"ANNE DE SÉZERY."
Despite her despair and her spirit of sacrifice, this letter still implied that apologetic judgment of which we can so seldom divest our actions, even our noblest and most unselfish actions. Anne had not reached that thought of flight of her own volition. The intervention of another had pointed out that sorrowful course to her. But what is a thought in comparison with its realization? She had also omitted to mention that the illness to which she alluded had brought with it a gloomy mood, very unfavorable to love, and that of Albert's affection could have been touched by it, it would have required all the susceptibility of a passion lacking in trust to recognize it through unceasing devotion. No realization is more heart-rending than that of kindness, when we are expecting another sentiment.
Elizabeth had no doubts as to what she had just read. The sincerity of the accent, and that generosity went to her heart, even though the tone of protection wounded her. She was trembling from head to foot. Forgetting her abhorrence of all contact with the woman who had stolen her husband from her, she wished to reread Mlle. de Sézery's letter. In place of her old rebellion, the second reading made her so jealous that her nerves were shaken—not because of that physical jealousy which is less tyrannical in a woman than in a man, and which, moreover, she had understood so late, but rather a kind of mystic envy, of holy anger against that rival who had claimed to surpass her in loving: a fever of sacrifice.
Anne's disappearance was not the end. Free, Albert could, must rebuild his home and come back. She would consent to forgive him; yes, she would forgive him unreservedly. But what was this pardon in comparison with the other's sacrifice? Mme. Derize had told her one day that she was going to look for her son. Well, she would not be behind her in generosity. She would not wait till Albert returned, she would not speak of forgiveness. She would go herself and take her place again. And what humiliation to go and ask for that place still warm with love for another woman! Could she really submit to it? One needs more courage for ordinary circumstances of life in common, than for great departures and heroic actions. Well, she would have that courage. No sacrifice would be comparable to hers.
A mistress can prove her love by turning willingly from a life which she is hindering, and whose happiness no longer depends upon her. She, the wife, must show hers by her firm adherence to an attachment which is indissoluble. So Elizabeth, wounded and exalted, roused herself to vitalize her inactivity.
She wisely delayed her departure for three weeks. Should not the days fall like spadefuls of earth upon a coffin, after a separation which had been cruel? Philippe Lagier, whose rôle she did not suspect, had come to tell her of Albert's useless voyage to London.
"It will not be long before he returns," he assured her in a tone of mingled bitterness and irony. "Leave him the customary time for half-mourning."
But she did not confide any of her plans to him. As the days passed, she began to fear, and her hesitation took hold of her again. Was it not better to wait? Could Anne de Sézery be so quickly forgotten? The memory of Mme. Derize, the future of her children, an overwhelming desire for sacrifice and her love, drove her on, impelled her to go. Yes, she would spare her husband the first step, she would go to find him, she would bring him back. That magnanimous decision affected her like a fever, and so completely filled her mind, that she did not think of conjecturing the welcome she would receive.
At the end of May, fearing some new journey of Albert's, or the negative influence of solitude, she determined to go. Old Fanchette, sharing the secret, looked with terror at the open trunk.
"Paris! Paris!" she muttered, as if she were naming some beast of the Apocalypse.
"Sh!" said Elizabeth, not having told Marie Louise and Philippe, who chattered too much about the object of the journey, on which she was taking them as useful allies. The two were just disputing about the matter.
"I tell you we are going to Saint-Martin."
"Certainly not. We are going by train," stated the more competent little girl.
And their mother, as she listened, was laying her finest black dress in the top tray, arched so as not to crush it.
Once in the compartment, a second class carriage, the little ones could not restrain their joy.
"It is Paris!" cried the big boy, as if he had solved a delicate problem. And the magic syllables fell from his little round mouth like a golden ball.
Marie Louise looked attentively at her mother, and then came and laid her face against hers. Their cheeks were of the same delicacy, and their fair hair mingled.
"Shall we see papa?" asked the child.
"Yes."
"And we shall stay with him?"
"No, darling. We shall take him away."
"Ah, all the better."
And the little one added:
"Jeanne and Renée de Crozet will not be able to make fun of us at school now."
"Make fun of you?"
"Yes, because we had no papa."
Elizabeth passed her hand through the childish curls.
"Be calm. They won't make fun of you when he is there."
She smiled. She was sure of her victory. The fact of being active, the movement of the train as it proceeded, gave her a foretaste of heroism like that which a sheltered troop feels in war, before passing through the firing-line.
In Paris she settled with her children in a boarding-house on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, almost opposite Saint Germain des Prés.
"And the Luxembourg garden?" asked Marie Louise, who, after two years, still remembered her walks.
Trembling, Elizabeth took the children there. He crossed it every day, no doubt, and they might meet him there. She hastened to return to the hotel. The day after her arrival she dictated this letter to her daughter:
"My dear Papa:
"I am in Paris with mamma, and Philippe too. We are here to see a doctor. But you will come to see us. We must go away soon, so you must hurry.
"I send you kisses. Your daughter,
"MARIE LOUISE."
The excuse about the doctor had not been invented. The young woman had wished to take advantage of her trip to consult a specialist about the nervous temperament of the little girl, who was strong, but too impressionable, perhaps because she had understood her mother's sorrow, and the peculiarity of her childish life. The doctor had comforted her, advising the fresh air of the country and very little study. Then he turned abruptly to her:
"But you yourself, Madame? Take care; you must take care of yourself."
"Oh, I ..." Elizabeth said indifferently.
"Yes, you. Let me examine you."
After the examination he said:
"Nothing wrong with the heart. But no regularity in the pulse. One minute it is flying along, and the next it stops, and one no longer feels it. You have changed very much. I know, I know. The cure? It does not depend upon me."
"On me, then?"
The old man, who knew something about the Derize separation, concluded with these words.
"Hurry up and be happy...."
