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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33943-8.txt b/33943-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e84d03 --- /dev/null +++ b/33943-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6811 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman, by Magdeleine Marx + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Woman + +Author: Magdeleine Marx + +Translator: Adele Szold Seltzer + +Release Date: October 5, 2010 [EBook #33943] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + WOMAN + + By MAGDELEINE MARX + + + INTRODUCTION BY + HENRI BARBUSSE + + TRANSLATED BY ADELE SZOLD SELTZER + + NEW YORK + THOMAS SELTZER + 1920 + + Copyright, 1920, by + THOMAS SELTZER, Inc. + + _First printing June, 1920_ + _Second printing July, 1920_ + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I BEING BORN + +BOOK II BEING + +BOOK III BECOMING + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +A splendid book in which a soul lives so profoundly human and so purely +feminine that any words of introduction seem leaden and intrusive. You +feel as though you were violating the essential delicacy and powerful +life of this soul to comment upon the remarkable revelation of it +between the very covers that contain the revelation. + +Yet, as a modest friend of letters, I should like to express an opinion +here--the author did not ask me for it--and pay homage to the brilliant +originality of this work. I want to give myself the pleasure of saying +how important I think it is. + +It expresses--and this is a fact of considerable literary and moral +import--what has never been exactly expressed before. It expresses +Woman. + +The more woman has been spoken about, you might say, the less she has +been revealed. She has been hidden under a plethora of words. The +supreme vision rising up out of these pages is as luminous as a heavenly +revelation. From the author's tone, so simple and penetrating, you +perceive that women feel differently about the things that we men see +and proudly proclaim. + +The thought and spirit of _Woman_ will be a surprise and a shock to the +old masculine traditions, in which women also acquiesce, probably +because of their old traditions of slavery. But we know that always and +everywhere the opposition such thought arouses is sublimely lacking in +truth. + +Here is a woman who cries out with magnificent impressive sincerity +against the fallacy of the maternal instinct--the "call of the +blood"--against the exclusiveness of love; who knows and asserts that +death kills only the dead, and not those who are left behind; who +recreates in new forms the law and the creed of the relations between +man and woman, motherhood, and suffering. And this new expression of +woman--a new expression, therefore, of the whole of life--this striking +gospel, young and strong, which overcomes artificial, unnatural ideas, +resounds at the very time when woman is at last entering humanity and is +preparing to change her rôle of breeder of children and handmaid in +common. + +The book is strictly, religiously objective. Everything is perceived +only through the eyes, the mind, the heart of the "heroine"--the word +usage thrusts upon us for this woman who has no name, who is just truly +herself. Through the commanding will of the author the creative richness +of the book springs altogether from the magnificent oneness of a human +being. No outside approach mars this unity. In no other book perhaps so +markedly as in this has the integrity of an individual been more +respected, and never has an imaginary character so consistently warded +off whatever is not of itself. You don't even seem to feel that this +"Woman" talks or tells a story. You simply know what she knows. + +And because of this very fact, this intimate association which unites us +jealously with this one being of all others, the book is poignant and +moving. A world is born beneath our eyes. In some scenes, short or long +but always important and vital, a tragedy shudders, and the entire +succession of the events of life, ordinary and on a big scale, passes in +the book in clear outline, in essential poetry. + + * * * * * + +To say this is to say that the author is a master, that her technique is +subtle, that the action concentrates all the dramas of the world in one +spiritual drama, and the book reveals a prodigious gift for presenting a +whole of vast impressions which creates unity. + +_Woman_ does not belong to any class of writing; it is not tied down by +any formula; it does not lower itself by imitating. It is a powerful, a +rebel, a virgin work, and it ranks Magdeleine Marx among the loftiest +poets of our age. + +_HENRI BARBUSSE._ + + + + +BOOK I + +_BEING BORN_ + + + + +I + + +The sun was beginning to shine. + +I had been walking and walking.... + +I had just left the brambly path which cuts a bed of sand through the +forest, laying bare its rusty bowels. + +I felt full-fed by the subtle nourishment that space distils, crammed +with air, and my forehead seemed drawn taut. Was it the motes dancing in +the sunbeams? I don't know. I was spent. The fancy throbbed beneath my +temples, did its work, and I let it go. + +You must have been sincere at least once in your life to know what an +hour is face to face with yourself, a whole hour, step by step, minute +by minute. And I never had been sincere. Now I escaped from my clogging +limbs, from the clay of myself. Until now I had done nothing but breathe +and sleep. All of a sudden I was alive. It was intoxicating.... + +Dizzy though I was I felt an exhausting need to keep on going. + +I penetrated deep into the woods walking at random, my mind almost a +blank. When the leafy undergrowth enclosed me, I let myself slide to the +ground on to the dried-up grass, the fallen twigs, and the crackling +russet pine-needles. + +All about in a dense circle, the rugged plant life. A moving splendor +in the play of the varying greens. Damp, aromatic smells. And a sense of +invisible swarming life everywhere.... + +The silence, so fresh and penetrating, was like a living thing, and I +turned round several times thinking I heard some one behind me panting. +No one. The uneven trunks of the great trees; lower down, behind their +serrated green, a slate-colored screen of mist; here, the +shadow-broidered ground; above, the patches of blue sky--and I. + +I.... + +I was a little ashamed to link my Self to myself in this way, to give my +Self its value. The old attitude of humility, of attaching no importance +to Self--was that going to begin again? Now I felt more profoundly alone +than in the harmonious exaltation I had experienced while walking. In a +mixture of alarm and idleness I tried not to remain motionless, but to +plant my elbows on the ground and lie flat on the grass with my head +between my hands, so as to divert myself with living noise.... I could +not. + +Then I stretched out on my back, my eyes fixed on the sky, my body +relaxed; and the full-blooded tide of my thoughts flowed over me. + +They flowed on, of themselves, no longer halting, as they had on the +walk, on the edge of each discovery; I no longer kept saying to myself +as when I hammered out my pitiless steps: "I have lied, I have always +lied, I have lived only on the outskirts of my life...." The air was +still, the soul alone sounded, and the soul also was at peace. I went +down into the depths--to find the soul's sweet beginnings, I suppose. + +There were no beginnings. Though my early memories came back obediently, +they were not illuminating. The catechism.... With outstretched hands +and rounded voice, the Abbé Daudret was telling of the wicked, those +whom the Almighty was waiting to punish in the hereafter. Crushed by the +word wicked, stifled by the heavy solemnity of the church, withdrawn +into my littleness, I comprehended, with dull, recurring pangs, that I +was among the damned, I, the model little girl. We went home again; I +was calm, unruffled, obedient, but if any one used the word sinful in my +hearing, if I came across it threatening in black and white, I felt as +if a brutal fist had struck my shoulder; I blushed, a swift remorse +flamed in my bowels; that word was meant for me, _I_ was the guilty one. + +At last one day I found out why I was guilty. I had not known before. + +I had been summoned to the small drawing-room; the shutters were closed; +my mother, a dim figure in the twilight, was saying good-bye to a lady +in deep mourning whose veil framed a face of alabaster. How beautiful +she was! The quivering shadows made a halo around her. I scarcely dared +to approach her because I remembered the whispers that buzzed about her +name and the envy that glittered in the eyes of the women. How beautiful +she was!... Her heavy lashes weighed down her lids.... I wanted to say +something to her, just one word. I could not, could not even repeat what +my mother, leaning towards me, told me to say.... As the lady was +leaving she turned in the doorway, fixed her great wide eyes on me and +said with an even sadder note in her velvety voice: "The child is going +to be beautiful." + +I heard myself exclaim with joy. As soon as the door closed, I ran to +the glass, which seemed to be waiting for me. My whole being was aflame +as I raised myself on tiptoe to receive the first echo of her words from +the mirror.... But my mother was already coming back and saying +severely: "You know it isn't true...." I was still on tiptoe. "You are +ugly!" My spirits dropped and instantly were bottled up in me. +Everything was clear, I understood, I understood.... + +It was an epitome of my life. The seasons passed; I maintained silence, +always, hiding my good qualities, hiding my bad qualities, encountering +only remorse between the two extremes; for it is by remorse that they +are joined together. + +Consequently my mind stored up no happening, no deeper or fainter +impression, only remorse. Remorse never left me. + +But yes, it did leave me, just now, suddenly, at the bend of the road, +where the bank slopes gently down to the ditch, when I bowed my head to +the thought, "They think me gentle, simple, just like the others; they +say I am cleverer. It is only because I dissemble more than the +others." + +At that I raised my eyes. + +"What after all does my lying matter to them? Do they want the truth? +No. They spurn it, scourge it, hunt it down. They are not worth trying +to find out the truth for. Enough." + +The sunshine seemed to tighten its clutch on the earth and whitewashed +the pathway. + +"But it is not this matter of lying that one must bewail; the point is, +there is an essential _something else_. There is--I feel there is--the +true life, my life, and it is this true life that I have betrayed. My +true life is now pushing on, bravely, along the gray stony path.... I +don't know where it is going, nor what it is, since I have never seen it +in anything that I have done, but it must live. If I die for it, what +does it matter? It will live on. It was hidden in my body, it stayed +there ashamed of itself, then came at night to beset me with its sadness +and put me to sleep with the taste of dust and ashes on my lips; and in +the morning, as soon as my eyes opened, was it the light that flooded +over me, painted the walls of my room with flame, and instantly died +away?" + +The blue density of the forest, the corrugated, soaring columns of the +trees, high and distinct in their parallel lives, the clear quivering +azure are all around me. Where is their obscure will? + +I have come to these things, I have lain down in their midst, I have +watched them. Before these things one no longer lies. And behold, I +find myself. + +I see myself as I am. + +My heavy hair, flame-colored, which gives out little glints of light +above my forehead, my complexion with the mother-of-pearl coloring of +the full daylight, the violet reflections in my eyes deepened by the +scanty shade of the trees, the firm red line of my lips, and beneath my +light dress, the fleet suppleness encased in my limbs. + +Is it possible? I am no longer ashamed to be like this, nor to _know_ +what I am like. I have let fall, at last, like a bothersome mask, the +modest air that makes people say: "She's all the prettier because she +doesn't know she's pretty." + +Do you think, pray, that there is a single woman in the world who, if +she is good looking, doesn't know it? + +I know, I know with a vengeance, that I am beautiful; I know it better +than anything else about myself. There are not only looking-glasses, +there are all the men. Whether old man, beggar, or chance passerby, you +drink in, in one long intoxicating draught: "I am beautiful." And the +women, if you know the terror in their eyes, the appeal, the envy, and +their mute defense.... You seem unaware, smiling, distant, but you are +on the eager watch for the pain you inflict. + +To please.... In the presence of other people to please is wicked +vanity, strutting, flaunting vanity; but here, on the bony ground, it is +simply a bit of me. It is a power which has been given me, I shall not +give it back; it is merely a harmony, a response to the beauty I feel, a +craving to convince, a very strong craving; my life is lovelier than I. + +My life is here. But what makes up my life? Not entirely my rosy good +health, nor this firm equilibrium which exercises control in the centre +of my being. My health and poise are, chiefly, the things that remove me +from my life. My life is a need to use my muscles, it is vigorous +movement, it is the notion I have that I can crush the world between my +arms; yes, the longing to run, to take part in everything, to shout +aloud, to dance; this animal ardor and glow in movement, this +uncontrollable blood, this body swelling with liberty, with sap, with +bursts of laughter, this unexpected gift of myself to myself, this +curiosity and contentment, this zest and turmoil.... + +I have heard others speak of youth, I have seen the word of quicksilver +glitter on the pages of books; I am still ignorant of its meaning; I am +not quite twenty. + +I hug to me all that is mine; it is not much. At first there was nothing +above my head but a liquid ocean of silence, I saw nothing but a forest +without perspective, but my watchful solitude became supernatural; and +now as I see the solemnity of the trees, their strong solid reaching up +towards heaven, as I see _myself_, I feel very deeply that I am alive +for the first time. + +I do not wish to think of the future. Let the future wait for me; it is +as if a new era were beginning.... + +And may memory never take possession of this morning of utter unreserve; +memory might distort it. And may memory never say: "This was the day of +your birth and you were excited." + +I am not unduly excited.... The present is always very simple. The sun +is only an iridescent frolic, which flits and laughs without resting on +the chapped bark of the pines. + +This moment--this and none other--is made up of my robust body, the +lullaby rustle of the wind-stirred leaves, the fragrance of resinous +wood, the screech of a great bird, and the sky cleft by its black and +white passage. + +No illumination or help from elsewhere. Slowly, gropingly, by great +effort, I arrive at lukewarm moments in which it is as though my head +were leaning on my heart. Am I going to _know_ at last and make up my +mind? But when I put my hand on my breast, everything collapses and I +have to begin all over again. + +It is because there is an empty past which rings to the touch like an +empty bowl, a lack of practice which benumbs your arms, a sort of +shame.... You don't attain to your real truth at the first attempt. + +And then above all--you must be honest with yourself--you don't seek +your true self with a _constant_ heart; far oftener you try to distract +your mind from the thought of it. About me on the ground are patches of +light, and I am simply bent upon catching them. I stretch out my hand, +stoop down, put my cheek to them, they quiver and vanish; in their place +a piercing warmth steals dancing over my face. + +Then, without my having done anything and without my being worthy of it, +the sacred mood of revolt returns, lifts me up, and forces me to my +knees; I hear the rising breath of a sudden call.... + +Is it my life, O God? Whither does it go--answer!