1
It is typical autumn weather, a dull, dark day which seems never to have
fully dawned. Beneath the burden of the weary, oppressive clouds, the
grass is greener and the roads more distinct. The light seems to rise to
the sky instead of falling from it.
I have been in the kitchen-garden for an hour. There all the plants are
beaten down by the wind and the rain; the asparagus-fronds lie across
the paths like tangled hair; but the broad-bottomed cabbages are a joy
to the eye, with their air of comfortable middle-class prosperity.
Looking at their closely enfolded hearts, I seemed to recover the
illusion of my childhood, of the days when my eyes pictured mystery in
their depths....
How amazed we are when one of our senses happens to receive a sudden
impression, in the same way as when we were children! We behold the same
object simultaneously in the present and the past; and between those two
points, identical and yet different to our eyes, our memory tries to
stretch a thread that can help it to follow the thousand and one
intermediate transformations which have led us from the false to the
true, from the wonderful to the simple, from dreams to reality. We
should, no doubt, discover here, in the subtle history of our sensations
and the different ways in which we received them, the gradual forming of
our character, the pathetic progress of our little knowledge, all the
frail elements of our personal life; in a word, the plastic substance of
our joys and sorrows....
I think of the little girl that I was, but between her and me there
stands a long array of children, girls and women. And I can do nothing
but inwardly repeat:
"How soon we lose our traces!..."
I smile at the memory of myself as we smile at the unknown child that
brushes against us in passing; and I leave myself to return to Rose....
2
She is a never-failing source of satisfaction to me. My dreams glory in
having discovered so much hidden virtue here, at my door; and I am
surprised at the new pleasures which I am constantly finding in her.
In certain natures predisposed to happiness, such happy surprises are
prolonged and constantly renewed; and this may be one of the innocent
secrets of the intellect. Are there not a thousand ways of interpreting
a feeling, even as there are a thousand ways of considering an object?
Our mind observes it daily under a different aspect, turns and turns it
again, sees it from above and below, sees it near and from afar and
loves to show it off and place it in the most favourable light. The mind
of every woman, especially of a woman with an artistic bias, is not
without a secret harmony of colour, line and proportion. Something
intentional even enters into it; and the caprices of her soul are often
but an outcome of her desire to please. Her natural instinct, which is
always inclined to give form to the most subtle of her sensations,
enables her to find in goodness the same clinging grace which she loves
in her clothes. She likes her happiness to be obvious and highly
coloured, that it may rejoice the eyes of those around her; and, so as
not to sadden their eyes, she paints the bitterness of her heart in
neutral shades of drab and grey. By thinking herself better, she appears
prettier in her own sight; and it seems to her, as she consults her
mirror, that she is replying to her own destiny. The soft waves of her
hair teach her how frail is her will by the side of her life. She learns
to bestow her own reward on the sympathy of her heart by crowning her
forehead with her two bare arms; and, when she sees the long folds of
her dress winding around her body, she recognises the sinuous, slow, but
determined bent of her feminine power.
I remember once being present at a meeting between two women who gave me
a charming proof of our natural inclination to lend shape and substance
to our thoughts and feelings. They were of different nationalities and
neither of them could speak the other's language. Both were of a warm
and sensitive nature, endowed with an analytical and artistic
temperament; and, as soon as they came together amidst the boredom of a
fashionable crowd, they sat down in a corner and, with the aid of a few
ordinary words, of facial expression, of vocal intonation, but above all
by means of gesticulation, they succeeded, in a few moments, in
explaining themselves and knowing each other better than many do after
months of intercourse.
I was interested in this strange conversation, this dialogue without a
sentence, but so vivid and expressive, in the same breath childish and
profound; for they wished to show each other the inmost recesses of
their souls and they had nothing to do it with but two or three
elementary words. How pretty they were, the fair one dressed in red and
the other, who was dark, all in white, with camellias in the dusk of her
hair. They were not at all afraid of being frivolous and would linger
now and then to examine the filmy muslins and laces in which they were
arrayed.
The elder had already chosen her path, the younger was still seeking
hers; but the characters of both were alike matured and their minds
completely formed. Both of them in love and happy in their love, they
tried above all to express their tastes and ideas.
To understand each other, they employed a thousand ingenious means.
Their mobile faces eagerly questioned each other with the unconscious
boldness of children who meet for the first time. They took each other's
hands, looked at each other, read each other's features. At times, they
would make use of things around them: a light here, a shadow there,
people, objects. Once I saw the fair-haired one take up a Galle cup that
stood near. For a minute, she held her white arm up to the light; and
through her fingers the lovely thing seemed like a flash of crystallised
mist in which precious stones were shedding their last lustre.
I forget the various images, childish and subtle, by which she was able
to show her friend all her sensitive soul in that fragile cup. A little
later, there was some music; and the dark one sang while the fair one
accompanied her on the piano. Through the sounds and harmonies I heard
the perfect concord of those two lives, which had known nothing of each
other an hour or two before....
It was an exquisite lesson for me, a wonderful proof that women's souls
are able to love and unite more easily than men's, if they wish. And I
once again regretted the unhappy distrust that severs and disunites us,
whereas all our weaknesses interwoven might be garlands of strength and
love crowning the life of men.
3
By a natural trend of thought, Rose appeared to me contrasted with those
two rare creatures....
Rose is not sensitive and is not artistic. No doubt, when she left
school, she could play the piano correctly and likewise draw those
still-life studies and little landscapes by means of which the
principles of art and beauty are carefully instilled into the young
mind. But she did not suspect that there could be anything else. She saw
nothing beyond the ruined mill which she drew religiously in charcoal;
twenty times over, she set an orange, a ball of worsted and a pair of
scissors together on the window-sill without seeing any of the wonders
which the garden offered her.
Later, when every Sunday she played _The Young Savoyard's Prayer_ on the
organ, her placid soul conceived no other harmonies. She never felt,
within the convent-walls, that divine curiosity, that blessed
insubordination of the artist-child which obtains its first
understanding of beauty from its hatred of the ugliness around it and
which turns towards pretty things as flowers and plants turn towards the
light.
Ah, my poor Rose, how I should like to see you more eager and alive! In
the close attention which you give me, in the absolute faith which you
place in me, my least words are invested with a precision of meaning
that invites me to go on speaking; but how weary I am at heart! Oh, let
us pass on to other things: it is high time! Let us not sink into
slumber and call it prudence: up to now I have been content to see you
sitting patiently at my feet; but I no longer want you there. Enough of
this! I dream of roaming with you at random in the open fields, I dream
of making you laugh and cry, of feeling your young soul fresh and
sensitive as your cheeks. I dream of stirring your heart and rousing
your imagination. We will go far across the countryside; together we
shall see the light wane and the darkness begin; and, since you love me,
you must needs admire with me the rare beauty of all these things!...