ROMAIN ROLLAND (continued 3)

Give all! . . . No! She could not give all! It was not permitted her. Give all! . . . Yes, her milk, her blood, her body, and her love. . . . But all? her whole soul? her whole will? and for her entire life? . . . No, that, she was certain, she could never do. Even when she wished to, she would be unable. One cannot give what is not one's own,—my free soul. My free soul does not belong to me; it is I who belong to my free soul. I cannot dispose of it. . . . To conserve its liberty is much more than a right, it is a religious duty. . . .

There was in these thoughts of Annette a little of the moral rigidity that she inherited from her mother. But in her, all took on a passionate character; with her impetuous blood she could give warmth to the most abstract ideas. . . . Her "soul!" . . . That "Protestant" word! . . . (It was herself speaking. . . . She used the word often! . . .) Had Raoul Rivière's daughter only one soul? She had a whole troop of them, and in the lot there were three or four of notable stature that did not always understand one another. . . .

Yet this internal conflict went on in an undefined sphere. Annette had not yet had the occasion to put her contrary passions to the test. Their opposition was still a mental game that was ardent and sufficiently stirring, but devoid of risks; she did not have to decide; she could permit herself the luxury of mentally trying one solution or another.

It was a subject of laughing discussions with Sylvie, one of those heart problems that delight the heart of youth during periods of idleness and waiting, until the time comes when reality brusquely decides for you, without bothering about your elegant arrangements. Sylvie perfectly understood Annette's double need; but, so far as she was concerned, she could see no contradiction in it; one only had to do as she did: love when it pleased you, be free when it pleased you. . . .

But Annette shook her head.

"No!"

"Why not?"

She refused to explain.

And Sylvie asked mockingly:

"You think it's good enough for me?"

And Annette exclaimed:

"No, darling. You know perfectly well that I love you, as you are."

But Sylvie was not far wrong. Through affection, Annette (while she sighed to herself) refused to judge Sylvie's free loves. But for herself she rejected the thought of them. It was not merely the puritanism inherited from her mother that would have considered them dishonorable. It was her "entire" nature, it was the very plenitude of her Desire that refused to parcel itself into small bits. Despite the obscure appeal of a powerful sexual life, it would have been impossible for her, at this moment of her life, to receive without revolt the idea of a love in which the whole being, senses, heart and thought, self-respect, respect for the other person, and the religious ardor of the impassioned soul, did not all equally have their places at the feast. To give her body and withhold her mind,—no, there could be no question of that. . . . It would be treachery! . . . Then there remained only one solution,—marriage, monogamous love? Was that a possible dream, for an Annette?

Possible or not, it cost nothing to dream it, in advance. She did not deprive herself of it. She had arrived at the edge of the wood of adolescence, at that beautiful, final instant when, still savoring the shadow and the shelter of dreams, one sees opening before one, on the plain, long white roads in the sunlight. On which shall we imprint out steps? There is no haste to choose. The mind laughingly delays, and it chooses them all. A happy young girl, without material cares, radiating love, her arms full of hope, sees offered to her heart the possibility of twenty different lives; and, even before asking herself, "Which do I prefer?" she takes up the whole sheaf, to breathe their sweetness. In imagination Annette tasted, one by one, the future shared with this and that, and then with another, mate, dropping the bitten fruit, nibbling at another, then returning to the first, trying a third, without deciding on any one. Age of uncertainty, at first happy and exalted, but soon to know weariness, crushing depression, and sometimes even despairing doubt.

So Annette dreamed of her life,—of her lives to come. To Sylvie alone she confided her uncertain waiting. And Sylvie was amused at her sister's languorous, troubled indecision. She knew little about such things, for it was her habit (she boasted of it in order to scandalize Annette) to decide before choosing. To decide immediately. Afterwards, there was time to make one's choice. . . .

"And at least," she said with her swaggering air, "one knows whereof one speaks!"

V

In the society in which she moved, Annette was extremely successful. She was much sought after by the majority of the young men. The young girls, many of whom were prettier than she, did not take very kindly to this. They had the more reason to be galled because Annette did not seem to make any great effort to please. Distrait and a little distant, she did nothing to pique the interest or flatter the vanity of the men who sought her out. Calmly installed in a corner of the drawing-room, she let them come to her, without appearing to note their presence, listened smilingly (they were never sure that she had heard) and, when she answered, she uttered only pleasant commonplaces. However, they all came, and tried to charm her: the worldly, the brilliant, and the respectable young men.

The jealous ones liked to believe that Annette was playing a deep game, that her indifference was only the ruse of a practised coquette; they remarked that for some time now Annette's rather cold correctness of dress had given place to elegant toilettes, in which the fantastic note, they said, was skilfully calculated to relieve the monotony of her sleepy homeliness. Malicious tongues added that it was her fortune more than her face that was courted. But, as regards the toilettes, their charming artifice should not be attributed to Annette: Sylvie's taste and wit were solely responsible. And, no doubt, she was a "good catch," but if her little court took cognizance of the fact, as it surely did, it was only the nuance of respect which marked their attentions that might be attributed to this consideration. Had she been less well provided by fortune, they would have pursued her no less but more boldly.

The allurement was deeper. Annette, without being a coquette, was well enough served by her instincts. Rich and strong, there was no need of anyone telling them what had to be done; their action was sure, for the will had no part in it. While Annette, smiling indolently as though submerged in her inner life, was allowing herself to be carried on the pleasant tide of a vague revery, on a voluptuous wave, that did not prevent her hearing and seeing,—her body was speaking for her: a powerful attraction was emanating from her eyes and mouth and strong, young limbs, from the youth of her being, charged with love like a flowering glycine. The charm was so strong that no one seeing her (at least, no one but a woman) could dream that she was homely. And if she spoke little, only a few casual words are needed in an empty conversation to evoke unusual mental horizons. Then too, she offered herself no less to the desires of those who sought the soul, than to the covetousness of those who had recognized in this dormant body (sleeping water) a wealth of pleasure unknown to itself.

She did not seem to see; but she saw perfectly well. It is a feminine gift. In Annette it was complemented by a vigorous intuition which often goes with strong vitality, and which, without words or gestures, immediately penetrates the speech of being to being. When she seemed distrait, it meant that she was listening to this language. Dark forest of hearts! . . . They were—they and she—on the hunt. Each sought his track. Having drifted for a time from one to another, Annette chose her own.

The young men among whom her choice lay belonged to that rich, intelligent, active bourgeoisie, advanced in ideas (at least they thought them advanced), of which Raoul Rivière had been a member. It was shortly after the Dreyfus Affair, which had brought together men belonging to different orders of thought, who yet found themselves united by a common instinct of social justice. This instinct, as later became apparent, was not very enduring. So far as it was concerned, social justice was limited to a single injustice. One example among thousands was Rivière himself, who had lost no sleep over the iniquities of the world, who had even been capable of concluding with no pangs of conscience some profitable business with the Sultan, when His Highness was coolly engineering, amid the silence of a complaisant Europe, the first Armenian massacre,—yet who, quite sincerely, had been completely bowled over by the famous Affair. One cannot ask too much of men! When they have fought for justice, once in their lives, they are winded. They have been just on at least one occasion; one must be grateful for that. They are grateful themselves. Rivière's society, the families whose sons were now Annette's suitors, had no doubt concerning the merit they had acquired in the championship of Right, nor concerning the inutility of refreshing this merit by new efforts. They remained, once for all, the crew of Progress, with folded arms.

With minds sufficiently at peace, besides, as regarded the international landscape, in this fleeting hour when civic conflicts had nearly extinguished national hatreds—save for the old ember of anglophobia, still kept smoking by the Boer war,—possessed of a diluted and not at all militaristic patriotism,—given to tolerance and good humor, because they were well off, belonging to the victorious party,—they gave the impression of an easy-going society, broad in its morality, vaguely humanitarian, more certainly utilitarian and sceptical, with no very great principles and no very great prejudices. . . . (They need not have prided themselves on that! . . .) They counted in their ranks a number of liberal Catholics, not a few Protestants, a greater number of Jews, and a quantity of solid middle-class Frenchmen who were indifferent to all religions, having found a substitute in a political doctrine that bore various labels, but did not stray very far from the republicanism which, having endured for thirty years, was beginning to be a form, the most practical form, of conservatism. Socialism, too, was represented; but by the rich and intellectual young bourgeois that had been won over by the golden tongue and example of Jaurès. He was still on his honeymoon with the Republic.

