And yet I saw Alissa once more. It was three years later, towards the
end of summer. Ten months before, I had heard from her the news of
my uncle’s death. A fairly long letter, which I had at once written
her from Palestine, where I was travelling at the time, had remained
unanswered.
Happening to be at Le Havre, on I forget what errand, a natural
instinct set me on the road to Fongueusemare. I knew Alissa was there,
but I was afraid she might not be alone. I had not announced my
arrival; shrinking from the idea of presenting myself like an ordinary
visitor, I went on my way undecided: should I go in? or should I go
away without having seen her, without having tried to see her? Yes,
without doubt, I would just walk up the avenue, sit on the bench,
where sometimes, perhaps, she still went to sit ... and I was already
beginning to wonder what token I could leave behind me, which after I
had gone, would tell her of my coming ... Thus reflecting, I walked
slowly on; and now that I had resolved not to see her, the sharpness
of the sorrow which wrung my heart began to give way to a melancholy
that was almost sweet. I had already reached the avenue, and, for fear
of being taken unawares, I was walking on the footpath which ran along
the bottom of the bank skirting the farmyard. I knew a place on the
bank from which one could look over into the garden; I climbed up; a
gardener whom I did not recognise, was raking one of the paths and soon
disappeared from sight. There was a new gate to the courtyard. A dog
barked as I went by. Further on, where the avenue came to an end, I
turned to the right, came again upon the garden wall, and was making
my way to the portion of the beech wood, parallel to the avenue I had
left, when, as I was passing by the little door that led into the
kitchen garden, the idea of going in suddenly seized me.
The door was shut. The inside bolt, however, offered only a slight
resistance and I was on the point of forcing it open with my
shoulder.... At that moment I heard the sound of steps; I drew back
round the corner of the wall.
I could not see who it was that came out of the garden; but I heard, I
felt it was Alissa. She took three steps forward and called in a weak
voice:
“Is that you, Jerome?”
My heart, which was beating violently, stopped, and as no word would
come from my choking throat, she repeated louder:
“Jerome! Is that you?”
At hearing her call me in this way, the emotion which seized on me was
so great that it forced me to my knees. As I still did not answer,
Alissa took a few steps forward, turned the corner of the wall, and
I suddenly felt her against me--against me, who was kneeling there
hiding my face with my arm, as if in dread of seeing her too soon. She
remained a few moments stooping over me, while I covered her frail
hands with kisses.
“Why were you hiding?” she said, as simply as if those three years of
absence had lasted only a few days.
“How did you guess it was I?”
“I was expecting you.”
“Expecting me?” said I, so astonished that I could only repeat her
words, wondering ... And as I was still on my knees:
“Let us go to the bench,” she went on. “Yes, I knew I was to see you
again once more. For the last three days I have come here every evening
and called you, as I did to-night.... Why didn’t you answer?”
“If you had not come upon me by surprise, I should have gone away
without seeing you,” I said, steeling myself against the emotion which
had at first overmastered me. “I happened to be at Le Havre, and merely
meant to walk along the avenue and round the outside of the garden and
to rest a few moments on this bench, where I thought you might still
come to sit sometimes, and then ...”
“Look what I have brought here to read for the last three evenings,”
she interrupted, and held out to me a packet of letters; I recognised
those I had written her from Italy. At that moment I raised my eyes
to look at her. She was extraordinarily changed; her thinness, her
paleness smote my heart horribly. Leaning heavily upon my arm, she
clung to me as though she were frightened or cold. She was still in
deep mourning, and, no doubt the black lace which she had put round
her head, and which framed her face, added to her paleness. She was
smiling, but her failing limbs seemed hardly to bear her up. I was
anxious to know whether she was alone at Fongueusemare. No, Robert
was living with her; Juliette, Edouard and their three children had
been spending August with them.... We had reached the bench; we sat
down and the conversation for a few minutes longer dragged along in
the usual commonplace enquiries. She asked after my work. I replied
with a bad grace. I should have liked her to feel that my work no
longer interested me. I should have liked to disappoint her as she had
disappointed me. I do not know whether I succeeded, but if so, she did
not show it. As for me, full both of resentment and love, I did my
best to speak as curtly as possible, and was angry with myself for the
emotion which at times made my voice tremble.
