There was a smile that was known in Paris, in the circle of their

acquaintances, as the Brissot smile: it was unctuous and sweet, affable

and superior, measuredly and heavily playful, foreseeing all, gushing

with benevolence, perfectly indifferent; it offered full hands, but the

hands remained full. It adorned the two Brissot ladies.

Madame Brissot, the mother, a large handsome woman, with a broad face,

fat cheeks, well-fed and chubby, had an imposing carriage, an opulent

bosom, and an unctuous, excessively flattering way of talking that

embarrassed the sincere Annette. But it was not meant for her alone (she

soon noticed this with relief). This laudatory tone was generously

distributed to all. It was accompanied by a perpetual badinage, which

with the Brissots was a courteous mark of the certainty which was

intuitive with them, and of the geniality with which they recognized

this superiority.

Mademoiselle Brissot, Roger's sister, also big and strong, was a very

pale blond, so lacking in color that she seemed almost an albino. She

accentuated this by a cloud of rice powder on her cheeks and a streak of

red on her lips. She was aiming at the ideal of a Louis XV pastel. She

might have served Nattier as a mincing, chlorotic, and fleshy Burgundian

Phœbe. Her mother called this robust girl, "My poor little darling,"

for Mademoiselle Brissot, who functioned like a charm, had conceived the

idea, while admiring her pallor, that her health must be delicate. But

she did not exploit it by demanding coddling; on the contrary she used

it to show off her energy and give herself the right to scorn the softer

creatures of her sex who moaned about their little ailments. In truth,

she was admirable, active, and indefatigable; she read everything, saw

everything, knew everything; she painted, was a judge of music, talked

literature; and every day, in company with Madame Brissot, she carried

out a program of some two or three hundred calls that had to be made in

a given time, receiving them in return, giving dinners, following the

concerts and the theatres, the sittings of the Chamber and the

exhibitions, without ever flinching, without ever betraying fatigue,

save at chosen moments by a bravely stifled sigh;--and, besides all

this, she knew how to feed the body that she mortified, eating heavily

like all her family, and getting a full night's dreamless sleep. She was

no less mistress of her heart than of her body. She was sedately

preparing for her marriage to a politician of some forty years, who was

at this moment governor of one of the great oversea colonies. She had

not dreamed of accompanying him there. She did not wish to leave Paris

and the Brissot name behind her until the happy elect could offer her a

position in France that was worthy of her. In addition to which, she

knew how to keep him from being forgotten in high places. With

regularity they wrote each other letters that were cordial and

businesslike. This long-distance courtship had gone on for a number of

years. Marriage would come in due time. She was in no hurry. Her husband

would be rather mature, but according to Mademoiselle Brissot's taste he

would be all the better for that. She had a strong head. Head, the

Brissots had never lacked. Mademoiselle Brissot's was eminently

political. Her mother said that she was, by vocation, an Egeria. Madame

Brissot admired the intelligence of Mademoiselle Brissot. Mademoiselle

Brissot admired the domestic genius and mind of Madame Brissot. They

paid each other mincing compliments. They kissed each other in the

presence of Annette. It was charming.

However, they soft-pedaled this mutual cult in order to cajole Annette.

They were all compliments, for her, for her house, for her clothes, her

taste, her wit, her beauty. The excessively laudatory tone grated on

Annette a bit; but one does not remain insensible to the flattering

opinion that others have of one, particularly when those others seem

messengers from the person whom one loves. It was hard not to believe

that this was the case; for the Brissot ladies continually brought

Roger's name into the conversation. They intertwined his praises with

Annette's; they made smiling, persistent allusions to the impression

Annette had produced on him, to the things she had said to him, and

which he had hastened to repeat enthusiastically--(he repeated

everything: Annette was embarrassed but none the less touched). They

laid great stress upon his brilliant future; and Madame Brissot assumed

an impressive tone in which to phrase her hope that Roger would

find--that he had found--a helpmate worthy of him. She named no one, but

the meaning was clear. All these little ruses were visible to the naked

eye, at twenty paces. They were meant to be. It was a sort of social

game, in which one must talk around the word that everyone has on his

tongue, without ever pronouncing it. Madame Brissot's smile seemed

watching Annette's lips for the word that was about to come out, as

though to cry:

"A bargain!"

Annette smiled, opened her mouth. But the word did not come. . . .

Annette was invited by the Brissots to intimate evening parties in their

apartment on the Rue de Provence. She became acquainted with father

Brissot, tall and big and rubicund, with cunning eyes beneath bushy

brows, a short gray beard, and the air of a crafty and fatherly lawyer,

who heaped upon her gallantries and ancient jests. He too tried to play

the social game, but he put his foot in it with his circumlocutions.

Annette took fright, and Madame Brissot signalled her husband to keep

out of the affair. So he stayed outside the game, content to jeer and

follow it from the corner of his eye, convinced that it was not his

business and that the women would acquit themselves better than he.

With Annette, Madame Brissot at first adroitly invited only three or

four intimate friends,--then two, then one, then none. And Annette found

herself alone with the four Brissots. _En famille_, said Madame Brissot

in a tone rich in unctuously maternal promises. Annette smelled the

trap, but she did not steal away. She found too much pleasure in being

with Roger. Her affection for him made her regard his family

indulgently; she closed her eyes to what secretly irritated her in this

circle. Acuteness of feminine instinct warned the Mesdames Brissot of

this; strong as their self-love was, it never worked against their

interests; by tacit accord, they knew how to efface themselves, how to

speak less, sift their ideas, and arrange matters so that the lovers

might frequently enjoy undisturbed times alone together. More and more

enamoured and disturbed at Annette's reserve, which would have struck

him less forcibly had not his mother and his sister called it to his

attention, Roger had never been more attracted than now when his

self-confidence was threatened. He delivered no more speeches; his

eloquence had flagged. For the first time in his life, he tried to read

another's soul. As he sat beside Annette, his humble and ardent eyes

devoured, implored the little enigma, striving to solve it. Annette

enjoyed this disquiet, this timidity that was so new in him, this

fearful waiting that watched over her every movement. She was shaken.

There were moments when she nearly bent towards him, to utter decisive

words. And yet she did not say them. At the last second, she

instinctively drew back, without knowing why; brusquely she avoided the

declaration that Roger was about to make, and her own avowals. She

escaped. . . .

And then the trap closed. From one of the neighboring salons, Madame and

Mademoiselle Brissot would discreetly brood over the unfruitful

interview. Occasionally they were visible, crossing the drawing-room,

smiling and preoccupied. In passing they would throw out a friendly

word, but they did not stop. And the two young people continued their

long conversations.

One evening when they were absentmindedly thumbing an album, which was

an excuse for them to put their heads close together, while they were

exchanging their thoughts in a low voice, there was a silence; and

suddenly Annette perceived the danger. She wanted to get up, but Roger's

arm was already around her waist, and the young man's passionate mouth

was upon her half-parted lips. She tried to defend herself. But how

could she, against herself! Her lips returned the kiss, even while she

wanted to draw away. She disengaged herself, however, when she heard

Madame Brissot shrilling in an excited voice, from the other end of the

drawing-room:

"Oh! my dear girl! . . ."

And she was calling:

"Adèle! . . . Monsieur Brissot! . . ."

Annette in stupefaction saw herself surrounded in a flash by the entire

Brissot family, radiant and affectionate. Madame Brissot covered her

with kisses, while she sponged her own eyes with a handkerchief and kept

repeating:

"Love him well!"

Mademoiselle Brissot was saying:

"My little sister!"

And Monsieur Brissot, always a blunderer:

"At last! . . . You've taken long enough! . . ."

Meanwhile Roger was kneeling before Annette, kissing her hands and

begging her with eyes that were fearful and a little shamefaced, asking

forgiveness and imploring:

"Don't say no!"

Annette, petrified, yielded to his kisses; the supplication of those

beloved eyes forged the last link in her chains. She made a final effort

to protest:

("Why, I haven't said anything! . . .")

But she saw in Roger's eyes a grief so sincere that she could not bear

it; and when Roger's face lighted up with happiness, her own became

radiant at the joy she had caused. She clasped his head between her

hands. Roger rose, crying out in relief. And, beneath the benevolent

eyes of his family, they exchanged their kiss of betrothal.

IX

That night, when Annette found herself alone in her own home, she was

thunderstruck. She no longer belonged to herself. She had given

herself. . . . Given! Given her life! . . . Her heart contracted in

anguish.

She still exaggerated the tightness of the bonds that she had just

accepted. She was not one of those young girls who jest lightly with

their fiancés regarding the possibility of divorce. She did not give

with one hand to take back with the other. She was no longer her own.

She belonged to the Brissots. And suddenly the Brissots appeared

inimical. All that her eyes had seen during these past weeks came before

her, with accentuated outlines: all their manœuvres of approach in

order to envelop her, their conspiracy against her freedom, the final

comedy that had extorted her consent by surprise. . . . (Had not Roger,

Roger himself, been an accomplice? . . .) And she bristled like a

cornered animal that sees the circle close around him, feels himself

lost, and is ready to charge with lowered head against the hunters,

either to clear a passage or to die and win vengeance. For the first

time, everything in the Brissots that displeased her, thoughts of which

she had hitherto avoided, appeared to her magnified, hateful, and

intolerable. . . . Even Roger! . . . Never could she live immured in

that man, that family, that circle of interests which were not her own,

which never could be. She decided to break away. . . .

But could she still break away, now that she had just become engaged?

Would Roger permit it? He would have to permit it! He couldn't prevent

her. . . . At the idea that he might oppose it, Annette hated him. In

that moment, the other's suffering did not count, she would not have

hesitated to break his heart in order to recover her own liberty. . . .

And then she remembered his imploring eyes. . . . And she was

overawed. . . . No matter! The egotism of menaced life, the instinct of

self-preservation were stronger than all else, stronger than tenderness,

stronger than pity! She had to save herself. And woe to him who barred

her escape! . . .