Annette was never seriously interested in politics. Her active inner life left her no time for it. But, like the others, she had passed through her hours of exaltation during the Affair. Her love for her father modeled her in the image of his feelings. She was predisposed, by the fire in her heart and by the instinct of liberty that she carried in her blood, to find herself always on the side of the oppressed. So she had known moments of passionate emotion when Zola and Picquart faced the great Beast—unchained public opinion; and it is not impossible that, like more than one young girl, when she passed by the Cherche-Midi prison, her heart beat for the man who was shut within. But there was little reason in these feelings, and Annette had not been able to bring herself to a critical examination of the Affair. Politics repelled her; when she had attempted to study them at close range, she had immediately been turned aside by a mixture of boredom and repugnance which she did not seek to analyse. Her viewpoint was too honest not to have glimpsed the amount of pettiness and malpractise that was shared almost equally by both sides. Less sincere than her eyes, her heart wished to continue to believe that the party which upheld ideas of justice must be composed of the justest men. And she reproached herself for what she called her laziness in not becoming better acquainted with their activities. That is why she made herself maintain an attitude of sympathetic waiting towards them,—as when hearing the execution of a page of new music that is guaranteed by an accepted name, a respectful listener, who does not understand it, gives credit to beauties that he will discover later, perhaps. . . .

Annette, being loyal, believed in the virtue of labels, ignorant of the fact that the fraud is nowhere more current than in the commerce of ideas. She still attributed some reality to the fabricated isms, whose stamp distinguishes the various political faiths; and she was attracted by those proclaimed by the advanced parties. A secret illusion made her hope that it was on this side that she had the best chance of meeting her mate. Accustomed to the open air, she went in the direction of those who sought it, like herself, outside the old prejudices, ancient follies, and suffocation of the house of the past. She spoke no evil of the old dwelling. It had sheltered the lives and dreams of generations. But the air was vitiated. Remain there who would! One must breathe. And her eyes sought the friend who would help her construct her own house, sanely and clear-sightedly.

In the drawing-rooms that she frequented there was no lack of young men quite capable, it seemed, of understanding and aiding her. With or without labels, many had daring minds. But an evil fate willed that their daring should not be directed towards the same horizons as hers. In the words of the philosopher, the elan vital is limited. It never exercises itself, simultaneously, in all directions. Infinitely rare are the spirits that throw their light all around them as they walk. The majority of those who have succeeded in lighting their lanterns (and they are not numerous!) focus their searchlights straight ahead, upon one point, a single point; and around them they do not see a speck. One may even say that an advance in one direction is almost always paid for by a retreat in another. Many a one who is a revolutionary in politics is an imitative conservative in art. And if he is deprived of a handful of his prejudices (those that he values least) he will only clasp the others more avariciously to his breast.

Nowhere is the unevenness of this jolting march more clearly visible than in the moral evolution of the two sexes. The woman who forces herself to break with the errors of the past and who enters upon one of the paths leading to the new society rarely ever encounters the man who also wishes to found a new world. He takes another route. And if their climbing paths must finally, perhaps, come together further up the slope, for the moment they turn their backs upon each other. This divergence of aims was particularly striking in France at this period, when the feminine mind, so much longer held back, had been making, for some years, a sudden advance, of which the men of that day took no account. The women themselves did not always measure it accurately, until there came the day when the shock of personal experience revealed to them the wall that separated them from their mates. The shock was rude. Annette, to her own cost, had to discover this unhappy misunderstanding.

VI

From among the drifting souls that swarmed about her, Annette's eyes, her distrait eyes that unsuspectedly surveyed them all, had finally made their choice. But they had not admitted it. As long as possible she tried to preserve the illusion of continued hesitation. When one no longer needs to make a decision, then it is sweet to murmur to oneself, "I am not bound as yet," and to leave the doors of hope wide open for the last time.

There were two in particular between whom she liked to leave her future in the balance, although she knew perfectly well which one she had chosen; two young men between twenty-eight and thirty: Marcel Franck and Roger Brissot. Both belonged to the comfortably situated middle class, and were distinguished in manner, pleasant and intelligent, but possessed of minds and characters of different orders.

Marcel Franck, of a half-Jewish family, was one of those charming types that are sometimes produced by the mixed marriage of well chosen individuals of two races. Of medium height, slim, graceful and elegant, he had blue eyes set in a dead white face, a slightly curved nose, a small fair beard, and an elongated, somewhat horsey profile that recalled Alfred de Musset. His glance was intelligent and caressing, by turns coaxing and impudent. His father, a rich cloth merchant, cautious in business and strong in his passions, who had a taste for the new art, patronized the young reviews, bought Van Goghs and Rousseaus, had married a beautiful Toulousaine, who had won the second prize in comedy at the Conservatory, and who for a time had been the rage at Antoine's and Porel's. This lady, first taken by assault, and thereafter in lawful wedlock, by the vigorous Jonas Franck, had abandoned the stage in the midst of her success, to maintain intelligently, along with her husband's affairs, a literary salon much frequented by artists. This most united household, neither member of which, by tacit accord, looked too closely into the other's conduct, and each of whom knew how to handle gossip, had brought up a single son in an atmosphere of tolerant and sharpened intelligence. At home Marcel Franck had learned that there is a harmony of work and pleasure, and that the art of life depends upon their wise union. He cultivated this art no less than the others, in which he had become a discerning connoisseur. Attracted to the national museums he had made a precocious reputation as a writer on art. Quite as well as pictures, he knew how to observe living figures with his idle, penetrating, insolent, indulgent glance. And among the young men who were courting Annette, it was he who read her best. She was quite aware of it. Sometimes as she was emerging from one of those absent-minded reveries, during a conversation in which she was following every other thought but the one she was uttering, she would meet his curious eyes that seemed to say to her:

"Annette, I see you naked."

And the most astonishing thing was that she, the modest Annette, was not embarrassed by this. She felt like replying:

"And how do you find me, that way?"

They exchanged an understanding smile. If he saw her unveiled, it was of slight importance; she knew that she would never be his. Marcel read this certainty in her. He was not troubled by it. He was thinking:

"We shall see about that!"

For he knew the other.

The other, Roger Brissot, had been a college chum of his. Franck perfectly understood that Annette preferred him. . . . To begin with, at least . . . ("Afterward? . . . That is another affair! . . .") Brissot was a handsome fellow, with a fine open countenance, a frank expression, gay brown eyes, regular features that were rather strong, a full face, sound teeth,—clean-shaven, with a youthful abundance of black hair combed back from an intelligent brow and parted at the side. Tall, broad-chested, long of leg, and with well-muscled arms, his movements were easy and his actions lively. He spoke well, very well, in a warm musical voice, a little low and resonant, that people liked,—that he liked. With his quick, ready, glittering intelligence, he rivaled Franck in his studies, and was no less fond of athletics. In Burgundy, where his family's property—woods and vineyards—adjoined the Rivière's country place, he was an intrepid walker, hunter, and horseman. In the old days Annette had met him more than once on his walks. But at that time she had given scant thought to a companion, she liked to go her own way; and Roger too, having slipped away from Paris for these months in the open air, played the young Hippolyte, affecting to prefer his horse and his dog to a girl. In passing, they had exchanged no more than bows and glances. But those had not been entirely lost. Agreeable images remained, and the vague attraction of two beings physically well suited.

The idea had occurred to the Brissot family. No less than their persons, their fortunes seemed made for union. However, so long as Raoul Rivière lived, the neighborly relations had remained polite enough, but rather cold and distant. By a curious freak, Rivière, who would have yielded to no man as a free thinker, had as an architect numbered his clients, until the Dreyfus Affair, almost exclusively in the aristocracy and the reactionary camp; and as he was too clever not to give them lip service, and even to go to mass when it was useful that he should be noticed, he passed for a reactionary and even a clerical (which made him laugh heartily!) in the eyes of the radical republicans of his province. Now the Brissots were pillars of radicalism. This family of the robe—advocates and attorneys—who prided themselves on having been republicans for more than a century (their republicanism dated, indeed, from the days of the First Republic, but they forgot to mention that their ancestor had received the Order of the Lily upon the return of the Bourbons), believed in the Republic as others believe in God the Father, and they considered themselves bound by their traditions: noblesse oblige! So the Brissots had felt it was their duty to manifest their austere censure of Raoul Rivière by holding him at a distance; which did not bother him at all, as he expected no commissions from them. Came the famous Dreyfus Affair, in which Rivière, as we have seen, found himself, without dreaming of such a thing, in the Progressive party. In a flash, he was whitewashed; a sponge was applied to his past, and people even discovered in Rivière exalted civic and republican virtues, which he himself would never have suspected, but from which he would assuredly have derived excellent profit, had death not come to spoil his plans.