--when it develops in a +deep breast, and you approach, again and again, as I am now approaching, +something infinite whose name you seek to know? + + +II + +Will the noise never stop? But there are walls to shut it out. + +Let them hop about, shout, dance, amuse themselves. As for me, I have +left them, I am alone in my room, I don't want to see or hear them any +more. + +I burrow my head desperately in the dark depths of the cushions. In +vain. The eddying music follows its implacable course, drapes its +arabesques of melody about me, and when I stop my ears, still keeps +whirling round and round. + +A mazurka. Who was it begged for a mazurka? Ah yes, I remember. When I +left the group of young girls sitting on the watch, a quivering basket +of artificial flowers, one of them was saying: "After the mazurka, I'll +take _him_ out into the garden, where I'll manage to make him kiss me." + +Which of them? It is easy to imagine her: they are all alike. She +laughs, I am certain, and expands her budding breasts; her beaded tunic +sparkles and strikes a rivulet of light against her pretty legs; she has +glossy hair faultlessly dressed and when she turns round in the mazurka, +you see she has one of those plump, discreet faces over which feelings +slide without leaving a mark. + +But I am forgetting. Mother had to take part in the dance too, as it was +the only one she knew and it unrolled tender memories. She braced +herself, then started off, her features gently composed, leaning on my +father, who accommodated his step to hers while seeming to guide her. +"Let's see, that's not it ..." and they set out again--one, two, three, +four--heavy, both of them, with their reputation as a happy, united +couple, and laden with the looks that follow them. + +If one knew.... + +The engaged couples have disappeared, swallowed up by the nearest dark +corners, where passion is of scarlet and nothing exists but arms and +lips and bodies surmised. When the music will have finished and they +will have reappeared, the chatter and the sharp raw laugh of the young +fiancée will be heard; she will open her eyes wide, like this; her +childish mouth will be seen, and her slim figure, which retains an air +of awkward shyness. "How unsophisticated she is," they will say in +gratitude to her for being an example of the velvety purity of the young +girls. + +The last measures. They are all perspiring, out of breath, soberly +triumphant, and as they go back to their chairs each man gives a last +squeeze of the slender arm he is about to relinquish. + +My father is entirely engrossed in his guests; he has led mamma, dizzy, +back to her chair, and has moved off. As she sits there with her +eyelashes fluttering, you would think she has returned from a wonderful +long journey. "I am happy, happy," she is reflecting. "I have such a +good husband." The wounds of every day are closed--they have to be +overlooked--and if any cloud darkens the horizon, it is that she is +thinking of me: "But that is what marriage means, my little daughter; +you'll see, it is just a big renunciation: you will change, you too, and +do like the rest; look at me; am I unhappy?" + +No, you are not unhappy, my poor little mother, with your injured voice, +your charitable eyes, and your lifeless gestures; you are dead; it is +twenty years since you have had a will of your own, a desirous look, a +single manifestation of impatience, a stray impulse, an hour, anything +you can call your own; it is twenty years since you renounced. But your +husband never goes out, he has his wife and children, he earns your +living, a comfortable living; everyone respects him, and "one cannot +have everything." + +As for you, you can live contentedly with a twenty-year-old unhappiness +upon your shoulders; you breathe, you go about; the women around you +have the same fate, and this sustains you. But we, mother, who are +different, the daughters of my generation, we who have sensual hearts, +reasoning minds, new energies--_I_, who have done nothing, I cannot, I +tell you, and if a future is given me, I want to snatch whatever it +holds. + +The music has stopped; I cannot hear them any more.... It is as if my +heart were beginning to live. + +The tangible darkness of the room deepens little by little. Its peace, +its solitude. I can distinguish the walls, or rather the vaporous +shadows of walls, the windows where the cold light of the garden is +paling, the indistinct rectangle which stretches along the ceiling ... +and in that silence in which God is rooted is the hunted soul returning +to its place. + +Ah, shattered again! The music sets the hubbub going.... + +Besides, certain words are too beautiful, and you say them to intoxicate +yourself, but when they are gone, you realize, your arms are empty. + +I asked myself: "What is youth?" This is what youth is: that terrible +thing, that sin, that torture which one must stifle: it is my pure +intoxication defiled by their impure intoxication. I wanted to sing my +youth, give it out, exhale it. Jeering life is below, with its people, +its fouling habits, its sneers and titters. They were quite right; you +can't escape it. You must adapt yourself to it; it is the law. I will +adapt myself; I will have a husband; he will be kind, faithful; there +will be no one beside him; he will be all in all to me; he will skirt +the shores of my being; he will pronounce judgment on all my actions, my +comings and goings, my looks; his word will be final. I shall lie in his +bed every night; he will see my timid body, my naked sleep, my sleeping +life; he will stand upright in my life as in a garden which one is not +afraid to ravage, and when truth will pass by us, he will sit still and +let it pass. + +I shall have no more confused desires, no more sudden impulses of +kindliness, no more agonized expectancy, and no more of those +questionings which make a stifling desert about me. I shall be +satisfied. If my hell returns at times to visit me, that red-eyed +narrow-chested hell, my husband will be there, seated opposite me at +table; he will raise his head. "What's the matter, aren't you hungry?" + +The soul, the essence, the deep voice from within--words, mere words.... +There is nothing but the noise below. And only that. And I must return +to it. Well, come on, go down, speak, smile. All existences are alike. +When there is no longer a single lie left to tell, it means the time has +come to die. + +Why obstinately wish to discover a way out and knock your head against a +stone wall? There is no way out. You must not cherish the impossible; +get up and go gaily downstairs. A little cold water, a little powder; +this is a grief you are not permitted to indulge in. + +Once again and for all time I shall go to them. If they are boisterous, +spineless, unobservant, with no warmth in them, perhaps after all at +some time at the bottom of their hearts they have felt, if only vaguely +and vanishingly, the jealous fever which weighs like a heart; perhaps +they have suffered; perhaps in looking back, when the sunshine has burst +forth, they have understood that the period of their twenties was +sacred. The twenties! And we, the youth, say to ourselves: wisdom is +within us, the future is within us, and reason, salt, blood, the truth. +It is ourselves, only ourselves. And we wish to open our hearts and say +to those who pass: "Come to us, ask us. It is from us that everything +can be learned; we can explain the secret things, the inner meanings, +the words hidden in the folds of the body, the startling confessions +that are breathed on the highways, everything that is changeful, for +nothing is permanent but change; we know everything, and more than +everything; we who have never loved, we know the whole of love." Perhaps +_they_, the dancers downstairs, have stretched out their arms, tasted +the fresh morning with their lips, felt the beating of a heart of sobs; +perhaps they have once _been_ their hope. I shall do what they have +done; it is my turn; my time for withering will surely come too. + +The farandole! Ah, they are holding each other's hands, the old folks +are also joining in. "Let's enjoy ourselves!" Their faces are tense, and +above their footsteps and above the avalanche of their bodies, I hear +the shrill cries of the young girls. + +They are leaving the drawing-room; it sounds as if they were +approaching. + +Don't come here. Even if it is dark in this room, even if I have wept, +and even if the walls have taken on this aspect of distress, it does not +mean that I can be reduced to your level. + +The galop moves faster, wilder. The chain in the center is flung +together in a heap, those at the end are almost scattered. The last one +waves his arm in the air. The noise sickens me. + +The floor of my room quivers. I will go down, I will go down to them.... + +But not yet.... + + +III + +It is done.... + +How shall I bring myself to believe it, how tell myself it is true, that +_it_ is done, that it is an accomplished fact? And why is it that an +absurd recollection obsesses me instead of the thing that has just taken +place? Recollections are not considerate. They thrust themselves upon +you willy-nilly.... It was one day when I was still little and wore my +hair in a plait down my back tied with a red ribbon. An idea struck me +and set me all a-quiver, to surprise my mother by secretly filling her +vase with flowers, the beautiful blue vase with the band of gold, erect +on its massive pedestal like a slim thing on a throne. I was very +careful, I held my breath, my movements were sedulously controlled.... +The vase toppled and made a clear, ringing sound. I can still hear it. +My father came in unexpectedly. He stopped--he always was severe--took +me by the shoulder, and shook me like a wind-tossed sapling. Then he +dragged me to my room and on the threshold gave me a slap which sent me +staggering. There was a whistling in my ears. I was drunk, dazed, +completely bewildered.... Then he shut the door. + +When I came to my senses, I ran to the glass, I don't know why, for +nothing, "just to see." A wine-colored mark streaked with red was +spreading over my cheek. I held the back of my hand up and felt the glow +even without touching it. + +It was burning, but, oddly enough, it did not hurt. I was conscious of +not suffering pain, and instantly a sadness filled me, utter and sudden +as a bitter flood. I didn't know why I was sad. Even now I only glimpse +the reason imperfectly. Children who are simple are also more subtle +than we. It was my fate to be defrauded, not to have a definite reason +for shedding tears over myself, not to suffer in real earnest from an +undeserved punishment, not to be able to cherish the compensation or +possess the impregnable asylum, the inexhaustible resource that grief +always is. It was when I touched my cheek which did not hurt that I +threw myself on my bed crying, alone, yes really alone for the first +time. And to-night it is just the same way. + +I have run away from home. Here I am cast out on the street in the +night. There is a fine blinding sleet; I do not know as yet where I am +going to spend the night, but that doesn't hurt any more than the slap +on my cheek hurt. Am I unfeeling? I push on straight ahead, the houses +follow one another, the streets meet and cross, the separate shadows are +only one and the same shadow. I stop now and then arrested by the +consciousness of having forgotten to suffer. + +I have been walking a good hour. + +How penetrating the night is. An hour of utter aloneness, an hour empty +and bare. Ah, that it may be so until the end. Let misery come, the +unknown, humiliations, but let the truth come also. You perish trying to +do without the truth.... + +That scene.... Can the memory of it be annihilated, so that nothing +remains, not even the grotesque memory of a memory? + +He blazed with fury, he lashed the air first with one arm then the +other; his features swelled with rage and suddenly looked youthful.... +Now that I come to think of it, he looked exactly the same as on the day +of the blue vase, only this time he did not dare to slap me. That's why +he gesticulated so wildly. I listened to him at first with an +indifferent air; I was accustomed to his storms--well, the thing would +soon blow over. And before my eyes the familiar scene, which the +lighting up of the chandelier always placidly ushered in, was being set +according to the daily ritual--the smoking tureen, which Leontine, who +had entered with her padded tread, was placing on the table (she removed +her red hands, finger by finger, and stole her sidewise glance at me), +and the transparent play of the glasses, with iridescent stems giving +back the glitter of the silver and the white sheen of the tablecloth. + +Although my eyes were occupied in following intently the details of the +dinner-table, a heavy travail was going on within me. A legion of +slumbering desires, halting impulses, dead aspirations were rousing +themselves noiselessly, almost without my consciousness. Thoughts that +come in the morning when one's eyes open, "To-day! to-day," hopes dashed +to the ground, deceptions, sighs--their tune rose to the surface and +changed to a peal which drew me on. Yet I remained on the spot, like a +beast with lowered head led by a rope. + +I saw his gesture in time. + +He was advancing towards me, his fist raised. Did he mean to strike? +What did it matter? I was no longer in a condition to judge. A roll of +thunder was shivering my inner trouble into a thousand bits, there was a +flash of lightning which unloosened everything, even my tongue. I was +speaking, I was speaking at last.... + +What did I say? Really, almost nothing, because in the frantic swiftness +of his anger he broke in upon my first words. "Get out, get out!" He +showed me his hand as if he were cursing his hand, too, forever. + +The door closing behind me made a very long and very impressive sound. + +I was on the landing of the staircase. No sound. The electric light +cruelly exaggerated the red spiral of the carpet and touched each copper +bar of the banisters with a tiny comet. + +Alone. + +And suddenly ... what did it all mean? I no longer understood. +That outburst of cries, that tempest, that sort of comedy, my +reply ... what ... I went and sat down, tempted equally to laugh and to +cry. I wanted to think ... but it was already done, an almost outside +force was pushing me off my hinges. "Escaped!" I was like a prisoner who +sees the door left open inadvertently. + +I knocked gently, my entire presence of mind returning to me in a rush. +Leontine came with a pseudo-contrite expression and an air of saying +"Hush!" while beneath her manner was the concentrated delight of an +animal lying in wait. "They are at dinner," she whispered while I got my +things together, a frock, a blouse, some toilet articles, a little +money, some linen, a few books. + +I closed the front door on myself, slowly, without faltering, slowly. It +was done. It was not difficult. + +A faint wind blew from the street below which chilled me.... Ah, you are +trembling already, you are drawing back. That fine courage of yours, +where is it? Where is your all-powerful will, and your still surer +hope?... + +It was not out of cowardice that I was trembling; but as I advanced +towards my Self, street by street, house by house, through my first +ordeal, I got a blunter, deeper knowledge of my Self, and a sudden fear +entered my breast. + +I am really not a strong person. What had been struggling in me so +forcibly was not my own strength; it was simply the reaction from the +_others_. A strong person would know at the very first step what mandate +to derive from the power animating him; before destroying he would have +built up. When a bird finds its cage open and takes flight, it does not +hesitate, it has the idea of space, it spreads its wings, it knows where +to fly, and how high. + +I know nothing. I am setting out, that's all. Neither before nor behind +me is the irresistible urge which is the start of a great career. Nor do +I see close by the rising shape of my life. Nor about me is the ringing +mirth of faery liberty. Nothing but a little tiredness, a little +emptiness in my head, a little emptiness in my heart.... I am not a +strong person. + +Good-bye, mother, good-bye to your transparent eyes, to your shoulders +which will always shrug for the wrong side, good-bye to your tender +lying. + +You see, I am no longer faint-hearted, because I can walk away from you +forever and venture upon a vague future without a glow of eagerness. All +I need is something to beckon to me.... There is nothing ahead of me +except the quiet artery of a thoroughfare hemmed in by inky houses and +the darkness, which melts away at the panes of the street-lamps and +makes them dance and quiver below and twinkle like eyes at the top. +Liberty has the taste of fog.... + + +BOARDING-HOUSE + +Shall I cross this unfriendly threshold covered with a mangy rug? I +should so much like to stop walking and go to sleep. Shall I choose this +house which exhales the smell of a cellar, this gloomy shelter, these +dingy walls? Shall I.... + +Come on, fate is everywhere. This is the place I must enter. + + +IV + +I have found work.... + +A fortnight, a hundred hopes, a fortnight.... The unfriendly atmosphere +of stiff faces. "The position is filled." Stairs mounted four steps at a +time, then descended gravely, catechisms begun with questions that +embarrass and so often ending with questions that make you blush. Then +one fine day--by what magic?