CHAPTER XVII

FOREWORD

Upon the threshold of a new journey which, without being as long as that

of "Jean-Christophe," will include more than one stage, I would remind

my readers of the friendly prayer which I addressed to them at a

turning-point in the story of my musician. At the commencement of

_Revolt_, I admonished them to consider each volume as one chapter of a

moving work, whose thought unrolled only as rapidly as the life

represented. Citing the old adage, _La fin loue la vie, et le soir le

jour_, I added: When we shall have made an end, you may judge the worth

of our effort.

Of course, I understand that each volume has its own character, that it

must be judged separately as a work of art; but it would be premature to

judge the general thought from a single volume. When I write a novel, I

choose a human being with whom I feel certain affinities,--or, rather,

it is he who chooses me. Once this person has been selected, I leave him

perfectly free, I beware of mingling my personality with his. It is a

weighty burden, a personality that one has borne for more than half a

century. The divine boon of art is to deliver us from this burden, by

giving us other souls to quaff, other lives to assume--(our Indian

friends would say, "other of _our_ lives"; for all is in each . . .).

So, when I have once adopted Jean-Christophe, or Colas, or Annette

Rivière, I am no more than the secretary of their thoughts. I listen to

them, I see them act, I see through their eyes. In the measure that they

come to know their own hearts and men, I learn with them; when they make

mistakes, I stumble; when they recover themselves, I pick myself up, and

we set off again upon the road. I do not say that this road is the best.

But this road is ours. Whether or not Christophe, Colas and Annette are

right, Christophe, Colas and Annette are life is not the least of

justifications.

Seek here neither thesis nor theory. Behold in this work merely the

inner history of a life that is sincere, long, fertile in joys and

sorrows, not exempt from contradictions, abounding in errors, yet always

struggling to attain, in default of inaccessible Truth, that harmony of

spirit which is our supreme truth.

R.R.

_August_, 1922.

_ANNETTE AND SYLVIE_

PART ONE

I

She was seated beside the window, with her back turned to the light, so

that the rays of the setting sun fell upon the firm column of her neck.

She had just come indoors. For the first time in months, Annette had

spent the day in the open, tramping and finding intoxication in the

spring sunlight. Tipsy sunlight, like pure wine, diluted by no shadow of

leafless trees, and brightened by the cool air of the winter that had

flown. Her head was humming, her veins pulsing, and her eyes were

drenched in torrents of light. Red and gold beneath her closed eyelids.

Gold and red in her body. Immobile, bemused, upon her chair, for an

instant she lost consciousness. . . .

A pool, in the midst of woods, with a patch of sunlight like an eye.

Around about, a circle of trees, their trunks befurred with moss. She

must bathe her body; she finds herself undressed. The icy hand of the

water rubs her feet and knees. Voluptuous torpor. In the pool of red and

gold she contemplates her nudity. . . . A feeling of shame, obscure and

indefinable, as though other spying eyes were watching her. To escape

them she advances further into the water, which rises to her chin. The

sinuous water becomes a living embrace; and slippery creepers twine

themselves about her legs. She seeks to free herself, she sinks into the

slime. Above, the patch of sunlight sleeps upon the pool. Angrily she

thrusts her foot against the bottom and rises to the surface. The water

now is gray, dull, and muddied; but still the sunlight on its gleaming

surface. . . . Annette grasps a willow branch that overhangs the pool,

to lift herself free from the watery contamination. The leafy limb

covers her naked back and shoulders like a wing. The shadow of night

falls, and the air is chill Upon her neck. . . .

She emerges from her trance; only a few moments have flown since she

sank into it. The sun is disappearing behind the hills of Saint-Cloud.

The cool of evening has come.

Sobered, Annette rises, shivering a little; and, wrinkling her brows in

irritation at the lapse she has allowed herself, she goes to sit down

before the fire, within the depths of her room. It is a pleasant wood

fire, designed to distract the eye and to furnish company rather than to

give warmth; for from the garden, through the open window, with the damp

breeze of an early spring evening, there enters the melodious chattering

of homing birds settling down to sleep. Annette dreams; but this time

her eyes are open. She has recovered a foothold in her accustomed world.

She is in her own house: she is Annette Rivière. And, as she leans

towards the flame that reddens her youthful face, teasing with her foot

the black cat that stretches out its gold-barred belly, she once more

becomes conscious of her sorrow, that for an instant had been forgotten;

she recalls the image (escaped from her heart) of the person she has

lost. In deep mourning, with the trace of grief's passage not yet

effaced from her brow or from the corners of her mouth, with her lower

lids still slightly swollen from recent tears; but healthy, fresh, and

bathed in sap like youthful nature itself, this vigorous young girl who

is not beautiful but well made--with heavy chestnut hair, lightly tanned

neck, starry eyes and flower-like cheeks--seeking to enfold anew her

wandering glance and round shoulders in the dispersed veils of her

melancholy--this girl, sitting thus, seems like a young widow watching

the departure of the beloved shade.

Widow, indeed, Annette was in her heart; but he whose shade her fingers

sought to detain was her father.

Six months had passed already since she had lost him. Towards the end of

autumn, Raoul Rivière, still young (he was not quite fifty), had been

carried off in two days by an attack of uremia. Although for several

years he had been obliged to show some consideration for the health he

had abused, he had not expected so brusque a lowering of the curtain. He

was a Parisian architect, an old student of the Villa Romaine, handsome,

congenitally cunning and possessed of inordinate desires, lionized in

drawing-rooms and honored by the official world; and all his life long

he had known how to collect commissions, honors and windfalls without

ever appearing to seek them. His was a typically Parisian face,

popularized by photographs, magazine sketches and caricatures,--with

bulging forehead, swelling at the temples, head lowered like a charging

bull; round, protuberant eyes with an audacious glance; white bushy hair

cut in a brush, and a little tuft of hair below his laughing, voracious

mouth; the whole expression being marked by wit, insolence, charm, and

effrontery. In the Parisian world of arts and pleasures, he was known by

everyone. And yet none knew him. He was a man of dual nature, who knew

admirably how to adapt himself to society for the sake of exploiting it;

but he also knew how to conduct his hidden life as a thing apart. He was

a man of strong passions and powerful vices who managed to cultivate

them all, while taking care to reveal nothing that might scare away his

clients; he had his secret museum (_fas ac nefas_), but only the rarest

initiates were allowed a glimpse of it; he cared not a hang for public

taste and morality, but at the same time he conformed to them in his

outward life and in his official works. There was none who knew him,

neither among his friends nor among his enemies. . . . His enemies? He

had none. Rivals at the most, who had smarted that he might forge ahead.

But they bore him no malice: having got the better of them, he was such

an adept at the art of wheedling that they almost smiled and begged his

pardon, like those timid persons on whose feet one treads. Hard and

cunning as he was, he had accomplished the feat of remaining on good

terms with the competitors he supplanted, and with the women he

abandoned.

In his own household he had been somewhat less fortunate. His wife had

had the bad taste to suffer from his infidelities. Although it seemed to

him that she should have had ample time, during the twenty-five years of

their married life, to habituate herself to them, she never learned

resignation. Morosely virtuous, with a manner slightly cold as was her

Lyonnaise beauty, possessed of feelings that were strong but

concentrated, she lacked all adroitness in holding him; and she had

still less of that eminently practical talent of ignoring what she could

not help. She was too self-respecting to complain, yet she could not

resign herself to hiding from him the fact that she knew and suffered.

As he was sensitive (at least he believed he was) he avoided thinking of

this; but he bore her a grudge for not knowing better how to veil her

egotism. For some years they had lived practically apart; but by tacit

accord they hid this from the eyes of the world, and even from their

daughter, Annette, who never became cognizant of the situation. She had

not sought to fathom her parents' misunderstanding; it was distasteful

to her. And adolescence has enough preoccupations of its own. A fig for

those of others! . . .

Raoul Rivière's cleverest act was winning his daughter to his side.

Naturally, he made no move in this direction; it was a triumph of art.

Not a word of reproach, not an allusion to the wounds inflicted by

Madame Rivière; he was chivalrous, he left his daughter to find out

these things for herself. Nor did she fail to do so, for she too was

under her fathers spell. And how could she fail to decide against the

woman who, being his wife, was clumsy enough to spoil their happiness!

In this unequal battle poor Madame Rivière was beaten in advance; and

she crowned her defeat by being the first to die. Raoul remained sole

master of the field,--and of his daughter's heart. For the past five

years Annette had lived morally enveloped by her amiable father who was

devoted to her, and who, intending no harm, lavished on her those charms

that were natural to him. His generosity to her was augmented when he

found less opportunity to employ these charms outside; for during the

last two years he was kept closer to home by warnings of the illness

that was to carry him off.

Nothing, then, had troubled the warm intimacy that united father and

daughter, and filled Annette's unawakened heart. She was between

twenty-three and twenty-four, but her heart seemed younger; its

development had not been forced. Perhaps, like all those who have a long

future before them, and because she felt a profound life pulsing within

her, she let that life amass itself, in no hurry to take stock of it.

She took after both her parents: from her father she came by the outline

of her features and the charming smile, which in his case promised more

than he realized, and in hers, as she was still pure, more than she

wished; while from her mother she inherited a surface tranquillity, a

poise of manner, and a mind that was serious despite its extreme

freedom. Doubly alluring she was, with the charm of the one and the

reserve of the other. It was impossible to guess which of the two

temperaments was dominant in her. Her true nature still remained

unknown,--to herself as well as to others. None suspected her hidden

universe. She was an Eve in the garden, half slumbering. She had not yet

become conscious of the desires that were within her; nothing had

awakened them, for nothing had disturbed them. It seemed that she had

but to stretch out her arm to gather them. She never tried, lulled by

their happy humming. Perhaps she did not wish to try. . . . Who knows

how far one tries to dupe oneself? One would rather not see the

disturbing things within one. . . . And she preferred to ignore that

interior sea. The Annette whom people knew, the Annette who knew

herself, was a very calm, reasonable, well-regulated little person,

mistress of herself, who had her own will and her own independent

judgment, but who, so far, had never had occasion to oppose these to the

established rules of the world or of her household.

Without in any way neglecting the duties of social life, nor being

indifferent to its pleasures, which she enjoyed with a healthy appetite,

she had felt the need of a more serious activity. She busied herself

with fairly thorough studies, with following university courses, with

passing examinations and taking a double degree. Possessed of a lively

intelligence that demanded occupation, she loved exact studies,

particularly the sciences, in which she was highly gifted. Perhaps it

was that her healthy nature, with an instinct for equilibrium, felt the

necessity of opposing the strict discipline of a clear method and

sharply defined ideas to the disquieting attraction of that inner life

which she feared to face, and which, despite her precautions, came

beating on her door at each halt of the inactive mind. This clear,

accurate, regular activity satisfied her for the moment. She did not

care to speculate on what would follow. Marriage held no attraction for

her; she avoided thought of it. Her father smiled at her resolutions;

but he was disinclined to oppose them, for he found them to his own

advantage.

II

The disappearance of Raoul Rivière shook to its foundations the

well-ordered edifice of which, without Annette's realizing it, he was

the principal pillar. She was not unfamiliar with the face of death.

Five years before she had made its acquaintance, when her mother had

left her. But the features of this face are not always the same. After

spending several months in a private hospital, Madame Rivière had

departed silently, as she had lived, guarding the secret of her last

terrors as she had the trials of her life; leaving behind her, in the

candid egotism of the young girl, along with a gentle sorrow that

resembled the first rains of spring, an impression of relief that was

unconfessed, and the shadow of a remorse that was soon to be lost in the

joy of living.