All night long, twisting and turning in her bed, devoured by a feverish

insomnia, she lived through in anticipation the scene that she was going

to have with Roger. She repeated, tried out all the words that he and

she would utter. She tried to convince him, she argued, she flew into a

passion, she pled with him, and she detested him. Dawn found her

exhausted but decided. She would go to Rogers house. . . . Or, no! she

would write to him; in that way she would be freer to finish what she

had to say without interruption. She would break it off. To avoid the

Brissots returning to the charge, she resolved to leave Paris, to spend

a few days at some hotel in the suburbs. And getting up, she wrote her

letter, the phrases of which she had rehearsed in her head a hundred

times. Then she hastily began her preparations for departure.

She was in the midst of them when Roger surprised her at it. She had not

thought of barring her door, as it had not occurred to her that he might

come so early. He entered, preceding in his amorous impatience the

servant who announced him. He was bringing flowers. He was bubbling over

with happiness and gratitude. He was so affectionate, so young, so

charming that when Annette saw him she no longer had the strength to

speak. All her fine resolutions were forgotten, her heart was recaptured

at the first glance. With the astonishing bad faith of love, she

immediately found as many reasons for marriage as she had found against

it a moment before. She tried to fight, but joy shone in her eyes,

ringed by the worries of the night. She looked at her Roger, who was

drinking her in with an intoxicated glance, and she said to herself:

"But I have decided . . . but I must decide. . . . What is it I have

decided? . . ."

But how could she know, when he looked at her as though he were drinking

in her very soul! Think, how could she think, how recover herself! . . .

She no longer knew, she was lost. . . . And, meanwhile, it was so good

to feel that she was loved! All that she could do, with an immense

effort, was to ask Roger not to hasten the marriage. And immediately

Roger looked so disappointed, so cast down, that Annette had not the

courage to go on. How could she hurt so dear a boy? She hastened

tenderly to reassure him, to tell him that she loved him; feebly she

tried to cling to her postponement, which he repulsed as energetically

as though it were a matter of life and death. Finally, after a loving

bargaining on both sides, they agreed to compromise; and their marriage

was fixed for the middle of the summer.

Afterwards, Roger left; and Annette, regarding herself sheepishly in the

mirror, found there all her indecision again. . . . How could she get

out of it? She contemplated the interrupted preparations for her

journey.

"Well done!" said she.

She shrugged her shoulders, laughed. . . . How charming Roger was! . . .

Back into the closet went her lingerie and the things she had taken out

for her trunk. . . .

"But just the same," she was thinking, "I don't want to, I don't want

to! . . ."

Nervously she let fall a pile of chemisettes. . . . Thump! And toilet

brushes went tumbling after. . . . Impatiently she kicked the

heap. . . .

And then she gathered them up, bending down to the floor. In the midst

of her tidying, she let herself go and sat down on the parquet, not very

proud of her will power. . . .

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, stretching herself out on the carpet, "I

still have four months to change my mind. . . ."

And with her face thrust into a cushion, lying flat on her stomach, she

counted the days. . . .

X

The Brissots prudently gave their approval of Annette's expressed desire

to prolong the engagement: they did not wish to imperil their success by

showing too much haste. But they felt it necessary to surround Annette

during these months of waiting. It would not do to leave her to herself;

there was always a risk of the strange girl escaping.

Easter Sunday was approaching. The Brissots invited Annette to spend

Easter week with them at their country place in Burgundy. Annette

accepted regretfully; she was tempted and afraid; afraid of adding to

the chains that already bound her, afraid of being completely captured

or of breaking everything; and afraid of still other things, more

dangerous, that she did not like to consider. She did not wish to escape

from the state of amorous uncertainty in which she was allowing herself

to be cradled: she suffered from it a little, and she found a certain

charm in it. She would have liked to prolong it. But she knew perfectly

well that it was not wholesome, and that she had not the right to do so,

face to face with Roger.

Finally she decided to lay her troubles before Sylvie. Never had she

said a word to her of her love for Roger. Yet she confided everything to

her: of all the other young men she had often spoken to her. . . . Yes,

but she didn't love the other young men! And Roger's name had been kept

out of their conversation.

Sylvie exclaimed, called her "Sneak!" and laughed uproariously when

Annette tried to explain her indecision, her scruples and her torments.

"Well now," she demanded, "is this bird of yours handsome?"

"Yes," replied Annette.

"He loves you?"

"Yes."

"And you love him?"

"I love him."

"Well then, what's stopping you?"

"Oh! it is so difficult! How can I tell you? . . . I love him. . . . I

love him tremendously. . . . He is so wonderful!"

(She began to describe him complaisantly, under Sylvie's mocking eyes.

Then she broke off. . . .)

"I love him very much . . . very much. . . . And then, too, I don't love

him. . . . There are things about him . . . I could never live

with . . . I never could. . . . And then, he loves me too much. He would

like to eat me. . . ."

(Sylvie burst out laughing.)

". . . It's true, eat me entirely, devour my whole life, all my own

thoughts, the very air I breathe. . . . Oh! he's an excellent eater, my

Roger! It's a pleasure to see him at the table. . . . He has a good

appetite. . . . But I, I don't want to be eaten."

She too laughed heartily; and Sylvie, who was sitting in her lap,

laughed against her neck. Annette went on:

"It's frightful to feel yourself being devoured like that, alive, to

have nothing of your own any more, not to be able to keep anything any

longer. . . . And he doesn't suspect it. . . . He loves me madly, and I

have an idea, you see, that he doesn't even try to understand me, that

he doesn't even think about it. He comes, he takes, he carries me

off. . . ."

"Well, that's terribly nice!" observed Sylvie.

"You are always thinking about silly things!" said Annette, clasping her

in her arms.

"And what would you like to have me think about?"

"About marriage. That's a serious thing."

"Serious! oh! well, not so serious!"

"What, it isn't serious to give all of yourself, without a single

reservation?"

"And who talked about doing that? You'd have to be mad!"

"But he wants to have everything!"

Sylvie squirmed with laughter like a little fish.

"Oh! you goose! you stupid! . . . Ninny!"

(It seemed to her so simple to say what one wished, to give what one

wished, and to keep back all the rest without saying anything about it!

She was affectionately ironical towards men and their demands. They are

not so sharp! . . .)

"But I'm not, I'm not all those things," Annette protested.

"Oh! So far as that goes!" exclaimed Sylvie, "you take everything so

seriously."

Annette admitted the fact, contritely.

"It's too bad all the same! . . . I wish I were like you! . . . You have

all the luck!" she went on.

"Let's exchange! Hand over yours!" said Sylvie.

Annette had no desire to exchange. Sylvie left her comforted.

But at the same time, Annette did not understand herself. She was

puzzled.

"It's curious!" she said to herself, "I want to give everything. And I

want to keep everything! . . ."

The next day--it was the eve of her departure--while she was finishing

her preparations, when she was beginning to torment herself again, a

singular visit added to her anxieties, at the same time clarifying them.

Marcel Franck was announced.

After a few amiably courteous speeches, he alluded to Annette's

engagement, of which Roger had made no mystery. Gracefully he

felicitated her, his voice and eyes gently ironic, affectionate. Annette

felt very much at ease with him, as with a perspicacious friend to whom

one need not say all, from whom one need hide nothing,--for half-words

carry understanding. They talked of Roger, whom Marcel envied,

smilingly. Annette knew that he spoke the truth, and that he was in

love. But it caused them no perturbation. She asked him questions about

Roger, whom he knew intimately. Marcel sang his praises; but when she

insisted that he speak of him in a somewhat less banal fashion, he

jokingly said that it was useless for him to describe Roger, as she knew

him quite as well as he. And, saying this, he fixed her with so

penetrating a glance that, for an abashed moment, she turned away her

eyes. Then, staring in turn at him, she encountered his shrewd smile

which showed that they understood each other. They talked for some time

of indifferent matters, and then Annette abruptly interrupted, in a

preoccupied tone:

"Tell me frankly," she said, "do you think I've made a mistake?"

"I should never think of you as being mistaken," said he.

"No, don't be polite! You are the one person who can tell me the truth."

"But you know that my position is peculiarly delicate."

"I know it. But I know, too, that it has no effect on the sincerity of

your judgment."

"Thanks!" said he.

She continued:

"You think that we are mistaken, Roger and I?"

"I think that you are deceiving yourselves."

She bowed her head. Then she said:

"I think so too."

Marcel did not respond. He continued to look at her and smile.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I was sure that you thought so." Annette, turning her eyes upon him,

asked:

"Tell me, now, what I seem like to you?"

"I should teach you nothing."

"You will help me to see more clearly."

"You are," Marcel said to her, "an amorous rebel. Perpetually amorous

(forgive me!) and perpetually rebellious. You feel the need of giving

yourself, and you feel the need of withholding yourself. . . ."

(Annette could not conceal a slight start.)

"I shock you?"

"No, no, quite the contrary! How true it is! Go on! Tell me some

more. . . ."

"You are," Marcel continued, "an independent who cannot remain alone. It

is the law of nature. You feel it more keenly, because you are more

alive."

"Yes, you understand me! You understand me better than he does.

But . . ."

"But it is he whom you love."

There was no bitterness in the tone. Very friendlily they stared at each

other, amused at the strangeness of human nature.

"It is not easy to live," said Annette, "to live in pairs."

"Why, yes, it would be easy enough, if men hadn't spent their time for

centuries ingeniously complicating life by reciprocal restraints. The

only thing to do is to throw them off. But naturally our excellent

Roger, like any good old Frenchman, doesn't conceive of the idea. They

think that they are lost if they no longer feel themselves weighed down

by the restraints of the past. '_Where there is no restraint, there is

no pleasure_ . . .' especially when in being restrained one restrains

one's neighbor."

"What is your conception of marriage, then?"

"As an intelligent association of interests and pleasures. Life is a

vine that we exploit in common; together we cultivate it and gather the

grapes. But we are not compelled always to drink our wine together,

always tête-à-tête. There is a mutual complaisance that demands from

and gives to the other the clusters of pleasure, of which each disposes,

and which allows one discreetly to finish his harvesting elsewhere.

"What you mean," asked Annette, "is the liberty of adultery?"

"The old obsolete word! What I mean," answered Marcel, "is the liberty

of love, the most essential of all liberties."

"That's the thing of least importance to me," said Annette. "For me

marriage is not a public square in which one gives oneself to every

passer-by. I give myself to one alone. The day on which I ceased to love

and loved another, I should separate from the first; I should not divide

myself between them, and I could not bear the division."

