1
The shadows lengthen when the sun descends in the heavens; and those
which, in the broad light, enhance the brilliancy of all things now
overspread and gradually extinguish them. Thus do our anxieties increase
when our joy lessens; and those which made us smile in the plenitude of
our happiness before long make us weep....
She has lied to me! I am sure now that she has lied! What has she done?
What can she be hiding from me? I can imagine nothing that could kill
the interest which I take in her, but she has lied! I was certain of it
yesterday, after our talk, when I remembered her blushes and her
embarrassment. I wanted to write to her then and could not. Darkness has
fallen suddenly between her and me; and I no longer know to whom I am
speaking; I no longer know what soul hears me nor at what heart I
knocked!
A friend's lie hurts us even more than it humiliates us; it tells us
that we have not been understood and that we inspire distrust or fear. I
remember saying to her, one day:
"I would rather know that you hate me than ever feel that you fear me.
You must hide nothing from me, unless you want to wound me deeply; for
the person to whom we feel obliged to lie is much more responsible for
our lie than even we are."
But how can I hope that every one of my words will be remembered and
understood and turned to account! I enjoy talking into the soul of this
great baby as one likes singing in an unfurnished house; and I am none
the less conscious of the illusion of it all. If we are to influence a
fellow-creature, we do so best without aiming at it too carefully.
Success comes with time, by intercourse and example.
2
We are now on the threshold of autumn and the days are already short. By
seven o'clock, all the farms are sleeping....
When I left Rose yesterday, it was understood that she should sometimes
come to see me in the evening, when her day's work has not been too
hard. She is to come across the downs and tap at the shutters of the
room where I sit every evening after dinner.
To-day, I was hoping that she would not come and I gave a start of
annoyance when I heard her whisper outside the window:
"Mummy! Mummy, dear!"
It is a name which she sometimes gives me in play. Women who have no
children and do not expect ever to have any lend to all their emotions
an extra tenderness, an extra solicitude. It is that unemployed force in
our hearts which is striving for union with others.
Still, her affection displeased me this evening and, while I was putting
on a wrap, my hands trembled with irritation. Rose, thinking that I had
not heard her, raised her voice a little and repeated:
"Mummy! It's your little girl!"
I go out into the moonless, starless night, with my eyes still full of
the light indoors; and our hands meet blindly before exchanging a
pressure. She says good-evening and I kiss her without answering. I am
afraid of betraying my ill-humour; I feel that I am hard and spiteful,
but I hope that the mood will pass; and my anger, because it remains
unspoken, takes a form that favours forgiveness. If she confesses of her
own accord, without being impelled to do so by my attitude, I know that
my confidence in her will revive.
We walk in silence through the sombre avenue. The night seems darker
because no sound disturbs its stillness; only the dead leaves, swept
along by our skirts, drag along, utter a cry like rending silk.
Rose sighed:
"One would think the air was listening!"
I could not help exclaiming:
"That's rather fine, what you said then!"
And silence closes in again around our two little lives, both doubtless
stirred by one and the same thought.
We go a little farther and sit down in the fields, where an unfinished
haystack offers us a couch. We can hardly distinguish the line of the
horizon between the dark earth and the dark sky. A bat flits across our
faces; and Rose says, quietly:
"It's flying low. That means fine weather to-morrow. I must get in
the...."
And suddenly her voice breaks and she covers her face with her hands.
All is silent....
I feel myself brutally good. The certainty of the coming confession
encourages me in my coldness and I remain mute, while my heart is
beating with pity and excitement....
But she speaks at last and each note of that tear-filled voice, by turns
faltering, violent and plaintive, brings before my eyes, staring into
the darkness, every step of her soul's calvary. I listen in
astonishment. And yet do we not know that every woman's existence has
its secret? I see the long procession of those who have told me their
story. The weakest of them had found strength to love; to yield to man's
desire, the bravest had been cowardly, the truest had betrayed, the most
loyal and upright had lied. Everywhen and everywhere the flame of life
had found its way through rocks, thrust aside obstacles, subjugated
wills. Even the woman whom nature had most jealously defended, the plain
woman whom I saw imprisoned in a stunted shape and condemned to live
behind an ugly mask, even she, when she told me her love-story,
compelled me to believe that she had been the most beloved, perhaps, and
her passion the most heroic.
Rose, following the common law, had no strength to fulfil her own will,
but all strength to obey another's. Soon after arriving at
Sainte-Colombe, five years ago, she came to know a young man who had
since left the district. One day, when they were alone in the farmhouse
kitchen, he flung his arms around her and, without a word, overcame her
feeble resistance....
I could not help interrupting her story:
"Did you love him, Rose?"
"No," she said, "I did not!"
"Then, why did you yield?... Why?"
"I don't know," she sobbed. "He had such a strange, wild look, I was
frightened...."
"But what did you do afterwards?"
"He asked me to go and see him; and I went whenever he asked me...."
"Then your godmother didn't know?"