The Brissots' plans had not suffered in consequence. These great republicans who, for a century, had known boldly how to harmonize their principles and their interests, were rich; and, naturally, they dreamed of being more so. They knew that Rivière had left his daughter a very tidy fortune. It would be very nice to unite his Burgundy property to the Brissot possessions, which it would complete so happily. But with people who had such principles as the Brissots, worldly reasons came second,—even when it happened that they thought of them first: in a question of marriage, it was the young girl who must first be taken into account. The young girl, in this instance, answered all requirements. Annette satisfied them by what they knew of her, by her serious ways, and by what they had learned of her devotion to her father. They were impressed by her intelligence and by her simplicity. Her bearing in society was perfect. She had composure. Enough wit. Good health. Doubtless her work at the Sorbonne, her studies and her diplomas, seemed a little affected to them; but they considered these the pastimes of an intelligent young girl who was bored, and who would put them aside when her first child arrived. And the Brissots were not averse to showing that they liked intelligence, even in a woman,—provided, naturally, it did not become embarrassing. Annette would not be the first feminine intellectual in the family, thank Heaven! Madame Brissot, the mother, and Roger's sister Adèle, enjoyed the reputation, justified in a sense, of being brainy women, no less than women of sentiment, who were able to share the mental life as well as the active life of the men of their household. Annette's intellectuality was at least a guarantee (the great point!) that in her case there was no danger of clericalism. For the rest, she would find in her new family affectionate guidance that would know how to guard her from any extravagances. It would not be difficult for the dear child to become part of the family whose name she was to take: she had no parents, and she would be only too glad to put herself under the aegis of a second mother and a slightly older sister, who would ask merely to guide her. For the Brissot ladies, who were keen observers, judged Annette to be really congenial, very distinguished, sweet, polished, reserved, timid (from their point of view this was not a fault) and a little cold (this was almost a virtue).

It was then with the support of his whole family, previously consulted, that Roger paid his court. He hid nothing from them, sure that he would always meet with approval. This big fellow was idolized by his family, and he repaid them in full measure. The Brissots practiced mutual admiration. There was a hierarchy, but each had his worth. It had to be recognized that they were all fairly evenly endowed on the mental side, as well as with the advantages of body and of fortune. They recognized the fact, but gracefully, like well-bred people. They never showed it to those whom they considered plainly their inferiors. But the truth could not be doubted, from the sweet certainty written on their features. Of all their certainties, Roger was the most certain. He was their dearest pride, and perhaps the best justified. Never had the Brissot tree borne more thriving fruit. Roger had the best gifts of his race, and if he had its faults as well, they were not startling: his charm and his youth caused them to be forgotten. He was full of talent, all things were easy for him, but especially speech. Eloquence was one of the family fiefs. It already counted one barrister; and from birth all the Brissots had a love of fine speech. It would have been an injustice to pretend that, like those talkers of the Midi, they had to talk in order to think; but they had to talk,—that was incontestable. Their real faculties bloomed in phrases; silence would have atrophied them. Roger's father, one of the most illustrious gabblers that ever honored the tribune of the Chamber, and on whom the voters had played the scurvy trick of not reelecting him, was suffocated by his stifled eloquence; and Roger, then aged six, used to say to him naïvely when they were alone by the hearth:

"Papa, make me a speech!"

Now he made them on his own account. In a trice his youthful reputation had been brilliantly established at the legal conferences at the Palais-Bourbon. Like all the Brissots, he had turned his gifts towards politics. The meetings in connection with the Dreyfus Affair had furnished him with an excellent springboard; he bounded into the arena, delivering speeches in mid-flight. The youthful fire, bravura, and well chosen, overflowing speech of this handsome young man, won for him the enthusiastic sympathy of the young feminine Dreyfusistes and many of his juniors. The Brissots, ever desirous of not allowing themselves to be outdistanced on the road of Progress, but very careful not to go a step too far or too early, having carefully surveyed the terrain, spurred their son, their young pride, along the way of serious socialism. Roger, his nose to the trail, gave himself to the task. Like the flower of the youth of his day, he was under the spell of Jaurès, and he tried to model his orations on the splendid speeches of the great rhetorician, filled with prophetic visions and illusory mirages. He proclaimed the necessity of an understanding between the people and the intellectuals. This furnished him a theme for the most eloquent speeches. Even though the people—who lacked leisure—did not know much about it, they were seriously disturbing the leisure of the young bourgeoisie. With personal subscriptions and the assistance of a small group of friends, Roger founded a study club, a newspaper, a party. He spent a great deal of time and a little money on them. The Brissots, who were good reckoners, also knew how to spend on occasion. They were pleased to see their son become a leader of the younger generation. They prepared the ground for the coming elections. Roger was marked for a place in the future Chamber. Nor was he ignorant of the fact. Accustomed from childhood to see his family believe in him, he believed in himself, too; and without precisely knowing what his ideas were, he had an absolute faith in them. In no way overweening. He was full of himself, but so naturally! He was successful in everything; he was so accustomed to it that it did not even occur to him to pride himself on the fact; but he would have been dumbfounded had it been otherwise, his surest dogmas would have received a serious blow. How likable he was! A naïve, unconscious and shallow egotist, a good fellow and a handsome fellow, disposed to give but determined to receive, and unable to conceive that anything could be refused him, simple, polite, cordial, demanding, waiting for the world to place itself at his feet. . . . He was really very attractive.

VII

Annette felt the attraction. She judged him accurately enough, but this only made her love him the more. She smiled at his foibles, which were infinitely dear to her. These made him seem to her less the man, and more the child; and her heart rejoiced that he was one as well as the other. One of Roger's charms was that he hid nothing; he showed his entire self. His innocent satisfaction with himself gave him a perfect naturalness.

He was all the more confiding because he was enamoured of Annette. Ardently and without reservations. He loved nothing by halves. But he never saw more than half of anything.

His fire for her was kindled one evening when he had been very eloquent in some drawing-room. Annette had said nothing, but she had listened marvelously. (At least he thought so.) Her intelligent eyes returned his own thoughts to him, clearer and more winged. Her smile gave him joy in what he had said so well, and it was all the sweeter because he felt that it was shared. . . . How beautiful she was, that listening girl! What an admirable mind, what an exceptional soul, could be discerned in those attentive, speaking eyes, in that all-understanding smile! . . . Although he was the only one to speak, he had the illusion that he was talking with her. In any case, he no longer spoke save for her; and he felt himself being lifted above himself by this inward dialogue, by the mysterious exchange of these mute responses. . . .

As a matter of fact, Annette was scarcely listening. Sufficiently intelligent to seize promptly the general drift of Roger's thought, she followed absentmindedly, as was her habit, the fine balanced phrases. But she profited by his absorption in his eloquence to study him thoroughly: eyes, mouth and hands, the way he moved his chin when he talked, his fine nostrils resembling those of a neighing colt, his habit of prettily rolling certain letters, and all that this expressed, both inside and out. . . . She could see into him. She perceived his desire to be admired, she saw the pleasure that he took in pleasing, and she judged him handsome, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. And it did not occur to her at all (yes! a little, a very little . . .) to find him comical. On the contrary, she found him very touching. . . .

. . . "Yes, my dear, you are handsome, you are charming, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. . . . You want a little smile? . . . There, my dear, I give you two . . . with my very sweetest eyes. . . . Are you satisfied? . . ."

In her heart she laughed, when she saw him, all happiness and pride, redouble his warbling like a spring bird.

Homage was sweet to him; he drank it undiluted, without a drop of irony; he wanted more, he was never wearied. And, intoxicated by his own song, he could no longer distinguish it from the person who admired it. She seemed to him the incarnation of all that was beautiful, pure and genial in it. He adored her.

She, into whose heart love had glided at first sight,—when she felt herself bathed in this adoration, no longer offered the least resistance. Even the gentle irony that, like a gorget, protected the beatings of her heart, fell from her; and she offered her bare breast to love. She was so hungry for affection! What happiness to slake her thirst (she anticipated the joy) at the lips of this man who charmed her! How he offered them to her, anticipating her desire, with such a burst of ardor, permeating her with a passionate gratitude. . . .