The setting sun, which had been hidden for a few moments by a cloud,
reappeared on the edge of the horizon almost opposite us, flooding the
empty fields with a shimmering glory and heaping the narrow valley
that opened at our feet with a sudden profusion of wealth; then it
disappeared. I sat there dazzled and speechless; I felt that I was
wrapped round and steeped in a kind of golden ecstasy, in which my
resentment vanished and nothing survived in me but love. Alissa, who
had been leaning, drooping against me, sat up; she took out of her
bodice a tiny packet wrapped up in tissue paper, made as though she
meant to give it me, stopped, seemed to hesitate, and, as I looked at
her in surprise:
“Listen, Jerome,” said she, “this is my amethyst cross that I have
here; for the last three evenings I have brought it here because for a
long time past I have been wanting to give it you.”
“What am I to do with it?” I asked, rather brusquely.
“Keep it in memory of me for your daughter.”
“What daughter?” I cried, looking at Alissa without understanding her.
“Please, listen to me quite calmly; no, don’t look at me so; don’t
look at me; it’s already difficult enough for me to speak to you;
but I must, I simply must say this. Listen, Jerome; one day you will
marry--no, don’t answer; don’t interrupt, I implore you. I only want
you to remember that I loved you very much, and ... a long time ago ...
three years ago. I thought that a daughter of yours might one day wear
this little cross you liked, in memory of me. Oh! without knowing whose
it was ... and perhaps, too, you might give her ... my name ...”
She stopped, her voice choking; I exclaimed, almost with hostility:
“Why not give it her yourself?”
She tried to speak again. Her lips trembled like those of a sobbing
child, but she did not cry; the extraordinary light that shone in her
eyes flooded her face with an unearthly, an angelic beauty.
“Alissa! whom should I marry? You know I can love no one but you ...”
and suddenly clasping her wildly, almost brutally in my arms, I crushed
my kisses on her lips. An instant I held her unresisting, as she half
lay back against me; I saw her look grow dim; then her eyes closed, and
in a voice so true and melodious that never, to my mind, will it be
equalled:
“Have pity on us, my friend!” she said, “Oh! don’t spoil our love.”
Perhaps she said too: “Don’t be cowardly!” or perhaps it was I who said
it to myself; I cannot tell now; but suddenly flinging myself on my
knees before her, and folding my arms piously round her:
“If you loved me so, why have you always repulsed me? Think! I waited
first for Juliette to be married; I understood your waiting for her to
be happy, too; she _is_ happy; you yourself have told me so. I thought
for a long time that you didn’t want to leave your father; but now we
are both alone.”
“Oh! don’t let us regret the past,” she murmured. “I have turned the
page now.”
“There is still time, Alissa.”
“No, my friend, there is not time. There was no longer time from the
moment when our love made us foresee for one another something better
than love. Thanks to you, my friend, my dream climbed so high that any
earthly satisfaction would have been a declension. I have often thought
of what our life with each other would have been; as soon as it had
been less than perfect, I could not have borne ... our love.”
“Did you ever think what our life would be without each other?”
“No! Never.”
“Now you see! For the last three years, without you, I have been
drifting miserably about ...”
The evening was drawing in.
“I am cold,” said she, getting up and wrapping her shawl too closely
round her for me to be able to take her arm again. “You remember the
Scripture text which troubled us so, and which we were afraid we didn’t
understand properly: ‘These all received not the promise, God having
provided some better thing for us’....”
“Do you still believe those words?”
“Indeed I must.”
We walked on for a few moments beside each other, without saying
anything more. She went on:
“Can you imagine it, Jerome?--‘Some better thing!’” And suddenly the
tears started from her eyes, as she repeated once more: “‘Some better
thing!’”