Albert received his daughter's letter in the Rue Bara. He had not changed his apartment. Before Anne's mysterious flight he went to dine every evening at Rue Cassini, and every morning she came to lunch with him. He often took her to the restaurants on the Boulevard Montparnasse, which look like tea gardens in the suburbs, and are much frequented by artists. When spring came, he rented at Ville d'Avray on the Sèvres, a little villa hidden among the trees and covered with clematis, and there their intimacy was more complete. It was when he came in on the evening of the 6th of May to see about their future establishment, that he found this brief farewell left with the porter of the Rue Cassini.
"My life belonged to you as long as it could give you happiness. Now that it can no longer do so, and that I am quite sure of it, forgive my taking my liberty once more. Good-by forever.
"ANNE."
He was prostrated by this departure. The silent discords which since his mother's death had slipped between them, certain disillusioned looks which he had noticed in the drooping corners of the lips and the long narrow eyes of his lost love, without attaching much importance to them, and that want of confidence which she had always expressed regarding happiness, even at the time of their most ardent passion, warranted him in imagining the worst catastrophes. He was able to reach the Gare du Nord in time to jump on an evening train. The next morning—and what a rough crossing he had—he arrived at Charing Cross and drove immediately to Bladen Lodge, Miss Pearson's home. If Anne were alive, she must have taken refuge there. In her hours of sadness, she was always homesick for English life. When he ran up the doorstep, he thought he could divine her presence from the other side of the walls. At the door, he parleyed in very bad English. Miss Pearson was not up at that time, had given no orders. He presented his card, and waited for a long time in a drawing-room, whose windows looked out on a miniature park. He seemed able to recall there the presence of his Anne to whom Bladen Lodge was home.
"She is here, I shall see her," he repeated with a beating heart.
At last Miss Pearson came to join him. After a few polite remarks and explanations, he at once asked for Mlle. de Sézery, as if he had a right to her and all hypocrisy was out of place, under the circumstances.
"She is not here," said Miss Pearson, whose frank determined face was severely set this morning.
"I beg of you, Madame, to tell me where I can find her."
"But I do not know."
"You do not know? But you have seen her.... Where is she hidden? I have the right to know. You have not seen her? ... Well ... But you understand that I have everything to fear."
Miss Pearson realized the anguish which the man was suffering, and putting aside her reserve, she betrayed as much of her secret as she could:
"You need have no fear for her life, Monsieur. Now it is useless to ask me any more. I shall not answer you."
He tried, however, eloquently, passionately, despairingly, but obtained no information. The momentary pity of Miss Pearson had not affected her loyalty. He left without any further information. But what he had heard agreed with his expectations. Anne had fled from France. Anne was in England—perhaps at Bladen Lodge, but he could not be sure. Every day he used his intelligence and his strength, which was exhausting itself in the unprofitable rôle of detective; he had the surroundings of Bolton Gardens watched; visited M. Portal, who knew nothing, asked about Lord Howard, who was shooting on his estate in Scotland: in his distress, he imagined that Mlle. de Sézery, in leaving him thus, and not revealing her whereabouts, must have tired of her irregular living, meant to take up her life alone and live it according to her own fancies. Broken down by fatigue, he rested only a few hours in the evening, having gained nothing from his search. The next day he took it up again, assisted by a French detective, and setting out in another direction, he took the train for Liverpool. He looked on the registers at the steamship offices, through the lists of passengers going to America or India, but Anne's name was not to be found among them. She had been able to disguise herself. He questioned the clerks. How could they recall a face, a woman's figure in such a crowd? However, there was a Miss Lewisham with auburn hair. And golden eyes? They did not know at the offices whether or not she had golden eyes. He went back by way of Southampton, began the same questioning with as little success. Anne was lost to him.
By a phenomenon, usual in the history of passions, he restored to the absent one all the attributes which, little by little he had taken from her. Their last months together had not been pleasant. Anne had been tired and generally sad after her illness. She reproached herself everlastingly about her youth and her complexion, which were fading. He patiently bore these complaints, which were the result of an excess of sensitiveness and of that melancholy natural to those who, too early in life and without preparation, have endured the miseries and humiliations of fate. But no man who is at work can entirely suppress the boredom he meets with in his home, nor the displeasure he experiences in listening to lamentations. Their intellectual life alone retained the power of a mutual bond. A chapter of the "History of the Peasant," the biography of some great man, provided material for endless discussions. Still he did not relinquish any of his ideas concerning the social order, nor did he know how to convince her of his view-point. Pure lines of classic art, the positive force of experience attracted him, when, on the contrary, she was enthusiastic about elaborate forms, and avoided realities for all Utopias. At intervals, wearied by their useless clash of opinion, they appealed to each other through their former love, and grew tender, not daring to admit to themselves that it was a compromise. And too often Albert absently went off in a direction where she could not follow him, and which she very well knew. Now, deserted by her, he did not wish to owe to her his freedom for which he had often longed, and he fancied himself linked to the memory of Anne.
The Avenue of the Observatory and the mysterious little Rue Cassini, the Allée de Mortemart at the Bois de Boulogne, the road which runs along the pond of La Reine Blanche to Chantilly, saw him pass on his pilgrimage. In these appropriate frames he could better call to mind the long golden eyes, the sorrowful mouth, and the step, light and weary at the same time. In place of spring which was blooming everywhere, he wished for autumn, whose pathetic grace had so often caressed them. Thus do our emotions crush us as they die away, and he mistook the sweetness of having loved for love itself.
Marie Louise's letter came as an untimely interruption in his sorrow. For six months or perhaps a year, his thoughts had never been so far from his own family, who had selected a very bad time to come to him. Why did they worry him in his solitude? He could not ignore this call, but it was against his will to reply to it. He asked for Mme. Derize at the boarding house. He was shown into the drawing-room on the ground floor, which overlooked Saint Germain-des-Prés, whose pointed steeple and old gray stones he could see between the branches of the chestnuts, already in full bloom. It was a peaceful retreat from the noise of Paris. Elizabeth sent her two children in as scouts. How could he receive them badly? Marie Louise told him about the visit to the doctor, and Philippe informed him of his interest in the botanical gardens. When, in her turn, his wife appeared, with a dismayed expression, he cruelly assumed his unresponsive manner.
"She knows I am deserted," he thought with irritation. "She is coming to seek me. She is triumphant."
