Chapter 3

She was going to the shopman who sold "false antiques"--who had ordered them--to dispose of her "turnips," her "little beets" as she called them. They were never in a great hurry to reach the place and without doing so on purpose (at least that is what they insisted) took the longest way about, putting their mistake to the debit of the fog. When at last, nevertheless, the place came to meet them despite all the efforts made to get it off the track, Pierre stayed at a distance. She entered the shop. He waited at the corner of the street. He waited a long time and he was not very warm. But he was glad to wait and not to be warm and even to be bored, because it was all for her. At last she came out again and quick, quick she skipped up to him, smiling, tender, in great disquiet lest he be frozen. He saw in her eyes when she had succeeded and then he rejoiced over it as if it were he who had made the money. But most often she came back to him empty handed; it was necessary to return to the shop two or three days in succession in order to obtain her pay. Very happy she, if they did not give her back the object ordered accompanied by rebukes! Today for instance they had made a great fuss on account of a miniature painted from the photograph of an honest fellow deceased, whom she had never seen. The family was indignant because she had not given him the exact colors of his eyes and hair. It was necessary to do it all over again. Since she was disposed rather to look at the comic side of her misadventures, she laughed courageously about it. But Pierre did not laugh. He was furious.

"Idiots! Triple idiots!"

When Luce showed him the photographs which she had to copy in colors he thundered in his disdain (Oh, how amused she was at his comical fury!) at these heads of imbeciles, frozen in solemn smiles. That the dear eyes of his Luce should have to apply themselves to reproducing and her hands to tracing the pictures of these mugs seemed to him a profanation. No, it was too revolting! Copies from the museums were more worth while. But one could not count on them any more. The last museums had shut their doors and no longer interested her clients. It was no longer the hour for Virgin Maries and angels, only for the _poilus_. Every family had its own, dead or alive, oftener dead, and wanted to eternalize his features. The wealthier ones wanted colors: work paid for well enough, but beginning to be scarce; it was needful for her not to be capricious. Lacking which, all that remained for the time being was the enlarging of photographs at laughable prices.

The clearest point in all of this was that she no longer had any reason to spend her time in Paris: no more copies in the museum; all that was needed being, to go to the shop to collect and bring back the orders every two or three days; the work itself could be done at home. That was not exactly what the two children liked. They continued to stroll about the streets, unable to decide on taking up the way to the station. Since they felt weary and the icy fog pierced them through, they went into a church; and there, seated most properly in the corner of a chapel, they talked in low voices about the little common-place affairs of their life while they looked at the stained-glass windows. From time to time there fell a silence; and their souls, delivered from mere words (it was not the meaning in the words that interested them but their breath of life, like the furtive contacts between quivering antennae) their souls pursued another dialogue more solemn and profound. The dreams in the colored windows, the shadows cast by the piers, the droning of the hymns mingled with their dream, evoked the sorrowful facts of life which they desired to forget and the consoling homesickness of the infinite. Although it was nearly eleven o'clock, a yellowish twilight brimmed the nave like the oil of a sacred cruet. From on high and from a great distance came strange gleams, the sombre purple of a window, a red pool on violet ones, indistinct figures encircled by their black settings. Against the high wall of night the blood-like gleam of light made a wound....

Abruptly Luce remarked:

"Shall you have to be _taken_?"

He understood at once what she meant for in the silence his spirit too had pursued the same obscure trail.

"Yes," he said. "We mustn't talk of it."

"Only one thing. Tell me when?"

He told her:

"In six months."

She sighed.

He said:

"We mustn't think of it any more. What use would it be?"

She said:

"Yes, what use?"

