PART II

AND EACH MAN KILLS THE THING HE LOVES

I KILLED the one I loved ... Raymond Cernay had said to me on that

mournful night.

It is almost the phrase of the “Ballad of Reading Gaol” which I have

used at the head of this transcription:--the explanation will come

later: “Yet each man kills the thing he loves.”

The first note-book was dated November of the year following the

death of Mme. Cernay. The second, also dated November, the month he

consecrated to thoughts of the past, was written one year later, and

one year therefore before my visit to the Sleeping Woods.

In the course of that same Autumn night in which I believed I had seen

death, I read the two without a pause.

_FIRST NOTE BOOK_

November 19--

Six months, day by day, have already passed since the moment when I

lost her. And already when I wish to recall them, many recollections

evade and escape me, or seem inconsistent.

I shall try to fix here all that I can grasp of joy and sorrow, from

our first meeting to her last breath. Thus, perhaps, I may be able to

keep her nearer me. Each effort to find suitable words will help me to

commune with her, as the faithful commune with God in prayer....

* * *

The first time that I caught a glimpse, between the two rows of oak

trees, of the chateau of the Sleeping Woods, I thought of a scene at

the opera.

Twelve years ago, on my return from Italy, I had passed the place in an

automobile. The road maps were none too good, and I had lost my way.

The road plunges down into the valley with many sharp turns. It was in

the early days of the new mode of locomotion and I was in the habit

of committing many imprudent acts. Nevertheless I was obliged to slow

down, and then, fascinated by the beauty of this forgotten nook, made

golden by the Autumn, as it is to-day with the light falling on the

last of the leaves, I stopped my car.

To stop was, and is still, for me to experience unusual sensations.

Ordinarily my impressions of landscapes are swiftly gathered. My eye is

trained to seize them at a glance, just as the snapping of the shutter

of a camera is sufficient to secure an instantaneous photograph. I had

never been able to stop for more than a minute or two. But now, I had a

sudden impulse to stop entirely.

On the gate, which was open and sprung,--I have not wished ever to

repair it--hung a sign announcing that the property was for sale.

Immediately I determined to purchase it.

At that time I was twenty-five years old; all I knew of life was the

intoxication of youth and strength. I was indeed one of those merciless

rulers of the upper classes who do not tolerate restraint from law or

men while they have, or think they have, the means of escaping it. I

had at my disposal a fortune whose extent I did not measure; my whim

was my guide, and I recognised no obstacle. Who would have been able

to convince me that there were limits to my wishes? The friends whom I

favoured or neglected at will were flatterers and parasites whom one

picked up in abundance in the resorts of pleasure. If the women that I

selected did not treat me with cruelty, the very nature of their choice

would have prevented me from deriving any pride from it, if it had not

been for the ridiculous admiration that I openly professed for myself.

Crude and headstrong, what a foolish creature a young man is before he

has been flayed by the plane of suffering, of compelling ambition or by

love!

The chateau pleased me. Therefore I coveted the property at once. I

could scarcely conceive of beauty without possession, and immediate

possession.

As I approached the lodge a young girl was leaving it. She wore no hat

and her beautiful hair covered her shoulders. A lock or two had blown

out of place and gleamed like pure gold in the sunlight. But I thought

her neither pretty nor ugly. I had noticed at once that she was only a

slight, unformed girl, fourteen or fifteen years old at the most, an

age which did not interest me.

“Here, little girl,” I called to her, as if I were speaking to a

servant.

She turned around, revealing a startled countenance.

“What’s your name,” I continued.

She stiffened, as she answered:

“Mlle. Raymonde Mairieux, Monsieur.”

She had taught me a lesson; what right had I to address her so

familiarly? But I did not understand at first, and having caught only

her first name I answered:

“Raymonde? And I am Raymond.”

I burst out into a stupid laugh at a coincidence that was sufficiently

trivial. My laughter completed her fear, my laughter and my goatskin

motor coat as well, which gave me the appearance of some shaggy animal.

She hurried back to hide herself in the lodge, as a hunted hare seeks

its form. I followed her, opened the door without ringing, entered

a hall and then a room which I found to be the kitchen. There I

breathed the appetising odour of a dish of potatoes au-gratin, which

gave promise of being delicious. It was not far from noon and I was

very hungry. In fashionable restaurants one cannot get true potatoes

au-gratin. This particular dish made my nostrils dilate with desire.

I leaned over it. I inhaled the odour with avidity. Nothing in the

world would have induced me to leave without tasting it. Already a

threatening cook, emerging from the pantry, was shrieking aloud at the

sight of a wild animal in her kitchen. She shook a soup ladle in her

hand, crying out at the thief.

I tried in vain to reassure her.

“No, no! My Heavens, I will pay you what you want,” I said.

The superintendent, M. Mairieux, attracted by the commotion, now ran

into the room. He did not waste any time, but would have thrown me

out bodily without listening to me. At last I succeeded in explaining

my presence, and my desire both to buy the chateau and to devour the

potatoes.

“The chateau, yes,” he replied, “the gratin, no.”

Nothing excited me like contradiction.

“I shall not take the one without the other,” I declared. “The chateau

and the gratin at the market price.”

“My dinner is not for sale,” said M. Mairieux.

“Then invite me.”

“I don’t know who you are,” he returned.

This conversation was being carried on in a kitchen which I had entered

by force. Despite my self-satisfaction, I had to admit that my manner

of introducing myself was hardly a correct one. I opened my coat,

therefore, which, incidentally, was suffocating me, and presented my

card. At the same time I offered to write a cheque at once for the

price of the property. At this the superintendent multiplied the number

of his objections.

“It is impossible,” he said, “you have not seen the place.”

“One glance has been sufficient for me. It pleases me.”

“But we must discuss the price. It is my duty to protect the interests

of Count d’Alligny. The amount which he named is not definite.”

“Then you can arrange that with him,” I said; “and now for the dinner

table. That gratin should be delicious.”

My companion evidently took me for a lunatic, but an unexpected ally

presented herself in the person of the cook, who, flattered by my

compliment, suggested that she set another place. I clapped my hands.

“That’s right, that’s right. Quick, another place! As for my chauffeur

he can have his luncheon when we have finished.”

“Your chauffeur?”

“Yes, I left him outside in the automobile. He takes care of the car

and I run it. A fine machine, eh?”

* * *

While the table was being set and Mme. Mairieux was being informed of

the incident I told M. Mairieux how I had happened to reach the gate

with my car. He condescended at last to take me seriously on account of

the automobile’s forty horse power. That was the way I lunched for the

first time with my future parents-in-law.

Mme. Mairieux immediately took me under her protection, but Raymonde

did not address a word to me. For my part, it is true, I paid no

attention to the child.

When I was well-fed and nourished and it was time for me to go, I

repeated my offer of the cheque for the property. M. Mairieux, however,

would not accept it. Instead, he gave me the address of the attorney

whom Count d’Alligny had put in charge of the sale.

“Is his office far from here?” I enquired.

“The town is about nine or ten miles distant.”

“I shall go there and sign the papers at once.”

“Think it over a little longer,” he said.

“I never reflect,” I replied, “and besides have I not eaten your

gratin?”

“It will prove expensive,” replied my host with a laugh.

While my chauffeur was cranking his machine, I observed on M.

Mairieux’s face a pre-occupied, anxious expression as if he had

something to say which embarrassed him. He did not make up his mind to

put it into words until just as we were leaving.

“No doubt,” he stammered timidly, “you will replace the superintendent.”

“What superintendent? You? Never in the world. On the contrary, I shall

buy the property only on condition that you remain. Your cook will give

her recipes to my chef.”

The cook, who had come out from the lodge in order to watch me get

under way, blushed to the roots of her hair with satisfaction, before

hiding behind the Mairieux family which had gathered to say good-bye.

We exchanged resounding farewells. The little girl alone did not open

her mouth.

* * *

My fine enthusiasm had no immediate result. I waited two years before

I returned to the Sleeping Woods. Without losing a minute, I had

signed the deed of transfer in due form, but once I was away other

adventures less strange and more absorbing led me elsewhere. I endorsed

the accounts without verifying them. How many accounts during my

lifetime have I passed without verifying! In this case at least, with

my scrupulous superintendent, I could do so without fear. And then

one fine day, remembering my property, I took there a company of my

acquaintances, with little enough to recommend them.

I had notified Mr. Mairieux by telegram. We descended upon the place

like a cyclone, with champagne, patties and cakes, a rattle of dishes

and an uproar of cries and laughter. It was a great scandal in the

country. The Mairieux family, shut up in the lodge, did not even show

their noses at the windows. And when I visited them, I encountered icy

frigidity. I enquired familiarly for news of their daughter, whom I had

not seen.

“And Raymonde?”