"She guessed it on the first day; and, when I refused to take anything
from him, she beat me and locked me up."
"Well, what then?"
"I managed to get out at night, by the roof...."
I would not let the subject drop:
"Then you were very, very happy when you were with him?"
But she exclaimed, artlessly:
"Oh, not at all! But he loved me, he said; and I thought that he would
always stay here, for my sake.... He went away soon, without letting me
know. When I understood that he was not coming back, I loathed myself
and him ... and I tried to do away with myself...."
She burst into fresh sobs.
I should have liked to rise and lead her away. I should have liked to
say:
"Come, cease these repinings; let us walk across the silent fields and
forget all this for ever! Every one feels love differently and looks at
it in a different light. Come, waste no time in repentance and don't go
on being angry with that man! Faults that diminish our ignorance are not
faults, but almost graces which chance bestows upon us. Come! And break
away from the bitterness that is spoiling your beauty!"
But, with a sigh, she leant her head on my shoulder and I sat motionless
and dumb: that little action on her part suddenly altered the whole
course of my feelings.
At moments of deep emotion, many different voices speak in our hearts.
They seem to clash, to drown and contradict one another; but really
they are hesitating and waiting. Even as human voices require the
striking of a chord before harmonising, so do these inner voices wait
for our unhappy friend to speak a word that shall unconsciously give the
note of the thoughts that will comfort and soothe him.
Rose whispered:
"Oh, you do not speak! Your silence frightens me!"
"Don't be afraid of it, dearest. Silence nearly always means that the
words which will follow will be just." And, summoning all my tenderness,
I added, "You see, I am trying to bind all my most diverse thoughts
together. I should like to hand them to you as I would a bunch of
flowers, for you to choose the one that will restore your peace of mind.
I am afraid of hurting you, I understand your wound so well."
The girl presses against my breast; and our kisses meet in a spontaneous
outburst of affection....
Sadly I think of all those who are weeping, weeping over like sorrows.
There are other wounded hearts bleeding in mine; my memory echoes with
the mournful prayers of the poor deluded victims of love. Alas, we are
all subject to the cruel and exquisite law that absorbs the firmest
wills in its indifferent strength!
I feel Roseline's hands quivering under my fingers, but I dare not
speak. The silence of the fields and the solemn darkness awe me. Do not
our least words seem to be written on the velvet of the night in
precious and lasting letters?...
3
At last, I wiped away her tears and long and gently tried to rally her.
But, suddenly drawing herself up, Rose cried:
"I don't understand you, I no longer understand you! What you are saying
is just so much more silence and I wait for your judgment in vain! You
have, you must have, an opinion on what I have done. The reason why I
hesitated so long to confess my fault was because I knew instinctively
that you would blame me; and now I feel you so far from me.... Please
judge me, be angry with me: it will be easier for you to forgive me
afterwards!..."
I do not know why this blind insistence offended me. Until then I had
remained calm; but at her words there burst from the depths of my being
the voice of instinct, that voice which I had tried to stifle, almost
unconsciously, by force of habit and training.... Oh, that blatant,
piercing voice! It seemed to me to rend the darkness, to scoff at my
heart and my sweet reasonableness! It was as though I saw all my kindly
dreams of tolerance and indulgence fly into a thousand splinters! Never
had I so clearly realised their brittleness. My anger was all the
greater because it was still trammelled by fragments of my reason.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and shouted close to her face, which
my eyes could not distinguish:
"Why, why will you rouse my instinct, my nerves, all those things which
should never interfere in our judgments and beyond which we should try
to look if we would understand the actions of others? You give the name
of silence to the words spoken by my reason and you wish to be judged by
a blind and senseless power! But that idiot power mercilessly condemns
all the faults committed in its name! That power, which is making me
tremble now with excitement, will tell you that you could have done
nothing worse! Do you understand? Nothing, nothing! And it will
overwhelm you with reproaches. For it is not your action that revolts
me; it is your apathy, your flabbiness, your cowardice!... You gave
yourself without knowing why! You did not surrender for the sake of the
joy that makes us fairer and better! You did not surrender because love
had taken your heart by storm! You did not sacrifice yourself to an
idea: had it been vile and base, I could still have accepted it! No, you
gave yourself without knowing why! You obeyed the will of the
first-comer, as the silliest and most docile of wives obeys the
recognised canons and conventions ... without knowing why!... Ah, Rose,
Rose! I wanted to help you to become strong and free. What a character,
what a disposition you bring me! And yet I did not ask so much! I wanted
your nature to have strength and flexibility, so that my hands might
have taken it and moulded it. I looked forward to shaping it and giving
it nobility and refinement...."
Tears choked my words. At that moment, the disappointment appeared to me
complete and irreparable. Still, so as not to sadden her unduly, I
murmured:
"Do not misunderstand me, my poor Rose; I am not saying that you soiled
yourself by yielding to that man. I should not care much if you had;
for, if the fairest forms could take birth from the mud in the gutter,
you would see me plunge my hands in it without reluctance. No, what
distresses me is your weakness; and I have simply likened your nature to
a substance without consistency and impossible to mould."