Marcel made an ironic gesture that seemed to say:

"What does it matter? . . ."

"So you see, my friend," Annette went on, "in the last analysis, I am

still further away from you than from Roger."

"So you too," demanded Marcel, "belong to the good old school: 'Let us

hamper one another'?"

"The one grandeur of marriage," said Annette, "is monogamous love, the

fidelity of two hearts. If that is lost, what remains outside of a few

practical advantages?"

"They are not negligible," said Marcel.

"They are not enough," replied Annette, "to compensate for the

sacrifices."

"If that's your opinion, what are you complaining about? You rivet the

bars from which one would deliver you."

"The liberty that I want," said Annette, "is not that of the heart. I

feel that I am strong enough to keep that intact for the one to whom I

give it."

"Are you so sure of that?" Marcel demanded tranquilly.

Annette was not so sure of it! She too was doubtful. It was her mother's

daughter who was speaking at this moment, it was not the whole Annette.

But she did not wish to admit it, especially to Marcel, and in an

argument. She said:

"I wish it."

"Will power in such matters! . . ." exclaimed Marcel, with his shrewd

smile. ". . . It is as though one decreed that a red fire should be a

green fire. Love is a lighthouse of changing fires."

But Annette obstinately said:

"Not for me! . . . I don't want it to be!"

She was perfectly aware, and with the same conviction, of the need of

change and of the need of permanence, those two passionate instincts of

all vigorous lives. But, turn and turn about, whichever one of these two

felt itself threatened, revolted.

Marcel, being well acquainted with the proud and obstinate girl, bowed

politely.

Annette, who judged herself as accurately as he judged her, said a

little shamefacedly:

"After all, I shouldn't like . . ."

And, with this concession made to the spirit of truth, she continued

more firmly, now feeling herself to be on ground of which she was sure:

"But I should like, in exchange for the gift of mutual affection, that

each should preserve the right to live according to his own soul, to

walk in his own way, to seek his own truth, to secure, if need be, his

own field of activity,--to carry out, in a word, the proper law of his

own spiritual life, and not sacrifice himself to the law of another,

even the dearest person of all: for no one has the right to immolate

another's soul, or his own for the sake of another. It is a crime."

"That's all very fine, my dear friend," said Marcel, "but for me, you

know, the soul is a little beyond my depth. Perhaps it may mean more to

Roger. But I am afraid that in that case he will not understand it in

the same fashion. I can't quite see the Brissots, in their family

circle, conceiving the possibility of any spiritual law save that of the

political and private fortunes of the Brissots."

"By the way," said Annette, smiling, "to-morrow I'm going to their place

in Burgundy to spend two or three weeks."

"Well," remarked Marcel, "that will be a case of confronting their

idealism with your own. For they are great idealists, they too! After

all, perhaps I am mistaken. At bottom you are admirably made to get

along together."

"Don't dare me!" said Annette. "Perhaps I shall come back an

accomplished Brissot."

"Dear me! That wouldn't be so cheerful! . . . No, no, I beg of

you! . . . Brissot, or not Brissot, preserve us Annette!"

"Alas! I should like to lose her, but I can't, I'm afraid," Annette

replied.

He said good-bye, kissing her hand.

"It's a pity, all the same! . . ."

He left. Annette, too, told herself that it was a pity, but not in the

same sense that Marcel meant. It was in vain that he saw her clearly; he

understood her no more than did Roger, who did not see her at all. To

understand her required more "religious" souls--more religiously

free--than those of almost all these young Frenchmen. Those who are

religious, are so in the tradition of Catholicism, which means obedience

and the renunciation of intellectual liberty (especially in the case of

a woman). And those whose minds are free rarely suspect the profound

needs of the soul.

XI

Roger was waiting with the carriage at the little Burgundy station,

where Annette arrived the following day. The instant she saw him, her

cares took flight. Roger was so happy! And she was no less so. She was

grateful to the Brissot ladies for having found weak excuses for not

coming to meet her.

It was a clear spring evening. The golden horizon encircled the gentle

undulations of pale, new grass and red, plowed land. Larks were

chirping. The two-wheeled cart flew over the white road, which rang

under the hoofs of the spirited little horse, and the sharp air whipped

Annette's red cheeks. She sat pressed against her young companion, who,

even while he drove, laughed and talked with her, and, suddenly bending

over her lips, took and gave a kiss in mid-flight. She did not resist.

She loved him, she loved him! But this did not prevent her realizing

that she would soon begin to judge him again, to judge herself. It is

one thing to judge, and another to love. She loved him as she loved this

air, this sky, this breath from the fields, like a bit of spring.

To-morrow was time enough to clarify her thoughts! To-day she gave

herself a holiday. Let us enjoy this delicious hour! It will not come

again. . . . It seemed to her that she was flying above the earth, with

her beloved.

They arrived only too soon, although they went slowly at the last

turning, when they were ascending the poplar-lined road, and even

though, when they stopped to rest the horse beneath the shadow of the

high hedges that masked the front of the château, they embraced for a

long time without speaking.

The Brissots put their best foot forward. They knew how to find delicate

words by which tactfully to evoke the memory of her father. That first

evening in the family circle, Annette let herself be mothered, grateful

and touched; she had so long been deprived of the affectionate warmth of

a home! She wanted to delude herself. Everyone helped her to do this.

Her resistance slumbered. . . .

But when she awoke in the middle of the night, and listened to the

gnawing of a mouse in the silence of the old house, the idea of a

mouse-trap came into her mind; and she said to herself:

"I am caught. . . ."

She felt a pang, she tried to reason with herself.

"No, no, I don't want to be; I am not . . ."

A nervous sweat moistened her shoulders. She said:

"To-morrow I shall talk to Roger seriously. He must know what I am like.

We must see each other honestly if we are going to live together. . . ."

But when the next day came, she was so glad to see Roger again, to let

herself be enveloped in his warm affection, to breathe with him the

intoxicating sweetness of the spring countryside, to dream of

happiness--(impossible perhaps, but who knows, who knows? . . . perhaps

it is close . . . one need only stretch out a hand . . .)--that she put

off explanations until the next day. . . . And then, to the next. . . .

And then, to the day after. . . .

And each night she was seized anew by piercing pangs, by heart

burnings. . . .

"I must. . . . I must speak. . . . It has to be done for Rogers sake.

Every day he is more enchained, and enchains me more. I have no right to

keep silent. It is deceiving him. . . ."

Heavens, heavens! How weak she was!

. . . Yet she was not so, in ordinary life. But the breath of love is

like those hot winds whose burning languor breaks your joints and makes

your heart faint. An extreme lassitude of obscure pleasure. A fear of

stirring. A fear of thinking. . . . The soul, cowering in its dream,

fears awakening. Annette knew perfectly well that at her first gesture

the dream would be shattered. . . .

But even if we do not move, time moves for us; and the flight of days is

sufficient to carry away the illusion that we would preserve. In vain

one watches oneself; two persons cannot live together from morn till

evening without, at the end of a short time, showing themselves as they

really are.

The Brissot family revealed its true colors. The smile was façade.

Annette had become part of the household. She saw busy, morose,

middle-class people, who administered their wealth with a bitter

pleasure. There was no question here of socialism. Of immortal

principles, they invoked only the Declaration of the Landlord's Rights.

It was not good to attack this. Their watchman was ceaselessly occupied

in setting up barriers against trespassing. They personally exercised a

strict surveillance that was to them a kind of sorry delectation. They

seemed to be carrying on a guerrilla warfare with the servants, their

farmers, the grape gatherers, and with all their neighbors. The spirit

of sharp practice, that was native to the family and to the province,

flourished here. When father Brissot succeeded in trapping someone he

had his eye out for, he laughed heartily. But he did not laugh last: his

adversary was made of the same Burgundian clay, not to be caught

napping; the next day he retaliated by a trick of his own. And then it

began all over again. . . .

Of course, Annette was not invited to participate in these ructions; the

Brissots talked about them among themselves, in the drawing-room or at

table, when Roger and Annette seemed occupied with each other. But

Annette's keen attention followed everything that was said around her.

Besides, Roger would interrupt the most loving dialogue to take part in

the discussion that passionately interested them all. Then they grew

heated, they all talked at once, they forgot Annette. Or they called

upon her to witness facts of which she was ignorant.--Until finally,

Madame Brissot, recalling the listener's presence, cut short the

colloquy, and, turning her melting smile upon Annette, shifted the

conversation into more flowery paths. Then, with no transition, they

returned to affable good fellowship. There was in the general tone of

the conversation a curious alloy of prudery and frankness,--just as

liberality and stinginess were mingled in the château life. Lively

Monsieur Brissot made puns. Mademoiselle Brissot talked poetry, and on

this subject everyone had his say. They all pretended to a knowledge of

it. Their taste dated back some twenty years. On everything to do with

art, they had fixed opinions. They relied on the tried and true opinions

of their "friend so and so" who belonged to the Institute and was much

decorated. No more timid minds, in the face of authority, could be

imagined than these big bourgeois who thought that they were as advanced

in art as in politics, and who were advanced in neither one nor the

other; for in both they never, wittingly, arrived on the field until

after the battle had been won.

Annette felt herself far away from them. She looked, listened, and asked

herself:

"What have I to do with these people?"

The idea that one or another of them might presume to act as her

guardian did not even repel her any more, it made her want to laugh. She

asked herself what Sylvie would have thought, had she been blessed with

a family of this sort. What shouts, what bursts of laughter! . . .

Annette answered them sometimes, when she was all alone in the garden.

And it happened that Roger heard her one day, and asked in astonishment:

"What in the world is making you laugh?"

To which she replied:

"Nothing, dear. I don't know. Nonsense. . . ."

And she tried to reassume her soberest expression. But it was stronger

than she: she began laughing harder than ever, even in front of the

Brissot ladies. She begged pardon, and the Mesdames Brissot, indulgent

and a little vexed, said:

"The child! She has to get rid of her laughter!"