“Mlle. Mairieux is very well,” replied her father solemnly.

I left there the more depressed, because I felt that I had done wrong

disturbing the peace of these good people.

But then, are you compelled to place restraint upon yourself in order

to retain the good opinion of your superintendent?

Happily Mariette, the cook, comforted me with a word of welcome. But I

dared not order another gratin from her. And the pretentious chef whom

I had brought with me completely spoiled the one which he tried himself

to prepare for me.

* * *

I wonder at landlords who live on their estates. How do they spend

their time? As for me, I was always knocking about, always somewhere

else.

A year later I came back again, but this time alone. I had learned

my lesson. My physician, somewhat alarmed by certain symptoms of

overwork--physical overwork--had prescribed a rest cure.

“You need a place where you will bore yourself,” he had said, “where

you can stay a good month without any distraction. If I knew some

thoroughly uncivilised spot I should send you there.”

“Ah,” I said, “don’t look. I have the thing you want, my chateau in the

Sleeping Woods.”

He agreed, after some explanation, that it was perfect, and so

behold me established in my own house by order of the doctor. Being

distrustful of me the Mairieux family extended no invitations. They

remembered my previous visit and maintained their reserve. But after

all a superintendent is a superintendent, and I was certainly not going

to cringe before him. My physician had condemned me to boredom; I was

having it in abundance. There was no one to see, no one to talk to,

and the length of the days made one believe that the sun had forgotten

itself.

* * *

But--Spring was in the woods!

I thought I knew her, and I soon found that I had not known her at all.

Each morning in the forest paths I discovered some new manifestation of

her presence. New buds appeared on the trees, and little garlands of

green leaves seemed to creep from branch to branch like insects, and

little by little made a robe of themselves. On the sward and in the

moss she opened the bells of the lily of the valley, and in the hedges

the wild roses. In the orchards she powdered the apple and cherry trees

with white and pink snow, stolen from the mountains already re-covered

with a new supply and glistening in the sunlight before God! How

charming were all these daily details! And before, had I delighted in

this spectacle, or rather, to be more accurate, had I ever followed so

closely the joyous and wonderful march of Springtime?

But at last I met Spring herself.

I met her on her fête day, which in some of our provinces is still

celebrated on the first of May. Those of us who spend the greater part

of our lives in the city, where one day is like another, are ignorant

of the things that it is important to know, beginning with the earth’s

renewal.

There are customary ways of celebrating the coming of Spring, and these

ways, differing in various parts of the world, reveal the delicate or

coarse tastes of the people. I recall one night, many years ago, being

awakened by a frightful tumult. It was at Saint Moritz, whither I had

gone for the skating and coasting. Hunting horns, fifes, clarions,

trumpets, tambourines, cowbells, gongs, cymbals, rattles and castanets,

as well as cans tied to the tails of maddened dogs;--there was all

this in this imperial charivari. I jumped out of bed, convinced that

the hotel was afire, and ran to the window. In fact, there was a red

glow shaking and moving about beneath me. In the glare of torches

triumphing over the night, I saw from fifty to a hundred young boys

capering around like demons, blowing horns with the full strength of

their lungs or drumming with their arms. The light was sufficient for

me to distinguish their triumphant faces. They passed by and little

by little the tempest which they had unchained died away. I looked

at my watch, it was five o’clock in the morning. What could be the

meaning of all this music? I was furious at such a premature reveille,

but, not understanding the reason for it, I put off the search for

an explanation. At a more suitable hour I attempted to obtain some

information. Nobody at the hotel, however, seemed surprised by the

performance.

“Did you hear that row?” I enquired.

“Most certainly,” I was told.

“What does it mean?”

“It is the birthday of Spring.”

The birthday of Spring! March had just begun, and it had snowed the

greater part of the day before. All the neighbouring mountains were

white, and there was not the faintest trace of verdure to be seen; even

the pitch pines were hidden by the frost.

This birthday of Spring seemed to me a little precocious. In the

Engadine it takes place on the eve of Shrovetide, and the formidable

uproar is intended to drive away the winter, to give it its rude

dismissal. Possibly that is necessary in a country where the winter is

prone to fall asleep and never depart. If one did not scream in his

ears “Go away” he might remain throughout the year. Therefore in that

country they pray to Spring in the midst of cold and darkness.

At the Sleeping Woods such a hubbub is not necessary. Things happen

differently. But that day is so important to me that, reluctant to

recall it, I have interposed some other recollections. Still, nothing

happened to me on that day.

Nothing happened to me on that day, and yet that day is the brightest

of my life!

Little girls and boys, all of them barefooted--for those who had shoes

carried them in their hands in order not to wear them out on the hard

roads--appeared at the end of the avenue of oaks. I stood astonished at

the window.

“What does that lot of brats want?” I thought. They marched along

singing, and very quickly, too, for their little legs. When they

reached the arches of the cloister, just below me, they entertained me

with a song. It was an old folk song, which I had once heard sung at a

concert, but had not imagined to be genuine; by that I mean to say I

did not know that it was really sung in the country. Out in the open

air, bursting from these youthful lips, it soared in swift flight far

higher than in any theatre.

“Who taught you that?” I asked, when they had finished.

“Nobody.”

“Did you all know it when you were born?”

“Surely.”

I have kept the words of the refrain. Whoever thinks them commonplace,

does not grasp their real significance:

Awaken, sleeping beauty!

Awaken, if you sleep.

To me this beautiful sleeping one is Nature, who stretches herself

after the winter’s sleep and smiles in the woods and in the gardens.

After this the children ranged themselves on the lawn, the girls on one

side and the boys on the other, and danced--upon my word--a pavane.

Perhaps it was not really a pavane, but I will not call it otherwise.

It deserved that beautiful name, for it included some complicated

steps, embellished with graceful bows.

I threw them some coppers and even some silver pieces. They scarcely

thanked me, which impaired their success with me, and ran away toward

the lodge. Why several moments later did they burst out into such

clamorous joy, a joy that piqued me? I came down from my room and

approached them. Seated at M. Mairieux’s table they were eating,

drinking and laughing with their mouths full. Then they went off with

red cheeks and full stomachs to other houses and other villages.

“Everywhere,” my superintendent explained, “they gather presents of

bread and butter, cheese, eggs and other provisions in accordance with

each one’s resources, but no one gives them money, and in the evening

they return to their own homes well laden. Even the poor offer them

something. You understand, no one refuses anything to those who herald

fine days. We must pay attention to these swarms of little children

when we see them passing by as the days grow longer. They warn us

to watch for the Spring, and to rejoice when we perceive it in the

distance.”

Thus forewarned, I did not fail to meet it.

After I had followed the children, I plunged into the woods. As I

reached the cross-roads that are called the Green Fountain, because of

a tiny little natural basin whose clear water rests on a bed of soft

starry moss, I saw Spring coming from afar.

She was riding a horse that was a golden chestnut, and I caught sight

of her under the light, broken arch of an alley of ash trees, coming

slowly and inattentively toward me. I held my breath, for fear that I

might alarm her, for I was ignorant of the forest customs of the gods.

Motionless, I awaited her approach. When she was quite near, I removed

my hat, and saluted her politely, as courteously as I could.

“Good-day, Mlle. Raymonde.”

That was Spring’s name.

Quite proud of my own valour, I was to learn that the gods are

sometimes afraid of simple mortals. My “Spring” turned about and fled

away at a gallop, her youthful body swaying in rhythm with each stride

of her horse. Soon she disappeared, leaving me, after one movement of

offended pride, in a state of depression that was almost anger.

I rushed away to the lodge.

“How many horses have you?” I asked M. Mairieux.

“Only one, my old Sultan,” he answered.

“The one which your daughter is riding now?”

“Yes, I trust him, he is very gentle.”

“Well, I want two more, one for you and one for me. Set yourself to

find them. We shall arrange some riding parties.”

He was accustomed to my sudden wishes, and to this one he lent himself

with a good will. Together we rode through the neighbouring woods, both

those of the estate, which covered close to a hundred acres, and which

I, as the proprietor, explored with delight, and those of Sylve-Benite,

which were more extensive and more broken.

The dead leaves amassed by the winter in the roads are soft under

horses’ feet, and we rode along noiselessly. As if by magic the

returning verdure covered all the branches of the trees. The forest,

which seems boundless when it is bare, now enclosed us, embraced us,

and hemmed us in with a jealous love. Here and there an opening, whence

one or two paths branched off, restored to us our sense of space:

at the end of the vaulted ways holes of light marked the horizon.

Nevertheless the foliage was quite high, and the oblique rays of the

setting sun shone through among the straight, slender trunks of the

trees.

After these excursions, I often invited myself to the home of the

Mairieux. My superintendent never accepted my invitations to dine

at the chateau, although in his little house he gave me the warmest

welcome in the world, and yet, I must say, with perfect simplicity and

without display. Mme. Mairieux would have preferred more ostentation,

but happily he restrained her. The poor woman, I recall now, never

ceased to evince toward me a kind of sanctimonious admiration. Later I

realised that this unmerited worship was directed toward my fortune,

through an inborn and conventional respect for social distinctions.

At that time, however, I thought it was due to myself, and I did not

dislike it. It fed my vanity.

She questioned me incessantly about Paris, about the theatres, the

fashions and what she called “the grand life,” and never noticed that

her husband indulged her with a courtesy that was a trifle mocking. “We

live in a desert here,” was her favourite expression, the prelude to,

and the excuse for, her questions.

Although in delicate health, she was still very pretty, pretty with

that grace and delicacy which one sees in the eighteenth century

pastels, and which implies in most cases a shallow mind, always ready

to blossom forth in society, and less fitted for intimacy. The powder

which she used to excess strengthened this resemblance. I have since

learned of her humble origin. In order to marry her, M. Mairieux, then

an officer in the chasseurs, left the army, for she could not bring

him the prescribed dowry. They settled at first at Compiègne, where an

honourable place was offered the former captain, the supervision and

maintenance of a part of the forest.

“We rode to hounds then, Monsieur,” said Mme. Mairieux, in recalling

that brilliant phase of her existence.

Whether it was due to the too keen pleasure that she took in hunting,

or to a taste for more complete isolation, or to more pressing

necessities, M. Mairieux accepted an offer to bury himself at the

Sleeping Woods, close to his native country, and to manage for Count

d’Alligny, whom he had known at Saint-Cyr, this estate, which was in a

bad enough way.

I perceive that I am not setting down my true opinion of Mme. Mairieux.

She showed on every occasion that power of adaption to circumstances

which is characteristic of happy natures. When the time arrived to

leave Compiègne, where she enjoyed herself, I know that she did not

protest, and physical ills she always faced with courage. Without doubt

she loved, and still loves, glittering, stirring, noisy things; many

women have the same taste. She is perfectly good and loyal. If she has

never suspected the martyrdom which exhausted and then slowly killed

her daughter, I cannot forget that even this lack of comprehension

has perhaps helped to save me from despair by making me doubt the

extent of my culpability. For her I have remained a sort of god, to

whom everything is permitted, who has the right to be an unscrupulous

egotist, for no other reason than because he is. Although she sometimes

bores me with her trivial worldliness, which was strong enough to

survive Raymonde’s death, and which will last as long as she herself

does, now that I know her thoroughly, her affection touches me. My

marriage only flattered her maternal pride. She has retained this

somewhat childish feeling, and I cannot bear her a grudge for it.

As for M. Mairieux, although our mutual sorrow has not brought us

closer together--for he has divined its cause--what can I write here

that will be worthy of my respect for him? His sensitive pride, which

at that time prevented his accepting my invitations to the chateau

and later caused him to reject, with a certain excess of resolution,

offers from a son-in-law whose highest wish was to be taken for a

son; the uprightness and nobility of his character, even the courtesy

which enabled him to maintain unaffectedly the proper distance

between us, should have enlightened me as to his ancient lineage and

the superiority of his nature; matters to which, at that time, my

thoughtlessness attached no importance. The firmness underlying his

kindliness, the adoration which he bestowed upon his daughter and

afterwards extended to Dilette; his generosity, which permitted him

to appear to attribute my ill-omened work to the fates rather than to

myself, by virtue perhaps, of the unfortunate lesson he had received

in his own life of the differences of taste and feelings;--all that I

venerate in him brings me closer to the memory of my dear Raymonde.

* * *

Little by little, during our rides together, I saw Raymonde’s shyness

and reticence melt, like the mist which rises from the earth when the

dew evaporates in the light of a beautiful morning.

The first time I heard her laugh I stopped in surprise. It sounded so

crystalline, so pure, so aerial, that no note of music in my memory

could suggest an equivalent. She was greatly amused by my ignorance.

I did not know how to distinguish an ash tree from a beech, an aspen

from an elm, or a hornbeam from a sycamore. At first I was not a very

apt pupil. The usefulness of this forest-lore did not impress me. I

permitted myself to be instructed as a pastime, but she brought much

patience to the work, for she believed in it. What do we learn at

college, that we should be ignorant of such elementary things? If I had

asked of her, as I asked the children about their songs, who had taught

them to her, she would doubtless have answered as they did:

“No one.”

The forest, of which she was the little queen, revealed to me all its

rites and mysteries; not only those which one sees from horseback in

the alleys, but those also which belong to the depths of its life and

which one must seek on foot, gently, under its arched trees, as one

studies the aisles of a church and the ornaments of the chapels.

“A tree, like a human being, grows refined in society,” M. Mairieux

explained to me. “When it stands alone we see its trunk short, stumpy

and gnarled, its roots cramped in the soil, its foliage growing close

to the ground and its summit bare, as if it had rolled itself up to

resist the wind; but in the company of others it reveals a smooth,

round shaft, bare of branches until far up, while at the top they

form a thick and symmetrical group. But this elegance, this dash,

this grace, I was about to say this politeness, does not preclude the

competition which is the law of nature. A grove of beautiful trees

rises toward the sun, each wishes to receive from on high the light of

day, and the conquered ones, broken and suffocated, degenerate and soon

perish. The law of selection is at work here as everywhere, for the

benefit of the strong who overthrow the weak and attain to a free and

higher expansion.”

Raymonde admired the victors, but disapproved of their pride.

“I believe,” she said, “that if I were changed into a tree, I should be

a species of shadow.”

“A species of shadow?” I repeated in astonishment.

“Yes, there are trees of shadow and trees of light. Did you not know

that?”

And then while her father listened to her tenderly as she instructed me

in her turn, she obligingly taught me how to distinguish them. Trees

of light are the oak, which, despite the fable, resists the storm, the

exquisite but robust birch, the pitch pine, which still grows at an

altitude of eighteen hundred metres, and the even hardier larch, which

attains the land of external snow; the shadow trees are the fir and the

beech, with their delicate organisms, sensitive to frost, the attacks

of the sun and the lack of water. They too bravely attempt to storm the

mountain, but they are in too close touch with the elements. Whatever

affects the earth, affects them. They forecast the atmospheric changes.

They experience the suffering of the sun as well as its joy, for which

they hasten to smile with due gravity. In them the heart of the world

beats more delicately. The others are harder and their fate simpler.

I at once placed myself among the trees of light. One morning, Raymonde

picked up a seed which was supplied with a wing.

“The trees fly,” she told me. “See how the wind can carry them along!”

At the border of the forest she threw the tiny seed in the air with

this incantation:

“Go find favourable soil, and grow to shelter a happy home some day.”

Before she tossed it to the wind, I studied the little wing

attentively. Those of the birds had never inspired me with any desire

to rival them, but this little vegetable membrane disturbed me. Later I

recalled this omen of the forest....

* * *

Thus our walks were full of sweetness.

I was in love with her eighteen years. No woman, no young girl whom I

had ever met, had offered me such clearness of regard, such freshness.

The others, like the children of St. Moritz, had created a great uproar

in order to arouse the springtime in my heart. It was too soon, or

maybe the barbarians lacked the grace of our little children at the

Sleeping Woods, for whom a song without such a multitude of brass pans

and drums, was sufficient to announce the coming of joy.

* * *

I should have delighted in what was to me an unpublished story, in the

feeling of new birth into such supreme love as it is the privilege of

few lives to know; but instead I plotted an infernal scheme of which,

as I confess it to-day, after so long a time, I am still ashamed.

My absolute power recognised no scruples. The persons with whom I

associated habitually scoffed freely at conventionalities and all

moral restraint, and treated virtue, honour, and respect for women as

hypocrisy. I was willing to betray without remorse the confidence of

the Mairieux. As for the complicity of the young girl in my scheme, I

did not imagine that the whim of a multi-millionaire could encounter

obduracy. Must she not, like her mother, be dying of ennui “in this

desert”? I would awaken my sleeping beauty of the woods, and carry her

off to Paris. What could be more natural? What more fine?

My plan was laid. There only remained the simple task of securing

Raymonde’s consent. I might obtain it by means of jewels as in Faust,

or through the fascination of Paris as in Manon. The everlasting

presence of her father prevented my paving the way, but I took

advantage one day of a sufficiently useless forestry investigation with

which I had purposely charged M. Mairieux, to propose to our Amazon

that I should accompany her alone on her ride. I intended to seize the

opportunity to open negotiations. Our conversation was of the shortest,

and I shall record it faithfully:

“Mlle. Raymonde,” I began, “would you not like to go to Paris?”

“Of course,” she answered, “I should love it.”

“With me? Would you consent if I asked you very nicely?”

“Oh yes, with you. Because in the forest I can guide you, but in Paris

you would be guide.”

She laughed as she lowered her head to avoid a branch. I can see her

now!

“We’ll go as soon as possible,” I said.

“To-night, if you wish to.”

“To-night, then, I want to very much.”

And again her laugh, the laugh of a little girl, rang clear in the

alley. She touched her horse lightly with her riding whip and old

Sultan went off at a gallop. As I urged on my horse to rejoin her, I

was stupefied by the speed of my conquest.

“Look at those little humbugs who are so reserved and discreet,” I

thought. “At the first word of love they catch fire.” For the meaning

of our departure, emphasized by the equivocal tone I had employed, was,

I thought, very explicit. No one could possibly have been deceived by

it.

Then, as suddenly as she had started off, my companion and accomplice

halted.

“We must go home at once,” she said.

“What for?” I asked.

“Why, to let father and mother know we are going away.”

I opened my eyes in astonishment, which she interpreted at once.

“Let us go on,” she said, “I see clearly that it was only a joke. You

were amusing yourself with my credulity. And besides;--”

“And besides?” I repeated in my bewilderment. “I am like my father--I

prefer the Sleeping Woods.”

The enormity of my aberration caused me at that moment one of the

keenest disappointments of my life. How could I even have thought

of the possibility of realising such a preposterous scheme! So keen

was my discomfort that I must have looked like a fool. But later, I

detected with delight a feeling of shame that was quite new to me. When

one has misused his all, such a discovery is full of enchantment. One

perceives, beyond the dull fields he has travelled all too often, a

shining country which draws him on, toward which he gazes as Moses must

have gazed upon the Promised Land. I tried to regain my composure.

“Why?” I said at random.

“I do not know. Paris frightens me.”

Then she added gaily: “No doubt I shall never go there. So much the

worse for me.”

We turned toward home. Except for a few insignificant words she said

nothing more to me, as if a belated intuition had warned her not to

prolong the conversation. During the following days, and up to the time

of my departure, she carefully avoided a tête-à-tête. Or perhaps she

did not even think of one. I too did not desire to meet her. It seemed

to me that I had insulted her, and the cowardice of my intentions, if

not of my acts, wounded my pride. This feeling was stronger even than

her attraction for me. Her presence threw me into a state of extreme

confusion which I bore with impatience. I was relieved to get away. At

the Sleeping Woods I felt lowered and shrunken in my own esteem. And

nothing is more unnerving.

I returned to my former life, but with this difference, that, disgusted

with the gross cynicism cultivated by my free set, I went more into

formal society. This was the worse for me, however, for I lost thereby

that mental independence which some day might have been guided into

more natural channels.

I frequented several salons, and was led to reflect bitterly not only

upon the frailty of women, though I took advantage of it, but also upon

their ability to forget, a frailty and an ability possessed in equal

parts by those women whose broadly scattered amorous favours encourage

young people in the delusion that such as they represent all womankind.

But this harmful and commonplace pessimism was of little account

compared with another and much more dangerous habit of mind which I

began to form. To it I attribute my unhappiness. The spectacle of

society had infected me with the craze for scheming and success. I

considered nothing comparable to the momentary triumphs achieved by a

costume, a clever word or conversation. In things like these I saw the

quintessence of glory. Should not a man seize his share of it? In my

world it blazed in kohl-widened eyes, in rouged cheeks, in cunningly

suggestive words and bared flesh. Like the trees of the forest, this

mass of men and women flung themselves up to the light that glittered

on them, and trampled down the weakest. Did not the desire to please,

to prove themselves superior to each other, induce them to surpass

themselves and put forth their greatest powers of seduction? And had I

not recognized that I belonged to _the trees of light_? What did I care

for closet scholars, for those creative minds whom their own thought

satisfies, for lovers imprisoned by their love, for all humanity at

labor? The obvious triumphs of society furnished me with sufficient

excitement. Thus I began a course of frittering away a life which

excessive prosperity and a lack of discipline had already marred, but

which, thanks to a new emotion, I was on the point of being able to

redeem, when of my own accord I threw away the opportunity.

In this way two years rolled by. They were two years of intoxication

and poison. Pierre Ducal, one of those false friends whom public

opinion rather than our own taste thrusts upon us, handed me the

poison. His reputation he had built with a smile upon devastation

and ruin, as well as upon frivolity, in which he quite understood

his power, and he took pains equally with his liaisons and with his

waistcoats. His assurance in the most delicate situations, that social

dexterity which is often the possession of those who live only for

the moment, I regarded as the refinement of intellect. He played with

passions which he did not really feel. I too indulged in this dangerous

game which wears away and withers the heart, and my emotions became

mere vanities. By a miracle, it is true, I was going to recover my

health, but in the moral as in the physical world one cannot inhale

with impunity deadly germs. Their evil effects endure.

* * *

Mlle. Mairieux had taken advantage of these two years to blossom forth

like a flower on a long stem. Her slender figure did not indicate

weakness so much as a life in the open air. If she blushed or turned

pale too rapidly it was due to a sensitiveness too exquisite, like

that of the shadow trees, not to the fluctuations of an irregular

circulation.

Her features were regular without being bold, and were softened by a

crown of blond hair of blended shades, so thick that combs could with

difficulty restrain it. And her eyes, which had been so large before,

seemed to me to have grown even larger. It seemed as if the whole sky

had sought to enter into them. Had I seen her again in the woods, she

would have appeared to me like a huntress, more quickly frightened than

the hunted game.

I have often searched my memory, in order to defend myself against

the fault with which I feel charged, for any physical symptoms which

at that time might have foretold the shortness of her life. I cannot

recall any. Though the doctors were not able to discover the origin of

that strange malady which, after having long sapped her strength, at

last carried her away, I, I know whence it came, and I know too that it

was not her body that was first attacked.

During our separation I had almost avoided going back to her even in

my thought. What with superficial occupation, sport, travel and some

sensual indulgence, ordinarily one is fairly successful in suppressing

such a fancy. The instant I saw her again, however, my love revived.

Had I imprisoned her in the chateau of the Sleeping Woods, and was she

only awaiting my return?

* * *

The summer which I spent on my estate was warm and stormy. The forest

offered us its freshness, its sheltered nooks, its peace. But why was

it that we did not resume our rides? My superintendent evaded any reply

to my suggestions. He had devoted more time than I to observing the

external attractions of his daughter. To her I spoke only with the most

scrupulous deference, for the most part in the presence of her parents,

only occasionally when we met alone, these meetings having now become

rare. Her clear eyes remained inscrutable to me. Why was it that she

did not realise I loved her? And if she did realise it, why did she

give no evidence of her joy and gratitude?

Yes, her gratitude. For there was no use in my recognising in her every

moral superiority over the women that I had previously met; I was still

confident that I was doing her a favour in loving her. Her father might

belong to a family much older than my own; but he was nevertheless my

employé. She would mount in the social scale. I would raise her to

my level. Through me she would attain the summit of fortune. Out of

a little sylvan nymph I was going to create one of those divinities

who reign over Paris, one of those queens whose despotic tyranny

and recognised fascination I had recently experienced. Was not that

enough to intoxicate her? I thought how I could inform her of her good

fortune tactfully, in order not to overwhelm her with the revelation.

Thus do we judge from on high when we perch ourselves upon riches and

prejudice. We like to believe that we attach no importance to them,

that we are showing genuine simplicity, that we treat as equals those

whom we overwhelm with our insolence; and all the time the treasures

of the soul escape our vision. We need the virgin ore, and we make use

only of the minted gold!

I should have prolonged this period of waiting; for me a period of

spiritual refreshment. Raymonde was nearing her twentieth birthday,

the white summit of her first youth. In her “desert” she had sprung

up like a lily of the fields. She was ignorant of the very existence

of those sensations, those flirtations, those trivial love affairs,

which, weak emotions though they are, mere forerunners to true love,

are yet sufficient to tarnish the heart of a young girl, to put upon

it a useless stigma before life has really begun. But those women who

preserve themselves unsullied even in their inmost thoughts, who cross

their pure hands upon their breasts as though to guard the tabernacle

of their future and only love--what husband can ever merit the absolute

surrender that they will some day make to him? Can he ever comprehend,

can he ever realise the significance of such a gift of infinite

confidence, of undying promise? He accepts his conquest as if it were a

foreign country, while all the sweetness of a fatherland is offered to

him. Yes, I should have prolonged that period of waiting.

Before marriage every man ought to compel himself to retire from the

world, to leave an interval between his past and that future for which

he is not prepared. A little time must be permitted to flow over our

dead passions. A new life demands a new-born spirit. My self-conceit

convinced me that I was beloved by Raymonde, although nothing had

betrayed her. Might I not have profited by this security to attempt

to merit her love by cultivating my own? Was there any need to demand

so soon a useless confession, when the spectacle of a heart which was

ignorant of itself could cleanse my heart that knew too much?

On the contrary I was all impatience and desire. I imagined in advance

Raymonde’s joy on learning that among all others I had chosen her for

my wife. I wished to be the only one to see her transfigured face.

Without any fear of reversing the convention I intended to speak to her

first, in order the better to enjoy her surprise. Later I would speak

to her parents, who would be only too happy to consent to so brilliant

a match! Such was the arrangement I determined upon.

Chance favoured me after I had spent several days in a vain attempt to

arrange so important an interview. I had asked Mme. Mairieux, of whom

I knew I could easily dispose, at the opportune moment, to come to the

chateau, to help me with some household arrangements with which I was

not satisfied. I hoped that Raymonde would accompany her. However, she

came without her mother. Less perspicacious than her husband, Mme.

Mairieux kept no supervision over her daughter’s actions. Besides, did

not Raymonde’s own dignity protect her sufficiently? I looked upon her

with an intoxication of delight, but how can I depict what I felt?

I looked at her as a sovereign at his subject, as an Ahasuerus upon

an Esther. My imagination dwelt lovingly upon the dream that she was

about to realise through me. She was coming to me who awaited her. In a

few moments she would learn of her good fortune. It seemed to me that

I could already hear her heart beat. It would beat like that of the

pigeon which I had once wounded while hunting. I had picked it up in my

hands and felt its warm life as I caressed it, the warm life that was

ebbing away.

After we had settled the details in question I suggested that we look

over the chateau.

“It is strange,” I said, “that you have never visited it. Would you

like to?”

“Very much,” she replied.

We began our inspection of the salon and the galleries. I opened

the doors for the young girl and showed her the pictures and the

furniture, while she listened attentively to my small remarks. She

wore, I remember, a dress of white serge, touching in its simplicity,

and rather clumsily cut, which, however, did not succeed in concealing

the slender lines of her figure. The plain dress seemed to match the

frankness of her face and the peace of her eyes.

Outside it was one of those September days whose close one dreads, for

fear that on the morrow one may not find its equal.

After our little expedition was over and she was about to leave, I

stopped her:

“Would you enjoy living here, Mlle. Raymonde?”

She turned her calm eyes to me.

“Our lodge satisfies me,” she said.

So then I should have to dazzle her with one stroke, in spite of my

desire to drink in her emotion slowly and in little swallows. She would

not guess. Not to lose anything of the agitation she was about to feel

I looked her full in the face, as I went on:

“You will leave your lodge some day.”

She was astonished and even showed some anxiety.

“Our lodge? When?”

“When you marry.”--

Then, in order to strike her the more suddenly, I added with scarcely a

pause: “When you become my wife.”

I watched for the rapture which these magic words were surely to

produce. Instead she only burst into a laugh, though it seemed to me

that the laugh did not have its accustomed clearness.

“It is absurd,” she said, “to make fun that way.”

I insisted that I was in earnest, and repeated my declaration, which

was more like an announcement than a proposal of marriage, so certain

was I in advance of her consent. Could the idea of a refusal have

entered my mind? I could sooner have believed that Raymonde was mad.

When at last she understood, I saw the colour leave her face. She swung

for a second like a boat on the sea when the wind rises, and then she

fled at full speed through the open door of the ante-chamber.

I scarcely heard her light tread as she descended the stairs, but I saw

her cross the court without slackening her speed. In the same way two

years before she had run away at the Green Fountain. Was it even then

on account of my love?

To me, her flight was an insult, an unjust and cruel insult, and I

hastened to lay the blame for it upon the Mairieux. Did not this girl

deserve to be scolded for her rudeness? And what was the meaning of

this access of shyness? at the very moment when I was thinking of

checking generously an outburst of gratitude!

Nevertheless I loved her, and to lose her would have been intolerable.

But, like the majority of lovers, I could not distinguish between love

and the selfish gratification of my immediate desires.

The elder Mairieux, whom I found in their drawing room, raised dismayed

faces to me. Indeed, it is stretching a point to say that I was not

even welcomed by my superintendent. Raymonde had told them nothing, and

they were laying all the blame upon me.

“Where is your daughter,” I demanded of them almost violently.

“In her room--what have you said that has wounded her so? I insist upon

knowing.”

It was a new M. Mairieux that I, dumbfounded by this note of

antagonism, saw before me. His broad experience of life, his

indifference to the fashionable world, his courtesy in his business

relations, the good-fellowship of his conversations with me,

everything, in short, which had made our relations so agreeable,

prevented me from crediting him with such firmness of character. Now,

however, when his daughter was concerned, he spoke with an authority I

had not anticipated.

In a single word I explained the situation.

“I asked her to marry me and she ran away.”

M. Mairieux, accustomed as he was to the quickness of my resolves,

understood at once. So much his smile told me, a smile that was quite

grave, somewhat serious even, in the face of such wonderful news. He

repeated my statement to his wife, who could not believe her ears, and

insisted upon demanding further explanations from me without giving me

an opportunity to utter a word.

“Is it really true, monsieur? Do you wish to marry our daughter?” she

exclaimed, and then lifting her hands to heaven, she cried: “And she

ran away from you!”

This particular gesture, and in fact, her general attitude, flattered

my vanity a little. But I knew that Mme. Mairieux was peculiarly alive

to the social advantages of this union, even more to them than to the

material benefits that would result from it.

“Be seated, monsieur,” said the good woman; “I am going to scold

Raymonde and bring her down to you.”

“Wait,” ordered her husband.

It was a command which conveyed a warning to her. Then he began to

question me about the hasty scene at the chateau. His conclusion was

that I should have talked to him before I spoke to his daughter. I was

no longer addressing my superintendent, but the father of Raymonde,

from whom I wished to take, without obtaining his consent, that which

was most precious to him. A totally new view of life was opened to

me, upon which I had never bestowed a thought. His reasoning overcame

me, and though I was conquered by it for the moment, I was furious

at my inability to withstand him. To submit without a protest to the

categorical rebuke of this man whom I regarded as an inferior--was that

not in itself a proof of my love?

However, M. Mairieux went on with a calm determination, which overawed

me despite myself, and which now, as I look back upon it, revealed

truth and simplicity, a greatness of spirit which I did not then

appreciate:

“Marriage,” he began, “is a lifelong bond. It involves the whole of

one’s life. For us, who are good Catholics, it implies a definite

choice; it is indissoluble. Do you also consider it so? Is it in this

way that you regard marriage? The point is essential.”

Most assuredly, I did. When one is about to marry one believes that

it will last forever, and very often, also, when one is in love. What

useless questions! And there were more to come, together with some

definitions.

“The husband is the head of the family,” declared M. Mairieux, “but

he owes his wife the protection of his love. You understand: you must

protect her against others, against unhappiness, against herself,

against you yourself, and the temptations that you will encounter

more frequently in your world. Have you taken into account all these

obligations, so foreign to your past life?”

Hurt by these doubts, and convinced of my omniscience as to the care

of a wife, I assured him that I was prepared to fulfill all my duties.

Thereupon M. Mairieux softened.

“Let me speak to you now of my little Raymonde,” he said; “she

will come to her fiancé with a pure heart, and the treasure, yes,

the treasure, of the rarest feeling. You will give her wealth and

surroundings very different from her own. But she--how much more will

she bring you! You are too young to understand all the perfection that

is in her. You must watch over her, watch over yourself, if your union

is to be blessed.”

With these words, the last of which rose to the height of solemnity,

he completely overthrew the conception that I had formed of our mutual

relations. My pride might perhaps have revolted against them, seeing in

them chiefly an evidence of paternal partiality sufficiently remarkable

in the mouth of my superintendent, if I had not appreciated their

essential truth. As it was, I confined my reply to promises whose full

extent I did not then perceive.

“Are you sure, at least, that you love her?” went on M. Mairieux.

Was I sure of it! My presence there proved it.

“But she?” he persisted.

“I believe she loves me.”

“Has she told you so?”

“No, she has not told me.”

“How do you know it?”

As this examination grew more pointed, I searched vainly in my memory

for a single token, a single sign, no matter how slight, which might

have revealed Raymonde’s heart. There was nothing--not a word, not a

look, not a gesture, neither the intimacy of some ride, nor some sudden

shyness--there was absolutely nothing to put me on the track. I had

settled the question without ever having asked it. And so, after a

hesitation which covered me with confusion, I confessed aloud that I

knew nothing about it.

For the first time since the commencement of this conversation, M.

Mairieux regarded me with sympathy. His clear eyes are almost as limpid

as his daughter’s were, and I was surprised at their tenderness.

Nevertheless, at the moment, I hated him for the avowals that his

cross-examination forced upon me. Was he not casting me down from the

pedestal I had mounted? My wealth, by which I thought he would of

course be conquered, had been stripped of all its importance in my

offer of marriage, and now, uncertain that I had inspired love, I was

like those poor lovers whom suspense drives to despair and excess of

hope keeps in suspense. But I did not remain there long. Internally I

was boiling over, and if I restrained myself on the surface, it was

because I thought I should surmount these obstacles without delay.

Mme. Mairieux, to whose remarks her husband had several times responded

by requesting her to keep silent, and who had not ceased bestowing upon

him evidence of her surprise and disapproval, arose at last to play her

part.

“I am going to question her,” she declared.

“No, no, my dear,” protested M. Mairieux.

He attempted to detain her and she grew angry.

“A daughter hides nothing from her mother,” she cried.

I can only guess at what passed between the two women. Raymonde never

spoke to me of her mother except with the deepest and the most filial

respect. Nevertheless one can divine the conversation from the reply

which her mother brought back.

“The child is peculiar,” she said. “I consider her stubborn; she does

not want to listen to reason.”

“What is the matter.”

“She considers you too different from us, too--I don’t know what, too

rich.”

“And because of that?”

“She will not accept? Yes, because of that. It is crazy. I am

heart-broken. I ask--I ask your pardon for it.”

She asked my pardon for this refusal as if it were a lapse in good

manners. In the conversation which she had just had with Raymonde

without doubt she had emphasised that which appealed to and blinded

her, that upon which I had based my own superiority: the unexpected

opportunity of this union, the change of circumstances, the pleasures

of success and of life in the great world, far from “this desert.”

Over the vanishing of a dream in such harmony with her aspirations she

mourned as sorrowfully as Pierette over her broken pitcher.

M. Mairieux, on the contrary, seemed comforted: he was to keep his

daughter.

On my part, suffering from this blow struck at both my passion and my

pride, I cried out:

“But since I love her!”

I could not conceive that any one should oppose my will. Was it

possible to tolerate any obstacle which did not proceed from me myself?

“Possibly you do,” observed M. Mairieux, “but she is the question.”

I felt an intense anger at this child, who at her age and in her

position, dared not to love me. I could not believe such audacity. The

whole current of my life was stopped, congealed like the surface of a

frozen stream. Yet I had not said, “Will she ever love me.” Neither had

I said, “Will she not love me some day.” No, I had simply said, “Since

I love her!”

“She will accept,” good Mme. Mairieux assured me. “How can you imagine

that she will not?”

To her the refusal was almost sacrilege.

Seeing my stupefaction and my emotion, her husband took my hand.

“We are much touched by your offer, M. Cernay,” he said. “We expected

it so little. We are simple folk, without ambition. Some nice fellow,

an industrious, cheerful, intelligent, upright, sensitive-souled lad

who would have assured us Raymonde’s happiness--we did not ask anything

more. In order to find him we were planning to go to the city the next

winter or two. But you--no, truly, we did not think of it.”

Throughout this harangue, which was scarcely to her taste, Mme.

Mairieux kept shaking her head. Despite her denials, however, her

husband continued:

“Your offer is an honour. Many advantageous marriages were open to

you and you chose this. Now allow us to recover our breath and think

it over. I will question my daughter, and learn whether her answer is

final or not.”

“No, no,” protested his wife. “It is not.”

“I will let you know, I promise you,” he said.

“When?” I demanded instantly.

“Some day soon.”

To wait still longer! It was not to be dreamed of, and I turned

impetuously upon my superintendent.

“No, no, not some day soon--immediately. I wish to see her, to speak to

her. I will learn from her why it is that she avoids me. I insist upon

it.”

But in the face of M. Mairieux as he confronted me, there was the same

resolution which had so much surprised me when I first observed it,

and which I felt was invincible. Influenced by it despite myself, I

modified my language.

“Allow me to see her, I beg of you, if only for a few moments. I will

talk to her before you, before her mother. Don’t you understand my

suffering?”

Mme. Mairieux, who had been incessantly encouraging me with all kinds

of significant looks, now turned to her husband.

“My dear,” said she, “see how he suffers. It is inconceivable. Do you

wish me to go back to Raymonde?”

But, reaching his own decision, he rebuffed her.

“I will go myself,” he said, and walked to the door.

“I will go with you,” said his wife.

He instructed her to keep me company instead, and disappeared. His

absence seemed long to me, though I do not believe that it was really

so. Mme. Mairieux deluged me throughout this period of expectation

with the most consoling flattery, and the consoling flattery of Mme.

Mairieux had the gift of exasperating me. I began to walk up and down

the room, now fast, now slow.

“Everything will come out all right,” the good woman kept repeating.

“If she does not love you now, she will not fail to do so in time. It

is not an opportunity that presents itself twice, and Raymonde is so

reasonable.”

But these assurances merely increased my anxiety.

At last M. Mairieux reappeared. He did not bring back with him,

however, the repentant culprit, as I had hoped he would. Walking up to

me, he laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“We must give her time to come to herself,” he said. “You have

frightened her a little. You should have spoken to me first. She is

timid. She does not know.”

I heeded nothing but the delay that was being forced upon me.

“Time?” I demanded. “How much time?”

“Several days.”

“Oh, several days! That will be death. A day, one day, won’t that be

enough? Mayn’t I come back to-morrow?”

“Well, try it,” agreed M. Mairieux.

I returned to my own home exalted by mingled sensations of anger and

love. In the avenue several dead oak trees had been replaced by early

chestnuts, and from one of these a leaf blew away. It was certainly

one of the first to fall. A breath of wind kept it in the air, and it

floated, like a tired bird, around one of the stone vases on the open

lawn. Would it rest there, or would it reach the earth? With childish

superstition, I looked upon it as an omen. If it fell to the ground, it

would mean happiness for me.

The wind understood me and the urn swallowed it.

When the heart is truly alive the least trifles are important.

* * *

In later years M. Mairieux consented to tell me how he had learned his

daughter’s secret. It was later, much later, after we had lost her,

and I was questioning him greedily about the past. I had envied him

the possession of this secret, but it was just that he should have

received it, and not me. After twenty years of boundless and absolutely

unselfish affection, what an advantage he had over me!

When he entered Raymonde’s rooms, she was standing by the threshold

of the window, motionless, inert, almost indifferent. He told her of

my impatience, my unhappiness. Nevertheless, he said, she should take

counsel only of her own heart. The material advantages of a marriage

should only be a secondary consideration.

She kept repeating obstinately:

“No, no, I do not want to marry him.”

“But why?”

“M. Cernay is not the husband for me.”

He was tempted to stop there. A presentiment, which he took to be

paternal selfishness warned him, as he confessed to me, warned him not

to insist. Conscientious scruples, however, and the desire to exhaust

every argument in favour of the alliance, urged him to add:

“Possibly, but he loves you.”

This time he received no reply; indeed it was not a question. There was

only one thing more to say:

“And you--do you love him?”

“How can I know?” she murmured, and then, realising the truth, she

wept. These first tears I did not see. How many others did her love

cost her, less observed, even more secret, which I saw no better?

To young girls who have not squandered their imagination in precocious

little flirtations, love is like a garden in springtime before the

dawn. The flowers are there, all the flowers. We do not realise it,

although we inhale their perfume, because it is so incredible. Thus,

enclosed within the heart, the magic enchantment sleeps, invisible. Day

breaks, and with it all the world seems to be born. But the love which

shines forth was always there.

* * *

The next day I had my turn.

Mme. Mairieux watched for my arrival. It was she who opened the door

for me, and from her I learned of my happiness. It lost nothing in the

telling, for she was anxious to spare me several moments of anxiety.

Raymonde met me in the drawing-room, holding her father’s hand.

She wore the same simple dress of white serge that she had had on the

day before. Her smooth cheeks had grown pale; she did not smile, she

was serious, indeed almost severe. When her eyes rested upon me they

seemed to me to have grown not only even larger, but almost terrified,

and at the same time that I read in them the avowal of her love, I saw

a kind of holy fear, a sort of religious ecstasy. With ardour I poured

out all my love to her, but of what value were my protestations in

comparison with that pathetic countenance haloed by devotion? Why did I

not throw myself upon my knees to plead before her, to pray to her as

to a saint?

I have before me as I write a little picture of the Annunciation. Mary,

who is scarcely fifteen years old, has just learned from the angel her

divine mission. With clasped hands she strives to quiet her heart. In

spite of her unworthiness, she accepts the honour at which she thrills,

but at the same time she foresees all the sorrow that will come to her.

She trembles with joy or fear, or rather with joy and fear together.

In the course of a journey to Italy I came upon the picture in a little

town. To secure it I needed more than money; I had to use persistence,

strategy, eloquence. But I wanted it at any price. For this acceptance

without fear--oh, in my comparison I do not intend any irreverence,

which as far as I am concerned would only be detestable and

ridiculous--this acceptance without fear recalled to me my betrothal,

which in truth was for Raymonde an oblation that she made to me of all

the suffering to come. With mystic intuition she foresaw it, but I, I

guessed nothing.

She had listened to me without speaking. At last, as though there were

any need of words when I saw that the whole current of her being was

arrested, I demanded:

“Will you not tell me, too, that you love me?”

She shivered all over and I dared insist.

“Not to-day,” she murmured at length in a colourless voice. “I cannot.”

“And to-morrow?”

“To-morrow perhaps.”

Fool that I was, I could obtain nothing more from her, though she was

sinking under the weight of her love. Ordinarily we employ the same

phrases in common conversation that we use for the deepest emotions.

Through reluctance, through delay, through the difficulty of giving

them utterance, the desire to keep them in her heart, which cherished

them in order the better to absorb their virtue, Raymonde restored to

the divine words their true meaning, their power and their freshness.

And I complained!

I wished to embrace her, but despite myself my respect for her checked

me, and instead I bent over the hand that hung by her side. She had to

restrain herself from drawing it away, as if my kiss had burned it.

“Leave her now,” said her father. “You do not see that she is

thoroughly tired out.”

Ah, how I pity those who become engaged, who marry, in the city! Does

not everything urge them to set bounds to a love which they must keep,

as it were, on a leash, in the streets, must protect incessantly in the

midst of acquaintances, difficulties and embarrassments? My own and

Raymonde’s love blossomed forth in freedom.

We had resumed our horseback rides, and sometimes M. Mairieux

accompanied us, sometimes he entrusted his daughter to me, when he

would follow us with his eyes for several moments before he returned to

his office or his work outdoors.

The trees still retained their foliage, but the colours changed from

day to day, a marvel to behold. The leaves of the lindens became a pale

yellow, those of the oaks, at first a red copper, later that colour

of rust which they keep all winter, for they do not fall: shrivelled,

hardened, and curled up they cling to the branches until the new growth

comes in the spring and flings them down.

“They are like those feelings,” I said to Raymonde, “which remain in

the heart even after they are dead, and which only a new passion has

the power to drive away.”

Whenever I gave vent to such sentimental rubbish as this, the art of

which one acquires in society, she used to look me full in the face,

her astonished eyes seeming to discover in me some unknown abysses.

Why did I aim to dazzle her with such empty talk? I was thinking of

those faded memories which still occasionally obtruded themselves upon

my mind, and which, although they had not yet entirely gone, were

destined, under the influence of my love, to disappear only to be

reborn another day.

“None of my affections is dead,” she replied. “None will die before I

do.”

We were passing the Green Fountain, and we paused to give our horses

a drink from the basin. We saw the reflection of their heads mingle

in the calm water, and leaning forward, she unconsciously and I

intentionally, we saw our own heads come together and touch. Drawing

back I looked at Raymonde: she was blushing as if she had felt my lips,

although they had never yet touched her.

Two years before, more than two years since, it was, on the birthday of

spring, I had waylaid her there. I recalled the incident to her, and

asked her the reason of her fear.

“I did not expect you,” she said.

“Was I so dreadful?” I inquired.

“We must believe so, since I was afraid,” she answered, with her clear

laugh.

I should have been glad to have her assure me that even at that time

she had begun to love me, although nothing could have equalled the

charm that her ignorance of her own heart then possessed.

“Whom did you love before me?” I asked.

“Before you? My mother, and my father and all this besides,” she

answered, and stretched out her arms in a comprehensive gesture that

her little riding whip accentuated.

“All this?” I repeated, not grasping her meaning.

“Yes, the trees, the little pond that is down there, the orchards, the

meadows, and the whole sky that you see.”

I laughed as I listened to this catalogue.

“I am not jealous of them,” I said.

She looked about her at the forest, the luminous autumn forest which

had contributed to the awakening of her spirit, and murmured:

“You may well be, nevertheless.”

She never questioned me about my past. Through a generosity, the

nobility of which I understand now, she did not wish to crush me

with it, although she suspected that it had been turbid and stormy.

Believing me to be as honest as she was, she considered that I was

sufficiently punished by not being able to sweep it utterly away when

we exchanged our unequal love.

As we turned for home the wind arose. Should we find our leaves again

in the morning? On the avenue, those on the chestnut trees were

stained brown and red. Before the chateau, the plane trees, with their

leaves open like giant hands, were green and dull gold. They offered

a splendid prize to the north wind which was beginning to blow. Each

one, as it was gathered in, wavered gently in the air. Along the wall,

the well-sheltered Virginia creeper spread out its vivid red, and the

hardy hedges of privet and hawthorne preserved a touch of green in this

symphony of brilliant colours.

I was a little ahead and I turned.

Why did Raymonde, in her white woollen dress, and mounted on her

glistening horse, why did she, so young, seem to be so in harmony with

the autumn, and like it to be so clothed with the delicate charm of

things that perish? And why, feeling thus, did I not swear to watch

over each instant of her happiness and her life?

In the forest she showed me a young ash tree which, after several

years, had succeeded in piercing the baleful vault of foliage and crept

upward between its two powerful neighbours, now exposing its summit to

the sun’s rays.

“Raymonde, are you still a shadow-tree?” I asked.

She recalled our former conversations, and, surprised at the attention

I had paid to them, smiled.

“The ash,” she said, “is a tree of light.”

I believed that this was an answer and gloried in it. In reality she

had not replied to me at all; possibly she was thinking of those trees

that are so sensitive that the least hardship pierces them.

* * *

“I am glad,” she said to me one day, “that I had never given a single

thought to any one before I met you. If it were not for this, my love

would not be complete.”

* * *

Another day, under the arch of the cloister, she said:

“My spirit seems so light that I can hardly hold it back. I feel as

though it were beating its wings, as though it wished to fly away. I

hold it back as much as I can, for if it should fly away, I should die.

And I do not wish to die now, oh, no!”

* * *

In the valleys in October the evening falls swiftly. On our return

from our ride, when night had surprised us, a falling star crossed the

sky in front of us. Actually it seemed purposely not to hasten in its

passage, as if it were asking us to tell it our desires.

“What wish have you made?” I asked Raymonde.

She turned on me her calm look.

“None. Why should I?”

“You would have had ample time,” I said. “One always wants something.”

“Not I,” she answered. “I wish nothing.”

* * *

All the recollections that I pluck from the past contribute to picture

her in a perfection of a love that I cannot imagine more complete. It

was her very life, the very breath of her being.

This love I believed myself worthy of inspiring, so many illusions

did I still cherish. Her fervour, the solitude, the woods and the

autumn days, strove together to exalt me. I truly believe that during

this period I tried unconsciously to raise myself to her level. Her

glance calmed, soothed and purified me. They say the moonlight calms

the waves. In the same way, her influence stilled my transports and

my desires. I should have striven to find my true self, to prune the

forest of my spirit, to clear it of all its vanity and sham, of all

that rank vegetation which I had permitted to grow up there--which,

though temporarily stifled, would soon flourish again. I did not

comprehend her love. I thought that I should teach her life, while she

already knew by intuition that it was quite simple, and direct, level

and smooth.

One night the wind carried away the leaves. The next day we found them

under our horses’ feet, and we left a track of red gold rustling behind

us. However, in the forest we could the better appreciate the upward

shooting of the bare trees, and the depth and charm of the paths.

Winter was here, and the cold. Soon we should have to face bad weather.

That ride would be one of our last. Mindful of all our others, we rode

in silence more and more slowly, as if to prolong the hours....

* * *

Mme. Mairieux always prepared tea and small cakes for us on our return.

She was very busy. Her daughter entrusted to her the choice of the

trousseau, and she it was also who fixed the date for the marriage,

made the arrangements for the official ceremony, marshalled the bridal

procession as a captain his company, and finally even attempted to

secure a bishop to pronounce the nuptial benediction.

Her husband, somewhat reserved since our engagement, teased her gently,

and by a calculated stubbornness obtained from her some concessions and

omissions. These tilts consumed the evenings.

“We must have a large wedding,” she said.

“No, indeed, no,” he replied.

Nevertheless she made out a list on the back of a mourning

announcement, a sheet which she had economically torn from a letter of

condolence. I recall that detail now, that omen: a black bordered sheet

of paper for the list of our wedding guests.

M. Mairieux read the list, which assumed disturbing proportions. Hoping

for allies, he turned to the corner of the room where Raymonde and I

were sitting, paying indifferent attention to these preparations.

“What is your opinion, dear?” he inquired.

“Oh, I,” she said, “you know very well that all the others are

indifferent to me. All that I want are here now.”

“One does not get married in secret,” protested her mother. “You, M.

Cernay, who know so much of the world, must agree with me, do you not?”

Thus drawn into the discussion, I supported my fiancée with an energy

which astonished myself. Unquestionably, like her, I preferred to be

alone with my happiness. Perhaps too--I am ashamed to admit it, but

have I not undertaken to confess?--even at this happy time my vanity

may not have been so completely dead that it did not suggest the

advantage of not seeking to advertise too loudly a marriage without

distinction, a union which would astonish the world, which they would

make fun of in Paris. I was marrying my superintendent’s daughter;

there was nothing in that on which to pride myself. Such were some of

the imaginary difficulties that I had not succeeded in dispelling.

When our judgment has been warped in early life by excess of worldly

advantages and success, how many years and how much suffering are

necessary to bring the truth, the real meaning of life, back to us! And

in the interval, irreparable harm can be done.

* * *

One night about this time we began to discuss the plans of our life

after the wedding. My wife and I intended to spend the winter in Rome,

the following summer at the Sleeping Woods, and to postpone until the

next winter our residence in Paris. I adopted this plan partly to

secure more leisure for Raymonde’s education, which I flattered myself

I was to undertake. Curiously enough, she smiled at the thought of

Rome, while Paris frightened her.

“But why?” I asked her.

“In Italy we know nobody, all our time will be our own, all our hours,

all our thoughts. It will be like the forest.”

“Like the forest?” I repeated.

“Yes, instead of the trees, the names of which I who know nothing of

anything, was so proud to teach you, we shall see beautiful things, of

which I am totally ignorant and which you will explain to me.”

“And in Paris?”

“In Paris, I shall be afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That you will not be pleased with me; I am only a little girl.”

“How strange you are, Raymonde!” I answered.

Nevertheless I did not ask her in what I could possibly fail to be

pleased with her. It is not enough to say that I divined her doubts,

for I actually shared them. But that which with her was merely

modesty and shyness, was in my case, unwarranted distrust, a wretched

preoccupation with the world’s opinion, which, even when away from it,

I could not entirely disregard. What would be thought of my wife by the

world, would my friends approve my choice?

After a prolonged silence, in which there was no harmony of spirit, I

determined to show my generosity, and turned to my parents-in-law.

“It is understood,” I said, “that whether or not we are here, you will

live in the chateau. I do not wish you to remain in this little lodge.”

Mme. Mairieux broke into loud protestations of gratitude. Evidently I

was making real one of her dreams. She had always wished to live in

state, with dignity and ceremony, a troupe of servants, a continual

round of visits, much publicity. A certain childishness lent to

her ambition a touch of prettiness. The simplicity of her husband

disconcerted her, for she did not recognise in it the superiority of

breeding. The daughter of a bookseller in the town where he had been

in garrison, thoroughly saturated with romantic novels, she had been

captivated by his uniform and his horsemanship, and, after his marriage

had cost him his career, had always cherished a grudge against him for

the lack of money which compelled him to abandon his life of show. I

reconstructed without difficulty this domestic drama, so common and

inglorious.

Raymonde looked at her father, who had not yet spoken. I noticed the

anxiety in her glance, but I could not understand it. M. Mairieux gave

me the explanation. He thanked me most amicably for what he called my

delicacy, and declined. “This lodge,” he concluded, “was sufficient for

us when we had our daughter. Without her it will be much too big and

too empty. And see how conveniently it is arranged, and outside, the

walls are clothed with vines and clematis. Let us live and die here.”

Mme. Mairieux made a face, and I too was a little hurt by his refusal.

I insisted, but ungraciously.

“If not for your own sake, accept, for mine,” I said. “I cannot permit

my parents-in-law to remain in an inferior position. What will they say

in the neighbourhood?”

This was the poorest of all arguments. At once the blood rushed to

Raymonde’s face and she blushed all over. This excessive sensitiveness,

which, however, she showed only in connection with the most subtle

sentiments, gave her an incomparable charm. The time was still to come

when I should reproach her for it.

“That is perfectly true,” said Mme. Mairieux, her hopes reviving. “What

will people say?”

“What does it matter?” Her husband scorned the objection. “Are they not

saying already that we have long lain in wait for M. Cernay in order to

give him our daughter?”

He regretted having repeated this gossip when he saw Raymonde’s eyes

fill with tears.

“They say that!” she cried.

He endeavoured to soothe her at once.

“Little one, little one! There are always evil-minded people. One must

realise that.”

“When you are happy,” she murmured, “how is one to know that?”

* * *

On the day we signed the marriage contract, she followed the example of

her father. In the contract I had settled upon her a sum which would

insure her future. She refused to accept it, and all my entreaties were

useless.

“But I may die, Raymonde,” I said.

“Then I shall no longer need anything.”

“One has to live even in sorrow,” I explained.

“It takes very little.”

“Fortune has favoured me,” I said. “Let me look after you.”

“I want only your heart,” she answered, “because you already have mine.”

“You know that you have mine too, Raymonde, but there are laws--”

“The law cannot provide for everything.”

Why had I not determined upon the expedient of holding the property

in common? Why did I adopt that of dividing it, and then pose as a

benefactor? Why, after her refusal to accept, did I not alter the

contract? And, not having done so, why did I not draw a will in her

favour on the day after the wedding? We forget too often to make our

deeds consistent with our attitude in life. Our carelessness, or our

egotism, or some mental reservation which escapes superficial analysis,

leads us astray.

Raymonde came to me with empty hands. Her youth and innocence amazed

me, and I bargained for her.

Now, now, I understand her better. There was no need of a contract

between us, or, if one was necessary, it was only in order that a brief

and indissoluble formula might unite our fortunes.

* * *

Our triple alliance cut down the greater part of Mme. Mairieux’s

guests. I confined my own list to my two witnesses, Col. Briare, my

nearest relative, and Pierre Ducal, one of my most intimate friends.

The Colonel appeared to be satisfied with my alliance when he learned

that my future father-in-law was an old army officer. Outside of his

troopers, nothing interested him. Every one, including Mme. Mairieux,

who was enraptured at the prospect of beholding a uniform, called him

“my Colonel.” When he learned that Raymonde was an excellent horseman,

he congratulated me brusquely.

Pierre Ducal made me more uneasy. He brought into our woods the

atmosphere of Paris, the dreaded judgment of Paris. His sarcasm is

almost famous there. It is he who utters the last word about things, he

who with no authority but his own acts as arbiter of fashion. Why did I

choose him rather than another? I hoped by offering him this compliment

to secure him as an ally. Would it not be better to have him with me

than against me? Clearly I foresaw hostilities and in asking him to

help me I would disarm him. Then too, although I had of late seen

little of him, he still possessed for me the fascination with which he

had once dazzled me. At one time, when the world monopolized me, I had

copied him, so strongly did his assurance and ease of manner appeal to

me as the summit of attractiveness.

From the moment of his arrival at the chateau he was on the alert.

The news of my marriage had burst like a bombshell upon the society

we frequented. I had been the target for several of those forward,

modern girls who look up a possible husband’s eligibility in advance.

What rival in some forgotten corner of the world had snatched me from

out of their experienced hands? No one knew anything, no one suspected

anything, for my brief letter of invitation explained nothing.

Nevertheless, I have learned since, before leaving, he trumpeted

forth great news of the event. He had been generally commissioned to

investigate my case.

After the usual greetings he began the examination at once.

“Is she a neighbour in the country here?”

“Oh, a very close neighbour,” I replied. “She lives in the lodge which

you see.”

“At the entrance of the Avenue? Isn’t that part of your estate?”

“Certainly, since her father is my superintendent.”

In order to be done with it as quickly as possible, I hurled the

sentence at him in a single breath, as if it were the confession of a

sin. I decidedly was not enjoying the serenity which should have come

from the happiness and honour of marrying Raymonde. The presence of a

single man was sufficient to cause me one of those little shudders of

cowardice and baseness. Nothing suggested a greater menace to my own

and Raymonde’s happiness than the troubled way in which I confessed

this little fact to Ducal. It proved that I was not cured of my

pettiest vanities.

Over them my love, born in solitude and nourished and beautified by the

clear, fresh influence of my fiancée, temporarily triumphed. It did not

destroy them. So many briers prevent the tree of our life from growing,

and drain its sap.

When Pierre Ducal’s trunks arrived I laughed at their number.

“Well, you see,” he said nonchalantly, “I did not know.”

Did not know what? In this vague phrase I perceived a painful

significance. After a moment he explained:

“You see I did not know exactly the character of the ceremony.”

“It will be very simple.”

“Naturally.”

Naturally! I could have boxed his ears.