In seeing him again she experienced neither exaltation nor the hope of departure. She was conscious of that impression of failure which all know, who, full of their subject and eager to express it, meet with indifference or hostility; their tongues are no longer persuasive, and their words grow weak. She explained this journey as well as she could.
Although he evidenced that he was distant and that this intrusion into his life displeased him, he was more struck than he showed with the change he saw in Elizabeth's features and the thinness of her body. One would have thought, with her flexibility and pallor which made her appear taller, that she was going to break at the slightest blow of fate. He was angry with her for that frailty which attracted him irresistibly, and at the same time alarmed him. In his masculine selfishness, still making her suffer, and already foreseeing her in his future, he preferred her to be faithful at a distance. After a few insignificant words, he could not refrain from asking her:
"Have you been ill?"
"Yes," interrupted Marie Louise. "The doctor scolded her."
"Not at all," answered the young woman. "I am quite well."
She sent her children to play at the other end of the room, but the little girl often came back to them.
With his bitter tone he put her at variance with herself:
"You refused to receive me last month in Grenoble and you come to surprise me here."
Confusedly, she murmured:
"The circumstances are not the same now."
"What circumstances?"
Having once declared herself, she was no longer shy or afraid. She did not hesitate to tell the truth. Since he was voluntarily silent, had she not to remind him of her rights as a woman, and the obligations which children impose? She thought she had opened his heart, but he had brutally shut it again. With what reserve and modesty she justified her step, and how well the exigency of the case helped her with a proposition that she had not prepared in advance, and which her mind hit upon with the first words.
"I have come because you are free now. Then, it seemed to me that we ought to be reconciled at least outwardly, for the sake of the future of Marie Louise and Philippe, and your future too. I am always your wife. I was a very poor one before. I understood that too late. But I have suffered much. I am not reproaching you with anything. Some day perhaps I shall forget, we shall forget.—I do not know.... Perhaps you might take your mother's flat in the Boulevard des Adieux for the summer. Saint Martin is not far from Grenoble. You could come up and see us sometimes in the daytime. Is it impossible?"
What dignity she preserved in this humiliation which she so little deserved, and which must have cost her so much. Albert had not been entirely able to lose her from his memory except in the first months of his infidelity, and since he had seen her again in circumstances in which one's sensibility becomes more deeply impregnated with impressions, the refined and purified charm which he had found in her recurred to him too often in comparison with Anne. But a man's heart has so many complicated recesses: free, he puts from him furiously the solution he ardently wished when he was not free. The romantic pride of his liaison and the thought of submitting for the second time to lessons of love, the antipathy which is inevitably aroused in us by the clear understanding of a reality which imposes itself like a fatal and logical order of things, made him retire with himself, and separated him from all outside influence.
"I am detained in Paris," he said after a short silence.
From the beginning of the scene she had had an intuition of her failure, but nevertheless, she suffered keenly.
"All the summer?" she implored to satisfy her conscience.
"I fear so."
He turned his head toward the children who were looking out at the neighboring chestnut blossoms, and he immediately digressed: they were, moreover, old recriminations, which he had often analyzed critically:
"Why did you prevent my helping you to educate the children? I could do only that for them and you have deprived me of it."
She replied gently:
"I had taken charge of it. You had deserted me. Have they been badly looked after?"
"I have not deserted you: you went away and you have taken our children. Do you think I did not love them as much as you? If I did not ask to take care of them, at least for a part of the year, it is only on your account, so as not to increase your loneliness and it is because my mother begged me to leave them to you. Did you not know about it? Did you not guess it? You thought that I had no interest in them? In refusing my support you gave me back my rights. Now I am free, now I mean to see them again, to share them."
He had grown more and more excited, rambling on because of the disorder of his heart and his brain.
"Marie Louise, Philippe!" called Elizabeth terrified.
The two children hurried to her; Marie Louise had already cried from afar:
"Naughty papa!"
The young wife pressed them both to her.
"For more than two years they have been mine—mine only. Dare to take them from me! I will not share them."
He stopped short, like a horse whose spirit is broken and whose gallop is suddenly brought to a standstill.
"I am unjust, Elizabeth!"
He spoke her name for the first time. In spite of her fear, she thrilled. He fell into an armchair beside a table on which he was leaning. His anger spent itself.
"Marie Louise is right. Nobody ever wished to give more happiness than I, and I spread suffering everywhere. It is a fatality. At least I am not happy. What shall I do? How should I know it? Elizabeth, it would be better that you should leave me, forget me, start your life anew."
She pushed the children towards him, but they obeyed her unwillingly. This confession of weakness was touching on the part of a man who had always extolled the importance of will power, the spirit of continuity and energy in both general and individual life. She felt it and wanted to hold out her arms to him; a secret instinct warned her not to show her tenderness yet.
"Oh," she murmured simply, "I am not one of those who begin life anew."
She had begun it over again, however, but in the same straight path. He pulled himself together with an effort to pay her homage.
"Yes, you have already; alone, you helped my mother; you have brought up our children alone. And I, I can do nothing for you but pity you."
This word separated them still farther.
"It is not your pity that I came to seek. Your mother formerly wished to take this journey. So I have done it."
Their good-bys were distressing. He kissed his children twice. Then he wished to offer his hand to Elizabeth, who had let hers fall down at her sides.
"Later" ... said he, "some day ... but it will be too late. Your patience has limits."
She thought: "Love has none," and said nothing, since he hesitated about her and his heart was elsewhere. Albert's last word was an "Au Revoir" which escaped him, and which she noticed. How long would she have to continue greater and greater self-sacrifice, and how long would she be kept on the brink of despair?
He had come in the morning, and in the evening she left.
In the afternoon various packages were sent to her address, containing all sorts of toys for Marie Louise and Philippe, as well as picture books chosen with care to give them some ideas of history and art. Albert had never forgotten to send New Year's presents to Grenoble, but this time he had stripped the shops and had applied himself to the task of conquering from a distance.
"It is not little Christmas," the little boy explained to his sister; "it is big Christmas."
And the little girl agreed that papa was kind. And for herself Elizabeth found in a jewel box, a ring set with a black pearl.
