PART TWO

I

First days of October, gray and sweet. Still air. Warm rain falling straight down, unhurriedly. The hot and fleshly odor of moist earth, ripe fruits in the cellar, vatsful in the cider press. . . .

Near an open window in the Rivière's country house, in Burgundy, the two sisters were sitting opposite each other, sewing. With heads bent over their work, they seemed to be pointing their round, smooth foreheads at each other,--the same rounded forehead, prettier in Sylvie, stronger in Annette, capricious in the one, obstinate in the other,--the goat and the little bull. But when they raised their heads, their eyes exchanged an understanding glance. Their tongues were resting, having chimed away for entire days. They were ruminating on their fever, their transports, the hosts of words that had passed between them, and all that they had acquired and learned from each other during the preceding days. For this time they had given themselves completely, eager to take all and give all. And now they were silent, the better to think of all this hidden booty.

But they had desired in vain to see all and to possess all: in the last analysis, each remained an enigma to the other. And to every human being, no doubt, every other human being is an enigma; and that is an attraction. How many things there were in each that the other would never understand! And they said truly (for they knew it):

"Of what importance is understanding? To understand is to explain. One doesn't have to explain in order to love. . . ."

But all the same, it makes considerable difference! It amounts to this, that without understanding one cannot possess completely. And then as regarded loving, precisely how did they love? They had not at all the same way of loving. Raoul Rivière's two daughters both inherited, undoubtedly, an abundant vigor from their father, but it was concentrated in the one and dispersed in the other. In nothing were the two sisters more different than in love. Sylvie's affection was perfectly unrestrained, laughing, gamin-like, impudent, but at bottom extremely sensible; she was always on the move, but she never lost her sense of direction, always fluttering her wings, but never flying beyond the pigeon yard. In Annette there dwelt a strange demon of love, of whose presence she had been aware for scarcely six months; she suppressed it, endeavoured to hide it, for she was afraid of it; her instinct told her that others would misunderstand it: Eros caged, with blindfolded eyes, troubled, hungry and starving, silently bruising himself against the bars of the world, and slowly gnawing away the heart in which he is imprisoned! The burning, incessant, noiseless, biting pain insensibly plunged Annette's mind into a confused, wounded lethargy, that was not wholly unpleasant, for she found a certain pleasure in the sensations that caused her suffering: it was like being wrapped in a rough-surfaced material, turned wrong side out, or like running one's hand over the harsh surface of a piece of furniture or the chill of a rugose wall. Chewing the bitter bark of some twig that she was nibbling, she would sink at times into a forgetfulness of self and time, into lapses of consciousness that lasted Heaven knows how long,--a quarter of a second or an hour? And she would precipitately pull herself out of them, suspicious and ashamed, sensing the invisible gaze of Sylvie upon her, for her sister while pretending to work was maliciously spying on her from the corner of her eye. Without understanding it very well, Sylvie with her little nose smelled out this inner life of Annette's that was sleeping in the sun and coiling itself, with sharp warnings, like an adder beneath the leaves. She thought that her big sister was very strange, a little cracked, really different from other people. . . . She was not so much astonished by Annette's passionate movements, her ardors, and what she could guess of her troubled thoughts, as by the almost tragic seriousness with which Annette invested them. Tragic? What an idea! Serious? Why be that? Things are as they are. One takes them as they are. Sylvie was not going to bother herself about the fifteen hundred notions that passed through her head! They come, and then they go away. Everything that's nice and agreeable is simple and natural; and everything that isn't nice and agreeable is just as natural, too. Nice or not nice, I swallow them: they are soon down! Why make such a fuss? . . . Poor Annette, all tangled up! with her bundles of hot and cold thoughts, her snarl of fears and desires, and her clusters of passions and decencies all mixed up in every corner! . . . Who will untangle her? But the fact that she was so abnormal, exaggerated and incomprehensible amused and attracted Sylvie greatly; and she loved her only the better for it. . . .

The prolonged silence was heavy with disquieting secrets. Sylvie would abruptly break it, and begin to talk at random. . . . Quickly, very quickly, and in a low voice, with her nose over her work as though she were reviling it, she would begin to mutter a litany of crazy little words, of inarticulate sounds, generally in _i_,--the _kikikiki_ of a chaffinch wriggling with delight. And then, presto, she would again assume a serious expression, as if to say: "Who? I? I didn't do anything. . . ." Or, nibbling her thread, she would sing in her thin, nasal voice some silly ballad that had to do with flowers and "twittering birds," or a snatch of an obscene song from which she would select a particularly racy bit, with the air of a wise child. And Annette would start up, half-laughing, half-annoyed, and exclaim:

"Will you please be good enough to shut up!"

But they would be relieved. The air was cleared. Words matter little; voices, like hands, reestablish contact. They were united again. Where were we? . . . Beware of silence! Do we know where it may carry you, carry me, with the flutter of a wing, in a moment of forgetfulness? Speak to me! I am talking to you. I am holding you. Hold me tight! . . .

They held on to each other. They were firmly decided that whatever happened they would not let go again. Whatever happened, it would in no wise affect the essential fact: "I am I. You are you. We accept each other. Agreed! There's no going back." It was a mutual gift, a tacit contract, a kind of soul marriage, much more efficacious than any external bond; neither written engagement, nor religious or civil sanction could outweigh it. And what did it matter that they were so different? It is a mistake to think that the best unions are founded on affinities,--or even on contrasts. They are founded on neither one nor the other, but on an inner act, on an "I have chosen, I wish, I vow," of good metal and solidly stamped with the mark of an inflexible dual decision, as in the case of these two girls with rounded foreheads. "I have you, and I am no more able to give you back than to take myself back. . . . Besides you are free to love whom you choose, to do what you please . . . you may commit any folly, even a little crime if you have to (I know that you won't! but just the same!)--it will not affect our pact in any way. . . ." Explain it who will! Scrupulous Annette, if she had dared to follow her thought to its conclusion, would have been forced to confess that she was not quite sure of Sylvie's moral worth or of her future actions. And clear-sighted Sylvie would not have staked her hand that Annette would not, some day, be capable of disconcerting acts. But this had to do with others, it did not concern them, the two of them. As for themselves, they were sure, they had an absolute confidence in each other. The rest of the world could manage its affairs as it pleased! No matter what either might do--since it could not affect their mutual love--they forgave everything in advance, with closed eyes.

Perhaps it was not very moral, but what of that! They would have time to be moral on some other occasion.

Annette who was a bit of a pedant, who knew life through books--which did not however keep her from discovering it later (for life has not quite the same ring when it is heard outside of books)--Annette remembered those beautiful verses of Schillers:

"_Oh, my sons, the world is full of lies and of hatred; everyone loves himself alone; all bonds formed by a fragile happiness are insecure. . . . That which caprice has joined together, that will caprice put asunder. Nature alone is sincere, it alone rests upon unshakable anchors. All else floats at the will of stormy waves. . . . Inclination gives you a friend, interest a companion; happy is he to whom birth has given a brother. . . . Against this world of war and treachery, they are two to stand together_. . . ."

Sylvie did not know these verses, that is certain! And, no doubt, she would have thought that they employed entirely too many confused words for the expression of a simple sentiment. But as she looked at Annette, who was not working now, at her bowed head, the firm nape of her neck, and her heavy mass of twisted hair, she thought:

"She is still dreaming, the big dear; she is deep again in her chest of follies. What that chest must hold! It's lucky that I'm here, now! It won't be opened without me. . . ."

For the younger sister had a conviction, perhaps exaggerated, of her superior sense and experience. And she said to herself:

"I shall protect her."

She might have needed to protect herself first; for in her own chest there was no lack of follies either. But she knew all about these in advance, and she regarded them as a landlord regards his tenants. If one lodges them, it is not for nothing. . . . And then, "Do what you wish, come what may!" So long as it concerned only herself it was not of enormous importance. One could always find a way out. . . . But to protect someone else, that was a new and delectable feeling. . . .

Yes, but . . . Annette, with her head bowed and her hands idle, was cherishing precisely the same feeling. She was thinking: "My dear little madcap! . . . It's lucky that I came along in time to look after her! . . ."

And for Sylvie's future she made plans that were certainly charming, but concerning which Sylvie had not been consulted. . . .

Then when each had thoroughly pondered the happiness of the other (and her own into the bargain, of course) . . .

"Hang! my needle is broken. . . . One can't see a thing any more. . . ." They threw aside their work and went outdoors together to stretch their legs; both wrapped in the same greatcoat, they walked through the rain to the end of the garden, beneath weeping trees whose locks were falling; from the arbor they plucked a bunch of white grapes, all the better for being moist; they talked, and they talked. . . . And then suddenly they fell silent, drinking in the autumn wind, the delectable odor of fallen fruits, of dead leaves, and the tired October light that faded at four o'clock, the silence of the numbed, slumbering fields, the earth drinking up the rain, the night . . .

And, hand in hand, they dreamed with quivering Nature, that brooded over the fearful, burning hope of spring,--the enigma of the future. . . .

II

During those fine, foggy October days, when the fog rolled up like a spider's web, their intimacy became so necessary to them that they wondered how they had ever done without it.

Yet they had done without it, and they would again. Life, at the age of twenty, does not confine itself to a single intimacy, however dear it may be,--especially the life of two such winged creatures. They must essay the airy spaces. Firm as the affirmation of their heart's desire may be, the instinct of their wings is stronger. When Annette and Sylvie said to each other tenderly: "How could we have lived so long without each other?" they did not confess to themselves, "But sooner or later (what a pity!) we shall have to live without each other again!"

For another cannot live for you, in your place; and you would not wish it. Assuredly the need of their mutual affection was profound, but the two little Rivières felt another, stronger need, that went deeper, to the very sources of their being: the need of independence. They who had so many different traits had precisely this trait in common (it was not by chance!). And they were perfectly aware of it; it was even one of the reasons for which, without saying so, they loved each other the more; for in it each saw herself. But then, what would become of their plans to fuse their two lives? While each was cradling herself in a dream that she might protect the other's life, she knew that the other would consent to it no more than she herself would consent. It was a fond dream with which they played. They were trying to make the play last as long as possible.

And yet it could not last for long.

It would have amounted to nothing had they both been merely independent. But these two little Republics, that were so jealous of their freedom, had, without realizing it, like all Republics, despotic instincts. As each considered its own laws excellent, each had a tendency to export them to the other. Annette, who was capable of self-criticism, would blame herself when it was too late for trampling upon her sister's domain,--but then she would do it all over again. Hers was a willful and passionate character, which, despite herself, was inclined to dominate. Her nature was quite capable of temporary weakness, beneath the veil of a great affection, but it remained unchanged. It must be confessed, besides, that if Annette made an effort to adapt herself to Sylvie's wishes, Sylvie did not make the task easy for her. All her actions were headstrong, and within twenty-four hours her head had more than twenty-four whims, that were not always mutually compatible. Annette, who was methodical and orderly, laughed at first and after that grew impatient at these sudden shifts and caprices. She called Sylvie _Rose of the Winds_, and _I want_ . . . _What is it I Want_? And Sylvie called her _Squall, Madame I Ordain_, and _Noon at Twelve Sharp_, because she was plagued by Annette's punctuality.

Even while they were devoted to each other, it was difficult for them to accommodate themselves for very long to the same manner of living. They had neither the same tastes nor the same habits. Because they loved each other, Annette could lend an indulgent ear to the little splutterings of Sylvie, who had an excellent eye for the main chance, and a still better ear, but not a very good tongue. And Sylvie, swallowing an amused yawn ("Get along! Will you get along! . . .), was capable of appearing interested in the deadly reading, the pleasure of which Annette wished to share with her. . . .

"My! how pretty that is, dear!"

Or, commenting to herself on certain preoccupations with ridiculous thoughts on life, death, or society . . .

(What a bore! . . . Tootle-too-too! . . . They have plenty of time to waste! . . .)

"And you," Annette would ask, "what do you think of it, Sylvie?"

("Piffle!" thought Sylvie.)

"I think the same as you do, dear."

This in no wise prevented them from adoring each other; but at the same time it somewhat hampered their conversation.

And what could they do with their days, alone in the sombre house by the edge of the woods, confronted by stripped fields, under a low autumn sky that mingled with the bare plain in the fog? In vain had Sylvie asserted and believed that she adored the country; she had soon exhausted its pleasures, and in the country she was idle, out of place, lost. . . . Nature, nature. . . . Let us be frank! Nature bored her. . . . A land of rustics! No! She could not bear the little inclemencies: wind, rain, mud (the mud of Paris, in comparison, seemed pleasant to her), the mice trotting up and down behind old partitions, the spiders who came indoors to take up their winter quarters, and those frightful beasts, the buzzing mosquitoes, who regaled themselves on her wrists and ankles. She could have wept with irritation and boredom. Annette, rejoicing in the open air and in the solitude with her beloved sister, invulnerable to boredom, laughing at mosquito bites, tried to drag Sylvie along on her muddy walks, without noticing her sullen, disgusted expression. A gust of wind and rain intoxicated her; forgetting Sylvie, she would set off with great strides over the plowed earth or through the woods, shaking the wet branches; and it was not until long after that she remembered the little straggler. And Sylvie, who was sulking and piteously examining her swollen face, would wait vainly, thinking:

"When are we going back?"

But among the thousand and one desires of the younger Rivière girl, there was one that was good and praiseworthy, that nothing could alter, and the country air served only to lend it new lustre. She loved her trade. She really loved it. Of good Parisian working stock, work was necessary to her; she needed her needle and her thimble to busy her fingers and her thoughts. She had an innate love of sewing; it was a physical pleasure for her to spend hours handling some piece of material, a dainty fabric, a silk muslin, folding it, gathering it, giving a touch to a knot of ribbons. And then her little noddle, which did not flatter itself, Heaven be praised, that it understood the ideas lodged in Annette's big brain, knew that here in her own domain, in the kingdom of chiffons, she had ideas too, enough and to spare. . . . Well then, could she give up her ideas? It is thought that a woman can enjoy no greater pleasure than to wear pretty dresses! . . . For a really gifted woman it is a much greater pleasure to make them. And once one has tasted this pleasure, one cannot forego it. In the downy idleness in which her sister kept her, while Annette was running her hands over the piano keys, Sylvie felt homesick for the noise of big shears and the sewing machine. All the works of art in the world, had they been offered to her, would not have made up for the fine, headless dummy that one can drape according to one's fancy, that one can twist and turn, before which one squats, that one slyly maltreats, and that one takes in one's arms for a dance when the forewoman is absent. A few casual words sufficiently indicated the drift of her thoughts; and impatient Annette, seeing her eyes light up, knew that she was in for another story of the shop.

So when Sylvie announced, after their return to Paris, that she was going back to her lodging and her regular work, Annette sighed; but she was not surprised. Sylvie, who had expected opposition, was much more touched by this sigh, by this silence, than she would have been by any words. She ran to her seated sister, and, kneeling before her, she clasped her arms around her waist and held her mouth up to her.

"Annette, don't be angry with me!"

"Darling," Annette replied, "your happiness is mine, and you know it."

But she was suffering, and Sylvie was too.

"It is not my fault," she protested. "I love you tremendously, I swear!"

"Yes, dearest, I know that."

Annette was smiling, but she heaved another deep sigh. Sylvie, still on her knees, took her sister's face between her hands and put her own close to it.

"I forbid you to sigh! . . . Villain! If you sigh like that I sha'nt be able to leave. I'm not a little wretch."

"No, darling, you aren't. . . . It was wrong of me, and I won't do it any more. But I wasn't blaming you. It's because we are leaving each other."

"Leaving each other! . . . The idea! . . . Naughty girl! We shall see each other every day. You will come, and I shall come. You will keep my room for me. Were you going to presume, by any chance, to take it away from me? No, no, it's mine, and I won't give it back. When I am tired, I count on coming here to be petted. And you know, some evenings when you aren't expecting me, I shall arrive at the most unreasonable hours; I have a key, I shall come in and surprise you. . . . Beware if you play any tricks! . . . You will see, you will see, we shall love each other all the better. . . . Leave each other! Do you think that I would want to leave you, that I could get along without my pretty Annette!"

"Oh! the wheedler, the little rascal!" said Annette, laughing, "how well she knows how to cajole one! The damned little liar!"

"Annette! Don't swear!" exclaimed Sylvie severely.

"Well then, simply liar. . . . Is that all right?"

"Yes, that may pass," replied Sylvie magnanimously. . . .

She threw herself on Annette's neck and suffocated her with kisses.

"Lie to you, lie to you, I'm eating you! . . ."

The affectionate, cunning girl had other ways of winning forgiveness. She asked Annette to help her set up shop on her own account. This "lass" of twenty wanted to be her own mistress, to take orders no longer, to give orders in her turn,--if only to her dummy. Annette was delighted at being able to give her money. The two sisters put their heads together, endlessly discussed arrangements, ran about the following day to find a place, then to choose furniture and materials, then to arrange matters with the authorities; and they spent the evenings making up lists of customers, making plan after plan, move after move,--until Annette ended by having the illusion that it was she who was setting up shop with Sylvie. And she forgot that their lives were going to be divorced.