The fire was well ablaze. Each burned with the other's desire, and fed upon his own. And the more the one was exalted, the more he expected of the other; and the more the other strove to surpass that expectation. It was very tiring, but they had an immense youthful energy to spend.

For the moment, Annette's energy was reduced to a passive rôle. None other was left her. Roger invaded her. She was submerged. He scarcely gave her time to breathe. His expansive, overflowing nature felt the need of telling all, of confiding all: future, past and present. And it was long! But Roger held his ground! He also wanted to know all, to have all. He forcibly penetrated Annette's secrets. Annette was hard pressed to defend her last retreats. A little scandalized, happy and amused, she had a faint desire to fly into a passion at this invasion; but the invader was so adorable! . . . She abandoned herself, voluptuously; she experienced, in yielding to this mental rape,—("Et cognovit eam. . . ." He scarcely knew her! . . .)—secret feelings of revolt and pleasure. . . .

It was not over-prudent, this complete surrender of self. There was the risk that certain confidences, made in hours of abandon, might later be employed as weapons by the confidant. But this was the very least of Annette's and Roger's cares. At this hour of love, nothing in the beloved could displease, nothing could astonish. All that the loved one confided, far from surprising the lover, seemed a response to his own unuttered vows. Roger no longer guarded—guarded less than ever—the indiscreet confessions that Annette's indulgent ear was none the less registering very faithfully, unknown to him.

What pleasure they took in sharing the past and the present; the present and the past were linked together in the dream of the future, of their future: for although Annette had said nothing, promised nothing, her acceptance was so taken for granted, so anticipated, and so demanded, that Annette herself ended by believing she had given it. Happily, with eyes half closed, she listened to Roger set forth with tireless enthusiasm the magnificent life of thought and action that was reserved for him (for he was one of those who always enjoy to-morrow more than to-day). . . . For whom? For him? For Roger. And for her too, of course, since she was a part of Roger. She was not shocked by this absorption; she was too busy seeing, hearing, drinking in, this marvellous Roger. He talked a great deal of socialism, of justice, of love, of emancipated humanity. He was really splendid. In words, his generosity knew no bounds. Annette was stirred. It was intoxicating to think that she might be associated with this work of powerful benevolence. Roger never asked her what she thought about it. It was understood that she thought as he did. She could not think otherwise. He spoke for her. He spoke for both of them, because he was the better speaker. He said:

"We shall do. . . . We shall have. . . ."

And she did not protest. On the contrary she was grateful. All this was so big, so vague, so disinterested, that she had no reason to be disturbed by it. Roger was all light and liberty. . . . A little diffuse perhaps. Annette, maybe, would have liked a little more precision. But that would come later; one couldn't say everything at once. Let us make the pleasure last! . . . To-day we have only to enjoy these limitless horizons.

She took particular joy in his charming countenance, in the ardent attraction of their two loving bodies, through which electric waves suddenly passed, in the tide of physical vigor that filled them both,—both rich in the endowment of a youth that was chaste, healthy, robust, and aflame.

Never was Roger's eloquence more certain than when it halted and, in the last vibrations of the words that had opened exalted vistas to them, their eyes met: the sudden contact was like a physical embrace. Then such desire flamed in them that their breathing stopped. Roger thought no more of dazzling and talking. Annette no longer thought of the future of humanity, nor even of her own. They forgot everything, everything about them: the drawing-room, the public. In these instants they became but a single being, a wax in the flame. Nothing more than the Desire of nature,—unique, devouring, and pure like fire. Then Annette, with distraught eyes and flaming cheeks, would wrench herself out of the vertigo, with the trembling and intoxicating certainty that some day she would succumb. . . .

VIII

Their love was no longer a secret to anyone. They were both incapable of veiling it. Annette held her tongue in vain; her eyes spoke for her. Their mute acquiescence was so eloquent that in the eyes of the world, as in Roger's, she appeared tacitly engaged.

The Brissot family alone did not lose sight of the fact that she was not. To Roger's declarations, Annette doubtless lent herself with an evident pleasure. But she avoided answering; she was clever enough to turn the conversation to some great subject, on which the innocent Roger, leaving the prey for the shadow, launched himself endlessly, only too happy to talk. And, once again, Annette had not spoken. Having observed this manœuver several times, the Brissots, prudent folk that they were, decided to take a hand. It was not that they could harbor a doubt regarding Annette's decision and the happiness that so brilliant a match would bring her; but, after all, one must always reckon with the strange caprices of a young girl! They knew life. They knew its pitfalls. They were crafty French provincials. When the decision that they awaited was delayed on the way, prudence counseled them to go in search of it. The two Brissot ladies took the road.

There was a smile that was known in Paris, in the circle of their acquaintances, as the Brissot smile: it was unctuous and sweet, affable and superior, measuredly and heavily playful, foreseeing all, gushing with benevolence, perfectly indifferent; it offered full hands, but the hands remained full. It adorned the two Brissot ladies.

Madame Brissot, the mother, a large handsome woman, with a broad face, fat cheeks, well-fed and chubby, had an imposing carriage, an opulent bosom, and an unctuous, excessively flattering way of talking that embarrassed the sincere Annette. But it was not meant for her alone (she soon noticed this with relief). This laudatory tone was generously distributed to all. It was accompanied by a perpetual badinage, which with the Brissots was a courteous mark of the certainty which was intuitive with them, and of the geniality with which they recognized this superiority.

Mademoiselle Brissot, Roger's sister, also big and strong, was a very pale blond, so lacking in color that she seemed almost an albino. She accentuated this by a cloud of rice powder on her cheeks and a streak of red on her lips. She was aiming at the ideal of a Louis XV pastel. She might have served Nattier as a mincing, chlorotic, and fleshy Burgundian Phœbe. Her mother called this robust girl, "My poor little darling," for Mademoiselle Brissot, who functioned like a charm, had conceived the idea, while admiring her pallor, that her health must be delicate. But she did not exploit it by demanding coddling; on the contrary she used it to show off her energy and give herself the right to scorn the softer creatures of her sex who moaned about their little ailments. In truth, she was admirable, active, and indefatigable; she read everything, saw everything, knew everything; she painted, was a judge of music, talked literature; and every day, in company with Madame Brissot, she carried out a program of some two or three hundred calls that had to be made in a given time, receiving them in return, giving dinners, following the concerts and the theatres, the sittings of the Chamber and the exhibitions, without ever flinching, without ever betraying fatigue, save at chosen moments by a bravely stifled sigh;—and, besides all this, she knew how to feed the body that she mortified, eating heavily like all her family, and getting a full night's dreamless sleep. She was no less mistress of her heart than of her body. She was sedately preparing for her marriage to a politician of some forty years, who was at this moment governor of one of the great oversea colonies. She had not dreamed of accompanying him there. She did not wish to leave Paris and the Brissot name behind her until the happy elect could offer her a position in France that was worthy of her. In addition to which, she knew how to keep him from being forgotten in high places. With regularity they wrote each other letters that were cordial and businesslike. This long-distance courtship had gone on for a number of years. Marriage would come in due time. She was in no hurry. Her husband would be rather mature, but according to Mademoiselle Brissot's taste he would be all the better for that. She had a strong head. Head, the Brissots had never lacked. Mademoiselle Brissot's was eminently political. Her mother said that she was, by vocation, an Egeria. Madame Brissot admired the intelligence of Mademoiselle Brissot. Mademoiselle Brissot admired the domestic genius and mind of Madame Brissot. They paid each other mincing compliments. They kissed each other in the presence of Annette. It was charming.

However, they soft-pedaled this mutual cult in order to cajole Annette. They were all compliments, for her, for her house, for her clothes, her taste, her wit, her beauty. The excessively laudatory tone grated on Annette a bit; but one does not remain insensible to the flattering opinion that others have of one, particularly when those others seem messengers from the person whom one loves. It was hard not to believe that this was the case; for the Brissot ladies continually brought Roger's name into the conversation. They intertwined his praises with Annette's; they made smiling, persistent allusions to the impression Annette had produced on him, to the things she had said to him, and which he had hastened to repeat enthusiastically—(he repeated everything: Annette was embarrassed but none the less touched). They laid great stress upon his brilliant future; and Madame Brissot assumed an impressive tone in which to phrase her hope that Roger would find—that he had found—a helpmate worthy of him. She named no one, but the meaning was clear. All these little ruses were visible to the naked eye, at twenty paces. They were meant to be. It was a sort of social game, in which one must talk around the word that everyone has on his tongue, without ever pronouncing it. Madame Brissot's smile seemed watching Annette's lips for the word that was about to come out, as though to cry:

"A bargain!"

