My whole life was decided by that moment; even to this day I cannot
recall it without a pang of anguish. Doubtless I understood very
imperfectly the cause of Alissa’s wretchedness, but I felt intensely
that that wretchedness was far too strong for her little quivering
soul, for her fragile body, shaken with sobs.
I remained standing beside her, while she remained on her knees. I
could express nothing of the unfamiliar transport of my breast, but
I pressed her head against my heart, and I pressed my lips to her
forehead, while my whole soul came flooding through them. Drunken with
love, with pity, with an indistinguishable mixture of enthusiasm, of
self-sacrifice, of virtue, I appealed to God with all my strength--I
offered myself up to Him, unable to conceive that existence could have
any other object than to shelter this child from fear, from evil, from
life. I knelt down at last, my whole being full of prayer. I gathered
her to me; vaguely I heard her say:
“Jerome! They didn’t see you, did they? Oh! go away quickly. They
mustn’t see you.”
Then, lower still:
“Jerome, don’t tell anyone. Poor papa doesn’t know about it....”
* * * * *
I told my mother nothing therefore; but the interminable whisperings
that went on between her and Aunt Plantier, the mysterious,
preoccupied, distressed looks of the two women, the “Run along, my
dear!” with which they would get rid of me whenever I came within
earshot of their confabulations, all went to show that they were not
wholly unsuspicious of the Bucolin family secret.
We had no sooner returned to Paris than a telegram recalled my mother
to Le Havre. My aunt had run away.
“With anyone?” I asked Miss Ashburton, with whom my mother had left me.
“My dear, you must ask your mother. I can’t tell you anything,” said
our dear old friend, whom this event had filled with consternation.
Two days later she and I set out to rejoin my mother. It was a
Saturday. I should see my cousins the next day at church and that
was the one idea that filled my mind; for in my childish thoughts I
attached great importance to this sanctification of our meeting. After
all, I cared very little for my aunt and made it a point of honour not
to question my mother.
* * * * *
There were not many people that morning in the little chapel. Pasteur
Vautier, no doubt intentionally, had chosen as his text Christ’s words:
“_Strive to enter in at the strait gate._”
Alissa was sitting a few seats in front of me. I saw her face in
profile; I gazed at her so intently and with such self-oblivion that it
seemed as though it were through her, that I heard the words I listened
to with such passionate eagerness. My uncle was sitting beside my
mother, crying.
The pastor first read the whole text: “_Enter ye in at the strait gate:
for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,
and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and
narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it._”
Then, under the different headings of his subject he spoke first of the
broad way.... With a mind rapt and as in a dream, I saw my aunt’s room;
I saw her lying on the sofa, laughing; I saw the brilliant officer,
laughing too ... and the very idea of laughter and of joy became an
offence and an outrage, became, as it were, the hateful exaggeration of
sin!
“_And many there be which go in thereat_,” went on the pastor; then
he painted, and I saw, a gaily dressed, laughing multitude, advancing
in joyous troops, whom I felt I could not and would not join, because
every step I took with them, would lead me further and further from
Alissa. Then the pastor took up again the first words of his text, and
I saw that strait gate through which we must strive to enter. I fancied
it, in the dream in which I was plunged, as a sort of press into which
I passed with effort and with an extremity of pain, that yet had in it
as well, a foretaste of heavenly felicity. And again this gate became
the door of Alissa’s room; in order to enter in at it, I squeezed
myself--I emptied myself of all that I contained of selfishness....
“_Because strait is the gate which leadeth unto life_,” went on Pasteur
Vautier; and beyond all maceration, beyond all sorrow, I imagined--I
had the presentiment of another joy, pure, seraphic, mystic, for which
my soul was already athirst. I imagined this joy like the song of a
violin, at once strident and tender, like the pointed fierceness of a
flame, in which Alissa’s heart and mine were consumed. We advanced
together, clothed in those white robes of which the Apocalypse speaks,
holding each other by the hand, looking forward to the same goal....
What if these childish dreams should call up a smile? I repeat them as
they came, without alteration. Their apparent confusion lies only in
the use of words and imperfect images, to convey a feeling that was
perfectly definite.
“_And few there be that find it_,” ended the pastor. He explained
how to find the strait gate.... “_Few there be_”--I would be one of
those....
At the end of the sermon I had reached such a pitch of moral tension
that, without attempting to see my cousin, as soon as the service was
over, I fled--out of pride, already desiring to put my resolutions (for
I had made resolutions) to the test, and thinking that I should so best
deserve her.