III

Customers were not slow in coming to Sylvie's. When Annette went calling, she wore the little dressmaker's prettiest creations, and sang her praises. She succeeded in sending to her many young women from her own set. Sylvie, for her part, had no scruples about exploiting the addresses of her old employer's customers. However, she was wise enough not to enlarge the circle of her operations too rapidly. Little by little. Life is long. There is plenty of time. . . . She loved work, but not to the mad degree of certain human ants--and especially feminine ones--whom she had seen kill themselves at their task. She had every intention of leaving time for pleasure. Work is one of them, but it is not the only one. "_A little of everything_." Hers was the motto of a small appetite, but dainty and curious. . . .

Before long her life was so filled that not much of it remained for Annette. Whatever happened, Sylvie guarded Annette's share; she clung to it. But for Annette's heart, a share was little. She did not know how to give herself in halves, or thirds, or quarters. She still had to learn that in their affections people are like a small merchant: they deliver them retail. She was long in understanding this, still longer in accepting it. As yet she had not passed beyond the first lessons.

Without saying so, she suffered at seeing herself eliminated, little by little, from Sylvie's days. Sylvie was never alone any more, at home or in her shop. She had acquired a new sweetheart. Annette bowed to the inevitable. Her love for her sister now defended her against her old jealous spite and severity of judgment. But it did not defend her against melancholy. Sylvie, who, despite her lightness, loved her sister well enough to sense the pain she was causing her, would occasionally tear herself away from the farandole of her activities, both business and pleasure; and suddenly, in the midst of work or even a tête-à-tête, she would drop the most pressing matters and run off to Annette's. Then there was a whirlwind of passing tenderness. At the moment, Sylvie was no less full of affection than Annette. But it passed; and when the whirlwind carried Sylvie back to her business or her pleasures, filled with Annette, Annette would sigh, grateful for the little tempest of loving chatter, mad confidences, and laughing embraces that had visited her, but feeling more alone than ever and more troubled.

Yet it was not interests that she lacked. Her days were as full as Sylvie's.

Her life, her double life, intellectual and social, that had been broken off since her father's death, had resumed its natural course. Her mental needs, which during the past year had been crowded aside by the needs of her heart, had now reawakened stronger than ever. As much to fill the hours left empty by Sylvie's absence, as because the intelligence of a rich nature is matured by experiences of the passional life, she had again applied herself to her scientific studies, and she was astonished to find that she brought to them a clearer gaze than before. She became interested in biology, and planned a thesis on the origins of the æsthetic sentiment and its manifestations in nature.

She had also picked up the threads of her social life; she returned to the world that she had formerly frequented with her father. And she found in it a fresh pleasure: the pleasure of curiosity, of a greater sophistication that discovered, in people she had thought she knew, unexpected aspects of which she had not dreamed. There were other pleasures too, of a very different sort, some that one acknowledged, and others that one did not confess: the pleasure of pleasing; obscure forces of attraction (of repulsion too) that awake in us and around us magnetic relations which are established between minds and bodies, under cover of deceptive words; dumb possessive instincts that momentarily graze the even and monotonous surface of drawing-room thoughts, instincts that efface themselves, but which quiver beneath the surface. . . .

Yet society and work occupied only the smallest portion of her time. Never had Annette's life been so peopled as now when she was alone. Through the long evenings and night hours, when sleep tosses the mind back into wakefulness, with its hallucinatory thoughts, as the withdrawing tide leaves on the shore a myriad of organisms torn from the nocturnal abysses of ocean,--Annette contemplated the ebb and flow of her interior sea, and the littered shore. It was the great spring equinox.

A part of the forces that stirred within her were not new to her; but, as their energy increased tenfold, the mind became conscious of them with an exalted clarity. Their contradictory rhythms caused an intoxication of the heart, a vertigo. . . . It was impossible to grasp the order hidden in this confusion. The violent shock of sexual passion that, like a summer storm, had shaken Annette's heart, was leaving behind it a lasting perturbation. In vain had the memory of Tullio been effaced, the equilibrium of her being was for a long time shaken. The tranquillity of her life, the absence of events, created an illusion for Annette: she could have believed that nothing had happened, and could have easily repeated the careless cry of those watchmen in the fine Italian nights: _Tempo sereno!_ . . . But the hot night was hatching new storms, and the unstable air was shivering with disquiet eddies. A perpetual disorder. The thrusts of dead souls, revivified, clashed in this soul in fusion. . . . Here, the dangerous paternal heritage consisting of those desires that were ordinarily dormant and forgotten, rose abruptly like a wave from the deep. There, opposing forces: a moral pride, the passion for purity. And that other passion for independence, the imperious constraint of which Annette had already experienced in her union with Sylvie; she anxiously foresaw, too, that this passion for independence would some day engage in still more tragic conflicts with love. All this inner travail occupied her, filled her, during the long winter days. The soul, like a chrysalis encased in a cocoon of foggy light, was dreaming of its future, and indulging itself in its dream. . . .

Suddenly, she went beyond her depth. There occurred one of those lapses of consciousness such as she had experienced last autumn, here and there, in Burgundy; one of those voids into which one sinks. . . . Voids? No, they were not voids; but what went on in their depths? Those strange phenomena, unperceived, perhaps non-existent until ten months before, that had been released especially since the amorous crisis of the summer, and since then had become more frequent. Annette had a vague feeling that these gulfs of consciousness sometimes opened at night, too, while she slept . . . the heavy sleep of hypnosis. . . . When she came out of them, she returned from a great distance; there remained no memory of them, and yet she had the haunting sense that she had encountered important events and worlds, unspeakable things, things beyond what the reason permits and tolerates, bestial and superhuman, reminiscent of the Greek monsters or the cathedral gargoyles. A formless clay adhered to her fingers. One felt oneself bound alive to that stranger of one's dreams. There weighed a sorrow, a shame, the fresh burden of a complicity that could not be defined. One's skin remained impregnated by an unsavory odor that lingered for days. It was as though one bore a secret, in the midst of the day's fugitive images, hidden behind the closed door of a smooth forehead unwrinkled by thought, while one's indifferent eyes turned inward, and one's hands lay sagely folded across one's breast--a sleeping lake. . . .

Wherever she went, Annette carried this perpetual dream: in the bustle of streets, in the studious torpor of lectures and libraries, in the amiable banality of drawing-room conversations, relieved by a hint of flirtation and irony. At evening parties more than one person noticed the absent glance of this young girl who smiled distractedly, less at what was said to her than at what she was saying to herself, while she caught by chance a few passing words, and then went far away again, listening to no-one-knew-what hidden birds in the depths of her aviary.

So noisy was the chorus of little people within Annette that one day she caught herself listening to it when Sylvie was with her,--Sylvie the beloved, laughing at her, deafening her with her dear chatter, saying to her. . . . What was it she was saying? . . . Sylvie perceived it, and she laughingly shook her.

"You're asleep, you're asleep, Annette!"

Annette protested.

"Yes, yes, I saw you, you are dreaming standing up, like an old carriage horse. What do you do with your nights?"

"Wretch! . . . And what about yours, if I asked you? . . ."

"Mine? You want to know? Very well! I'm going to tell you. You won't be bored."

"No! No!" exclaimed Annette, laughing, now thoroughly awake.

She clapped her hand over her sister's mouth. But Sylvie freed herself and, seizing Annette's head, looked straight into her eyes.

"Your beautiful sleep-walker's eyes. . . . Show us a little of what's in there. . . . What are you dreaming, Annette? Tell me, tell me! Tell what you're dreaming. Tell! Come along, let's hear!"

"What do you want me to tell?"

"Say what you are thinking about."

Annette resisted, but she always ended by yielding. For both of them it was an acute pleasure of affection, and perhaps of egotism, to tell each other everything. They left nothing out. So Annette tried to unravel her dreams, much less for Sylvie's benefit than for her own comfort. She explained, not without difficulty, but with a great scrupulousness and seriousness that made Sylvie burst into laughter, all her mad thoughts--the innocent, the candid, the grotesque, the daring, and sometimes even . . .

"Well, well, Annette! I say, when you try! . . ." exclaimed Sylvie, pretending to be scandalized.

Her own inner life was perhaps no less strange (neither more nor less than that of all of us), but she did not suspect it, and she was not interested in it, like a practical little person who believes once for all in what she sees and touches, in the sensible and ordinary dream of superficial earthly existence, and who avoids as absurd everything that might disturb it.

She laughed with all her heart, listening to her sister. Now who would ever have thought that of Annette! With her innocent air, she sometimes tells you the most egregious things in all seriousness. And then she is frightened at the simplest things, that everybody knows. (She shared them with Sylvie, with a comical conviction.) Heaven knows what ridiculous ideas are passing in her noddle! . . . Sylvie found her complicated, adorable, twisted, deucedly tangled up. Always that disease of being tormented to death by things that one should take as they come!

"The trouble is that they sing a half-a-dozen tunes at the same time," said Annette.

"Well, that's amusing," exclaimed Sylvie. "It's like the Lion de Béfort fair."

"Horrors!" cried Annette, stuffing up her ears.

"Why, I adore it. Three or four shooting galleries, tram horns, steam calliopes, bells, whistles, everyone yelling together, till one can't hear oneself think, while one yells louder than all of them,--and snorting, laughing and goings on that delight your heart. . . ."

"Little plebeian!"

"But, my little aristo, it's you (you've just said so), it's you who are like that! If you don't like it, you have only to do as I do. I have everything in order. Everything in its place. Every rabbit in its hutch!"

And indeed she spoke the truth. Whatever hubbub went on in the Place Denfert or in her own little brain, she knew how to manage in one case as well as the other. She could instantly bring order from the most inextricable disorder. She knew how to reconcile all her divers needs, both of mind and body, middle class and otherwise. Each had its pigeon-hole. As Annette said to her:

"A bureau full of drawers. . . . That's what you are! . . ." (showing her the famous Louis XV chiffonier in which their father's letters had been arranged).

"Yes," replied Sylvie, "there a resemblance. . . ."

(It was not of the piece of furniture that she spoke).

". . . At bottom, it's the _real me_. . . ."

She wanted to vex Annette. But Annette wasn't "rising" any more. She was no longer jealous of her father's heredity; she had her share of it. She could very well have given it up. It was, at times, a rather troublesome guest! . . .

IV

She did not know quite how, but during the past year she had lost the balance of her logical mind and of her stout legs that had been so firmly implanted in the real world; and she did not see how she was going to recover it. She would have given a good deal to put on Sylvie's little boots that unhesitatingly went clattering over the ground with their decided step. She no longer felt that she was bound firmly enough to ordinary life, to the life of everybody and every minute. Contrary to her sister, she was too much preoccupied with her inner existence, and she was not enough preoccupied, any more, with that on which the sun shone. It would, doubtless, have been the same, even had she not been caught by the great sexual trap into which dreamers fall more quickly and more clumsily than others. The insidious hour was approaching. The snare was being prepared. . . .

But would this snare, even, suffice to hold a rather wild soul and a thoroughbred for very long? . . .

While waiting to find out, she circled around,--certainly without realizing it, for if she had realized it she would have recoiled in exasperated revolt. No matter! Each of her steps brought her closer to the trap. . . .

She had to confess it to herself--she who, a year before, had affected to treat men with the calm assurance of a comrade; no doubt a little coquettish and amiable, but indifferent; for from them she had seemed neither to desire nor fear anything--she now looked on men with different eyes. She maintained an attitude of observation and troubled waiting. Since the adventure with Tullio, she had lost her fine, insolent calm.

She knew now that she could not get along without them; and her father's smile came to her lips when she recalled her childish declarations at the idea of marriage. Love had left its wasp's dart in her flesh. Chaste and burning, innocent and sophisticated, she knew her desires; and if she thrust them into the penumbra of her mind, they manifested their presence by the confusion into which they threw the remainder of her ideas. Her whole mental activity was disorganized. Her powers of reflection were paralyzed. At work, writing or reading, she felt herself somehow impaired. She could no longer concentrate on an object save at the cost of disproportionate effort; and afterwards she was exhausted, disgusted. And it was in vain, for the knot of her attention would always come undone. Clouds crept into all her thoughts. The perfectly clear--too clear and too well-lighted--goals that she had fixed for her intelligence, were dimmed in the fog. The straight road that was to lead her to them broke off, was cut at every step.

Annette discouragedly thought:

"I shall never get there."

Having formerly attributed to women all the intellectual powers of men, she experienced the humiliation of saying to herself:

"I was mistaken."

Under the impression of lassitude which oppressed her, she recognized (rightly or wrongly) certain cerebral weaknesses of her sex, due perhaps to woman's long unaccustomedness to disinterested thought, to that objective and detached activity of mind which is demanded by true science and true art; but more probably due to the mute obsession of those great, sacred instincts, the rich and heavy deposit of which nature has placed in her. Annette felt that, alone, she was incomplete; incomplete in mind, body and heart. But of these last two, she thought as little as possible; they recalled only too much to her mind.

She had reached the time of life when one can live no longer without a mate; and woman even less than man, for in her it is not only the lover, but the mother also, that is awakened by love. She does not realize it: the two aspirations are confounded in a single sentiment. Annette, as yet without defining a single one of her thoughts, had a heart swollen with the need of giving itself to some human being, at once stronger and weaker than herself, who would take her in his arms and who would drink at her breast. At the thought of this, she grew faint with tenderness; would that all the blood in her body might be turned to milk, that she might give of it. . . . Drink! . . . Oh, my well beloved! . . .

Give all! . . . No! She could not give all! It was not permitted her. Give all! . . . Yes, her milk, her blood, her body, and her love. . . . But all? her whole soul? her whole will? and for her entire life? . . . No, that, she was certain, she could never do. Even when she wished to, she would be unable. One cannot give what is not one's own,--my free soul. My free soul does not belong to me; it is I who belong to my free soul. I cannot dispose of it. . . . To conserve its liberty is much more than a right, it is a religious duty. . . .

There was in these thoughts of Annette a little of the moral rigidity that she inherited from her mother. But in her, all took on a passionate character; with her impetuous blood she could give warmth to the most abstract ideas. . . . Her "soul!" . . . That "Protestant" word! . . . (It was herself speaking. . . . She used the word often! . . .) Had Raoul Rivière's daughter only one soul? She had a whole troop of them, and in the lot there were three or four of notable stature that did not always understand one another. . . .

Yet this internal conflict went on in an undefined sphere. Annette had not yet had the occasion to put her contrary passions to the test. Their opposition was still a mental game that was ardent and sufficiently stirring, but devoid of risks; she did not have to decide; she could permit herself the luxury of mentally trying one solution or another.

It was a subject of laughing discussions with Sylvie, one of those heart problems that delight the heart of youth during periods of idleness and waiting, until the time comes when reality brusquely decides for you, without bothering about your elegant arrangements. Sylvie perfectly understood Annette's double need; but, so far as she was concerned, she could see no contradiction in it; one only had to do as she did: love when it pleased you, be free when it pleased you. . . .

But Annette shook her head.

"No!"

"Why not?"

She refused to explain.

And Sylvie asked mockingly:

"You think it's good enough for me?"

And Annette exclaimed:

"No, darling. You know perfectly well that I love you, as you are."

But Sylvie was not far wrong. Through affection, Annette (while she sighed to herself) refused to judge Sylvie's free loves. But for herself she rejected the thought of them. It was not merely the puritanism inherited from her mother that would have considered them dishonorable. It was her "entire" nature, it was the very plenitude of her Desire that refused to parcel itself into small bits. Despite the obscure appeal of a powerful sexual life, it would have been impossible for her, at this moment of her life, to receive without revolt the idea of a love in which the whole being, senses, heart and thought, self-respect, respect for the other person, and the religious ardor of the impassioned soul, did not all equally have their places at the feast. To give her body and withhold her mind,--no, there could be no question of that. . . . It would be treachery! . . . Then there remained only one solution,--marriage, monogamous love? Was that a possible dream, for an Annette?

Possible or not, it cost nothing to dream it, in advance. She did not deprive herself of it. She had arrived at the edge of the wood of adolescence, at that beautiful, final instant when, still savoring the shadow and the shelter of dreams, one sees opening before one, on the plain, long white roads in the sunlight. On which shall we imprint out steps? There is no haste to choose. The mind laughingly delays, and it chooses them all. A happy young girl, without material cares, radiating love, her arms full of hope, sees offered to her heart the possibility of twenty different lives; and, even before asking herself, "Which do I prefer?" she takes up the whole sheaf, to breathe their sweetness. In imagination Annette tasted, one by one, the future shared with this and that, and then with another, mate, dropping the bitten fruit, nibbling at another, then returning to the first, trying a third, without deciding on any one. Age of uncertainty, at first happy and exalted, but soon to know weariness, crushing depression, and sometimes even despairing doubt.

So Annette dreamed of her life,--of her lives to come. To Sylvie alone she confided her uncertain waiting. And Sylvie was amused at her sister's languorous, troubled indecision. She knew little about such things, for it was her habit (she boasted of it in order to scandalize Annette) to decide before choosing. To decide immediately. Afterwards, there was time to make one's choice. . . .

"And at least," she said with her swaggering air, "one knows whereof one speaks!"