Quite different was the end of Raoul Rivière. Stricken in the midst of

a happiness that he felt sure of enjoying for a long time still, he

brought to his departure no philosophy. He greeted his sufferings and

the approach of death with cries of revolt. Until the supreme breath of

a gasping agony, like that of a galloping horse that climbs a slope, he

battled fearfully. Those frightful images were stamped in Annette's

burning brain as though in wax. She remained haunted by them at night.

In the darkness of her room, in bed, upon the verge of sleep or suddenly

awakening, she revived the agony and the face of the dying man with such

violence that she was the dying man himself: her eyes were _his_ eyes,

her breath was _his_ breath; she no longer distinguished between them;

in the eye-sockets she recognized the appeal of a drowning glance. She

came close to destruction; but robust youth enjoys such elasticity! The

more the cord is stretched, the further flies the arrow of life. The

blinding light of those maddening images was extinguished by its own

excess, and night fell upon the memory. The features, the voice, the

radiance of the vanished man, all had vanished: Annette, determined to

exhaust the shadow that was within her, could find no further trace of

it. Nothing but herself. She alone. . . . Alone. The Eve of the garden

was awakening without the companion at her side,--the man whom she had

always felt near her, without seeking to define him; the man who,

unknown to her and as yet indistinctly, was assuming the shape of love.

And suddenly the garden lost its security. Disquieting breaths from

without had entered it; both the breath of death and the breath of life.

Annette opened her eyes, as did the world's first men at night, with the

apprehension of a thousand unknown dangers ambushed about her, with the

instinct of imminent battle. Of a sudden the dormant energies gathered

themselves together, and held themselves tensely ready. And her solitude

was peopled by passionate forces.

Her equilibrium was destroyed. Her studies, her work, now meant nothing

to her; the place that she had accorded them in her life now seemed a

mockery. But the other part of her life, which sorrow had just touched,

revealed itself to be of immeasurable extent. The shock of the injury

had awakened all its fibres: around the wound, opened by the

disappearance of the beloved companion, gathered all the forces of love,

hidden and unknown; sucked in by the void that had been hollowed out,

they came hastening from the distant depths of her being. Surprised by

this invasion, Annette strove to evade its significance; she persisted

in relating everything to the precise object of her grief:

everything,--the sharp, burning stimulus of Nature, whose spring breezes

bathed her in moisture; the vague and violent longing for happiness . . .

lost or desired?--the arms outstretched towards the absent one; and

the bounding heart which yearned for the past . . . or was it the

future? But she succeeded only in dissolving her grief into a confused

mystery of sorrow, passion, and obscure pleasure. By this she was at

once devoured and revolted. . . .

On this evening in late April, she was swept away by revolt. Her

rational mind waxed furious at the confused reveries which it had too

long left uncontrolled, and of which it saw the danger. It wished to

repel them, but this was not easy; they no longer listened; the mind had

lost its habit of command. . . . Annette, tearing herself away from

contemplation of the fire upon the hearth, from the insidious advance of

the night that had completely fallen, stood up, chilly now, and,

enveloping herself in a dressing-gown of her father's, she flooded the

room with light.

It was Raoul Rivière's old study. Through the open bay-windows, through

the sparse young foliage of the trees, one could see the Seine in the

darkness, and on its sombre, seemingly immobile mass, the reflections of

houses whose windows were being lighted upon the opposite bank, and of

the daylight that was dying above the hills of Saint-Cloud. Raoul

Rivière, who was a man of taste--although disinclined to use it to

satisfy the insipid routine or laughable caprices of his wealthy

clients--had chosen for himself, at the gates of Paris, on the Quai de

Boulogne, an old Louis XVI mansion that he had had no hand in building.

He had contented himself with making it comfortable. His study had also

served him admirably for affairs of gallantry, and there was reason to

believe that the room had not suffered from lack of use in this

capacity. Here Rivière had received more than one amiable visit,

suspected by no one; for the chamber had its private entrance from the

garden. But for two years the entrance had been useless, and the sole

feminine visitor had been Annette. Annette, coming and going, tidying

things, pouring water into a vase of flowers, constantly moving about;

then suddenly motionless over a book, curled up in her favorite corner

of the divan, whence she might silently watch the passage of the sinuous

river and, without interrupting her absent-minded reading, carry on an

absent-minded conversation with her father. But he, sitting yonder,

listless and weary, his sly profile catching her slightest movement from

the corner of one eye; he, an old spoiled child who could never admit

that, wherever he might be, he was not the center of all thoughts,

harassed her with witticisms, wheedling questions, insistent,

disturbing, in order to attract Annette's attention to himself and make

sure that she was really listening to everything. . . . To the very end,

touched and delighted that he could not do without her, she gave up

everything else for the sake of devoting herself to him alone. Then he

was satisfied; and, sure of his public, he showered upon it the

resources of his brilliant mind. He shot off his rockets, he laid bare

his memories. Of course, he was careful to select only the most

flattering; and he arranged them _ad usum Delphini_, to the taste of the

_dauphine_, cleverly guessing at her secret curiosities and her sudden

fits of bristling repugnance. He told her precisely what she desired to

hear; and Annette, all ears, was proud of his confidences. She was quite

ready to believe that she possessed more of her father than her mother

had ever known. Of his intimate life's story she remained, so she

thought, the sole trustee.

But, since her father's death, another trust had been left in her hands:

all his papers. Annette had no desire to learn what they contained. Her

piety told her that they did not belong to her; but another sentiment

whispered the contrary. In any event, it was necessary to decide upon

their fate: Annette, sole heiress, might die in her turn, and those

family papers should not be allowed to fall into strange hands. It was

urgent, then, to examine them, and to determine whether they were to be

destroyed or preserved. For some days now Annette had been decided on

this course. But when she found herself again, at evening, in the room

that was permeated by the beloved presence, she lacked courage to do

more than drink in this presence for hours, without stirring. She

feared, in opening these letters of the past, too direct a contact with

reality.

Yet it must be done. This evening she was resolved upon it. In the

diffused softness of this over tender night, in which she disturbedly

felt the dwindling of her grief, she wished to affirm her possession of

the dead man. She went toward the piece of rosewood furniture, more

suitable for a coquette than for a worker, a high Louis XV chiffonier,

in which Rivière had heaped his letters and intimate papers, disposing

them in the seven or eight drawers that made the piece a kind of

anticipatory and charming model of the American skyscraper. Annette,

kneeling, pulled out the lower drawer; then to examine it the better,

she lifted it out completely, and, returning to her place by the fire,

she sank to her knees and bent over it. Not a sound in the house. She

was living there alone, save for an old aunt who kept house and who

scarcely counted: Aunt Victorine, an eclipsed sister of Annette's

father, who had always lived to serve Rivière, and who now continued as

housekeeper in the service of her niece,--not unlike an old cat, having

finally become a part of the furniture of the house, to which she was as

much attached, no doubt, as to the human beings. Having retired to her

room early in the evening, her distant presence on the floor above, the

peaceable coming and going of her old felt-shod feet, disturbed

Annette's reveries no more than would a familiar animal.

She began to read, curious and a little troubled. But her orderly

instinct and her need of calm, which insisted that everything in and

around herself should be clearly arranged, imposed on her, as she picked

up and unfolded the letters, a slowness of movement and a detached

coldness that succeeded in deluding her for a time at least.

The first letters that she read were from her mother. The fretful tone

at first called to mind her earlier impressions, not always kindly,

sometimes a little irritated, mixed with some pity for what she had

considered, from the height of her reason, a really unhealthy habit of

mind: "Poor mama! . . ." But little by little, as she continued her

reading, she perceived for the first time that this mental state was not

without its causes. Certain allusions to Raoul's infidelities disturbed

her. Too partial to pass judgment against her father, she hurried on,

pretending that she had not clearly understood. Her filial piety

furnished her excellent reasons for averting her eyes. But at the same

time she discovered Madame Rivière's earnestness, her wounded

tenderness, and she reproached herself for having misunderstood her, and

having thus added to the sorrows of this martyr's life.

In the same drawer, side by side, reposed other bundles of letters (some

even detached and mingled with her mother's) which Raoul's casual

carelessness had jumbled together, as he had done with the

correspondents themselves during his life of multiple households.

This time Annette's determined calm was subjected to a difficult test.

From every sheet of the new bundle, voices spoke, much more intimate and

surer of their power than that of poor Madame Rivière: they affirmed

their proprietary rights over Raoul. Annette was revolted by them. Her

first movement was to crumple in her hand the letters that she held, and

throw them into the fire. But she snatched them out again.

Hesitantly she regarded the sheets, already seared by the flame, that

she had rescued. It was certain that if she had had sound reasons, a

moment ago, for not wishing to delve into her parents' quarrels, she now

had still better ones for wishing to know nothing of her father's

liaisons. But these reasons counted for nothing, now. She felt herself

personally attacked. On what grounds, how or why, she could not have

said. Bent over, motionless, wrinkling the end of her nose, her face

pushed forward in a disgusted pout, like an irritated cat, she trembled

with desire to throw back into the fire the insolent papers that she

clutched in her fist. But, as her fingers loosened their hold, she could

not resist the temptation of glancing at them. And then, suddenly

decided, she opened her hand, unfolded the letters again, meticulously

smoothing out with one finger the creases she had made. . . . And she

read,--she read all.

III

With repulsion (and not without attraction, too) Annette witnessed the

passage of those love affairs of which she had known nothing. They

formed a motley and fantastic troop. In love as in art, Raoul's caprice

was "period color." Annette recognized certain names belonging to her

own world; and with hostility she recalled the smiles and caresses that

she used to receive from certain favorites. Others belonged upon a less

lofty social level; their spelling was no less free than the sentiments

they expressed. Annette's disdainful pout was accentuated; but her mind,

with sharp and mocking eyes like her father's, saw the comic aspect of

these women who, leaning forward, with a wisp of hair in their eyes and

the tip of their tongues thrust out, made their pens gallop over the

paper. All these adventures, some a little longer, some a little

shorter, but none very long after all, passed, succeeded one another,

and effaced one another. Annette was grateful for that,--wounded, but

disdainful.

She was not yet at the end of her discoveries. In another drawer,

sedulously put apart (more carefully, she was forced to remark, than her

mother's letters) a new bundle revealed a more enduring liaison.

Although the dates were carelessly indicated, it was easy to see that

this correspondence embraced a long period of years. It was in two

handwritings: the one, incorrect, slovenly, and backhand, stopped half

way through the packet; the other, childish at first, gradually grew

firmer, and continued until the last years, even (and this discovery was

particularly painful to Annette), up until the last months of her

father's life. And this correspondent, who was robbing her of a part of

that sacred period of which she had thought herself the unique

possessor, this double intruder, was addressing her father as "Father!"

She experienced the sensation of an intolerable wound. With an angry

gesture she flung her father's dressing-gown from her shoulders. The

letters fell from her hands, and she sank back in her chair with dry

eyes and burning cheeks. She did not analyse her own emotions. She was

too moved by passion to know what she thought. But, with all her

passion, she was thinking: "He deceived me! . . ."

