“Then, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you get engaged at once?”
“Why should we get engaged? Isn’t it enough to know that we do and
shall belong to each other, without proclaiming it to the world? Since
I choose to devote my whole life to her, do you think it would be
nobler to bind my love by promises? Not I! Vows seem to me to be an
insult to love. I should only want to be engaged if I distrusted her.”
“It isn’t Alissa that I distrust--”
We were walking slowly. We had reached that part of the garden where,
in former days, I had unintentionally overheard the conversation
between Alissa and her father. It suddenly occurred to be that perhaps
Alissa, whom I had seen go out into the garden, was sitting at the head
of the steps, and that she would be able to overhear us in the same
manner; the possibility of making her listen to words which I dared not
say to her openly, tempted me; I was amused by the artifice and raising
my voice:
“Oh!” I exclaimed with the somewhat stilted vehemence of youth, and too
much engrossed by my own words to hear in Juliette’s all that she left
unsaid: “Oh, if only we could lean over the soul we love and see as in
a mirror, the image we cast there!--read in another as in ourselves,
better than in ourselves! What tranquillity there would be in our
tenderness--what purity in our love!”
I had the conceit to take Juliette’s emotion for an effect of my very
indifferent flight of eloquence. She suddenly hid her face on my
shoulder:
“Jerome! Jerome! I wish I could be sure you would make her happy! If
she were to suffer through you as well, I think I should detest you!”
“Why, Juliette,” I cried, embracing her and raising her head, “I should
detest myself. If you only knew! Why, it’s only that I may begin life
better with her, that I don’t want to settle on my career yet! Why,
it is upon her that I hang my whole future. Why, I want none of the
things that I might be without her--”
“And what does she say when you speak to her so?”
“I never speak to her so! Never; and that’s another reason why we’re
not engaged yet; there is never any question of marriage between us,
nor of what we shall do hereafter. Oh, Juliette! life with her seems to
me so lovely that I dare not--do you understand--I dare not speak to
her about it.”
“You want happiness to come on her as a surprise.”
“No! that’s not it. But I’m frightened--of frightening her. Do you see?
I’m afraid that the immense happiness, which I foresee, may frighten
her. One day I asked her whether she wanted to travel. She said that
she wanted nothing, that it was enough for her to know that foreign
countries existed, and that they were beautiful, and that other people
were able to go to them--”
“And you, Jerome, do you want to travel?”
“Yes, everywhere! All life seems to me like a long journey--with her,
through books and people and countries. Have you ever thought of the
meaning of the words ‘weighing anchor’?”
“Yes, I often think of them,” she murmured. But barely listening to
her, and letting her words drop to earth, like poor, hurt birds, I went
on:
“To start one night; to wake up in the dazzling brilliancy of morning;
to feel oneself together and alone on the uncertain waves--”
“To arrive in a port, which one has seen on the map as a child; where
everything is strange--I imagine you on the gangway, leaving the boat
with Alissa leaning on your arm.”
“We should hurry off to the post,” added I, laughing, “to get the
letter which Juliette would have written to us--”
“From Fongueusemare, where she would have stayed behind, and which you
would remember as--oh, so tiny, and so sad, and so far away--”
Were those her words exactly? I cannot be sure for, I repeat, I was so
full of my love that, beside it, I was scarcely aware of any expression
but its own.
We were drawing near the steps, and were just going to turn back, when
Alissa suddenly appeared from out of the shade. She was so pale that
Juliette uttered an exclamation.
“Yes, I don’t feel very well,” Alissa stammered hastily. “The air is
rather chilly. I think I had better go in.” And leaving us there and
then, she went hurriedly back towards the house.
“She overheard what we were saying,” cried Juliette, as soon as she was
a little way off.
“But we didn’t say anything which could have vexed her. On the
contrary--”
“Oh! Let me alone,” said she, and darted off in pursuit of her sister.
* * * * *
That night I could not sleep. Alissa had come down to dinner, but
had retired immediately afterwards, complaining of a headache. What
had she heard of our conversation? I anxiously went over in my mind
everything we had said. Then I thought that perhaps I had been wrong
to walk so close to Juliette and to let my arm slip round her; but it
was the habit of childhood and many a time Alissa had seen us walking
so. Ah! blind wretch that I was, groping after my own errors, not to
have thought for a moment that Juliette’s words, to which I had paid
so little attention, and which I remembered so ill, might perhaps have
been better understood by Alissa. No matter! Led astray by my anxiety,
terrified at the idea that Alissa might distrust me, and imagining no
other peril, I resolved, in spite of what I had said to Juliette, and
influenced, perhaps, by what she had said to me--I resolved to overcome
my scruples and apprehensions and to betroth myself the following day.
* * * * *
It was the eve of my departure. Her sadness, I thought, might be
ascribed to that. She seemed to avoid me. The day passed without my
being able to see her alone. The fear of being obliged to leave before
speaking to her sent me to her room a little before dinner. She was
putting on a coral necklace, and, her arms raised to fasten it, she was
bending forward, with her back turned to the door, looking at herself
over her shoulder, in a mirror between two lighted candles. It was in
the mirror that she first caught sight of me, and she continued to look
at me in it for some moments without turning round.
“Why,” said she, “wasn’t the door shut?”
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer. Alissa, you know I’m going
to-morrow?”
She answered nothing, but laid down the necklace, which she could not
succeed in fastening. The word “engagement” seemed to me too bare,
too brutal; I used I know not what periphrasis in its stead. As soon
as Alissa understood what I meant, I thought I saw her sway and lean
against the mantelpiece for support--but I myself was trembling so
much that in my fearfulness I avoided looking at her.
I was near her, and without raising my eyes, I took her hand; she did
not free herself, but bending down her face a little and raising my
hand a little, she put her lips on it and murmured, as she half leant
against me:
“No, Jerome, no; don’t, please, let us be engaged.”
My heart was beating so fast, that I think she felt it, and she
repeated, more tenderly:
“No, not yet--”
And as I asked her:
“Why?”
“It’s I that ought to ask you why,” she said, “why change?”
I did not dare speak to her of yesterday’s conversation, but no doubt
she felt I was thinking of it, and as if in answer to my thought, said,
as she looked at me earnestly:
“You are wrong, dear. I do not need so much happiness. Are we not happy
enough as we are?”
She tried in vain to smile.
“No, since I have to leave you.”
“Listen, Jerome, I can’t speak to you this evening--don’t let’s
spoil our last minutes. No, no, I’m as fond of you as ever; don’t be
afraid. I’ll write to you; I’ll explain. I promise I’ll write to
you--to-morrow--as soon as you have gone. Leave me now! See, here I am
crying. You must go.”
She pushed me away, tore me gently from her--and that was our good-bye;
for that evening I was not able to speak to her again, and the next
morning, when it was time for me to leave, she shut herself up in her
room. I saw her at her window, waving good-bye to me as she watched my
carriage drive off.