But she was not always laughing. Shadows passed abruptly over her good

humor. After hours of radiant tenderness and confidence with Roger, she

experienced, without transition, and for no cause, attacks of

melancholy, doubt, and anxiety. The instability from which her thoughts

had suffered since last autumn, far from being calmed, was accentuated

during these months of requited love. There came, in flurries, an

invasion of strangely unharmonious instincts: irritability, grotesque

humor, malignant irony, umbrageous pride, inexplicable fits of spite.

Annette found it hard to put a damper on them. And the result was not so

splendid, for when she did she seemed plunged in a hostile and

disquieting taciturnity. As her intelligence remained clear, she was

astonished at these sudden changes, and reproached herself for them.

That didn't improve matters. But the realization of her own

imperfections gave her a certain indulgence--more wished for than

sincere--towards those of these "clowns." . . . (Again! . . .

Impertinent girl! . . . Forgive me! I won't do it again! . . .) Since

they were Roger's relations, she ought to accept them, if she accepted

Roger. The rest, Good Heavens, the rest is of no great importance when

there are two to defend each other.

Only, were there two? Would Roger defend her? And, even before

considering whether she would accept Roger, would Roger accept her

sincerely and with a generous heart when he finally saw what she was

like? For up to date he had seen only her mouth and eyes. As regarded

what she thought and wished--the true Annette--it did not seem that he

had tried very hard to become acquainted with her; he found it more

comfortable to invent her. However, Annette cradled herself in the hope

that, with the aid of love, it would not be impossible, after bravely

looking into each other's hearts, for them to say to each other: "I take

you, I take you as you are. I take you with your faults, your demons,

with your little demands, with your law of life. You are what you are.

As you are, I love you."

She knew that, for her part, she was capable of this act of love. During

the last days she had observed Roger at length, with her bright eyes in

which, unknown to him, everything was mirrored. Roger, no long unsure of

himself, had frequently shown himself to be more of a Brissot than she

would have wished; he was obsessed by the interests and the quarrels of

his tribe, and even brought to them the same tricky spirit. Certain

little hard, crafty sides of him did not please her. But she did not

wish to judge them severely, as she would have done in the case of

others. To her these traits seemed imitative. In many things, Roger

appeared to her still an uncertain child, under the thumb of his family,

whom he religiously copied, with marked timidity of spirit, despite all

his big words. Although she began to perceive a lack of consistency in

his projects for social reform, and although she was no longer

completely duped by his eloquent idealism, she bore him no grudge for

that, for she knew that he was not trying to deceive her, and that he

was his own first dupe; she was even ready, with a tender irony, to

remove from his path all that might disturb the illusion by which he had

to live. And even his naïve egotism, which he sometimes displayed in a

cumbersome fashion, did not repel her; it seemed to her devoid of evil

intention. At bottom, all his faults were faults of weakness. And the

amusing thing was that he posed as strength itself. . . . The man of

bronze. . . . _Æs triplex_. . . . Poor Roger! . . . It was almost

touching. Annette laughed very softly, but she reserved for him a wealth

of indulgence. She loved him dearly. Despite everything, she saw him as

good, generous and ardent. She was like a mother who treats with a

gentle hand the little, and to her eyes not very serious, vices of a

dear child: she does not hold him responsible for them, she is only the

more disposed to fuss over him and coddle him. Ah! and then Annette had

for Roger not merely the indulgent eyes of a mother! She had the very

partial eyes of a lover. The body was speaking; and its voice was very

strong. The voice of reason could say what it pleased: there was a way

of hearing that made these very faults set fire to desire. Annette saw

everything clearly. But just as one may bend one's head and squint one's

eyes in order to harmonize the planes of a landscape, so Annette, when

she looked at Roger's unpleasant traits, viewed them from an angle that

softened them. It would have not been much beyond her to love even

deformities: for one gives more of oneself when one loves the faults of

one's beloved; in loving what is fine, one does not give, one takes.

Annette thought:

"I am glad that you are imperfect. If you knew what I see, it would

annoy you. Forgive me! I have seen nothing. . . . But I, I am not like

you; I want you to see me as imperfect! I am what I am, and I hold to

it; my imperfections are myself, more than the rest. If you take me, you

take them. Do you take them? . . . But you don't wish to know them. When

will you finally take the trouble to really look at me?"

XII

Roger was in no hurry. After a few futile attempts to lead him on to

this dangerous ground from which he seemed to flee, Annette,

interrupting their conversation in the midst of a walk, stopped, took

both his hands in hers, and said:

"Roger, we must have a talk."

"Talk!" he exclaimed, laughing. "But it doesn't seem to me that we

deprive ourselves of that!"

"No," she said, "I don't mean talking pretty things; I mean a serious

talk."

Immediately his expression grew a little frightened.

"Don't be afraid," she said, "it's about myself that I want to talk to

you."

"About you?" he said, once more serene. "Then it's bound to be

charming."

"Wait! Wait!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps you won't say that when you have

heard me."

"What could you tell me now that would surprise me? Haven't we told each

other everything, after being together for so many days?"

"So far as I'm concerned, I've scarcely said anything but _Amen_," said

Annette, laughing. "You do all the talking."

"Oh! the bad girl!" exclaimed Roger. "Isn't it you that I talk about?"

"Yes, it's about me, _too_. And you even speak for me."

"You think that I talk too much?" asked Roger innocently.

Annette bit her lips.

"No, no, my dear Roger, I love it when you talk. But when you talk about

me, I just listen to you; and it is so beautiful, so beautiful that I

say, 'So be it!' But it's not true."

"You are the first woman to complain of her picture being beautiful."

"I should prefer it to be me. It's not a beautiful picture that you are

going to hang up in your family home, Roger. I am a living woman, who

has her desires, her passions, and her thoughts. Are you sure that she

can come into your home with all her baggage?"

"I am taking you with my eyes closed."

"I am asking you to open them."

"I see your limpid soul, revealed in your face."

"Poor Roger! Good Roger! . . . You don't want to look."

"I love you. That's enough for me."

"I love you too. And that isn't enough for me."

"It's not enough?" he asked in a tone of consternation.

"No. I have to see."

"What is it you want to see?"

"I want to see _how_ you love me."

"I love you more than everything else in the world."

"Naturally! You couldn't do less. But I am not asking you _how much_, I

am asking you _how_ you love me. . . . Yes, I know that you want me; but

what is it, precisely, that you want to make of your Annette?"

"Make her half of myself."

"There you are! . . . Now the point is, my friend, that I am not a half.

I am a whole Annette."

"That's just a way of speaking. I mean that you are me, and that I am

you."

"No, no, don't be me, Roger! Let me be that!"

"When we unite our lives, won't we make them one?"

"That's what worries me. I am afraid I can't quite do that."

"What's troubling you, Annette? What are these ideas? You love me, don't

you? You love me? That's the essential thing! Don't bother about the

rest. The rest is my business. You'll see, I shall arrange--I, and my

family that will be yours--we shall arrange your life so well that you

will have nothing to do but let yourself be carried along."

Annette was looking at the ground and tracing letters in the dirt with

her toe. She was smiling.

(He didn't understand at all, the dear boy. . . .)

She raised her eyes to Roger, who, with perfect tranquillity, was

awaiting her response. She said:

"Roger, look at me. Haven't I good legs?"

"Good and beautiful," said he.

"That!" she said, menacing him with her finger, "that is not the

question. . . . Am I not a strong walker?"

"Of course," he said. "And I like you to be."

"Well, then, do you think that I am going to let myself be

carried? . . . You are very kind, very kind, and I thank you; but let me

walk! I am not one of those who fear the fatigues of the road. To take

them away from me is to take away my appetite for life. I rather have

the impression that you and your family would like to free me from the

trouble of acting and of choosing, would like to arrange everything in

advance in prescribed pigeonholes, very comfortably--your life, their

life, my life--the whole future. I shouldn't want that. I don't want it.

I feel that I am at the beginning. I am seeking. I know that I have need

of seeking, of seeking myself."

Roger's air was benevolent and bantering.

"And what can you seek?"

He saw here the crotchets of a young girl. She felt it, and said in a

provoked tone:

"Don't make fun of me! . . . I don't amount to much, I don't pretend

that I do. But after all I know what I am, and that I have a life . . .

a poor little life. . . . It's not so long, a lifetime, and one has it

only once. . . . I have the right. . . . No, not the right if you will!

that seems egotistical. . . . It is my duty not to lose it, not to throw

it away at random. . . ."

Instead of being touched, he assumed a hurt air.

"You think that you are throwing it away at random? Is your life going

to be lost? Won't it have a fine, a very beautiful purpose?"

"Beautiful, no doubt. . . . But what? What do you offer me?"

Once again he ardently described his political career, the future of

which he dreamed, his great personal and social ambitions. She listened

to him talk, then, gently stopping him in the middle (for of such a

subject he was never weary), she said:

"Yes, Roger. Certainly. That is very, very interesting. But to tell you

the truth--no, don't be ruffled--I haven't quite as much faith as you in

this political cause to which you are consecrating yourself."

"What! you don't believe in it? But you did believe in it when I spoke

to you about it those first times that I saw you in Paris. . . ."

"I have changed a little," said she.

"What has changed you? . . . No, no, it's not possible. . . . You will

change back again. My generous Annette couldn't be disinterested in the

cause of the people, in the reform of society!"

"But I am not disinterested in it," she replied. "What I am

disinterested in is the political cause."

"They are the same thing."

"Not entirely."

"The victory of one will be the victory of the other."

"I rather doubt it."

"Yet it is the only way of serving progress and the people."

(Annette thought: "While serving himself." But she reproached herself

for it.)

"I see other ways."

"What are they?"

"The oldest is still the best. Like those who followed Christ, to give

all, to leave all behind, in order to go to the people."

"What a utopia!"

"Yes, I believe you. You are not a Utopian, Roger. I thought that you

were at first; I think so no longer. In politics you have the sense of

reality. With your great talent, I am perfectly sure of your future

success. If I doubt the cause, I don't doubt you. You will have a

splendid career. I can see you already at the head of a party, an

applauded orator, winning a majority in Parliament, a minister . . ."

"Stop!" he said. ". . . _Macbeth, you will be King!_ . . ."

"Yes, I am something of a witch . . . for others. But what vexes me is

that I am not for myself."