Again she picked up the hateful letters, and this time she did not let

them go until she had absorbed them down to the very last line. She

read, breathing deeply with her mouth shut, burned by a hidden fire of

jealousy, and by another sentiment, still obscure, that had been

awakened. Not for a second did the idea occur to her, in penetrating the

intimacy of this correspondence, in possessing herself of her father's

secrets, that she might be guilty of a moral misdemeanor. Not for a

second did she doubt her right. . . . (Her right! The spirit of reason

was far away; another power, a despotic one, was speaking!) . . . On the

contrary, she felt that it was she who was wounded in her right--_in her

right_--by her father!

She recovered herself, however. She glimpsed, for an instant, the

enormity of her pretension. What rights had she over him? What did he

owe her? The imperious grumbling of passion answered: "Everything."

Argument was useless! Annette, abandoned to her absurd resentment,

suffered from the wound, and at the same time felt a bitter joy in those

cruel forces that, for the first time, were thrusting their piercing

goads into her flesh.

She spent a part of the night in reading. And when she finally went to

bed, with her eyes closed she long continued to reread lines and words

that made her start, until the deep sleep of youth overcame her, and she

lay motionless, outstretched, breathing deeply, very calm, even relieved

by the emotional expenditure that she had undergone.

She read again the next day; many times, during the days that followed,

she reread the letters which never ceased to occupy her thoughts. Now

she could almost reconstruct this life, this double life which had

unrolled parallel to her own: the mother, a florist, whom Raoul had

furnished funds to open a shop; the daughter, employed by a milliner, or

perhaps a seamstress (it was not very clear). The one was named

Delphine; and the other, the younger, Sylvie. To judge by their

fantastic, negligent style of writing--a style that for all its

carelessness was not lacking in charm--they resembled each other.

Delphine seemed to have been a pleasant person who, despite a few little

ruses that appeared here and there in her letters, could not have

wearied Rivière very greatly with her demands. Neither the mother nor

the daughter took life tragically. And besides, they seemed sure of

Raoul's affection. It was perhaps the best way to conserve it. But this

impertinent assurance ruffled Annette no less than did the extreme

familiarity of their tone with him.

It was Sylvie who especially absorbed her jealous attention. The other

had died, and Annette's pride affected to scorn the kind of intimacy

that Delphine had enjoyed with her father; already she was forgetting

that, a few days before, the discovery of similar attachments had been a

sensible affront to her. Now that a much more profound intimacy had

entered the lists, all other rivalries seemed negligible to her. With

strained imagination she tried to picture to herself this stranger who,

despite her ill will, was only half a stranger. The laughing ease, the

calm familiarity of these letters in which Sylvie disposed of her father

as though he were entirely her property, made Annette furious; she

sought to outstare this insolent unknown so that she might confound her.

But the little intruder defied her glance. She seemed to say: "It is my

right: I am of _his_ blood."

And the more irritated Annette became, the more this affirmation grew

upon her. She fought against it too much not to gradually become

accustomed to the combat, and even to the adversary. Finally, she could

not get along without it. In the morning the first thought that greeted

her upon awakening was of Sylvie; and now the sly voice of her rival

said: "I am of _your_ blood."

So clearly did she hear it, so vivid one night was the vision of her

unknown sister, that Annette in her half-sleep stretched out her arms to

seize her.

And the next day, provoked, protesting, but conquered, the desire held

her and would not let her go. She left the house, in search of Sylvie.

IV

The address was in the letters. Annette went to the Boulevard du Maine.

It was afternoon; Sylvie was at the work-shop. Annette did not dare to

hunt her out there. She waited for a few days, and then went back one

evening after dinner. Sylvie had not come in, or else she had already

gone out again; no one was quite sure. Annette, who had been keyed up by

nervous impatience for a whole day preceding each attempt, returned home

disappointed; and a secret cowardice advised her to give it up. But she

was one of those who never give up anything on which they have once

decided; they are all the less willing to yield when the obstacle

persists, or when they are afraid of what may happen.

She went again, one day at the end of May, towards nine in the evening.

And this time she was told that Sylvie was at home. Six flights. She

climbed too quickly, for she did not wish to have time to seek any

reasons why she should turn back. At the top, her breath was short. She

halted on the last stair. She did not know what she was going to find.

A long general hall, uncarpeted, tiled. At right and left, two doors

ajar: voices called from one lodging to the other. Through the door on

the left a reflection from the setting sun fell upon the red tiles. That

was where Sylvie lived.

Annette knocked. Some one called out, "Come in!" without ceasing to

chatter. Annette pushed open the door; the light from the golden heavens

struck her full in the face. She saw a young girl, half-dressed, in a

skirt, with bare shoulders, and bare feet thrust into red slippers,

walking back and forth with her supple, plump back turned towards her.

She was looking for something on her toilet table, talking to herself,

and powdering her nose with a puff.

"Well now! What is it?" she demanded in a tone that was nasal because of

the pins thrust in one corner of her mouth.

Then suddenly, distracted by a lilac branch that was soaking in her

water jug, she plunged her nose into it with a grunt of pleasure.

Lifting her head, and looking into the mirror with her laughing eyes,

she caught sight of Annette behind her, hesitating on the threshold,

aureoled in sunlight. "Oh!" she exclaimed, turned around with bare arms

lifted above her head, quickly thrust the pins back into her rearranged

hair, came forward with hands outstretched, and then suddenly withdrew

them, making a gesture of welcome that was cordial but reserved. Annette

entered, vainly trying to speak. Sylvie was silent too. She offered her

visitor a chair, and slipping into a well-worn, blue-striped

dressing-gown, she sat down on the bed opposite her. They looked at each

other, and each waited for the other to begin.

How different they were! Each studied the other with sharp, precise,

unindulgent eyes which asked: "Who are you?"

Sylvie saw Annette, big, fresh, large of face, her nose a little

snubbed, her forehead like that of a young heifer beneath a mass of

twisted golden brown hair, with very thick eyebrows, large clear blue

eyes that protruded a trifle, and that grew strangely hard at times when

waves of emotion swept up from her heart; her mouth was large and her

lips firm, with a light down at the corners, and habitually closed in a

defensive, watchful, determined pout,--but when they opened they were

illumined by a timid, radiant and delightful smile which transformed her

whole countenance; her chin, like her cheeks, was full but not fat, both

solidly cut; nape, neck and hands were the color of dark honey; beneath

her beautiful, firm skin flowed pure blood. A little heavy of figure,

her bust a trifle square, she had breasts that were large and full:

Sylvie's practised eye felt them under the dress, lingering longest on

the fine shoulders, so perfectly proportioned that they formed, with the

white, round column of her neck, Annette's greatest physical charm. She

knew how to dress, she was turned out with care; an excessive, an

over-studied care in Sylvie's opinion: hair well done, not a ringlet out

of place, not a hook and eye at fault, everything in order. Sylvie was

asking herself: "And is she the same inside?"

Annette saw Sylvie, almost as tall as herself (perhaps just as tall) but

thin, slender of figure, with a head that was small for her body, now

half-naked under her peignor, and a throat that was slight but plump,

while her arms too were plump: balancing herself on her little rump, she

sat with her hands clasped over her round knees. Round too were her

forehead and her chin; her little nose turned up; her light brown hair

grew low on the temples and curled over the cheeks, and little wandering

hairs appeared on the nape and the white, very white and slender, neck.

A hot-house plant. The two profiles of her face were asymmetrical: the

right-hand one was languorous, sentimental,--a sleeping cat; the

left-hand one, malicious, watchful,--a biting cat. When she spoke, her

upper lip drew back over laughing teeth. And Annette was thinking:

"Beware of her bite!"

How different they were! . . . And yet at the first glance both had

recognized the expression, the clear eyes, the forehead, the wrinkle at

the corner of the mouth,--the father. . . .

Annette, frightened and stiff, took her courage in her hands and, in a

pale voice that was chilled by excess of emotion, she told who she was,

her name. Sylvie let her speak without ceasing to stare at her; then,

calmly, with a slightly cruel smile of her curled upper lip, she said:

"I knew it."

Annette started.

"How?"

"I've seen you before, often, with father. . . ."

Before those last words there was an imperceptible hesitation. Perhaps

she had been going to say "_my_ father." But she felt an ironic pity for

Annette's glance that read her lips. Annette understood, averted her

eyes, and blushed, humiliated.

Sylvie missed none of it; she took a leisurely delight in Annette's

embarrassment. She continued to speak without haste, studiedly. She said

that she had been in the church, at the funeral service, in one of the

aisles, and that she had seen everything. Her singsong, rather nasal

voice reeled off her narrative with no show of emotion. But if Sylvie

knew how to see, Annette knew how to hear; and when the girl had

finished, Annette, raising her eyes, asked her:

"You loved him very much?"

The eyes of the two sisters exchanged a caress. But this lasted for a

moment only. Already a jealous shadow had clouded Annette's expression,

and she continued:

"He loved you very much."

She sincerely wished to please Sylvie, but she could not help a shade of

spite creeping into her voice. Sylvie thought that she could sense a

patronising tone. Immediately her paws showed their little claws, and

she said spiritedly:

"Oh! yes, he loved me tremendously!"

She made a little pause; then, with a complacent air, let fly:

"And he was _very_ fond of you, too. He often told me so."

Annette's passionate hands, her large nervous hands, trembled and

clasped each other. Sylvie watched them. With contracted throat, Annette

asked:

"He spoke to you of me, often?"

"Often," repeated the innocent Sylvie.

There was no assurance that she spoke the truth; but Annette, who had

scant skill in hiding her own thoughts, did not suspect the words of

others, and those of Sylvie touched her heart. . . . So, her father

spoke of her to Sylvie, they talked about her together! And she, to the

very last day, had known nothing; he had seemed to confide in her, and

he had duped her; he had kept her out of things, she had not even known

of her sister's existence! Such inequality, such injustice overwhelmed

her. She felt that she was beaten. But she did not wish to show it; so

she sought a weapon, found it, and said:

"You must have seen very little of him during the last years."

"Yes," conceded Sylvie regretfully, "during the last years that was so.

He was sick. _They_ kept him shut up."

There was a hostile silence. Both were smiling, both were champing at

the bit: Annette, rigid and strained; Sylvie, her expression as false as

a gambler's counter, caressing, mannered. Before going on with the game,

they were counting up the points. Annette, a little relieved at having

won a (very slight) advantage, and secretly ashamed of her evil

thoughts, tried to put the conversation on a more cordial basis. She

spoke of the desire she had felt to meet the girl in whom, too, her

father lived again,--"_a little_." But it was in vain; despite herself

she made it clear that there was a difference between their shares, and

she let it be understood that hers was the privileged one. She told

Sylvie about Raoul's last years, and she could not help showing how much

_more_ intimate she had been with him. Sylvie profited by a pause in the

narrative to furnish Annette, in return, with her own memories of the

paternal affection. And each, against her will, envied the other's

share; and each tried to make her own seem the bigger. Speaking or

listening (not wishing to listen, but hearing just the same) they

continued to inspect each other from head to foot. Sylvie complaisantly

compared her long legs, slim ankles and small bare feet, lost in their

slippers, with Annette's somewhat heavy extremities and awkward ankles.