V

In the society in which she moved, Annette was extremely successful. She was much sought after by the majority of the young men. The young girls, many of whom were prettier than she, did not take very kindly to this. They had the more reason to be galled because Annette did not seem to make any great effort to please. Distrait and a little distant, she did nothing to pique the interest or flatter the vanity of the men who sought her out. Calmly installed in a corner of the drawing-room, she let them come to her, without appearing to note their presence, listened smilingly (they were never sure that she had heard) and, when she answered, she uttered only pleasant commonplaces. However, they all came, and tried to charm her: the worldly, the brilliant, and the respectable young men.

The jealous ones liked to believe that Annette was playing a deep game, that her indifference was only the ruse of a practised coquette; they remarked that for some time now Annette's rather cold correctness of dress had given place to elegant toilettes, in which the fantastic note, they said, was skilfully calculated to relieve the monotony of her sleepy homeliness. Malicious tongues added that it was her fortune more than her face that was courted. But, as regards the toilettes, their charming artifice should not be attributed to Annette: Sylvie's taste and wit were solely responsible. And, no doubt, she was a "good catch," but if her little court took cognizance of the fact, as it surely did, it was only the nuance of respect which marked their attentions that might be attributed to this consideration. Had she been less well provided by fortune, they would have pursued her no less but more boldly.

The allurement was deeper. Annette, without being a coquette, was well enough served by her instincts. Rich and strong, there was no need of anyone telling them what had to be done; their action was sure, for the will had no part in it. While Annette, smiling indolently as though submerged in her inner life, was allowing herself to be carried on the pleasant tide of a vague revery, on a voluptuous wave, that did not prevent her hearing and seeing,--her body was speaking for her: a powerful attraction was emanating from her eyes and mouth and strong, young limbs, from the youth of her being, charged with love like a flowering glycine. The charm was so strong that no one seeing her (at least, no one but a woman) could dream that she was homely. And if she spoke little, only a few casual words are needed in an empty conversation to evoke unusual mental horizons. Then too, she offered herself no less to the desires of those who sought the soul, than to the covetousness of those who had recognized in this dormant body (sleeping water) a wealth of pleasure unknown to itself.

She did not seem to see; but she saw perfectly well. It is a feminine gift. In Annette it was complemented by a vigorous intuition which often goes with strong vitality, and which, without words or gestures, immediately penetrates the speech of being to being. When she seemed distrait, it meant that she was listening to this language. Dark forest of hearts! . . . They were--they and she--on the hunt. Each sought his track. Having drifted for a time from one to another, Annette chose her own.

The young men among whom her choice lay belonged to that rich, intelligent, active bourgeoisie, advanced in ideas (at least they thought them advanced), of which Raoul Rivière had been a member. It was shortly after the Dreyfus Affair, which had brought together men belonging to different orders of thought, who yet found themselves united by a common instinct of social justice. This instinct, as later became apparent, was not very enduring. So far as it was concerned, social justice was limited to a single injustice. One example among thousands was Rivière himself, who had lost no sleep over the iniquities of the world, who had even been capable of concluding with no pangs of conscience some profitable business with the Sultan, when His Highness was coolly engineering, amid the silence of a complaisant Europe, the first Armenian massacre,--yet who, quite sincerely, had been completely bowled over by the famous Affair. One cannot ask too much of men! When they have fought for justice, once in their lives, they are winded. They have been just on at least one occasion; one must be grateful for that. They are grateful themselves. Rivière's society, the families whose sons were now Annette's suitors, had no doubt concerning the merit they had acquired in the championship of Right, nor concerning the inutility of refreshing this merit by new efforts. They remained, once for all, the crew of Progress, with folded arms.

With minds sufficiently at peace, besides, as regarded the international landscape, in this fleeting hour when civic conflicts had nearly extinguished national hatreds--save for the old ember of anglophobia, still kept smoking by the Boer war,--possessed of a diluted and not at all militaristic patriotism,--given to tolerance and good humor, because they were well off, belonging to the victorious party,--they gave the impression of an easy-going society, broad in its morality, vaguely humanitarian, more certainly utilitarian and sceptical, with no very great principles and no very great prejudices. . . . (They need not have prided themselves on that! . . .) They counted in their ranks a number of liberal Catholics, not a few Protestants, a greater number of Jews, and a quantity of solid middle-class Frenchmen who were indifferent to all religions, having found a substitute in a political doctrine that bore various labels, but did not stray very far from the republicanism which, having endured for thirty years, was beginning to be a form, the most practical form, of conservatism. Socialism, too, was represented; but by the rich and intellectual young bourgeois that had been won over by the golden tongue and example of Jaurès. He was still on his honeymoon with the Republic.

Annette was never seriously interested in politics. Her active inner life left her no time for it. But, like the others, she had passed through her hours of exaltation during the Affair. Her love for her father modeled her in the image of his feelings. She was predisposed, by the fire in her heart and by the instinct of liberty that she carried in her blood, to find herself always on the side of the oppressed. So she had known moments of passionate emotion when Zola and Picquart faced the great Beast--unchained public opinion; and it is not impossible that, like more than one young girl, when she passed by the Cherche-Midi prison, her heart beat for the man who was shut within. But there was little reason in these feelings, and Annette had not been able to bring herself to a critical examination of the Affair. Politics repelled her; when she had attempted to study them at close range, she had immediately been turned aside by a mixture of boredom and repugnance which she did not seek to analyse. Her viewpoint was too honest not to have glimpsed the amount of pettiness and malpractise that was shared almost equally by both sides. Less sincere than her eyes, her heart wished to continue to believe that the party which upheld ideas of justice must be composed of the justest men. And she reproached herself for what she called her laziness in not becoming better acquainted with their activities. That is why she made herself maintain an attitude of sympathetic waiting towards them,--as when hearing the execution of a page of new music that is guaranteed by an accepted name, a respectful listener, who does not understand it, gives credit to beauties that he will discover later, perhaps. . . .

Annette, being loyal, believed in the virtue of labels, ignorant of the fact that the fraud is nowhere more current than in the commerce of ideas. She still attributed some reality to the fabricated _isms_, whose stamp distinguishes the various political faiths; and she was attracted by those proclaimed by the advanced parties. A secret illusion made her hope that it was on this side that she had the best chance of meeting her mate. Accustomed to the open air, she went in the direction of those who sought it, like herself, outside the old prejudices, ancient follies, and suffocation of the house of the past. She spoke no evil of the old dwelling. It had sheltered the lives and dreams of generations. But the air was vitiated. Remain there who would! One must breathe. And her eyes sought the friend who would help her construct her own house, sanely and clear-sightedly.

In the drawing-rooms that she frequented there was no lack of young men quite capable, it seemed, of understanding and aiding her. With or without labels, many had daring minds. But an evil fate willed that their daring should not be directed towards the same horizons as hers. In the words of the philosopher, the _elan vital_ is limited. It never exercises itself, simultaneously, in all directions. Infinitely rare are the spirits that throw their light all around them as they walk. The majority of those who have succeeded in lighting their lanterns (and they are not numerous!) focus their searchlights straight ahead, upon one point, a single point; and around them they do not see a speck. One may even say that an advance in one direction is almost always paid for by a retreat in another. Many a one who is a revolutionary in politics is an imitative conservative in art. And if he is deprived of a handful of his prejudices (those that he values least) he will only clasp the others more avariciously to his breast.

Nowhere is the unevenness of this jolting march more clearly visible than in the moral evolution of the two sexes. The woman who forces herself to break with the errors of the past and who enters upon one of the paths leading to the new society rarely ever encounters the man who also wishes to found a new world. He takes another route. And if their climbing paths must finally, perhaps, come together further up the slope, for the moment they turn their backs upon each other. This divergence of aims was particularly striking in France at this period, when the feminine mind, so much longer held back, had been making, for some years, a sudden advance, of which the men of that day took no account. The women themselves did not always measure it accurately, until there came the day when the shock of personal experience revealed to them the wall that separated them from their mates. The shock was rude. Annette, to her own cost, had to discover this unhappy misunderstanding.

VI

From among the drifting souls that swarmed about her, Annette's eyes, her distrait eyes that unsuspectedly surveyed them all, had finally made their choice. But they had not admitted it. As long as possible she tried to preserve the illusion of continued hesitation. When one no longer needs to make a decision, then it is sweet to murmur to oneself, "I am not bound as yet," and to leave the doors of hope wide open for the last time.

There were two in particular between whom she liked to leave her future in the balance, although she knew perfectly well which one she had chosen; two young men between twenty-eight and thirty: Marcel Franck and Roger Brissot. Both belonged to the comfortably situated middle class, and were distinguished in manner, pleasant and intelligent, but possessed of minds and characters of different orders.

Marcel Franck, of a half-Jewish family, was one of those charming types that are sometimes produced by the mixed marriage of well chosen individuals of two races. Of medium height, slim, graceful and elegant, he had blue eyes set in a dead white face, a slightly curved nose, a small fair beard, and an elongated, somewhat horsey profile that recalled Alfred de Musset. His glance was intelligent and caressing, by turns coaxing and impudent. His father, a rich cloth merchant, cautious in business and strong in his passions, who had a taste for the new art, patronized the young reviews, bought Van Goghs and Rousseaus, had married a beautiful Toulousaine, who had won the second prize in comedy at the Conservatory, and who for a time had been the rage at Antoine's and Porel's. This lady, first taken by assault, and thereafter in lawful wedlock, by the vigorous Jonas Franck, had abandoned the stage in the midst of her success, to maintain intelligently, along with her husband's affairs, a literary salon much frequented by artists. This most united household, neither member of which, by tacit accord, looked too closely into the other's conduct, and each of whom knew how to handle gossip, had brought up a single son in an atmosphere of tolerant and sharpened intelligence. At home Marcel Franck had learned that there is a harmony of work and pleasure, and that the art of life depends upon their wise union. He cultivated this art no less than the others, in which he had become a discerning connoisseur. Attracted to the national museums he had made a precocious reputation as a writer on art. Quite as well as pictures, he knew how to observe living figures with his idle, penetrating, insolent, indulgent glance. And among the young men who were courting Annette, it was he who read her best. She was quite aware of it. Sometimes as she was emerging from one of those absent-minded reveries, during a conversation in which she was following every other thought but the one she was uttering, she would meet his curious eyes that seemed to say to her:

"Annette, I see you naked."

And the most astonishing thing was that she, the modest Annette, was not embarrassed by this. She felt like replying:

"And how do you find me, that way?"

They exchanged an understanding smile. If he saw her unveiled, it was of slight importance; she knew that she would never be his. Marcel read this certainty in her. He was not troubled by it. He was thinking:

"We shall see about that!"

For he knew _the other_.

_The other_, Roger Brissot, had been a college chum of his. Franck perfectly understood that Annette preferred him. . . . To begin with, at least . . . ("Afterward? . . . That is another affair! . . .") Brissot was a handsome fellow, with a fine open countenance, a frank expression, gay brown eyes, regular features that were rather strong, a full face, sound teeth,--clean-shaven, with a youthful abundance of black hair combed back from an intelligent brow and parted at the side. Tall, broad-chested, long of leg, and with well-muscled arms, his movements were easy and his actions lively. He spoke well, very well, in a warm musical voice, a little low and resonant, that people liked,--that he liked. With his quick, ready, glittering intelligence, he rivaled Franck in his studies, and was no less fond of athletics. In Burgundy, where his family's property--woods and vineyards--adjoined the Rivière's country place, he was an intrepid walker, hunter, and horseman. In the old days Annette had met him more than once on his walks. But at that time she had given scant thought to a companion, she liked to go her own way; and Roger too, having slipped away from Paris for these months in the open air, played the young Hippolyte, affecting to prefer his horse and his dog to a girl. In passing, they had exchanged no more than bows and glances. But those had not been entirely lost. Agreeable images remained, and the vague attraction of two beings physically well suited.

The idea had occurred to the Brissot family. No less than their persons, their fortunes seemed made for union. However, so long as Raoul Rivière lived, the neighborly relations had remained polite enough, but rather cold and distant. By a curious freak, Rivière, who would have yielded to no man as a free thinker, had as an architect numbered his clients, until the Dreyfus Affair, almost exclusively in the aristocracy and the reactionary camp; and as he was too clever not to give them lip service, and even to go to mass when it was useful that he should be noticed, he passed for a reactionary and even a clerical (which made him laugh heartily!) in the eyes of the radical republicans of his province. Now the Brissots were pillars of radicalism. This family of the robe--advocates and attorneys--who prided themselves on having been republicans for more than a century (their republicanism dated, indeed, from the days of the First Republic, but they forgot to mention that their ancestor had received the Order of the Lily upon the return of the Bourbons), believed in the Republic as others believe in God the Father, and they considered themselves bound by their traditions: _noblesse oblige_! So the Brissots had felt it was their duty to manifest their austere censure of Raoul Rivière by holding him at a distance; which did not bother him at all, as he expected no commissions from them. Came the famous Dreyfus Affair, in which Rivière, as we have seen, found himself, without dreaming of such a thing, in the Progressive party. In a flash, he was whitewashed; a sponge was applied to his past, and people even discovered in Rivière exalted civic and republican virtues, which he himself would never have suspected, but from which he would assuredly have derived excellent profit, had death not come to spoil his plans.

The Brissots' plans had not suffered in consequence. These great republicans who, for a century, had known boldly how to harmonize their principles and their interests, were rich; and, naturally, they dreamed of being more so. They knew that Rivière had left his daughter a very tidy fortune. It would be very nice to unite his Burgundy property to the Brissot possessions, which it would complete so happily. But with people who had such principles as the Brissots, worldly reasons came second,--even when it happened that they thought of them first: in a question of marriage, it was the young girl who must first be taken into account. The young girl, in this instance, answered all requirements. Annette satisfied them by what they knew of her, by her serious ways, and by what they had learned of her devotion to her father. They were impressed by her intelligence and by her simplicity. Her bearing in society was perfect. She had composure. Enough wit. Good health. Doubtless her work at the Sorbonne, her studies and her diplomas, seemed a little affected to them; but they considered these the pastimes of an intelligent young girl who was bored, and who would put them aside when her first child arrived. And the Brissots were not averse to showing that they liked intelligence, even in a woman,--provided, naturally, it did not become embarrassing. Annette would not be the first feminine intellectual in the family, thank Heaven! Madame Brissot, the mother, and Roger's sister Adèle, enjoyed the reputation, justified in a sense, of being brainy women, no less than women of sentiment, who were able to share the mental life as well as the active life of the men of their household. Annette's intellectuality was at least a guarantee (the great point!) that in her case there was no danger of clericalism. For the rest, she would find in her new family affectionate guidance that would know how to guard her from any extravagances. It would not be difficult for the dear child to become part of the family whose name she was to take: she had no parents, and she would be only too glad to put herself under the aegis of a second mother and a slightly older sister, who would ask merely to guide her. For the Brissot ladies, who were keen observers, judged Annette to be really congenial, very distinguished, sweet, polished, reserved, timid (from their point of view this was not a fault) and a little cold (this was almost a virtue).

It was then with the support of his whole family, previously consulted, that Roger paid his court. He hid nothing from them, sure that he would always meet with approval. This big fellow was idolized by his family, and he repaid them in full measure. The Brissots practiced mutual admiration. There was a hierarchy, but each had his worth. It had to be recognized that they were all fairly evenly endowed on the mental side, as well as with the advantages of body and of fortune. They recognized the fact, but gracefully, like well-bred people. They never showed it to those whom they considered plainly their inferiors. But the truth could not be doubted, from the sweet certainty written on their features. Of all their certainties, Roger was the most certain. He was their dearest pride, and perhaps the best justified. Never had the Brissot tree borne more thriving fruit. Roger had the best gifts of his race, and if he had its faults as well, they were not startling: his charm and his youth caused them to be forgotten. He was full of talent, all things were easy for him, but especially speech. Eloquence was one of the family fiefs. It already counted one barrister; and from birth all the Brissots had a love of fine speech. It would have been an injustice to pretend that, like those talkers of the Midi, they had to talk in order to think; but they had to talk,--that was incontestable. Their real faculties bloomed in phrases; silence would have atrophied them. Roger's father, one of the most illustrious gabblers that ever honored the tribune of the Chamber, and on whom the voters had played the scurvy trick of not reelecting him, was suffocated by his stifled eloquence; and Roger, then aged six, used to say to him naïvely when they were alone by the hearth:

"Papa, make me a speech!"