"Yet it's not so difficult. If I become minister, that concerns you

too. . . . Now see here, frankly, wouldn't that please you?"

"What? To be a minister? Heavens above! Not in the least! . . . Forgive

me, Roger . . . it would make me glad for your sake, of course. And if I

were with you, you may be sure that I would play my part to the best of

my ability, and I would be happy to help you. . . . But (you wanted me

to be frank, didn't you?) I must confess that such a life would not

fill my life, not at all."

"Of course, I understand that. The woman best fitted in the world to

share a life of political activity--take my admirable mother for

example!--couldn't limit herself to that. Her real task is in the home.

And her proper vocation is motherhood."

"I know," said Annette. "We shan't argue about that vocation. But . . .

(I am afraid of what I am going to say, I am afraid that you won't

understand me) . . . I don't know yet what motherhood will bring me. I

am very fond of children. I think that I would be very much attached to

my own. . . . (You don't like that word? Yes, I seem cold to you. . . .)

Perhaps I would be completely wrapped up in them. . . . It is

possible. . . . I don't know. . . . But I shouldn't like to say something

that I don't feel. And to be perfectly frank, this 'vocation' is not yet

entirely awakened in me. While still waiting for life to reveal

something of which I am ignorant, it doesn't seem to me that a woman

ought, in any case, to bury her whole life in this love of children. . . .

(Don't raise your eyebrows! . . .) I am convinced that it is possible

to love one's child, loyally perform one's domestic task, and still keep

enough of oneself--as one ought to--for the most essential thing."

"The most essential?"

"One's soul."

"I don't understand."

"How can one make one's inner life understood? Words are so uncertain,

so obscure, botched! The soul . . . It is ridiculous to speak of the

soul! What does it mean? I can't explain what it is. But it is. It is

what I am, Roger, the truest and deepest."

"Don't you give me what is truest and deepest?"

"I can't give all," she said.

"Then you don't love me."

"Yes, Roger, I love you. But no one can give all."

"You are not enough in love. When one is in love, one doesn't think of

holding back any part of oneself. Love . . . love . . . love . . ."

And he soared off into one of his great speeches. Annette heard him

celebrate, in moving terms, the whole gift of self, the joy of

sacrificing for the happiness of the beloved. And she thought:

(My dear, why do you say all that? Do you think I don't know it? Do you

think that I couldn't sacrifice myself for you, if it were necessary,

and find my joy in it? But on one condition: that you don't demand

it. . . . Why do you demand it? . . . Why do you seem to expect it as

your right? Why haven't you confidence in me, in my love?)

After he had finished, she said:

"That is very beautiful. . . . I wouldn't be capable, you know, of

expressing these things as well as you. But perhaps, on occasion, I

wouldn't be incapable of feeling them. . . ."

He exclaimed: "Perhaps! On occasion!"

"You find that very little, don't you? It is more than you think. . . .

But I don't like to promise more . . . (perhaps it is less) . . . than I

can fulfill. I don't know in advance. We must trust each other. We are

upright people. We love each other, Roger. We shall do all that we can."

Again he raised his arms.

"All that we can! . . ."

She smiled and continued.

"Do you want to trust me? I need to draw on my credit. I have much to

ask. . . ."

He was prudent: "Go ahead!"

"I love you, Roger, but I should like to be sincere. From my childhood I

have lived alone a good deal and enjoyed a great deal of freedom. My

father left in me a spirit of independence, which I haven't abused,

because it seemed quite natural to me, and because it was wholesome. So

I have acquired certain habits of mind that I should find difficult,

now, to do without. I know that I am rather different from the majority

of young girls of my class. Yet I believe that what I feel they feel

too; only I dare to say it, and I have a clearer conscience. You ask me

to unite my life with yours. It is my wish. For each of us it is our

most profound desire to find our beloved mate. And it seems to me that

you could be that mate, Roger . . . if . . . if you wished . . ."

"If I wished!" he exclaimed. "That's a good joke! I don't do anything

but wish! . . ."

"If you _truly_ wished to be my mate. It is not a joke. Reflect! . . .

To unite our lives means to suppress either one or the other. . . . What

do you offer me? . . . You aren't aware of it, because the world has

long been used to these inequalities. But they are new to me. . . . You

do not come to me with only your affection. You come to me with your

family, your friends, your clients, and your relatives, with your course

mapped out, your career fixed, with your party and its dogmas, your

family and its traditions,--with a whole world that is yours, a whole

world that is you. And I, who have a world too, who am also a

world,--you say to me: 'Abandon your world! Throw it away, and enter

into mine!' I am ready to come, Roger, but I must come whole. Do you

accept me as I am?"

"I want all," said he. "It was you, just now, who said that you could

not give me all."

"You don't understand. I say: 'Do you accept me free? And do you accept

all of me?'"

"Free?" responded Roger circumspectly. "Everybody has been free in

France since '89. . . ." (Annette smiled: "The old platitude! . . .")

"But, after all, we must understand each other. It is certainly evident

that from the moment you marry you will not be completely free. By that

act you will have contracted obligations."

"I don't like that word very much," said Annette, "but I am not afraid

of the thing. I should joyously and freely take my part in the trials

and labors of the man I loved, in the duties of our common life. But I

won't renounce, on that account, the duties of my own life."

"And what other duties are there? After what you have told me and what I

think I know, your life, my dear Annette, your life that until now has

been so placid and so calm, does not seem to me to have experienced any

very great exigencies? What could it demand? Is it your work that you

mean? Would you like to go on with it? I confess that kind of

activity seems wrong to me, for a woman. At least, as a vocation. It's

bothersome, in the home. . . . But I can't believe that you are

afflicted with this gift from Heaven. You are too human, and too well

balanced."

"No, it isn't a question of a special vocation. That would be simple,

for then one would have to follow it. . . . The demand, the exigence (as

you say) of my life is less easy to formulate: for it is less precise

and much more vast. It is a question of the right laid upon every living

soul: the right to change."

Roger cried: "To change! To change love?"

"Even while always remaining faithful, as I have said, to a single love,

the soul has the right to change. . . . Yes, I know, Roger, that the

word 'change' frightens you. . . . It disturbs me, too. . . . When the

passing hour is beautiful, I should like never to stir. One sighs that

it cannot be held forever! . . . And yet, Roger, one ought not to do it;

and, first of all, one cannot. One does not remain stationary. One

lives, one goes forward, one is pushed,--one must, must advance! This

does no injury to love; one takes that along. But love should not wish

to hold us back, shut up with it in the immobile sweetness of a single

thought. A beautiful love may last for a whole lifetime, but it cannot

entirely fill it. Think, my dear Roger, that while still loving you I

might find myself some day, perhaps (I find myself already), cramped

within your circle of action and thought. I would never dream of arguing

with you the excellence of your choice. But would it be just for it to

be imposed on me? And don't you find it equitable to grant me the right

of opening the window, if I haven't enough air,--and even the door, a

little--(oh! I won't go far)--and for me to have my own little province

of activity, my intellectual interests, my friendships, not to remain

confined to one point of the globe, to the same horizon, but to try and

enlarge it, to seek a change of air, to emigrate. . . . (I say: if it is

necessary. . . . I don't know yet. But in any case I need to feel that I

am free to do it, that I am free to wish, free to breathe, free . . .

free to be free . . . even if I never make use of my liberty.) . . .

Forgive me, Roger, perhaps you find this need absurd and childish. It is

not, I assure you; it is the most profound need of my being, the breath

that gives me life. If it were taken away from me, I should die. . . . I

can do everything, for love. . . . But constraint kills me. And the idea

of constraint makes me a rebel. No, the union of two beings ought not to

become a mutual enchainment. It should be a twofold blooming. I should

like each, instead of being jealous of the other's free development, to

be happy in assisting it. Would you be, Roger? Would you know how to

love me enough to love me free, free of you? . . ."

(She was thinking: "I should be yours only the more! . . .")

Roger was listening to her anxiously, nervous, and a little vexed. Any

man would have been. Annette should have been capable of more

adroitness. In her need of frankness and her fear of deception, she was

always led into exaggerating the most startling features of her thought.

But a stronger love than Roger's would not have set this all at naught.

Roger, his self-love touched above all, wavered between two sentiments:

that of not taking this feminine caprice seriously, and the annoyance

that he felt at this moral insurrection. He had not perceived its

passionate appeal to his heart. All that he understood of it was that it

was a sort of obscure menace and attack upon his proprietary rights. If

he had possessed more cunning in his management of women, he would have

hidden his secret vexation, and promised, promised, promised . . . all

that Annette desired. "Lover's promises, as many as the wind will carry.

Why then be niggardly? . . ." But Roger, who had his faults, also had

his virtues: he was, as they say, "a simple young fellow," too much

filled with himself to be well acquainted with women, with whom he had

had recent dealings. He lacked the skill to hide his vexation. And when

Annette awaited his generous answer, she suffered the disappointment of

seeing that while listening to her he had thought only of himself.

"Annette," said he, "I confess that I can scarcely understand what you

ask of me. You talk of our marriage as of a prison, and your one idea

seems to be to escape from it. My house has no bars at the windows, and

it is large enough for one to be comfortable in it. But one cannot live

with all the doors wide open, and my house is made to be lived in. You

talk to me about leaving it, about having your individual life, your

personal relationships, your friends, and even, if I have rightly

understood, of your privilege to leave the home at will, in search of

Heaven knows what you fail to find there, until it happens to please you

to come back again some day. . . . This can't be serious, Annette! You

haven't thought about it! No man could grant his wife a position that

would be so humiliating for him and so equivocal for her."

These reflections were not, perhaps, lacking in good sense. But there

are times when perfectly dry good sense, with no intuition of the heart,

is a kind of nonsense. Annette, somewhat ruffled, answered with a proud

frigidity that masked her emotion:

"Roger, it is necessary to have faith in the woman one loves; when one

marries her, one must not do her the wrong of believing that she would

not have the same care as yourself for your honor. Do you think that

such a woman as myself would lend herself to an equivocation in order to

humiliate you? Any humiliation for you would be a humiliation for her as

well. And the freer she were, the more bound she would feel to watch

over that part of yourself which you had confided to her. You will have

to esteem me more highly. Aren't you capable of having confidence in

me?"