And Annette, studying Sylvie's hands, did not fail to note the

cultivated moons of the over-pink nails. It was not merely two young

girls who confronted each other; it was two rival households. So,

despite the apparent freedom of the conversation, they remained armed

with eye and tongue, and observed each other harshly. The fierce

sharpness of jealousy made each bluntly penetrate, at first glance, to

the very depths of the other; to the faults and hidden vices unsuspected

perhaps by their possessor. Sylvie recognized in Annette the demon of

pride, inflexibility of principle, despotic violence, which had not yet,

however, found occasion to exert itself. Annette recognized in Sylvie a

practised sharpness and a smiling falseness. Later, when they loved each

other, they would have given much to forget what they had seen. But for

the instant their animosity gazed through a magnifying glass. There were

seconds when they hated each other. Annette, with a bursting heart, was

thinking:

"It isn't right, it isn't right! I should set the example."

Her eyes made a tour of the modest room, taking in the window, the lace

curtains, the roof and chimneys of the opposite house under the

moonlight, the lilac branch in the broken water jug.

In a cold tone, colder for the fact that she was burning inside, she

offered Sylvie her friendship, her assistance. . . . Sylvie, negligently,

with a malicious little smile, listened, made no reply. . . .

Annette, mortified, ill hiding her piqued pride and incipient passion,

rose abruptly. They exchanged a pleasant, commonplace good-bye. And,

with sorrow and anger in her heart, Annette went out.

But as she reached the end of the tiled hall, and was already descending

the first step of the stairs, Sylvie came running towards her, in her

little Turkish slippers, one of which she lost on the way, and from

behind she slipped her arms around Annette's neck. Annette turned,

crying out with emotion. She hugged Sylvie in a burst of passion; and

Sylvie cried out too, but with laughter at the violence of the embrace.

Their mouths met ardently. Loving words. Affectionate murmurs. Thanks,

promises that they would see each other soon. . . .

They drew apart. Annette, laughing with happiness, found that without

realizing it she had descended to the bottom of the staircase. From

above she heard a gamin's whistle, as though calling a dog, and Sylvie's

voice whispering:

"Annette!"

She raised her head and saw high above her in a patch of light Sylvie's

laughing face bending down.

"Catch!"

And Annette received full in her face a rain of drops and the wet lilac

that Sylvie had thrown down to her, at the same time throwing kisses

with both hands. . . .

Sylvie vanished. Annette, with lifted head, continued to look for her

when she was no longer there. And, clasping the branch of wet flowers in

her arms, she kissed the lilac.

V

Despite the distance, and although certain streets were not very safe at

this belated hour, Annette returned home on foot. She could easily have

danced. When she finally reached the house, happy and troubled, she did

not retire until she had placed the flowers in a vase beside her bed.

And then she got up again to take them out and put them in her water

jug, as they had been at Sylvie's. In bed again, she kept her lamp

lighted, for she did not wish to take leave of this day. But suddenly,

three hours later, she awakened in the middle of the night. The flowers

were really there; it had not been a dream, she had seen Sylvie. . . .

She fell asleep again, upon the breast of that dear image.

The days that followed were filled by the buzzing of bees erecting a new

hive. Just as a swarm groups itself around a young queen, so Annette

constructed a new future around Sylvie. The old hive was deserted; its

queen was indeed dead. Attempting to mask this revolution in the palace,

the passionate heart pretended to believe that its love for the father

had been transferred to Sylvie, and that it would rediscover him

there. . . . But Annette really knew that she was bidding him farewell.

There sounded the imperious voice of new love, which creates and

destroys. . . . Memories of the father were thrust, pitilessly, from

view. Familiar objects were relegated to the pious shadow of rooms in

which they ran no risk of being frequently disturbed. The greatcoat was

thrust into the bottom of an old closet. Having put it away, Annette

took it out again indecisively, pressed her cheek against it, then

suddenly in anger thrust it from her. Illogicality of passion! Which of

the two was the traitor? . . .

She was enamoured of the sister she had discovered. She scarcely knew

her! But as soon as one loves, such an uncertainty is only an added

attraction. The mystery of the unknown is added to the charm of what one

thinks one knows. Of the Sylvie she had glimpsed, she wished to remember

only what had pleased her. Secretly she admitted that this was not very

exact; but when she honestly sought to recall the shadows of the

portrait, she heard the little slippers trotting down the hall, and felt

Sylvie's bare arms clasped about her neck.

Sylvie was going to come. She had promised. . . . Annette was preparing

everything for her reception. Where would she put her? There, in her

pretty room. Sylvie would sit here, in her favorite place, before the

open window. In imagination Annette saw everything through her sister's

eyes, and took delight in showing Sylvie her house, her bibelots, her

trees clothed in their softest greenery, and the vista yonder over the

flowered hills. In sharing with Sylvie the grace and comforts of her

life she enjoyed them with the freshness of new sensations. But the

thought occurred to her that Sylvie's eyes might draw comparisons

between her own lodging and the Boulogne house. A shadow fell across her

joy. This inequality weighed upon her, as though it had been her fault.

Couldn't she correct it by asking Sylvie to share with her the

advantages that fate had given her? Yes, but this would be to give her

still another advantage. And Annette foresaw that she would not gain her

consent without a struggle. She remembered the mocking silence with

which Sylvie had greeted her first invitations. Her sensitiveness would

have to be humored. How could it be done? Annette reviewed four or five

plans in her mind. None satisfied her. Ten times she changed the

arrangement of the room: after having placed in it her most valuable

possessions, with a childish pleasure, she carried them out again and

left only the simplest things. There was not a detail--a flower on the

landing, the place of a portrait--that she did not argue over. . . .

Sylvie must not arrive before everything was in order! But Sylvie was in

no hurry, and Annette had time to make and remake, again and again, her

little arrangements. She found Sylvie very slow in coming, but she

profited by this to revise her plans. Unconscious comedy! She was

deluding herself by attributing importance to these trifles. All this

bustle of arrangement and rearrangement was only a pretext to distract

her attention from another bustle of passionate thoughts which was

troubling the habitual order of her rational life.

The pretext wore itself out. This time all was ready. And Sylvie did not

come. In imagination Annette had already welcomed her ten times. She was

exhausted with waiting. . . . Yet she could not go back to Sylvie's!

What if, when she went to see her again, she should read in Sylvie's

bored eyes that her sister could get along very well without her! At the

very idea Annette's pride bled. No, rather than this humiliation, it

would be better never to see her again! Yet . . . She decided hastily,

and dressed herself to go in search of the forgetful girl. But she had

not finished buttoning her gloves before she lost courage; and, with her

legs sinking under her, she sat down on a chair in the vestibule, not

knowing what to do. . . .

And just at that moment,--when Annette had sunk down beside the door,

with her hat on her head, all ready to go out, yet not able to make up

her mind,--just then, Sylvie rang the bell!

Between the sound of the bell and the opening of the door ten seconds

did not elapse. Such promptness and the sight of Annette's delighted

eyes were enough to tell Sylvie that she was expected. They were already

kissing each other, standing on the door-sill, before a word was said.

Then Annette impetuously dragged Sylvie through the house, without

letting go of her hands, devouring her with her eyes, and laughing

foolishly to herself like a happy child. . . .

And nothing happened as she had anticipated. Not one of the prepared

phrases of welcome served. She did not seat Sylvie in the chosen place.

Turning their backs to the window, they both sat on the divan, side by

side, gazing into each other's eyes, speaking without listening; their

expressions said:

Annette: "At last! You are really here?"

Sylvie: "You see, I've come. . . ."

But Sylvie, having examined Annette, said: "You were going out?"

Annette shook her head without wishing to explain. Sylvie understood

perfectly and, leaning over, she whispered:

"You were coming to my place?"

Annette started and, resting her cheek on her sister's shoulder, she

murmured: "Bad girl!"

"Why?" demanded Sylvie, kissing Annette's fair eyebrows with the corner

of her mouth.

Annette did not reply. Sylvie knew the answer. She smiled, peeking

maliciously at Annette who was now avoiding her glance. The violent

girl! Her spirit was broken. A sudden timidity had fallen upon her, like

a net. They sat without stirring, the big sister leaning on the shoulder

of the little one, who was satisfied at having so promptly established

her power. . . .

Then Annette raised her head and, both mistresses of their first

emotion, they began to talk like old friends.

No longer were their intentions hostile. On the contrary, each was

desirous of surrendering herself to the other. . . . Oh, not completely,

however! They knew that there are things in every one which it does not

do to show. Even when one loves? Precisely when one loves! But what

things, exactly? Each, while unbosoming herself, kept her secrets,

sounding out the limits of what the other's love could bear. And more

than one confidence that began frankly, oscillated uncertainly in the

midst of a phrase, and then ran prettily into a little lie. They did not

know each other; in more than one respect they were disconcerting

enigmas to each other: two natures, two worlds, strangers in spite of

all. For this visit, Sylvie--she had thought about it more than she

would have admitted--had made herself as lovely as possible. And her

possible was much. Annette was captured by her charm and at the same

time embarrassed by certain little artifices of coquetry that made her

uncomfortable. Sylvie perceived this, without trying to change in any

way; and she was at once attracted and intimidated by this big sister of

hers who was so free and so naïve, so ardent and so reserved. (To hear

her chatter one would not have suspected the intimidation!) Both were

keen and extremely observant, and they missed not a wink nor a thought.

They were not yet sure of each other. Suspicious and expansive, they

wished to give themselves; yes, but they did not wish to give without

receiving. Each was possessed by a devil of petty pride. Annette's was

the stronger; but in her the forces of love, too, were stronger, and she

betrayed herself. When she gave more than she had wished, it was a

defeat that Sylvie relished. So the two negotiators, burning to

understand each other, but wisely circumspect, testing each movement,

advanced cautiously. . . .

The duel was an unfair one. Very quickly Sylvie became aware of

Annette's imperious and imploring love. She saw it more clearly than

Annette herself. She tested it; with sheathed claws she played with it,

without seeming to do so. Annette felt that she was conquered. It caused

her shame and joy.

At Sylvie's request she showed her all her rooms. She would not have

done this on her own initiative; she was afraid to gall her sister by

displaying the comfort in which she lived, but to her relief Sylvie

manifested not the slightest pique. She was perfectly at her ease,

coming and going, looking and touching, as though she were at home. It

was Annette, in fact, who was disturbed by this perfect poise; and at

the same time her affection rejoiced in it. Passing by her sister's bed,

Sylvie gave the pillow a friendly little pat. Curiously she examined the

toilet table, making an accurate survey of the bottles at a glance; went

absentmindedly into the library, enthused over a pair of curtains,

criticised an arm-chair, tried another, poked her nose into a half-open

cupboard, felt the silk of a dress; and, having made her tour, returned

to Annette's bedroom where she sat down in the low armchair near the bed

and went on with the conversation. Annette offered her tea, to which

Sylvie preferred two fingers of sugared wine. Sucking a biscuit with the

end of her tongue, Sylvie looked at Annette who was hesitating, wishing

to speak; and she wanted to say to her:

"Out with it then!"

Finally Annette plucked up courage, and with a brusqueness that was

caused by her suppressed affection she proposed to Sylvie that she come

to live with her. Sylvie smiled, did not speak, swallowed her mouthful,

dipped her crumbs and fingers in her wine, smiled again prettily,

thanking her sister with eyes and a full mouth, shaking her head as one

does when talking to a child. And then she said:

"Darling. . . ."

And she refused.

Annette insisted, pressing her; she tried to compel consent with an

imperious violence. It was Sylvie's turn now not to wish to speak! She

excused herself with half-words, in a caressing voice, slightly

embarrassed and a little malicious as well. . . . (She was very fond of

her big sister who was so abrupt, tender, and frank!) She said:

"I can't."

And Annette asked: "But why?"

And Sylvie replied: "I have a sweetheart."