They drew long breaths in order to push back the thought. Then courageously (or should one say to the contrary "timorously"? Let him who knows decide where true courage lies!) they both compelled themselves to talk of something else--of the stars of the candles, trembling in a reek, of the organ playing a prelude. Of the beadle who was passing. Of the box full of surprises which her handbag was, in which the indiscreet fingers of Pierre were rummaging. They had a very passion of amusing themselves with nothings. Neither one nor the other of these poor little creatures so much as considered the shadow of an idea of escaping from that destiny which must separate them. To make any resistance against the war, to brave the current of a nation: as well to lift up the church which covered them with its shell! The only recourse was to forget, to forget up to the last second, while hoping at bottom that this last second would never arrive. Until then, to be happy.

After they went out, while chatting, she pulled him by the arm in order to cast a glance at a shopfront, which they had just passed. A shoe shop. He found his gaze caressing tenderly a pair of fine leather shoes, tall and laced up.

"Pretty, eh?" said he.

She said:

"A love!"

He laughed at the expression and she laughed also.

"Wouldn't they be too big?"

"No, just a fit."

"Well, then, suppose one bought them?"

She pressed his arm and pulled him on so as to tear him away from the sight.

"One has to belong to the wealthy" (humming the air of _Dansons la capucine_....) "But they're not for us."

"Why not? Cinderella put the slipper on all right!"

"At that time there were fairies still."

"In the present time there are lovers still."

She sang:

"_Non, non, nenni, mon petit ami!_"

"Why so, since we are friends?"

"Just for that reason."

"For that?"

"Yes, because one cannot accept things from a friend."

"Then perhaps--from an enemy?"

"Rather from a stranger; my shopman, for instance, if he wanted to advance me a payment, the robber!"

"But, Luce, I certainly have the right to order from you a painting, if I wish?"

She stopped, to burst out laughing.

"You, a painting by me? My poor friend, what could you do with it? You have gained a good deal of merit already, just for having looked at them. I know well enough that they are _croûtes_. They would stick in your throat."

"Not at all! Some of them are very cunning. And besides, if they suit my taste?"

"It's certainly changed since yesterday."

"Isn't it allowable to change one's taste?"

"No, not when one's a friend."

"Luce, do my portrait!"

"Well, well, now; his portrait!"

"Why, it's very serious. I'm as good as those idiots...."

She squeezed his arm in an unthinking burst:

"Darling!"

"What was that you said?"

"I didn't say anything."

"I heard you all right."

"Well then, keep it for yourself!"

"No, I shan't keep it. I'll give it back to you double.... Darling!... Darling! You'll do my portrait, won't you? It's settled?"

"Have you a photo?"

"No, I have not."

"Then what do you expect? I can't paint you in the street, I suppose."

"You told me that at home you were alone almost every day."

"Yes, the days mama works at the factory.... But I don't dare...."

"You are afraid, then, that we shall be seen?"

"No, that's not the reason. We have no neighbors."

"Well, then, what is it you're afraid of?"

She did not reply.

They were come to the square before the tramway station. Although all about them were people who were waiting, they were hardly to be seen, the fog continued to isolate the little couple. She evaded his eyes. He took her two hands and said tenderly:

"My darling, don't be afraid...."

She lifted her eyes and they gazed at each other. Their eyes were so loyal!

"I trust you," said she.

She closed her eyes. She felt that she was sacred to him.

They let go hands. The tram was about to start. Pierre's gaze questioned Luce.

"What day?" he demanded.

"Thursday," she replied. "Come about two."

At the moment of parting she regained her roguish smile; she whispered in his ear:

"And you must bring your photo just the same. I am not strong enough to paint without the photo.... Yes, yes, I know you have some, you naughty little humbug."

* * * * *

OUT beyond the Malakoff. Streets like broken teeth separated by vague regions losing themselves in a dubious kind of country-side where among boarded enclosures blossom the cabins of ragpickers. The gray dull sky is lying low over the colorless ground whose thin edges smoke with the fog. The air is chill. The house easy to find: there are only three of them on one side of the road. The last of the three; it has no neighbor across the street. It has but one story with a little courtyard which is surrounded by a picket fence; two or three starveling trees, a square patch of kitchen garden under the snow.