--the position is not filled, and you +answer yes to everything required; the sky is clear, you will start +to-morrow. + +I have not drained to its dregs the joy there is in working at my +nondescript job from morning until evening. To work for your bread, to +feel dignified and straight. You cannot talk, to be sure, but at least +you do not lie, you are in repose, you let the waves of your being pile +up, and every evening you return to a docile home, where the silence is +always nigh to flowering.... + +The boarding-house, however, is not hospitable; you never satisfy your +hunger, and my narrow room with its threadbare carpet and mouldy ceiling +is like a badly kept cage. But it's Sunday morning and I have undertaken +to make it inviting. + +A handkerchief twisted about my hair, a white blouse and bare arms.... +By persisting and rubbing again, by chasing the dust, by trying a place +for the books twenty times over, by pushing the chairs about, by +scraping away the layers of encrusted filth, I am bound to triumph. To +judge of the effect, I stop several times and perch on the tattered arm +of the red-flowered armchair; the place looks better already. But to it +again! + +No pictures, no ornaments. I have taken down the sentimental prints +hypocritically concealing the scars of the wall-paper. Nothing but the +bare room and the high window with its dim panes. + +The bed of a doubtful mahogany burrows into the bashful retreat of the +alcove. The wardrobe would wabble if it were not secured by a thick +rope tied to the rosette on the front. The rosette is typical of a +curious character that the room has for all its dinginess. There was an +attempt to decorate with a profusion of flowers. Flowers everywhere, +spread broadcast over the walls, cutting off the corners of the +wash-boards, and trailing their sallow procession in a border around the +top of the walls. They are even woven into the stuff on the back of the +armchair, they appear almost effaced in the maroon-colored linoleum, and +ravelled out and faded in the cretonne curtains.... In this cemetery, +the sweet violets blooming on my table have a sensual, almost insolent +splendor; their petals look red. + +For all its bareness, my room radiates light; the meagre sunlight shines +in through the window and is already transfiguring the place; I feel +comfortable in it. + + * * * * * + +Oftener and oftener I ask myself what is my reason for existence, my +true, my sole destiny. Doubtless one must sleep in a room for a long +time before encountering the soul that prepares itself there. + +I am, I know, like a person who wants to build a big house without +having a site or materials, who says nevertheless: "No, not this site, +no, not this material." But this is of no importance, I realize. Once +you have submitted to the wholesome discipline enjoined by poverty, you +receive in return energetic muscles and a patient outlook. + +I wait; and no longer having any need to complain or criticize, I wait +with a smile. Everything is simpler than one thinks, and everything is +easier, and it seems to me that-- + +Someone is knocking at the door. + +"May I come in?" + +The landlady, Mme. Noël. + +Mme. Noël is more of an imp than a woman. She has the figure, the voice, +and the darting roguishness of a slim young thing of twelve. + +When I was getting settled the first morning, I suddenly heard her +insect-step close by--I had left my door open--and without giving me +time to draw back, she besieged me with questions: + +"How old do you think I am?" + +"I don't know." + +"Guess anything." + +"Thirty-four ... thirty-three ... thirty." + +On looking at her closely a few seconds, it seemed to me she was +probably forty. + +"Fifty-two, my dear!" To convince me of her age she stuck her finger +under a slab of hair waved and dyed red and actually exposed an +abundance of fading white hair. + +Her face was no bigger than a fist, with cheeks like baked apples. Her +shrewd naked eyes pried about. She came farther into the room and +perched lightly on one of my rickety pieces of furniture, balancing it +with her body. Then she began to unfold the story of her life, +rummaging, unpacking, digging it up by huge armfuls: her husband, her +lover, and then another, a painter she adored. The first one came +back.... Love, adventures.... So it is possible to speak about your love +and adventures? + +Before leaving me--I was quite dazed; which must have been +evident--lowering her voice a little: + +"_He_ is so good.... I myself am not crazy about him, but _he_ loves me +so...." + +"He?" + +"The boarding-house--it is not only for what it pays, you understand. +It's for _the company_!" + +"The company?" + +With the springy elegance of a cat, her tapering elbows breaking the +evenness of her outline, Mme. Noël slid on to the bed. The mattress +reared up, the coverings billowed, the pillow, struck slantwise, was +about to fall. But she needed so little room, and she carefully patted +the hollow she made for herself. + +"Well, is there nothing you want?... Ah, these young things--a +handkerchief round their heads and they still look pretty." + +Instinctively I pulled off my handkerchief. I stammered: "To keep off +the dust" and--what could I do to make her go?--I smiled awkwardly. + +"Oh, by the way, I came near forgetting to tell you. If ... you want to +receive in your room ... after all, what of it? You surely have +somebody.... It's just between us women. A beautiful girl like you, it +would be a shame.... You won't be bashful, will you? To me love is +sacred. And you will tell your little secrets to Mme. Noël? I have told +you mine. Only of course you will be careful not to make any noise. I +say this on account of the Russians in the next room. They used to +receive swarms of people up to all hours. The rumpus! I tell you, I put +a stop to it. But you, you're different. I liked you from the start." + +I had to answer, I was going to answer ... but my tongue was dry with +confusion. Besides, how edge a word in? There she was back at her huge +pile of love stories. She even tried to pump me, lifting and lowering +her powdered little nose; one scrap of information she set aside for use +presently. At last she disappeared trippingly with a pointed _au revoir_ +which crisped the hide of her cheeks. + +An odor of imitation white lilac persists, but so much sunshine streams +in through the open window, so many quickening exhalations that the odor +will soon be dissipated. + +Love ... yes.... + +Perhaps by listening hard to the inner voice you may get to let it speak +out loud. If I give in to this habit, I want to hear myself say: "I do +not like love." I even want to add: "Keep it away," because love seems +to be an outside force which smites or spares without your having +deserved or banished it. + +I have seen too many couples in which the man is nothing but a craving +for conquest, the woman nothing, absolutely nothing, but a need to be +conquered. I have seen too many who have not been visited by grace and +have damned themselves to mutual ruin. A veritable attack and a +semblance of defence. I have seen what is taken for love. + +I have seen women steeped in trickery; the wilier they were the more +love surrounded them. I have seen the heavy looks of men set about +everywhere like traps.... I am worth nothing as yet, but my sound +heart--I refuse it. And I say it quite low to exorcise the invisible +danger: I do not like love. + +"To me love is sacred...." + +I understand fully what those small, naked, prying eyes were glorifying. +And in the adventurous life of those eyes I see neither more nor fewer +blemishes and lies than in the eyes of the young girls. Neither more nor +fewer. At moments there even flashed in those eyes sparks, reflections, +gleams.... + + * * * * * + +A cloud is darkening the window; my room is obliterated. + +But if by leaning forward and boldly offering my face to the sun and +stretching out further, I could take in all his golden bounty and all +his light? + +I withdraw hastily from the springtime window because when a gentle +flame ran over my wrist I became aware of lack of dignity: my untidy +hair, the dust on me, the disorderly room. + +Since the sun lives, since I long for it, love must exist. I shall find +the proof of it. Quickly, my Sunday frock, order about me, flowers.... + +Keep it far away from me. I do not feel I am ready.... + + +V + +Trude's twenty-fourth birthday. Twenty-four candles around the monster +of a cake. Trude announces that Edda, the youngest of us, is to light +the candles when we're ready for the toasts and the dessert. + +I lent my vases, my old red-flowered armchair, and my draperies. This +morning when the preparations were completed and their voices in triple +unison leapt to me: "Come and look!" I was in the room in three bounds +like an answering echo. + +It really looked nice. Who would have recognized Clara's impossible +room? Heavy ropes of foliage dotted with roses festooned the walls, my +beautiful blue stuff entirely hid the toilet-table, flowers covered the +mantelpiece and starred the corners of the mirror; and the table covered +with a white cloth was gay with pyramids of fruit. + +Now the guests are all here except Markowitch, who said beforehand he +would be late. "I am not going to seat you," Clara cries to them above +the rising hubbub. "Choose your own places." And she turns her back to +give the last touches to the table. Her heavy braided knot hangs low on +the nape of her neck. In spite of the two spreading wings of her skirt +at her waist line she looks thinner than ever in her greenish dress. +Someone glides up behind her, a pink arm for an instant twines about her +waist. "Clara, can I help?" She turns round. Dahlia. + +Dahlia is not an ordinary creature; she is no one; she is _the young +girl_. But that really is saying nothing. Juliet and Miranda are dead; +our times are not made for a creature of the dawn who is supposed to be +finer than the promise of herself, but who is already herself; who is +supposed not to be ignorant, who is pure and who, in order to love, does +not await love. + +Dahlia comes of another age; she comes from the country of fjords and +legends. Her father was exiled, she wanted to go with him, they had no +money; they made almost the whole journey on foot. One evening when +their heavy limbs would carry them no further, they were stranded in a +squalid quarter on the outskirts of Paris. They took a room.... The next +day the man did not get up. And since then Dahlia has bowed her head to +the yoke and works all day long for a poor monthly wage in an office +where the walls press upon her like a vice. "It's to keep up my father's +spirits," she said with a shake of her head when I saw her the second +time. + +I shall never forget the first time. I had come in a little later than +usual, and probably more tired, too. I did not even think of lighting +the lamp, the dusk was unreal ... heavens!... a vision took shape +between the threshold and the shadows, scarcely daring.... There was a +brow set in pale gold, the delicate blur of a face, eyes like a +thousand forget-me-nots; between two young arms the strait, retiring +modesty of the angels, and their light movements also. She drew nearer. +"We have made a cake, the sort we make at home, let's divide." She +disappeared. Her present remained behind on my table.... + +In her thin linen dress this evening, with a whiff of paradise about +her, Dahlia seems to be enveloped in a pink illumination. She smiles on +everybody as one must smile at happiness when one catches a glimpse of +it. + +"Your beautiful red dress," she assures Trude, gently clasping the soft +spindles of her hands. + +How can Trude remain simple and genuinely Puritanical beneath her +trappings of beaded crimson plush and cuirass of some hodgepodge of gold +caught in at the hips. I fancy she is too simple for finery to add to +her personality. Real or imitation the fineries give way; it is she who +adorns them. Whatever she wears is sanctified and comes to resemble her, +everything except her threefold name, Gertrude, Trude, Trudel. + +She has the peculiar brilliance of the Russians, sombre, subterranean, +almost undefinable. Whatever she does, whether she laughs, or is +excited, or talks with fire of ordinary things, she always has a finger +lifted in the air and her wide gaze raised Christ-like. She has the +mouth of an evangelist. Her irises set in clear white have glints of +jet. She wears the glossy foliage of her black locks straight back from +her forehead, an intense forehead crowning her like a diadem.... What +other woman would dare the supreme immodesty of displaying a bare +forehead? What woman would gain by doing it? The strange thing is, Trude +is beautiful only by a kind of miracle; the least little bit more, and +her cheeks would stick out over the cheekbones of a Tartar; the least +little bit less, and her nose would be obliterated. The lakes of her +eyes tranquilly conceal the raging waves in their depths. How many, by a +shade of ill-luck, have escaped beauty? Trude, by a miracle, has escaped +ugliness. + +Mania, her sister, so different with her agile, insinuating body, +lovingly fingers the presents. "You have not seen everything, Trude. Do +come." Books, prints, china, and elegant embroidered articles--pretty +things all from poor people who will soon be setting out on foot in the +darkness for their distant lodgings in order to save carfare. For we are +all as poor as poor can be. Except Markowitch. Mania told me he was +"immensely rich," had at least two hundred dollars a month spending +money. + +It is hard to say whether it is our poverty that creates this +comradeship among us. You come in and you feel at ease, you feel _good_, +you love all of them, even Lonnie, the little Swiss with cheeks +lacquered with rouge, and even Michael with his tight compressed nose +peaking out of the profile of a hen--Michael perhaps more than the +others. + +So much the worse for Markovitch: we are going to begin. The hubbub dies +down a little; everyone finds a place, two on the same chair, some on +the bed, a good many on the floor, young men, young girls holding each +other's hands, so close together, so pure, that I can still not accustom +myself.... + +"It is your turn, Mania." + +A song, liquid, then fiery, comes from among the reeds and carries you +far off--down there--to those wild plains chiseled by the wind where the +streams, driven to the surface and threshed by their rocky beds, have +the fury of torrents. What a potency of attention on these serious +faces! + +Isn't that Markovitch? + +"Come in!" + +With his hardened features wrought in granite he, too, is a force. His +bulbous eyes search the gathering and find what they are looking for.... +Dahlia raises her head, blushes, and is veiled in delicate purple up to +the golden edge of her hair. She is aware of the love of this great +spoilt boy; we are all aware of it; but she has refused to be his wife +because she does not love him. He will not speak of it again; +nevertheless they continue to meet straightforwardly. With a free, +rounded movement of her arms, like the handles of an amphora, she points +to a vacant place beside her. "Here." Then in dismay: "Don't make a +noise." + +Prikoff is telling of a childhood recollection. You seem to see him as +both the fantastic gnome and the father in the tale. You see huts +assailed by icy blizzards, hazy visions of bodies blue with cold, love +of _somewhere else_.... Despite his huge jaw and unkempt mass of hair, +what benignity, mildness, and gentleness. It is as though he were +talking to little children gathered close about him. + +Is time passing? No one notices it, we have forgotten it. Time escapes +youth gathered together and bound in a sheaf; it escapes Clara's bosom +from which a plaintive _lied_ is rising, while the hungry hands around +Dahlia, who is doling out the manna, make time tarry. A real poor folk's +supper, the supper of persons who are hungry at all hours. Thick slices +of rare meat on bread, solid pastry, big bright fruit. One should see +these robust young girls munching even the meat. + +How fond I am of them all! Among them I feel for the first time what the +human voice really is; for the first time feel the warmth which is +shared and communicated from being to being, which makes of a single +entity a group of entities, of a field of separate ears of corn the +human harvest. + +I wouldn't know how to choose among them. But one of the young men might +slightly frighten and disconcert me; his accent might seem barbarous. My +trim dress, my too-dainty shoes, and my fluffy blouses, all the things +that constitute my element, might cause me to feel compunction. And +maybe too I might feel ashamed of the hour I spend every morning +anxiously pressed close to the glass as if I were begging myself to be +beautiful. + +I should have the same feeling on behalf of the girls as for myself; at +bottom I do not discriminate between men and women. I should go even +further. If friendship drew me to one of them, my compunction would +change to grief. Really, can one forgive Clara her over-trimmed dress +conceived in a nightmare? Can one forgive all of them their down-at-heel +shoes, the lack of care and regard for others that they show in their +appearance? + +Should I adjust my days with no ups and downs in them to their volcanic +days? "What's it all coming to?" cries Trude sometimes, and throws +herself on her bed sobbing and losing herself in her emotions. Time +passes and dies--one day, two days--suddenly she rises. She has +forgotten her office, her meals, everything. She leans her forehead +against the window-pane, and her tears flow bitterly. + +If we became intimate, would they forgive me my neat room, my +punctuality, my scrupulous adherence to rule and system, my moderation +in everything? In the first days of our being neighbors they used to +say: "You know, the little Frenchwoman who always comes and goes at the +same time and makes so little noise and uses powder?" That quite +described me. + +This evening of the reunion of these serious creatures runs on by leaps +and bounds and rises to a pitch by fits and starts. There is a glowing +dewiness about Dahlia; Markovitch follows her with the green pupils of +his bulbous eyes. And all of a sudden the whole company is fired at the +same time. Without expecting to they burst into song--who threw the +spark?--and the room lights up like a hearth all aglow with voices.... + +Fifteen flames mingled, but only a single flame. It is a song that rages +and mounts higher, and jerks and jolts, and is convulsed with raucous +shouts, in which the joy becomes frenetic and the laughter has a shudder +in it. They bring to their singing the fervor and the earnestness of +application that they bring to everything. + + * * * * * + +I am sitting in the retreat of the little chimney-piece hidden from +their eyes, and I should like to ask their forgiveness for not knowing +their fervid song and not being in harmony with them. I should like to +ask pardon of all of them for everything. + +I should like to ... I should like to.... + +Breathes there a human being on earth who has nothing to forgive, whom +one has nothing to forgive?... + +To be with him, his equal, close to him, face to face with him, _and +alone with one_. + + +VI + +The two Loiseaus and I were sitting in their dining-room, a narrow +rectangle with waxed floor and small straw mats here and there exactly +like a convent parlor. + +The evening--a dark evening out of doors--encompassed the walls with +mystery. The darker it grew the less we felt like getting up and +lighting the lamp. Why bother after all? There was a whole grate full of +flames. They leaped and emitted a lively red crackling, shot forth +luminous circles, hung high in the hearth, dancing tongues of fire, +orange-colored mountain crests, aigrettes of blue light, grimaces of +demons ... whirlpools ... fairyland ... crash and collapse ... +foolery.... + +All of us felt drowsy, each imprisoned in his own silence. The shadows +quivered gently above our shoulders. The silence, a trifle stagnant +emanating from the three of us, seemed to be compressed up under the +toned-down white of the ceiling. + +I was curled up in front of the hearth, my eyes at the mercy of the +glowing surge, my chin thrust forward. A languid sense of well-being +spread all around, played over the hollow of your arms, and padded the +nape of your neck: you thought of nothing. + +The two Loiseaus are people who know how to be silent; you spend Friday +evening with them, and everything--except themselves--tells you that +they are pleased with the presence that makes three silhouettes dance in +the room. + +They are not very old, but there's no denying they _are_ old bachelors, +because in their company you don't feel the torturing constraint and +embarrassment which the _others_ make you feel because you're a woman. + +When you come, they hold out their hands good-naturedly. Rémy, the great +big patient Rémy, takes my hat, my gloves rolled into a ball, and my +cloak. He steps on my cloak and is vaguely alarmed. This adds to his +confusion, and when he hangs my things on the rack in the hall he is so +awkward in his carefulness that my hat rolls to the ground. We sit down +and talk of the office--you cannot start by not talking--and when every +topic is exhausted, I suggest making tea, a suggestion well worth the +making just to rouse the gourmand look in the old boys' eyes. "Oh yes, +some tea." You can almost hear them purr. + +I busy myself with an ease become superlative. It is possible that for +an instant I find myself a woman again between two attentive men, +converted into the household goddess--she who performs the rites and +dispenses the food and offers the milk, just a thimbleful, while the +men's eyes are upon her as she bends over the cups. This constrains my +movements and makes me tread more lightly and mince my steps. I scarcely +displace the shadows. + +My two old friends! + +Rémy pursues his reading with a frank absorption which dominates his +whole body. His heavy forehead bulges, his clenched fists form two +undefined cubes on the page. Migo (when I look at him I call him Migo, +too), rolls his cigarette. This evening he is inclined to be talkative. +He rubs up his memory: + +"The first day you came to the office what a timid manner you had." + +The recollections play upon an irresistible note. Rémy emerges from his +corner, his good blue eyes rising to the bait; a vision hung on a +thread, persons long faded. And it must be confessed that all three of +us let ourselves be captured; the same smile widens our features. + +The door-bell rings.... Yes, it rang. + +The triple peal sends our heads apart. Rémy rises, hostile and resigned. +He is always the one to open the door. + +Waiting in every circumstance, even when nothing is at stake, is +painful. The spirit recoils and contracts, and space is left for +thoughts of an inevitable misfortune and for the twinkling vision of the +things which disappear. In a single instant life can completely change +its aspect.... + +A sweeping draught. It brings in the voice of a young man. I want to +leave. The two Loiseaus hover about him. "What a surprise! How nice!" +They rub their hands. "Come in and sit down!" + +It is too late to leave; the stranger is already bowing to me, and the +mingled exclamations pretty well hide my stammering. I am so ashamed of +myself for stammering. + +The newcomer seats himself near the fire on the little black chair to +the right of Migo. He wants the lamp to stay unlighted. But it is no +longer the same. Our silence has been routed, and the languor, and the +warmth also.... + +I am in a good position to observe him. How old? Thirty-four, +thirty-five perhaps. Is he really handsome? Hard to say. He is too dark. +His face is strongly chiseled, his cheeks sunken, his forehead hard as +a hammer. The long line of his jaw lends refinement to his countenance, +which is lit by eyes fearlessly open, in which the gray, in spots, seems +steeped in phosphorous. His gestures are repressed and rather +commanding. He talks little, but when he does talk his fire contrasts +with the rarity of his words, gives them value, makes them seem to issue +all alive from the bowels of the earth, while he sits with his body +upright, as if at a distance, the flicker from the hearth enamelling, +then removing, the burnished black of his hair ... I bethink myself: we +have not yet had tea. I hope it will be just right this evening. + +One by one I take out of their hiding-place the cups with the gold +lines, the lovely ones, the only embroidered tea-cloth, the teapot with +the golden spout, and the flowers, wan in the night. I set the luxury of +these things on the table. With my head shrouded in the light-dark and +my shoulders swathed in a fleece of shadow, how good it is to be among +them, screened by my movements, not sitting but standing so that I can +look upon the happy trio. Him especially. For alongside of him, who +hardly speaks, the two Loiseaus, beaming and voluble, seem suddenly tame +and stunted. + +A pleasant sight, quite new to me, this group of three faces on which a +common childhood springs to life, fond joys shared in the past, and +names that are no more. They have almost forgotten that a woman is +present. This reassures me. + +But if _he_, when he raises his eyes and sees me, is going to remember I +am a woman and turn to me too civilly and kindle the usual warfare under +the bland honey of the customary phrases! No ... not he ... not this +man. He is so frank and so fine with his two friends; what he says is so +right, and he speaks so directly, without straining for effect. No, not +he. + +I offer each of them a trembling cup which they accept without +trembling. Then I quickly withdraw again to the protecting shadow where +my place is hollowed out, to listen to this amazing presence which my +heart scans. + +He has spoken to me. + +He has spoken to me as never yet a man has spoken: without trying to see +or please me, without any ulterior thoughts, just as he speaks to the +two Loiseaus, probably just as he speaks to himself when alone. It does +happen, then, that from the depths of simple obscurity, unexpectedly, +one hears real words, real naked words from a man? + +I answer in the same good faith, I no longer feel any fear or the need +for self-defence. I feel a delight which helps me. And the perfume of +the words that rises from the four of us--it is upon him I bestow it. + +From the embers comes a live heat which settles on your cheekbones; your +neck unconsciously stretches towards the red point where the +conversation, which also crackles and sparkles, rests its centre. This +stranger close to me seems like a king leaning over the edge of a +fountain; the light carves his smile and courts that familiar brow.... +Is he still a stranger? + +But suddenly, what time is it? Twenty past eleven! Time to go. Yes, yes, +I must go. + +At the shock which brings me to my feet the whole group breaks up. They +discuss who is to see me home, and I have to refuse three offers at the +same time. + +Give me your brotherly hands, I want to go home by myself. And you, turn +upon me those eyes so different from other men's eyes. + +As I go down the stairs the fidgety advice repeated a hundred times, +which Rémy hurls at me over the banisters every Friday, descends upon my +head. "Don't walk so fast, look where you're going." The last scraps of +warning roll like billiard balls. Rémy, old friend, have no fear, go in +again. I am carrying away an immense wonder. It is hurrying me along in +its round. I want to dance, to cry.... + +Rémy's voice is cut off abruptly, along with the cone of light in which +the steps reeled. + + * * * * * + +On the street ... a narrow, formidable street, full of a palpable, +limpid night. + + * * * * * + +Whither goes the volatile sky pursued by the pale flock of clouds? +Whither go those grand transports which seize and overwhelm you? Here +below there is a man honest in his voice, straightforward in his look, a +brotherly man. And I have met him! + + +VII + +For the first time I have spoken about myself to a living being. Not so +much in words or details or episodes as in the profound desire to open +up the depths of my soul and finally give a true view of it. + +To talk of oneself! That enigmatic, incomplete, elusive, warm thing, +tossed by conflicting currents, adding to itself constantly, this thing +that one is. To say what it is!... To tell of it with modest lips, with +lids raised, with voice sure, with silence.... + +I should never have believed in the possibility of such a boon. And in +the first minutes of our being together on Sunday, I still did not know +of the possibility. + +Two weeks after the Friday at the Loiseaus', I was stamping my feet with +the cold in the queue of people waiting at the little door of the +theatre to buy the two-franc seats. I happened to turn and was +mechanically studying the faces--there he stood eight or nine persons +away.... + +My delighted gaze rested upon him so hard that his head turned +compliantly. He saw me, his face lighted up. The crowd was interested, +the women stared with their unabashed curiosity, the men joked, but not +one of them, you may be sure, was willing to budge. Through the +interstices between the hats, our cheeks glowing with the wind, we +exchanged greetings, and I divined rather than heard that he wanted to +see me. It was at that moment that I felt as if I were flinging myself +overboard. + +"Next Sunday at my house if you like?" + +A strange current was carrying me away. Certain prejudices must be +deep-rooted. What was so extraordinary about receiving him in my room? +The fact that I took the initiative of inviting him seemed to be +trumpeted to the four quarters of the globe; and when his answer came +calm and natural, I couldn't continue to face him; I had to hide my +burning ears up against the old gentleman in the greatcoat, who fastened +his mocking persistent faun's gaze upon me. During the concert I felt by +turns as if I had committed a crime and a glorious feat. + +"Two o'clock," I had called to him. + +I was up early in the morning, and by ten minutes to two everything was +ready. The flowers and foliage bought at market had had time to freshen +up and expand. The petals of the anemones, shut up like a tight case in +the