XI

Renée often went during the day to paint in a little studio, built out

of an old green-house at the bottom of the garden. It was very

rustic-looking, half hidden with verdure and walled with ivy, something

between an old ruin and a nest.

On a table covered with an Algerian cloth there were, on this particular

day in the little studio, a Japanese box with a blue design, a lemon, an

old red almanac with the French coat of arms, and two or three other

bright-coloured objects grouped together as naturally as possible to

make a picture, with the light from the glass roof falling on them.

Seated in front of the table, Renée was painting all this with brushes

as fine as pins on a canvas which already had something on the under

side. The skirt of her white piqué dress hung in ample folds on each

side of the stool on which she was seated. She had gathered a white rose

as she came through the garden and had fastened it in her loosely

arranged hair just above her ear. Her foot, visible below her dress, in

a low shoe which showed her white stocking, was resting on the

cross-bar of the easel. Denoisel was seated near her, watching her work

and making a bad sketch of her profile in an album he had picked up in

the studio.

"Oh, you do pose well," he remarked, as he sharpened his pencil again;

"I would just as soon try to catch an omnibus as your expression. You

never cease. If you always move like that----"

"Ah, now, Denoisel, no nonsense with your portrait. I hope you'll

flatter me a little."

"No more than the sun does. I am as conscientious as a photograph."

"Let me look," she said, leaning back towards Denoisel and holding her

maulstick and palette out in front of her. "Oh! I am not beautiful.

Truly, now," she continued, as she went on with her painting, "am I like

that?"

"Something. Come, Renée--honestly now--what do you think you are like

yourself--beautiful?"

"No."

"Pretty?"

"No--no----"

"Ah, you took the trouble to think the matter over this time."

"Yes, but I said it twice."

"Good! If you think you are neither beautiful nor pretty, you don't

fancy either that you are----"

"Ugly? No, that's quite true. It's very difficult to explain. Sometimes,

now, when I look at myself, I think--how am I to explain? Well, I like

my looks; it isn't my face, I know, it's just a sort of expression I

have at such times, a something that is within me and which I can feel

passing over my features. I don't know what it is--happiness, pleasure,

a sort of emotion or whatever you like to call it. I get moments like

that when it seems to me as though I am taking all my people in finely.

All the same, though, I should have liked to be beautiful."

"Really!"

"It must be very pleasant for one's own sake, it seems to me. Now, for

instance, I should have liked to be tall, with very black hair. It's

stupid to be almost blonde. It's the same with white skin; I should have

chosen a skin--well, like Mme. Stavelot, rather orange-coloured. I like

that, but it's a matter of taste. And then I should have enjoyed looking

in my glass. It's like when I get up in the morning and walk about the

carpet with bare feet. I should love to have feet like a statue I once

saw--it's just an idea!"

"If that's how you feel you wouldn't care about being beautiful for the

sake of other people?"

"Yes and no. Not for every one--only for those I care for. We ought to

be ugly for people about whom we are indifferent, for all the people we

don't love--don't you think so? They would have just what they deserved

then."

Denoisel began sketching again.

"How odd it is, your ideal, to wish to be dark!" he said, after a

moment's silence.

"What should you like to be?"

"If I were a woman? I should like to be small and neither very fair nor

very dark----"

"Auburn then?"

"And plump--Oh, as plump as a quail."

"Plump? Ah, I can breathe again. Just for a moment I was afraid of a

declaration--If the light had not shown up your hair I should have

forgotten you were forty."

"Oh, you don't make me out any older than I am, Renée; that is exactly

my age. But do you know what yours is for me?"

"No----"

"Twelve--and you will always be that age to me."

"Thanks--I am very glad," said Renée. "If that's it I shall always be

able to tell you all the nonsense that comes into my head. Denoisel,"

she continued, after a short silence, "have you ever been in love?" She

had drawn back slightly from her canvas and was looking at it sideways,

her head leaning over her shoulder to see the effect of the colour she

had just put on.

"Oh, well! that's a good start," answered Denoisel. "What a question!"

"What's the matter with my question? I'm asking you that just as I might

ask you anything else. I don't see anything in it. Would there be any

harm in asking such a thing in society? Come now, Denoisel! you say I am

twelve years old and I agree to be twelve; but I'm twenty all the same.

I'm a _young person_, that's true, but if you imagine that _young

persons_ of my age have never read any novels nor sung any

love-songs--why, it's all humbug--it's just posing as sweet innocents.

After all, just as you like. If you think I am not old enough I'll take

back my question. I thought we were to consider ourselves men when we

talked about things together."

"Well, since you want to know, yes--I have been in love."

"Ah! And what effect did it have on you--being in love?"

"You have only to read over again the novels you have read, my dear, and

you will find the effect described on every page."

"There, now, that's just what puzzles me; all the books one reads are

full of love--there's nothing but that! And then in real life one sees

nothing of it--at least I don't see anything of it; on the contrary, I

see every one doing without it, and quite easily, too. Sometimes I

wonder whether it is not just invented for books, whether it is not all

imagined by authors--really."

Denoisel laughed at the young girl's words.

"Tell me, Renée," he said, "since we are men for the time being, as you

just said and as we talk to each other of what we feel, quite frankly

like two old friends, I should like to ask you in my turn whether you

have ever--well, not been in love with any one, but whether you have

ever cared for any one?"

"No, never," answered Renée, after a moment's reflection, "but then I am

not a fair example. I fancy that such things happen to people who have

an empty heart, no one to think about; people who are not taken up,

absorbed, possessed and, as it were, protected by one of those

affections which take hold of you wholly and entirely--the affection one

has for one's father, for instance."

Denoisel did not answer.

"You don't believe that that does preserve you?" said Renée. "Well, but

I can assure you I have tried in vain to remember. Oh, I'm examining my

conscience thoroughly, I promise you. Well, from my very childhood, I

cannot remember anything--no, nothing at all. And yet some of my little

friends, who were no older than I was, would kiss the inside of the caps

of the little boys who used to play with us; and they would collect the

peach-stones from the plates the little boys had used and put them into

a box and then take the box to bed with them. Yes, I remember all that.

Noémi, for instance, Mlle. Bourjot, was very great at all that. But as

for me, I simply went on with my games."

"And later on when you were no longer a child?"

"Later on? I have always been a child as regards all that. No, there is

nothing at all--I cannot remember a single impression. I mean--well, I'm

going to be quite frank with you--I had just a slight, a very slight

commencement of what you were talking about--just a sensation of that

feeling that I recognised later on in novels--and can you guess for

whom?"

"No."

"For you. Oh, it was only for an instant. I soon liked you in quite a

different way--and better, too. I respected you and was grateful to you.

I liked you for correcting my faults as a spoiled child, for enlarging

my mind, for teaching me to appreciate all that is beautiful, elevated

and noble; and all, too, in a joking way by making fun of everything

that is ugly and worthless and of everything that is dull or mean and

cowardly. You taught me how to play ball and how to endure being bored

to death with imbeciles. I have to thank you for much of what I think

about, for much of what I am and for a little of any good there is in

me. I wanted to pay my debt with a true and lasting friendship, and by

giving you cordially, as a comrade, some of the affection I have for

father."

As Renée said these last words she raised her voice slightly and spoke

in a graver tone.

"What in the world is that?" exclaimed M. Mauperin, who had just entered

and had caught sight of Denoisel's sketch. "Is that intended for my

daughter! Why, it's a frightful libel," and M. Mauperin picked up the

album and began to tear the page up.

"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Renée, "and I wanted it--for a keepsake!"