"Is it an engagement ring?" asked Marie Louise, who often talked about marriage to her dolls.
But Elizabeth did not answer.
M. Tabourin's office was in the throes a war. Since Vitrolle, the head clerk, and the inseparable Dauras and Lestaque, had refused to acknowledge that the junior clerk Malaunay had won the bet concerning the Derize trial, the latter played all sorts of tricks on his colleagues, who retorted by tyranny and intrigue. The lawyer had waited many months before taking the case off the cause-list, limiting himself to requesting its adjournment, until the president, out of patience at hearing it called so often, had it stricken from the calendar. At the beginning of September, the chief having taken a holiday, the hostilities were redoubled. A client, who came down from Saint-Martin d'Uriage, re-established peace in a very unexpected way. He was a neighbor of the Derize estate, from which he had slyly drained off the water for his own profit.
"He has threatened me with proceedings," he explained.
"It is his right," answered Vitrolle.
The astute Malaunay interrupted:
"Who threatened you?"
"M. Albert."
Thus he was called in the country where every house had known him as a child.
"He has come back then?"
"Why to be sure!"
The reconciliation was then an accepted fact, and Albert Derize had won his case in the most decided fashion. Thus supported by a witness, young Malaunay showed his comrades insolently that he would not be the victim of their unfairness. They all felt quite ashamed and Vitrolle was their interpreter in proposing an agreement.
"We shall go up to Saint Martin on Sunday and assure ourselves of the state of affairs. If we succeed in seeing the couple together, then very well, we shall pay the bet at once in the best hotel at Uriage. Is it agreed?"
"It is agreed," said the other three, satisfied with this solution.
On the following Sunday, their first surprise consisted in finding Albert Derize on the train. Although he was beginning to grow gray, they recognized him by his distant air, the poise of his head, and that grace of movement which preserved his youth. When the car stopped he got out quickly, avoided the Casino and quickly walked up the path, which surrounds the Castle of Saint-Ferriol. He had not even deigned to notice them.
"I certainly won this time," bridled Malaunay.
The annoyed opponents manifested incredulity, despite the evidence. They agreed to go up to Saint Martin in the afternoon in the heat, to install themselves in a meadow opposite the Derize house, and to observe. How could one fill up a Sunday in the country without some romance, and if one has an empty heart, there still remain the loves of other people to watch. The wait prolonged itself beyond all expectation. Coming from the inn, groups of peasants passed by, and one or the other, reeling, took some time to disappear.
"They have shut themselves in," stated the small clerk.
But towards six o'clock in the evening, as day was dying, Albert and Elizabeth appeared on the road, preceded by Marie Louise, who was carrying heather, and Philippe, riding astride on a stick. All denial became impossible in the face of this family picture.
"It is all right," declared Vitrolle.
And the four clerks came down across the fields to Uriage. At the Hotel du Parc, Malaunay, who had spent some time selecting his menu, ordered a sumptuous repast, for which his colleagues had to pay one-third each. Towards ten o'clock, as they were going back to Grenoble on the last car, somewhat excited by too many drinks, to their astonishment, they found themselves face to face with Albert Derize.
"It was only a visit after all," stated Lestaque and Dauras, who regretted their money.
After his wife's trip, Albert had spent three months in Paris—the summer months—in almost complete solitude. The information he had gathered about Anne de Sézery's flight all tended toward Bladen Lodge. Without his knowledge she had been able to give up her flat, to dispose of her furniture, to accomplish all the complicated preparations for departure, and for a final departure at that: how he must have pained her by his incomplete love! The agency with which she had deposited her money had received orders to transfer it to London to Miss Pearson's address, and her mail as well. Albert crossed the Channel a second time to beg Miss Pearson for information. She would not consent to give him any definite news. Anne was not in London, he would never see her again, and that was all. She advised him to be calm, to forget and to be silent; she assured him it would be best so.
Albert came back to Paris. Must he not accept reality? Alone, he would take up the burden of days, with application. He threw himself into some new work with all his heart. But in the evening, exhausted, he was so depressed that he sometimes wished it were all over.
No doubt, he would never hear from Anne again. She was alive, she could live far from him and still overpower him with that abnormal, cruel uncertainty, with which he struggled as with a nightmare. But why was Elizabeth also so silent? She had contributed to this flight, she who had not been willing to leave them to their passion, but had taken time and memories for her allies. Knowing him to be free, she had come at a most untimely occasion to remind him of his duty. If he had refused to accompany her, was that a reason for him to give up their children again? He had the right to be told of their health, of their education, of their holidays. In spite of himself, in this scorching, deserted Paris, his thoughts turned to Elizabeth, and he became set on demanding his rights, and reached the conclusion that he must not allow them to be disregarded. Nothing now prevented his claiming his children for several months of the year. He would go to Grenoble, and even to Saint Martin to find them. In this way he would be able to see Elizabeth, whom he still thought only of harassing. But to annoy her was precisely the only way of seeing her again, of seeing once more her touching eyes, her frightened face, her tense body, fragile and thin, when he had known her to be only indifferent and unresponsive. In certain more lucid hours, he reproached himself for his concern about her, as for a new impossible infidelity. But why did she not write? Had she then tired of her rôle of faithfulness?