Pierre has made no noise on entering; the snow deadens his steps. But the curtains of the ground floor are in motion; and when he reaches the door, the door opens and Luce is on the threshold. In the half light of the hall they say good day in a choking voice, and she ushers him into the first apartment which serves as dining-room. There it is that she works: her easel is installed near the window. At first they do not know what to say to one another: both have thought over this visit altogether too much beforehand; none of the speeches they had prepared is able to come forth; and they talk in a halfvoice, although there is nobody else in the house--and it's just for that reason. They stay seated at some distance from each other with their arms rigid; and he has not even thrown back the collar of his cloak. They chat about the cold weather and the hours of the tramcars. They are unhappy to feel themselves so silly.

At last she makes an effort and asks if he has brought the photographs, and scarcely has he taken them from his pocket when both pluck up a spirit. These pictures are the intermediaries over whose heads the chat revives; for now the two are not entirely alone; there are eyes that look at you and they are not embarrassing. Pierre has had the clever idea (there was really no roguishness in it) to bring all his photographs, from the age of three; there was one that showed him in a little skirt. Luce laughed with pleasure; she spoke to the photo in comical baby talk. Can there be anything more delightful to a woman than to see the picture of the person she loves when he was quite small? She cradles, she rocks him in her thoughts, she gives him the breast; and she is even not so far from the dream that she has given him birth. And besides (nor does she dupe herself at all) it forms a convenient pretext to say to the infant what she cannot force herself to say to the grown-up.--When he asks which one of the photographs she prefers, she says without hesitating:

"The dear little codger...."

How serious he looks, already! Almost more serious than today. Certainly if Luce dared to look (and just here she does dare) in order to make comparisons with the Pierre of today, she would see in his eyes an expression of joy and infantile gayety that does not appear in the infant: for the eyes of this infant, this little _bourgeois_ under a bell glass, are birds in a cage that lack sunlight; and the sunlight has come, hasn't it, Luce?...

In his turn he asks to see photos of Luce. She exhibits a little girl of six with a big plait who is squeezing a little dog in her arms; and as she sees it again she thinks mischievously that in that period she loved no less fervently nor very differently; whatever heart she possessed she gave it even then to her dog; it was Pierre already, while waiting till he arrived. Also she showed a young miss of thirteen or fourteen who twisted her neck with a coquettish and a somewhat pretentious air; luckily there was always there at the corners of the mouth that roguish little smile which appeared to say:

"You know, I'm just amusing myself; I don't taken myself seriously."

Now they had completely forgotten their former embarrassment.

She set herself to sketching-in the portrait. Since he must not budge one bit any more, nor talk except with the tips of his lips, she it was who made almost all the conversation, all by herself. Instinct told her that silence was dangerous. And as it happens with sincere persons who talk at some length, she came quickly to the point of confiding to him the intimate affairs of her life and those of her family which she did not have the slightest intention of recounting. She heard herself speak with astonishment; but there was no way of returning to solid ground; the very silence of Pierre was like a declivity down which the stream glided....

She recited the facts of her infant life in the provinces. She came from Touraine. Her mother belonging to a well-to-do family of the solid _bourgeoisie_ became infatuated with a tutor, the son of a farmer. The _bourgeois_ family opposed the marriage; but the two lovers were obstinate; the young girl had waited until she was of age in order to send out the legal summons to her family. After the marriage her people would not recognize her. The young couple lived through years of affection and hard fare. The husband wore himself out at his task and sickness arrived. The wife accepted this further burden courageously; she worked for two. Her parents, obstinately cherishing their wounded pride, refused to do anything to come to his assistance. The sick man died a few months before the outbreak of the war. And the two women did not try to renew connection with the mother's family. The latter would have welcomed the young girl if she had made any advances; she would have been received like a _mea culpa_ condoning the action of her mother. But the family might wait! Rather eat stones for breakfast!

Pierre was amazed at the hard heartedness of these _bourgeois_ parents. Luce did not find it extraordinary.