Now he made them on his own account. In a trice his youthful reputation had been brilliantly established at the legal conferences at the Palais-Bourbon. Like all the Brissots, he had turned his gifts towards politics. The meetings in connection with the Dreyfus Affair had furnished him with an excellent springboard; he bounded into the arena, delivering speeches in mid-flight. The youthful fire, bravura, and well chosen, overflowing speech of this handsome young man, won for him the enthusiastic sympathy of the young feminine Dreyfusistes and many of his juniors. The Brissots, ever desirous of not allowing themselves to be outdistanced on the road of Progress, but very careful not to go a step too far or too early, having carefully surveyed the terrain, spurred their son, their young pride, along the way of serious socialism. Roger, his nose to the trail, gave himself to the task. Like the flower of the youth of his day, he was under the spell of Jaurès, and he tried to model his orations on the splendid speeches of the great rhetorician, filled with prophetic visions and illusory mirages. He proclaimed the necessity of an understanding between the people and the intellectuals. This furnished him a theme for the most eloquent speeches. Even though the people--who lacked leisure--did not know much about it, they were seriously disturbing the leisure of the young bourgeoisie. With personal subscriptions and the assistance of a small group of friends, Roger founded a study club, a newspaper, a party. He spent a great deal of time and a little money on them. The Brissots, who were good reckoners, also knew how to spend on occasion. They were pleased to see their son become a leader of the younger generation. They prepared the ground for the coming elections. Roger was marked for a place in the future Chamber. Nor was he ignorant of the fact. Accustomed from childhood to see his family believe in him, he believed in himself, too; and without precisely knowing what his ideas were, he had an absolute faith in them. In no way overweening. He was full of himself, but so naturally! He was successful in everything; he was so accustomed to it that it did not even occur to him to pride himself on the fact; but he would have been dumbfounded had it been otherwise, his surest dogmas would have received a serious blow. How likable he was! A naïve, unconscious and shallow egotist, a good fellow and a handsome fellow, disposed to give but determined to receive, and unable to conceive that anything could be refused him, simple, polite, cordial, demanding, waiting for the world to place itself at his feet. . . . He was really very attractive.

VII

Annette felt the attraction. She judged him accurately enough, but this only made her love him the more. She smiled at his foibles, which were infinitely dear to her. These made him seem to her less the man, and more the child; and her heart rejoiced that he was one as well as the other. One of Roger's charms was that he hid nothing; he showed his entire self. His innocent satisfaction with himself gave him a perfect naturalness.

He was all the more confiding because he was enamoured of Annette. Ardently and without reservations. He loved nothing by halves. But he never saw more than half of anything.

His fire for her was kindled one evening when he had been very eloquent in some drawing-room. Annette had said nothing, but she had listened marvelously. (At least he thought so.) Her intelligent eyes returned his own thoughts to him, clearer and more winged. Her smile gave him joy in what he had said so well, and it was all the sweeter because he felt that it was shared. . . . How beautiful she was, that listening girl! What an admirable mind, what an exceptional soul, could be discerned in those attentive, speaking eyes, in that all-understanding smile! . . . Although he was the only one to speak, he had the illusion that he was talking with her. In any case, he no longer spoke save for her; and he felt himself being lifted above himself by this inward dialogue, by the mysterious exchange of these mute responses. . . .

As a matter of fact, Annette was scarcely listening. Sufficiently intelligent to seize promptly the general drift of Roger's thought, she followed absentmindedly, as was her habit, the fine balanced phrases. But she profited by his absorption in his eloquence to study him thoroughly: eyes, mouth and hands, the way he moved his chin when he talked, his fine nostrils resembling those of a neighing colt, his habit of prettily rolling certain letters, and all that this expressed, both inside and out. . . . She could see into him. She perceived his desire to be admired, she saw the pleasure that he took in pleasing, and she judged him handsome, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. And it did not occur to her at all (yes! a little, a very little . . .) to find him comical. On the contrary, she found him very touching. . . .

. . . "Yes, my dear, you are handsome, you are charming, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. . . . You want a little smile? . . . There, my dear, I give you two . . . with my very sweetest eyes. . . . Are you satisfied? . . ."

In her heart she laughed, when she saw him, all happiness and pride, redouble his warbling like a spring bird.

Homage was sweet to him; he drank it undiluted, without a drop of irony; he wanted more, he was never wearied. And, intoxicated by his own song, he could no longer distinguish it from the person who admired it. She seemed to him the incarnation of all that was beautiful, pure and genial in it. He adored her.

She, into whose heart love had glided at first sight,--when she felt herself bathed in this adoration, no longer offered the least resistance. Even the gentle irony that, like a gorget, protected the beatings of her heart, fell from her; and she offered her bare breast to love. She was so hungry for affection! What happiness to slake her thirst (she anticipated the joy) at the lips of this man who charmed her! How he offered them to her, anticipating her desire, with such a burst of ardor, permeating her with a passionate gratitude. . . .

The fire was well ablaze. Each burned with the other's desire, and fed upon his own. And the more the one was exalted, the more he expected of the other; and the more the other strove to surpass that expectation. It was very tiring, but they had an immense youthful energy to spend.

For the moment, Annette's energy was reduced to a passive rôle. None other was left her. Roger invaded her. She was submerged. He scarcely gave her time to breathe. His expansive, overflowing nature felt the need of telling all, of confiding all: future, past and present. And it was long! But Roger held his ground! He also wanted to know all, to have all. He forcibly penetrated Annette's secrets. Annette was hard pressed to defend her last retreats. A little scandalized, happy and amused, she had a faint desire to fly into a passion at this invasion; but the invader was so adorable! . . . She abandoned herself, voluptuously; she experienced, in yielding to this mental rape,--("_Et cognovit eam_. . . ." He scarcely knew her! . . .)--secret feelings of revolt and pleasure. . . .

It was not over-prudent, this complete surrender of self. There was the risk that certain confidences, made in hours of abandon, might later be employed as weapons by the confidant. But this was the very least of Annette's and Roger's cares. At this hour of love, nothing in the beloved could displease, nothing could astonish. All that the loved one confided, far from surprising the lover, seemed a response to his own unuttered vows. Roger no longer guarded--guarded less than ever--the indiscreet confessions that Annette's indulgent ear was none the less registering very faithfully, unknown to him.

What pleasure they took in sharing the past and the present; the present and the past were linked together in the dream of the future, of _their_ future: for although Annette had said nothing, promised nothing, her acceptance was so taken for granted, so anticipated, and so demanded, that Annette herself ended by believing she had given it. Happily, with eyes half closed, she listened to Roger set forth with tireless enthusiasm the magnificent life of thought and action that was reserved for him (for he was one of those who always enjoy to-morrow more than to-day). . . . For whom? For him? For Roger. And for her too, of course, since she was a part of Roger. She was not shocked by this absorption; she was too busy seeing, hearing, drinking in, this marvellous Roger. He talked a great deal of socialism, of justice, of love, of emancipated humanity. He was really splendid. In words, his generosity knew no bounds. Annette was stirred. It was intoxicating to think that she might be associated with this work of powerful benevolence. Roger never asked her what she thought about it. It was understood that she thought as he did. She could not think otherwise. He spoke for her. He spoke for both of them, because he was the better speaker. He said:

"We shall do. . . . We shall have. . . ."

And she did not protest. On the contrary she was grateful. All this was so big, so vague, so disinterested, that she had no reason to be disturbed by it. Roger was all light and liberty. . . . A little diffuse perhaps. Annette, maybe, would have liked a little more precision. But that would come later; one couldn't say everything at once. Let us make the pleasure last! . . . To-day we have only to enjoy these limitless horizons.

She took particular joy in his charming countenance, in the ardent attraction of their two loving bodies, through which electric waves suddenly passed, in the tide of physical vigor that filled them both,--both rich in the endowment of a youth that was chaste, healthy, robust, and aflame.

Never was Roger's eloquence more certain than when it halted and, in the last vibrations of the words that had opened exalted vistas to them, their eyes met: the sudden contact was like a physical embrace. Then such desire flamed in them that their breathing stopped. Roger thought no more of dazzling and talking. Annette no longer thought of the future of humanity, nor even of her own. They forgot everything, everything about them: the drawing-room, the public. In these instants they became but a single being, a wax in the flame. Nothing more than the Desire of nature,--unique, devouring, and pure like fire. Then Annette, with distraught eyes and flaming cheeks, would wrench herself out of the vertigo, with the trembling and intoxicating certainty that some day she would succumb. . . .

VIII

Their love was no longer a secret to anyone. They were both incapable of veiling it. Annette held her tongue in vain; her eyes spoke for her. Their mute acquiescence was so eloquent that in the eyes of the world, as in Roger's, she appeared tacitly engaged.

The Brissot family alone did not lose sight of the fact that she was not. To Roger's declarations, Annette doubtless lent herself with an evident pleasure. But she avoided answering; she was clever enough to turn the conversation to some great subject, on which the innocent Roger, leaving the prey for the shadow, launched himself endlessly, only too happy to talk. And, once again, Annette had not spoken. Having observed this manœuver several times, the Brissots, prudent folk that they were, decided to take a hand. It was not that they could harbor a doubt regarding Annette's decision and the happiness that so brilliant a match would bring her; but, after all, one must always reckon with the strange caprices of a young girl! They knew life. They knew its pitfalls. They were crafty French provincials. When the decision that they awaited was delayed on the way, prudence counseled them to go in search of it. The two Brissot ladies took the road.

There was a smile that was known in Paris, in the circle of their acquaintances, as the Brissot smile: it was unctuous and sweet, affable and superior, measuredly and heavily playful, foreseeing all, gushing with benevolence, perfectly indifferent; it offered full hands, but the hands remained full. It adorned the two Brissot ladies.

Madame Brissot, the mother, a large handsome woman, with a broad face, fat cheeks, well-fed and chubby, had an imposing carriage, an opulent bosom, and an unctuous, excessively flattering way of talking that embarrassed the sincere Annette. But it was not meant for her alone (she soon noticed this with relief). This laudatory tone was generously distributed to all. It was accompanied by a perpetual badinage, which with the Brissots was a courteous mark of the certainty which was intuitive with them, and of the geniality with which they recognized this superiority.

Mademoiselle Brissot, Roger's sister, also big and strong, was a very pale blond, so lacking in color that she seemed almost an albino. She accentuated this by a cloud of rice powder on her cheeks and a streak of red on her lips. She was aiming at the ideal of a Louis XV pastel. She might have served Nattier as a mincing, chlorotic, and fleshy Burgundian Phœbe. Her mother called this robust girl, "My poor little darling," for Mademoiselle Brissot, who functioned like a charm, had conceived the idea, while admiring her pallor, that her health must be delicate. But she did not exploit it by demanding coddling; on the contrary she used it to show off her energy and give herself the right to scorn the softer creatures of her sex who moaned about their little ailments. In truth, she was admirable, active, and indefatigable; she read everything, saw everything, knew everything; she painted, was a judge of music, talked literature; and every day, in company with Madame Brissot, she carried out a program of some two or three hundred calls that had to be made in a given time, receiving them in return, giving dinners, following the concerts and the theatres, the sittings of the Chamber and the exhibitions, without ever flinching, without ever betraying fatigue, save at chosen moments by a bravely stifled sigh;--and, besides all this, she knew how to feed the body that she mortified, eating heavily like all her family, and getting a full night's dreamless sleep. She was no less mistress of her heart than of her body. She was sedately preparing for her marriage to a politician of some forty years, who was at this moment governor of one of the great oversea colonies. She had not dreamed of accompanying him there. She did not wish to leave Paris and the Brissot name behind her until the happy elect could offer her a position in France that was worthy of her. In addition to which, she knew how to keep him from being forgotten in high places. With regularity they wrote each other letters that were cordial and businesslike. This long-distance courtship had gone on for a number of years. Marriage would come in due time. She was in no hurry. Her husband would be rather mature, but according to Mademoiselle Brissot's taste he would be all the better for that. She had a strong head. Head, the Brissots had never lacked. Mademoiselle Brissot's was eminently political. Her mother said that she was, by vocation, an Egeria. Madame Brissot admired the intelligence of Mademoiselle Brissot. Mademoiselle Brissot admired the domestic genius and mind of Madame Brissot. They paid each other mincing compliments. They kissed each other in the presence of Annette. It was charming.

However, they soft-pedaled this mutual cult in order to cajole Annette. They were all compliments, for her, for her house, for her clothes, her taste, her wit, her beauty. The excessively laudatory tone grated on Annette a bit; but one does not remain insensible to the flattering opinion that others have of one, particularly when those others seem messengers from the person whom one loves. It was hard not to believe that this was the case; for the Brissot ladies continually brought Roger's name into the conversation. They intertwined his praises with Annette's; they made smiling, persistent allusions to the impression Annette had produced on him, to the things she had said to him, and which he had hastened to repeat enthusiastically--(he repeated everything: Annette was embarrassed but none the less touched). They laid great stress upon his brilliant future; and Madame Brissot assumed an impressive tone in which to phrase her hope that Roger would find--that he had found--a helpmate worthy of him. She named no one, but the meaning was clear. All these little ruses were visible to the naked eye, at twenty paces. They were meant to be. It was a sort of social game, in which one must talk around the word that everyone has on his tongue, without ever pronouncing it. Madame Brissot's smile seemed watching Annette's lips for the word that was about to come out, as though to cry:

"A bargain!"

Annette smiled, opened her mouth. But the word did not come. . . .

Annette was invited by the Brissots to intimate evening parties in their apartment on the Rue de Provence. She became acquainted with father Brissot, tall and big and rubicund, with cunning eyes beneath bushy brows, a short gray beard, and the air of a crafty and fatherly lawyer, who heaped upon her gallantries and ancient jests. He too tried to play the social game, but he put his foot in it with his circumlocutions. Annette took fright, and Madame Brissot signalled her husband to keep out of the affair. So he stayed outside the game, content to jeer and follow it from the corner of his eye, convinced that it was not his business and that the women would acquit themselves better than he.

With Annette, Madame Brissot at first adroitly invited only three or four intimate friends,--then two, then one, then none. And Annette found herself alone with the four Brissots. _En famille_, said Madame Brissot in a tone rich in unctuously maternal promises. Annette smelled the trap, but she did not steal away. She found too much pleasure in being with Roger. Her affection for him made her regard his family indulgently; she closed her eyes to what secretly irritated her in this circle. Acuteness of feminine instinct warned the Mesdames Brissot of this; strong as their self-love was, it never worked against their interests; by tacit accord, they knew how to efface themselves, how to speak less, sift their ideas, and arrange matters so that the lovers might frequently enjoy undisturbed times alone together. More and more enamoured and disturbed at Annette's reserve, which would have struck him less forcibly had not his mother and his sister called it to his attention, Roger had never been more attracted than now when his self-confidence was threatened. He delivered no more speeches; his eloquence had flagged. For the first time in his life, he tried to read another's soul. As he sat beside Annette, his humble and ardent eyes devoured, implored the little enigma, striving to solve it. Annette enjoyed this disquiet, this timidity that was so new in him, this fearful waiting that watched over her every movement. She was shaken. There were moments when she nearly bent towards him, to utter decisive words. And yet she did not say them. At the last second, she instinctively drew back, without knowing why; brusquely she avoided the declaration that Roger was about to make, and her own avowals. She escaped. . . .

And then the trap closed. From one of the neighboring salons, Madame and Mademoiselle Brissot would discreetly brood over the unfruitful interview. Occasionally they were visible, crossing the drawing-room, smiling and preoccupied. In passing they would throw out a friendly word, but they did not stop. And the two young people continued their long conversations.

One evening when they were absentmindedly thumbing an album, which was an excuse for them to put their heads close together, while they were exchanging their thoughts in a low voice, there was a silence; and suddenly Annette perceived the danger. She wanted to get up, but Roger's arm was already around her waist, and the young man's passionate mouth was upon her half-parted lips. She tried to defend herself. But how could she, against herself! Her lips returned the kiss, even while she wanted to draw away. She disengaged herself, however, when she heard Madame Brissot shrilling in an excited voice, from the other end of the drawing-room:

"Oh! my dear girl! . . ."

And she was calling:

"Adèle! . . . Monsieur Brissot! . . ."

Annette in stupefaction saw herself surrounded in a flash by the entire Brissot family, radiant and affectionate. Madame Brissot covered her with kisses, while she sponged her own eyes with a handkerchief and kept repeating:

"Love him well!"

Mademoiselle Brissot was saying:

"My little sister!"

And Monsieur Brissot, always a blunderer:

"At last! . . . You've taken long enough! . . ."

Meanwhile Roger was kneeling before Annette, kissing her hands and begging her with eyes that were fearful and a little shamefaced, asking forgiveness and imploring:

"Don't say no!"

Annette, petrified, yielded to his kisses; the supplication of those beloved eyes forged the last link in her chains. She made a final effort to protest:

("Why, I haven't said anything! . . .")

But she saw in Roger's eyes a grief so sincere that she could not bear it; and when Roger's face lighted up with happiness, her own became radiant at the joy she had caused. She clasped his head between her hands. Roger rose, crying out in relief. And, beneath the benevolent eyes of his family, they exchanged their kiss of betrothal.

IX

That night, when Annette found herself alone in her own home, she was thunderstruck. She no longer belonged to herself. She had given herself. . . . Given! Given her life! . . . Her heart contracted in anguish.

She still exaggerated the tightness of the bonds that she had just accepted. She was not one of those young girls who jest lightly with their fiancés regarding the possibility of divorce. She did not give with one hand to take back with the other. She was no longer her own. She belonged to the Brissots. And suddenly the Brissots appeared inimical. All that her eyes had seen during these past weeks came before her, with accentuated outlines: all their manœuvres of approach in order to envelop her, their conspiracy against her freedom, the final comedy that had extorted her consent by surprise. . . . (Had not Roger, Roger himself, been an accomplice? . . .) And she bristled like a cornered animal that sees the circle close around him, feels himself lost, and is ready to charge with lowered head against the hunters, either to clear a passage or to die and win vengeance. For the first time, everything in the Brissots that displeased her, thoughts of which she had hitherto avoided, appeared to her magnified, hateful, and intolerable. . . . Even Roger! . . . Never could she live immured in that man, that family, that circle of interests which were not her own, which never could be. She decided to break away. . . .