morning, were spreading in a crown around the big pompoms of black +pistils. The bed was successfully disguised by a draped covering, and my +room, all polished and groomed, shone like a jewel. It looked really +homelike. At the last moment I put on my dress of white woollen stuff, +the one with the cord girdle and elbow sleeves. The hardest task was the +arranging of my hair. Not to look untidy with a fiery mop of a head, yet +to be a little beautiful, oh joy, beautiful, to please him. I set-to +furiously on the image in the looking-glass. + +Five minutes to two. Three little raps, three moments of insensibility, +three echoes. + +My hand trembled slightly as I held it out to him, and when his gaze +travelled over me, an amazing sense of shame seized and chilled me. I +promptly hid my arms in my scarf. But my terror was quickly dissipated. +He conveyed the lofty ease of people of perfect simplicity. He was there +with all his manly gravity, all his attention, and his good smile +imparting a sense of security. I felt his calm transfuse itself into me. + +We sat down. I no longer know how we began or by what avenue of +conversation he came to tell me of his crushed childhood, his needy +youth, his mother, his studies, the present career he had chosen for +himself.... I listened; I followed him from year to year, from picture +to picture, from place to place; and within me a larger and larger void +was filling up with hopes and thoughts that seemed to have dwelt there +always. + +What a flood of sweetness, what warmth and space, and what.... I hardly +breathed.... + +"Your turn...." + +He was sitting on my little chair near the window with his back partly +to the light. From the depths of the armchair, the white fleece of my +scarf looping at my feet, I saw the quality of his gaze. + +My story was not so straight and consecutive. Here and there I lost my +way and had to stop, with nothing more to say. Nevertheless, insight +into me kindled under his eyes, we advanced together as happy and at as +even a pace as if we were holding each other's hands; and my flimsy past +assumed a little weight. + +We spoke of love--you always speak of love when you talk about +yourself--but without distinguishing it from ourselves. Who can say what +love is? Love is I, it is he. On the day when I shall love, love will be +changed and will resemble me and will no longer be that love of which +one speaks in general. It will be I--I simply stirred up. + +When we were silent under the influence of the slack atmosphere of the +room, we two souls at the same pitch, my gaze plunged in the creamy +muslin of the curtains, I knew he found me beautiful. I realized I was +waiting for him to say so. I would have hugged his words, I should have +liked to see them come from his lips without covetousness, I should have +wanted them to be nothing but my craving for beauty.... + +I believe I closed my eyes. A loving alliance took place between my +visible body and my hidden being. I was no longer divided against +myself. Thanks to him.... + +How long did we remain that way, grave and smiling, opposite each other? +I cannot tell exactly.... + +The flowers on the table with widespread petals held out their black +hearts to us. A gentle pearl-gray breeze was stirring the curtains. + +He is gone, is he? His going made no break or clash and left no sense of +finality. I had scarcely felt him take my hand when he released it, the +doorway was empty. I returned to the empty armchair in the room ennobled +by both his absence and his presence, my arms weighed down and my +spirits in eclipse.... + + * * * * * + +Who is speaking? Who is there? + +Mme. Noël, the live puppet, is sticking her painted head in at the door; +the thread of light holds it as in a snare. She _here_ at this +moment!... One impatient start and I go over to her. "My compliments, a +handsome fellow!" This time it is too much. "Such looks, such eyes! Good +for you!" Letting out a chain of cackles, the little floury face +retreats under cover, the streak of light narrows, gilds the frame of +the door, and dissolves in the shadow. + + * * * * * + +Alone.... But am I still alone? + +The cold window-pane refreshes my forehead. The street lounges lazily in +its Sunday repose, and the room into which I turn back embraces a +fateful, solemn evening; its ripe perfume rises like incense, the +flower-decked mantelpiece resembles an altar beneath a cluster of +tapers. + +I no longer know ... I no longer know ... + + +VIII + +He is often late. I have noticed that I am almost invariably the one to +have to wait. Work in his office ends at the same time as mine, but the +two places are at a distance from each other, and it always seems a long +time before I see him coming. + +The first minutes go by unheeded because the seven o'clock outpouring +streams by where I post myself on the sidewalk. No signal is given. At a +mysterious order and at a given moment a black wave foams and contracts +at the exit, and as in greeting to the open light sends up a thousand +exclamations, which make one long cry of relief. + +This evening it is still light, and the escaping crowd is not inclined +to hurry. The sluggishness of the air, the sonorousness, the droning, +the motley street ... the crowd condenses and remains coagulated on one +spot. Is it ever going to decide to pass on! + +When the day's work is over, you come back to the brilliant world +marvelling at the holiday sky, and blinking.... Summer is knocking at +the window ... it does you good to be standing on your legs expanding +your lungs. One group attracts you. They all look like wags, their +conversation fascinates; if you were to listen to them, you would remain +standing there with your hands in your pockets. But you are being +awaited at home, and the circle almost as soon as formed breaks up with +casual farewells flung over the shoulder. + +When the women hurry along, rain or shine, it is in the subconscious +urge to show themselves to everyone. Those who swelled the hubbub a +little while ago with jostling elbows and foreheads set like a +ram's--"get a move on you!"--are the first to display their pronounced +busts and the slowest to walk away with chirps and winged signs and nods +and a swaying of sinuous backs. + +The street is emptied. Some women still pace up and down the block. They +are waiting for someone too. + +There he is! + +From the busy far-end of the street, across the eddies of people, +nothing to tell me it is he but the shape of his hat. Again I feel the +security that his appearance always brings. + +His tall figure hemmed in by a group detaches itself, grows bigger, and +becomes more recognizable step by step. I go to meet him, slowly, +smiling despite myself as he hurries, and when our hands touch, my heart +breaks into bloom.... An overwhelming instant ... a soft ecstasy ... +fusion.... And every evening it is as if I had never found him.... + +Let us go by the boulevards. The weather is so lovely, we have plenty of +time. + +Our questions tumble over one another, clear away bothersome trifles, do +not even wait for answers, take everything for granted--what happened +during the day, all the details, everything, and more than everything. + +As a matter of fact, what we listen to is our footsteps. We keep even +pace, our tread makes the same sound. A discovery flooding the heart--it +is a single step that is carrying us along. + +We walk side by side, and the space between us does not divide us. We +are followed and preceded by a whole procession of couples moving with a +slowness strangely rhythmic which leaves a wake behind. + + * * * * * + +We have told everything, everything we know, and everything we are. It +is not a question of being alike in order to be comrades, of springing +from the same roots or having drunk from the same source. The thing is, +for each to serve the truth which the other lives with the same heart as +his own, different truth. + +No, it is not a question of being alike. Haven't I observed a hundred +times that we are very different? How can one wish it otherwise? How +conceive that we whose age is not the same, whose bodies are so +different, whose characters are well-defined, and whose careers are +opposite should respond to the same influences? Why, each of us responds +to the veriest trifles according to his own temperament.... Does he +perceive as I do this street, the flower-beds of the big cafés, the +crowd with glowing eyes, the gritty dust? Is this instant the same +instant to him? I know it is not.... + +A block. How shall we get through? The crossing of the huge +thoroughfares, with its din, its black swarming thousands, dashing +motors, clanging of bells, tooting of horns, discharges its mechanical +eruption upon the city. Let us run. He has slipped his strong arm under +mine; we take long joyous strides and finally land in peaceful territory +out of breath and radiant. + +Here at last is a boulevard where one can breathe, then an old +countrified street where silence has nested. We plunge into its +tranquillity. + +But ... I hadn't noticed--the red rises to my cheeks--his arm is still +under my arm, confident, natural. How is it that it never occurred to me +that it should always be so? + +Shall I dare to tell him how sweet it is to feel him so close to me, our +two lives joined, our two souls welded--how _necessary_ it is to me? + + * * * * * + +Feelings depart quickly, and joy too. I can scarcely follow my feelings +and my joy. When my heart has slowed down, yes, _I_ will speak to _him_, +I shall feel his breath on my voice, his warmth against my breast. And I +shall obey this visible will which comes running to me, springing from +the smiling house-fronts, falling from the sky padded with pink. + +We are drawing near to my lodgings. + +Still this street, where the gracious wind dances for its own pleasure. +A few moments, and we shall be leaving each other. + +Leaving each other...? + +Ah, I know now what to say. I know what the will of a little while ago +wanted, and my life and his life. I am going to find the words.... + +"Listen. I have been thinking. Don't let us part again. Never. It is I +who am asking you. Let us live together ... I cannot say anything else, +that sums up everything, it is everything, to live together. Is it +love?... I don't know yet ... but I know we ought to live together, and +you, you know it too." + +My voice is thick and has the taste of tears; it scrapes in my dry +throat, it won't come out. He takes my two hands, draws me close to him, +his gaze caressing my eyes which strain to escape. With his body he +supports my rigid, awkward body, which struggles hard to remain upright +and does nothing but tremble. + + * * * * * + +The street has disappeared, the sound of the universe, the setting sun +which in a golden glory celebrates our sacred betrothal. + +From under my closed eyelids I no longer perceive anything but a heavy +black pendulum with impetuous strokes, which beats against my breast and +henceforth regulates our joint existences.... + + +IX + +My family was exultant. + +Behold me returned to "proper" life, from which I had so long been +absent, by the massive trap-door of marriage.... I took on a value in +their reassured eyes, I became a somebody, and in the ardor of the first +moment they had the impression that they completely forgave me. + +They were exultant. They sent a charming gown to my lodgings and +apprised me that a big dinner was being arranged to give my future +husband the chance to become acquainted. In spite of my repugnance I was +caught in the cog-wheels. The joy of seeing my mother again made me pass +over everything indulgently. + +It was she who ruined the whole business. Could I not see her disdainful +attitude towards a man's poverty, her terrorized submission to the +world's judgment? "You know, you are supposed to be coming back from +England, we have even given details, don't contradict us...." And the +quasi-respect with which she encompassed me because of the authority +with which marriage crowns a daughter! + +There certainly was enough to frighten one. Their rejoicing smelled of +revenge. What stifling quality, I wonder, can marriage have? What +oppression, what defeats, what chains await me? Am I going to prison? + +But when I turn towards _him_ and bathe my sight in the serene waters of +his eyes, I recover my assurance and soar with him again. For them, it +is clear, marriage is an irrevocable finality, a tight ring, the +oppression of that wild, free instinct which you breathe out with your +breath. To us marriage is only a word. + +Throughout the dinner time stood still, each second stagnated and told +a lie. And something indefinably foul and poisonous rose from their +attitude. Sometimes I felt as if I had never quitted this hypocritical +spot and this gilded furniture. I held aloof from him in apparent +indifference, but really to save our innocent love from their profane +eyes. + +They left us alone for a moment, and that moment is the one thing in the +whole evening of which I retain a clear picture although scarcely a week +has passed since then. In saying we were alone I am not quite accurate. +A law forbade that young people should be left alone together for a +single instant. My sister and her big boy of a fiancé were near us; we +were not quite sure which couple had been put in custody of the other. + +With arms fondly entwined about each other's waists they began to kiss +and hug. She held up her lips and uncoiled the serpent of her body +tantalizingly. When they were a little tired and their mouths blown, I +heard a panting sentence which ended with: "You will love me always?" +"Of course, always," he murmured in her ear. + +I blushed. Not from offended modesty, but he and I--we had never dreamed +of such vows. They seemed silly to me. How can one swear to love forever +and say to a man: "Unto all eternity I shall be the most beautiful, the +only one in your heart"? _Always_, _forever_, words which life at every +turn refutes, how is it that a live heart would not give them the lie? + +I must have looked a little haggard. My sister turning round saw that +we sat apart with a gloomy, distant manner. The same thought was in his +mind. + +"Aren't they cold for lovers?..." By way of reply to her own question, +she kissed her fiancé. + + +X + +After fingering the deposit the old pot-bellied concierge livened up. +"Money from lovers isn't mere money, it means good luck." + +When he came back unexpectedly and with a paternal burr in his voice +offered us "a little candle-end to take the measurements with; so often +the ladies and gentlemen forget," it was chiefly to surprise us in an +embrace, or some laughing dispute interlarded with kisses. + +The apartment of three adjoining rooms like three cells in a honeycomb +is very nice. It must be bright in summer, the stairs are kept clean, +the courtyard is cool and fresh with its green lane of flower-pots. Our +windows look right out on the top of the tree. A mighty rare thing, a +tree in Paris. Spring mornings we shall be awakened by a fusillade of +bird songs. + +So this is where we shall live. These rooms, in which the atmosphere +seems low and cramped and the floor is all splintered, are to serve us +as domain and empire; these walls are to be our horizon. + +When I was a child and lay tucked in bed, I used to dream of "being +grown up...." Then when I was fifteen I'd say to myself "later on" so as +to hear another troubling, forbidden word echo in my ears. And now my +confused dreams are come to attend me here.... So here is the end of the +story; it is all here, the mirage. + +Only yesterday the sole reason for the existence of this place was a +jaundiced, weather-beaten sign on the street.... And now our double life +has found its temple, chosen its setting, and fixed upon its rallying +point. + + * * * * * + +So this is the place we shall call "home." When the rain beats down out +of doors and a wrecking wind blows, this will be our unchanging harbor. +Whenever we make a new friend and we have told him everything and there +are still more things to