For the space of a second Annette did not understand. Then she

understood only too well, and she was dumbfounded. Watching her from the

corner of one eye, Sylvie rose, still smiling, and left amid a

twittering of little words and kisses.

VI

Annette was left to contemplate her destroyed castle. She felt a great,

confused pain composed of mingled feelings. Bitter ones there were in

plenty, which she would rather not have recognized, but which

spasmodically made her throat contract. . . . She who had thought herself

free from prejudice; the idea that this pretty sister of hers. . . . Oh!

it was too painful! She could have wept over it. . . . Why? It

was stupid! Jealousy again? . . . No!

She shrugged her shoulders and stood up. She wished to think no more

about it. . . . With long strides she went from room to room, seeking

distraction. Then she realized that she was retracting her sister's

promenade through the apartment. She could think only of her. Of her and

that other . . . Jealous, decidedly? No! No! No! No! . . . She stamped

her foot angrily. She would not admit it! . . . But, whether she

admitted it or not, the pain was gnawing at her heart. She sought moral

explanations; and she found them. It was her purity that suffered. In

her complex nature, rich in contradictory instincts that had not yet had

occasion to conflict, there was no lack of puritanical forces. Yet it

was not religious scruples that disturbed her. Brought up by a sceptical

father and a free-thinking mother, outside the pale of any church, she

was accustomed to discuss everything. She was not afraid to submit any

social prejudice to the spirit of examination. She admitted free love;

in theory she admitted it readily. Often in conversation with her father

or with fellow students she had upheld it, and in this the juvenile

desire to appear "advanced" had played an unimportant part; she

sincerely thought that freedom in love was legitimate, natural, and even

right. She had never thought of blaming the pretty girls of Paris who

lived as they pleased; she regarded them sympathetically, certainly with

more sympathy than the women of her middle-class world. . . . Well then,

what was it that hurt her now? Sylvie was exercising her right. . . .

Her right? No, not her right! Others, but not she! One is lenient with

those one does not hold so high. For her sister as for herself Annette

had, justly or not--yes, justly!--very strict standards. Love for one

person only seemed to her an aristocracy of the heart. Sylvie had

fallen. Annette blamed her for it! "One love only? Love for you! . . .

Jealous girl, you are lying to yourself! . . ." But the more jealous she

was of Sylvie, the more she loved her; and the more irritated she became

with her, the more she loved her. One can be so greatly irritated only

by those one loves!

Her little sisters charm was calmly working. It was useless to be

annoyed, to wish that she were different. Little by little, Annette

became conscious of another feeling: curiosity. Despite herself, her

mind was trying to imagine Sylvie's mode of life. She thought about it

entirely too much. She ended by putting herself in Sylvie's place; and

she was rather confused to admit that she did not find it too bad. The

scorn of herself, the indignant revolt that this produced, made her the

more severe towards Sylvie. She continued to sulk, and forbade herself

to visit her sister again.

Sylvie was not at all disturbed. That Annette gave no sign of life did

not in any way trouble her. She had judged her big sister; she knew that

Annette would come back. The period of waiting did not weigh upon her;

she had enough to occupy her heart. First of all, her sweetheart, who

occupied, nevertheless, only a corner of it, and that not for long. And

there were so many other things! She loved Annette. But, after all, she

had lived without her for almost twenty years. She could wait a few

weeks more. . . . She imagined what was going on in her sister's mind.

She found a certain amusement in this, mixed with a residue of

hostility. Two rival races; two classes. When she had been at Annette's,

Sylvie had compared their lives and conditions, although she had not

appeared to do so. She was thinking:

"All the same, you see, we have our little advantages. I have what you

haven't. . . . You thought that you could hold me, and you can't. Yes,

go ahead, go ahead, pout and purse your lips! I have shocked your

conventions. . . . What a blow, my poor Annette!"

And, laughing at the discomfiture which she imagined she read in

Annette's face, she pressed her hand to her lips and threw a kiss. But,

even while she told herself that Annette was suffering and that it was

a bitter close for her to swallow, she was not offended. And, as one does

when a child balks before a full spoon, she whispered, slyly and

cajolingly:

"Come on, my little one! Open your mouth! There you are!"

It was not merely a question of shocked conventions. Sylvie knew

perfectly well that she had wounded Annette in another feeling much less

easily confessed. And the little brigand was delighted at the thought,

for it made her feel that she was her sister's mistress; she would make

the most of it. . . . "Poor Annette! Can you fight against yourself!"

Sylvie was sure, absolutely sure, that she would "have" her. Mocking,

yet at the same time touched, she whispered to her in imagination.

"Go on! I won't take advantage of it. . . ."

She wouldn't take advantage of it? . . .

And why not? It's amusing to take advantages. After all, life is war. To

the victor are the spoils. If the vanquished consents, it's because it

is to his advantage!

"Pshaw! We shall see!"

VII

One Monday morning Sylvie was doing some errands, when she caught sight

of Annette, a little in front of her and walking in the same direction,

on the Rue de Sèvres. She amused herself by following her for a time,

so that she might observe her. Annette was walking with long strides, as

was her habit. Sylvie, whose steps were short, quick, supple, dancing,

laughed at her boyish, athletic pace; but she appreciated the beautiful

harmony of her vigorous body. Head held straight, looking neither to

right nor left, Annette was absorbed. Sylvie caught up with her and

continued to walk beside her on the sidewalk without Annette's noticing

her. Imitating her gait, and peeking from the corner of one eye at her

big sister's cheek, which seemed paled by a melancholy shadow, Sylvie

moved her lips, without turning her head, and said in a low voice:

"Annette. . . ."

It was impossible to hear in the noise of the street. Sylvie barely

heard herself. Yet Annette heard. Or was it that she was conscious of

this mocking "double" that had for some moments been silently escorting

her? Suddenly she saw beside her the amused profile, the lips that moved

comically without speaking, the little laughing eye with its sidewise

glance. . . . Then she stopped, with one of those movements of impetuous

joy that had already surprised and charmed Sylvie on one occasion.

Abruptly she held out her arms. Her whole being quivered. Sylvie

thought:

"She is going to spring. . . ."

For an instant only. Already she had recovered herself; and, almost

coldly, she said:

"Good-morning, Sylvie."

But her cheeks were full of color, and her stiffness could not withstand

the burst of laughter from the younger girl, who was delighted with her

trick. Annette laughed with her:

"Oh! You've caught me!"

Sylvie took her arm, and they walked on, considerately suiting their

steps to each other.

"Were you there long?" asked Annette.

"Oh! about a half-hour," Sylvie affirmed unhesitatingly.

"No?" exclaimed the credulous Annette.

"I followed your movements. I saw everything. Everything. You talked as

you walked."

"It's not true, it's not true," protested Annette. "What a little

liar! . . ."

Their two arms tightened. They began to chatter about the errands they

had just done. They were perfectly happy. In the midst of an impassioned

account of a White Sale at the Bon Marché, where one had been and where

the other was going,--in the uproar of a street that they were crossing,

slipping between the vehicles with the sure instinct of two little

Parisiennes, Sylvie murmured in Annette's ear:

"You haven't kissed me!"

Annette's quick movement nearly crushed her. As they approached the

sidewalk, still walking, their lips met. . . . Hugging each other closer,

they were walking now along a quieter street, that led . . . Where did

it lead? . . .

"Where are we going?"

They stopped, amused to find that in the midst of their chattering they

had lost their way. Sylvie, clutching Annette, said:

"Let's lunch together."

Annette demurred,--(the unexpected charmed her, but embarrassed her a

little too: she was methodical),--mentioning her old aunt, who was

waiting for her. But Sylvie was not bothered by these trifling details:

she had got hold of Annette, and she wasn't going to let her go. She

made her telephone her aunt from a public station, and led her to a

creamery which she knew. For the two young girls, and particularly for

Annette, it was an outing, this little luncheon to which Sylvie insisted

on treating her more fortunate sister. (Annette understood why.) Annette

found everything exquisite. She went into ecstasies over the bread, over

the well done cutlet. And, last of all, there were strawberries in cream

on which they regaled themselves, licking them with their tongues.

But their tongues were even more occupied in talking than in eating.

They spoke, however, of only insignificant things, drinking each other

in, their eyes, their voices, and their radiance. Instinct has its

roads, the shortest and the best. The time had not come to touch on

essential subjects. They circled around, circled joyously, like those

buzzing wasps that turn ten times around a plate before alighting. They

did not alight. . . .

Sylvie stood up, and said: "Now it's time to go to work."

Annette assumed the dashed expression of a child abruptly robbed of its

dessert, and exclaimed: "It has been so nice! I haven't had enough."

"Nor I," replied Sylvie, laughing. "When shall we do it again?"

"The sooner and the longer the better. . . . This ended too soon."

"This evening then. Meet me at the door of the shop at about six."

Annette was disconcerted.

"But shall we be alone?"

She was disturbed at the idea that she might meet "the other."

Sylvie read her meaning.

"Yes, yes, we shall be alone," she said indulgently, with an ironic

emphasis. She calmly explained that her friend had gone to spend two or

three days in the country with his family. Annette blushed when she saw

that Sylvie had guessed; she did not remember that she had vowed,

morning and evening, to give evidence of her moral disapprobation. So

far as morality went, she now saw only one thing: "This evening _he_

will not be there."

What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together.

She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot

as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said:

"Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she

assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a

shot.

They met again, some hours later, at the exit of the frivolous swarm.

Babbling, peering, trotting along, completing their hair-dressing before

a pocket-mirror or before a stray looking-glass, the little seamstresses

turned around as they passed and outstared Annette with their tired,

sharp, curious eyes; then, ten steps further on, trotting, peering,

babbling, they turned about to look at Sylvie who was kissing Annette.

And Annette was pained to see that Sylvie had talked.

She took her sister to dine at Boulogne. Sylvie had invited herself. To

spare the aunt, who would have exclaimed, "Oh!" and "Ah!" it was

arranged on the way that Sylvie should be introduced as a friend. But

this didn't prevent her, at the end of dinner, when the old lady was

retiring to her own room, conquered by the charms of the little schemer,

from calling her "Aunt" as though in familiar playfulness. . . .

Alone, in the great garden, by the light of a summer night. Tenderly

intertwined, they walked with little steps, drinking in the fragrance of

the weary flowers, exhaled at the close of a fine day. Like the flowers,

their souls exhaled their secrets. This time Sylvie responded to

Annette's questions, hiding little. She told the story of her life from

infancy; and, first of all, her memories of her father. They spoke of

him now without embarrassment, and with no mutual envy; he belonged to

them both, and they judged him with an indulgent, ironic smile, as a

big, amusing, charming fellow, not very substantial, not very

well-behaved. . . . (All men are the same!) They bore him no

ill-will. . . .

"You see, Annette, if he had been well-behaved, I wouldn't be

here. . . ."

Annette pressed her hand.

"Aie! Don't squeeze so hard!"