But could she still break away, now that she had just become engaged? Would Roger permit it? He would have to permit it! He couldn't prevent her. . . . At the idea that he might oppose it, Annette hated him. In that moment, the other's suffering did not count, she would not have hesitated to break his heart in order to recover her own liberty. . . . And then she remembered his imploring eyes. . . . And she was overawed. . . . No matter! The egotism of menaced life, the instinct of self-preservation were stronger than all else, stronger than tenderness, stronger than pity! She had to save herself. And woe to him who barred her escape! . . .

All night long, twisting and turning in her bed, devoured by a feverish insomnia, she lived through in anticipation the scene that she was going to have with Roger. She repeated, tried out all the words that he and she would utter. She tried to convince him, she argued, she flew into a passion, she pled with him, and she detested him. Dawn found her exhausted but decided. She would go to Rogers house. . . . Or, no! she would write to him; in that way she would be freer to finish what she had to say without interruption. She would break it off. To avoid the Brissots returning to the charge, she resolved to leave Paris, to spend a few days at some hotel in the suburbs. And getting up, she wrote her letter, the phrases of which she had rehearsed in her head a hundred times. Then she hastily began her preparations for departure.

She was in the midst of them when Roger surprised her at it. She had not thought of barring her door, as it had not occurred to her that he might come so early. He entered, preceding in his amorous impatience the servant who announced him. He was bringing flowers. He was bubbling over with happiness and gratitude. He was so affectionate, so young, so charming that when Annette saw him she no longer had the strength to speak. All her fine resolutions were forgotten, her heart was recaptured at the first glance. With the astonishing bad faith of love, she immediately found as many reasons for marriage as she had found against it a moment before. She tried to fight, but joy shone in her eyes, ringed by the worries of the night. She looked at her Roger, who was drinking her in with an intoxicated glance, and she said to herself:

"But I have decided . . . but I must decide. . . . What is it I have decided? . . ."

But how could she know, when he looked at her as though he were drinking in her very soul! Think, how could she think, how recover herself! . . . She no longer knew, she was lost. . . . And, meanwhile, it was so good to feel that she was loved! All that she could do, with an immense effort, was to ask Roger not to hasten the marriage. And immediately Roger looked so disappointed, so cast down, that Annette had not the courage to go on. How could she hurt so dear a boy? She hastened tenderly to reassure him, to tell him that she loved him; feebly she tried to cling to her postponement, which he repulsed as energetically as though it were a matter of life and death. Finally, after a loving bargaining on both sides, they agreed to compromise; and their marriage was fixed for the middle of the summer.

Afterwards, Roger left; and Annette, regarding herself sheepishly in the mirror, found there all her indecision again. . . . How could she get out of it? She contemplated the interrupted preparations for her journey.

"Well done!" said she.

She shrugged her shoulders, laughed. . . . How charming Roger was! . . . Back into the closet went her lingerie and the things she had taken out for her trunk. . . .

"But just the same," she was thinking, "I don't want to, I don't want to! . . ."

Nervously she let fall a pile of chemisettes. . . . Thump! And toilet brushes went tumbling after. . . . Impatiently she kicked the heap. . . .

And then she gathered them up, bending down to the floor. In the midst of her tidying, she let herself go and sat down on the parquet, not very proud of her will power. . . .

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, stretching herself out on the carpet, "I still have four months to change my mind. . . ."

And with her face thrust into a cushion, lying flat on her stomach, she counted the days. . . .

X

The Brissots prudently gave their approval of Annette's expressed desire to prolong the engagement: they did not wish to imperil their success by showing too much haste. But they felt it necessary to surround Annette during these months of waiting. It would not do to leave her to herself; there was always a risk of the strange girl escaping.

Easter Sunday was approaching. The Brissots invited Annette to spend Easter week with them at their country place in Burgundy. Annette accepted regretfully; she was tempted and afraid; afraid of adding to the chains that already bound her, afraid of being completely captured or of breaking everything; and afraid of still other things, more dangerous, that she did not like to consider. She did not wish to escape from the state of amorous uncertainty in which she was allowing herself to be cradled: she suffered from it a little, and she found a certain charm in it. She would have liked to prolong it. But she knew perfectly well that it was not wholesome, and that she had not the right to do so, face to face with Roger.

Finally she decided to lay her troubles before Sylvie. Never had she said a word to her of her love for Roger. Yet she confided everything to her: of all the other young men she had often spoken to her. . . . Yes, but she didn't love the other young men! And Roger's name had been kept out of their conversation.

Sylvie exclaimed, called her "Sneak!" and laughed uproariously when Annette tried to explain her indecision, her scruples and her torments.

"Well now," she demanded, "is this bird of yours handsome?"

"Yes," replied Annette.

"He loves you?"

"Yes."

"And you love him?"

"I love him."

"Well then, what's stopping you?"

"Oh! it is so difficult! How can I tell you? . . . I love him. . . . I love him tremendously. . . . He is so wonderful!"

(She began to describe him complaisantly, under Sylvie's mocking eyes. Then she broke off. . . .)

"I love him very much . . . very much. . . . And then, too, I don't love him. . . . There are things about him . . . I could never live with . . . I never could. . . . And then, he loves me too much. He would like to eat me. . . ."

(Sylvie burst out laughing.)

". . . It's true, eat me entirely, devour my whole life, all my own thoughts, the very air I breathe. . . . Oh! he's an excellent eater, my Roger! It's a pleasure to see him at the table. . . . He has a good appetite. . . . But I, I don't want to be eaten."

She too laughed heartily; and Sylvie, who was sitting in her lap, laughed against her neck. Annette went on:

"It's frightful to feel yourself being devoured like that, alive, to have nothing of your own any more, not to be able to keep anything any longer. . . . And he doesn't suspect it. . . . He loves me madly, and I have an idea, you see, that he doesn't even try to understand me, that he doesn't even think about it. He comes, he takes, he carries me off. . . ."

"Well, that's terribly nice!" observed Sylvie.

"You are always thinking about silly things!" said Annette, clasping her in her arms.

"And what would you like to have me think about?"

"About marriage. That's a serious thing."

"Serious! oh! well, not so serious!"

"What, it isn't serious to give all of yourself, without a single reservation?"

"And who talked about doing that? You'd have to be mad!"

"But he wants to have everything!"

Sylvie squirmed with laughter like a little fish.

"Oh! you goose! you stupid! . . . Ninny!"

(It seemed to her so simple to say what one wished, to give what one wished, and to keep back all the rest without saying anything about it! She was affectionately ironical towards men and their demands. They are not so sharp! . . .)

"But I'm not, I'm not all those things," Annette protested.

"Oh! So far as that goes!" exclaimed Sylvie, "you take everything so seriously."

Annette admitted the fact, contritely.

"It's too bad all the same! . . . I wish I were like you! . . . You have all the luck!" she went on.

"Let's exchange! Hand over yours!" said Sylvie.

Annette had no desire to exchange. Sylvie left her comforted.

But at the same time, Annette did not understand herself. She was puzzled.

"It's curious!" she said to herself, "I want to give everything. And I want to keep everything! . . ."

The next day--it was the eve of her departure--while she was finishing her preparations, when she was beginning to torment herself again, a singular visit added to her anxieties, at the same time clarifying them. Marcel Franck was announced.

After a few amiably courteous speeches, he alluded to Annette's engagement, of which Roger had made no mystery. Gracefully he felicitated her, his voice and eyes gently ironic, affectionate. Annette felt very much at ease with him, as with a perspicacious friend to whom one need not say all, from whom one need hide nothing,--for half-words carry understanding. They talked of Roger, whom Marcel envied, smilingly. Annette knew that he spoke the truth, and that he was in love. But it caused them no perturbation. She asked him questions about Roger, whom he knew intimately. Marcel sang his praises; but when she insisted that he speak of him in a somewhat less banal fashion, he jokingly said that it was useless for him to describe Roger, as she knew him quite as well as he. And, saying this, he fixed her with so penetrating a glance that, for an abashed moment, she turned away her eyes. Then, staring in turn at him, she encountered his shrewd smile which showed that they understood each other. They talked for some time of indifferent matters, and then Annette abruptly interrupted, in a preoccupied tone:

"Tell me frankly," she said, "do you think I've made a mistake?"

"I should never think of you as being mistaken," said he.

"No, don't be polite! You are the one person who can tell me the truth."

"But you know that my position is peculiarly delicate."

"I know it. But I know, too, that it has no effect on the sincerity of your judgment."

"Thanks!" said he.

She continued:

"You think that we are mistaken, Roger and I?"

"I think that you are deceiving yourselves."

She bowed her head. Then she said:

"I think so too."

Marcel did not respond. He continued to look at her and smile.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I was sure that you thought so." Annette, turning her eyes upon him, asked:

"Tell me, now, what I seem like to you?"

"I should teach you nothing."

"You will help me to see more clearly."

"You are," Marcel said to her, "an amorous rebel. Perpetually amorous (forgive me!) and perpetually rebellious. You feel the need of giving yourself, and you feel the need of withholding yourself. . . ."

(Annette could not conceal a slight start.)

"I shock you?"

"No, no, quite the contrary! How true it is! Go on! Tell me some more. . . ."

"You are," Marcel continued, "an independent who cannot remain alone. It is the law of nature. You feel it more keenly, because you are more alive."

"Yes, you understand me! You understand me better than he does. But . . ."

"But it is he whom you love."

There was no bitterness in the tone. Very friendlily they stared at each other, amused at the strangeness of human nature.

"It is not easy to live," said Annette, "to live in pairs."

"Why, yes, it would be easy enough, if men hadn't spent their time for centuries ingeniously complicating life by reciprocal restraints. The only thing to do is to throw them off. But naturally our excellent Roger, like any good old Frenchman, doesn't conceive of the idea. They think that they are lost if they no longer feel themselves weighed down by the restraints of the past. '_Where there is no restraint, there is no pleasure_ . . .' especially when in being restrained one restrains one's neighbor."

"What is your conception of marriage, then?"

"As an intelligent association of interests and pleasures. Life is a vine that we exploit in common; together we cultivate it and gather the grapes. But we are not compelled always to drink our wine together, always tête-à-tête. There is a mutual complaisance that demands from and gives to the other the clusters of pleasure, of which each disposes, and which allows one discreetly to finish his harvesting elsewhere.

"What you mean," asked Annette, "is the liberty of adultery?"

"The old obsolete word! What I mean," answered Marcel, "is the liberty of love, the most essential of all liberties."

"That's the thing of least importance to me," said Annette. "For me marriage is not a public square in which one gives oneself to every passer-by. I give myself to one alone. The day on which I ceased to love and loved another, I should separate from the first; I should not divide myself between them, and I could not bear the division."

Marcel made an ironic gesture that seemed to say:

"What does it matter? . . ."

"So you see, my friend," Annette went on, "in the last analysis, I am still further away from you than from Roger."

"So you too," demanded Marcel, "belong to the good old school: 'Let us hamper one another'?"

"The one grandeur of marriage," said Annette, "is monogamous love, the fidelity of two hearts. If that is lost, what remains outside of a few practical advantages?"

"They are not negligible," said Marcel.

"They are not enough," replied Annette, "to compensate for the sacrifices."

"If that's your opinion, what are you complaining about? You rivet the bars from which one would deliver you."

"The liberty that I want," said Annette, "is not that of the heart. I feel that I am strong enough to keep that intact for the one to whom I give it."

"Are you so sure of that?" Marcel demanded tranquilly.

Annette was not so sure of it! She too was doubtful. It was her mother's daughter who was speaking at this moment, it was not the whole Annette. But she did not wish to admit it, especially to Marcel, and in an argument. She said:

"I wish it."

"Will power in such matters! . . ." exclaimed Marcel, with his shrewd smile. ". . . It is as though one decreed that a red fire should be a green fire. Love is a lighthouse of changing fires."

But Annette obstinately said:

"Not for me! . . . I don't want it to be!"

She was perfectly aware, and with the same conviction, of the need of change and of the need of permanence, those two passionate instincts of all vigorous lives. But, turn and turn about, whichever one of these two felt itself threatened, revolted.

Marcel, being well acquainted with the proud and obstinate girl, bowed politely.

Annette, who judged herself as accurately as he judged her, said a little shamefacedly:

"After all, I shouldn't like . . ."

And, with this concession made to the spirit of truth, she continued more firmly, now feeling herself to be on ground of which she was sure:

"But I should like, in exchange for the gift of mutual affection, that each should preserve the right to live according to his own soul, to walk in his own way, to seek his own truth, to secure, if need be, his own field of activity,--to carry out, in a word, the proper law of his own spiritual life, and not sacrifice himself to the law of another, even the dearest person of all: for no one has the right to immolate another's soul, or his own for the sake of another. It is a crime."

"That's all very fine, my dear friend," said Marcel, "but for me, you know, the soul is a little beyond my depth. Perhaps it may mean more to Roger. But I am afraid that in that case he will not understand it in the same fashion. I can't quite see the Brissots, in their family circle, conceiving the possibility of any spiritual law save that of the political and private fortunes of the Brissots."

"By the way," said Annette, smiling, "to-morrow I'm going to their place in Burgundy to spend two or three weeks."

"Well," remarked Marcel, "that will be a case of confronting their idealism with your own. For they are great idealists, they too! After all, perhaps I am mistaken. At bottom you are admirably made to get along together."

"Don't dare me!" said Annette. "Perhaps I shall come back an accomplished Brissot."

"Dear me! That wouldn't be so cheerful! . . . No, no, I beg of you! . . . Brissot, or not Brissot, preserve us Annette!"

"Alas! I should like to lose her, but I can't, I'm afraid," Annette replied.

He said good-bye, kissing her hand.

"It's a pity, all the same! . . ."

He left. Annette, too, told herself that it was a pity, but not in the same sense that Marcel meant. It was in vain that he saw her clearly; he understood her no more than did Roger, who did not see her at all. To understand her required more "religious" souls--more religiously free--than those of almost all these young Frenchmen. Those who are religious, are so in the tradition of Catholicism, which means obedience and the renunciation of intellectual liberty (especially in the case of a woman). And those whose minds are free rarely suspect the profound needs of the soul.

XI

Roger was waiting with the carriage at the little Burgundy station, where Annette arrived the following day. The instant she saw him, her cares took flight. Roger was so happy! And she was no less so. She was grateful to the Brissot ladies for having found weak excuses for not coming to meet her.

It was a clear spring evening. The golden horizon encircled the gentle undulations of pale, new grass and red, plowed land. Larks were chirping. The two-wheeled cart flew over the white road, which rang under the hoofs of the spirited little horse, and the sharp air whipped Annette's red cheeks. She sat pressed against her young companion, who, even while he drove, laughed and talked with her, and, suddenly bending over her lips, took and gave a kiss in mid-flight. She did not resist. She loved him, she loved him! But this did not prevent her realizing that she would soon begin to judge him again, to judge herself. It is one thing to judge, and another to love. She loved him as she loved this air, this sky, this breath from the fields, like a bit of spring. To-morrow was time enough to clarify her thoughts! To-day she gave herself a holiday. Let us enjoy this delicious hour! It will not come again. . . . It seemed to her that she was flying above the earth, with her beloved.

They arrived only too soon, although they went slowly at the last turning, when they were ascending the poplar-lined road, and even though, when they stopped to rest the horse beneath the shadow of the high hedges that masked the front of the château, they embraced for a long time without speaking.

The Brissots put their best foot forward. They knew how to find delicate words by which tactfully to evoke the memory of her father. That first evening in the family circle, Annette let herself be mothered, grateful and touched; she had so long been deprived of the affectionate warmth of a home! She wanted to delude herself. Everyone helped her to do this. Her resistance slumbered. . . .

But when she awoke in the middle of the night, and listened to the gnawing of a mouse in the silence of the old house, the idea of a mouse-trap came into her mind; and she said to herself:

"I am caught. . . ."

She felt a pang, she tried to reason with herself.

"No, no, I don't want to be; I am not . . ."

A nervous sweat moistened her shoulders. She said:

"To-morrow I shall talk to Roger seriously. He must know what I am like. We must see each other honestly if we are going to live together. . . ."

But when the next day came, she was so glad to see Roger again, to let herself be enveloped in his warm affection, to breathe with him the intoxicating sweetness of the spring countryside, to dream of happiness--(impossible perhaps, but who knows, who knows? . . . perhaps it is close . . . one need only stretch out a hand . . .)--that she put off explanations until the next day. . . . And then, to the next. . . . And then, to the day after. . . .

And each night she was seized anew by piercing pangs, by heart burnings. . . .

"I must. . . . I must speak. . . . It has to be done for Rogers sake. Every day he is more enchained, and enchains me more. I have no right to keep silent. It is deceiving him. . . ."

Heavens, heavens! How weak she was!

. . . Yet she was not so, in ordinary life. But the breath of love is like those hot winds whose burning languor breaks your joints and makes your heart faint. An extreme lassitude of obscure pleasure. A fear of stirring. A fear of thinking. . . . The soul, cowering in its dream, fears awakening. Annette knew perfectly well that at her first gesture the dream would be shattered. . . .

But even if we do not move, time moves for us; and the flight of days is sufficient to carry away the illusion that we would preserve. In vain one watches oneself; two persons cannot live together from morn till evening without, at the end of a short time, showing themselves as they really are.