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

Annette was invited by the Brissots to intimate evening parties in their apartment on the Rue de Provence. She became acquainted with father Brissot, tall and big and rubicund, with cunning eyes beneath bushy brows, a short gray beard, and the air of a crafty and fatherly lawyer, who heaped upon her gallantries and ancient jests. He too tried to play the social game, but he put his foot in it with his circumlocutions. Annette took fright, and Madame Brissot signalled her husband to keep out of the affair. So he stayed outside the game, content to jeer and follow it from the corner of his eye, convinced that it was not his business and that the women would acquit themselves better than he.

With Annette, Madame Brissot at first adroitly invited only three or four intimate friends,—then two, then one, then none. And Annette found herself alone with the four Brissots. En famille, said Madame Brissot in a tone rich in unctuously maternal promises. Annette smelled the trap, but she did not steal away. She found too much pleasure in being with Roger. Her affection for him made her regard his family indulgently; she closed her eyes to what secretly irritated her in this circle. Acuteness of feminine instinct warned the Mesdames Brissot of this; strong as their self-love was, it never worked against their interests; by tacit accord, they knew how to efface themselves, how to speak less, sift their ideas, and arrange matters so that the lovers might frequently enjoy undisturbed times alone together. More and more enamoured and disturbed at Annette's reserve, which would have struck him less forcibly had not his mother and his sister called it to his attention, Roger had never been more attracted than now when his self-confidence was threatened. He delivered no more speeches; his eloquence had flagged. For the first time in his life, he tried to read another's soul. As he sat beside Annette, his humble and ardent eyes devoured, implored the little enigma, striving to solve it. Annette enjoyed this disquiet, this timidity that was so new in him, this fearful waiting that watched over her every movement. She was shaken. There were moments when she nearly bent towards him, to utter decisive words. And yet she did not say them. At the last second, she instinctively drew back, without knowing why; brusquely she avoided the declaration that Roger was about to make, and her own avowals. She escaped. . . .

And then the trap closed. From one of the neighboring salons, Madame and Mademoiselle Brissot would discreetly brood over the unfruitful interview. Occasionally they were visible, crossing the drawing-room, smiling and preoccupied. In passing they would throw out a friendly word, but they did not stop. And the two young people continued their long conversations.

One evening when they were absentmindedly thumbing an album, which was an excuse for them to put their heads close together, while they were exchanging their thoughts in a low voice, there was a silence; and suddenly Annette perceived the danger. She wanted to get up, but Roger's arm was already around her waist, and the young man's passionate mouth was upon her half-parted lips. She tried to defend herself. But how could she, against herself! Her lips returned the kiss, even while she wanted to draw away. She disengaged herself, however, when she heard Madame Brissot shrilling in an excited voice, from the other end of the drawing-room:

"Oh! my dear girl! . . ."

And she was calling:

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

Annette in stupefaction saw herself surrounded in a flash by the entire Brissot family, radiant and affectionate. Madame Brissot covered her with kisses, while she sponged her own eyes with a handkerchief and kept repeating:

"Love him well!"

Mademoiselle Brissot was saying:

"My little sister!"

And Monsieur Brissot, always a blunderer:

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

Meanwhile Roger was kneeling before Annette, kissing her hands and begging her with eyes that were fearful and a little shamefaced, asking forgiveness and imploring:

"Don't say no!"

Annette, petrified, yielded to his kisses; the supplication of those beloved eyes forged the last link in her chains. She made a final effort to protest:

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

But she saw in Roger's eyes a grief so sincere that she could not bear it; and when Roger's face lighted up with happiness, her own became radiant at the joy she had caused. She clasped his head between her hands. Roger rose, crying out in relief. And, beneath the benevolent eyes of his family, they exchanged their kiss of betrothal.

IX

That night, when Annette found herself alone in her own home, she was thunderstruck. She no longer belonged to herself. She had given herself. . . . Given! Given her life! . . . Her heart contracted in anguish.

She still exaggerated the tightness of the bonds that she had just accepted. She was not one of those young girls who jest lightly with their fiancés regarding the possibility of divorce. She did not give with one hand to take back with the other. She was no longer her own. She belonged to the Brissots. And suddenly the Brissots appeared inimical. All that her eyes had seen during these past weeks came before her, with accentuated outlines: all their manœuvres of approach in order to envelop her, their conspiracy against her freedom, the final comedy that had extorted her consent by surprise. . . . (Had not Roger, Roger himself, been an accomplice? . . .) And she bristled like a cornered animal that sees the circle close around him, feels himself lost, and is ready to charge with lowered head against the hunters, either to clear a passage or to die and win vengeance. For the first time, everything in the Brissots that displeased her, thoughts of which she had hitherto avoided, appeared to her magnified, hateful, and intolerable. . . . Even Roger! . . . Never could she live immured in that man, that family, that circle of interests which were not her own, which never could be. She decided to break away. . . .

But could she still break away, now that she had just become engaged? Would Roger permit it? He would have to permit it! He couldn't prevent her. . . . At the idea that he might oppose it, Annette hated him. In that moment, the other's suffering did not count, she would not have hesitated to break his heart in order to recover her own liberty. . . . And then she remembered his imploring eyes. . . . And she was overawed. . . . No matter! The egotism of menaced life, the instinct of self-preservation were stronger than all else, stronger than tenderness, stronger than pity! She had to save herself. And woe to him who barred her escape! . . .

All night long, twisting and turning in her bed, devoured by a feverish insomnia, she lived through in anticipation the scene that she was going to have with Roger. She repeated, tried out all the words that he and she would utter. She tried to convince him, she argued, she flew into a passion, she pled with him, and she detested him. Dawn found her exhausted but decided. She would go to Rogers house. . . . Or, no! she would write to him; in that way she would be freer to finish what she had to say without interruption. She would break it off. To avoid the Brissots returning to the charge, she resolved to leave Paris, to spend a few days at some hotel in the suburbs. And getting up, she wrote her letter, the phrases of which she had rehearsed in her head a hundred times. Then she hastily began her preparations for departure.

She was in the midst of them when Roger surprised her at it. She had not thought of barring her door, as it had not occurred to her that he might come so early. He entered, preceding in his amorous impatience the servant who announced him. He was bringing flowers. He was bubbling over with happiness and gratitude. He was so affectionate, so young, so charming that when Annette saw him she no longer had the strength to speak. All her fine resolutions were forgotten, her heart was recaptured at the first glance. With the astonishing bad faith of love, she immediately found as many reasons for marriage as she had found against it a moment before. She tried to fight, but joy shone in her eyes, ringed by the worries of the night. She looked at her Roger, who was drinking her in with an intoxicated glance, and she said to herself:

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

But how could she know, when he looked at her as though he were drinking in her very soul! Think, how could she think, how recover herself! . . . She no longer knew, she was lost. . . . And, meanwhile, it was so good to feel that she was loved! All that she could do, with an immense effort, was to ask Roger not to hasten the marriage. And immediately Roger looked so disappointed, so cast down, that Annette had not the courage to go on. How could she hurt so dear a boy? She hastened tenderly to reassure him, to tell him that she loved him; feebly she tried to cling to her postponement, which he repulsed as energetically as though it were a matter of life and death. Finally, after a loving bargaining on both sides, they agreed to compromise; and their marriage was fixed for the middle of the summer.

Afterwards, Roger left; and Annette, regarding herself sheepishly in the mirror, found there all her indecision again. . . . How could she get out of it? She contemplated the interrupted preparations for her journey.

"Well done!" said she.

She shrugged her shoulders, laughed. . . . How charming Roger was! . . . Back into the closet went her lingerie and the things she had taken out for her trunk. . . .

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

Nervously she let fall a pile of chemisettes. . . . Thump! And toilet brushes went tumbling after. . . . Impatiently she kicked the heap. . . .

And then she gathered them up, bending down to the floor. In the midst of her tidying, she let herself go and sat down on the parquet, not very proud of her will power. . . .

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, stretching herself out on the carpet, "I still have four months to change my mind. . . ."

And with her face thrust into a cushion, lying flat on her stomach, she counted the days. . . .

X

The Brissots prudently gave their approval of Annette's expressed desire to prolong the engagement: they did not wish to imperil their success by showing too much haste. But they felt it necessary to surround Annette during these months of waiting. It would not do to leave her to herself; there was always a risk of the strange girl escaping.