After that Sylvie spoke of the florist shop, where as a child she had

sat under the counter with the fallen flowers and woven her first

dreams,--of her early experiences of Paris life, listening to the talk

of her mother and the customers; then, when Delphine died (Sylvie had

been thirteen), of her apprenticeship to a dressmaker, who had been her

mother's friend and who had taken her in; then, after a year and the

death of her employer who had been worn out by work (one wears out

quickly in Paris!), of her various avatars. Harsh notations, bitter

experiences, always gaily told, seen with drollery. In passing she

painted types and characters, pricking with a needle on the weft of her

narrative, a trait, a witticism, a word, or a face. She did not tell

all; she had experimented with life a little more than she admitted,

perhaps more than she cared to remember. She caught herself up short at

the chapter on her friend,--of her last friend (if there had been other

chapters, she kept them to herself.) A medical student, met at a ball in

the quartier. (She would willingly go without dinner, to dance!) Not

very handsome, but nice; big and brown, with laughing eyes that wrinkled

at the corners; turned up nostrils, the nose of a good dog; amusing,

affectionate. She described him with no trimmings, but with

complaisance, praising his good qualities, as well as poking a little

fun at him, satisfied with her choice. She interrupted herself to laugh

at certain memories which she recounted, and at others which she did

not. Annette, all ears, troubled and interested, was silent save for a

few embarrassed words that she slipped in here and there. Sylvie held

her hand, and with her other free hand she caressed the ends of

Annette's fingers, one by one, while she spoke, as though she were

plucking a garland. Perceiving her sister's embarrassment, she loved her

for it and was amused by it.

The two young girls were seated on a bench beneath the trees, and they

could no longer see each other in the darkness that had fallen. Sylvie,

little devil, profited by this to describe scenes that were a trifle

indecorous and decidedly amorous, so that she might completely

intimidate her big sister. Annette sensed her malice, and did not know

whether she should smile or censure; she would have liked to censure,

but her little sister was so pretty! There was so much laughter in her

voice, her joy seemed so wholesome! Annette scarcely breathed, trying to

hide the tumult into which these amorous stories threw her. Sylvie, who

could feel beneath her fingers the other's emotions, paused to enjoy the

situation and to concoct some new deviltry: leaning towards Annette, she

asked her frankly, in a lowered voice, if she too had a sweetheart.

Annette started--she had not expected this--and blushed. Sylvie's

piercing eyes sought to see her features in the protective gloom, and,

failing this, she ran her fingers over Annette's cheek. . . .

"It's on fire," she said, laughing.

Annette laughed awkwardly, and blushed more furiously. Sylvie flung

herself on her neck.

"My dear little stupid, what a darling you are! No, you are priceless!

Don't be hurt! I'm mistaken. I love you devotedly. Love your Sylvie a

little. She's not much good, but such as she is she's yours. Annette, my

ducky! Hold out your lips; I love you!"

Passionately Annette clasped her in her arms, taking her breath away.

Sylvie, disengaging herself, observed in the tone of a connoisseur:

"You know how to kiss all right. Who taught you?"

Annette rudely shut the girl's mouth with her hand.

"Don't be always joking!"

Sylvie kissed her palm.

"Forgive me, I won't do it any more."

And, with her cheek resting on her sister's arm, Sylvie remained

discreetly silent, listening, watching against the obscure transparence

of a patch of sky, hollowed out of the semi-darkness by the branches of

the trees, Annette's face which was bent toward her as she spoke in a

low voice.

Annette was opening her heart. In her turn she was telling of the happy

plenitude of her solitary youth, that dawn of a little Diana, passionate

but untroubled, who took joy in what she desired no less than in what

she possessed, for between the one and the other there was for her only

the distance between to-day and to-morrow. And she was so sure of the

morrow that she tasted in advance the perfume of jasmine on the trellis,

without hastening to gather it.

She described the calm egotism of those years, empty of events but rich

in the sweetness of dreams. She told of the intimacy, the absorbing

affection, that bound her to her father. And, in telling about herself,

she had the singular experience of discovering herself; for, until this

moment, she had never had occasion to analyse her past. She was,

momentarily, frightened by it. She halted in her narrative; now she had

difficulty in expressing herself, now she expressed herself with a

troubled, pictorial ardor. Sylvie did not always understand and was

amused, but she listened less than she observed the expression of face,

voice and body.

Annette now confessed the jealous suffering she had felt at discovery of

the second family that her father had hidden from her, and the turmoil

into which she had been thrown by the existence of a rival, a sister.

With her burning frankness, she dissimulated nothing that had made her

blush; her passion reawakened as she evoked it. She said, "I hated

you! . . ." in so fierce a tone that she stopped, checked by the sound

of her own voice. Sylvie, much less stirred but deeply interested, felt

Annette's hand trembling against her cheek, and thought:

"There is fire, underneath there!"

Annette had picked up the thread of the confession that were costing her

so dear. And Sylvie was saying to herself:

"How funny she is to tell me all this!"

But she felt growing within her a respect for her strange, big sister;

it was mocking, certainly, but infinitely tender, and it made her rub

her cheek cajolingly against the sisterly palm. . . .

Annette had come to the point in her narrative at which the attraction

of her unknown sister had taken possession of her, despite her

resistance, the point at which she had seen Sylvie for the first time.

But here frankness could not conquer the emotion of her heart. She tried

to go on, stopped, gave it up, and said:

"I can't. . . ."

There was silence. Sylvie was smiling. She stood up, put her face close

to her sister's, and, pinching her chin, she whispered very low:

"You are a great lover."

"I!" protested Annette, thoroughly confused.

Sylvie had risen from the bench, and, standing in front of her sister,

she pressed Annette's head against her body and said:

"Poor . . . poor Annette! . . ."

VIII

After this, the two sisters saw each other constantly. Not a week went

by without their getting together. Sylvie would come to Boulogne in the

evening to surprise Annette. More rarely Annette went to Sylvie's. By a

tacit agreement they so arranged things that Annette should not meet the

friend. They adopted a regular day for lunching together at the

creamery, and played at making rendezvous here and there in Paris. They

took an equal pleasure in being together. It became a necessity. The

hours dragged on the days when they did not see each other; the old aunt

could not succeed in breaking Annette's silence, and Sylvie was a sullen

puzzle to her sweetheart, who was in no way to blame. The one thing that

made the waiting bearable was the thought of all that they would have to

say to each other when they met again. But this consolation did not

always suffice, and never was Annette happier than on one evening when

Sylvie rang her bell, after ten o'clock, saying that she could not wait

until the morrow to kiss her. Annette was eager to have her stay with,

her; but the little one, who had sworn that she had only five minutes to

stay, had gone off on the run, like a shot, without a word, after an

hour of prattling.

Annette would have liked Sylvie to enjoy the benefit of her house and

her worldly goods. But Sylvie had a brusque way of avoiding all

temptations; she had got it into her head--her obstinate little

head--that she would accept no monetary loan. On the other hand, she

made no fuss about accepting a toilet article, or even "borrowing" it

(what she borrowed she forgot to return). It even happened that once or

twice she snitched . . . oh! nothing important! . . . And, of course,

she would never have touched a bit of money. Money, that's sacred! But a

little knickknack, a valueless ornament: she couldn't resist it. Annette

had noticed this trick of the little _gazza ladra_, and she was

embarrassed by it. Why didn't Sylvie ask her? She would have been so

happy to give! She tried not to see. But the sisters found their

greatest pleasure in exchanging a blouse, a corset cover, underwear:

Annette's love fed on this. Sylvie was an expert in the art of fixing

her sister's dresses, and her taste modified Annette's more sober taste.

The effect was not always very happy, for Annette in her excess of

enthusiasm would sometimes exaggerate the imitation beyond what suited

her individual style, and Sylvie, amused, would have to restrain her

zeal. Much more cautious, she knew how, without admitting it, to profit

by what she learned from Annette's sober distinction,--certain shades of

speech, gesture and manner; but her copy was so cunning that one would

have thought that her model had borrowed from her.

Yet, despite their intimacy, Annette succeeded in becoming familiar with

only a part of her sister's life. Sylvie enjoyed her independence, and

she liked to make it felt. At bottom she had never completely disarmed

herself of her class hostility; Annette saw clearly that she was

determined to have no one run her affairs or enter into her life save

when she pleased. Besides, Sylvie's self-love had not failed to observe

that her sister did not approve of everything about her. Notably her

love affair. Although Annette tried to accept it, she did not know how

to dissimulate the embarrassment that this subject caused her. Either

she fled from it, or, when she was compelled to speak of it, with the

sincere desire of pleasing Sylvie, there was a forced note in her tone

that Sylvie detected; and she, with a word, would change the subject.

This made Annette sad. With all her heart she wanted Sylvie to be happy,

happy in her own way. And she did not wish to show that this way was not

the one she would have preferred. But she did show it, indubitably. When

one's feelings are strong, one is not very adroit. Sylvie was hurt by

this, and she took revenge in silence. It was only by chance that

Annette learned, several weeks after their occurrence, of certain

important events in her young sister's life.

As a matter of fact it was impossible to make Sylvie acknowledge their

importance; and, indeed, her elastic temperament may have thrown them

off easily, but it was possible, too, that her pride made her pretend

that this was so more than was really the case. It was incidentally that

Annette learned that "for some time" (impossible to be precise: it was

"ancient history") the friend had not been on the scene, the liaison had

been broken. Sylvie did not seem at all affected by this; Annette was

much more so, but it was not with regret. Awkwardly she tried to find

out what had happened. Sylvie shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said:

"Nothing happened. It's happened, that's all."

Annette should have rejoiced, but these words of her sister hurt

her. . . . What a strange feeling! How wrong she was! . . . Oh! that

word "happen" . . . in the world of the heart! And she could laugh as

she said it! . . .

But this great news (it was great news for Annette) was followed shortly

by another discovery. One day when Annette announced her intention of

coming to meet her sister when the shop let out, Sylvie remarked calmly:

"No, no, I'm not there any more. . . ."

"What?" exclaimed Annette in astonishment. "Since when?"

"Oh, quite a while. . . ."

(Still the same trick of avoiding an exact accounting! It might as well

have been last evening as last year!)

"What happened?"

"The same riling that happens every year (just as in _Malbrough_ . . .

"_sà Paques ou à la Trinité_ . . ."): The dead season comes

immediately after the Grand-Prix. The employers all back the wrong

horse, so as to have a generous excuse for giving us the gate."

"But where are you then?"

"Oh, I'm here and there. I run about and do a little bit of everything."

Annette was in consternation.

"Then you haven't any job, and you didn't tell me!"

With a little air of superiority, Sylvie explained (at heart not at all

displeased by the emotion she had produced) that she slapped together

cheap costumes for others to finish, hemmed little dresses, and sewed up

men's trousers. And she made a great joke of it all in the telling. But

Annette did not laugh. Pressing her inquiry further, she found that her

sister was at her wits' end to find work and that she sometimes accepted

tasks that were overtiring and disheartening. Now she understood why

Sylvie had seemed pale "for some time"; why she had not come to see her

for a number of days, offering feeble excuses and absurd lies, in order,

no doubt, to spend a part of the night wearing out her fingers and her

eyes in sewing. Sylvie, in her joking tone of affected indifference,

continued to recount her little misadventures. But she saw that her

sister's lips were trembling with anger. And, abruptly, Annette burst

out:

"No! It's shameful! I can't, I simply can't bear it! What! you say you

love me, and you yourself wanted us to be friends, you pretend to be

one, and then you hide from me the most serious things that concern

you! . . ."

Sylvie's curled lip said, "Pshaw! What of it! . . ." But Annette did not

let her speak; the torrent was loosed.

"I had confidence in you, I thought that you would tell me about your

trials and troubles as I tell you about mine, that we would share

everything. And then you push me to one side as though I were a

stranger; I know nothing, nothing! Except by chance, I should never have

learned that you were in trouble, that you are hunting a job, that you

are ruining your health; and you would take on any sort of work rather

than tell me about it, when you know that it would be a joy for me to

help you. . . . It's wrong, wrong! You have hurt me. It's a lack of

frankness, a lack of friendship! But I won't stand it any longer!