"Don't you believe there are a great many people like that? Not wicked. No, I am sure that my grandparents are not, and even believe that it pained them not to say to us: 'Come back!' But their self-respect had been mortified too much. And self-love among these people, there's nothing else that is so great. It is stronger than all the rest. When one has done them wrong it is not merely the wrong that one has done them; there is _the Wrong_; the others are wrong and they themselves are right. And so, without being cruel (no, really, they are not) they would let you die near them at a slow fire rather than concede that perhaps after all they were not right. Oh, they are not the only ones! One meets with many others!... Say, am I mistaken? Aren't they just like that?"

Pierre pondered. He was excited. For he was thinking:

"Why, yes. That is the way they are...."

Through the eyes of the little girl he saw abruptly the penury of heart, the desert-like aridity of this _bourgeois_ class of which he formed a part. Dry and wornout earth which little by little has imbibed all the juices of life and does not renew them any more, just like those lands in Asia where the fecundating rivers, drop by drop, have disappeared under the vitreous sand. Even those whom they believe they love are loved in a proprietary way; they sacrifice them to their egotism, to their buttressed pride, to their narrow and headstrong intelligence. Pierre took a sorrowful review of his parents and himself. He was silent. The panes of the apartment vibrated under the shock of a distant cannonade. And Pierre, who was thinking of those who were dying, said with bitterness:

"And that, too, is their work."

Yes, the hoarse barking of these cannon away off there, the universal war, the grand catastrophe--the dryness of heart and the inhumanity of that braggart and limited _bourgeoisie_ had a large part in the responsibility for all that. And now (which was only just) the unchained monster would never stop until it had devoured them.

And Luce said:

"That is true."

For without knowing that she did so she followed the thought of Pierre. He started at the echo:

"Yes, it is true," said he, "what has come about is just. This world was too old; it ought to, it must die."

And Luce, bowing her head, sorrowful and resigned, said once more:

"Yes."

Solemn faces of children bent beneath Destiny, whose youthful brows touched by the wing of care bore within them such distressful ponderings!...

Darkness increased in the room. It was not very warm in there. Her hands being icy, Luce stopped her work, which Pierre was not allowed to see. They went to the window and contemplated the evening shadows across mournful fields and wooded hills. The violet forests formed a half circle against a greenish sky powdered with dust of a pale gold. A bit of the soul of Puvis de Chavannes floated there. A simple phrase of Luce made it evident that she understood how to read that subtle harmony. He was almost astonished. She was not miffed at that, and said that one might easily feel a thing that one would be incapable of expressing. Though she painted very badly, it was not altogether her fault. Through an economical turn, perhaps ill-advised, she had not finished her course at the Arts Décoratifs. Besides, poverty alone had made her turn to painting. What use in painting without a purpose? And did not Pierre think that almost all those who produce art do it without actual necessity, through vanity, in order to occupy their time, or else because at first they think they need it and later on will not confess they were mistaken? One should not be an artist save when one absolutely cannot keep to oneself the feeling one has--only when one has too much feeling. But Luce said she possessed just enough for one. She went on:

"No, for two."

(Because he made a face at her.)

The lovely golden tints in the sky began to turn to brown. The deserted plain put on a disconsolate mask. Pierre asked Luce if she was not afraid in that solitude.

"No."

"When you get home late?"

"There is no danger. The Apaches don't come here. They have their own customs. They are _bourgeois_, too. Besides, we have over there an old ragpicker, and his dog. And besides, I have no fear. Oh, I'm not boasting about myself! I have no merit at all in it. I am not courageous naturally. Only, I have not as yet had any occasion to meet with real fear. The day I do see it, perhaps I shall be more of a poltroon than the next one. Does one ever know what one really is?"

"Well, I for my part know what you are," quoth Pierre.

"Ah, that is much easier. I myself likewise, I know ... as to you! One always knows better about another."