At the end of August, exhausted by an uneasiness of mind which was unbearable to a man of decided character, he resolved to go to Dauphiné, to arrange amicably the question of the care of the children. Certain suggestions, at first put aside, later exert their influence, make their impression little by little. Elizabeth had spoken to him of settling in the Boulevard des Adieux in the vacant apartment of Mme. Derize, and of going from there to Saint Martin d'Uriage some day. Leaving Paris, where the leaves in the avenues and gardens were already turning yellow, he buried himself, as it were, at Grenoble, in the Boulevard des Adieux. Immediately he experienced that sort of distressing peace, which the tracked beast finds in his lair. The thought of his mother was strengthening. He succeeded in concentrating on the history notes which he had brought with him. The atmosphere being heavy and suffocating, he took some walks in the evening. The first was as far as the cemetery of Saint-Roch, which is nearby. Then he went to Saint-Ismier and hardly recognized the old restored castle, the park of new design, the rows of trees of which a great number had been cut down to set off the view: Anne de Sézery's vow was realized;—even things had changed and lost their power of enchantment without her. There, she had first loved him. Yet that past which he awakened recalled nothing of her, but stirred up, on the contrary, other memories, as the step of a sportsman in the forest calls out game which he does not expect, and impels him to fire another shot. It was the time he met Mlle. Molay-Norrois in the streets and did not dare to bow to her. The pilgrimages turned against their own purpose. The Tower of London and Hyde Park, the allée of Mortemart and Chantilly, the quays of Paris, the Avenue de l'Observatoire which leads to the Luxembourg Garden as a river to the sea, the woods of Ville d'Avray, other corners of the great city and its suburbs, all these comprised the domain reserved for Anne. Dauphiné, although it had been her home, did not belong to her. Accustomed to understand the relation of landscape to human life, to give a soul to surroundings, he unconsciously felt the influence of his native country. It was, at every step, the return to years of struggle, to happy years, and it was the picture of a bright child of sixteen, Elizabeth, his youth. In his loneliness, he was walking towards the slope, whither his thoughts preceded him. He wished to stop, to leave again for Paris, and could not decide to do so. But why did she not write?
Unable to bear it any longer, he went up to Saint Martin d'Uriage one Sunday morning, opened the gate, crossed the orchard, rang at the door, although it was half open. He hesitated to enter his home without being announced. The old servant, hobbling along, came to receive him:
"Goodness me! M. Albert!"
"Good day, Fanchette."
He kissed the cheek, wrinkled like a russet apple, and took pleasure in it. Did she not maintain in the present, a past, which, without her, would be more distant? She explained that madame was at high mass with the children.
"I will wait," he said.
He looked on the rustic drawing-room table at the books lying about, and at the music on the piano. This examination satisfied him. Through the open windows, between the branches of the fruit trees which gravely bore their weight, he could see the huge bulk of Les Quatre Seigneurs, and farther to the right, the entrance to the Valley of Isère and the shadowy lines of the Chartreuse mountains. The horizon was bathed in that bluish mist, which comes at the beginning of autumn, to lessen the brilliant display of the summer. His heart was again reveling in the familiarity of these things, when the servant, who had left him to see to her kitchen stove, came back into the room, her forehead clouded. She began to fuss about him, as she scratched her head. Absorbed in thought, he did not see her. At last she opened her old mouth and said:
"Monsieur Albert?"
"What is it?"
"Will Monsieur lunch here? Because I have nothing but rice and boiled beef with carrots."
He laughed at this uneasiness.
"Well, that is sufficient."
Reassured, she went back to her kitchen. After all, Monsieur had never been difficult to feed, and he was always delighted with very ordinary dishes. At the same time Albert was saying to himself, "I am not invited, and Fanchette's menu makes me hungry." The peace of the surrounding country put him into a good humor. The wait growing monotonous, he left the house and went around his estate. His farmers, good folks, but somewhat indolent, welcomed him with emotion, and invited him to have a glass of wine.
"The farm has been widowed," they assured him.
And indeed it did not take long for him to discover the neighbors' encroachments. One was planting pear trees less than two meters from the dividing line, another was turning off the water from a spring for his own use.
"Ah, they are taking advantage of my absence!"
How would they not have abused the ignorance of a woman in the village? With his characteristic promptitude in action, he went to the encroachers and threatened them with proceedings. It was immediately known all over Saint Martin that he had come back, and that he would tolerate no trifling.
It was midday when he returned to the house. The bells of the little church were ringing out joyfully in two tones, and the sounds seemed like a release of brilliant birds flying from the old steeple. How pleasant this joyous welcome! It seemed a happy omen to him. Elizabeth had come back with the children. From the threshold of the drawing-room he saw her closing the shutters to keep out the heat. A sunbeam lit up her fair hair and her slim throat, set off by the black dress, cut low at the neck.
"Papa!" cried the children.
Although she had been told of his visit, she turned round, blushing. The bells went on ringing. This return to his house took an importance which he had not foreseen. They were both thinking of the early days of their marriage. "My work and you," he said to her then. She had understood too late, the happiness which she had not appreciated. Quickly composing herself, she assumed a happy tone to bid him welcome. He would have preferred her to have been less at ease, and even somewhat constrained.
"Let us go in to luncheon," she said almost at once, as if she had no doubt as to his acceptance, which was the best way of surmounting the difficulty.
As the dining-room faced the south, the window could be left open without inconvenience. It looked out on the meadows and pine woods of Chamrousse. Albert was seated opposite all this verdure. Nothing predisposes one more to peace and well-being, than the simple meals one enjoys in the country, while listening to the sound of running water, and the light rustling of the branches, swayed by the wind: evidences of the harmonious life of all things. And how well Elizabeth had been able to evade the difficulties of so embarrassing a return!
In the afternoon, when he expressed his intention of going, she did not keep him back, and he was surprised. She did not even seem to listen to Marie Louise, who talked of accompanying her father to the Castle of Saint-Ferriol. She had really treated him as a guest, with the tact of a woman who knows how to receive visitors, and to hide her pleasure or her boredom: that was, at any rate, the new impression that he took away with him. Perhaps she had tired of waiting for him, and no longer cared about a reconciliation. He was not very far from the truth. Elizabeth, in two and a half years, had accomplished such an endless series of efforts, had so eagerly desired an outcome, that she had reached that state of apparent unconcern, in which everything becomes the same to us, we need no longer reproach ourselves, nor have we any reserve strength. Now, whatever happened, might happen. She would attempt nothing more. Her failure in Paris had destroyed her moral energy which she had acquired through so much sorrow.
He returned on the following Sunday, accompanied, without his knowledge, by the whole staff of the Tabourin office. The pretext of this second visit was that he had not broached the subject of the children on the preceding Sunday, nor did he speak of it this time. Later he came several times a week.
"You are only half a papa," his daughter said to him.
"Half a papa?"
"Yes, you come in the morning and go away in the evening like the day boarders at the convent."
