1
I have before me one of those little exercise-books whose covers are gay
with pictures of soldiers or rural scenes. It is Rose's diary. I
received it this morning, I have read it and it has left me both pleased
and touched.
It is a very simple and rather commonplace narrative, but one which, in
my eyes, has the outstanding merit of sincerity. To me it represents the
story of a real living creature, of a woman whom I saw yesterday, whom I
shall see to-morrow and whose suffering is but a step removed from my
happiness. The smallest details of that story have a familiar voice and
aspect....
Poor girl! Would not one think that an evil genius had taken pleasure in
playing with her destiny, like a child playing at ball? She was born of
poor parents. Her father, a carpenter, was a drunkard and frequently out
of work. He would often come home at night intoxicated, when he would
beat his wife and threaten to kill her. Coarse scenes, visions of
murder, screams, oaths and suppressed weeping were the first images and
the first sounds that stamped themselves on Rose's memory. One's heart
bleeds to think of those child-souls which open in the same hour to the
light of day and to horror, gaining their knowledge of life whilst
trembling lest they should lose it. We see them caught in a hurricane of
madness, like little leaves whirling in the storm; and to the end of
their days they will shudder at the thought of it.
She was left an orphan at the age of six. A neighbour offered to take
her, a wealthy and devout old man, who sent her to the Nuns of the
Visitation at the neighbouring town.
Of those quiet, uneventful years in the convent there is nothing in
particular to record. The child is perfectly happy, nor could she be
otherwise, for she is naturally reasonable and she is in no danger of
forgetting how kind fate has been to her. She pictures what she might
have been, she sees what she is; and her soul is full of gladness.
In January 18--, Rose is seventeen. She is to pass her examinations the
following summer. Her diary here gives evidence of a steadfast and
wholehearted optimism; she views the future with joyous eyes, or rather
she does not see it at all, which is the surest way of smiling at it
cheerfully. Her eyes are still the eyes of a child, to whom the
convent-garden is a world and the present hour an eternity.
Unfortunately, she had a rude awakening to life. The old man who had
adopted her died after a few days' illness, without having time to make
arrangements for her future. The good sisters at once wrote to her
grandmother; and, the next day, Rose was packed off to Sainte-Colombe
with a parcel of indulgences, a few sacred medals and a scapular round
her neck. What more can a young life want to stay its uncertain steps?
2
From that moment, I see her delicate profile stand out against a
background of pain and sorrow, like a lovely cameo whose dainty
workmanship has been obliterated by the hand of time. Moral suffering
can refine and accentuate the character of a beautiful face, is indeed
nearly always kind to it. But here the mental distress was only the
feeble reflection of a crushing and deadening material torture. In the
evenings, when the hour of rest came at last, Rose, exhausted, accepted
it dully; her whole body called for oblivion; her heavy eyelids drooped;
and her submerged wretchedness had no time for tears.
How could the poor girl make any resistance? Her environment was too
hostile, her disposition too gentle and the task laid upon her too
oppressive.
The very look of her diary, during those Sainte-Colombe days, tells us
her story far better than the words which it contains. The first few
pages are filled with wild and incoherent sentences. There are passages
that can scarcely be deciphered and others blotted with tears. Her
suffering is not sufficiently well-expressed for it to be understood and
more or less identified, but it can be felt and divined: it is a
landscape of pain, it is the sight of an inner life which has received a
grievous wound and whose blood is gushing forth in torrents.
And then hope is exhausted drop by drop; and with it go anger and
resistance. Everything goes under, grows still and silent. For months,
Rose hardly touches her diary: here and there, scattered on pages
bearing no date, are occasional melancholy reflections, the last
flickers of an expiring consciousness....
It is then, no doubt, that one day she flies to death for deliverance.
She is saved, but for a long time remains ill and weak. When she
recovers her health, her spirit is finally broken. In silence and gloom,
she drowns all feeling in work too heavy for her strength.
3
In the district they blame this young girl who, after receiving a good
education, has acquiesced in this miserable existence. And yet I find a
thousand reasons which explain her conduct and cannot find one for
condemning it. Rose's soul is still in the chrysalis-stage. Ignorant of
her own strength and qualities, how could she make use of them?
Is not this the case with most young girls? If our moral transformations
could bring about physical changes, if a woman, like a butterfly, had to
pass through different phases before attaining her perfect state, we
should almost always see her stop at the first and die without even
approaching the second.
It is difficult enough for us merely to conceive that there are other
roads to follow than that laid down for us by chance or by parents too
often shortsighted; and when we make the discovery, our first dreams of
liberty appear so momentous and so dangerous! Is it not just then that
we need time to venture upon the most lawful actions, seeing that we
have no sense of their real proportion?
It is as though a wall separated the life that is forced upon us from
the life which we do not know. Little by little, slowly, by instinct as
much as by volition, we withdraw from the wall and it seems to become
lower. The sky above us becomes vaster, the horizon is disclosed before
our eyes and we at last distinguish what is happening on the other side.
Ah, what sight would compare with that, if it broke suddenly upon our
vision, if we could view life as we view the spreading country beneath
us, when we stand on the summit of a tower! All our senses, being
equally affected, would impart to our will a motive force which is, on
the contrary, dissipated by the tardiness of our feeble comprehension.
Yes, an age comes when our vision is clear and true; but often it is too
late to find a way out of the circle in which we are imprisoned. That is
the secret tragedy of many women's lives.
What would one not give to tell them, those women who tremble and weep,
to lift their minds high enough to see beyond their wretchedness! Let
them develop and strengthen themselves while still under the yoke, in
order to throw it off one day like a gossamer garment which one casts
aside without giving it a thought!...