Easter Sunday was approaching. The Brissots invited Annette to spend Easter week with them at their country place in Burgundy. Annette accepted regretfully; she was tempted and afraid; afraid of adding to the chains that already bound her, afraid of being completely captured or of breaking everything; and afraid of still other things, more dangerous, that she did not like to consider. She did not wish to escape from the state of amorous uncertainty in which she was allowing herself to be cradled: she suffered from it a little, and she found a certain charm in it. She would have liked to prolong it. But she knew perfectly well that it was not wholesome, and that she had not the right to do so, face to face with Roger.

Finally she decided to lay her troubles before Sylvie. Never had she said a word to her of her love for Roger. Yet she confided everything to her: of all the other young men she had often spoken to her. . . . Yes, but she didn't love the other young men! And Roger's name had been kept out of their conversation.

Sylvie exclaimed, called her "Sneak!" and laughed uproariously when Annette tried to explain her indecision, her scruples and her torments.

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

"Yes," replied Annette.

"He loves you?"

"Yes."

"And you love him?"

"I love him."

"Well then, what's stopping you?"

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

(She began to describe him complaisantly, under Sylvie's mocking eyes. Then she broke off. . . .)

"I love him very much . . . very much. . . . And then, too, I don't love him. . . . There are things about him . . . I could never live with . . . I never could. . . . And then, he loves me too much. He would like to eat me. . . ."

(Sylvie burst out laughing.)

". . . It's true, eat me entirely, devour my whole life, all my own thoughts, the very air I breathe. . . . Oh! he's an excellent eater, my Roger! It's a pleasure to see him at the table. . . . He has a good appetite. . . . But I, I don't want to be eaten."

She too laughed heartily; and Sylvie, who was sitting in her lap, laughed against her neck. Annette went on:

"It's frightful to feel yourself being devoured like that, alive, to have nothing of your own any more, not to be able to keep anything any longer. . . . And he doesn't suspect it. . . . He loves me madly, and I have an idea, you see, that he doesn't even try to understand me, that he doesn't even think about it. He comes, he takes, he carries me off. . . ."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But he wants to have everything!"

Sylvie squirmed with laughter like a little fish.

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

(It seemed to her so simple to say what one wished, to give what one wished, and to keep back all the rest without saying anything about it! She was affectionately ironical towards men and their demands. They are not so sharp! . . .)

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

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

Annette admitted the fact, contritely.

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

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

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

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

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

The next day—it was the eve of her departure—while she was finishing her preparations, when she was beginning to torment herself again, a singular visit added to her anxieties, at the same time clarifying them. Marcel Franck was announced.

After a few amiably courteous speeches, he alluded to Annette's engagement, of which Roger had made no mystery. Gracefully he felicitated her, his voice and eyes gently ironic, affectionate. Annette felt very much at ease with him, as with a perspicacious friend to whom one need not say all, from whom one need hide nothing,—for half-words carry understanding. They talked of Roger, whom Marcel envied, smilingly. Annette knew that he spoke the truth, and that he was in love. But it caused them no perturbation. She asked him questions about Roger, whom he knew intimately. Marcel sang his praises; but when she insisted that he speak of him in a somewhat less banal fashion, he jokingly said that it was useless for him to describe Roger, as she knew him quite as well as he. And, saying this, he fixed her with so penetrating a glance that, for an abashed moment, she turned away her eyes. Then, staring in turn at him, she encountered his shrewd smile which showed that they understood each other. They talked for some time of indifferent matters, and then Annette abruptly interrupted, in a preoccupied tone:

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

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

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

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

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

"Thanks!" said he.

She continued:

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

"I think that you are deceiving yourselves."

She bowed her head. Then she said:

"I think so too."

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

"Why are you smiling?"

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

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

"I should teach you nothing."

"You will help me to see more clearly."

"You are," Marcel said to her, "an amorous rebel. Perpetually amorous (forgive me!) and perpetually rebellious. You feel the need of giving yourself, and you feel the need of withholding yourself. . . ."

(Annette could not conceal a slight start.)

"I shock you?"

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

"You are," Marcel continued, "an independent who cannot remain alone. It is the law of nature. You feel it more keenly, because you are more alive."

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

"But it is he whom you love."

There was no bitterness in the tone. Very friendlily they stared at each other, amused at the strangeness of human nature.

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

"Why, yes, it would be easy enough, if men hadn't spent their time for centuries ingeniously complicating life by reciprocal restraints. The only thing to do is to throw them off. But naturally our excellent Roger, like any good old Frenchman, doesn't conceive of the idea. They think that they are lost if they no longer feel themselves weighed down by the restraints of the past. 'Where there is no restraint, there is no pleasure . . .' especially when in being restrained one restrains one's neighbor."

"What is your conception of marriage, then?"

"As an intelligent association of interests and pleasures. Life is a vine that we exploit in common; together we cultivate it and gather the grapes. But we are not compelled always to drink our wine together, always tête-à-tête. There is a mutual complaisance that demands from and gives to the other the clusters of pleasure, of which each disposes, and which allows one discreetly to finish his harvesting elsewhere.

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

"The old obsolete word! What I mean," answered Marcel, "is the liberty of love, the most essential of all liberties."

"That's the thing of least importance to me," said Annette. "For me marriage is not a public square in which one gives oneself to every passer-by. I give myself to one alone. The day on which I ceased to love and loved another, I should separate from the first; I should not divide myself between them, and I could not bear the division."

Marcel made an ironic gesture that seemed to say:

"What does it matter? . . ."

"So you see, my friend," Annette went on, "in the last analysis, I am still further away from you than from Roger."

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

"The one grandeur of marriage," said Annette, "is monogamous love, the fidelity of two hearts. If that is lost, what remains outside of a few practical advantages?"

"They are not negligible," said Marcel.

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

"If that's your opinion, what are you complaining about? You rivet the bars from which one would deliver you."

"The liberty that I want," said Annette, "is not that of the heart. I feel that I am strong enough to keep that intact for the one to whom I give it."

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

Annette was not so sure of it! She too was doubtful. It was her mother's daughter who was speaking at this moment, it was not the whole Annette. But she did not wish to admit it, especially to Marcel, and in an argument. She said:

"I wish it."

"Will power in such matters! . . ." exclaimed Marcel, with his shrewd smile. ". . . It is as though one decreed that a red fire should be a green fire. Love is a lighthouse of changing fires."

But Annette obstinately said:

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

She was perfectly aware, and with the same conviction, of the need of change and of the need of permanence, those two passionate instincts of all vigorous lives. But, turn and turn about, whichever one of these two felt itself threatened, revolted.

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

Annette, who judged herself as accurately as he judged her, said a little shamefacedly:

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

And, with this concession made to the spirit of truth, she continued more firmly, now feeling herself to be on ground of which she was sure:

"But I should like, in exchange for the gift of mutual affection, that each should preserve the right to live according to his own soul, to walk in his own way, to seek his own truth, to secure, if need be, his own field of activity,—to carry out, in a word, the proper law of his own spiritual life, and not sacrifice himself to the law of another, even the dearest person of all: for no one has the right to immolate another's soul, or his own for the sake of another. It is a crime."

"That's all very fine, my dear friend," said Marcel, "but for me, you know, the soul is a little beyond my depth. Perhaps it may mean more to Roger. But I am afraid that in that case he will not understand it in the same fashion. I can't quite see the Brissots, in their family circle, conceiving the possibility of any spiritual law save that of the political and private fortunes of the Brissots."

"By the way," said Annette, smiling, "to-morrow I'm going to their place in Burgundy to spend two or three weeks."

"Well," remarked Marcel, "that will be a case of confronting their idealism with your own. For they are great idealists, they too! After all, perhaps I am mistaken. At bottom you are admirably made to get along together."

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

"Dear me! That wouldn't be so cheerful! . . . No, no, I beg of you! . . . Brissot, or not Brissot, preserve us Annette!"

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

He said good-bye, kissing her hand.

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

He left. Annette, too, told herself that it was a pity, but not in the same sense that Marcel meant. It was in vain that he saw her clearly; he understood her no more than did Roger, who did not see her at all. To understand her required more "religious" souls—more religiously free—than those of almost all these young Frenchmen. Those who are religious, are so in the tradition of Catholicism, which means obedience and the renunciation of intellectual liberty (especially in the case of a woman). And those whose minds are free rarely suspect the profound needs of the soul.

