Cogalniceanu's, printed in front of the "Chronicles." I made up my
mind to read law and study literature and history.
When I saw her I jumped up. She whirled round on one foot, and her
gown seemed like a big convolvulus; and after this revolution she
stopped in front of me, laughing and clapping her hands. She made me
a curtsy as she daintily lifted up her skirt on either side between
two fingers, and asked me coyly:
"Mon cher cousin, can you guess where we are going to this summer?"
"No, Irinel," I replied, exaggerating the cough which was becoming
more and more of a silly habit.
"What will you give me if I tell you?"
And after once more whirling round while her gown swept across my feet,
and laughing and clapping, she asked me most sedately:
"Will you kiss my hand with respect, like a grown-up person's, if I
tell you?"
"Yes, Irinel."
And the cough again played its part.
"No, you must kiss my hand first."
She held out her hand to me, which I kissed sadly, but with pleasure.
"And now this one!"
"And that one, Irinel."
"To Mehadia! To Mehadia! Won't it be beautiful? I am bored with
Slanic."
She ran about the house so quickly that her petticoats worked up above
her knees. I blushed; she blushed; then breaking into a silvery laugh
she threw herself upon me and said:
"We will dance a polka. I will sing. I will be gentleman; I will
steer you."
Then I heard my uncle calling her: "Irinel! Irinel! Where are you?"
She disappeared in a second.
I threw myself on my bed. I took up the "Chronicles," but instead of
reading I began to think. "Irinel! Irinel!" The first Irinel was quick,
severe, malicious, the second one was lingering, much softer, almost
caressing. Of course he had meant to reassure her, he had wanted to
deceive me. He thought to make me believe he had meant nothing. But
what did that "Where are you?" signify?
I understood from the way in which he had said "where" that there lay
the real drift of the question. He had not anything to say to her,
but he very much wanted to know "where" she was. In other words, was
she perchance with me in my room? Such espionage was humiliating for
an orphan whose whole life he had directed, and whose fortune he had
controlled, because he had the right to say to him with a single word,
by a single look: "This is how I reward an ungrateful person, a youth
who has no regard for the old men who are soon to pass away, burying
with them the moral customs of this country." That "Where are you?" was
as clear as noonday. Do you suppose he did not know where she was?
"Ah! An orphan must not fall in love!"
I don't know what other thoughts I had. The door of the room opened;
Irinel stood in the doorway.
How great an unhappiness it is to see happiness standing on the
threshold, and to know it will not cross; that it will remain yonder,
so near and yet so far!
Irinel crossed the threshold; she came up to me. I realized that she
had crossed the threshold, but still my happiness remained outside. I
understood the old man had sent her back in order to deceive me,
and that she had guessed nothing.
"Do you know what Father has just told me? A guest is coming to us
at the festival of St. Peter. A big merchant."
What did that mean?
"And did he say anything else?"
"Nothing; but yes, he did. We are to kill our fattest chicken and
the house is to be put into the most spick and span order, for our
guest is an important merchant, a deputy, elderly, and I don't know
what all and what else."
After teasing me and laughing at me because I coughed just as the
girls at school did to make the doctor prescribe iron and old wine,
but more particularly old wine than iron, Irinel left me.
"Ugh! It's lucky he is old. Supposing he had been a young man?"
On St. Peter's day I rose in such a state of anxiety that I started
at every sound. Has it not been known for old men to lose their heads
and marry girls of eighteen?
For three hours I wandered about the grounds. I waited for this
rival with the same impatience with which I once waited for Irinel
to come quickly from school. Am I deceiving myself or not? The same
sensations, identically the same, were present with me, waiting
thus for the object of my hatred as when I waited for her I loved. I
wanted to see him as soon as possible; for a second; just to know him;
to find out who he was.