One day a tradesman's bill had been presented while he was there. With haste, and yet embarrassment, he showed such an eagerness to pay it, that Elizabeth did not protest. And this new share in her household, which was a pleasure to her, brought him a little closer to her.
Anne had been gone for four or five months. He often estimated the time, surprised to find it so short. Then he began to indulge in retrospection. Little by little he regained his former influence over Marie Louise and Philippe, for whom he invented new games and stories. The little ones, fascinated by this art of ornamenting life, neglected their mother, who was miserable about it in secret, but when does one cease to learn to love unselfishly? However, even if this childish joy did refresh him, he was too loyal and far-sighted to hide from himself any longer the fact, that it was Elizabeth who attracted him to Saint-Martin d'Uriage. He gained an understanding of her from Marie Louise's remarks, Philippe's questions, and her own words. The young woman's reserve gave way in their interviews. She showed more freely, but without display, her intelligence, circumspect, though clear and just. As he got to know her better, he manifested more eagerness to reconquer her. She neither repulsed nor encouraged him, flattered by that strange homage, which he paid her with all the resources of his mind, and proud too, of showing him what she had become, which he had not divined. In her turn, she held herself aloof, and was happy in expectation, and he was sometimes irritated by this unexpected indifference, and again promised himself to conquer her and to lay down the law.
With the exception of Philippe Lagier, who was often away, he saw no one but Elizabeth. In this charm of intimacy which so few men can resist, he confided to her his entire projects, the plans of his work. One day he brought along the manuscript of a "Popular Life of Pasteur" which he was finishing for his collection of biographies. He read it aloud, and when he had finished, humbly seeking praise, she gave him the highest: that of a deep emotion, which she felt, even to the degree of silence in listening to the story of the scientific career, so honorable and so full of enthusiasm. Another time, he did not conceal his bad humor because all the Verniers in the world were already there for the day when he arrived at Saint Martin. Blanche's husband, in his vanity at being in close touch with a great man, took possession of him, and Albert, in spite of his desire to be pleasant to his wife's friends, was wearied by this attitude.
"What is the matter with you to-day?" Elizabeth asked him as he was going away.
"You are never alone."
The reproach was so droll that she burst out laughing. But he did not share her gayety. And that evening she watched him for a long time, until she could no longer see him. He did not turn around, for he gave himself up passionately to recollections of Anne, and promised himself to give up all this new life.
Two days later, he remained until after dinner, which he had never dared to do before, except on a Sunday. Elizabeth, asked to open the piano, played the "Appassionata," which had revealed to Marie Louise the attraction of melancholy. He was behind her. Music exercised a deep influence on him. In addition to his studies in history, he had always reserved a portion of his time for it, and his works bore the trace of it. At the last chord, he bent toward her, and murmured:
"Forgive me, Elizabeth."
For a man of so much pride, it was the most pathetic avowal. She stood up at once before him. Dressed in black, her face in darkness, she held herself like a flower on a long stem, which is awaiting the day. Her eyes wide open and bewildered, glowed in the dusk. The mask of unconcern discarded, he saw her again so fragile, so easy to destroy, no longer able to resist this state of uncertainty, just as she had appeared to him at the death bed of his mother, or in Paris in the little, drawing-room in the Paris Hotel. Softened, he repeated:
"Forgive me."
Her mouth twisted; and it was a contraction he had noticed at the corners of Anne's lips.
"You know quite well," she said, and he was conscious of the deepened tone of her voice, "you know quite well that I have forgiven you. I had my faults as well."
He answered very quickly, with the bitter knowledge of his cruelty, of his cowardice; but, cowardly and cruel, it would be necessary to love but once, to overcome that, and even then....
"I did not know how much I loved you. You are the wife of my youth, Elizabeth. I find all my love for you intact."
"Intact?" she repeated.
And she gazed at him with large troubled eyes. Had the hour come? Trembling, ready to fall into his arms, she was waiting for one single word:
"Yes."
He wanted to draw her to him, to press her to his heart. So many bonds were being renewed; could the distance ever be bridged? Did she read to the depth of his troubled heart? She knew his desire and gently rejected it:
"No, no, Albert, not yet, Please!"
"Elizabeth, remember, I have loved you."
And in a lower voice, as if remorsefully:
"I do love you."
"If you love me, go away to-night. Do not remain here. I beg you—if you love me."
Her eyes, too intense, supplicated him, even more than her words.
"Yes, Elizabeth, I must be worthy of you."
With a heavy heart, only half free from another passion which exaltation could momentarily cloak with a film, but not suppress, he went away into the dark and starry night. From the threshold, she tried to pierce the darkness to catch the sound of his footsteps. Bewildered, trembling, with a thrill of emotion, she thought:
"Why has he gone?"
Exceptional weather had prolonged the season at Uriage a little later than usual. It was the last day of September, and it might have been said that the mountains were taking pains to look their best in the autumn light. How could one decide to leave so peaceful and beautiful a horizon?
M. Molay-Norrois, enlivened by the heat, but subdued in his manner by family life, resolved to consummate a master stroke before the coming departure of the bathers. He made use of his former influence over Mme. Passerat to urge her to ask Albert and Elizabeth to come to the last formal luncheon party, that she was planning to give before her return to Grenoble. It would be the public and official recognition of the reconciliation, and by this diplomacy he would have earned his own.
Albert Derize and his wife, astonished at this joint invitation, agreed to go despite their dislike of being the cynosure of all eyes. It was proper, it was advantageous for their children that they should be seen together, and that their separation be set aside in the eyes of the world. So they were welcomed as if they had never been the object of general curiosity. Another occurrence had replaced theirs as a subject of conversation. It was told—under the seal of secrecy—that the utilitarian Mme. de Vimelle, seeing no advantage in the new liaison of her husband, had resolved to put an obstacle in his way by threatening to start a scandal by means of Mme. Bonnard-Basson's letters, which she had intercepted.
"As you please," M. de Vimelle is said to have replied cynically. "That lady no longer interests me."