The Brissot family revealed its true colors. The smile was façade. Annette had become part of the household. She saw busy, morose, middle-class people, who administered their wealth with a bitter pleasure. There was no question here of socialism. Of immortal principles, they invoked only the Declaration of the Landlord's Rights. It was not good to attack this. Their watchman was ceaselessly occupied in setting up barriers against trespassing. They personally exercised a strict surveillance that was to them a kind of sorry delectation. They seemed to be carrying on a guerrilla warfare with the servants, their farmers, the grape gatherers, and with all their neighbors. The spirit of sharp practice, that was native to the family and to the province, flourished here. When father Brissot succeeded in trapping someone he had his eye out for, he laughed heartily. But he did not laugh last: his adversary was made of the same Burgundian clay, not to be caught napping; the next day he retaliated by a trick of his own. And then it began all over again. . . .

Of course, Annette was not invited to participate in these ructions; the Brissots talked about them among themselves, in the drawing-room or at table, when Roger and Annette seemed occupied with each other. But Annette's keen attention followed everything that was said around her. Besides, Roger would interrupt the most loving dialogue to take part in the discussion that passionately interested them all. Then they grew heated, they all talked at once, they forgot Annette. Or they called upon her to witness facts of which she was ignorant.--Until finally, Madame Brissot, recalling the listener's presence, cut short the colloquy, and, turning her melting smile upon Annette, shifted the conversation into more flowery paths. Then, with no transition, they returned to affable good fellowship. There was in the general tone of the conversation a curious alloy of prudery and frankness,--just as liberality and stinginess were mingled in the château life. Lively Monsieur Brissot made puns. Mademoiselle Brissot talked poetry, and on this subject everyone had his say. They all pretended to a knowledge of it. Their taste dated back some twenty years. On everything to do with art, they had fixed opinions. They relied on the tried and true opinions of their "friend so and so" who belonged to the Institute and was much decorated. No more timid minds, in the face of authority, could be imagined than these big bourgeois who thought that they were as advanced in art as in politics, and who were advanced in neither one nor the other; for in both they never, wittingly, arrived on the field until after the battle had been won.

Annette felt herself far away from them. She looked, listened, and asked herself:

"What have I to do with these people?"

The idea that one or another of them might presume to act as her guardian did not even repel her any more, it made her want to laugh. She asked herself what Sylvie would have thought, had she been blessed with a family of this sort. What shouts, what bursts of laughter! . . .

Annette answered them sometimes, when she was all alone in the garden. And it happened that Roger heard her one day, and asked in astonishment:

"What in the world is making you laugh?"

To which she replied:

"Nothing, dear. I don't know. Nonsense. . . ."

And she tried to reassume her soberest expression. But it was stronger than she: she began laughing harder than ever, even in front of the Brissot ladies. She begged pardon, and the Mesdames Brissot, indulgent and a little vexed, said:

"The child! She has to get rid of her laughter!"

But she was not always laughing. Shadows passed abruptly over her good humor. After hours of radiant tenderness and confidence with Roger, she experienced, without transition, and for no cause, attacks of melancholy, doubt, and anxiety. The instability from which her thoughts had suffered since last autumn, far from being calmed, was accentuated during these months of requited love. There came, in flurries, an invasion of strangely unharmonious instincts: irritability, grotesque humor, malignant irony, umbrageous pride, inexplicable fits of spite. Annette found it hard to put a damper on them. And the result was not so splendid, for when she did she seemed plunged in a hostile and disquieting taciturnity. As her intelligence remained clear, she was astonished at these sudden changes, and reproached herself for them. That didn't improve matters. But the realization of her own imperfections gave her a certain indulgence--more wished for than sincere--towards those of these "clowns." . . . (Again! . . . Impertinent girl! . . . Forgive me! I won't do it again! . . .) Since they were Roger's relations, she ought to accept them, if she accepted Roger. The rest, Good Heavens, the rest is of no great importance when there are two to defend each other.

Only, were there two? Would Roger defend her? And, even before considering whether she would accept Roger, would Roger accept her sincerely and with a generous heart when he finally saw what she was like? For up to date he had seen only her mouth and eyes. As regarded what she thought and wished--the true Annette--it did not seem that he had tried very hard to become acquainted with her; he found it more comfortable to invent her. However, Annette cradled herself in the hope that, with the aid of love, it would not be impossible, after bravely looking into each other's hearts, for them to say to each other: "I take you, I take you as you are. I take you with your faults, your demons, with your little demands, with your law of life. You are what you are. As you are, I love you."

She knew that, for her part, she was capable of this act of love. During the last days she had observed Roger at length, with her bright eyes in which, unknown to him, everything was mirrored. Roger, no long unsure of himself, had frequently shown himself to be more of a Brissot than she would have wished; he was obsessed by the interests and the quarrels of his tribe, and even brought to them the same tricky spirit. Certain little hard, crafty sides of him did not please her. But she did not wish to judge them severely, as she would have done in the case of others. To her these traits seemed imitative. In many things, Roger appeared to her still an uncertain child, under the thumb of his family, whom he religiously copied, with marked timidity of spirit, despite all his big words. Although she began to perceive a lack of consistency in his projects for social reform, and although she was no longer completely duped by his eloquent idealism, she bore him no grudge for that, for she knew that he was not trying to deceive her, and that he was his own first dupe; she was even ready, with a tender irony, to remove from his path all that might disturb the illusion by which he had to live. And even his naïve egotism, which he sometimes displayed in a cumbersome fashion, did not repel her; it seemed to her devoid of evil intention. At bottom, all his faults were faults of weakness. And the amusing thing was that he posed as strength itself. . . . The man of bronze. . . . _Æs triplex_. . . . Poor Roger! . . . It was almost touching. Annette laughed very softly, but she reserved for him a wealth of indulgence. She loved him dearly. Despite everything, she saw him as good, generous and ardent. She was like a mother who treats with a gentle hand the little, and to her eyes not very serious, vices of a dear child: she does not hold him responsible for them, she is only the more disposed to fuss over him and coddle him. Ah! and then Annette had for Roger not merely the indulgent eyes of a mother! She had the very partial eyes of a lover. The body was speaking; and its voice was very strong. The voice of reason could say what it pleased: there was a way of hearing that made these very faults set fire to desire. Annette saw everything clearly. But just as one may bend one's head and squint one's eyes in order to harmonize the planes of a landscape, so Annette, when she looked at Roger's unpleasant traits, viewed them from an angle that softened them. It would have not been much beyond her to love even deformities: for one gives more of oneself when one loves the faults of one's beloved; in loving what is fine, one does not give, one takes. Annette thought:

"I am glad that you are imperfect. If you knew what I see, it would annoy you. Forgive me! I have seen nothing. . . . But I, I am not like you; I want you to see me as imperfect! I am what I am, and I hold to it; my imperfections are myself, more than the rest. If you take me, you take them. Do you take them? . . . But you don't wish to know them. When will you finally take the trouble to really look at me?"

XII

Roger was in no hurry. After a few futile attempts to lead him on to this dangerous ground from which he seemed to flee, Annette, interrupting their conversation in the midst of a walk, stopped, took both his hands in hers, and said:

"Roger, we must have a talk."

"Talk!" he exclaimed, laughing. "But it doesn't seem to me that we deprive ourselves of that!"

"No," she said, "I don't mean talking pretty things; I mean a serious talk."

Immediately his expression grew a little frightened.

"Don't be afraid," she said, "it's about myself that I want to talk to you."

"About you?" he said, once more serene. "Then it's bound to be charming."

"Wait! Wait!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps you won't say that when you have heard me."

"What could you tell me now that would surprise me? Haven't we told each other everything, after being together for so many days?"

"So far as I'm concerned, I've scarcely said anything but _Amen_," said Annette, laughing. "You do all the talking."

"Oh! the bad girl!" exclaimed Roger. "Isn't it you that I talk about?"

"Yes, it's about me, _too_. And you even speak for me."

"You think that I talk too much?" asked Roger innocently.

Annette bit her lips.

"No, no, my dear Roger, I love it when you talk. But when you talk about me, I just listen to you; and it is so beautiful, so beautiful that I say, 'So be it!' But it's not true."

"You are the first woman to complain of her picture being beautiful."

"I should prefer it to be me. It's not a beautiful picture that you are going to hang up in your family home, Roger. I am a living woman, who has her desires, her passions, and her thoughts. Are you sure that she can come into your home with all her baggage?"

"I am taking you with my eyes closed."

"I am asking you to open them."

"I see your limpid soul, revealed in your face."

"Poor Roger! Good Roger! . . . You don't want to look."

"I love you. That's enough for me."

"I love you too. And that isn't enough for me."

"It's not enough?" he asked in a tone of consternation.

"No. I have to see."

"What is it you want to see?"

"I want to see _how_ you love me."

"I love you more than everything else in the world."

"Naturally! You couldn't do less. But I am not asking you _how much_, I am asking you _how_ you love me. . . . Yes, I know that you want me; but what is it, precisely, that you want to make of your Annette?"

"Make her half of myself."

"There you are! . . . Now the point is, my friend, that I am not a half. I am a whole Annette."

"That's just a way of speaking. I mean that you are me, and that I am you."

"No, no, don't be me, Roger! Let me be that!"

"When we unite our lives, won't we make them one?"

"That's what worries me. I am afraid I can't quite do that."

"What's troubling you, Annette? What are these ideas? You love me, don't you? You love me? That's the essential thing! Don't bother about the rest. The rest is my business. You'll see, I shall arrange--I, and my family that will be yours--we shall arrange your life so well that you will have nothing to do but let yourself be carried along."

Annette was looking at the ground and tracing letters in the dirt with her toe. She was smiling.

(He didn't understand at all, the dear boy. . . .)

She raised her eyes to Roger, who, with perfect tranquillity, was awaiting her response. She said:

"Roger, look at me. Haven't I good legs?"

"Good and beautiful," said he.

"That!" she said, menacing him with her finger, "that is not the question. . . . Am I not a strong walker?"

"Of course," he said. "And I like you to be."

"Well, then, do you think that I am going to let myself be carried? . . . You are very kind, very kind, and I thank you; but let me walk! I am not one of those who fear the fatigues of the road. To take them away from me is to take away my appetite for life. I rather have the impression that you and your family would like to free me from the trouble of acting and of choosing, would like to arrange everything in advance in prescribed pigeonholes, very comfortably--your life, their life, my life--the whole future. I shouldn't want that. I don't want it. I feel that I am at the beginning. I am seeking. I know that I have need of seeking, of seeking myself."

Roger's air was benevolent and bantering.

"And what can you seek?"

He saw here the crotchets of a young girl. She felt it, and said in a provoked tone:

"Don't make fun of me! . . . I don't amount to much, I don't pretend that I do. But after all I know what I am, and that I have a life . . . a poor little life. . . . It's not so long, a lifetime, and one has it only once. . . . I have the right. . . . No, not the right if you will! that seems egotistical. . . . It is my duty not to lose it, not to throw it away at random. . . ."

Instead of being touched, he assumed a hurt air.

"You think that you are throwing it away at random? Is your life going to be lost? Won't it have a fine, a very beautiful purpose?"

"Beautiful, no doubt. . . . But what? What do you offer me?"

Once again he ardently described his political career, the future of which he dreamed, his great personal and social ambitions. She listened to him talk, then, gently stopping him in the middle (for of such a subject he was never weary), she said:

"Yes, Roger. Certainly. That is very, very interesting. But to tell you the truth--no, don't be ruffled--I haven't quite as much faith as you in this political cause to which you are consecrating yourself."

"What! you don't believe in it? But you did believe in it when I spoke to you about it those first times that I saw you in Paris. . . ."

"I have changed a little," said she.

"What has changed you? . . . No, no, it's not possible. . . . You will change back again. My generous Annette couldn't be disinterested in the cause of the people, in the reform of society!"

"But I am not disinterested in it," she replied. "What I am disinterested in is the political cause."

"They are the same thing."

"Not entirely."

"The victory of one will be the victory of the other."

"I rather doubt it."

"Yet it is the only way of serving progress and the people."

(Annette thought: "While serving himself." But she reproached herself for it.)

"I see other ways."

"What are they?"

"The oldest is still the best. Like those who followed Christ, to give all, to leave all behind, in order to go to the people."

"What a utopia!"

"Yes, I believe you. You are not a Utopian, Roger. I thought that you were at first; I think so no longer. In politics you have the sense of reality. With your great talent, I am perfectly sure of your future success. If I doubt the cause, I don't doubt you. You will have a splendid career. I can see you already at the head of a party, an applauded orator, winning a majority in Parliament, a minister . . ."

"Stop!" he said. ". . . _Macbeth, you will be King!_ . . ."

"Yes, I am something of a witch . . . for others. But what vexes me is that I am not for myself."

"Yet it's not so difficult. If I become minister, that concerns you too. . . . Now see here, frankly, wouldn't that please you?"

"What? To be a minister? Heavens above! Not in the least! . . . Forgive me, Roger . . . it would make me glad for your sake, of course. And if I were with you, you may be sure that I would play my part to the best of my ability, and I would be happy to help you. . . . But (you wanted me to be frank, didn't you?) I must confess that such a life would not fill my life, not at all."

"Of course, I understand that. The woman best fitted in the world to share a life of political activity--take my admirable mother for example!--couldn't limit herself to that. Her real task is in the home. And her proper vocation is motherhood."

"I know," said Annette. "We shan't argue about that vocation. But . . . (I am afraid of what I am going to say, I am afraid that you won't understand me) . . . I don't know yet what motherhood will bring me. I am very fond of children. I think that I would be very much attached to my own. . . . (You don't like that word? Yes, I seem cold to you. . . .) Perhaps I would be completely wrapped up in them. . . . It is possible. . . . I don't know. . . . But I shouldn't like to say something that I don't feel. And to be perfectly frank, this 'vocation' is not yet entirely awakened in me. While still waiting for life to reveal something of which I am ignorant, it doesn't seem to me that a woman ought, in any case, to bury her whole life in this love of children. . . . (Don't raise your eyebrows! . . .) I am convinced that it is possible to love one's child, loyally perform one's domestic task, and still keep enough of oneself--as one ought to--for the most essential thing."

"The most essential?"

"One's soul."

"I don't understand."

"How can one make one's inner life understood? Words are so uncertain, so obscure, botched! The soul . . . It is ridiculous to speak of the soul! What does it mean? I can't explain what it is. But it is. It is what I am, Roger, the truest and deepest."

"Don't you give me what is truest and deepest?"

"I can't give all," she said.

"Then you don't love me."

"Yes, Roger, I love you. But no one can give all."

"You are not enough in love. When one is in love, one doesn't think of holding back any part of oneself. Love . . . love . . . love . . ."

And he soared off into one of his great speeches. Annette heard him celebrate, in moving terms, the whole gift of self, the joy of sacrificing for the happiness of the beloved. And she thought:

(My dear, why do you say all that? Do you think I don't know it? Do you think that I couldn't sacrifice myself for you, if it were necessary, and find my joy in it? But on one condition: that you don't demand it. . . . Why do you demand it? . . . Why do you seem to expect it as your right? Why haven't you confidence in me, in my love?)

After he had finished, she said:

"That is very beautiful. . . . I wouldn't be capable, you know, of expressing these things as well as you. But perhaps, on occasion, I wouldn't be incapable of feeling them. . . ."

He exclaimed: "Perhaps! On occasion!"

"You find that very little, don't you? It is more than you think. . . . But I don't like to promise more . . . (perhaps it is less) . . . than I can fulfill. I don't know in advance. We must trust each other. We are upright people. We love each other, Roger. We shall do all that we can."

Again he raised his arms.

"All that we can! . . ."

She smiled and continued.

"Do you want to trust me? I need to draw on my credit. I have much to ask. . . ."

He was prudent: "Go ahead!"

"I love you, Roger, but I should like to be sincere. From my childhood I have lived alone a good deal and enjoyed a great deal of freedom. My father left in me a spirit of independence, which I haven't abused, because it seemed quite natural to me, and because it was wholesome. So I have acquired certain habits of mind that I should find difficult, now, to do without. I know that I am rather different from the majority of young girls of my class. Yet I believe that what I feel they feel too; only I dare to say it, and I have a clearer conscience. You ask me to unite my life with yours. It is my wish. For each of us it is our most profound desire to find our beloved mate. And it seems to me that you could be that mate, Roger . . . if . . . if you wished . . ."

"If I wished!" he exclaimed. "That's a good joke! I don't do anything but wish! . . ."

"If you _truly_ wished to be my mate. It is not a joke. Reflect! . . . To unite our lives means to suppress either one or the other. . . . What do you offer me? . . . You aren't aware of it, because the world has long been used to these inequalities. But they are new to me. . . . You do not come to me with only your affection. You come to me with your family, your friends, your clients, and your relatives, with your course mapped out, your career fixed, with your party and its dogmas, your family and its traditions,--with a whole world that is yours, a whole world that is you. And I, who have a world too, who am also a world,--you say to me: 'Abandon your world! Throw it away, and enter into mine!' I am ready to come, Roger, but I must come whole. Do you accept me as I am?"

"I want all," said he. "It was you, just now, who said that you could not give me all."