He felt the danger of alienating her by his doubts; and, telling himself

that after all there was no need of attaching an exaggerated importance

to these feminine ideas, and that there would be time later to correct

them--(if she remembered them!)--he returned to his first idea, which

was to take the whole thing as a joke. So he believed that he was doing

very well, when he said gallantly:

"Perfect confidence, Annette! I believe in your fair eyes. Only swear to

me that you will love me always, that you will love me alone! I ask

nothing more of you!"

But the little Cordelia, who could not reconcile herself to this

trifling fashion of avoiding the honest response on which her life

depended, stiffened against this impossible pledge.

"No, Roger, I can't, I can't swear that. I love you very much. But I

cannot promise something that does not depend upon myself. It would mean

deceiving you; and I shall never deceive you. I promise you simply to

hide nothing from you. And if the time comes when I love you no longer,

or love another, you will be the first to know it,--even before that

other. And you do the same! Oh, Roger! let us be honest!"

That was scarcely possible. Embarrassing truth was something to which

the house of Brissot was not accustomed. When it knocked on the door,

they hastened to send word:

"Everyone is out!"

Roger did not fail to do it. He cried:

"My dear, how pretty you are! . . . There, let us talk of something

else! . . ."

XIII

Annette returned to the house, disappointed. She had cherished great

hopes of a frank talk. Although she had anticipated resistance, she had

counted on Roger's heart illumining his mind. The most distressing thing

was not that Roger had not understood, but that he had not made the

least effort to understand. He seemed to see nothing pathetic in the

question for Annette. He was all on the surface, and he saw everything

in his own image. Nothing could be more painful to a woman with a strong

inner life.

She did not deceive herself. Roger had been embarrassed, irritated by

Annette's words, but he had completely failed to perceive their

seriousness; he considered them inconsequential. He thought that Annette

had bizarre and rather paradoxical ideas, that she was "original": it

was troublesome. Madame and Mademoiselle Brissot knew how to be superior

without being "original." But one could not demand this perfection in

everyone. Annette had other qualities,--that, perhaps, Roger did not

place so high, but to which he clung (it must be said) much more firmly

at the moment. In this preference the body had a greater share than the

mind; but the mind, too, had its share. Roger took a keen delight in

Annette's heedless ardor, when it was not exercised on subjects

embarrassing to him. He was not disturbed. Annette, in her uprightness,

had shown him that she loved him. He was convinced that she would not be

able to disengage herself from him.

He little suspected the drama of conscience that was being played out at

his side. In truth, Annette loved him so much that she could not bring

herself to think him such a sorry figure. She wished to believe herself

mistaken. She tested other possibilities, she tried to do her best. If

Roger would not grant her an independent life, at least what part would

he give her in his own? But the new conclusions at which she found

herself compelled to arrive were discouraging. Roger's naïve egotism

relegated her, in fine, to the dining table, the drawing-room, and the

bed. He was very ready to tell her, prettily, about his affairs; but all

she had to do, thereafter, was to approve of them. He was no more

disposed to concede to his wife the rights of a collaborator who might

discuss his political activities with him and modify them, than he was

to permit her a social activity different from his own. It seemed to him

perfectly natural--(it was always done)--that the woman who loved him

should give him her whole life, and that she should receive only a

portion of his. At the bottom of his nature he held that old masculine

belief in his own superiority which made him feel that what he gave was

of a finer essence. But he would not have admitted it, for he was a good

fellow and a gallant Frenchman. If it happened that Annette presumed to

base certain feminine rights on the example of the husband, Roger would

smilingly say:

"It is not the same thing."

"Why?" Annette would ask.

And Roger would avoid a response. A conviction that one does not discuss

suffers less danger of being shaken. Roger's conviction was firmly

rooted. And Annette chose the wrong course to make him doubt himself.

Her advances, her efforts to find a mutual ground of understanding,

after her useless attempt to impose her ideas on him, were interpreted

by Roger as a fresh proof of the power that he had over her. And he even

grew vain. Suddenly Annette would become irritated, and a quivering note

would mark her speech. Roger would pull himself up short, and return to

the method that, in his opinion, had been so successful: he would

laughingly promise all that was demanded of him. It is the tone, they

say, that puts the song across. That was the case with Roger. Annette

was conscious of the contempt.

Other more serious questions arose. Annette's intimacy with Sylvie had

been dangerously menaced. It was evident that the free-minded girl would

not be readily welcomed into this circle, and that the little seamstress

would be still less so. Never would the vain, stiff-necked Brissots

admit, for themselves or for their daughter-in-law, any such scandalous

evidence of relationship. It would have to be hidden. And Sylvie would

be no more ready to do this than Annette. Each had her pride, and each

was proud of the other. Annette loved Roger, and she wanted him with a

more burning desire than she confessed to herself; but she would never

sacrifice her Sylvie to him. She had loved her too much; and if this

love, perhaps, had waned, she did not forget that at moments it had made

her touch the ultimate depths of passion:--(she knew it, she alone; even

Sylvie suspected only half the truth). But, in the hours of her mutual

confidence with Roger, Annette had told him much too much. Then Roger

had seemed amused, touched. . . . Yes, but on the condition that all

this belonged to the past. He had no intention of seeing a prolongation

of this compromising sisterhood. Secretly, he had even decided to put an

end to it, gently, without appearing to take a hand in the affair. He

did not wish to share his wife's intimacy with anyone. _His_ wife . . .

"_This dog is mine_. . . ." Like all his family, he had a very keen

sense of what belonged to him.

As Annette's visit grew longer, this possessive grasp grew

tighter,--from certain affectionate externalities with which they

surrounded her. What the Brissots possessed, they possessed. The

domestic despotism of the two women sharply manifested itself daily in a

thousand minute details. Their "mind," as the saying goes, was "made up"

on everything, whether it was a question of the household or the world,

of everyday existence or of great problems of the moral life. It was

screwed down, fixed, once for all. Everything was prescribed: what must

be praised, what must be rejected,--especially what must be rejected!

Such ostracisms! What men, what things, what ways of thinking or of

acting, were judged, condemned without appeal, and for eternity! The

tone and the smile removed the desire to argue. They had an air of

saying (they often said, in so many words):

"There are not two ways of thinking, my dear child."

Or, when Annette none the less tried to show that there was a way also

of her own:

"My dear, how amusing you are!"

Which had the effect of making her instantly shut her mouth.

They already treated her as a daughter of the house, not quite

thoroughly trained, whom they were instructing. They instructed her

regarding the order and course of the Brissot days, months, and seasons,

regarding their relatives in the province and their relatives in Paris,

their duties of kinship, their calls, their dinners, and the endless

chain of those social tasks, about which the women complained, and of

which they were very proud, because the harassment of this perpetual

activity gave them the illusion that they were being of some service.

This mechanical life, these false relationships, this perpetual

convention, were all intolerable to Annette. Everything seemed regulated

in advance: work and pleasure,--for they had their pleasures too,--but

regulated in advance! . . . Hurrah for unforeseen ills that released one

from the program! But there was little hope of release, even on the

score of ills. Annette felt herself bricked in, like a stone in a wall!

Sand and lime. Roman cement. Brissot mortar. . . .

She exaggerated the rigorousness of this life. Chance and the unexpected

played their parts in it, as in all lives. The Mesdames Brissot were

more redoubtable in words than in fact; they pretended to direct

everything; but it was not impossible, if one attacked their weak spots,

anointed them, flattered and worshipped them, to lead them by the nose;

a cunning girl might have said to herself, while evaluating them at

their proper worth:

"Keep on talking! I'll do things my own way!"

One would have thought that a tenacious energy, like Annette's, could

never be stifled. But Annette was passing through that nervous fever of

women who, by dint of staring too fixedly at the object which

preoccupies them, cease to see it as it is. From a few words heard

during the daytime, she forged monsters when she was alone at night. She

was appalled at the battle which she had to wage continually, and she

repeated to herself that she would never succeed in defending herself

against them all. She did not feel strong enough. She mistrusted her own

energy. She was afraid of her own nature, of those unexpected

oscillations by which her troubled mind continued to be shaken, of those

sharp gusts that she could not explain. And, indeed, they sprang from

the complexity of her rich being whose new harmony could be slowly

realized only by living; but, in the meantime, there was danger of their

plunging her into many surprises of violence and weakness, of the flesh

and of the mind, of the insidious hazards of fate, ambushed beneath the

stones of the road. . . .

The basis of her trouble was that she was no longer sure of her love.

She no longer knew. . . . She no longer loved, and yet she still loved.

Her mind and heart--her mind and senses--were at battle. The mind saw

too clearly; it was disillusioned. But the heart was not; and the body

was irritated when it saw that it was going to lose what it coveted;

passion grumbled:

"I do not want to renounce! . . ."

Annette felt this revolt, and she was humiliated by it; her natural

violence reacted forcibly, appealing to her wounded pride. She said:

"I love him no longer! . . ."

And her now hostile glance espied in Roger the reasons for no longer

loving him.

Roger saw nothing. He surrounded Annette with kindnesses, with flowers,

with gallant attentions. But he thought that the game was won. Not for

an instant did he dream of the proud savage soul that was observing him,

from behind its veil, burning to give itself--but to him who would utter

the mysterious password which shows that one is recognized. He did not

utter it; and for a reason. On the contrary, he uttered irreflective

words that, without her showing it, wounded Annette to the heart. The

instant after, he no longer remembered what he had said. But Annette,

who had not seemed to hear, could have repeated them to him ten days,

ten years later. She kept the memory of them fresh, and the wound open.

It was in spite of herself, for she was generous, and she reproached

herself for not knowing how to forget. But the best of women may pardon

intimate offenses; she never forgets them.

Day by day, rents appeared in the fine cloth woven by love. The cloth

remained stretched tight, but the least breath made disquieting shivers

pass over it. Annette, observing Roger in the family circle, with his

family traits, the hardness, the dryness of certain of his speeches and

his contempt for humble people, said to herself:

"He is fading. At the end of a few years there will remain nothing of

what I love in him."

And since she loved him still, she wished to avoid the bitter

disillusion, the degrading conflicts between them that she foresaw, if

they were united.