The moist chill of evening entered the room through the closed windows. Pierre felt a little shudder. Luce, who perceived it at once on his neck, ran to make him a cup of chocolate, which she heated on her spirit-lamp. They took a bit of food. Luce had thrown her shawl maternally over Pierre's shoulders; and he let her do it like a cat enjoying the warmth of the stuff. Once more the current of their thoughts brought them back to the family history which Luce had interrupted.

Pierre continued:

"Both of you all alone, so entirely alone, you and your mother: you must be deeply attached to one another."

"Yes," said Luce. "We were very much attached."

"_Were?_" repeated Pierre.

"Oh!" said Luce, "we always love each other;" still somewhat embarrassed by the word which had escaped her without thinking. (Why must she always tell him more than she meant to? And nevertheless he did not ask, he dared not ask her. But she saw that his heart was putting the question. And it's so nice to confide in someone when one has never had the chance! The silence of the house, the half-shade of the room encouraged her to confess.) She observed:

"There's no saying or knowing what has been going on for the last four years. The whole world is changed."

"You mean to say that your mother, or that you have changed?"

"The whole world," repeated she.

"In what respect?"

"That's hard to define. One feels everywhere among people who know each other, even in the family, that the relations are not the same. One is never sure of anything any more; in the morning one says to oneself: What is it I am going to experience this night? Shall I recognize it? One is as if on a plank in the water just about to upset."

"What is it that's happened?"

"I don't know," said Luce, "I can't explain it. But it has come since the war. There is something in the air. Everybody is troubled. In families one sees people who were not capable of doing without one another marching off today, each one in his own direction. And as if intoxicated each one runs along with nose on the trail."

"Where do they go?"

"I don't know. And I believe they don't either. Either pure chance or some desire spurs them. Women take lovers. Men forget their wives. And kindly people, too, who generally appear so calm and so orderly! Everywhere we hear of households broken up. It's the same between parents and children. My mother...."

She stopped, then ran on:

"My mother lives her own life."

She stopped again:

"Oh, it's perfectly natural! She is still young, and poor mama has not had much happiness; she has not poured out her sum of affection. She has a right to want to make her life over again."

Pierre inquired:

"She wants to marry again?"

Luce shook her head. One could hardly know very well.... Pierre dared not insist.

"She loves me well, still. But it's not the way it used to be. She is able to do without me at present.... Poor mama! She would be so sorry if she knew that her love for me is no longer in her heart as the first of all! She would never confess that, never.... O, how queer it is, this life!"

She wore a sweet smile, sorrowful and roguish. Upon her hands placed on the table Pierre put his hands tenderly, and sat without motion.

"We are poor creatures," he muttered.

Luce continued in a moment:

"We two, how tranquil we are!... The others have the fever. The war. The factories. People are in a hurry. They hustle. To work hard, to live, to enjoy themselves...."

"Yes," said Pierre, "the time is short."

"All the more reason not to run!" said Luce. "One gets too soon to the end. Let us walk slowly."

"But it's time that hurries along. Hold on to it well."

"I'm holding onto it; I'm holding," said Luce, grasping his hand.

Thus back and forward, tenderly, gravely, they talked like a pair of good old friends. But they took good care that the table should stay between them.

And behold, they perceived that the night had filled the room. Pierre rose hurriedly. Luce did nothing to retain him. The short hour had passed. They were afraid of the hour that might come. They said _au revoir_ to each other with the same constraint, the same low and choked voice as when he came in. On the threshold their hands scarcely dared to press each other.

But when the door was shut, just as he was about to leave the garden, as he turned his head toward the window of the ground floor, he saw in the last gleam of the copper-colored twilight, on the pane, the outline of Luce, who was following his departure into the uncertain depths of the gleam-filled obscurity with a face full of passion. And turning back to the window, he pressed his lips against the closed pane. Their lips kissed through the wall of glass. Then Luce moved back into the shadows of the room and the curtain fell.