tell, we shall welcome him across this +threshold and within these walls and let him see our ultimate selves. +And when the golden May daylight rouses you from bed and sends you +running to the window to feel its radiant stroke on your cheek and vague +longings take possession of you, it will be the fastenings of this +window which will turn to let in the breath of the dawn. + +The little dining-room seems somewhat less desolate than the other wan +rooms. The ceiling still bears the mark of the hanging-lamp as a sign of +where the kindly light came from; a border of red arabesques runs round +the top of the walls, and the fireplace of russet imitation marble with +its pitted traces from invisible fingers of flame makes you feel as +though the grate were still warm. + +The kitchen is so tiny and so like a toy that there's not a thing in it, +not even an old knife left behind through oversight. In spite of the +floor with tiles missing like teeth from a mouth, the sink with dried-up +pores, the stove downy with rust, it is the one room that doesn't seem +to be crying for help. It needs only a glimmer in the stove and savory +smells to give it life. + + * * * * * + +This is the moment to look life in the face--the real life, not the one +people talk about. Until now our love has rested merely upon a +foundation of clay. It has been facile, scarcely tangible. I perceive it +is a love to be. + +Now our love must be confronted with its kingdom, must have its +boundaries and landmarks fixed, must be asked to shine in truth and be +forced to the test. Let our love speak and inspire us. Later, when we +shall have furniture around us, like words already spoken, we shall be +less at ease. + +"If you like, this shall be your room. It suits you. The neutral paper +makes it restful for thinking, and the recess is all ready for a couch. +Look, it's waiting for you. I will take the other room because of the +clothes-closet, and I'll enjoy leaning out across the white window-sill +for the fresh air. + +"We shall visit each other. We shall be free and easy. You will come +and go and receive your friends, do as you please, without ever having +to account to me. + +"But we are going to suffer, perhaps, in order to remain content and +preserve the multitude of joys that one experiences when alone? + +"This dividing wall is nothing more, after all, than a thin membrane +through which the presence in the next room will ooze. When you are +surrounded by your friends in the lively hum and buzz of comradely +conversation, they will suddenly notice the shadow of an intruder moving +as a woman moves. In the bottom of their hearts they will have us much +married, you and me--the marriage of a friend is a little like a +theft--and without your suspecting it, at that very moment, in the very +midst of their talk, they will leave you. + +"Do you really believe we shall be happy? I, for my part, would not like +your friends to desert you. It seems unfair that you should be loved the +less because of love. Are you quite sure that one has the right to +impose one's unalloyed hope upon a person for a lifetime? Are you sure +that in the name of love the person one has chosen can remain the best +of all persons?... Tell me, are you sure you will not bear me a grudge? + +"And can the most beautiful union _remain_ beautiful? For we are about +to sign a pact. There's no denying it. What's to be done about this +transport that we are, this constant expectation, this clinging +intoxication? + +"You know we shall have only each other intimately. Even inanimate +things will exert a tendency to influence us. When the little lodging +will take on our mould and there will be chairs to hold out our habits +to us and a brown pulsating clock, creature of even utterance and +over-sensitive soul, the fond familiar place will weigh and impose +itself upon us. + +"So the host of wishes, the magnificent secrets, the kernel of sadness, +the nomadic hopes must all be made to enter by this door into our +associated days? Tell me, how is one to act? Must happiness, _true_ +happiness without law or bridle, also be shut up here, here and nowhere +else? And must happiness be the same for the two of us who are +different? + +"There's a children's fairy tale that once there was a princess whose +heavily embroidered robe was by a magic command made to pass through a +ring. + +"Lovers betrothed think they understand love. But they have not lived +together--and _every day_. They don't know what that means. Those who +love as in books do not contemplate a long journey when they set out +together, and if the short-lived blaze vanishes at the first turning in +the road, it is not a great misfortune. Another spark will do for +another kindling. And there are those who _renounce_, abdicate their own +selves, bend the knee, and trust to love.... But how are those to act +who are not cut in heroic marble, who do not want to lie or renounce, +who don't pity the _other_ one, who are not afraid of themselves, who +love as people love in actual life, who are like us? Perhaps you know +better than I do. You are a man and older than I am, but I--I ask +myself.... + +"I was ready, as women are, for great impossible things. I never thought +about them very clearly, but I felt my emotions pierce me like dagger +thrusts. They inspired me with an all-powerful spirit, and if I had had +to batter down mountains, or dash through a river of fire, or die in +your stead, I should have closed my eyes and done it at one go. + +"And behold the test. The test is here. Why is it that the thing one +awaits and expects never is the actual test? The actual test has only a +sorry way about it, a commonplace aspect, a very reduced compass; it +holds nothing but monotonous moments jogging along one after the other; +it stops just at the foreshortened shadow at your feet, and my arms +which I was about to open are, you see, arms of lead. + +"Before I entered these rooms love looked like you and the future shone +like a festival just beginning. What is left of all that? I no longer +hear the chimes of golden promises ringing in my ears. I no longer feel +the hosannas of my heart, and it's as though I scarcely saw you in the +gloomy corner where you are standing." + +I see the little dwelling where the hesitant evening has not yet taken +its place. The silence is laid bare, life is showing us her skeleton; +through the mottled panes one sees that the hour has red eyes and the +walls confronting us in their inflexible truthfulness have become our +four upright witnesses. + +I feel like running away. + + +XI + +When everybody was assigned a seat in the carriages, whips cracked and +the procession got under way. + +The carriage at the head in a splash of sunshine drew the whole line +after it, shattering the massive silence of the street. The occupants +were still settling themselves, the ladies with a great rustling of silk +and a vast deal of twisting and turning before they got themselves +comfortably installed, while the men were obliged to sit forward on the +edge of the seats and be very careful of the disposition of their legs. + +"Lovely weather," said one of the two ladies, "they're lucky." No one +answered. They held themselves in abeyance for the usual conviviality to +come later, and passed the time looking through the lowered windows at +the unknown quarter through which the procession was winding, where the +houses sank upon each other and the people in workaday clothes stood +still to stare with eyes of envy. + +The second carriage had set off at a rapid pace; the coachman was +holding in his frisky pair. + +"Say what you like, she's a beautiful bride." + +Like most very old ladies, this one suggested widowhood. Even in talking +she exhaled the attenuated sadness that invests old people with a +protective halo. + +"Oh, she's just like the rest. What's in her favor is that she's fair. A +brunette bride always makes you think of a fly in milk. At least, that's +my opinion...." + +That was a good start. One remark led to another; the conversation +livened up. The ladies in their silk gowns felt conscious of sharing in +pomp and an important ceremony. + +"I was told she ran away from home last year, with...." + +The carriage jolted and zigzagged, but the group sat undisturbed. Each +felt drawn to the other three by a decidedly increasing sympathy. + +What spirit haunted these carriages? All these people were held by an +obsession. They had seen the bride in her starry whiteness and +persistently retained an image with a halo round it. The bride was the +sole topic. + +"I don't approve of a double standard," said another lady. "They did a +tremendous amount for her sister's wedding; you know they did, while +they're not doing a thing for this poor child." A shrug of the +shoulders. "I don't think it's fair." + +Everything she said came out with a ripple in it from the unevenness of +the paving. Her neighbor was plunged in dreams, unaware. A day triumphal +arose out of the distant past when she too walked in white. +"Twenty-seven years like one month! How time does fly!" + +They warmed up to their subject. + +"She is making a very bad match: he hasn't a cent...." + +"You forget she's well over twenty-two. A girl has got to take a husband +when she finds one. Husbands don't grow in the front-yard." + +The perspiration came out in beads on their fleshy foreheads. A stop. +What had happened? A block? An accident? Plumed hats were stuck out of +carriage doors. "Get in again, madam, you can't see anything. You'll +break your aigrette. If I tell you...." + +The procession shortened like a snake drawing in its coils. + +"Ha, ha! I know someone who will not find it dull to-night!" + +Their laughter took on a sharper edge; smiles lurked in the corners of +their mouths just deep enough to show that they understood, that they +had their own recollections and at the same time were in well-bred +company.... This lady with the air of knowing a thing or two.... +What?... Without waiting to be importuned, she drew herself up +heroically and whispered something over the frilled hat of the little +girl beside her. They threw themselves back beaming, stuffed full. +"Impossible!" + +Boots creaked, gowns rustled. The carriages began to clatter through the +streets again. + +The laughter of young people. Not very loud. Hiding something sweet and +indefinably solemn. She was only fourteen. She had nothing but her thin +little feelings, which, however, kept her straight and haughty as an +Infanta. By leaning over slightly she succeeded in seeing the bride. The +bride ... the white word flitted about her like a light ball.... But +straightway she saw the bride her eyes fell. The same emotion had +surprised her on Sunday at mass when she saw the host rise in a beam of +light, and also when she listened to the hand-organ grind out arias. +Ecstasy leapt within her and hope sang: "Me too some day...." + + * * * * * + +The last carriage kept behind; a low coupé with drawn shades. A stiffly +wired bouquet shed its fragrance within. As it sped rapidly by, heads +turned around for a long look and for the sake of the virginal memory it +left behind. + + * * * * * + +I was in that last speeding carriage. I had obeyed my mother's +entreaties, I had agreed to figure in this masquerade. + +So as not to rumple my fairy dress I forced myself not to make a +movement but to remain impassive and avoid the least little stir. It was +my rôle to receive the host of looks converging upon me as if levelled +at a target, hard and fast, crowding, curious. I confess that beneath my +snowy veil and sanctified air I lent myself to the situation with a bit +of vanity. + +It takes me a long time to undress. My bridal costume is fastened by a +thousand hidden snaps and pins. I have trouble in getting out of it. + +My room frightens me. "Take possession of us," say the chairs and +tables. "Act, command, try your hand, you are in your own home, it is +your life which is arising, we are watching you. What are you going to +do?" + +The more the furniture goads, the heavier the languor that settles upon +me, the less I know, the less I advance. In vain I summon to my aid +ideas from without; none takes hold. I repeat, for example, that this is +the test of both of us, the beginning of our union. I fancy myself +clutching at resolutions, but they fall back at my approach and sink +routed into the folds of the curtains. Is it really necessary to +struggle? Wouldn't it be better to put my head in my hands and drop into +the softness and restfulness of my new armchair? + + * * * * * + +When we came here a little while ago, it was _he_ who was the first to +experience this sort of trouble. We had been looking over our home and +when the tour was ended he took me in his arms, and I felt the warm +flesh of his kiss under my chin. A blow seemed to strike my bowels. I +tightened up into a ball, my muscles tense, thrown on the defensive. An +evil fear made me shiver. He raised his head. I had never seen him look +so tragic. His features were hardened, his eyes swimming ... I fell away +from him like a flower snapped from its stem. + +A sudden instinct sent me to the looking-glass, as if it held an answer +to everything. Maybe looking-glasses do offer the eternal answer to the +riddle of the universe. + +I had said to myself: "You will be close to him, you two will be alone +together, perhaps it will be beyond human power to try to be happy." I +used to fancy life as a struggle, a piece of work to be done, a +masterpiece, and imagined what my acts would be--all voluntary and +making for perfection. I forgot that they would have to be performed by +these arms with their warm flesh. + +I had thought: "He knows me through and through, I have made him read +everything." But no, he knows nothing. He does not know the lovely shape +of my breasts, the lyre of my hips, the curves of my legs, nor this +unknown body the expression of which is so changing that it is like some +murmured tale which the light embraces and tells aloud. + +It remains for me to bestow a final confidence upon him; that of the +body unveiling itself, _daring_ to confess itself. Is this not the +purest confidence? But let it not come before its own hour, for it must +lead to a moment of truth so naked and so unexpected that it frightens +me a little. + +It is strange: this evening I live with the whole of my body for the +first time. I exist wherever it is. Even as I stand here fixed and tense +in front of the glass, I follow a line which may arch, swell and melt +away and which already bears the shape of love. + +I can imagine everything ... for there's no need of having loved in +order to be a lover. All I should have to do, if I dared, would be to +twine my arms around his neck, press him hard, and harder still, and the +moment would come when I should forget the modesty of my single life. + +And without knowing any more one would be lost, distraught, acquiescent, +lulled to sleep even to the soul, more beautiful than one is beautiful. + +I can go still further, for the flesh that clasps cannot be deceived. +When the man and the woman are united, it is the woman subdued, armed +with her weakness, who becomes the stronger. I am sure of it already. In +the depths of my ignorant flesh, I already feel domination germinating. +It is not I; it is a law older than I that is seeking to fulfill itself. + +And suddenly I am frightened.... + +But I am mad.... Man, woman, nothing but two words, which are not of the +stuff of life. Is there a single emotion in which I recognize myself? +Truth? But it is the truth of others. The truth that reaches you is +always different. Isn't it senseless to dread what depends upon +yourself? Are we strangers that I should hesitate like this to run to +him? Isn't he on the other side of the door, he of whom my body is +_thinking_? Isn't it enough for us to look upon each other? Is there a +single question he cannot understand? One seeks happiness. It is all so +simple.... + +Ah, let us go astray every day, let us deceive ourselves, let us suffer +alongside our own hearts, let us try to clasp