"You don't understand. I say: 'Do you accept me free? And do you accept all of me?'"

"Free?" responded Roger circumspectly. "Everybody has been free in France since '89. . . ." (Annette smiled: "The old platitude! . . .") "But, after all, we must understand each other. It is certainly evident that from the moment you marry you will not be completely free. By that act you will have contracted obligations."

"I don't like that word very much," said Annette, "but I am not afraid of the thing. I should joyously and freely take my part in the trials and labors of the man I loved, in the duties of our common life. But I won't renounce, on that account, the duties of my own life."

"And what other duties are there? After what you have told me and what I think I know, your life, my dear Annette, your life that until now has been so placid and so calm, does not seem to me to have experienced any very great exigencies? What could it demand? Is it your work that you mean? Would you like to go on with it? I confess that kind of activity seems wrong to me, for a woman. At least, as a vocation. It's bothersome, in the home. . . . But I can't believe that you are afflicted with this gift from Heaven. You are too human, and too well balanced."

"No, it isn't a question of a special vocation. That would be simple, for then one would have to follow it. . . . The demand, the exigence (as you say) of my life is less easy to formulate: for it is less precise and much more vast. It is a question of the right laid upon every living soul: the right to change."

Roger cried: "To change! To change love?"

"Even while always remaining faithful, as I have said, to a single love, the soul has the right to change. . . . Yes, I know, Roger, that the word 'change' frightens you. . . . It disturbs me, too. . . . When the passing hour is beautiful, I should like never to stir. One sighs that it cannot be held forever! . . . And yet, Roger, one ought not to do it; and, first of all, one cannot. One does not remain stationary. One lives, one goes forward, one is pushed,--one must, must advance! This does no injury to love; one takes that along. But love should not wish to hold us back, shut up with it in the immobile sweetness of a single thought. A beautiful love may last for a whole lifetime, but it cannot entirely fill it. Think, my dear Roger, that while still loving you I might find myself some day, perhaps (I find myself already), cramped within your circle of action and thought. I would never dream of arguing with you the excellence of your choice. But would it be just for it to be imposed on me? And don't you find it equitable to grant me the right of opening the window, if I haven't enough air,--and even the door, a little--(oh! I won't go far)--and for me to have my own little province of activity, my intellectual interests, my friendships, not to remain confined to one point of the globe, to the same horizon, but to try and enlarge it, to seek a change of air, to emigrate. . . . (I say: if it is necessary. . . . I don't know yet. But in any case I need to feel that I am free to do it, that I am free to wish, free to breathe, free . . . free to be free . . . even if I never make use of my liberty.) . . . Forgive me, Roger, perhaps you find this need absurd and childish. It is not, I assure you; it is the most profound need of my being, the breath that gives me life. If it were taken away from me, I should die. . . . I can do everything, for love. . . . But constraint kills me. And the idea of constraint makes me a rebel. No, the union of two beings ought not to become a mutual enchainment. It should be a twofold blooming. I should like each, instead of being jealous of the other's free development, to be happy in assisting it. Would you be, Roger? Would you know how to love me enough to love me free, free of you? . . ."

(She was thinking: "I should be yours only the more! . . .")

Roger was listening to her anxiously, nervous, and a little vexed. Any man would have been. Annette should have been capable of more adroitness. In her need of frankness and her fear of deception, she was always led into exaggerating the most startling features of her thought. But a stronger love than Roger's would not have set this all at naught. Roger, his self-love touched above all, wavered between two sentiments: that of not taking this feminine caprice seriously, and the annoyance that he felt at this moral insurrection. He had not perceived its passionate appeal to his heart. All that he understood of it was that it was a sort of obscure menace and attack upon his proprietary rights. If he had possessed more cunning in his management of women, he would have hidden his secret vexation, and promised, promised, promised . . . all that Annette desired. "Lover's promises, as many as the wind will carry. Why then be niggardly? . . ." But Roger, who had his faults, also had his virtues: he was, as they say, "a simple young fellow," too much filled with himself to be well acquainted with women, with whom he had had recent dealings. He lacked the skill to hide his vexation. And when Annette awaited his generous answer, she suffered the disappointment of seeing that while listening to her he had thought only of himself.

"Annette," said he, "I confess that I can scarcely understand what you ask of me. You talk of our marriage as of a prison, and your one idea seems to be to escape from it. My house has no bars at the windows, and it is large enough for one to be comfortable in it. But one cannot live with all the doors wide open, and my house is made to be lived in. You talk to me about leaving it, about having your individual life, your personal relationships, your friends, and even, if I have rightly understood, of your privilege to leave the home at will, in search of Heaven knows what you fail to find there, until it happens to please you to come back again some day. . . . This can't be serious, Annette! You haven't thought about it! No man could grant his wife a position that would be so humiliating for him and so equivocal for her."

These reflections were not, perhaps, lacking in good sense. But there are times when perfectly dry good sense, with no intuition of the heart, is a kind of nonsense. Annette, somewhat ruffled, answered with a proud frigidity that masked her emotion:

"Roger, it is necessary to have faith in the woman one loves; when one marries her, one must not do her the wrong of believing that she would not have the same care as yourself for your honor. Do you think that such a woman as myself would lend herself to an equivocation in order to humiliate you? Any humiliation for you would be a humiliation for her as well. And the freer she were, the more bound she would feel to watch over that part of yourself which you had confided to her. You will have to esteem me more highly. Aren't you capable of having confidence in me?"

He felt the danger of alienating her by his doubts; and, telling himself that after all there was no need of attaching an exaggerated importance to these feminine ideas, and that there would be time later to correct them--(if she remembered them!)--he returned to his first idea, which was to take the whole thing as a joke. So he believed that he was doing very well, when he said gallantly:

"Perfect confidence, Annette! I believe in your fair eyes. Only swear to me that you will love me always, that you will love me alone! I ask nothing more of you!"

But the little Cordelia, who could not reconcile herself to this trifling fashion of avoiding the honest response on which her life depended, stiffened against this impossible pledge.

"No, Roger, I can't, I can't swear that. I love you very much. But I cannot promise something that does not depend upon myself. It would mean deceiving you; and I shall never deceive you. I promise you simply to hide nothing from you. And if the time comes when I love you no longer, or love another, you will be the first to know it,--even before that other. And you do the same! Oh, Roger! let us be honest!"

That was scarcely possible. Embarrassing truth was something to which the house of Brissot was not accustomed. When it knocked on the door, they hastened to send word:

"Everyone is out!"

Roger did not fail to do it. He cried:

"My dear, how pretty you are! . . . There, let us talk of something else! . . ."

XIII

Annette returned to the house, disappointed. She had cherished great hopes of a frank talk. Although she had anticipated resistance, she had counted on Roger's heart illumining his mind. The most distressing thing was not that Roger had not understood, but that he had not made the least effort to understand. He seemed to see nothing pathetic in the question for Annette. He was all on the surface, and he saw everything in his own image. Nothing could be more painful to a woman with a strong inner life.

She did not deceive herself. Roger had been embarrassed, irritated by Annette's words, but he had completely failed to perceive their seriousness; he considered them inconsequential. He thought that Annette had bizarre and rather paradoxical ideas, that she was "original": it was troublesome. Madame and Mademoiselle Brissot knew how to be superior without being "original." But one could not demand this perfection in everyone. Annette had other qualities,--that, perhaps, Roger did not place so high, but to which he clung (it must be said) much more firmly at the moment. In this preference the body had a greater share than the mind; but the mind, too, had its share. Roger took a keen delight in Annette's heedless ardor, when it was not exercised on subjects embarrassing to him. He was not disturbed. Annette, in her uprightness, had shown him that she loved him. He was convinced that she would not be able to disengage herself from him.

He little suspected the drama of conscience that was being played out at his side. In truth, Annette loved him so much that she could not bring herself to think him such a sorry figure. She wished to believe herself mistaken. She tested other possibilities, she tried to do her best. If Roger would not grant her an independent life, at least what part would he give her in his own? But the new conclusions at which she found herself compelled to arrive were discouraging. Roger's naïve egotism relegated her, in fine, to the dining table, the drawing-room, and the bed. He was very ready to tell her, prettily, about his affairs; but all she had to do, thereafter, was to approve of them. He was no more disposed to concede to his wife the rights of a collaborator who might discuss his political activities with him and modify them, than he was to permit her a social activity different from his own. It seemed to him perfectly natural--(it was always done)--that the woman who loved him should give him her whole life, and that she should receive only a portion of his. At the bottom of his nature he held that old masculine belief in his own superiority which made him feel that what he gave was of a finer essence. But he would not have admitted it, for he was a good fellow and a gallant Frenchman. If it happened that Annette presumed to base certain feminine rights on the example of the husband, Roger would smilingly say:

"It is not the same thing."

"Why?" Annette would ask.

And Roger would avoid a response. A conviction that one does not discuss suffers less danger of being shaken. Roger's conviction was firmly rooted. And Annette chose the wrong course to make him doubt himself. Her advances, her efforts to find a mutual ground of understanding, after her useless attempt to impose her ideas on him, were interpreted by Roger as a fresh proof of the power that he had over her. And he even grew vain. Suddenly Annette would become irritated, and a quivering note would mark her speech. Roger would pull himself up short, and return to the method that, in his opinion, had been so successful: he would laughingly promise all that was demanded of him. It is the tone, they say, that puts the song across. That was the case with Roger. Annette was conscious of the contempt.

Other more serious questions arose. Annette's intimacy with Sylvie had been dangerously menaced. It was evident that the free-minded girl would not be readily welcomed into this circle, and that the little seamstress would be still less so. Never would the vain, stiff-necked Brissots admit, for themselves or for their daughter-in-law, any such scandalous evidence of relationship. It would have to be hidden. And Sylvie would be no more ready to do this than Annette. Each had her pride, and each was proud of the other. Annette loved Roger, and she wanted him with a more burning desire than she confessed to herself; but she would never sacrifice her Sylvie to him. She had loved her too much; and if this love, perhaps, had waned, she did not forget that at moments it had made her touch the ultimate depths of passion:--(she knew it, she alone; even Sylvie suspected only half the truth). But, in the hours of her mutual confidence with Roger, Annette had told him much too much. Then Roger had seemed amused, touched. . . . Yes, but on the condition that all this belonged to the past. He had no intention of seeing a prolongation of this compromising sisterhood. Secretly, he had even decided to put an end to it, gently, without appearing to take a hand in the affair. He did not wish to share his wife's intimacy with anyone. _His_ wife . . . "_This dog is mine_. . . ." Like all his family, he had a very keen sense of what belonged to him.

As Annette's visit grew longer, this possessive grasp grew tighter,--from certain affectionate externalities with which they surrounded her. What the Brissots possessed, they possessed. The domestic despotism of the two women sharply manifested itself daily in a thousand minute details. Their "mind," as the saying goes, was "made up" on everything, whether it was a question of the household or the world, of everyday existence or of great problems of the moral life. It was screwed down, fixed, once for all. Everything was prescribed: what must be praised, what must be rejected,--especially what must be rejected! Such ostracisms! What men, what things, what ways of thinking or of acting, were judged, condemned without appeal, and for eternity! The tone and the smile removed the desire to argue. They had an air of saying (they often said, in so many words):

"There are not two ways of thinking, my dear child."

Or, when Annette none the less tried to show that there was a way also of her own:

"My dear, how amusing you are!"

Which had the effect of making her instantly shut her mouth.

They already treated her as a daughter of the house, not quite thoroughly trained, whom they were instructing. They instructed her regarding the order and course of the Brissot days, months, and seasons, regarding their relatives in the province and their relatives in Paris, their duties of kinship, their calls, their dinners, and the endless chain of those social tasks, about which the women complained, and of which they were very proud, because the harassment of this perpetual activity gave them the illusion that they were being of some service. This mechanical life, these false relationships, this perpetual convention, were all intolerable to Annette. Everything seemed regulated in advance: work and pleasure,--for they had their pleasures too,--but regulated in advance! . . . Hurrah for unforeseen ills that released one from the program! But there was little hope of release, even on the score of ills. Annette felt herself bricked in, like a stone in a wall! Sand and lime. Roman cement. Brissot mortar. . . .

She exaggerated the rigorousness of this life. Chance and the unexpected played their parts in it, as in all lives. The Mesdames Brissot were more redoubtable in words than in fact; they pretended to direct everything; but it was not impossible, if one attacked their weak spots, anointed them, flattered and worshipped them, to lead them by the nose; a cunning girl might have said to herself, while evaluating them at their proper worth:

"Keep on talking! I'll do things my own way!"

One would have thought that a tenacious energy, like Annette's, could never be stifled. But Annette was passing through that nervous fever of women who, by dint of staring too fixedly at the object which preoccupies them, cease to see it as it is. From a few words heard during the daytime, she forged monsters when she was alone at night. She was appalled at the battle which she had to wage continually, and she repeated to herself that she would never succeed in defending herself against them all. She did not feel strong enough. She mistrusted her own energy. She was afraid of her own nature, of those unexpected oscillations by which her troubled mind continued to be shaken, of those sharp gusts that she could not explain. And, indeed, they sprang from the complexity of her rich being whose new harmony could be slowly realized only by living; but, in the meantime, there was danger of their plunging her into many surprises of violence and weakness, of the flesh and of the mind, of the insidious hazards of fate, ambushed beneath the stones of the road. . . .

The basis of her trouble was that she was no longer sure of her love. She no longer knew. . . . She no longer loved, and yet she still loved. Her mind and heart--her mind and senses--were at battle. The mind saw too clearly; it was disillusioned. But the heart was not; and the body was irritated when it saw that it was going to lose what it coveted; passion grumbled:

"I do not want to renounce! . . ."

Annette felt this revolt, and she was humiliated by it; her natural violence reacted forcibly, appealing to her wounded pride. She said:

"I love him no longer! . . ."

And her now hostile glance espied in Roger the reasons for no longer loving him.

Roger saw nothing. He surrounded Annette with kindnesses, with flowers, with gallant attentions. But he thought that the game was won. Not for an instant did he dream of the proud savage soul that was observing him, from behind its veil, burning to give itself--but to him who would utter the mysterious password which shows that one is recognized. He did not utter it; and for a reason. On the contrary, he uttered irreflective words that, without her showing it, wounded Annette to the heart. The instant after, he no longer remembered what he had said. But Annette, who had not seemed to hear, could have repeated them to him ten days, ten years later. She kept the memory of them fresh, and the wound open. It was in spite of herself, for she was generous, and she reproached herself for not knowing how to forget. But the best of women may pardon intimate offenses; she never forgets them.

Day by day, rents appeared in the fine cloth woven by love. The cloth remained stretched tight, but the least breath made disquieting shivers pass over it. Annette, observing Roger in the family circle, with his family traits, the hardness, the dryness of certain of his speeches and his contempt for humble people, said to herself:

"He is fading. At the end of a few years there will remain nothing of what I love in him."

And since she loved him still, she wished to avoid the bitter disillusion, the degrading conflicts between them that she foresaw, if they were united.

Two nights before Easter, her decision was made. A miserable night. There were many desires to be vanquished, obstinate hope that did not wish to die had to be trodden under foot. She had, in imagination, built her nest with Roger. So many dreams of happiness that they had whispered to each other! Renounce them! Recognize that they had been mistaken! Admit that one was not made for happiness! . . .

For that is what she told herself in her discouragement. Another, in her place, would not have been cast down. Why was she not capable of accepting it? Why could she not sacrifice a part of her nature? . . . But no, she could not! How badly life is arranged! One cannot live without mutual affection; no more can one live without independence. The one is as sacred as the other. One as much as the other is necessary to the air we breathe. How can they be reconciled? They say to you: "Sacrifice! If you do not sacrifice, you do not love enough. . . ." But it is almost always those who are capable of a great love who are also the most enamoured of independence. For in them, all is strong. And if they sacrifice to their love the principle of their pride, they feel themselves degraded even in their love, they dishonor love. . . . No, it is not so simple as the morality of humility would have us believe--or that of pride,--the Christian or the Nietzschean doctrine. In us a strength is not opposed to a weakness, a virtue to a vice; it is two forces confronting two virtues, two duties. . . . The sole true morality, according to the true life, would be a morality of harmony. But, so far, human society has known only a morality of repression and renunciation,--tempered by lies. Annette could not lie. . . .

What was to be done? . . . To escape from equivocation as quickly as possible, at any price! Since she was convinced that it would be impossible to live in this union, to break it the next day! . . .

Break! . . . She imagined to herself the family's stupefaction, the scandal. . . . That was nothing. . . . But Roger's grief. . . . Immediately she pictured to herself in the darkness the image of his beloved face. . . . At this vision a new surge of passion swept everything away. . . . Annette, burning and icy, motionless in her bed, upon her back, with her eyes open, suppressed the beatings of her heart. . . .

"Roger," she implored, "my Roger, forgive me! . . . Oh! If I could spare you this pain! . . . I cannot, I cannot! . . ."

Then she was bathed in such a flood of love and of remorse that she nearly went running to fling herself at the foot of Roger's bed, to kiss his hands, and say to him:

"I will do everything you wish. . . ."

What! She still loved him? . . . She rebelled. . . .

"No, no! I don't love him any more! . . ."

She lied to herself furiously. . . .

"I don't love him any more! . . ."