No! . . . To begin with you are coming to live with me, and you are

going to stay here until the dead season is over. . . ."

Sylvie shook her head.

"You are coming, don't say no! Now listen to me, Sylvie; I won't forgive

if you don't. If you say no, I will never see you again, in all my

life. . . ."

Without taking the trouble to excuse herself or to explain, Sylvie,

smiling and obstinate, answered:

"No, my dear, no."

She was quite pleased at Annette's agitation. Her big sister, who had

tried to defeat her, was now no longer mistress of herself, she was

almost in tears. Sylvie: was thinking: "How much prettier she is when

she is animated!"

Her face purple with anger, Annette kept repeating, beseeching

imperiously:

"Stay! . . . You will stay. . . . I want you to. . . . It's

agreed? . . . You are going to stay? . . . You're staying? . . .

Answer me! . . . It's yes? . . ."

And with the same exasperating smile, the little donkey replied:

"It's no, dearest."

Annette turned away from her, violently.

"Then, it's all over."

And turning her back, she went to the window, where she seemed oblivious

to Sylvie's presence. The younger girl waited for a moment, then she got

up and said in a wheedling voice:

"So long, Annette."

Annette did not turn around.

"Farewell," she replied.

Her hands were clenched. If she had moved, Heaven knows what would have

happened! She would have wept, cried out. . . . She did not stir,

haughty and icy. Sylvie, somewhat embarrassed, and not a little

disturbed, but amused in spite of everything, took her departure; once

behind the door, she thumbed her nose.

She was not very proud--but a little proud, just the same--of her fine

resistance. No more was Annette proud of her rage. In consternation she

told herself now that she had burned her bridges: instead of conquering

Sylvie by tact and patience, she had practically driven her away. Sylvie

would never come back, that was a certainty. Annette, in her dilemma,

had closed the door in her sister's face. And she had forbidden herself

to reopen it to her. After all her declarations, she could not go after

Sylvie! It would be a confession of defeat. Her pride wouldn't permit

it; no more would her sense of justice. For Sylvie had behaved

badly. . . . No, no, she would not go! . . .

She put on her hat and went straight to Sylvie's.

Sylvie had returned home. Thoughtfully she was examining the perplexing

situation. She found it stupid, but she saw no way out; for she did not

dream of bending to Annette's will, and no more could she believe that

Annette would yield. At bottom she did not think the Duckling was wrong.

But she did not wish to give in. Sylvie was not insensible to the

blessings of fortune. Without its being apparent, Annette's wealth had

awakened in her quite a little temptation and envy. (One can't help it,

even when one is not--almost not--envious! When one has a young body,

filled with fine little desires, can one help thinking what one would do

with wealth, and how much better one would know how to enjoy it than the

stupid people who have had it thrust into their mouths, all nicely

cooked! . . . ) She did not admit it to herself, but she begrudged

Annette her fortune, a little. Yet, if it was any fault of hers, Annette

was trying to win forgiveness for it. But the point was that Sylvie

would not pardon her. Oh! no one confesses these things to himself.

Every one cherishes in his breast, well hidden, five or six little

monsters. One does not boast of them, one seems not to see them; but one

is in no hurry at all to get rid of them. . . . A more easily confessed

feeling was that Sylvie, tempted by gifts that were denied her, liked to

enjoy the luxury of appearing to disdain them. But, as a matter of fact,

this luxury was devoid of charm; and it proved of scant service. No, it

was decidedly true that Sylvie took no very keen pleasure in her

victory. There was nothing to strut about; if she had won, it was at her

own cost. What made this conclusion the more painful was that her

situation was, in reality, decidedly unpleasant; and Sylvie was having

a deal of difficulty in extricating herself from the scrape. The number

of girls out of work was considerable, and naturally the employers took

advantage of the situation. Nor was her health so splendid. The crushing

heat of a torrid July, late hours, poor food, and bad drinking water had

brought on an attack of enteritis which had left her in a weakened

condition. Under the gridiron of her roof that was roasted by the sun,

with blinds closed, Sylvie, half undressed, with burning skin, seeking

some cool thing on which to lay her hands, was thinking how comfortable

it would be in the Boulogne house; and as she was abundantly endowed

with irony, in default of other gifts, she was making fun of her own

stupidity. She had done well! . . . And to think that she and Annette

were in accord, at bottom! Now they were at logger-heads. Good Heavens!

how stupid they were! Neither one would give in! . . .

And being perfectly sure that she would not yield, that she would be

stupid to the last, she was smiling, curling her pale lips, when she

heard Annette's impetuous steps in the hall. She recognized them

immediately, and bounded to her feet.

"Annette was coming back! . . . The darling girl! . . ."

She hadn't waited for her. . . . Annette was certainly "the best

ever! . . ."

Annette was already in the room. Flushed with excitement and with the

heat of her journey, she had no idea what she was going to do; but the

moment she entered she knew immediately. Suffocated by the furnace-like

atmosphere which pervaded the half-darkened room, she was again seized

by a passionate anger. She marched up to Sylvie, who flung herself on

her neck; she seized the girl's damp shoulders in impatient hands, and,

without responding to her kisses, she said in an exasperated voice:

"I'm taking you away. . . . Get dressed! And don't argue!"

Sylvie argued just the same, in order not to lose the habit. She made a

protesting face. But she surrendered herself. Annette imperiously

dressed her, put on her shoes, buttoned her blouse, abruptly clapped her

hat on her head, shoved her about like a parcel. Sylvie kept saying,

"No, no, no," uttering indignant little cries for form's sake; but she

was delighted at being bullied. When Annette had finished, Sylvie seized

both her hands and kissed them, leaving the mark of her teeth upon them;

then, laughing happily, she said:

"There's nothing else to do. . . . Madame Tempest! I surrender. . . .

Carry me off!"

Annette carried her off. She had taken the girl's arm in her strong

hands, that gripped like a vise. They got into a taxi. When they

arrived, Sylvie said to Annette:

"Now I can tell you: well . . . I was dying to come."

"Why were you so bad?" demanded Annette, grumbling and happy.

Sylvie took Annette's hand, and with the curved index finger she tapped

her own round little forehead.

"Yes, there's mischief in there!" exclaimed Annette.

"Just like yours," said Sylvie, showing her their two obstinate

foreheads in the mirror. They were smiling at each other.

"And," added Sylvie, "we know whom that comes from."

IX

Sylvie's room had been awaiting her for a long time. Even before knowing

of Sylvie's existence, Annette had kept the cage ready for the friend

who would come. The friend had not come; barely had her shadow been

glimpsed, on two or three occasions. Annette's personality, which was

sufficiently individual, her manners, alternately chilly and ardent, the

impetuous character of the outbursts that overcame a reserved nature;

and a certain quality that was strange, exigent and imperious, which,

without her suspecting it, showed in flashes, even when she was

permeated by the desire to give herself with a passionate humility,--all

these things frightened away the young girls of her own age, who without

doubt esteemed her and appreciated her essence (so to speak), but

prudently and from a distance. Sylvie was the first to take possession

of the friendly cage. One may be certain that she did not worry about

it, and that it would not disturb her to leave it when the day came that

she so pleased. She was not much intimidated by Annette. She did not

even feel any surprise at the room in which she was installed. On her

first visit, from certain little marks of ingenious affection, and from

Annette's awkward confusion in showing it to her, she had guessed that

it must be meant for her.

Now that she admitted her defeat--to her own gain--she no longer offered

the least resistance. Still languid from her attack of enteritis, the

little convalescent abandoned herself to the coddling with which her

sister surrounded her. The doctor who was called in had found her

anemic, and had recommended a change of air, a visit to the mountains.

But neither of the girls was in a hurry to leave the common nest; and,

cajolers that they were, they knew how to make the doctor say that,

after all, Boulogne was well enough, and even, in a sense, that it was

better for Sylvie first to regain her strength by a complete rest,

before seeking the tonic of keen mountain air.

So Sylvie could indulge herself, and idle in bed. It was so long since

she had been able to do that! It was delicious to sleep her fill, to

make up for all the sleeps that she had lost, and--most delicious of

all--to rest without sleeping, her limbs stretched out between the fine,

soft sheets, her body experiencing the ultimate in drowsiness and

happiness, while she searched with her foot for cool corners in the bed.

And to dream, to dream! . . . Oh! they didn't go far, those dreams! Like

a fly on the ceiling, they turned round and round. They did not even

come to the end of a phrase. Twenty times, with sticky tongue, they

repeated a story, a project, a memory of the shop, of love, or of a hat.

In the midst of it they jumped head first again into the pool of

sleep. . . .

"But see here, Sylvie, see here . . ." (she would protest dreamily),

"That's no life. . . . Please get out of it!"

Half opening one eye, she would see her sister leaning over her, and she

would make an effort (the words barely came out) to say:

"Annette! Wake me up."

Annette would say, "Little rascal!" and laugh, shaking her. Sylvie would

play the baby.

"Oh, dear mamma, what have I done to be so sleepy?"

Annette's great love overflowed in maternal transports. Seated on the

bed, it seemed to her that the dear head which she pressed against her

breast was that of her daughter. Sylvie surrendered, with little

plaintive protests:

"But how shall I ever be able to go back to work, afterwards?"

"You shan't work any more."

"Why, yes, I will, the idea!" Sylvie rebelled.

In an instant she was awake; pulling herself away from her sister,

sitting up straight, the tousled girl fixed Annette with a look that

defied her.

"So she still thinks that we want to keep her here by force! Get along

with you, my girl!" said Annette, laughing. "Go, if your heart tells you

to! No one is keeping you."

"If that's the case, I'll stay!" exclaimed the spirit of contradiction.

And Sylvie slipped down into the bed again, tired from her effort.

But this indolence lasted for only a few days; and after that, when she

was satiated with sleep, there came the time when it was impossible to

keep her quiet. She traipsed about all day long, half-dressed: in her

sister's slippers that were too big for her bare feet, in her sister's

peignor that she tucked up toga fashion, with bare arms and legs, she

went from room to room, looking at everything, exploring everything. She

had not much notion of "thine." ("Mine" was another matter!) Annette

having said to her, "You are at home," she had taken her at her word.

She rummaged everywhere. She tried everything. She splashed for hours in

the bath room. There was not a corner that she left uninspected. Annette

found Sylvie with her nose in her papers, but these had bored her very

quickly. And the amazed aunt received the invasion of the little

half-dressed figure who ferreted about amongst all the furniture, moved

everything around, addressed a few pretty words to their owner (who was

following her every movement in fear and trembling) and then left

everything in disorder, and the old lady at once scandalized and

charmed.

The house was filled with an inexhaustible babble, with a chattering

that had neither head nor tail, no end, and no reason to end. In no

matter what place, in no matter what costume, perched on the arm of an

easy chair, or comb in hand arranging their hair, or abruptly halted

upon a step of the stairs, or in bathrobes after the morning tub,--the

two friends talked, talked, talked; and, once started, this might last

for hours or days. They forgot to go to bed; their aunt protested in

vain, coughed, rapped on the ceiling. They tried to put a mute on their

voices, to stifle their laughter; but at the end of five minutes . . .