the invisible! But this +evening there is nothing but a thin partition between my secret and +myself. I feel my heart throbbing as if it were laid bare. I am +beautiful, I am alive.... + +Am I not right?... + + + + +BOOK II + +_BEING_ + + + + +I + + +It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my +life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite +mournfulness with which it permeates a human being. + +She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and +her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a +singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a +little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the +room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her +body, you'd scarcely know she was there. + + * * * * * + +Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to +the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by +the wind. + +The great porte-cochère, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the +bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously. +Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to +let me pass. + +It is almost a sacrilege to speak in a raised voice as I do and bring in +so much of the outside air. "Is dinner ready, Marie, is everything +ready?" Since Marie never answers, I go straight into the kitchen. +Goodness, nothing done. Well, I'll have to get at the supper myself. +There's still a good half-hour left, I believe. + +As I hastily remove my wraps, I feel the dull pang that assails you at +the sight of disorder. + +There, I have the water boiling now and the cooking is well under way. I +didn't know I was so quick and capable. After all, Marie's only a child. + +Marie bustles about. I see her two reddish, porous, spatulate hands +pounce on things, I hear the clash of utensils. Her person becomes many +persons, she jostles me, moves hither and thither like a distracted +tortoise, bends almost double to pick up a strainer.... To be sure the +kitchen _is_ tiny. + +I speak to her as one speaks to a child. "Do you understand me, Marie? +Don't be afraid, I am not unkind." The lifeless fixity of her face +suddenly comes undone, her features contract. Marie was dulled by the +monotonous gloom of an asylum in a distant quarter of the city. She +slightly raises the heavenly blue of her eyes without fastening them on +anything. I see her tenacious hatred wake up and stir. A single flash. +Then her red-rimmed eyes flutter and fall; she is in order again, in the +vague sort of order characteristic of things inaccessible and forlorn. + +I realize she cannot understand me. To her I mean constraint, uprooting, +exile, that unusualness which throws simple people out of their orbits. +And though she has never been accustomed to anything else than +maltreatment, neglect, and beatings, I understand.... I try to be +gentler, to smile when I turn toward her, for in the end visible +kindness should make itself seen.... And it would be so good to reclaim +this nature, to explain everything to her, beginning at the beginning. + +I recall the scene of yesterday evening. We were at table. She brought +in the smoking soup-tureen at arm's length. Her heavy tread rolled like +a cannon-ball upon our delight in being together, then she retreated to +the kitchen like a dog slinking to its kennel. A crash of china. I +jumped up. + +"Something broken?" + +"No, madam." + +"But, Marie...." + +"No, madam, no, madam...." + +I was close beside her and this time looked deep into her eyes. I saw +the freckles on her white skin, and there emanated from her the amazing +innocence of an accused child. Her voice came from her palpitating +throat with a quiver in it. + +"No, no, no." + +Poor Marie. I felt remorseful. "I beg your pardon, Marie, we were +mistaken." + +Nevertheless I didn't budge, as if I were at length going to learn why +one human being can be so terrorized by another.... She too stood +motionless. I did not notice that her attitude was rather peculiar. I +put my hand on her shoulders. "My little Marie...." At this she +staggered and trod heavily on breaking china. Her face was imploring.... + +Hidden under her bell-shaped Breton petticoat which touched the floor +lay my pretty gray china cup shivered to bits. + +She behaved the way girls brought up by Sisters always do. She crouched +against the wall, her forehead hidden in the crook of her arm. Her bosom +as pinched as a wasp's went up and down precipitately, and the tears +began to flow. + +I stopped gathering up the pieces to console her gently. + +"It's not your fault, Marie ... come, don't cry, don't cry." + + * * * * * + +Marie close by is bending over the sink rubbing it with a brush round +and round always on the same spot. The water slaps on the tile floor and +squirts over my dress. Her movements have something eternal about them +and the appearance of never-ending complaint. + +There is nothing to say. Whatever I do, she remains dumb, and the more I +try to reach her, the more she avoids me. + + * * * * * + +But what does Marie matter? I force myself to get back to my own +affairs. And quickly. _He_ will come in, there will be his gaiety, the +joy flashing in our voices, the day's doings to tell of, and our dear +union only a fortnight old.... + +Marie is there; nothing can efface her. My irritation against her boils +up, then turns against myself. It is not pity I feel but rather an +intolerable impotence. I hurl myself with all my force against the +eclipsed expression of the Breton girl, and each time it hurts. + +Marie.... + +And I used to think that to love was to feel yourselves alone. On the +contrary, it is to feel yourself to be many. + +No, no, love is not the emotion of two people. No, as soon as one feels +love one wants to love _everyone_, win over everyone, shine on everyone, +even on this ignorant head. What sin have I committed that a single +welcome should be denied me? She does not smile; that's my fault. What +is lacking in my love that I should face the vexation of a culpable +failure? My pity for Marie and my love for him are one, because I have +only one heart. And since my heart is repulsed, is it impure? + +Marie has resumed her feeble, beaten-down existence. She has set aside +the brush, her blue eyes look beyond the walls, she wipes her wet hands +on her apron--her hostile hands, which are peculiarly hers. + +What can one do? But there must be _something_ she believes in, there +must be something one can do to move her, there must be some word to say +to uncover the tomb of her heart. + +I stopped. For a moment I left my work.... + +Where find the ultimate words of love, the final words--simple and +difficult--when one does not even know the word to make one poor +inferior Marie blossom out? + + +II + +When I am old I shall warm myself at the rich shining vision of the +first days of my love. I shall hold out the dry sticks of my arms. I +shall beg for a little fire, a little sap. I shall return to the present +with feebly beating heart and faltering step. + +Poor withered old woman, you do not remember; and others will bestow +upon you the charity of showing you a picture of lovers. You see us as +we, wife and husband, used to embrace, how I leapt to his side, how his +mouth clung to the fruits of my cheeks, and how we laughed a matchless +laughter. Well, that is enough for you, return to your winter, to the +virgin plain of your old age, to your years perched precipitously over +death. + +Am I the first by any chance to hide the truth from you? + +The truth of to-day has no brilliance or halo. My joy in being a young +bride is not at all what I used to fancy it would be. + +The dominant motive of my life at present, its great preoccupation, is +by no means to invent new words of love. It is to give battle to the +existence that one buys--buys with pennies and infinite pains. + +We are poor. As we each earn our own living, we have decided that I +shall manage the budget for both. It is my job to concoct the meals; and +they must be wholesome, pleasing to the eye, intelligently planned, +tasty. The house must be bright, beautiful, convenient, cozy, stamped +with an air of prosperity. Time has to be economized, a ceaseless +tyranny must be exercised over things, nothing may be neglected, order +must be adhered to slavishly, hygienic principles followed vigilantly. +And lastly, all these things, which are everything, must be accomplished +successfully, and so successfully that once caught and conquered they +will come easily. + +If only I had the money with which to fare forth to battle, it might be +easy, but the sum at my disposal is about enough for a doll's budget. +You could hold it on the tip of a knife; it is inexorably minute. + +Besides, girl that I am, I do not possess overly much of that courageous +ingenuity and imagination which go so far, nor of the determination +which clenches its fists and stares a sombre defiance. + +Love? Why does one never foresee that there will be accounts and money +cares, so important and so tormenting, and at the very start? Why +doesn't one know that these things take precedence over love, over +everything in daily life? + +You have to get up to do the marketing an hour earlier than you're used +to. You have to learn to sew because a new dress and the joy of +pleasing him are a wish of love, but also represent a sum of money. + +At the time I did not know it, but it was an immense triumph that he was +comfortable and happy when he returned home. There was the delight his +surprise gave me when, with great pride, I produced some jolly-looking +fruit for dessert. And see--there was the modest glory of having been +able to buy the lovely flowers for his room with my own coppers. + +As a girl I walked towards love anticipating fiery words, forceful +looks, and two solemn presences.... I used to say to myself: Love!... + +And behold, by way of humble events and simple tasks I have found the +affirmation of love. + + +III + +We were sleeping side by side, our breathing intermingled; and nothing +was sweeter than this nearness of our slumber. + +He put out the lamp and stretched himself beside me, and we remained +like that, silent, drowned in sweetness and the night. It was a living +impression of repose. + +Beside his close warmth a torpidity brooded, for the days were +exhausting, and while he raised himself slowly on his elbow to lull me +to sleep with his eyes, I broke away in spite of myself from the +beneficent clasp and fell asleep like a child. + +But last night, although nearly midnight, sleep was slow in coming. He +kissed my lips. Suddenly a strange will broke in me.... What instinct +was I obeying?... Then a violent repulsion. I knitted my brows. Ah, I +detested him.... + + * * * * * + +That night it was I who wide-eyed and curious watched him fall asleep. + + +IV + +There was one second above all.... + +If I had had the time to think, I should have thought that this second +was worth the whole of life, the whole of death, and even more than +life. + + +V + +The nights are links in a chain. Previously life consisted of day and +night; white, black; black, white. Since then life goes on unbrokenly. + + +VI + +This morning when I caught a reflection of myself in the shop windows, I +noticed I had a strange air of authority, a self-assurance quite new and +indefinable, a manner crisper, more clear-cut. When I purchased my +provisions I had the courage to haggle, and the market-women treated me +as an equal. + +My firmness and decisiveness have made Marie reveal the pale ocean of +her eyes. A distance seems to have been set between us. + + +VII + +They point to us, just stopping short of using their index fingers, as +an example of a happy couple. They speak enviously of our great good +fortune as if we were bound on an adventurous voyage on which you embark +only once in your life. + +What do their "young couple," their "happy pair" mean? Do people really +imagine that you arrive at happiness so quickly and easily, and that to +be sent off _together_ into the steep mountain country, life is in +itself enough to make you find the fulness of life? + +Happy!... When everything tends to estrange you, the opposite natures of +man and woman, their conflicting interests, their very physical +attraction for each other. Happy! When you realize that two beings, +however close they may be, are forever divided. When, no matter how free +you are, marriage forces you to restrain and prostrate yourself. When, +apart from your joint life, you have your own career to pursue. And +when, after the day's work is accomplished, come the night's kisses as +if to undo the good of the day's work--behold the body, the blood, the +lips of love--and you change from friends into lovers again. + +To be sure, there are occasionally moments of blinding delight, and it +is sweet to lean on a shoulder and have a second in the duel of life and +be with a man who smiles and takes you in his arms. + +But to be happy! To feel that your measure is filled, that you are +yourself and him.... Man and woman are above all enemies; you feel it at +every turn. And yet you tell yourself that at the heart of some +inaccessible firmament there does exist a sublime harmony and it _must_ +be attained, even if the road to it is superhuman and your strength +fails. And this harmony and this road must be taken afresh every day, if +ever one approaches them, for a human being changes from day to day. + +I am already somewhat stronger and simpler, and somewhat appeased, but +still we are not "happy" as yet. + + +VIII + +It is true; she was sincere.... + +While talking she cast off her enormous furs and fiddled with her rings +in the unconscious wish to remove them. Her restless head was set high +on a neck encircled by pearls. Minus the litter of ornaments she would +have tempted you to hold your hand out to her. + +The landscape, swallowed up in long gulps by the window of the +railway-coach, had a sombre fascination for her, because it was moving +almost as fast as her pain. You saw her shoulders gradually shrink +together and slowly draw down the beautiful column of flesh supporting +her head. Then you saw them raised helplessly to ask the eternal +question, "What shall I do?" And then you saw them in the characteristic +gesture of all sufferers--thrown back as if to toss off the pack of +unhappiness loaded on her back. + +Her story burst and rose in precipitate bubbles. Her voice, at moments, +broke. The woman at her side remained perfectly calm, walled up in the +dull indifference accompanying the forties. At the jolting of the train +she merely shook her head--was she listening?