In vain! . . . She still loved him. She loved him more than ever. Perhaps not with the noblest part of her--(but what is noble, and what is not?)--Yes! with the noblest too, and with the least! Body and soul! . . . If one could only stop loving when one stopped respecting! How comfortable that would be! . . . But to suffer at the hands of the beloved has never exempted one from loving him: one feels it only the more cruelly when one is forced to love him! . . . Annette was suffering in her wounded love--from lack of confidence, lack of faith in herself, lack of Roger's profound love. She was suffering from the bitter consciousness of all the destroyed hopes which she had hatched and which would never see the light of day. It was because she loved Roger so ardently that she insisted on making him accept her independence. She wanted to be to him more than a woman who abdicates, passive in the union,--a free and sure companion. He took no stock in it. She felt within herself a sorrow, an anger of offended passion. . . .

"No! no! I love him no longer! I ought not to, I don't want to. . . ."

But her strength crumpled, and, even before she could finish her cry of rebellion, she wept. . . . In the night, in silence. . . . Beneath the ice of reason, alas! she was on fire. . . . There was that which she did not wish to say: what joy she would have found in sacrificing to him all that she had, even her independence, if only he had made a generous move, a gesture, a simple gesture, to sacrifice himself, rather than to sacrifice her! . . . She would not have let him do it. She would have demanded no more than an outburst of the heart, a proof of true love. But that proof, although he loved her in his own way, he was incapable of giving. It did not enter his thoughts. He had judged Annette's desire as a feminine requirement that must be received smilingly, but in which there was not touch sense. What could she wish? Why the devil was she crying? Because she loved him? Well then? . . .

"You love me, don't you? You love me? That is the essential thing. . . ."

Ah! that word, she had not forgotten that either! . . .

Annette smiled amid her tears. Poor Roger! He was what he was. One could not grudge him that. But one does not change. Neither he, nor I. We cannot live together. . . .

She dried her eyes.

"Come now, one must put a stop to this. . . ."

XIV

After a white night--(she had drowsed for only an hour or two at dawn)--Annette arose, resolute. With the light of day, calm returned to her. She dressed herself and did her hair methodically, coldly, shutting out of her mind everything that might awaken its doubts, attentive to her toilet, which she made with an even more than ordinary meticulous attention to correct detail.

About nine o'clock Roger knocked gaily at her door. Following his morning custom, he had come to take her for a walk.

They set out, escorted by a gamboling dog. They took a road that led beneath the trees. The young, verdant woods were shot through with sunlight. The branches were alive with the songs and cries of birds. Every step sent them flying; there were beatings of wings, rustlings of leaves, clashing of branches, frenzied flights through the forest. The excited dog snapped and sniffed and zig-zagged. Jays were bickering. In the cupola of an oak, two ringdoves were cooing. And far away, the cuckoo was circling, circling, farther, then nearer, tirelessly repeating his ancient jest. It was the outburst of spring fever. . . .

Roger, noisy, very gay, laughing, and exciting his dog, was himself like a big, happy dog. Annette followed silently, at a few paces. She was thinking:

"Here! . . . No, yonder at the turning. . . ."

She was watching Roger. She was listening to the forest. How different all would be, after she had spoken! . . . The turn was passed. She had not spoken. . . . She said: "Roger . . ." in an uncertain, trembling voice, almost a whisper. . . . He did not hear it, he noticed nothing. Stooping down in front of her, he gathered some violets, and he talked, talked. . . . She repeated: "Roger!" this time in such an accent of distress that he turned around, startled. At once he saw the pallor of her gravely serious face; he came to her. . . . He was afraid already. She said:

"Roger, we must separate."

His features expressed stupefaction and dismay. He stammered:

"What's that you say? What's that you say?"

Avoiding his glance, she repeated firmly:

"We must separate, Roger; it is sad, but we must. I have come to see that it is impossible, impossible for me to be your wife. . . ."

She wanted to go on, but he prevented her.

"No, no, that's not true! . . . Be still! Be still! You are mad! . . ."

"I must go away, Roger," she said.

He shouted: "Go away, you! . . . I don't want you to! . . ."

He had seized her arms, and was squeezing them brutally. Then he caught sight of her proud face, obstinate and glacial; he felt that he was lost, he let go, he begged pardon, he prayed, he pleaded.

"Annette! My little Annette! Stay, stay! . . . No, it isn't possible. . . . But what has happened? What have I done?"

Pity reappeared on the firm face. She said:

"Let's sit down, Roger. . . ."

(He seated himself docilely beside her on a mossy bank: his eyes never left her, imploring at every word).

". . . Be calm, everything must be explained. . . . Be calm, I beg of you! . . . Believe me that I have to use all my strength to be. . . . I could not speak unless I forced myself to do so. . . ."

"But don't speak," he cried. "It is madness! . . ."

"It is necessary."

He tried to close her mouth. She pulled herself away. Despite the disturbance within her, her resolution seemed so inflexible that she imposed it on Roger who, abandoning the struggle, beaten and haggard, listened to her words, without daring to look at her. Annette, in a voice that seemed impassive, cold and mournful, but which was marked by sharp breaks, and which once or twice stopped to take breath along the way,--said what she had decided to say, in words that were clear, studied, and moderate, but which seemed all the more implacable for that. . . . She had sincerely wanted to test out whether they could live together. She hoped so at first, she wished it with all her heart. She had seen that this dream could not be realized. Too many things separated them. Too many differences in their surroundings and in their thoughts. She laid the blame at her own door; she had definitely recognized that she could not live a married life. She had conceptions of life, of independence, which did not accord with Roger's. Perhaps Roger was right. The majority of men, perhaps of women even, thought as he did. She was wrong, no doubt. But right or wrong, that was how she was. It was useless for her to cause another's misery and her own. She was made to live alone. She freed Roger from all promises made to her, and took back her own freedom. For the rest, they were not bound. Everything had been upright between them. They must separate uprightly, as friends. . . .

While speaking, she stared at the grass at her feet; she was very careful not to look at Roger. But, as she spoke, she heard his gasping breath, and it was a sore trial for her to go on to the end. When she had finished, she risked looking at him. In her turn, she was smitten. Roger's face was like that of a drowning man: flushed, breathing noisily, he had not the strength to cry out. Awkwardly he moved his clenched hands, sought and found his breath, and groaned:

"No, no, no, no, I cannot, I cannot . . ."

And he burst into sobs.

From a field by the edge of the woods, they heard the voice of a peasant, the noise of a plow-share. Annette, overcome with emotion, seized Roger by the arm and drew him away from the road, into the bushes, then further into the midst of the forest. Roger, devoid of strength, let himself be led, repeating:

"I cannot, I cannot. . . . What is going to become of me? . . ."

Tenderly she tried to keep him from speaking. But he was overwhelmed by his despair: the misery of his love, of his pride, the public humiliation, the ruined happiness that was to be his lot,--all these were at once commingled. This big child who had been spoiled by life, who had never seen anything resist his desire, broke down at this defeat: it was a catastrophe, a crumbling of all his certainties; he was losing faith in himself, he was losing his foothold, there was no way for him to turn. Annette, touched by this great grief, was saying:

"My sweetheart . . . my sweetheart. . . . Don't cry! . . . You have, you will have a beautiful life . . . you will have no need of me."

He continued to moan.

"I can't do without you. I no longer believe in anything. . . . I no longer believe in my life. . . ."

And he flung himself on his knees.

"Stay! Stay with me! . . . I will do what you want . . . everything that you want. . . ."

Annette knew perfectly well that he was making promises that he could not fulfill, but she was touched. Gently she replied:

"No, my friend, you are saying it sincerely, but you couldn't do it, or you would suffer because of it, and I should suffer too; life would be a perpetual conflict. . . ."

When he saw that he could not shake her resolution, he burst into tears at her feet, like a child. Annette was pierced by pity and by love. Her energy melted. She tried to remain firm, but she could not resist these tears. She thought of herself no longer; she thought only of him. She caressed that dear head resting against her legs, and she said tender words to him. She lifted up her big, unhappy boy, she dried his eyes with her handkerchief, she took him by the arm again, she compelled him to walk. He was so prostrated that he surrendered himself, knowing only how to weep. As they went along, the branches of the trees lashed their faces. They went into the woods, without seeing, without knowing where. Annette felt emotion and love rising within her. Supporting Roger, she said:

"Don't cry! . . . my dear! . . . my little one. It tears me to pieces. . . . I can't bear it. . . . Don't cry! . . . I love you. . . . I love you, my poor little Roger. . . ."

And he answered:

"No . . .!" in the midst of his tears.

"Yes! I love you, I love you, a thousand times more than you have ever loved me. . . . What do you want me to do? . . . Oh! I shall do it. . . . Roger, my Roger. . . ."

And now as they were walking, they came out of the woods, and found themselves at the fence of the Rivière property, near the old house. Annette recognized it. . . . She looked at Roger. . . . And suddenly passion invaded her whole body. A wind of fire. A drunkenness of the senses, like the intoxication of an acacia in bloom. . . . She ran towards the door, holding Roger by the hand. They entered the deserted habitation. The blinds were shut. Coming in out of the broad daylight, they were blinded. Roger bumped against the furniture. Without seeing and without thinking, he let himself be guided by the burning hand that led him through the darkness of the ground floor rooms. Annette did not hesitate, her destiny drew her on. . . . Into the room at the back, the room of the two sisters, in which from the past autumn there still floated the perfume of their two bodies, toward the big bed, where they had both slept, she went with him; and, in a passion of pity and of joy,--she gave herself to him.

XV

When they awakened from their overwhelming intoxication, their eyes were accustomed to darkness. The room seemed lighted. Rays of sunlight came dancing through the slits in the blinds, reminding them of the fine day outside. Roger was covering Annette's unclothed body with kisses; he was giving voice to his gratitude in inarticulate words. . . .

But after he had spoken, he suddenly fell silent, his face resting against Annette's side. . . . Annette, silent and motionless, was dreaming. . . . Outside, in the rosebush by the wall, bees were buzzing. . . . And, like a song receding in the distance, Annette heard Roger's love take wings. . . .

Already he loved her less. Roger, too, felt it with shame and annoyance; but he was unwilling to admit it. Fundamentally, he was shocked that Annette had given herself. . . . Ridiculous exigence of man! He desires the woman, and when she sincerely surrenders herself to him, he almost regards her over-generous act as an infidelity! . . .

Annette leaned towards him, lifted up his head, looked into his eyes for a long time, said nothing, and smiled a melancholy smile. When he felt this glance piercing him to his very soul, he sought to deceive her. He intended to appear thoroughly enamoured. He said:

"Now, Annette, you cannot go: I _must_ marry you."

Annette's sad smile reappeared. She had read him perfectly. . . .

"No, my friend," said she, "you _must_ nothing."

He recovered himself.

"I want . . ."

But she replied: "I am going to go."

"Why?" he asked.

And before she spoke he already understood her reasons for departure. However, he felt obliged to dispute them afresh. She put her hand over his mouth; and he kissed that hand with passionate anger. . . . Oh! how much he loved her! He was humiliated by his own thoughts. Had not she seen them? . . . And the sweet, moist hand that caressed his lips seemed to say:

"I have seen nothing. . . ."

From a distant village came the tolling of bells, borne upon the fitful wind. . . . After a long silence, Annette sighed. . . . Come, this time it is the end. . . . In a hushed voice she said:

"Roger, we must go back. . . ."

Their bodies drew apart. Kneeling beside the bed, he pressed his brow against Annette's bare feet. He wished to prove to her:

"I am thine."

But he did not succeed in driving away his afterthought.

He went out of the room, leaving Annette to dress. While waiting he leaned his elbows on a wall of the little entrance court, listening vaguely to the noises of the countryside and savoring the hour just passed. Importunate ideas were eclipsed. He rejoiced in the happiness of pride and sensual appeasement. He was proud of himself. He thought:

"Poor Annette!"

He corrected himself:

"Dear Annette! . . ."

She came out of the house. As calm as ever. But very pale. . . . Who can tell all that had passed during those brief moments that she had been left alone: assaults of passion, grief, renunciation? . . . Roger saw nothing of all this, he was absorbed in himself. He went to her and sought to renew his protestations. She raised a finger to her lips: Silence! . . . At the hedge that enclosed the garden she plucked a branch of hawthorn, she broke it in two, and gave him half. And as she left the Rivière estate with him, on the very threshold, she pressed her lips to Roger's.

They returned without a word, through the forest. Annette had begged him not to break the silence. He held her arm. His attitude was very tender. She was smiling, with her eyes half closed. And this time it was he who guided her steps. He did not recall that only an hour ago, at this very spot, he had wept. . . .

In the depths of the forest the dog was barking in pursuit of game. . . .

XVI

She took her departure on the following day. Her excuse was a letter, a sudden illness of her old aunt. The Brissots were not completely fooled by this. For some time they had been more suspicious than Roger that Annette was escaping them. But it suited their dignity not to seem to admit this possibility, and to believe in the reasons given for this sudden departure. Up to the last moment they played a comedy of brief separation and early reunion. This constraint was painful to Annette; but Roger had begged her not to announce her decision until later, at Paris, and Annette admitted to herself that she would have found it hard to inform the Brissots by word of mouth. So, when they took leave of each other, they exchanged smiles, coy words and embraces from which the heart was absent.

Roger again accompanied Annette in a carriage to the station. They were both sad. Roger had virtuously renewed his request to Annette that she should marry him; he felt that he was bound to: he was a gentleman. Too much of a one. He also felt that he had the right, now, to make his authority felt,--in the interest of Annette. He thought that because she had given herself, because Annette had abdicated, the situation between them was no longer quite equal, and that he must now demand marriage. Annette saw only too clearly that, if he married her now, he would think himself justified a thousand times more than ever in playing her guardian. Of course, she was grateful to him for his correct insistence. But . . . she refused. Roger was secretly irritated by this. He no longer understood her. . . . (He thought that he had always understood her!) . . . And he judged her severely. He did not show it. But she guessed it, with mingled sorrow and irony, and always tenderness. . . . (He was still Roger! . . .)

When they had nearly arrived, she placed her gloved hand on Roger's hand. He started:

"Annette!"

"Let us forgive each other!" she said.

He wished to speak; he could not. Their hands remained clasped. They did not look at each other, but each knew that the other was holding back the tears, ready to flow. . . .

They were at the station; they had to be discreet. Roger installed Annette in her carriage. She was not alone in the compartment. They had to restrict themselves to commonplace courtesies; but the eyes of each were avidly seizing upon the image of the other's beloved face.

The engine whistled.

"Till we meet again!" they said.

And they were thinking: "Never!"

The train pulled out. Roger returned home in the falling night. His heart was full of sorrow and of anger. Of anger against Annette. Of anger against himself. He felt torn asunder. He felt--oh, shame!--he felt relieved. . . .

And stopping his horse on the deserted road, in contempt for himself and in contempt for love, he wept bitterly.

XVII

Annette returned home to the Boulogne house, and there she shut herself up. When the letter to the Brissots had gone off, she severed all connections with the outside world. None of her friends knew that she had returned. She opened no letters. For days she never left the floor on which she lived. Her old aunt, accustomed not to understand her and not to worry about it, respected her isolation. Her external life seemed suspended. Her other, secret life was only the more intense. Her silence was swept by storms of wounded passion. She had to be alone so that she might abandon herself to them to the point of exhaustion. She emerged from them broken, her blood drained, her mouth parched, with burning brow, and hands and feet like ice. There followed torpid periods given over to deep dreams. For days she dreamed; and she made no effort to direct her thoughts. She was invaded by a confused mass of mingled emotions. . . . A somber melancholy, a bitter sweetness, a taste of ashes in the mouth, disappointed hopes, sudden flashes of memory that made her heart leap, fits of embittered despair, pride and passion, and a sense of ruin, of the irremediable, of a Fate against which all efforts are vain,--at first a crushing feeling, then mournful, then dissolving into a drowsiness whose distant sorrow was marked by a strange pleasure. . . . She did not understand. . . .

One night, in a dream, she saw herself in a bourgeoning forest. She was alone. She was running through the thickets. Tree branches laid hold of her dress, damp bushes clutched her; she freed herself, but tore her clothes in doing so, and saw with shame that she was half naked. She bent to cover herself with the tatters of her skirt. And then before her, on the ground, she saw a small oval basket, beneath a pile of sun-drenched leaves,--not yellow and gold, but white as silver, like the trunk of a birch, white with the finest linen. Deeply moved, she looked at it, she knelt beside it. She saw the linen begin to stir. With beating heart, she stretched out her hand. . . . Her emotion persisted. . . . She did not understand. . . .

There came a day--when she understood. . . . She was alone no longer. . . . In her a life was arising, a new life. . . .

And the weeks passed, while she brooded over her hidden universe. . . .

"Love, is it really thou? Love, thou who hast fled me when I sought to seize thee, hast thou entered into me? I hold thee, I hold thee, thou shalt not escape me; oh, my little prisoner, I hold thee in my body. Revenge thyself! Devour me! Little consuming creature, devour my vitals! Nourish thyself on my blood! Thou art myself. Thou art my dream. Since I could not find thee in this world, I have made thee with my flesh. . . . And now, Love, I have thee! I am he whom I love! . . ."

THE END