At ten o'clock a carriage drew up in front of the door. Some one got
out. When I saw him I began to laugh. He was very feeble, he was very
old. No doubt he was smart with his black coat and red tie. I greeted
him with respect, I might almost say with affection, and then, sorry
at having felt hatred for such an old man, with such snowwhite hair,
I went quietly into the garden. I turned down one of the paths. How sad
and drear do the most beautiful natural surroundings become when they
are reflected by a sad and lonely heart? What indifference everywhere!
The garden gate was opened rather hastily as though the wind had
forced it. Irinel appeared. She looked all round, then, seeing me,
she flew towards me. The breeze which she made by her flight fluttered
her thin gown of white batiste with black spots.
She was pale. She took my hand. Her own trembled. She tried to speak,
and said several times:
"Wait, wait, wait while I get my breath----"
Then she became silent and looked at me. Oh, what a look! Her eyes
flashed sparks. Their blue depths seemed to me like an incomprehensible
ocean, tempest driven, without bottom, without boundaries. I looked
down, overwhelmed by an inexplicable fear, by a powerful emotion. I
noticed my boots, and I thought to myself: "Have they cleaned my
boots to-day or not? Of course, they must have. Don't they clean them
every day?"
"Iorgu, do you know why that old man has come?"
"No," I answered her, with a stupid calm.
Had they cleaned my boots? Perhaps the dew was still on the grass.
"Iorgu, do you know what Father said to me?"
"No."
"'Put on your foulard gown.'"
"Your foulard gown? The one I like so much?"
"But do you know why he wanted me to?"
"Of course I do."
She trembled.
I continued, as I took out my handkerchief and flicked the dust from
one of my boots:
"Of course I know. Isn't to-day a great festival?"
"Ah," she replied as she withdrew the hand I was holding, "you
understand nothing! What an indifferent and non-understanding man
you are!"
Indifferent? I understood everything from her look and her emotion,
and with a calmness which I was certainly far from feeling I bent
down and dusted the other boot.
"The old man has come, Irinel----" I said, glancing at her for
a moment.
She was white, her lower lip quivered, the light in her eyes had
darkened.
"The old man has come, Irinel. What then? He will dine with us? All
the better. We shall be a bigger party at table."
Was it I speaking? There were only she and I in the garden.
"The old man has come, has come. Alas!" she replied, covering her eyes
with both her hands. "The old man has come and some one is going to
leave this house! He has----"
Irinel began to cry.
"What has he?"
"A son who is an engineer."
"Engineer? Has he learnt engineering?"
"Yes, he has learnt engineering!" Irinel replied angrily, and uncovered
her crimson cheeks. "Yes, he has learnt en-gi-neer-ing, and some one
is going to leave this house!"
I watched how she stood in the doorway, and then crossed it lightly
as she wiped away her tears on a clean corner of her gown. I looked
long after her, then I threw myself face upwards under one of the
fruit-trees.
Nature was full of life! The apple-trees bent their great boughs;
the sparrows chattered, some of them were fluttering their wings,
others were collecting into groups preparing for a fierce fight. Little
patches of sunlight played upon my face. When I felt two rows of tears
trickling into my ears, I jumped to my feet, I gazed towards the door,
and said gently, full of a profound melancholy:
"Some one is going to leave this house!"
The next day I showed my uncle a faked recommendation, in writing,
from a doctor ordering me to Bourboule under pretext of a serious
affection of the left lung.
I pass rapidly over this episode. I kissed my uncle's hand and
Irinel. Irinel!
Only when I was crossing the frontier and looking from the open
window of the train at the Hungarian landscape lying stretched out
before me, did I begin to wonder. Supposing she had not looked at
me so intently! A searching look paralysed me. Supposing she had
asked me what it was I wanted to say to her? Such shyness is a form
of madness. But what courage I should have wanted! How could I have
convinced my uncle? Was not Irinel like my sister? Ah, no! It was
impossible! It was impossible!
The train, which was puffing along, gave a whistle that echoed through
the country. A few tears fell through the window, and seeking with
my eyes the country from which I had come, and the direction where
lay the house and garden in which I had grown up so happily, I gave
a wave with my hand, and said sighing:
"Good-bye, Irinel!"
THE END