The Place de la Trinite lay, almost deserted, under a dazzling July sun.
An oppressive heat was crushing Paris. It was as though the upper air,
scorched and deadened, had fallen upon the city--a thick, burning air
that pained the chests inhaling it. The fountains in front of the church
fell lazily. They seemed weary of flowing, tired out, limp, too; and the
water of the basins, in which leaves and bits of paper were floating,
looked greenish, thick and glaucous. A dog having jumped over the stone
rim, was bathing in the dubious fluid. A few people, seated on the
benches of the little circular garden skirting the front of the church,
watched the animal curiously.
Du Roy pulled out his watch. It was only three o'clock. He was half an
hour too soon. He laughed as he thought of this appointment. "Churches
serve for anything as far as she is concerned," said he to himself.
"They console her for having married a Jew, enable her to assume an
attitude of protestation in the world of politics and a respectable one
in that of fashion, and serve as a shelter to her gallant rendezvous. So
much for the habit of making use of religion as an umbrella. If it is
fine it is a walking stick; if sunshiny, a parasol; if it rains, a
shelter; and if one does not go out, why, one leaves it in the hall. And
there are hundreds like that who care for God about as much as a cherry
stone, but who will not hear him spoken against. If it were suggested to
them to go to a hotel, they would think it infamous, but it seems to
them quite simple to make love at the foot of the altar."
He walked slowly along the edge of the fountain, and then again looked
at the church clock, which was two minutes faster than his watch. It was
five minutes past three. He thought that he would be more comfortable
inside, and entered the church. The coolness of a cellar assailed him,
he breathed it with pleasure, and then took a turn round the nave to
reconnoiter the place. Other regular footsteps, sometimes halting and
then beginning anew, replied from the further end of the vast pile to
the sound of his own, which rang sonorously beneath the vaulted roof. A
curiosity to know who this other promenader was seized him. It was a
stout, bald-headed gentleman who was strolling about with his nose in
the air, and his hat behind his back. Here and there an old woman was
praying, her face hidden in her hands. A sensation of solitude and rest
stole over the mind. The light, softened by the stained-glass windows,
was refreshing to the eyes. Du Roy thought that it was "deucedly
comfortable" inside there.
He returned towards the door and again looked at his watch. It was still
only a quarter-past three. He sat down at the entrance to the main
aisle, regretting that one could not smoke a cigarette. The slow
footsteps of the stout gentleman could still be heard at the further end
of the church, near the choir.
Someone came in, and George turned sharply round. It was a poor woman in
a woolen skirt, who fell on her knees close to the first chair, and
remained motionless, with clasped hands, her eyes turned to heaven, her
soul absorbed in prayer. Du Roy watched her with interest, asking
himself what grief, what pain, what despair could have crushed her
heart. She was worn out by poverty, it was plain. She had, perhaps, too,
a husband who was beating her to death, or a dying child. He murmured
mentally: "Poor creatures. How some of them do suffer." Anger rose up in
him against pitiless Nature. Then he reflected that these poor wretches
believed, at any rate, that they were taken into consideration up above,
and that they were duly entered in the registers of heaven with a debtor
and creditor balance. Up above! And Du Roy, whom the silence of the
church inclined to sweeping reflections, judging creation at a bound,
muttered contemptuously: "What bosh all that sort of thing is!"
The rustle of a dress made him start. It was she.
He rose, and advanced quickly. She did not hold out her hand, but
murmured in a low voice: "I have only a few moments. I must get back
home. Kneel down near me, so that we may not be noticed." And she
advanced up the aisle, seeking a safe and suitable spot, like a woman
well acquainted with the place. Her face was hidden by a thick veil, and
she walked with careful footsteps that could scarcely be heard.
When she reached the choir she turned, and muttered, in that mysterious
tone of voice we always assume in church: "The side aisles will be
better. We are too much in view here."
She bowed low to the high altar, turned to the right, and returned a
little way towards the entrance; then, making up her mind, she took a
chair and knelt down. George took possession of the next one to her, and
as soon as they were in an attitude of prayer, began: "Thanks; oh,
thanks; I adore you! I should like to be always telling you so, to tell
you how I began to love you, how I was captivated the first time I saw
you. Will you allow me some day to open my heart to tell you all this?"
She listened to him in an attitude of deep meditation, as if she heard
nothing. She replied between her fingers: "I am mad to allow you to
speak to me like this, mad to have come here, mad to do what I am doing,
mad to let you believe that--that--this adventure can have any issue.
Forget all this; you must, and never speak to me again of it."
She paused. He strove to find an answer, decisive and passionate words,
but not being able to join action to words, was partially paralyzed. He
replied: "I expect nothing, I hope for nothing. I love you. Whatever you
may do, I will repeat it to you so often, with such power and ardor,
that you will end by understanding it. I want to make my love penetrate
you, to pour it into your soul, word by word, hour by hour, day by day,
so that at length it impregnates you like a liquid, falling drop by
drop; softens you, mollifies you, and obliges you later on to reply to
me: 'I love you, too.'"
He felt her shoulder trembling against him and her bosom throbbing, and
she stammered, abruptly: "I love you, too!"