XI

Roger was waiting with the carriage at the little Burgundy station, where Annette arrived the following day. The instant she saw him, her cares took flight. Roger was so happy! And she was no less so. She was grateful to the Brissot ladies for having found weak excuses for not coming to meet her.

It was a clear spring evening. The golden horizon encircled the gentle undulations of pale, new grass and red, plowed land. Larks were chirping. The two-wheeled cart flew over the white road, which rang under the hoofs of the spirited little horse, and the sharp air whipped Annette's red cheeks. She sat pressed against her young companion, who, even while he drove, laughed and talked with her, and, suddenly bending over her lips, took and gave a kiss in mid-flight. She did not resist. She loved him, she loved him! But this did not prevent her realizing that she would soon begin to judge him again, to judge herself. It is one thing to judge, and another to love. She loved him as she loved this air, this sky, this breath from the fields, like a bit of spring. To-morrow was time enough to clarify her thoughts! To-day she gave herself a holiday. Let us enjoy this delicious hour! It will not come again. . . . It seemed to her that she was flying above the earth, with her beloved.

They arrived only too soon, although they went slowly at the last turning, when they were ascending the poplar-lined road, and even though, when they stopped to rest the horse beneath the shadow of the high hedges that masked the front of the château, they embraced for a long time without speaking.

The Brissots put their best foot forward. They knew how to find delicate words by which tactfully to evoke the memory of her father. That first evening in the family circle, Annette let herself be mothered, grateful and touched; she had so long been deprived of the affectionate warmth of a home! She wanted to delude herself. Everyone helped her to do this. Her resistance slumbered. . . .

But when she awoke in the middle of the night, and listened to the gnawing of a mouse in the silence of the old house, the idea of a mouse-trap came into her mind; and she said to herself:

"I am caught. . . ."

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

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

A nervous sweat moistened her shoulders. She said:

"To-morrow I shall talk to Roger seriously. He must know what I am like. We must see each other honestly if we are going to live together. . . ."

But when the next day came, she was so glad to see Roger again, to let herself be enveloped in his warm affection, to breathe with him the intoxicating sweetness of the spring countryside, to dream of happiness—(impossible perhaps, but who knows, who knows? . . . perhaps it is close . . . one need only stretch out a hand . . .)—that she put off explanations until the next day. . . . And then, to the next. . . . And then, to the day after. . . .

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

"I must. . . . I must speak. . . . It has to be done for Rogers sake. Every day he is more enchained, and enchains me more. I have no right to keep silent. It is deceiving him. . . ."

Heavens, heavens! How weak she was!

. . . Yet she was not so, in ordinary life. But the breath of love is like those hot winds whose burning languor breaks your joints and makes your heart faint. An extreme lassitude of obscure pleasure. A fear of stirring. A fear of thinking. . . . The soul, cowering in its dream, fears awakening. Annette knew perfectly well that at her first gesture the dream would be shattered. . . .

But even if we do not move, time moves for us; and the flight of days is sufficient to carry away the illusion that we would preserve. In vain one watches oneself; two persons cannot live together from morn till evening without, at the end of a short time, showing themselves as they really are.

The Brissot family revealed its true colors. The smile was façade. Annette had become part of the household. She saw busy, morose, middle-class people, who administered their wealth with a bitter pleasure. There was no question here of socialism. Of immortal principles, they invoked only the Declaration of the Landlord's Rights. It was not good to attack this. Their watchman was ceaselessly occupied in setting up barriers against trespassing. They personally exercised a strict surveillance that was to them a kind of sorry delectation. They seemed to be carrying on a guerrilla warfare with the servants, their farmers, the grape gatherers, and with all their neighbors. The spirit of sharp practice, that was native to the family and to the province, flourished here. When father Brissot succeeded in trapping someone he had his eye out for, he laughed heartily. But he did not laugh last: his adversary was made of the same Burgundian clay, not to be caught napping; the next day he retaliated by a trick of his own. And then it began all over again. . . .

Of course, Annette was not invited to participate in these ructions; the Brissots talked about them among themselves, in the drawing-room or at table, when Roger and Annette seemed occupied with each other. But Annette's keen attention followed everything that was said around her. Besides, Roger would interrupt the most loving dialogue to take part in the discussion that passionately interested them all. Then they grew heated, they all talked at once, they forgot Annette. Or they called upon her to witness facts of which she was ignorant.—Until finally, Madame Brissot, recalling the listener's presence, cut short the colloquy, and, turning her melting smile upon Annette, shifted the conversation into more flowery paths. Then, with no transition, they returned to affable good fellowship. There was in the general tone of the conversation a curious alloy of prudery and frankness,—just as liberality and stinginess were mingled in the château life. Lively Monsieur Brissot made puns. Mademoiselle Brissot talked poetry, and on this subject everyone had his say. They all pretended to a knowledge of it. Their taste dated back some twenty years. On everything to do with art, they had fixed opinions. They relied on the tried and true opinions of their "friend so and so" who belonged to the Institute and was much decorated. No more timid minds, in the face of authority, could be imagined than these big bourgeois who thought that they were as advanced in art as in politics, and who were advanced in neither one nor the other; for in both they never, wittingly, arrived on the field until after the battle had been won.

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

"What have I to do with these people?"

The idea that one or another of them might presume to act as her guardian did not even repel her any more, it made her want to laugh. She asked herself what Sylvie would have thought, had she been blessed with a family of this sort. What shouts, what bursts of laughter! . . .

Annette answered them sometimes, when she was all alone in the garden. And it happened that Roger heard her one day, and asked in astonishment:

"What in the world is making you laugh?"

To which she replied:

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

And she tried to reassume her soberest expression. But it was stronger than she: she began laughing harder than ever, even in front of the Brissot ladies. She begged pardon, and the Mesdames Brissot, indulgent and a little vexed, said:

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

But she was not always laughing. Shadows passed abruptly over her good humor. After hours of radiant tenderness and confidence with Roger, she experienced, without transition, and for no cause, attacks of melancholy, doubt, and anxiety. The instability from which her thoughts had suffered since last autumn, far from being calmed, was accentuated during these months of requited love. There came, in flurries, an invasion of strangely unharmonious instincts: irritability, grotesque humor, malignant irony, umbrageous pride, inexplicable fits of spite. Annette found it hard to put a damper on them. And the result was not so splendid, for when she did she seemed plunged in a hostile and disquieting taciturnity. As her intelligence remained clear, she was astonished at these sudden changes, and reproached herself for them. That didn't improve matters. But the realization of her own imperfections gave her a certain indulgence—more wished for than sincere—towards those of these "clowns." . . . (Again! . . . Impertinent girl! . . . Forgive me! I won't do it again! . . .) Since they were Roger's relations, she ought to accept them, if she accepted Roger. The rest, Good Heavens, the rest is of no great importance when there are two to defend each other.

Only, were there two? Would Roger defend her? And, even before considering whether she would accept Roger, would Roger accept her sincerely and with a generous heart when he finally saw what she was like? For up to date he had seen only her mouth and eyes. As regarded what she thought and wished—the true Annette—it did not seem that he had tried very hard to become acquainted with her; he found it more comfortable to invent her. However, Annette cradled herself in the hope that, with the aid of love, it would not be impossible, after bravely looking into each other's hearts, for them to say to each other: "I take you, I take you as you are. I take you with your faults, your demons, with your little demands, with your law of life. You are what you are. As you are, I love you."