We had again reached the small garden door through which she had come
out a little before. She turned towards me:
“Good-bye!” said she. “No, don’t come any further. Good-bye, my beloved
friend. Now ... the better thing ... is going to begin.”
One moment she looked at me, at once holding me fast and keeping me
at arm’s length, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes filled with an
unspeakable love.
* * * * *
As soon as the door was shut, as soon as I heard the bolt drawn behind
her, I fell against the door, a prey to the extremest despair, and
stayed for a long time weeping and sobbing in the night.
But to have kept her, to have forced the door, to have entered by any
means whatever into the house, which yet would not have been shut
against me--no, even to-day, when I look back to the past and live
it over again--no, it was not possible to me, and whoever does not
understand me here, has understood nothing of me up till now.
* * * * *
Intolerable anxiety made me write to Juliette a few days later. I told
her of my visit to Fongueusemare, and said how much Alissa’s paleness
and thinness had alarmed me; I implored her to see what could be done
and to give me news which I could no longer expect to get from Alissa
herself.
Less than a month later, I received the following letter:
“My dear Jerome,
“This is to give you very sad news: our poor Alissa is no more.
Alas! the fears you expressed in your letter were only too well
founded. For the last few months, without being ill exactly, she
seemed to be wasting away; she yielded, however, to my entreaties
and consented to see Dr. A----, who wrote to me that there was
nothing serious the matter with her. But three days after the
visit you paid her, she suddenly left Fongueusemare. It was from
a letter of Robert’s that I learnt she was gone; she writes to
me so seldom that if it had not been for him I should have known
nothing of her flight, for I should have been a long time before
taking alarm at her silence. I blamed Robert severely for having
let her go in this way, and for not having gone with her to Paris.
Will you believe that from that moment we were ignorant of her
address? You can imagine my sickening anxiety; impossible to see
her, impossible even to write to her. Robert, it is true, went to
Paris a few days later, but he was unable to discover anything.
He is so slack that we could not trust to his taking the proper
steps. We had to tell the police; it was not possible to remain
in such cruel uncertainty. Edouard then went himself, and at last
managed to discover the little nursing home where Alissa had taken
refuge. Alas! too late. I received a letter from the head of the
home announcing her death, and, at the same time, a telegram from
Edouard, who was not in time to see her again. On the last day she
had written our address on an envelope, so that we might be told,
and in another envelope she had put the copy of a letter she had
sent our lawyer at Le Havre containing her last instructions. I
think there is a passage in this letter which concerns you: I will
let you know soon. Edouard and Robert were able to be present at
the funeral which took place the day before yesterday. They were
not the only persons to follow the bier. Some of the patients
of the nursing home wished to be present at the ceremony and to
accompany the body to the cemetery. As for me, I am expecting my
fifth baby any day now, and unfortunately I was unable to move.
“My dear Jerome, I know the deep sorrow this loss will cause you,
and I write to you with a breaking heart. I have been obliged to
stop in bed for the last two days, and I write with difficulty,
but I would not let anyone else, not even Edouard or Robert, speak
to you of her whom we two, doubtless, were the only persons in the
world to know. Now that I am an almost old mother of a family, and
that the burning past is covered over with a heap of ashes, I may
hope to see you again. If business or pleasure ever take you to
Nîmes, come on to Aigues-Vives. Edouard would be glad to know you,
and you and I would be able to talk together of Alissa. Good-bye,
my dear Jerome.
“Affectionately and sadly yours ...”
A few days later, I learnt that Alissa had left Fongueusemare to her
brother, but had asked that all the things that were in her room
and a few pieces of furniture which she mentioned, should be sent to
Juliette. I was shortly to receive some papers which she had put in a
sealed packet addressed to me. I learnt, also, that she had asked that
the little amethyst cross which I had refused at my last visit should
be put round her neck, and I heard from Edouard that this had been done.
The sealed packet which the lawyer sent me contained Alissa’s journal.
I here transcribe a considerable number of its pages. I transcribe them
without commentary. You will imagine well enough the reflections I made
as I read, and the commotion of my heart, of which I could but give a
too imperfect idea.