Two nights before Easter, her decision was made. A miserable night.

There were many desires to be vanquished, obstinate hope that did not

wish to die had to be trodden under foot. She had, in imagination, built

her nest with Roger. So many dreams of happiness that they had whispered

to each other! Renounce them! Recognize that they had been mistaken!

Admit that one was not made for happiness! . . .

For that is what she told herself in her discouragement. Another, in her

place, would not have been cast down. Why was she not capable of

accepting it? Why could she not sacrifice a part of her nature? . . .

But no, she could not! How badly life is arranged! One cannot live

without mutual affection; no more can one live without independence. The

one is as sacred as the other. One as much as the other is necessary to

the air we breathe. How can they be reconciled? They say to you:

"Sacrifice! If you do not sacrifice, you do not love enough. . . ." But

it is almost always those who are capable of a great love who are also

the most enamoured of independence. For in them, all is strong. And if

they sacrifice to their love the principle of their pride, they feel

themselves degraded even in their love, they dishonor love. . . . No, it

is not so simple as the morality of humility would have us believe--or

that of pride,--the Christian or the Nietzschean doctrine. In us a

strength is not opposed to a weakness, a virtue to a vice; it is two

forces confronting two virtues, two duties. . . . The sole true

morality, according to the true life, would be a morality of harmony.

But, so far, human society has known only a morality of repression and

renunciation,--tempered by lies. Annette could not lie. . . .

What was to be done? . . . To escape from equivocation as quickly as

possible, at any price! Since she was convinced that it would be

impossible to live in this union, to break it the next day! . . .

Break! . . . She imagined to herself the family's stupefaction, the

scandal. . . . That was nothing. . . . But Roger's grief. . . .

Immediately she pictured to herself in the darkness the image of his

beloved face. . . . At this vision a new surge of passion swept

everything away. . . . Annette, burning and icy, motionless in her bed,

upon her back, with her eyes open, suppressed the beatings of her

heart. . . .

"Roger," she implored, "my Roger, forgive me! . . . Oh! If I could spare

you this pain! . . . I cannot, I cannot! . . ."

Then she was bathed in such a flood of love and of remorse that she

nearly went running to fling herself at the foot of Roger's bed, to kiss

his hands, and say to him:

"I will do everything you wish. . . ."

What! She still loved him? . . . She rebelled. . . .

"No, no! I don't love him any more! . . ."

She lied to herself furiously. . . .

"I don't love him any more! . . ."

In vain! . . . She still loved him. She loved him more than ever.

Perhaps not with the noblest part of her--(but what is noble, and what

is not?)--Yes! with the noblest too, and with the least! Body and

soul! . . . If one could only stop loving when one stopped respecting! How

comfortable that would be! . . . But to suffer at the hands of the

beloved has never exempted one from loving him: one feels it only the

more cruelly when one is forced to love him! . . . Annette was suffering

in her wounded love--from lack of confidence, lack of faith in herself,

lack of Roger's profound love. She was suffering from the bitter

consciousness of all the destroyed hopes which she had hatched and which

would never see the light of day. It was because she loved Roger so

ardently that she insisted on making him accept her independence. She

wanted to be to him more than a woman who abdicates, passive in the

union,--a free and sure companion. He took no stock in it. She felt

within herself a sorrow, an anger of offended passion. . . .

"No! no! I love him no longer! I ought not to, I don't want to. . . ."

But her strength crumpled, and, even before she could finish her cry of

rebellion, she wept. . . . In the night, in silence. . . . Beneath the

ice of reason, alas! she was on fire. . . . There was that which she did

not wish to say: what joy she would have found in sacrificing to him all

that she had, even her independence, if only he had made a generous

move, a gesture, a simple gesture, to sacrifice himself, rather than to

sacrifice her! . . . She would not have let him do it. She would have

demanded no more than an outburst of the heart, a proof of true love.

But that proof, although he loved her in his own way, he was incapable

of giving. It did not enter his thoughts. He had judged Annette's desire

as a feminine requirement that must be received smilingly, but in which

there was not touch sense. What could she wish? Why the devil was she

crying? Because she loved him? Well then? . . .

"You love me, don't you? You love me? That is the essential

thing. . . ."

Ah! that word, she had not forgotten that either! . . .

Annette smiled amid her tears. Poor Roger! He was what he was. One could

not grudge him that. But one does not change. Neither he, nor I. We

cannot live together. . . .

She dried her eyes.

"Come now, one must put a stop to this. . . ."

XIV

After a white night--(she had drowsed for only an hour or two at

dawn)--Annette arose, resolute. With the light of day, calm returned to

her. She dressed herself and did her hair methodically, coldly, shutting

out of her mind everything that might awaken its doubts, attentive to

her toilet, which she made with an even more than ordinary meticulous

attention to correct detail.

About nine o'clock Roger knocked gaily at her door. Following his

morning custom, he had come to take her for a walk.

They set out, escorted by a gamboling dog. They took a road that led

beneath the trees. The young, verdant woods were shot through with

sunlight. The branches were alive with the songs and cries of birds.

Every step sent them flying; there were beatings of wings, rustlings of

leaves, clashing of branches, frenzied flights through the forest. The

excited dog snapped and sniffed and zig-zagged. Jays were bickering. In

the cupola of an oak, two ringdoves were cooing. And far away, the

cuckoo was circling, circling, farther, then nearer, tirelessly

repeating his ancient jest. It was the outburst of spring fever. . . .

Roger, noisy, very gay, laughing, and exciting his dog, was himself like

a big, happy dog. Annette followed silently, at a few paces. She was

thinking:

"Here! . . . No, yonder at the turning. . . ."

She was watching Roger. She was listening to the forest. How different

all would be, after she had spoken! . . . The turn was passed. She had

not spoken. . . . She said: "Roger . . ." in an uncertain, trembling

voice, almost a whisper. . . . He did not hear it, he noticed nothing.

Stooping down in front of her, he gathered some violets, and he talked,

talked. . . . She repeated: "Roger!" this time in such an accent of

distress that he turned around, startled. At once he saw the pallor of

her gravely serious face; he came to her. . . . He was afraid already.

She said:

"Roger, we must separate."

His features expressed stupefaction and dismay. He stammered:

"What's that you say? What's that you say?"

Avoiding his glance, she repeated firmly:

"We must separate, Roger; it is sad, but we must. I have come to see

that it is impossible, impossible for me to be your wife. . . ."

She wanted to go on, but he prevented her.

"No, no, that's not true! . . . Be still! Be still! You are mad! . . ."

"I must go away, Roger," she said.

He shouted: "Go away, you! . . . I don't want you to! . . ."

He had seized her arms, and was squeezing them brutally. Then he caught

sight of her proud face, obstinate and glacial; he felt that he was

lost, he let go, he begged pardon, he prayed, he pleaded.

"Annette! My little Annette! Stay, stay! . . . No, it isn't

possible. . . . But what has happened? What have I done?"

Pity reappeared on the firm face. She said:

"Let's sit down, Roger. . . ."

(He seated himself docilely beside her on a mossy bank: his eyes never

left her, imploring at every word).

". . . Be calm, everything must be explained. . . . Be calm, I beg of

you! . . . Believe me that I have to use all my strength to be. . . . I

could not speak unless I forced myself to do so. . . ."

"But don't speak," he cried. "It is madness! . . ."

"It is necessary."

He tried to close her mouth. She pulled herself away. Despite the

disturbance within her, her resolution seemed so inflexible that she

imposed it on Roger who, abandoning the struggle, beaten and haggard,

listened to her words, without daring to look at her. Annette, in a

voice that seemed impassive, cold and mournful, but which was marked by

sharp breaks, and which once or twice stopped to take breath along the

way,--said what she had decided to say, in words that were clear,

studied, and moderate, but which seemed all the more implacable for

that. . . . She had sincerely wanted to test out whether they could live

together. She hoped so at first, she wished it with all her heart. She

had seen that this dream could not be realized. Too many things

separated them. Too many differences in their surroundings and in their

thoughts. She laid the blame at her own door; she had definitely

recognized that she could not live a married life. She had conceptions

of life, of independence, which did not accord with Roger's. Perhaps

Roger was right. The majority of men, perhaps of women even, thought as

he did. She was wrong, no doubt. But right or wrong, that was how she

was. It was useless for her to cause another's misery and her own. She

was made to live alone. She freed Roger from all promises made to her,

and took back her own freedom. For the rest, they were not bound.

Everything had been upright between them. They must separate uprightly,

as friends. . . .

While speaking, she stared at the grass at her feet; she was very

careful not to look at Roger. But, as she spoke, she heard his gasping

breath, and it was a sore trial for her to go on to the end. When she

had finished, she risked looking at him. In her turn, she was smitten.

Roger's face was like that of a drowning man: flushed, breathing

noisily, he had not the strength to cry out. Awkwardly he moved his

clenched hands, sought and found his breath, and groaned:

"No, no, no, no, I cannot, I cannot . . ."

And he burst into sobs.

From a field by the edge of the woods, they heard the voice of a

peasant, the noise of a plow-share. Annette, overcome with emotion,

seized Roger by the arm and drew him away from the road, into the

bushes, then further into the midst of the forest. Roger, devoid of

strength, let himself be led, repeating:

"I cannot, I cannot. . . . What is going to become of me? . . ."

Tenderly she tried to keep him from speaking. But he was overwhelmed by

his despair: the misery of his love, of his pride, the public

humiliation, the ruined happiness that was to be his lot,--all these

were at once commingled. This big child who had been spoiled by life,

who had never seen anything resist his desire, broke down at this

defeat: it was a catastrophe, a crumbling of all his certainties; he was

losing faith in himself, he was losing his foothold, there was no way

for him to turn. Annette, touched by this great grief, was saying:

"My sweetheart . . . my sweetheart. . . . Don't cry! . . . You have, you

will have a beautiful life . . . you will have no need of me."

He continued to moan.

"I can't do without you. I no longer believe in anything. . . . I no

longer believe in my life. . . ."

And he flung himself on his knees.

"Stay! Stay with me! . . . I will do what you want . . . everything that

you want. . . ."