She knew that, for her part, she was capable of this act of love. During the last days she had observed Roger at length, with her bright eyes in which, unknown to him, everything was mirrored. Roger, no long unsure of himself, had frequently shown himself to be more of a Brissot than she would have wished; he was obsessed by the interests and the quarrels of his tribe, and even brought to them the same tricky spirit. Certain little hard, crafty sides of him did not please her. But she did not wish to judge them severely, as she would have done in the case of others. To her these traits seemed imitative. In many things, Roger appeared to her still an uncertain child, under the thumb of his family, whom he religiously copied, with marked timidity of spirit, despite all his big words. Although she began to perceive a lack of consistency in his projects for social reform, and although she was no longer completely duped by his eloquent idealism, she bore him no grudge for that, for she knew that he was not trying to deceive her, and that he was his own first dupe; she was even ready, with a tender irony, to remove from his path all that might disturb the illusion by which he had to live. And even his naïve egotism, which he sometimes displayed in a cumbersome fashion, did not repel her; it seemed to her devoid of evil intention. At bottom, all his faults were faults of weakness. And the amusing thing was that he posed as strength itself. . . . The man of bronze. . . . Æs triplex. . . . Poor Roger! . . . It was almost touching. Annette laughed very softly, but she reserved for him a wealth of indulgence. She loved him dearly. Despite everything, she saw him as good, generous and ardent. She was like a mother who treats with a gentle hand the little, and to her eyes not very serious, vices of a dear child: she does not hold him responsible for them, she is only the more disposed to fuss over him and coddle him. Ah! and then Annette had for Roger not merely the indulgent eyes of a mother! She had the very partial eyes of a lover. The body was speaking; and its voice was very strong. The voice of reason could say what it pleased: there was a way of hearing that made these very faults set fire to desire. Annette saw everything clearly. But just as one may bend one's head and squint one's eyes in order to harmonize the planes of a landscape, so Annette, when she looked at Roger's unpleasant traits, viewed them from an angle that softened them. It would have not been much beyond her to love even deformities: for one gives more of oneself when one loves the faults of one's beloved; in loving what is fine, one does not give, one takes. Annette thought:

"I am glad that you are imperfect. If you knew what I see, it would annoy you. Forgive me! I have seen nothing. . . . But I, I am not like you; I want you to see me as imperfect! I am what I am, and I hold to it; my imperfections are myself, more than the rest. If you take me, you take them. Do you take them? . . . But you don't wish to know them. When will you finally take the trouble to really look at me?"

XII

Roger was in no hurry. After a few futile attempts to lead him on to this dangerous ground from which he seemed to flee, Annette, interrupting their conversation in the midst of a walk, stopped, took both his hands in hers, and said:

"Roger, we must have a talk."

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

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

Immediately his expression grew a little frightened.

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

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

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

"What could you tell me now that would surprise me? Haven't we told each other everything, after being together for so many days?"

"So far as I'm concerned, I've scarcely said anything but Amen," said Annette, laughing. "You do all the talking."

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

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

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

Annette bit her lips.

"No, no, my dear Roger, I love it when you talk. But when you talk about me, I just listen to you; and it is so beautiful, so beautiful that I say, 'So be it!' But it's not true."

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

"I should prefer it to be me. It's not a beautiful picture that you are going to hang up in your family home, Roger. I am a living woman, who has her desires, her passions, and her thoughts. Are you sure that she can come into your home with all her baggage?"

"I am taking you with my eyes closed."

"I am asking you to open them."

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

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

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

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

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

"No. I have to see."

"What is it you want to see?"

"I want to see how you love me."

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

"Naturally! You couldn't do less. But I am not asking you how much, I am asking you how you love me. . . . Yes, I know that you want me; but what is it, precisely, that you want to make of your Annette?"

"Make her half of myself."

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

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

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

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

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

"What's troubling you, Annette? What are these ideas? You love me, don't you? You love me? That's the essential thing! Don't bother about the rest. The rest is my business. You'll see, I shall arrange—I, and my family that will be yours—we shall arrange your life so well that you will have nothing to do but let yourself be carried along."

Annette was looking at the ground and tracing letters in the dirt with her toe. She was smiling.

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

She raised her eyes to Roger, who, with perfect tranquillity, was awaiting her response. She said:

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

"Good and beautiful," said he.

"That!" she said, menacing him with her finger, "that is not the question. . . . Am I not a strong walker?"

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

"Well, then, do you think that I am going to let myself be carried? . . . You are very kind, very kind, and I thank you; but let me walk! I am not one of those who fear the fatigues of the road. To take them away from me is to take away my appetite for life. I rather have the impression that you and your family would like to free me from the trouble of acting and of choosing, would like to arrange everything in advance in prescribed pigeonholes, very comfortably—your life, their life, my life—the whole future. I shouldn't want that. I don't want it. I feel that I am at the beginning. I am seeking. I know that I have need of seeking, of seeking myself."

Roger's air was benevolent and bantering.

"And what can you seek?"

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

"Don't make fun of me! . . . I don't amount to much, I don't pretend that I do. But after all I know what I am, and that I have a life . . . a poor little life. . . . It's not so long, a lifetime, and one has it only once. . . . I have the right. . . . No, not the right if you will! that seems egotistical. . . . It is my duty not to lose it, not to throw it away at random. . . ."

Instead of being touched, he assumed a hurt air.

"You think that you are throwing it away at random? Is your life going to be lost? Won't it have a fine, a very beautiful purpose?"

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

Once again he ardently described his political career, the future of which he dreamed, his great personal and social ambitions. She listened to him talk, then, gently stopping him in the middle (for of such a subject he was never weary), she said:

"Yes, Roger. Certainly. That is very, very interesting. But to tell you the truth—no, don't be ruffled—I haven't quite as much faith as you in this political cause to which you are consecrating yourself."

"What! you don't believe in it? But you did believe in it when I spoke to you about it those first times that I saw you in Paris. . . ."

"I have changed a little," said she.

"What has changed you? . . . No, no, it's not possible. . . . You will change back again. My generous Annette couldn't be disinterested in the cause of the people, in the reform of society!"

"But I am not disinterested in it," she replied. "What I am disinterested in is the political cause."

"They are the same thing."

"Not entirely."

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

"I rather doubt it."

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

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

"I see other ways."

"What are they?"

"The oldest is still the best. Like those who followed Christ, to give all, to leave all behind, in order to go to the people."

"What a utopia!"

"Yes, I believe you. You are not a Utopian, Roger. I thought that you were at first; I think so no longer. In politics you have the sense of reality. With your great talent, I am perfectly sure of your future success. If I doubt the cause, I don't doubt you. You will have a splendid career. I can see you already at the head of a party, an applauded orator, winning a majority in Parliament, a minister . . ."

"Stop!" he said. ". . . Macbeth, you will be King! . . ."

"Yes, I am something of a witch . . . for others. But what vexes me is that I am not for myself."

"Yet it's not so difficult. If I become minister, that concerns you too. . . . Now see here, frankly, wouldn't that please you?"

"What? To be a minister? Heavens above! Not in the least! . . . Forgive me, Roger . . . it would make me glad for your sake, of course. And if I were with you, you may be sure that I would play my part to the best of my ability, and I would be happy to help you. . . . But (you wanted me to be frank, didn't you?) I must confess that such a life would not fill my life, not at all."

"Of course, I understand that. The woman best fitted in the world to share a life of political activity—take my admirable mother for example!—couldn't limit herself to that. Her real task is in the home. And her proper vocation is motherhood."

"I know," said Annette. "We shan't argue about that vocation. But . . . (I am afraid of what I am going to say, I am afraid that you won't understand me) . . . I don't know yet what motherhood will bring me. I am very fond of children. I think that I would be very much attached to my own. . . . (You don't like that word? Yes, I seem cold to you. . . .) Perhaps I would be completely wrapped up in them. . . . It is possible. . . . I don't know. . . . But I shouldn't like to say something that I don't feel. And to be perfectly frank, this 'vocation' is not yet entirely awakened in me. While still waiting for life to reveal something of which I am ignorant, it doesn't seem to me that a woman ought, in any case, to bury her whole life in this love of children. . . . (Don't raise your eyebrows! . . .) I am convinced that it is possible to love one's child, loyally perform one's domestic task, and still keep enough of oneself—as one ought to—for the most essential thing."

"The most essential?"

"One's soul."

"I don't understand."

"How can one make one's inner life understood? Words are so uncertain, so obscure, botched! The soul . . . It is ridiculous to speak of the soul! What does it mean? I can't explain what it is. But it is. It is what I am, Roger, the truest and deepest."

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

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

"Then you don't love me."

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

"You are not enough in love. When one is in love, one doesn't think of holding back any part of oneself. Love . . . love . . . love . . ."

And he soared off into one of his great speeches. Annette heard him celebrate, in moving terms, the whole gift of self, the joy of sacrificing for the happiness of the beloved. And she thought:

(My dear, why do you say all that? Do you think I don't know it? Do you think that I couldn't sacrifice myself for you, if it were necessary, and find my joy in it? But on one condition: that you don't demand it. . . . Why do you demand it? . . . Why do you seem to expect it as your right? Why haven't you confidence in me, in my love?)

After he had finished, she said:

"That is very beautiful. . . . I wouldn't be capable, you know, of expressing these things as well as you. But perhaps, on occasion, I wouldn't be incapable of feeling them. . . ."

He exclaimed: "Perhaps! On occasion!"