moved the flowers, opened the window; and the bright sunshine restored my confidence.
"Come, darling, dress and let's go out."
A thousand questions come crowding to my lips while I help her do her hair:
"Do they look after you well? Do you feel very lonely? What are the other boarders like? Are any of them interesting?"
Her answers, sensible and placid as usual, did not tell me much, except that the food was good, that she had slept well and that she was very comfortable.
I resolved to wait a few days before asking her any more.
Roseline throws off her wrap and begins dressing. The water trickles from the sponge which she squeezes over her shoulders, runs down, lingers here and there and disappears along the flowing linesof her body, which, in the broad daylight, looks as though it were flooded with diamonds. A cool fragrance mingles with the scent of the roses. The room is filled with beauty.
Chapter V
It snowed last night for the first time; then it froze; and the trees in the Tuileries are now showing the white lines of their branches against a dreary sky. The daylight seems all the duller by comparison with the glitter of the snow-covered ground.... I slowly follow the little black path made by the sweepers; I receive an impression of solitude; the streets are very still; it is as though sick people lay behind the closed windows; and the voices of the children playing as I pass seem to come to me through invisible curtains.
Rose is walking beside me. A keen wind plasters our dresses against us and raises them behind into dark, waving banners. The icy air whitens the fine pattern of our veils against our mouth.
"Where are we going?" asks Rose.
I hesitate a little before replying:
"We are going to the Louvre."
And to put her at her ease and also to guardagainst a probable disappointment, I hasten to add:
"It is a picture-book which we will look at together. You will turn first to what is bright and attractive to the eye; later on, you will perceive the shades in the colour, the lines in the form and the expression in the subject. And, if at first our admiration is given to what is poor and unworthy, what does it matter, so long as it is aroused at all?"
We had reached the foot of the stairs that lead to theVictory of Samothrace. After staring at it for a minute, Rose remarked, in a voice heavy with indifference:
"It's beautiful, very beautiful."
I felt that she had no other object than that of pleasing me; but her natural honesty soon prevailed when I asked her what she admired; and she answered, simply:
"I don't know."
It is in this way, by never utterly and altogether disappointing me, that she keeps her hold on me. She sees and feels nothing of what we call beautiful;on the other hand, she is cheerfully oblivious to the necessity of assuming what she does not feel; she has no idea of posing either to herself or to others; and the strange coldness of her soul makes my affection all the warmer. By not trying to appear what she is not, she constantly keeps alive in me the illusion of what she may be or of what she will become.
We walked quickly through a number of rooms and sat down in a quiet corner. I was already under the spell of that deep, reposeful life which emanates from some of the Primitives; but Roseline, who had stopped on the way in order to have a better view of various ugly things, was talking and laughing loudly.
This annoyed me; and I was on the point of telling her so. However, I restrained myself: I should have felt ashamed to be angry with her. Was she not gay and lively, as I had wished to see her? What right have we to let ourselves be swayed by the vagaries of our instinct and expect our companion to feel the same obligation of silence or speech at any given moment? Our emotion should strike chords so strong and true that no minor dissonances of varying temperaments can make them ring false.
Rose chattered away for a long time, speaking all in the same breath of her convent days, of her terrible godmother, of the scandal which her sudden disappearance must be creating in the village. Then she stopped; and I felt her eyes resting vacantly by turns upon myself and upon the square in the ceiling which at that moment framed a patch of grey sky studded with whirling snow-flakes. At last, she raised her veil with an indolent movement, put her hand on my shoulder and, with a long yawn that revealed all the pearly freshness of her mouth, asked:
"But whatdoyou see in it?"
I slipped my arm under hers and led her away through the deserted rooms. I ought to have spoken. But how empty are our most pregnant words, when we try to express one iota of our admiration!
"Why should you mind what I see, my Roseline? It is you and you alone who can discover what you like and what interests you."
We were passing in front of Titian'sLaura de' Dianti. I was struck with the relationship that existed between her and my companion. Although Rose was different in colouring, fairer, with lighter eyes, she had the same purity of feature, the thin, straight nose, the very small mouth and, above all, the samevague look that lends itself to the most diverse interpretations. She squeezed my arm:
"Speak to me, speak to me!"