Annette knew perfectly well that he was making promises that he could

not fulfill, but she was touched. Gently she replied:

"No, my friend, you are saying it sincerely, but you couldn't do it, or

you would suffer because of it, and I should suffer too; life would be a

perpetual conflict. . . ."

When he saw that he could not shake her resolution, he burst into tears

at her feet, like a child. Annette was pierced by pity and by love. Her

energy melted. She tried to remain firm, but she could not resist these

tears. She thought of herself no longer; she thought only of him. She

caressed that dear head resting against her legs, and she said tender

words to him. She lifted up her big, unhappy boy, she dried his eyes

with her handkerchief, she took him by the arm again, she compelled him

to walk. He was so prostrated that he surrendered himself, knowing only

how to weep. As they went along, the branches of the trees lashed their

faces. They went into the woods, without seeing, without knowing where.

Annette felt emotion and love rising within her. Supporting Roger, she

said:

"Don't cry! . . . my dear! . . . my little one. It tears me to

pieces. . . . I can't bear it. . . . Don't cry! . . . I love you. . . .

I love you, my poor little Roger. . . ."

And he answered:

"No . . .!" in the midst of his tears.

"Yes! I love you, I love you, a thousand times more than you have ever

loved me. . . . What do you want me to do? . . . Oh! I shall do

it. . . . Roger, my Roger. . . ."

And now as they were walking, they came out of the woods, and found

themselves at the fence of the Rivière property, near the old house.

Annette recognized it. . . . She looked at Roger. . . . And suddenly

passion invaded her whole body. A wind of fire. A drunkenness of the

senses, like the intoxication of an acacia in bloom. . . . She ran

towards the door, holding Roger by the hand. They entered the deserted

habitation. The blinds were shut. Coming in out of the broad daylight,

they were blinded. Roger bumped against the furniture. Without seeing

and without thinking, he let himself be guided by the burning hand that

led him through the darkness of the ground floor rooms. Annette did not

hesitate, her destiny drew her on. . . . Into the room at the back, the

room of the two sisters, in which from the past autumn there still

floated the perfume of their two bodies, toward the big bed, where they

had both slept, she went with him; and, in a passion of pity and of

joy,--she gave herself to him.

XV

When they awakened from their overwhelming intoxication, their eyes were

accustomed to darkness. The room seemed lighted. Rays of sunlight came

dancing through the slits in the blinds, reminding them of the fine day

outside. Roger was covering Annette's unclothed body with kisses; he was

giving voice to his gratitude in inarticulate words. . . .

But after he had spoken, he suddenly fell silent, his face resting

against Annette's side. . . . Annette, silent and motionless, was

dreaming. . . . Outside, in the rosebush by the wall, bees were

buzzing. . . . And, like a song receding in the distance, Annette

heard Roger's love take wings. . . .

Already he loved her less. Roger, too, felt it with shame and annoyance;

but he was unwilling to admit it. Fundamentally, he was shocked that

Annette had given herself. . . . Ridiculous exigence of man! He desires

the woman, and when she sincerely surrenders herself to him, he almost

regards her over-generous act as an infidelity! . . .

Annette leaned towards him, lifted up his head, looked into his eyes for

a long time, said nothing, and smiled a melancholy smile. When he felt

this glance piercing him to his very soul, he sought to deceive her. He

intended to appear thoroughly enamoured. He said:

"Now, Annette, you cannot go: I _must_ marry you."

Annette's sad smile reappeared. She had read him perfectly. . . .

"No, my friend," said she, "you _must_ nothing."

He recovered himself.

"I want . . ."

But she replied: "I am going to go."

"Why?" he asked.

And before she spoke he already understood her reasons for departure.

However, he felt obliged to dispute them afresh. She put her hand over

his mouth; and he kissed that hand with passionate anger. . . . Oh! how

much he loved her! He was humiliated by his own thoughts. Had not she

seen them? . . . And the sweet, moist hand that caressed his lips seemed

to say:

"I have seen nothing. . . ."

From a distant village came the tolling of bells, borne upon the fitful

wind. . . . After a long silence, Annette sighed. . . . Come, this time

it is the end. . . . In a hushed voice she said:

"Roger, we must go back. . . ."

Their bodies drew apart. Kneeling beside the bed, he pressed his brow

against Annette's bare feet. He wished to prove to her:

"I am thine."

But he did not succeed in driving away his afterthought.

He went out of the room, leaving Annette to dress. While waiting he

leaned his elbows on a wall of the little entrance court, listening

vaguely to the noises of the countryside and savoring the hour just

passed. Importunate ideas were eclipsed. He rejoiced in the happiness of

pride and sensual appeasement. He was proud of himself. He thought:

"Poor Annette!"

He corrected himself:

"Dear Annette! . . ."

She came out of the house. As calm as ever. But very pale. . . . Who can

tell all that had passed during those brief moments that she had been

left alone: assaults of passion, grief, renunciation? . . . Roger saw

nothing of all this, he was absorbed in himself. He went to her and

sought to renew his protestations. She raised a finger to her lips:

Silence! . . . At the hedge that enclosed the garden she plucked a

branch of hawthorn, she broke it in two, and gave him half. And as she

left the Rivière estate with him, on the very threshold, she pressed

her lips to Roger's.

They returned without a word, through the forest. Annette had begged him

not to break the silence. He held her arm. His attitude was very tender.

She was smiling, with her eyes half closed. And this time it was he who

guided her steps. He did not recall that only an hour ago, at this very

spot, he had wept. . . .

In the depths of the forest the dog was barking in pursuit of

game. . . .

XVI

She took her departure on the following day. Her excuse was a letter, a

sudden illness of her old aunt. The Brissots were not completely fooled

by this. For some time they had been more suspicious than Roger that

Annette was escaping them. But it suited their dignity not to seem to

admit this possibility, and to believe in the reasons given for this

sudden departure. Up to the last moment they played a comedy of brief

separation and early reunion. This constraint was painful to Annette;

but Roger had begged her not to announce her decision until later, at

Paris, and Annette admitted to herself that she would have found it hard

to inform the Brissots by word of mouth. So, when they took leave of

each other, they exchanged smiles, coy words and embraces from which the

heart was absent.

Roger again accompanied Annette in a carriage to the station. They were

both sad. Roger had virtuously renewed his request to Annette that she

should marry him; he felt that he was bound to: he was a gentleman. Too

much of a one. He also felt that he had the right, now, to make his

authority felt,--in the interest of Annette. He thought that because she

had given herself, because Annette had abdicated, the situation between

them was no longer quite equal, and that he must now demand marriage.

Annette saw only too clearly that, if he married her now, he would think

himself justified a thousand times more than ever in playing her

guardian. Of course, she was grateful to him for his correct insistence.

But . . . she refused. Roger was secretly irritated by this. He no

longer understood her. . . . (He thought that he had always understood

her!) . . . And he judged her severely. He did not show it.

But she guessed it, with mingled sorrow and irony, and always

tenderness. . . . (He was still Roger! . . .)

When they had nearly arrived, she placed her gloved hand on Roger's

hand. He started:

"Annette!"

"Let us forgive each other!" she said.

He wished to speak; he could not. Their hands remained clasped. They did

not look at each other, but each knew that the other was holding back

the tears, ready to flow. . . .

They were at the station; they had to be discreet. Roger installed

Annette in her carriage. She was not alone in the compartment. They had

to restrict themselves to commonplace courtesies; but the eyes of each

were avidly seizing upon the image of the other's beloved face.

The engine whistled.

"Till we meet again!" they said.

And they were thinking: "Never!"

The train pulled out. Roger returned home in the falling night. His

heart was full of sorrow and of anger. Of anger against Annette. Of

anger against himself. He felt torn asunder. He felt--oh, shame!--he

felt relieved. . . .

And stopping his horse on the deserted road, in contempt for himself and

in contempt for love, he wept bitterly.

XVII

Annette returned home to the Boulogne house, and there she shut herself

up. When the letter to the Brissots had gone off, she severed all

connections with the outside world. None of her friends knew that she

had returned. She opened no letters. For days she never left the floor

on which she lived. Her old aunt, accustomed not to understand her and

not to worry about it, respected her isolation. Her external life seemed

suspended. Her other, secret life was only the more intense. Her silence

was swept by storms of wounded passion. She had to be alone so that she

might abandon herself to them to the point of exhaustion. She emerged

from them broken, her blood drained, her mouth parched, with burning

brow, and hands and feet like ice. There followed torpid periods given

over to deep dreams. For days she dreamed; and she made no effort to

direct her thoughts. She was invaded by a confused mass of mingled

emotions. . . . A somber melancholy, a bitter sweetness, a taste of

ashes in the mouth, disappointed hopes, sudden flashes of memory that

made her heart leap, fits of embittered despair, pride and passion, and

a sense of ruin, of the irremediable, of a Fate against which all

efforts are vain,--at first a crushing feeling, then mournful, then

dissolving into a drowsiness whose distant sorrow was marked by a

strange pleasure. . . . She did not understand. . . .

One night, in a dream, she saw herself in a bourgeoning forest. She was

alone. She was running through the thickets. Tree branches laid hold of

her dress, damp bushes clutched her; she freed herself, but tore her

clothes in doing so, and saw with shame that she was half naked. She

bent to cover herself with the tatters of her skirt. And then before

her, on the ground, she saw a small oval basket, beneath a pile of

sun-drenched leaves,--not yellow and gold, but white as silver, like the

trunk of a birch, white with the finest linen. Deeply moved, she looked

at it, she knelt beside it. She saw the linen begin to stir. With

beating heart, she stretched out her hand. . . . Her emotion

persisted. . . . She did not understand. . . .

There came a day--when she understood. . . . She was alone no

longer. . . . In her a life was arising, a new life. . . .

And the weeks passed, while she brooded over her hidden universe. . . .

"Love, is it really thou? Love, thou who hast fled me when I sought to

seize thee, hast thou entered into me? I hold thee, I hold thee, thou

shalt not escape me; oh, my little prisoner, I hold thee in my body.

Revenge thyself! Devour me! Little consuming creature, devour my vitals!

Nourish thyself on my blood! Thou art myself. Thou art my dream. Since I

could not find thee in this world, I have made thee with my flesh. . . .

And now, Love, I have thee! I am he whom I love! . . ."

THE END