Rose moaned and sobbed:
"To please you, I will brave everything.... Don't forsake me!... Go on
loving me!..."
I divined rather than saw the body lying prone, with her head on the
ground; and the paler shadow of her hair reminded me of the dear beauty
of her. I grew calmer. The comfort of having said all that I had to say
relieved my heart and sent rippling through my veins, like a cool
stream, a more natural indulgence than that which had animated me at
first. Bending over Rose, I reflected that reason weighs heavily on a
woman's breast and that it is well to thrust it aside occasionally. I
tried to reassure her between my kisses:
"I am wrong to be so irritable and despondent; forgive me! I believe
that your nature will never be vivid or strong; but your newly-developed
conscience will save you from fresh weaknesses. Besides, in some
direction we shall find what you are capable of. Destiny asks little of
us when we have little to give it; and events pass us by of their own
accord. Your life can be gentle and passive and still be useful and
good. It is my own fault if I am disappointed: I am always more or less
of a child; and I become passionately enthusiastic on the strength of a
smile, or a pure outline, or a beautiful profile. I ought not to have
looked in you for what existed only in my imagination...."
"Then you are no longer angry with me?"
"Why should I be?"
I kissed her tenderly. Poor child, so she had suffered through love! I
pitied her; and yet the happiness of knowing her a little better
swallowed up my pity. Things move quickly in those who, not believing in
heaven, seek upon earth the beginning and the end of life and all that
comes between. And they come to prefer to the highest joys those which
foster a clearer vision and a truer comprehension.
And, trying to explain myself, I added:
"One would think that a time comes when we judge like a traveller
looking out from the top of a tower. All the differences melt into unity
before his eyes. He turns slowly and sees, on the one side, the forest;
on the other, the sea; at his feet, the noisy town, the world; a little
farther, the calm and peace of the fields; and, overhead, the infinite
indifference of the skies. And, like him, we are engrossed in what we
discover and we no longer see the tower by which we climbed nor feel
that on which our feet stand; and we are nothing, nothing but a thinking
light that settles upon some life."
4
We lay stretched in the clover that was still warm from the heat of the
day; and our arms were locked and our hair intertwined. My cheek cooled
hers, which her tears had set on fire; and the sombre peace of the sky
sank into us. We were both filled with the peculiar happiness that comes
after a painful confession, a happiness whose source is a sense of
security, a joy that seems yearning to cover us with its wings for one
halcyon hour.
"Rose, darling, never forget the feeling of relief which you have now.
That sense of security is infinitely precious. Let its fragrance remain
with you for ever. May it become impossible for you to do without it.
Seek it, insist upon it silently, even from the strangers whom you may
meet. Falsehood destroys the perfume and the bloom of women: it makes
them colourless and uniformly commonplace. Always have the courage to be
true. A sort of secret combat is waged between any two persons who meet
for the first time. Remember that, as a woman, you have always the
choice of weapons; and choose them frankly. In so doing, you will gain
courage and assurance and the great strength that springs from harmony,
from the perfect accord of our body, our mind and our speech. I do not
say that you will necessarily conquer with that weapon, but I do say
that, even if defeated, you will, contrary to the general rule, feel
mightier and more exultant than before!"
A star appeared, a quiver ran through the trees near by and passed over
all the earth. The night was rising.
I was at my ease beside my companion; our hearts were again at one. That
love-incident, however lacking in love, had brought her nearer to me.
"I do not know which path you will choose, my Rose; but we all have two
roads by which to reach the goal for which we are making: to be or to
seem. The real lovers of life will always choose the first. They will
arrive later; perhaps they will never arrive. But, after all, what does
arriving mean?"
Rose at once retorted:
"Still, why have a goal, if not to reach it?"
The girl's practical logic amused me; and our laughter rang out in
unison across the fields.
"Rose, morally speaking, the goal is really the means which we employ to
attain it. It is a light which we voluntarily flash in front of our
footsteps. We can neither miss it nor reach it, because it moves with
us. It becomes greater or smaller or is renewed, according to the
evolution of our strength and our life...."
We had risen from the ground and, as we talked, were slowly following
the path that skirts the orchard. Rose asked:
"Cannot you more or less describe your goal, the one you are speaking
about?"
I hesitated for a moment and, almost involuntarily, murmured:
"To know a little more ... to see a little farther ... to understand a
little better...."
Rose repeated, slowly and earnestly:
"To know a little more ... to see a little...."
But I laughingly stopped her, for the words sounded too serious in our
young souls.
The orchard-gate closed between us. I was walking away, when Rose called
to me:
"Come and kiss me again...."
I ran back to her. She leant over the hedge and I could only just
distinguish her face. Then our lips met of themselves, like flowers that
touch.
For a long time, in the still air, I heard her heavy footfall.