Mme. Passerat, too clever to fear the slightest personal danger, and moreover, sure of the support of her body guard, Messrs. Molay-Norrois, and Prémereux, reënforced by her own husband, believed she was well able to prevent this menagerie assembled around her table from devouring one another. And indeed nothing happened, and the Derize reconciliation was sanctioned. Elizabeth's mother, who attached great importance to social opinions, was not annoyed by the result, which helped her to bear other sorrows, which were the outcome of her husband's attractive personality. Albert made every effort to please his wife, who, in her simple dress and with her air of grace and dignity, so resembled those English portraits whose harmony he enjoyed. All the guests profited by his conversation, in the art of which he excelled when he cared to take the trouble.
Philippe Lagier, who had been living at Uriage for a short while, exchanged clever repartee with his friend, to the great joy of Mlle. Rivière, seated beside him; she was listening to him, often looking uneasily at Albert's wife. After luncheon, while coffee was being served in the garden, the girl came up to Mme. Derize.
"Madame," she said to her, as if admiration compelled her to make this confidence, "you have never been more beautiful."
Elizabeth blushed at this sincere compliment, which, from anyone else would have been offensive to her. It was true that her face was radiant, with the clear complexion, softened by her hair which was caressed by the light, its beauty intensified by the contrast of her black dress. And her dark eyes seemed to have grown so big, especially because the cheeks were thinner. They changed the expression of her features, revealed that she was living a nobler, more active life.
"You are a child," she murmured with a smile.
"Not any more," sighed the girl, whose eyes were clouded.
She too had changed, and it was not difficult to notice it. Her coquettishness of former years had led her to understand a deeper emotion. She had angled for Philippe Lagier as a poor girl determined to shape her own destiny by an advantageous marriage angles for a good match. In a word, he was no longer in his first youth, and she was offering him hers. Little by little she began to understand that he was exceptional, that his skepticism concealed a contempt for the commonplace, that he had a superior intellect. Thus she had done something entirely unexpected, and had fallen hopelessly in love.
Her mother, of old family, but known to be of small means, witnessed with disappointment the failure of a plan, which would have assured her about the future of her daughter. Elizabeth asked herself, not without scruples, if her intervention might possibly be efficacious.
"Come and see me," she said to Mlle. Rivière. And the latter thanked her, as she sought her assistance with a loyal and confident look.
Just to prove the value of her friendship, Philippe Lagier came over to Mme. Derize after the girl had left her:
"Will you give me some advice, Madame?"
"At once?"
"No, not here. I shall come to your house."
"To Saint Martin?"
"Yes, after to-morrow, perhaps."
All the way up the hill she was thinking: "what advice? I shall talk to him about Berthe Rivière." Philippe always made her a little uneasy because of the complicated, involved manner in which he expressed his ideas. She wanted to tell her husband of this overture as he was going back with her; but she dared not, either from delicacy concerning another's secret, or because she could not yet confide everything to Albert.
The next day Philippe came to St. Martin d'Uriage. She was in the orchard, in a straw chair, with some tapestry work, while her children were playing in the grass a few feet away. She was taking advantage of the last fine days and the mildness of the air to remain outdoors a good part of the afternoon. The regular sound of the fountain which was near by, kept her company without stopping the course of her thoughts. The apples and pears were ripening in the sunshine. The leaves were already changing color and the only flowers left were the colchicums in the meadows.
Marie Louise announced his presence. For how long had he been watching the young woman, whose face was framed by a large hood? She was a little offended by this indiscretion, the more so because she was hoping to see Albert, who had seemed nervous on the previous evening. So she hastened his explanation of the object of his visit:
"It is you who are to be consulted, not I."
He imagined a vague hostility, but was not offended by it. What he had to say he would express, at all costs, for he had resolved upon this course after much hesitation:
"Well, Madame, I have to make a very serious decision now. I am touched, very deeply touched by a sentiment which has been inspired by circumstances, much more than by my personality, and the continuance of which, after having astonished me, is no longer a matter of indifference to me. At my age, it is a rare favor."
"At your age?"
"I am forty. Mlle. Rivière is twenty-two or twenty-three. It is certainly a rare favor, and one which I shall perhaps not experience again if I put it aside."
"But why put it aside?" asked Elizabeth.
And, as he did not reply, and looked at her with a curious smile, she resumed:
"But why put it aside? Berthe Rivière deserves to be loved, I can assure you. The emotion of which you speak, whose power she did not at first suspect, has slowly changed her. She has seen clearly into her own consciousness. She has grown very different in two years. She is now reserved and as trustworthy as she is pretty. I should like to see her your wife."
She had become animated in her enthusiasm. He looked at her as if he were weighing his words, and turned around suddenly.
"Yes, but my heart is not free."
She blushed while he continued, his eyes on the grass:
"Only die passion that filled it and which was hopeless is purified and has become a cult, a religion."
She made a motion to stop him.
"Let me finish, Madame. I will never speak of these things again. And it does not only apply to me. I have often asked myself if a more human feeling could not exist side by side with that one, and satisfy the promise of happiness and fidelity with which I would reciprocate. Your religion does not keep you from loving. But would that be very loyal?"
Seeing her in this peaceful frame of mind, he had, in spite of himself, changed the meaning of his explanation. Elizabeth wished to get up and send him away, that he might understand that she considered as disloyalty that indirect confession which she had been obliged to hear. She remembered that he had been the first to alter her understanding of life, and remaining seated, she forgave him for the second time. But in her reply she expressed an authority which kept him at a distance, at the same time showing him the way:
"You must know yourself. This ... friendship must no longer occupy your attention. You will forget it by never again seeing her who inspired it."
"By never seeing her?"
"No. She will go away. Marry this young girl, who, as you just said, is not indifferent to you, whom you will love, whom you perhaps already love. But marry her without mental reservation."
"I cannot."
"Without a hidden thought. She is so young. Look at her and not at the past. Live near her and patiently form her mind. Let your life be altogether upright, without any side issues. That is the secret of happiness."
He bowed and wished to kiss her hand. She gently drew it away. She would not even allow him this humble caress. In the long silence which followed, enwrapping them as the evening mist the sloping meadows, each was indulging in personal reflections. The air was calm; Nature was motionless. Some fruit, falling from the branches, and its hard impact against the ground, made them shudder as a call of time.