Pouf! Sylvie's little hautboys began to shrill, and there sounded the

happy or indignant exclamations of Annette, who was always getting into

a tangle, and whom the younger girl could easily put up a tree. This

time the raps on the ceiling became really annoyed. Then they decided to

"hit the hay"; but they still kept it up while they undressed. The two

rooms adjoined, the doors were left open, and they were constantly

crossing their frontiers, talking in skirts, talking without skirts; and

they would have talked all night long, from one bed to the other, had

not the sleep of youth come suddenly to put an end to their cluckling. It

swooped down upon them in a flash, as a sparrow-hawk upon a chicken.

They fell back upon their pillows, with open mouths, in the middle of a

phrase. Annette slept like a lump; her sleep was heavy, frequently

disturbed, stormy, drenched with dreams; she rumpled the sheets, she

talked in her sleep, but she never awakened. Sylvie, a light sleeper

with a tiny snore (if you had told her that, she would have cloaked

herself in wounded dignity), would awake and listen in amusement to her

sister's gibberish; sometimes she would get up and go over to the bed

where Annette lay prostrate, with the sheets thrust up in a mountain by

her crossed knees; and, bending over in the light of the night-lamp (for

Annette could not sleep without a light), Sylvie would fascinatedly

watch the dull, heavy but strangely passionate, sometimes tragic face of

the sleeper who was drowning in the ocean of her dreams. She no longer

recognized her. . . .

"Annette? That? That's my sister? . . ."

She wanted to waken her abruptly and put her arms about her neck.

"Wolf, are you there?"

But she was too sure that the wolf was there to try the experiment. Less

pure and more normal than her dangerous elder sister, she played with

fire, but she was not burned by it.

They studied each other at length, while they were dressing and

undressing, comparing themselves curiously. Annette had fits of

primitive modesty that amused Sylvie, who was at once freer and franker.

Annette often appeared cold, one would have said almost hostile; she

went into tantrums, or she wept without cause. The fine Lyonnaise poise,

of which she had formerly been so proud, seemed definitely lost. And the

worst of it was--that she did not at all regret it.

Their confidences went further, now. It would not be easy to reproduce

them all. It comes quite naturally to young girls who love each other to

calmly say audacious things in their conversation, things that in their

mouths preserve a semi-innocence, but which would have none were they

repeated by another. In these talks the difference of their two natures

was clearly shown: the laughing, child-like, perfectly assured

unmorality of the one; and the passionate, disquieting, electrically

charged seriousness of the other. There were clashes; Annette was

exasperated by the greedy levity and wilful bawdiness with which Sylvie

discussed amorous subjects. Audacious in her soul, she was reserved in

her words; it seemed that she feared to hear what she thought. She had

fits of shutting herself up in a double tower, in a fierce dumbness that

she herself did not quite understand. Sylvie understood it much better.

After she had lived with her for fifteen days, Sylvie knew Annette

better than Annette knew herself.

Yet it was not that her mental faculties lifted her above the average of

an agreeable Paris working girl. Aside from a practical sense that was

very sound and cautious--but from which she never drew the most possible

profit, because she almost always preferred to obey her caprices--she

did not emerge from her own sphere to any great extent. Certainly

everything amused her, but nothing really interested her except

fashions. As for everything that had to do with art--pictures, music,

books--she never got beyond the most ordinary stage of appreciation, and

sometimes she didn't reach that. Annette was often embarrassed by her

taste. Sylvie would realize it, and say:

"Ouf! I've put my foot in it again. . . . Well, tell me someone who

behaves properly in society! . . ."

(She spoke of a picture as one speaks of a hat.)

"What should one admire? Once I know, I shall be able to do it as well

as anyone else. . . ."

But on other occasions she was not so conciliatory; she held out stoutly

for the hero of some newspaper serial or for some insipid romance which

was to her the last word in art and sentiment. However, she obliged her

elder sister to discover the value, or rather the artistic promise, of a

genre that Annette had always insisted on running down without knowing

anything about it: the movies, which Sylvie adored, indiscriminately.

It sometimes happened, too, that although she was incapable of feeling

the beauty of a book which they were reading together, Sylvie understood

better than Annette the power of certain pages, whose strange truth

disconcerted her sister; for Sylvie knew life better than Annette did.

And that is the Book of Books. Read it not who will. Everyone carries it

in himself, written from the first to the last line. But to decipher it,

one must be taught the language by the harsh master Experience. Sylvie

had received lessons from him at an early age; she read fluently.

Annette was beginning late. Slower to reach her, the lessons were to

sink deeper.

X

The summer, this year, was excessively hot. By the middle of August the

beautiful trees in the garden were already parched. In the close nights,

Sylvie gasped for a passing breath of air. She had recuperated, but she

was still wan and had little appetite. She was always a small eater, and

if she could have had her way she would have frequently dined on nothing

but an ice and fruit. But Annette kept watch over her, Annette grumbled.

She was kept busy. Finally she decided on the trip to the mountains,

that had been put off from week to week with the underlying hope that it

might be avoided. She would have liked to keep her sister entirely to

herself, all summer long.

They repaired to a spot in the Grisons that Annette remembered from a

former visit as having a good, simple hotel, in a pastoral, restful

setting of old Switzerland. But a few years had transformed everything.

The hotel was swarming with people. It was a city of pretentious

palaces. Automobile roads cut through the fields; and, in the depths of

the woods, one could hear the grinding of an electric tramway. Annette

wished to flee. But they were tired from a night and day of suffocating

travel; they did not know where to go, and all they asked was to lie

stretched out without stirring. Where they were, even if everything else

had changed, the air at least had preserved its crystalline purity;

Sylvie sucked it in with her tongue, as though she were licking a

Parisian ice from a glass cup while she stood beside the cart of an

ambulatory merchant in the midst of a roaring street. They told

themselves they would stay for a few days, until it became a little

cooler. And then they got used to it. They discovered the charm of the

place.

It was a lively season. A tennis tournament was attracting the alert

youth of three or four nations. There were informal dances, little

plays. A buzzing swarm was loafing, flirting, showing off. Annette could

have done without it; but Sylvie was frankly entertained, and the

pleasure that she showed communicated itself to her sister. Both were

high-spirited and had no reason to frown on the diversions of their age.

Young, gay and attractive, each in her own way, it was not long before

they were very much surrounded. Annette was blooming. In the open air

and at sports she showed to her best advantage. Strong, strapping, fond

of walking and all active games, she was a brilliant tennis partner,

with a sure eye, supple wrist, quick hand, and lightning-like return.

Usually restrained in her gestures, she displayed, when occasion

demanded, admirable nerve and furious bursts of speed. Sylvie,

marvelling, clapped her hands as she watched her leap about; she was

proud of her sister. She admired her the more because she felt incapable

of imitating her: this svelte Parisienne was inept at all sports, and

she did not particularly understand their attraction. They called for

too much action! She found it more agreeable--and above all, more

prudent--to remain a spectator. But she did not waste her time. . . .

She formed a little court, over which she queened it as though she had

done nothing else all her life. Sly one that she was, she knew how to

copy from the fashionable young women she observed all those mannerisms

that were well-bred, smart, and easily borrowed. Looking as though

butter would not melt in her mouth, deliciously distrait, her eyes and

ears were always open; she missed nothing. But Annette still remained

her best model. With a sure instinct, she knew not only how to copy her

in many a detail, but how to improve the copy by slight changes, and

even in certain cases how to take the opposite tack,--oh! just enough to

appear incorrect, by one refinement the more. She showed still more

intelligence by never overstepping the limits within which she felt

solid ground beneath her feet. In her own province she was perfect, in

manners, bearing, and tone. Exquisite distinction raised to an

extravagant point. Annette could not help laughing when she heard

Sylvie, with charming aplomb, retailing to her court little tid-bits

with which Annette had stuffed her the evening before. Sylvie would slip

her a sly wink. It would not have done, certainly, to push her too far

in conversation. For all her wit and excellent memory, she would have

gotten her foot into it; but she didn't slip, she watched her step. And

then, too, she knew how to choose her partners. The majority of them

were young sportsmen from foreign lands: Anglo-Saxons, Roumanians, who

were more sensitive to a mistake in play than to an error in language.

The great favorite of the little feminine circle was an Italian. Bearing

the sonorous name of an old Lombard family (extinct for centuries, but

the name never dies), he was of a type that is very common among the

youth of the Peninsula, and which is characteristic of a period rather

than of a race. In it one finds curiously blended the American of Fifth

Avenue, and the condottiere of the fourteenth century, which gives to

the ensemble a rather grand air--(Operatic). A handsome fellow, tall and

straight, well built, with a round head and clean shaven face, very

brown skin, fiery eyes, a great conquering nose, bluish nostrils, and a

heavy jaw, Tullio walked with supple loins and chest thrust out. His

manners were a mixture of hauteur, obsequious courtesy, and brutality.

An irresistible man. He had but to stoop to gather hearts. He did not

stoop. He waited for them to be placed in his hand.

Perhaps it was precisely for the reason that Annette did not offer hers

to him that he first fixed his choice on her. A tennis champion himself,

he appreciated the physical qualities of the robust girl, and when he

talked with her he discovered other sports for which they had a common

liking: horseback riding and canoeing, which Annette had gone into with

the passion that she brought to everything. With his big nose he sensed

the over-abundant energy that coursed through her virgin body; and he

desired it. Annette perceived this desire, and she was at once offended

and captivated. Her intense physical life, which had been curbed by

years of semi-claustration, was awakening under the flame of this superb

summer, in the midst of these young people who thought only of pleasure,

and in the excitement of these vigorous sports. The last weeks spent

with Sylvie, their free conversations, and the excessive affection with

which she was saturated, had considerably perturbed her nature,--that

nature which she so little understood, unsuspecting its depths. The

house was ill defended against an assault of the senses. For the first

time, Annette experienced the sting of sexual passion. It caused her

shame and anger, as though someone had slapped her face. But this did

not make the desire wane. Instead of hiding herself, she faced the

onslaught with a cold pride and a trembling heart. As for Tullio, who

always cloaked a rapacious desire beneath a perfect deference, he was

the more enamoured when he saw that she understood and was ready to

oppose him. This was another match, differently passionate! Harsh

challenges were exchanged, there were sharp passages at aims, without

any sign of these things on the surface. As he bowed with masculine

politeness to kiss her hand, while she was smiling at him with a haughty

grace, she read in his eyes:

"I shall have you."

And her shut lips answered him:

"Never!"

Sylvie was following the duel with the eyes of a lynx; and while she

found it amusing, she felt that she would like to play a part in it.

What part? Really, she had no idea on that point. . . . Well, to amuse

herself, and to second Annette of course, that went without saying! The

boy was good-looking; Annette was good-looking too. How beautifying a

strong feeling always is! That burning pride, that little bull's

forehead ready for combat, those waves of red and white that Sylvie

imagined she could see passing over Annette's body, like shivers. . . .

The man was priding himself on his play. . . .

". . . Nothing to be done, my lad; no, no, you won't get her if she

doesn't want you to! But does she want it? Doesn't she want it? Make up

your mind, Annette! He's caught. Finish him off! . . . The stupid! She

doesn't know. . . . All right, we're going to help her. . . ."

Their acquaintance was founded on praises of Annette. They both admired

her. The Italian was definitely conquered. Radiant, with her eyes

shining, Sylvie was entirely of his opinion. She was very adroit in her

praising of Annette; but she was no less so in arming herself with all

her charms. And once she had brought them into play, there was no way of

stopping them. In vain she would say to them: