* * *

At that time, a foreign woman was being tried in Paris. She had driven

her lover to kill her husband, and had then denounced him in order to

rid herself of him and begin life anew with another. A veritable halo

of fatality encircled her, for to know her was to love her, and to

love her was to lose all honour and regard for humanity. Above all she

had very beautiful hands, their beauty shining all the more clear when

they were examined for any traces of guilty blood. She appeared before

her judges with the grace and prattle of an artless child, charming

everybody. Before testifying each day she would remove her gloves. It

was the fashion to go to court and submit to the enchantment of her

voice, her face whose very blemishes were thought of as the ravages of

love or amorous decorations--to give our nerves their daily wrenching.

The evening following the announcement of the verdict, we dined with

Mme. de Saunois. The accused was the sole topic of conversation. Mme.

de H-- summed her up and conferred the following degree upon her:

“She is such an exceptional creature, so seductive. She rises above our

common measure with such ease. Even her wickedness is attractive.”

Every one was approving this opinion, when it occurred to one guest to

ask Raymonde, who was seated next him:

“What is your idea, Madame?”

“I hope she is only a monster.”

All the women at the table looked toward me. They visibly pitied me for

having cast my lot with a person capable of so narrow and prejudiced an

opinion.

And I could not help an irritation at this blame that society put upon

me through her.

From seeing her continually rebel against our forms of art and all our

prevailing ideas, I became accustomed to thinking her callous. That was

indeed the general impression of her. Her reading was too different

from that recommended by success to attach any importance to it. At

the theatre, nothing, or almost nothing, succeeded in pleasing her.

The splendour of an unusual interpretation caused me to take her one

evening to see “Polyeucte.” I was not thinking so much of the play

itself, as of the actors. Is not that usual? Do not the names of the

players, inscribed in letters of fire on the front of our theatres,

eclipse those of the authors and even of the play?

In our box, as I called her attention to the acting of the old and

eminent actor who played Polyeucte, I was surprised to have no reply.

I looked at her more attentively: the tears coursed down her cheeks,

though she did not know that she was crying. I had surprised her once

before like this in the Coliseum in Rome, when the guide pointed out

the gate of the dead. Pauline threw away Severus’s love and her own.

Pauline received with open heart the divine spark of the faith. All the

pathos of the ardent masterpiece condensed and spiritualised itself on

my wife’s face, pale with the force of her emotion.

As the curtain fell, I offered explanations of her exaltation.

“Monroy was sublime,” I said. Had we not come only to see that great

actor?

“Which rôle did he play?” she asked. “I didn’t know.”

Completely given up to the tragedy she had quite simply relegated the

actor to his proper place.

* * *

One Good Friday she took me to Notre Dame to hear the sermon on the

Passion.

Spring had come in April. The moon when we arrived was mounting toward

the open sky just above the towers of the old cathedral, bathed in the

blue of the pure night. Inside, the crowd was so great that we could

not reach a church-warden’s pew, and with great difficulty I got a

chair for her at the back, in the midst of the throng.

The voice of the preacher, which had sounded thin to me as we entered,

reached us, distinct, insistent and powerful. It carried with it the

generosity of a heart that gives itself until it is exhausted. It

filled the immense edifice to the very shadows at the back, shadows

which covered also the transepts and the upper vaulting, making the

lighted portions of the church seem menaced by it on all sides.

We heard the story of the Mount of Olives. The Disciples went to sleep

while Jesus was enduring His agony. Likewise, about us and within us,

the moral life of others and ourselves suffers while we sleep. Later,

too late, when I awakened from my cruel sleep, I was destined to recall

with bitterness that warning which I had not heeded. We saw about us

all the visible and varied forms of cowardice, the cowardice of the

official, of the judge, of the crowd, of friends. All the truth of

human character shines out in the Gospel. In this series of denials,

one can see his own denying, just as one instinctively feels his

pockets when he hears the cry of “Thief.” I alone, perhaps, of those

present, gave the ceremony the interest of the mere amateur.

Next to us, an old news man, who had stopped his shouting only at the

door, crowding in through several rows of chairs, stood still, suddenly

captive, with his pile of papers under his arm. It was the death of

Righteousness. He uttered a long sob of indignation and pity, like a

half-uttered howl, held out his free arm before him in an involuntary

gesture, and then went away again upon his route. Outside once more he

tried to cry his papers, but emotion still gripped his throat. For an

instant he had offered himself to God. I have never known that instant;

I have never made that offering. It was now I who was callous.

When we left, the moon, detached from the towers, was sailing through

the open sky. The clear night, so blue and pure, enveloped the sombre

cathedral. Ranged along one side of the square the waiting automobiles

quivered incongruously at the foot of the old black building.

At last, we found our carriage. “Was it not beautiful?” Raymonde asked

immediately.

I agreed without interest, from courtesy, instead of giving way to my

emotions as I had been invited to do. For a second short space of time,

I surprised her in the act of trembling. Still, I continued to believe

in her apathy, her reputation for it was so well established. When

one holds to the judgment of the world one can not appreciate his own

fireside.

* * *

These discords, these difficulties that come between two people when

one aspires only to success and the attractions of fashionable life,

while the other keeps intact her native and religious sensibility, do

not necessarily prevent that kind of understanding which is possible

in our flexible modern life to people of fortune. So many husbands and

wives, for instance, if they should stop to think, would be surprised

by the amount of their incompatibilities. They are content with

approximate congeniality, in willing ignorance. But one cannot lay bare

the roots of a tree and have it grow and live. The denial of its proper

nourishment does not kill it at once: for a short time it may continue

to blossom and to flower. At last, however, it falls before some severe

storm, like a disabled ship which breasts the gale as long as possible

and in the end surrenders to the elements. So I laid bare the roots of

our love; little by little, I deprived it of its necessary protection,

and finally crushed it utterly by one severe blow.

These apparently trifling details, which I have enumerated, before

coming exactly to the real outbreak, by degrees alienated Raymonde from

me. It was indeed a gradual uprooting. So completely given up to this

imperious desire to shine that I was intolerant of any encroachments

upon it by the intimacies of our life together, entirely subordinated

to that state of mind in which one seeks applause, I turned more and

more from Raymonde and her influence, which I thought narrow and

old-fashioned.

She went with me uncomplainingly, wherever I suggested. I imposed on

her immodest spectacles and degrading associates, such as our society

supports, when she did not desire them: still she was not what I wanted

to make her, a woman of the world.

It was not in her. A stirring conflict was waged within her, between

her love for me and her upright nature, incapable of bending itself

to the manners of our day. I helped to create the problem, but did

not attempt to aid her in its solution. Her struggle even began to

undermine her health, though she showed no outward trace of the

exhaustion she felt, excepting perhaps a loss of weight. But thinness

was very fashionable at this time! Ah! those people whose daily acts

are regulated by a definite code of morals, to whom faith and love are

as necessary as food and respiration--they have a presentiment of death

when once that faith is shaken; they have no powers of resistance when

their ideals are finally shattered.

The first effect in Raymonde was a loss of cheerfulness. I did not

notice it then, yet I recall it clearly now. There is in our past

always something which we would forget, but which does not permit

itself to be forgotten. There was a time when her laughter was

spontaneous, with her little girl, in carelessness and innocence

of heart. When she held her child upon her knee, and lavished her

enticement on her, she resembled those madonnas which have altogether

the air of elder sisters. Little by little this clear, charming

laughter became less frequent, diminished, was shattered! Even Dilette

perceived it. And I did not fail to notice that the poor little

one missed, as she might her broken or lost toys, these tokens of

joyousness.

Raymonde enjoyed only the simple pleasures of life, of which I had none

to offer her. Into the simplest of them I had injected, like a secret

passion, this perverse desire for sensation, filling with astonishment,

torment and pained shame, a heart simple and ingenuous, ignorant of the

intricacy of our life.

The expression which I had seen in her face on that first day in May,

when I met her in the wood and when my unexpected presence made her

retrace her road, or when I had made my avowal of love at the chateau,

or on the evening of one of our last walks before the birth of our

child, this look of fear,--here, I saw it again, like a ghost, upon her

face. But I attached no importance to it.

* * *

She told me once later, that during all this time she was trying to

conform to my tastes, she never paid one of those visits to which I

attached such importance, without reciting a little prayer to God, on

the staircase or in the ante-chamber, for courage. And it was the same

thing when we received. It was absolute torture for her to endure the

custom of kissing the hand which had recently come again into vogue.

Her arms hung at her sides and one had always to search for her hand

there. She never submitted without a shudder, which, though she did her

best to suppress it, she never entirely succeeded in concealing--above

all, at home, when she wore no gloves.

* * *

We had reached that point, she in her isolation and growing

unhappiness, I in that state of nervous irritation where my baffled

worldly ambitions and the substitution of my personal life for our

common life had thrown me, when my hopes were revived by a sudden and

unexpected change.

* * *

Pierre Ducal, who in the old days had taught me the art of moving

with ease in the most dissimilar salons, Pierre Ducal, whose support

the negligence of my wife had diverted and I had counted too much on,

sought again evidently to get into touch with us. He had then attained

the summit of the only glory he had ever really desired. Slender of

figure, graceful, his clean-shaven face sallow of tint but passing at

night for interesting pallor, erect in carriage, affected in his wit,

of dashing demeanour, he aspired now all the more to fascinate because

he was pursued by the terror of old age. A time--not far distant--would

come when he would have to take his place in the faded and worn-out

category of old beaux, old fellows who had been handsome once, who

continued to dress and carry themselves as if they still were so,

touching knight-errants, a little comical, following that lost cause,

their youth. Being discerning, he foresaw the end that awaited him. But

this foresight diminished in proportion as the danger increased, or

rather, the threat was already put into execution while he continued to

believe it hanging over him. In the face of this shipwreck he turned to

account with agonising haste all the possible pleasures of life. Never

more than at this time had I seen him so engaging and so brilliant.

Never had he enjoyed such prestige, never had his clever sayings, his

judgments, his ironies been so much in demand, nor exercised so much

effect.

I attribute the happy change in Ducal’s attitude to his regret that he

had allowed our old friendship to lapse. He became our most intimate

associate. He accompanied us to the races, and the theatres; we

commenced to meet him in the society which we frequented, which was

less riotous, more dignified than that which he effected. In spite

of myself, I had submitted, in the choice of our associates, to the

guidance of Raymonde. However, I was apprehensive as to the effect

which my wife’s old-fashioned views could not fail to produce on our

worldly companion. The first time this apprehension put me in torture.

I was soon reassured. Pierre Ducal marvelled at her great originality,

which Paris had not shaken. Far from being amused, as I feared, he

invited comments which disconcerted him, but which he did not ridicule.

He even tried to understand them. This new interest which he took in

Raymonde’s reserved conversation was of great benefit to her. The world

was not slow to amend the reputation it had given her for shyness and

provincialism. I heard favourable echoes around me; the opinion of

Pierre Ducal weighed so heavily.

“We see your friend very often,” my wife observed one day.

I expressed my contentment at this, but after she had made the remark

she seemed to me, when Ducal was present, more reserved and distant

than ever:--so much so, that I showed my displeasure and surprise.

“You are scarcely civil to him.”

“Oh, do you think so? Why should I be more agreeable?”

“He is my friend.”

She was about to object, then reddened and kept silent.

I had absolute confidence in her. Despite the obscure process which had

little by little undermined my tenderness, I could not have touched

her with a suspicion without despising myself. Above all she impressed

me as being unable to appeal to or even to hold the interest of a man

of the world like Pierre Ducal. I did not see--I could not see--in

his attentions, anything but a chance opportunity for instruction

to supplement mine when I had discontinued. At any rate, my friend,

without doubt a little abashed, treated her with a respect and a

deference which was in noticeable contrast to his usual insolent manner

toward women. I was grateful to him for it, and at the same time amused.

It was the time of year when the days are growing longer, and we

enjoyed even our dinner by the light of the setting sun, the twilight

being so beautiful that we deferred turning on the light as long as

possible. On the evening of which I am writing, as I returned from my

club, I was surprised not to see my wife in the salon. I called to

her: she did not answer. Turning on the electric light I surprised her

exhausted, stretched on a sofa, her head hidden in her hands, her body

convulsed with sobs.

“My God,” said I to her, “what is the matter?”

She tried to put me off.

“Nothing, nothing,” she insisted. “Do not look at me.”

“I beg of you, I ought to know.”

Brusquely, without raising her head, she replied:

“I have dismissed M. Ducal.”

“Dismissed Ducal,” I repeated in amazement, as if she had perpetrated a

most daring outrage.

I knew that her love for me, as well as her own inherent purity, was

sufficient assurance that my honour could not have been compromised:

therefore I felt that she must have exaggerated the importance of

Pierre Ducal’s conduct. To me the circumstances indicated only an

unforeseen destruction of carefully laid plans for increasing our

prestige in society; if for a moment I had had cause to doubt Raymonde,

then perhaps the worldly outcome might have meant less to me, but I

realised only the fact that she had peremptorily sent Pierre Ducal

away and that he would unquestionably seek revenge. He would make us

the victims of his sarcasms and pointed remarks, which could destroy

my reputation as an arrow wounds the flesh. He would use to advantage

the observations he had made during our close intimacy. I was incensed

by the thought of Raymonde’s having so needlessly exposed us to this

danger through laying too much stress on a trivial incident. Had she

not learned in our society that all women allow men to be attentive

to them? Of what use were receptions, beautiful gowns, enticing

conversation and the arts of coquetry, if not to call forth the very

thing she had resented! Could she not have let Pierre Ducal know in a

quiet, forceful manner that his advances annoyed her, without going

to the extreme limit of causing a break in our friendship? Surely

a woman’s greatest asset is the use of all her weapons of charm

and fascination to the best possible advantage. What to Raymonde

constituted an irreparable injury was to me only a source of great

annoyance. And I took the thing very lightly.

“Little one, little one, when will you learn to be reasonable?”

She did not answer when I spoke to her. While I had been rapidly

reviewing the situation, she had lain on the sofa, her face buried in

her hands, completely crushed by the weight of her despair. I repeated

my question and she looked up. Now at last I know the meaning of her

every gesture and glance. I realised that she hid her face because

she felt degraded for having even unknowingly appealed to the sensual

nature of Pierre Ducal. The very fact of those words, which she had

not invited, seemed to her to sully her purity. Even my presence was

painful to her on that account. I can still see her large eyes fixed on

me, those eyes so limpid, in which I could plainly read her terror.

“What did you say?” she murmured. “I did not understand you--I did not

understand.”

For one brief moment I felt intuitively that I had not been fair to

her. I went over to the couch, stooped, and would have taken her in my

arms.

“Don’t touch me,” she cried. “Do not touch me yet.”

That one cry of fright was an expression of the repulsion she felt for

herself. Her delicacy had been deeply wounded by the realisation that

any other man had dared to think of her as only her husband had the

right to do. But to my worldliness her terror had another significance,

and it infuriated me.

“He did not touch you, did he?” I cried.

“Oh,” she cried, wringing her hands.

The mere suspicion crushed her. I lacked fine feeling enough to give

her comfort then and restore her self-respect, and so I assumed a

fatherly air and lectured her for her foolish exaggeration of trifles.

“But my dear,” I said, “it is not so dreadful. What crime has that

tactless Ducal committed?”

I thought the word “tactless” strong enough to designate his insult.

She did not answer.

“He--he dared--to tell me--”

“What?” I asked impatiently. “Oh, yes, I can imagine--but what did he

say to you?”

“I do not know. He was talking generalities. I did not see where he

wished to arrive. He said that one is so rarely happy, and that one can

not be so if one is not loved.”

The miserable wretch had artfully tried to explain her own state of

mind to her before offering his sympathy. I have no doubt the knowledge

that he perceived her secret suffering was as painful to her as the

unmerited insult. Later, at least, I could understand that. My only

aim then was to minimise the effect of an incident which I thought so

little compromising.

“Oh, come,” I said, in an easy manner, “it’s not worth being annoyed

about. Pierre Ducal only acted like a man of the world, and very badly,

since he put you in such a state. Would it not have sufficed to let him

know that you realised his stupidity? He is a man of intelligence, and

he would not have begun again. He is good company; one is never bored

with him. Paris is not the Sleeping Woods. You seem to forget that.

Life here is highly organised and civilised. You try to live in the

city as you do in the solitude of the country. One can’t do that. You

must learn to adapt yourself. Besides, a young woman has a thousand

ways of protecting herself without struggling or screaming. All women

know the art of listening graciously. One has not the air of listening.

One jokes, one smiles, or one laughs frankly. One checks the indiscreet

man with a word, a blow of the fan on the fingers. Men hardly ever

insist. They do not carry on a hopeless siege, above all to-day, when

one is so practical and so hurried. Deuce take it! One does not throw

men out of the door, who, after all, do not wish you any harm. Whom

would one receive, if one adopted such a system? I assure you, it is

time you began to mature.”

I was very proud of this improvised argument. It might have availed

with women who do not fear to play with fire, or enjoy a flirtation

if they know they are temptation-proof. It might not have jarred the

finer sensibilities of that type of woman who enjoys a joke about such

things with her intimates, as one is amused by a toy pistol that only

looks real but is not really dangerous. To Raymonde it was absolutely

unintelligible. Every word was a fresh wound, every thought disloyal

and wicked.

While I was speaking she looked and looked at me. Her great eyes, wide

opened, burned with such an ardour that I felt them on me. I wished she

would close them or look away, for her gaze embarrassed me. Little by

little the colour faded from her cheeks, and when I finished speaking

she was deathly pale. As she kept silence, I went on a little annoyed:

“You seem to have nothing to say. I assure you Ducal will explain our

strained relations to suit his own need. Why do you not answer?”

“I am so fatigued,” she murmured; “let me go to my room, please.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“Thank you, I prefer to be alone.”

She glided through the room like a shadow. At the door, she turned

toward me and said brokenly:

“If I was wrong in dismissing your friend, forgive me.”

“No, no,” I said, “it is not that.”

She disappeared, and I walked up and down, reviewing the whole

unpleasant episode and its inevitable consequences. I was annoyed

with myself for the unpleasant sensation I felt. It was something

akin to that I felt when I asked the innocent young girl of the woods

to come to Paris with me alone and she had willingly consented, not

comprehending the significance of my invitation. Had I not nevertheless

committed the cowardice of injuring the little creature who had

entrusted herself to me and claimed protection? And as on that previous

occasion, I recalled the bird which I had picked up in my hand, whose

life, whose warm life, I felt slip away. Had I not held it too close

instead of caressing it?

I should have insisted on going with her,--I should not have left her

alone. But I stayed there, unnerved and dissatisfied with myself.

At dinner she occupied her place without a word of explanation. Any

further expression of opinion would have been as the spade of earth

that falls on a coffin. Neither she nor I reopened the subject. She

retired early, and her absence was a distinct relief to me. The cigar

which I was smoking was excellent. Out of doors, the mild evening air

announced the spring-time.

That night, I have since learned, was one of intense agony for her. How

could she still love me? Had I not yet succeeded in destroying love in

her? Love is not so dependent on its object as on the nature of the

being in whose heart it dwells, and from which it receives its life and

force. That of Raymonde was born immortal.

A few days later, I met Pierre Ducal. I saw at a glance that he was

master of the situation and had decided on his course of conduct. He

came toward me, his hand extended. I had an impulse to refuse it--why

did I not yield to it? I accepted that offered hand. The treason

commenced was by that act consummated.

Did he think I knew nothing of his conduct? He had arranged for leaving

his cards and going away for a while, in order not to make our breach

evident, and the bitter sarcasms which I had anticipated were never

uttered. He continued to say only pleasant things about us, and it

became a matter of general discussion that he had changed completely

and was now inclined to enjoy solitude.

How had it become possible for a worldly cynic of his stamp so suddenly

to withdraw from society and gain opinions so radically different from

those he had always held? I can now explain that mystery. My wife had

given him a new vista of life when she made him realise for the first

time what respect is due a woman. He had never before met a woman of

such ideals. I feel a supreme shame in thinking that he was in advance

of me, perhaps, in making the honourable reparation to Raymonde, the

amend which I was destined to make only later.

* * *

Spring had just begun when she asked me to allow her to return to the

Sleeping Woods. I opposed it on account of the lack of comfort and the

cold. But Paris did not agree with her, and she was gradually losing

weight alarmingly. At last I consented, as I recognised vaguely my

wrongs against her, to make the sacrifice, for such indeed it was for

me, to bury myself in “the desert” of Madame Mairieux.

For the past few years we had spent very little time there, because

I enjoyed travelling constantly to new places, while Raymonde found

pleasure in the associations of spots she knew and loved. At my request

we always left the baby in charge of her grandparents.

“I’ll go with you,” I said heroically after much hesitation, as she

suggested that she should go alone and that I should remain in Paris.

However, I insisted that I should go too, and during the journey I

dwelt on my heroism all the way.

It was pouring, when we arrived.

“One of the joys of the country,” I muttered bitterly.

But it was Raymonde’s own beloved land. She smilingly greeted all her

favourite trees; I believe she even loved the rain that was sent to

nourish them.

M. Mairieux scanned his daughter critically, and I could see that he

was worried by her altered appearance. He glanced from her to me, and I

read in his face that he held me responsible for the change. Without a

word he convicted me. Without a word of explanation he understood the

drama that was in progress. Raymonde herself would have died rather

than complain to him.

Mme. Mairieux, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about my wife’s

appearance.

“Of course she has grown a little thinner, but it is fashionable

nowadays to be slender,” was her characteristic remark.

For the first few days after our arrival, the rain kept up incessantly.

Unable to leave the house, I went from room to room, turning over my

regrets and boredom. In spite of my persistent contrariness Raymonde

seemed born again. Only to see the trees against the grey horizon,

leaning against the window, gave her pleasure.

Once more she could enjoy her beautiful allées. They were covered with

weeds and almost blended with the mossy carpet of the woods, through

which they continued their humble paths of light in every direction.

Dilette was as yet unable to distinguish one tree from another, but her

mother had taught her to shake her hand to people who offered her a

greeting, and one day when we were out walking in the woods, imagining

that the stirring branches were nodding to her, she waved her little

hand in answer to the politeness of the trees.

We again began our long promenades. Soon we left the child with her

governess, that we might bury ourselves deeper in the woods. About us

were all the old peaceful surroundings. The Green Fountain, cleared of

the dead leaves which obstructed it in the winter time, reflected in

its surface all the tranquil beauty of its remote corner of the wood.

If we had but leaned over its cool, transparent water, our faces would

have touched as on that other day when our horses stopped to drink. But

nothing seemed the same to her or to me.

I confused this calm with ennui. I did not know how to find happiness

in the repetition of these ordinary experiences. I needed constant

change of environment and new stimulation. To me life was tiresome if

every day did not bring with it an interesting social function or some

novel impression. The restless spirit of Paris is contagious. To be

constantly active was an absolute necessity for me, and I found the

dull family life to which I was condemned vapid and uninteresting.

To Raymonde, on the other hand, even despite the disillusioning

conditions, this return to the country with me was, as it were, a

halt on her road to Calvary. It brought soothing peace and comfort

to her to know that she was not obliged to see people in whom she

took no interest, to go to places merely to be seen. She was no doubt

continuing to hope for a renewal of the beautiful memories of our

engagement and of the blessed peace of the early days of our marriage,

even though she knew that they could never be revived. Inspired by

the choir of nature which she loved, the living beauty of her native

soil in which our first tender thoughts and the awakening of our love

had taken root, she awaited her fate, like the daughter of Jephthah,

surrounded in her mountain retreat by the maidens of Israel, those

faithful followers who for two months tried to stay the hand of death,

“after which her father did with her according to his vow which he had

vowed.” Raymonde, too, was waiting in that saddened state of mind that

is hardly painful and has its secret charm.

* * *

I soon began to take long automobile rides. Our walks in the forest

had become silent and dull. Perhaps I was unknowingly kinder in not

accompanying her to the places where our love had blossomed.

* * *

At the Sleeping Woods she wore “little dresses,” as Pierre Ducal

would have called them. She generally selected white, which was most

becoming to her. Her taste in clothes, although simple and inexpensive,

was exquisite, though my ultra-fashionable ideas would have dictated

more elaborate gowns. After all, the test of good taste is in being

fittingly attired, and she understood it better than I.

* * *

One day, as I was returning from a long ride, I met her on the road. It

was early morning, when one’s age cannot be successfully hidden. That

is why age scarcely exists in large cities, since the season and hours

of our life are not clearly defined there.

“Where are you going?” I asked, struck anew by her youthful beauty.

My sudden interest surprised her, but she did not know that it was

prompted by appreciation of her appearance rather than real interest in

her destination.

“I am going to take this package to Fannette,” she replied, blushing

with pleasure.

“The peasant with the chapped hands?” I asked, astonished at my own

recollection.

“Yes. She is very ill; I have some medicine for her.”

“Would you care to have me go with you?”

“Indeed I should,” she answered eagerly.

How very gently she spoke to me!

On our way home, she suggested that we take a longer but less sunny

road. I reluctantly agreed, having already regretted my condescension

in going so far with her.

“We’ll take your path,” I said, “we will go more rapidly.”

A long silence followed my remark, silence difficult to break after it

had lasted some time.

We walked on, not exchanging a word, and came to a little house in

the woods, the home of a peasant and his family. At the door stood a

young woman on whose face shone the happiness of motherhood. In her

arms she carried a blond rosy cherub, about her were two, three, four,

five little tots, rising like steps, each one just a head taller than

his next younger brother or sister. The whole family was watching and

pointing, and we heard their loud exclamation and outburst of happy

laughter, as a man with his scythe over his shoulder came down the path

toward me. When he neared the little group, he waved and called out

his greeting, with a voice that sounded like a deep-toned bell. He had

been harvesting, and the honest sweat of hard toil trickled down his

cheeks, but he forgot his tiring labour in the joy of home-coming, in

his return as father of a family to his mid-day meal.

Raymonde stopped a moment.

“Look,” she said to me.

The radiant faces and the evident contentment were indeed a perfect

picture of rustic life and the happiness of simplicity.

“Yes,” I replied, “the scene recalls a Dutch masterpiece. But see how

many children there are.”

“They are so pretty, especially the youngest with his blond curls.”

“Oh, but there are too many of them,” I repeated. She did not reply.

I walked on, not caring to witness the demonstration with which the

father would be greeted. That sort of affection did not appeal to me. I

understood only the so-called higher type of love. As Raymonde did not

follow, I turned around and saw her intently watching that scene from

a life which she appreciated and craved but had been denied. All the

tenderness and yearning of her womanhood were aroused; she could not

keep back the tears.

Instead of silently entering into her feeling, without useless words, I

said impatiently:

“What is the matter with you, Raymonde? Come, that is absurd.”

In reality I knew the deep causes of her emotion. With miraculous

intuition, had she not foreseen this, when she told her father that

although she loved me I was not the husband for her? Although she was

very ingenuous and ignorant of the degree of my unworthiness, yet she

presaged our incompatibility, if not my injustice.

She calmed herself with an heroic effort.

“It is foolish of me,” she agreed. “They are so happy that I was deeply

touched.”

“And we?” I demanded mechanically.

My question forced her to choose between a weak expression of self-pity

or a bolder attempt to conceal her feelings by lying to me.

“Yes, indeed, we too are happy,” she said in a voice bravely simulating

the truth.

At the gate we met M. Mairieux. Raymonde hastened to tell him where

we had been. Somewhat astonished to see us together, he gazed at us

attentively. The least favourable sign of happiness on his daughter’s

face reflected itself on his own. He understood her expression so

thoroughly that he was not to be deceived by appearances.

From her open window Mme. Mairieux caught sight of us.

“Ah! there are the lovers,” she cried.

* * *

I suggested to Raymonde that we make a little journey. The closer

intimacy of travel helps sometimes to heal the distress of hearts that

have been worn by concealed and daily irritations. Did I hope myself

that she would refuse? My project was to return to Paris for a week or

two, and then move on to some fashionable watering place. Although the

season was already advanced (it was the beginning of July) some affairs

were still taking place in the Bois de Boulogne and at Saint-Cloud.

One noticed foreigners in attendance especially, and I liked their

imaginative novelty and prestige.

Whether she accepted the idea of living away from me in order the

better to protect her threatened love from me, or whether her already

weakened condition would no longer permit her to travel, I do not know;

at any rate she refused to accompany me.

“You are right to go,” she added. “The Sleeping Woods are lonely for

your tastes. And as for me, I am so tired--you must let me rest a

little. I will rejoin you shortly, as soon as I am able.”

She no longer believed herself capable of detaching me so completely

from all my accustomed ways of living. Her confidence in herself was

dead, but her confidence in me, fashioned by her love, was more slow

in yielding. My departure would be almost a relief. I believe that I

should have tormented her more by remaining with her than by going. Our

cruelty grows quickly when its victim never complains of the blows.

Through the glass windows of Armenonville, in pleasant company, I

saw again the decorative beauty of long allées filled with leisurely

strolling people. This sort of thing was better suited to my state of

mind. When we ourselves are arid, uninhabited nature vexes us; as a

servant of our social pleasures, it becomes endurable.

From Paris I went in pursuit of it in fashionable resorts. Mme. de

Saunois had gone off to the Engadine, and I installed myself at

Waldhaus, near the lake of Sylvaplana, at the opening of the Fex

valley. Raymonde, either in better health or more anxious, offered to

join me. I evaded summoning her on the pretext of an immediate return,

which I put off time after time. I was determined to ramble about, I

was running after adventures for which I required my liberty. How was

she, in her ignorance, to suspect them?

Excursions were gotten up, romantic pilgrimages to Nietzsche’s house or

in memory of the painter Segantini, who died on the mountain above the

Maloja. I had come a long way in search of artificial emotions such as

one meets with in the theatre and drawing-rooms. Except that in having

them one breathed a healthier air, there was no change.

I had scorned the Sleeping Woods and Sylve-Benite, the black fish-pond

bordered with reeds, the sunken roads, the ravines, the hills, all the

peace that was offered within the reach of one’s hand; I had to have

movement.

When at last I decided to return, thinking of the loyal waiting of my

Penelope, but more and more averse to and disgusted with regular and

thoughtful life--though it is the kind by which alone one can improve

and watchfully perfect oneself--the only danger being lest one fall

asleep--I was not slow to be bored.

* * *

We returned to Paris very early. Raymonde, although the prolongation

of our stay in the country had benefited her health, as far as her

overworked heart was concerned, did not object to my haste. But she

gave every evidence of being unable to go about as much as during the

previous winter.

“A little later in the season,” she said, “I shall go everywhere with

you again.”

I proposed an arrangement which was very satisfactory to me.

“Let each of us be free,” I said, “each go to the places he likes.”

“I shall not go out at all for the present, if you are satisfied.”

“_Let each of us be free_:” what a convenient formula to regain one’s

independence by! I was so blinded that I saw no traces yet of her

growing weakness.

In society I renewed my acquaintance with Mme. de H--, whom I had met

at the Waldhaus, dressed in black, mourning for the shade of Nietzsche.

Her husband had died a few months before of a mysterious and rapid

illness. A court surrounded her, praising “The Open Garden” and newer

poems on the horror of death. Her charm in my eyes withered in one

evening like a full blown rose, and I can hardly to-day analyse it or

explain my servitude. I must, however, try to do so if I am to make

myself understood.

The first time I met her was at Mme. de Saunois’ reception, when

she had appeared in the salon after we had listened to a song by

Henry Duparc called “An Invitation to a Journey.” The music added to

Baudelaire’s words a neurasthenic morbidness. That nonchalance, that

nervous fatigue, was as if embodied in her. One felt that she was

ready for audacious departures. She was in a word the Invitation. Like

vessels anchored in a port, she gave promise of new sensations in other

countries whose fruits were more savoury or more sour. Their battered

sides, hung with the barnacles and weeds of previous journeys, give

evidence of adventure. And as the almost imperceptible movement of

the ship in quiet waters suggests its tossing in the open sea, so too

when Mme. de H-- crossed a salon she set in motion a wave of sensual

appeal. Her affectation, her make-up, her poems, all were marks of

a dark and stormy past. One conjectured healed wounds and suspected

venturesome risks. She had lived through many a perilous moment and

had not remained unscathed. Beauty which is no longer unblemished,

and dead youth which adorns itself as if it sought in advance to defy

time by substituting artificial for natural attractions, are like the

witchcraft of ancient sorcery, whose philtres were like perfumes,

stronger than the fading flowers of which they were made--stronger

because they were beginning to become tainted....

I had been guilty of infidelities before, but this last summed up for

me all the contaminated seduction of primitive passion, passion to

which our civilisation had added one thing more--a taste for flesh that

is “high.”--

* * *

I had forgotten that Raymonde spent part of almost every day in the

Bois with Dilette, among the pine trees around the little pond of St.

James, near the Bagatelle. It is an open playground where the mothers

and nurses bring their little charges, whom they can watch from a

distance during their games of hide and seek.

The Autumn sun was so inviting that Mme. de H-- suggested a walk in the

Bois before returning to the automobile waiting at the side of one of

the roads for us. We were sauntering along when suddenly we came upon

my wife and Dilette.

The fact of my being seen publicly with a lady of her calibre in a

frequented place need not of necessity have aroused suspicion. Was

it that the mere presence of one perfectly right and loyal creature

threw out falsehood and irregularity? We were often seen together--why

should we now appear so at fault? Until now Raymonde had no inkling

of anything between us Now the trembling of her lips a moment alarmed

me. In the Sleeping Woods how could she have learned that one must

control one’s self in public? I feared everything from her provincial

education, lest it cause her to indulge ill-founded jealousy. Yet was

not our sudden instinctive halt at sight of her unmistakable admission?

I was soon reassured. Everything happened in the best possible manner.

I asked her, I dared to invite her, to join us in the automobile,

impudently; but was it not necessary to set her doubts at rest?

“No,” she said, “I shall stay with Dilette.”

“Are you not afraid it is too cold?”

“The sun is strong, we have our furs.”

“Well, then, we shall leave you. Shall I send the machine back for you?”

“Yes, if you will, in about an hour.”

During this brief colloquy, my little girl was running toward me. Her

little three-year-old legs could not trot very quickly. She was already

a reflective person.

“Oh!” she said, seeing me, and seemed to be astonished, “there is papa.”

She looked indeed like an exquisite little miniature in her little

white hat and coat. Why had I never before noticed the charm of her

wonderful colouring, her clear blue eyes and blond curls? Mme. de H--,

responsive to every phase of beauty, stooped to talk to the child and

was about to embrace her, but when Raymonde saw those painted lips so

near the pure forehead of her little girl she quickly pulled Dilette

toward her, and the kiss fell on the child’s curls.

Mme. de H-- drew herself to her full height and looked fixedly at her,

as at one whom she recognised to be inimical. My wife turned her head.

One would have thought it an involuntary gesture. What importance is

there in kissing a child? We said good-bye, and I went on my way with

Mme. de H--.

When we had gone some distance, Mme. de H-- broke the silence.

“She knows.”

I scoffed at so absurd a supposition. Mme. de H-- made no attempt to

substantiate her conviction, but insisted authoritatively (with that

marvellous voice of hers, which is one of her best weapons) that she

was positive of it.

“She knows, but will never speak of it,” she added.

And I knew that my contradiction was only verbal. Deep in my own

consciousness, I felt the truth, and in my imagination I pictured

Raymonde sitting motionless as she watched me disappear with Mme. de

H--, Dilette holding her hand, but not understanding her mother’s

silence. She was thinking of another couple who walked under the trees

at the Sleeping Woods and exchanged vows of everlasting faithfulness.

We found my machine. Before she stepped in, Mme. de H-- turned to me,

and asked briskly:

“Are you thinking of her?”

Instead of answering, I put another question:

“And you?”

“I think only of myself.”

Then she added:

“And of thee.”

But very soon after, her intimacy with me was to come to an end.

* * *

Several days after this, Raymonde timidly informed me that she had

decided to accept every invitation in the future. I had been going

about alone ever since I returned from the country. I objected that

her health would not permit her to keep late hours, and besides that

she had no taste for social functions. She insisted with an unexpected

resolution, and I began to tease her about it:

“Why this sudden interest in society? People have grown quite

accustomed to seeing me go about alone.”

“I am very anxious,” she said sweetly, “that they should expect to see

me wherever they see you.”

I was at a loss to understand why she had suddenly determined to give

up the solitude which she so much enjoyed, but I now know that she

considered herself partly responsible for my intimacy with Mme. de H--;

she felt that if she had tried to share my pleasures she might have

been able to hold my interest. Her resolution was no doubt the result

of some analysis and introspection, and she announced it to me after

coming home from church, where she had gone to pray to God for courage

to carry it out, even though it were to cost her all her rapidly

declining strength.

And so she began to show again to the world her reserve and reticence.

* * *

I tactfully tried to avoid accepting invitations to houses where I was

sure to meet Mme. de H--, who, realising my attitude, reproached me for

what she did not hesitate to call my cowardice.

Humiliated by her scorn, and having no defence to offer, I agreed to go

to a reception at the salon of Mme. de Saunois, who seemed destined to

play an important part in our life drama, for it was through her that I

had met Mme. de H--, three or four years before.

If Raymonde had been absolutely indifferent to me, I should not have

felt so uneasy about the meeting. Her quiet sweetness sometimes soothed

me when we were at home alone. Why did she not remain there, instead

of going out into society with me, why did she not preserve that peace

there for me when I was to feel the need of it? Our varied feelings and

thoughts often make us appear inconsistent, yet one state of mind does

not necessarily preclude its opposite. They may coexist, and indeed

if they do not, we seldom reach our highest development. Yet when

circumstances compel a choice and a sacrifice of the one or the other,

we rebel against the hardship of a deprivation which our selfishness

and egotism alone could never have prompted.

I was in a state of anxiety, during the whole day preceding that

inevitable meeting, and was ready to start much earlier than was

necessary. Impatient, I went into Raymonde’s room to see if she were

waiting for me. She looked very beautiful that night, in a white tulle

gown embroidered in gold flowers, and I complimented her on it. The

decolletage, bordered with swan’s down, gave her added length and

grace: her neck was so small a child could have clasped his two hands

round it--so fragile she seemed.

“Are you ready?” I asked. “It’s time to go.”

My impatience, indeed my very presence, seemed to disconcert her.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” she said.

“Very well,” I replied, “do hurry: you’ll find me in the library.”

In her hand she held a lip stick. On the dressing table before her was

a box of powder and rouge.

She had never used artificial means of beautifying herself. She was

hesitating. No doubt I had disturbed her.

When she joined me a few minutes later, I mechanically looked at her

face for traces of the make-up. She was so pale, so particularly pale,

that I understood the shame she had felt, but neither her lips nor her

cheeks showed the slightest sign of artificial colour. She had tried to

imitate the other women, to make herself unreal with colour and false

emotion, but at the last moment she had found it impossible. She could

bear no artificiality.

As soon as we entered the salon, I looked about quickly, only to find

that Mme. de H-- had not arrived.

Why did I torture myself about this meeting, when I knew that my wife

went out too seldom to hear any reports that were being circulated? She

had indeed shown me an anonymous letter which had been sent to her,

and I felt confident that she was above opening my correspondence.

How then could she have gotten information? And as for the incident

in the Bois--she had never alluded to it again, and surely it was too

insignificant to lead to anything. At the worst she might have thought

it indicated a mild flirtation or a passing fancy. One does not court

public attention with a mistress. In this way I tried to reassure

myself. As a defence against hypocrisy and infidelity, Raymonde had

as a weapon only that imponderable frankness and sincerity which she

radiated always. When I looked elsewhere I believed she was calm, but

not so if I glanced at her face.

“I am very glad to welcome you again,” was Mme. de Saunois’ greeting to

Raymonde. “How very well you are looking!”

These stereotyped phrases, expected of her as the hostess, were

spoken at random; as a matter of fact, Raymonde had never looked so

delicate and pale. In fear and trembling she looked about the room.

Pierre Ducal was there. After an absence of several months, he had

come back; his old interests had reasserted themselves. At first he

had been missed, but his return did not cause much of a stir. How many

attempts one makes, how many backward steps one takes, before one

can give up society! It seems we are the slaves of habits from which

we cannot break ourselves. We often prefer them to the ideals of our

better nature, ideals that might lead us to undreamed heights. It took

a long time and very deep suffering for me to realise the nothingness

of social life. We could not avoid Ducal. Mme. de Saunois had been

speaking to him, and when she came to greet some new arrivals we were

brought face to face. He bowed respectfully to my wife, without saying

a word, while she, conquering her feelings, extended her hand to him.

That action on her part was an expression of her tenderness for me and

of her complete self-immolation, and yet, at the same time, it affected

me disagreeably, because it caused me to admire her magnanimity when

I knew that I myself was still disloyal. I greeted my old friend

cordially, but he only bowed to me. I was for a moment jealous of the

forgiveness he had received. Would he not thus recover his wounded

pride if, as every indication led me to believe, he had loved and still

loved her?

But this feeling gave way to one of interest as I saw Mme. de H--

enter the room with a train of admirers. She stopped short a few

steps from us and continued her conversation in a loud tone of voice.

Nothing could have been more vulgar than that apparently accidental but

carefully planned halt.

She was possibly the only person in the room who was talking, for

all other conversations ceased, as people observed the direction she

was taking. No doubt an interesting scene was expected, of which no

one wanted to lose the slightest detail. My private life was not a

secret, in a world where every one knows every one’s else remissness

and finds self-justification in it, or, if necessary, material for

revenge. But why did Mme. de H-- seek a demonstration which might so

easily have been avoided? Accustomed to publicity, and having won great

popularity, she had every possible advantage over Raymonde, whose

timidity, interpreted as disdain, had not made her a favourite. But in

that salon, as when hunting in a forest, one lay in wait for death and

inhaled an odour of blood.

I was standing behind my wife, and a change of position would have

meant coming very close to Mme. de H--, whose manœuvres completely

non-plussed me. It was very evident that she intended to make no

advance to Raymonde, who, paralysed with fear, had become so pale that

she kept up only with difficulty. She was exposed to public gaze like

the little Christian martyrs of old, exhibited in full view before they

were thrown to the wild beasts at the Coliseum. And I read contempt for

me in the eyes of Pierre Ducal, who stood looking at me.

As soon as Raymonde gained her self-control she stepped forward and

heroically extended her hand to Mme. de H--. As she did so, the picture

of it all impressed itself on my mind: her beautiful profile looked

like an alabaster bas-relief of a saint, with a halo about her head.

But this fleeting image quickly faded from my mind in the contemplation

of the simplicity of the situation which I had feared would be so

complex.

“She knows nothing,” I assured myself, “how could she know? One always

unnecessarily exaggerates the importance of things which do not happen

and never will. It is a vicious habit to worry.”

On the other hand one often minimises the import of incidents, as was

the case with me in this instance, because I could not understand

the magnanimity of which my wife was capable. We are prone to forget

bullets which have missed their mark, and, their danger once averted,

promptly disregard their deadly power.

A concert was to be given during this evening of which I am writing.

Mme. de H--, who was playing a game which I did not understand, invited

me to a chair which she had reserved for me. No one seemed to take

any notice of this fact, for other dramas, some suspected and others

definitely known, had absorbed the general attention.

I remained with her even during the intermission, while my wife sat

alone several feet away.

“Now that she has forgiven Ducal, he will surely go and talk to her,”

I thought; and I even hoped that he would, in order that she might not

appear so completely ignored.

But Ducal did not approach her. Withheld by his respect for her, he did

not presume that her pardon gave him the right to address her. And he

left without a word to her. What a lesson it was for me to realise that

her divine forgiveness had converted the heart of so hard a cynic as

Pierre Ducal.

When we returned home, I, with my consummate egotism, desired most

condescendingly to express my approval of her conduct. Had she not

behaved well? And I, I was very much relieved and indeed happy, and yet

I could not bring myself to tell her what I had planned, for I read an

expression in her eyes which seemed to say:

“Are you not satisfied with me this time? Have I not done my duty,

every duty, more than my duty? I offered my hand in forgiveness to

your friend who insulted me, and to the woman who took you from me and

then scoffed me. But my suffering has not wrung a cry from me. I am

silent, for I am your wife. My love for you and my baby Dilette binds

us indissolubly, with you--how have you kept your vow?”

For one brief moment, I was tempted to draw her to me and to confess my

infidelity. She would have pardoned me, I am sure that she would have

forgiven me. Her virtue seemed to purge the atmosphere of my lies and

insincerities. But I quickly rejected that unreasonable exaltation.

Such heroism on my part would have been absurd. I thought she could

have no suspicion of my intimacy with Mme. de H-- because she had

seen us once on the Bois. She had not been a heroine. I overestimated

her conduct, for she had no doubt reached the simple conclusion that

she had exaggerated the importance of Pierre Ducal’s declaration; and

as for Mme. de H-- well, she merely thought that the woman piqued my

curiosity. Why needlessly complicate matters? The dreaded meeting had

passed off uneventfully. Why consider the subject further?

* * *

I was not slow in understanding the object of Mme. de H--, who now

began to affect being seen in public with me. Did she not make bold to

recite a poem in which allusions were pointed and ill concealed? Our

modern poets express their confidences in precise terms, not general

themes. She would have liked to cause some scandal, to force Raymonde

to seek a separation. All such women as she extol free love, and

with an eye to the practical side as well know how to secure social

advantage from it all; though once they have it they exhibit marvellous

executive ability in preventing their passion from running away with

them.

Growing paler and paler, more and more silent, Raymonde still

accompanied me everywhere. Her preoccupied air re-established between

us those distances which indelicacy thought to have wiped out. I was

being apprenticed in that cruelty which Mme. de H-- practised with so

much ease, the cruelty which love exacts the moment it ceases to grow

in the clear light of day. I might have feared the softening effect

of Raymonde’s tears, but she never let me see them. I saw her pine

away, but I did not believe my eyes. I saw her suffer, and told myself

that she did not know. Why should she, I asked, think evil of these

flirtations and preferences that are now so notorious in society, which

every one sanctions? Thus one grows accustomed to his misdemeanours, if

nothing happens to expose them.

Once, however, as we were going out, I saw her face contract as if

through the effort of overcoming some internal pain.

“You are tired,” I said. “Don’t go.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I am quite able to go.”

“Please lie down awhile now. It will be better for you.”

“I shall take a rest soon.”

“To-night?”

“No, not to-night:--not yet.”

“You like going out, then?”

“I like going with you.”

I could not prevail upon her to stay behind. I offered to let her

return to the Sleeping Woods. She might regain her health and strength

there. At the name she smiled, a thing she did seldom enough now, but

still she refused.

“I do not care to leave you,” she said.

“That is stubbornness.”

She turned away. “Oh, no, it is not, I assure you.”

There was only one thing for me to say: “Let us stay at home to-night,

then.” I did not say it, although I was tempted to. The germ of evil

had been sown in me, and my crime was working out naturally, almost of

itself. When one has sown the seeds and covered them well, does not

grain grow in the fields? The bad grain in our hearts is still more

prompt to spring up.

Nevertheless, I was irritated with myself. My discontent gave me a sort

of fever, a need of activity and distraction, added to my taste for

society and the wicked fascinations of Mme. de H--. What loyalty and

wholesome tenderness remained in me thus took sides, while it disturbed

me, with my basest instincts, to push me the faster toward the abyss.

Only some miraculous intervention could have saved me. Raymonde, who

knew it, after having tried suffering in vain, gave her life that the

miracle might come to pass.

* * *

On our return that evening, she sank down on a divan in the vestibule

and had to admit that she was defeated.

“I cannot stir. I’m sorry.”

She had to be carried to her room and put to bed, and wrapped in warm

clothes to stimulate her circulation. Her feet and hands were fairly

frozen; the slackened course of her blood was quickened only with great

difficulty.

After the perplexing and alarming diagnosis of the nearest physician,

whom I had sent for in the night, I called in Dr. Aynaud, whose

authority is universally admitted. He could not come until six o’clock

that evening, but as soon as he was announced I felt reassured. An

illness without cause or first stages, without definite symptoms,

which had not prevented the patient from attending a function the

night before, could not be extremely dangerous. I explained things to

the doctor in a few words. He made the gesture of a man who trusts

only his own examination, and I led him to Raymonde’s room. After the

auscultation, he proceeded to investigation and minute questioning. My

wife lent herself to it complaisantly, and added nothing herself when

the doctor’s questions ceased.

“You do not ask my opinion?” he queried.

“What is the good?” she replied, preoccupied.

Still more surprised, he hesitated, then said:

“I see. You think it isn’t serious, eh?”

“If you like.”

“Come, come! A change of air, and everything will be all right.”

She repeated pensively:

“A change of air.”

I led the doctor into my study.

“You understood?” he said at once.

“That it isn’t serious?”

Whether he acted in accordance with his temperament, little inclined to

dissimulate no matter how serious a case might be, whether the evidence

seemed to him glaring, or whether in his clear-sightedness he realised

that I was responsible, he hurled his opinion in my face, without

warning of any kind.

“She is lost.”

When one is accustomed only to conversations velvety with politeness

even if they are savage at bottom, such brutal statements are

disconcerting; one does not allow them or believe in them, one

considers them declamatory. In society no one is flat-footed, with love

or truth or death. One turns carefully aside from such lack of taste or

tactless language as the doctor’s.

Quite calmly I let him know my incredulity.

“Come, come, then, what is her trouble?” I asked.

“Her trouble? She hasn’t any.”

“What is the matter then?”

“If she had any, I should know how to treat her. I find nothing,

and I can do nothing. She has reached the end of her forces, she is

exhausted. Her heart and arteries do not perform their functions

properly. They may stop at any moment. In any case, they will not act

much longer. It is the same with her as with very old people sometimes;

the oil is dry, the wick is burned out.”

“At her age? You are joking, doctor.”

“At her age, yes, it is surprising. I have met similar cases among the

working people in the hospitals, from too early or badly cared-for

maternity, or from too long uninterrupted manual labour and lack of

hygiene.”

“But none of those things can be the case with Mme. Cernay.”

Before making his point definite, the doctor seemed to stop and

meditate.

“Moral suffering, continued unrest and complete lack of mental

repose, can produce a similar result,” he ended by telling me.

“The slow wasting away which one sometimes finds with unhappiness

requires a highly wrought sensibility. But that realm is closed to my

investigation.”

And, stopping short, he wrote a prescription; he advised the quiet of

the country, talked of the unexpected reserves of her youth, mitigated

at a rather late hour the severity of his verdict, promised to return,

and took his leave.

As soon as he had gone, my spirit began to rebel against him. His

inability to define Raymonde’s illness drove him to exaggerate it. He

was falling back on those old-fashioned methods that attribute all our

ills to internal rather than external causes. I sent a telegram after

him, asking him to call in consultation a certain specialist whose name

had been made famous by the enthusiasm of a social clientèle.

It was important to reassure Raymonde absolutely, I thought. Before

rejoining her, I considered some means to this end. We had been asked

to Mme. de Saunois’ that very evening: I would go, so that she might

not think I was hiding anything. Yet the hope of meeting Mme. de H--

there, was not that something hidden?

As I reached this decision, I heard echoing like a refrain, the hard

words of Dr. Aynaud: “She is lost.” I recoiled from them. In order

to overcome my scruples, I reviewed all the reassuring symptoms--the

doctor’s final words, which had been less positive and less despondent,

Raymonde’s youth, her health, and our long walks in the old days, the

absence of any definite malady, especially the benefit that might be

gained from improvement in her mental condition.

Gaining some courage at last, I went to her room, and, composing

myself, proceeded to endow the doctor with optimistic opinions that

he had not held. It was a question of diet, rest and departure for

the Sleeping Woods, as soon as the season would permit, I said. As I

spoke, she looked at me as she had looked the day that I found fault

with her for repulsing Pierre Ducal. Her eyes troubled me in the same

way. The light tone I had adopted rang false, she knew. Ill as she was

I was provoked at her for pointing out my own hypocrisy by the sheer

limpidity of her eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” I went on. “The nurse is here. I’ll bring her in

before I leave. You will have a quiet night.”

“You are going out?”

“Certainly. Why shouldn’t I? You are not so ill as all that.”

“Truly?”

“Of course. You can see that from my going out. I’ll see you in the

morning, dear.”

But on the doorstep, that “truly” lost its questioning meaning. She

_knew_, as she had always known, as she knew at the Sleeping Woods, that

my love was not bringing her happiness, as she knew, without proof,

without any need of proof, that I was betraying her. Her “truly” meant:

“The end will soon come, and you cannot even stay with me. Am I already

of so little importance?” It found no fault; it simply stated a fact.

And how should I get on in the future without tormenting her? I hurried

down the steps to drive away this mingled vision of cruelty and remorse.

“No, no,” I said, to encourage myself, “it is impossible. I am

exaggerating. Sickness does not develop so quickly. This Dr. Aynaud has

upset me by his stupid brutality.”

Was it a fact then? Those pale and meagre cheeks, those dominating

eyes, which dark rings made larger as a halo magnifies a light, that

sad and suffering look in them that not even habit could accustom me

to--was I to be deprived of them? A sense of danger suddenly gave me

sympathy for her. Was I to lose her?

I reached Mme. de Saunois’ at last in a state of extreme nervous

tension, such as a tired and horrified army must feel within a

conquered city. I craved, to benumb me, the excitement of music and

brilliant lights, the flash of jewels, the beauty of women and their

glistening lips, the suggestiveness in those attitudes by which the

present fashions submit our women’s bodies to our curious gaze.

I longed for all this intoxication of the eyes, this brilliancy

that should dispel that darker picture from my mind. Let all those

things greet me and I should be relieved of a great weight! Already

I discounted this relief as I was taking off my overcoat in the

vestibule, and entered, ready for my intoxication.

Yes, everything I sought was there. It was hot: it was the atmosphere

of unalloyed pleasure: there were flowers and numerous lamps and that

special offering of flesh that women’s dress sets out like baskets

of rich fruit. People were talking, laughing, moving about, enjoying

each moment. Is not a salon a guarded place without an opening on the

outside world, with no doors leading to the past or present, where one

forgets, where one goes in order to forget? It is the price one pays

for tastes of happiness.

Mme. de H--, who was watching for me, glided toward me and took me in

her wake, making off with me like a vessel that puts out to sea with

sealed orders.

Yes, everything was there to offer me distraction, and yet, that night,

I gained nothing of the sort. I was cold, and could not warm myself. In

the midst of so many colours my eyes saw nothing but the shadows on all

the faces under those lights. On that of Mme. de H--, nearer at hand,

in spite of the rouge, the powder, the smile, the forced joy, I saw

distinctly, the definite pallor of death: not that death which suddenly

suspends our motion and hurries us into the unknown, but that death of

emptiness that is covered with gilded superficiality, with emptiness of

false compliments and lying declarations and hypocritical enthusiasms,

emptiness of petty hates, of affections limited by desires and desire

that finds only limit in caresses, emptiness of wit, of artifice and

passion, emptiness even of our restlessness and pride; that death and

emptiness, in a word, of everything that is not the print of solitude

and immortality.

And just as death was there everywhere about me in that salon,

many-sided and invisible, life had fled for refuge yonder in that room

where Raymonde waited for me to return. She was not resting; she was

only waiting for me, I told myself. When I should enter, she would

lift her arms from the bed, and in her open palms would be security

and peace and love. Around her head would shine that halo which I had

already seen there. But I should have to hurry; she would not wait for

me long--

A sudden illumination shone within me. I felt a happiness without

knowing whence it came, a state for which the recollection of my

engagement and perhaps too some rare intuition that vanity had not

stifled in me, unconsciously had prepared me for, so that I stirred

beneath it, like the earth at dawn.

Some outward sign of it all must have shown in me, for Mme. de H--

asked:

“What is the matter with you?”

Her voice had suddenly become unfamiliar.

“With me? Nothing.”

“You are most peculiar this evening.”

“I am over-tired; that’s all. I must go.”

“Do you feel ill?”

“Very well, on the contrary,” I replied, without thinking of my words.

In the face of my incoherence she was clever enough to recognise

the futility of insisting, and contented herself with seeking an

appointment at some other time.

“To-morrow, then, at our house?”

“No, not to-morrow.”

“When, then?”

“I do not know--”

I left her in her surprise and anger, and crossed the salon like a

somnambulist. Amidst so many lights, I saw only one bright ray in front

of me, and followed it as the kings of old their guiding star.

My return did not change the tenour of my thoughts. In the vestibule I

stopped. What was I going to do? Perhaps she had fallen asleep in the

despair of my desertion and the anxiety of her illness. It would be

better to wait until morning. To-morrow I would tell her.--

What should I tell her? Suspicions do not take the place of proofs.

Why disturb her ignorance? No! No! I would be content to announce our

departure for the Sleeping Woods as soon as she was able to make the

journey.

I had started toward my room when I caught the glimmer of the night

light which filtered under her door. I approached it. It seemed to me

that my base ambitions, my petty desires, my selfishness, my cruelty,

even the impurity of my past fell from me like a discarded garment.

Almost light-hearted, I turned to cross that inevitable threshold.

I entered. From the depths of the bed a murmur reached me:

“Is it you?”

The little lamp shed only a tiny light. Scarcely did I distinguish her

eyes which gazed at me fixedly. I did not say a word in reply. A sacred

emotion overcame me. I turned to the nurse and told her to get some

sleep in the next room, which had been prepared for her. She objected

that Madame was depressed, although she had no fever.

“I shall remain with her myself,” I replied.

She showed me the medicines which had been prepared, and left the room.

When the door closed, I went to Raymonde’s bedside, knelt, and resting

my forehead on her hand which I had taken, softly uttered the necessary

word, the first I had to say:

“Forgive me.”

Her hand withdrew from mine, and placed itself on my head, and I

understood without Raymonde’s saying so, that I was forgiven. But could

it be done so quickly? The work which was being accomplished within

me did not permit me to renounce so easily the chance to describe the

scene of my conversion. I wished her to know its whole extent, and I

began:

“Listen--”

With an authority unexpected from one so weak, she broke off my

confidences.

“I do not wish to hear,” she said.

Completely overcome by her grace, I wished at least to cry out my love

for her. I went on stammering, when I saw her raise herself and put her

face close to mine.

“Oh, my dear,” she said; “you are weeping, as on the night of our

marriage at the Sleeping Woods,--do you remember?”

She told me that I wept, and, as on that occasion, she added:

“But it is so simple.”

I did not understand at once what she meant by it. Then I feared to

understand it, and interpreted it in my own way.

“Yes, is it not? It is so simple for us to love each other.”

She looked at me for a long time, surprised, and repeated:

“For us to love?”

And then no doubt she inwardly reproached herself for evading the

truth, at a time when truth was appearing plain to us, for she replied,

in a calm voice:

“Why do you not tell me that I must die?”

I rose quickly. “Oh, Raymonde, I beg of you, do not say that.”

I could doubt it no more than she. As I had left her in the evening I

had known it. And it was that which had enlightened me about myself,

which had flooded me with light.

With the same tone of authority, she calmed me:

“That too is so simple,” she repeated.

With a supreme effort I tried to rebuild some hope. I spoke to her of

her youth, of my love, and of Dilette--

“Oh, Dilette,” she said, and for the first time she grew tender. I

spoke of our return to the Sleeping Woods, of the wonderful air she

would breathe there, and of the spring, which would soon come.

“Dearest, do you remember the first of May?” I asked.

My words drew a faint smile from her, delicate as flowers that grow in

sandy soil. Encouraged by her smile, I insisted:

“We can still be happy.”

But she declared gravely:

“I _am_ happy.”

“Henceforth we shall always be happy.”

“Yes, always.”

And as if to intensify the meaning of the word “always,” she murmured

these strange words:

“Do not be afraid, my dear. I have accepted it, so as not to be a

burden to you--”

“What do you mean?” I inquired anxiously.

She did not seem to have heard my interruption, and went on:

“Now I am so happy that I dare not refuse God--”

What was this mysterious compact that she had entered into, at first

with unconscious delicacy and now renewed by deeds of mercy? The

mystery was so painful to me that I leaned closer to her and entreated

her:

“Raymonde, I beg of you, tell me what it is you have accepted.”

She threw back her head a little, looked at me with unspeakable

gentleness, and let fall like an avowal of love:

“Death--Do you not see it--?”

* * *

The word struck terror to my heart--stunned me. I was afraid to take

it in. Suddenly the exact words which I had read to her in Rome, after

our visit to the tomb of Pauline de Beaumont, came back to me. “She

wanted to die, in order not to be a burden to me any longer.” The

joy of living had made place in her for the glory of sacrifice. She

had offered herself to save me from my faults, to free me from all

restraints. My return, which she had ceased to expect, overjoyed her,

but her belated happiness seemed so fragile to her that she feared to

lose it if it were prolonged. Or she believed it alone well worth her

absolute submission to the divine will.

Dying, she was regaining my love. But if she recovered, what might not

happen to it? Perhaps her confidence had preceded her to the grave.

I could only call her by her name. And she listened to that name when

I repeated it, as though I took heart of grace to say it for the first

time. She was silent, to feel her joy the more keenly. She did not

speak, and yet her lips stirred. I believe she was praying.

* * *

With a thousand precautions, the doctors permitted me to take her to

the Sleeping Woods. That painful journey drew from her not a single

complaint. My tenderness compensated for all her suffering.

As we neared our estate, she asked me to open the windows of the

automobile in which she was lying, and to lift her up. The faintest

green bloom already covered the forest at the birth of Spring. At

the time of our return from Rome we had found it thus. Then all the

happiness, which I later spurned, was still before me.

“We are home,” she said.

She breathed deeply; a little colour came into her cheeks.

“You are looking better already,” I said: “that is a good sign.”

“Yes,” she murmured, as she fell back, “they must not know at once.”

She was thinking of her parents.

Her father gave up all hope as soon as he saw her. I could not

misunderstand his ravaged face. For a long time he had known that some

secret grief had undermined her health, but he did not believe the time

had come so soon. The tenacious optimism of Mme. Mairieux relieved the

situation of its tragedy.

“We are going to diet her,” she said; “in a few months I assure you she

will be transformed.”

And even when she learned that a specialist was to come expressly from

Paris, almost once every week, to take care of our invalid, she could

not believe Raymonde beyond recovery. She considered me attentive and

generous. The thought of this great doctor that we were putting to so

much trouble was agreeable to her, and quieted her anxiety. In the old

days her perseverance would have been a precious encouragement to me,

but now I saw too clearly the error of it to summon hope.

Raymonde, who had been brought into the chateau on a stretcher, would

not leave it alive. Reflected in my frightened love, which was no

longer deluded, and which nothing could again alter, she watched

herself die and pass away as in a mirror.

* * *

During the pleasant hours of the day, her chair was placed near an open

window. I never left her. I attached myself to each moment as if to

prevent its flight.

The birds were singing, the leaves beginning to come out. One seemed to

hear the germination in the earth like a low hum in the clear air. I

was tortured by the sight of this silently renewing life while the work

of death was going on before me.

Nothing of what passed within my heart escaped my wife.

“You are mistaken, dear,” she said. “This is not the end.” She was

thinking: “This is the beginning. It is not the earth that is calling

me.”

At that moment, a bell began to toll the Angelus. Other churches took

up the burden from a distance.

“Listen,” she murmured, inspired by those churchly voices, as she had

been in the garden of the Pincio,--“listen--”

I wanted to close the window, on account of the evening air. She

allowed me to do so, but she was thinking “Of what avail?” Or perhaps

she was repeating to herself:

“It is so simple.”

* * *

One morning I found M. Mairieux at the door, having come over for news

of the patient.

“Won’t you come in?” I asked.

He looked at me with his sad eyes, so charged with fatherly affection.

He did not know, then, that I was no longer the same man.

I led him to his daughter, but he scarcely dared to follow me,

remembering my former jealousy.

“Father,” Raymonde said to him, “I want you to come and see how happy

we are.”

His too long restraint before me broke down, and I saw him sobbing. I

believe that at that moment he forgave me the wrong which I had done

his daughter.

* * *

On the first of May, in accordance with their charming custom, the

children of the neighbouring villages came to sing and dance in the

court. They had scarcely begun when I wanted to send them away. In

the city one has straw thrown on the street in front of houses where

sick people are, to deaden the noise, and I feared their noise here.

Raymonde stopped me:

“Let them stay, please.”

“They will tire you,” I remonstrated.

“No, no. Do you remember--?”

As she was speaking, I recalled that other first of May, ours, when she

had run away from me in the forest.

The refrain of the old song had not changed. It was still:

Awaken, sleeping beauty,

Awaken, if you sleep!

For the first time I saw my wife’s calmness--that surprising calm to

which I was only now growing accustomed--shattered, as if it were a

crystal that had been too roughly handled.

“Soon,” she whispered.

She did not finish her thought, but I completed it myself;--one day,

soon, she would awaken no more. And I sent the troop of children away,

no longer able to endure their gaiety.

* * *

That same day she asked for Dilette, whom she no longer kept so much

near her, not to affect or sadden her precocious sensibility unduly.

The child was loth to leave her again: she looked at her insistently

and too closely.

“Take her away,” Raymonde begged me.

I had almost to take the child away by force. When she had gone,

Raymonde drew me down as if to whisper to me.

“Promise me,” she said, “that you will always love her, that you will

never let any one take her place in your affections.”

She stopped, not daring to go on. But I read her meaning in her eyes.

“Raymonde,” I answered in despair, “why do you speak to me like that?

You do not know, you never will know, that my love is now equal to

yours.”

She bowed her head as if she had been caught in wrong-doing.

“I cannot believe it, dear.” And then in a whisper: “That would be so

wonderful.”

She had thought to charge me with our daughter’s future, thinking of

the time when I should be her sole protector, when I might perhaps be

led to betray my tender memories. And in my powerlessness to convince

her, I knelt before her, insisting with all my power.

“You must believe me, Raymonde.”

She laid her hand on my head.

“Yes,” she said, “I believe you.”

And she smiled ... It was the last time.

* * *

How can I write what follows?

Her weakness increased; she no longer even left her room. Of her own

accord she asked for the final sacrament. As she received it, I saw her

face, so pale and white, grow bright, like a window behind which some

light is shining. It was a transfiguration, in which I had the feeling

that God was in her, stronger than she, so frail, whom He was going to

take away.

The days were growing longer, crowding night between slow twilights

and hastening dawns. The morning of the twentieth of May, a little

before five o’clock, she called to me. Her room, where I was watching,

faced the east, and through the loosely closed shutters a ray of light

entered.

“Isn’t it daylight yet?” she asked me.

She was oppressed. I took her hand, which was damp, in mine. There was

no abatement of the fever; yet I was not immediately alarmed.

“Yes, dear, don’t you see the sun?”

“No,” she said.

Her “no” startled me. I looked at her: her eyes were wide open,

searching: she could no longer see. I pushed back the shutters, and

through the open window a flood of light fell upon the bed, toward

which I ran again at once.

“And now?”

“Now?” she repeated, making an effort, as if to fix her attention.

Then she seemed to grow stronger, and replied:

“Now, my dear, yes, I see.”

She raised her two arms before her, and made as if to point to some

spot beyond me, repeating still more distinctly:

“Yes, I see.”

She fell back then. For a second I thought it was to rest, or perhaps,

to sleep. Filled with an inexpressible anguish, I leaned closer over

her. And I realised that she was, in fact, sleeping, that it was her

eternal sleep.

“It is so simple,” she had said.

I closed her eyelids, with their long lashes, on that invisible world

which she had seen, and her face took on immediately that ineffable

serenity with which death stamps the purest things in life, the most

divine. Overcome by such calm and peace, I knelt involuntarily and

prayed. Her gentleness had entered into me; her force communicated

itself to me.

It was only a little later that I faced despair, and all that ferment

of revolt which rises in us after such misfortune. But there, alone, in

her room, for a few moments I was what she would have wished me to be.

When Mme. Mairieux and the maid came and told me it was time to dress

her, they hesitated between two of her last gowns, the white and gold,

or the blue and gold, that she had worn when we went out together.

“No, no,” I said to them, “not those.”

And I went myself to look for the woollen dress which she had worn the

day of our betrothal--which I had one day ridiculed. Luxury had killed

her. It should not constrain her in her tomb. She had come to me in all

simplicity, and I had not understood her. I myself had crushed her.

They were astonished at my choice.

“No, please,” I said. “She would have wanted this one. We must do as

she would have liked.”

* * *

Oh, my love, whom I so cruelly tortured, even in Death you bear within

you that peace which, living, you held out to me with expiating hands.