I glanced at her. Must it always be so, would she never feel anything except when my own emotion found utterance? Impressions reached her soul only after filtering through mine. Love, I thought to myself, love alone would perhaps one day set free all the raptures now jealously hidden in those too-chaste nerves. And, in spite of myself, I exclaimed:
"Don't you think that admiration in a woman is only another form of love?"
"But when she is no longer young?" Rose retorted, with a laugh.
"When she is no longer young, nature doubtless suggests other means of enthusiasm. Her heart is no longer a bond of union between her and things. Then her calmer eyes are perhaps able to look at beauty itself, without having all the joys of a woman's love-filled life to kindle their fires."
The Rubens pictures were around us, in all their brilliancy and in all their glory, uttering cries of passion and luxury with voices of flesh and blood and youth. They were another proof of what I had just said; and I confessed to my companion:
"It is not so long ago, Rose, that I used to pass unmoved through this dazzling room where the Rubens flourish in their luscious beauty. I used to look at them: now, I see them; I used to brush by them: now, I grasp them. I enter into all this riot of happiness around us, which is a thousand miles away from you, Rose; and it adds to my own joy in life...."
"But then what has come to you?" exclaimed the girl.
I could not help smiling, for, when I tried to explain myself, it seemed to me that, in the depths of my heart, I was playing with words:
"All that hurt me yesterday has become a source of admiration to me to-day. Excess appears riches and plenty, tumult becomes orderly; and I seem to see in these works the glorification of all that we are bound to hold supreme in life: health, beauty, strength, love. Is not the exaggerated splendour of these pictures a triumphant challenge, the expression of a magnificent principle?"
We stood silent for a moment; then I added:
"We never actually realise all that we have in our minds; but one would think that this man's life and work reached the farthest bounds of his visions.Or else we are unable even to catch a glimpse of what he saw."
And, musing upon that mystery, our frail feminine imagination seemed to us like a landscape fading into the mist: when the day is clear, we can distinguish the chain of blue mountains whose summits touch the sky, but our imagination, if it would not be lost in the haze, must keep to the foreground, in the avenues laid out by man.
I resumed:
"We are very far, Rose, from the parsimony of the Primitives, each of whose works contains almost a human life. In their room and in this, you will find all the contradictory and complementary instruction which one would like to give you. Over there, sobriety, patience, assiduous effort, absolute conscientiousness in the smallest detail; life bowed in all humility, but yet steadfast and fervent; imagination and beauty that do not strive to shine: if you want a proof, look at the great number that remained anonymous! Here, on the contrary, prodigality, exultant love, blood coursing triumphantly through conquered veins. Rubens is the apostle of wholehearted happiness. The biggest things seem easy when you are in his presence. If ever you feel tiredand ready to be discouraged, you should come and look at him. Oh, I wonder, yes, I wonder to what, to whom I owe this new enthusiasm? What have I seen, what have I learnt? Through what chance acquaintance, what casual word, what gesture or action, doubtless far removed from Rubens and his works, did I suddenly enter into that wonderful kingdom?"
And, in fact, that is how it had happened. An unknown treasure falls into the cup of emotion; and the level is raised. Oh, to feel the long-slumbering sensation rise within one's self; to see that which was obscure to us yesterday become crystal-clear to-day; to love more passionately, to understand a little better, to know a little more: that is, to us women, the real progress, the only progress which we must desire and seek after! But how can I hope that Rose will progress if she never feels?
In vain I roamed about with her for an hour, not among the pictures, whose value she could not yet appreciate, but among the dreams that were born of them, among the most moving and delectable visions; vain my emotion, vain my rapture: no answeringspark lit her indifferent eyes. True, there was no question of failure or success; I was putting nothing to the test: that would have been insanity. But why this weight of oppression on my spirits? I could not get rid of disturbing memories: memories of childish raptures finding utterance by chance; memories of those first loves which fasten upon anything in their haste to live; memories of virgin hearts nurtured on dreams!
O enthusiasm, admiration, love, if you were not at first wanderers, neither seeking nor choosing, if you did not blaze fiercely and foolishly like a flame burning in the noon-day sun, will you ever be able to light the darkness with all the splendours that are awaiting your spark in order to burst into life?
O sweet eyes of my Roseline, sweet eyes that shine under your soft, fair lashes like two opals set in pure gold, will you close for all time without having gazed for a moment upon the wonders of the earth, upon the real sky of our human life? Is it true that your beams extinguish life and beauty wherever they rest?