She was counting all the lost years of her own happiness, the result of her former daily routine, and was seeking by what enchantment, what witchcraft, to blot them out, to restore to her clear days, no longer troubled and cloudy. He repeated the words she had spoken:
"She will go away."
She was going to Paris with Albert. The reconciliation, which, after a long time, he no longer doubted since the previous day, was then final. In order that he might carry away a more vivid and tender impression of her, he gazed for a long time at the young woman, seated in front of her country home, surrounded by the trees in the orchard, and caressed by the peace of the country. On this autumn evening (despite a little pallor and slimness, which would soon vanish), with her big hood, her charm of youth and the bunch of grasses which Marie Louise had laid on her knees, she symbolized that picture of hope of the blossoming earth in springtime. He contrasted her with another woman whom he had seen in spring, filled with all the melancholy of autumn. It was Anne de Sézery, on the terrace of the Luxembourg Garden, at the end of April. He had accompanied her from the Avenue de l'Observatoire to Cluny in Albert's absence, and how strangely he had taken advantage of that tête-à-tête which he had sought with so much patience and cleverness. From tree to tree along the avenue he put off her confidence. In the garden, as they followed the stone balustrade from which one can overlook the central basin and the palace, he stopped suddenly:
"I must speak to you, Mademoiselle."
She intuitively imagined something serious, something, even more serious than he could say, as her question indicated:
"Has our friend asked you to do so?"
"No, no!"
She was somewhat comforted.
"Well, I am listening to you."
He began with a question:
"You are not happy. Albert is not happy."
She tried to smile.
"Is that evident?"
"Yes."
"Well, we prefer our unhappiness to other people's happiness."
"Are you sure?"
Then, with audacity, which he understood better at a distance, and which only his almost mystical passion for Elizabeth could explain, he had told her of his last conversation with Albert's mother, and of the artless plan which she had conceived of coming to claim her son from her, who must have been convinced by time of the inefficacy of her love. He could see her face fall, her golden eyes lose their fire as he spoke. But she had not protested.
"Yes, it is just that," she had said simply. "I have thought so. Albert must never know anything about it. Good-by, Monsieur. You have pained me. I shall finish my walk alone."
He had been obliged to leave her thus, despite his urgent request to go back with her, in order to palliate the suffering he had made her endure. Several times he turned around to see her again, leaning on the stone balustrade between two vases, appearing smaller and smaller, until at last what a little lost creature she seemed! Ashamed of the part he had played, he had not had the strength to meet Anne and Albert together, and, as a pretext, he said he was obliged to leave. But his talk with her had its effect. It had only hastened an event which would have occurred sooner or later, and perhaps too late. Elizabeth owed to him her husband's liberty, and the resurrection of her happiness. Yes, he had served her well. Even that generosity which she would never know, linked them together, in spite of herself. He would never forget. She would be his sorrowful secret, his Madonna, and nobody would ever know it. But would Albert entirely forget Anne de Sézery? Do not most men live with a hidden wound which reopens on bad days?
This silence could not continue. Philippe broke it with these obscure words:
"I have had news ofher."
She was then thinking of Mlle. de Sézery, for she questioned him, not without visible uneasiness:
"Where is she?"
"In India, at Poona. It is a kind of lay hospital, the Epiphany School, where they take care of invalids and bring up deserted children. She was not destined for an ordinary fate."
Why had she written to him? Elizabeth guessed that he was not unconnected with Anne's flight, and without ascertaining the truth of her supposition, already overcome by fear only in hearing her spoken of, she asked:
"Can you tell me what that letter contains?" He took it out of a pocketbook and gave it to her.
"Read it and destroy it. I answered it yesterday. She will never write again."
"Have I the right?"
"Yes."
She had just taken the envelope when Albert, having gone through the house, came out into the orchard.
"I was looking for you," he said to his wife. Seeing Philippe, his face darkened. The day before at Mme. de Passerat's luncheon party, it had been unbearable to him that Elizabeth's charm should be felt by anyone but himself, and after trying impatiently to remain away until the following day, he could not finish his work without going to Saint Martin to see her again. He found her somewhat troubled, with the letter in her hand. Philippe, after a few words, rose and took leave of Elizabeth.
"I shall follow your advice, Madame."
He shook hands with his friend, whom he would not allow to accompany him. As soon as he had gone, Albert came over to his wife, and harshly inquired:
"What advice did he want? Am I indiscreet?"
"He was telling me about his marriage."
"With Mlle. Rivière?"
"Yes."
"Poor girl!"
"Why?"
"Because he loves you."
He did not notice how deeply this remark touched her. She stopped him reproachfully:
"Albert!"
"He confessed to me that he was devoted to you. Yes, he was the first to understand you. He realized that inner force which I had never been able to awaken. I am jealous of him, horribly jealous, not because I suspect you of ever having given him a word of encouragement—no suspicion could touch you when you were alone and abandoned—but because I do not acknowledge that another can know you and love you more than I do now."
"Albert," she murmured distractedly.
"I ought to fall on my knees before you, and at other times I long to clasp you to my heart and blot out those years which have blighted our love." Trembling, swayed by her exaltation, she repeated:
"Albert!"
Misunderstanding her manner, he raised his arms in despair:
"Ah! I make you afraid—I see it in your eyes. But I do not dare to touch even the tips of your fingers. Since I have returned here, even when we are side by side, there is an abyss between us which we do not know how to cross. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, I am so unhappy."
Overwhelmed, she wanted to come to him, and the letter which she had forgotten, fell to the ground. He stooped mechanically to pick it up and give it to her. Confused, she took it from his hand. He had not even seen the writing, but Elizabeth's emotion was diverted.
"Farewell!" said he brusquely, and realizing she was repressed, he hurriedly left the orchard and rushed to the road.
"Albert!" she cried, as she followed him. Nightfall, which was coming on, hid him. A name, which they had never dared to utter, was sufficient to separate them. Neither distance nor space could do away with the past. Anne de Sézery was always there, between them.