--and turned toward the +flying window where her own story was passing. + +Darkness would soon be falling. So I had an excuse for going to sleep, +and as soon as I shut my eyes the young woman took up her tale of woe +anew, twice, three times, ten times. The whole of her misery escaped +from under a mask of restraint. + +"And listen, the other day...." + +Did I need to hear what she was going to say? + +At the end of one sentence I caught "my little girls." I could see her +little daughters--exactly alike, well-behaved, in airy frocks, two heads +with long, elastic curls, a twin step in walking--the sort of children +who are their parents all over again and invariably provoke the +question, "Whom does she look like--her father or her mother?" as if +you have to search into a child's origin. + +I could see her husband too. Haven't all these women the same way of +saying "my husband"? I could see him short, bustling, jovial--really not +a bad sort--and with a chubby face, the only kind I could possibly match +up with the young woman's insipid face. Though she said nothing of a +garden, I imagined a very strait-laced one with rectilinear, +timidly-flowering walks, the sort of garden that is not cherished with +love. And I also saw the family in their home, a substantial white-stone +ornate building. I raised my eyes furtively. I must have got a poor view +of her when she came in an hour ago. Now she looked pretty. Her features +were regular, her color had heightened, her quivering mouth showed her +lips to the fullest, and her distressed hand, pushing back her hair, +disclosed a brow eloquent, smooth and flawless as ivory. Certain women +derive their entire beauty from the pathetic. She was one of them. + +Her eyes turned from the scenery; I lowered my lids. + +"He doesn't understand me any more ... it's all over ... I am nothing to +him ... still ... a love match...." + +The scraps of her plaint were borne off by the wind, the engine snorted +more vigorously, and the last remnants went down with me in the roar of +a far-off, formidable lullaby. + +I soon awoke. Still bemoaning her lot, with the same phrase, it seemed +to me, always at the same point. She went on with such bitter +persistence that in the end you couldn't help learning her story by +heart. I did at any rate. The two women kept looking at each +other--shadowy vis-à-vis--the younger one far from the other, far from +us, far from everything, rooted in her life, in her square garden, in +her thirty years. It was as if she were talking aloud for the first +time. + +I listened. Each detail revealed a year, a corner of the house, an +important event. I felt a dull rage fermenting in me instead of the +timidity and compunction one usually experiences in trespassing upon +another's inmost recesses. + +Why? Perhaps because I, a stranger, had not the power to interpose and +hold the secret of this trouble so as to remedy it. + +Ah, I no longer need to listen nor need to know the man in order to feel +that he is right to lose himself in his business and be merely a good +father who sees in his wife nothing but the mother of his children and +shrugs his shoulders when she heaves with sighs. + +The evening air was blowing in cooler through the upper half of the +window. We were entering a plain where the green of the meadows was +deepening into mauve. Two rows of trees, which had been a profile +against the sky when seen from afar, turned into a black curtain +suddenly drawn. Here and there houses stood out as though groping in the +dark--faces blotted out as soon as arisen--one field swallowed up the +next; the ragged line of a hedge came and went; an embankment followed, +its slope daubed with brown, unwholesome stains, its top dressed with +tufted grass and straggling bushes, which moved their arms like signals. + +The young woman's brows were drawn. She was questioning the obscure +flickering stretch of space. I read the questions in her face: Why does +he merely graze her forehead when he comes back in the evening? Why does +he keep her out of everything? Why does he never feast on her presence +or heed her advice? How did he love her? She had been right a short +while before when she had said bitterly: "A little less than a +prostitute, a little more than a servant." + +The woman was certainly suffering and calling upon a God who could not +answer. At night when the close jealous house is asleep, she undoubtedly +falls to her knees in secret and wrings her barren hands and invokes +misery, love, grief, as if the sacred words were for the whole world. +Thou, God whom she implores, Thou knowest well the reason of her +trouble, a simple reason, brutal, elementary. Why dost Thou let her hunt +for others? + +I threw myself back because I both wanted and feared that my face might +betray me. + +The Midi was beginning, the first olive trees were rounding off the +landscape, the night sky was already smiling in the rosy light of dawn. + + * * * * * + +In our times no woman has the right to live under the shelter of a +man's labor. The woman who dares to accept such shelter should abdicate +and commit her dignity to the hands that are productive. She should +consent to her dethronement and take the condescending love that is fed +to the weaker without complaining. + +Men begin--the women know it well--by adoring this weakness. "My wife," +that piece of fragility, those useless days, those little arms which +don't know how to do anything, the jewels he brings home, the great +astonished eyes, the mincing steps, everything that is touching and +contrasts with the struggle of his existence. Then he comes to extract +pride from this relation. "It is I who protect, sustain, feed her. It is +I...." He mounts a few steps higher and sees her a little lower, +incapable, infantile, unequal to battle, unequal to his power. Each day +inevitably finds them a little farther apart, and she in approaching him +is bound to raise her eyes while he condescends. If his love lasts it +takes the very form of contempt, though neither is conscious of it. +Which is just and proper. + +A woman supported by her husband has no right to protest. If she is not +_earning_ her living, she should have some work to do, should use her +arms, her idle strength, her health. Merely bringing children into the +world is not enough. + +The fat lady starts up from her entrenchment of cushions. "We are almost +there. We must get ready." + +Bags pulled open emit the animal odor of leather and give out nickel +glints as they are snapped shut again. Then the fire of the rings +disappears under the gloves. "We are there!" They are now quite free to +stare at me. + +What a metamorphosis. She has resumed her former appearance of a lady. +She is scarcely pretty. In the glimmer of the night-lamp she seems +sharp-featured and masked by a ghastly pallor, as if the generous sun +had abjured her forever. + +Each turn of the wheels brings us closer to the town. The young woman +drawing herself up reassumes her manner of a somebody. She is back in +her setting, already less unhappy because she is nearer her unhappiness. +She pulls out her watch. Five minutes still. Time enough to lean on +one's elbow and think sad thoughts pro tem, which come running like a +docile flock. + +I put my hand up to my forehead to prevent her searching my eyes for the +fountain of compassion denied her. There is no compassion for her in me, +neither is there in the opal-tinted meadows, nor under the sapphire of +the sky. To find compassion she would have to reconstruct her life from +top to bottom. A fate such as hers lies outside the fate of humanity; +suffering such as hers is beside and apart from the suffering of +humanity. I say her fate has not made her suffer enough yet and the +woman does not deserve to live. + +A woman who does nothing is fallen in the sight of love. + +He and I are going to the country on our holiday. I have been thirsty +for its freshness.... + +The carriage is empty now. You feel the double pulse of the train as it +rolls between two slopes spitting out rings of smoke, pursued, you'd +think, by its own speed, travelling on, on, on.... + + +IX + +We've been here a week. + +Strange days, without axis or prop or stay, passed as if outside of +something, as if you had been asked to step up to a door but not invited +inside. Nature is not easy to reach and penetrate. + +We had longed to live in this spot conceiving it beforehand as an oasis +set in dew. And here it is under our feet with its earth which smells +good and its breezes which tinge our cheeks. For all our ardor and +assiduity nature preserves her mystery; she is an unresponsive mother +insensible to the clamor of her children. When we draw near, she stops +talking and either drops a veil or retires completely into seclusion. +"You would like to assay my movements, cull the delicate scent of the +grass blade by blade, meditate like this tree, follow the steps of the +peasants who are my only kith and kin, be a wave in space, unravel the +relations of things, and delude yourselves with my warmth. That is what +everybody wants. May your wish recoil on you. Do not try to reach me. +Do not turn your heads in my direction. Let the thrills and tremors of +your feelings pass between yourselves. I know you not." + +In order to arrive at a mutual understanding with nature, one +undoubtedly must have more of the heart of a recluse, a body more +inclined earthward, a face of greater taciturnity. We are intruders. + +It is only in the evening that you blend and fall into harmony with +everything. Night awaits you--you see--below the horizon, and we set out +to meet it. + +We take each other's arms, I feel my joy preparing; he smiles at the +care I take to prevent his catching cold, and off we go, arm in arm, +tramping to the tune of a sounding tread like two comrades who once were +schoolmates. + +The little nestling village lies far behind; at a gulp the turn in the +road swallows up the last hut. The landscape ahead is still variegated, +but as it draws gently nearer the colors wane, the ground flattens, the +features relax as in a face after a smile. + +Silence.... Twilight within us is falling also. To admit it we watch the +surrounding dusk with swelling chests and quivering nostrils. + +On the rising ground opposite a yellow point is kindled, another and +another, performing an unconscious duty--to usher in the night. And +night is now here. Close by, in the fields, she has already drowned the +olive-trees, which have no compact mass to offer in resistance, scarcely +even any outlines, defenseless, except for their hundred-year-old +trunks. Their life is a thing of quivering, silvery breezes, and when +the darkness comes slinking and whispering, a breath will lull their +gray-lined brows to sleep. + +Along the embankment on either side of the road, trees--you can't tell +what sort of trees any more--make great human gestures, as if to give +warning of a drama about to begin. Instinctively we quicken our pace and +draw closer together. The rich blood runs lively in our veins. We share +a fleeting warmth. + +And now noises spring up, noises that belong to night alone and are a +part of its peacefulness; mournful bayings, which echo throws back +faithfully from yon slope; the croaking of the frogs, which blight the +heart of the atmosphere; a human call now and then, direct and piercing, +and from the ground the metallic chirping of the crickets. + +How at ease you feel, full of loving-kindness, and how sincere you are. +You have sins lurking in your flesh, crimes piled up in your brain, a +sombre mood inhabiting your heart. Everything can be confessed and laid +bare. The night is all-comprehending. Night-time is different from the +stiffly starched daytime with its color and form to distract man from +his intimate verity. You can venture upon the wildest thoughts, expand +to your uttermost limits, forget your own existence, and discard all +past gestures. They were all inadequate. You don't want to retain any of +them except the gesture you would make here--spread your arms while +walking and hold your hands open like two pure, empty chalices. + +Complete blackness now. You can no longer distinguish between silence +and space, fear and the rustling; all things are merged in each other, +trees with trees, their masses with the slope, and the slope, deprived +of its contours, with the sky, which has come down to join the earth. +Everything is blended, obliterated. The very cypresses, during the +daytime a spear thrust at the azure, are also added to the darkness. + +Beneath our eyes, tired from not seeing anything, the road kindly +extends its vaporous pallor. Except for the road no line to arrest the +impulse within, no perspective. The only clear things, our own figures. + +We have never before entered such solitude together, nor ever before +been laid so bare to each other. It makes us walk slowly and solemnly, +as if we were passing beneath the eye of God. + + + * * * * * + +The idea of us as a couple. We. We two. + +Must an idea, then, remain implanted in the hearts of human beings in +order to keep them upright? If I did not feel the pulsing of my love +constraining me to live, the night, with no reason to respect my spirit, +would stretch me out, I fancy, on any chance slope beneath the large +serenity. + +But I am upheld. Every intake of fresh air gives a new thrill and a +youthful vigor to the idea in my heart, and I feel it mounting so +swiftly that I must run to keep up with it. So as to hold it fast for +my protection I rake together my loveliest recollections. Are my +loveliest recollections those of our nights in each other's arms, our +kisses, the storm that beat against our bodies?... No, they are not. As +I raise my eyes to where the firmament should be--if it still exists--I +find the blessed peacefulness which comes from his presence. The +sentiment that grips my heart when I feel myself taking part in his life +is lofty. It has something in it of respect, and trust, and pity; it is +hard to say just what. It spurs me to action, even to boldness, and it +raises around me a strong wall in which I am secure. + +This is not a recollection; it is a bit of the future, and the future +alone is what you discover as you go forward into the infinite. At one +bound you mount to the summits of love. Love is the future magnetized by +the heart. + + * * * * * + +He is there. His profile is massive in outline. He towers over the +sunken country, the clods crunch beneath his feet. I walk close beside +him. I ask for nothing. Maybe my only wish is that my footsteps should +make less noise and my shoulders take up less room. + +But I have another wish. I know what it is. Although I love him with my +whole heart, I want to love him more. One does not attain to love once +for all; the heart can never be filled to the full. How far shall we go? +I can go on and on without stopping and outdistance the sources of the +night; my youth is inexhaustible, my feet will never weary. I want to +love him _more_. + +Space heaves a deeper breath. She is traversed by currents, scoops of +darkness, aromatic whiffs. The perfume sweetens the lips; flowers must +be dotting this hedge. And suddenly space goes mad. A black wind swirls +down from the tree-tops and fills the nocturnal expanse with the +creaking of branches. + + * * * * * + +Must we stop at the greatest moment, at the point where the road looks +supernatural, as though it possessed a density of its own and were +suspended in space?... I should have liked to walk further; one never +goes far enough. Must we really return to the stolid lamp and babbling +kisses? + + * * * * * + +Not immediately. Let us prolong this great sombre moment. Let us stay +here where even time might come to a standstill. The trees droop lower +here, and in these tranquil meadows the spirit may play hide-and-seek. + + * * * * * + +It is really unhappiness that makes you stop. I return from the night; +all I bring back is this strangled throat, a body like a tortoise-shell +covering a silent heart and blinded eyes. + +If I emerge from myself, disconsolateness everywhere, spread all over +the world. The sleeping desert.... + +He is close beside me, but since he lives, he can do nothing for me. I +can do nothing for him. I used to think that in loving him I crowned +him. Love is not enough. This evening I saw his life rise from the +ground, distinct from love, _outside_ of mine; I saw his life, bared to +all the winds, isolated from everything, raise and satisfy itself. I see +that this is right. + +His life is complete in itself, unique and important; his life is not +merely the image that inspires me, the voice that I evoke, the face I +love dearly. His life is an insuperable force, vivid, inviolable and +free, which my heart out of sheer love of him failed to recognize. I was +right a few minutes ago to want to blot myself out, because I ought not +to count. Beyond my limited, restricted presence, he has the whole of +infinity to breathe in. + +Then where are the nights which are to enlighten me? Of him I know +nothing but my love, nothing except that by his very existence he +contradicts what I know of him. Who will tell me how far I must go and +to what I must attain? I have slept in his arms, I have lived side by +side with all his cares, and I have given myself up to him with a joy +like unto which there is nothing. All I have given is myself. And yet +more is necessary. + + * * * * * + +And a great conviction rises up straight and strong and shines as if a +light had sprung from the midst of the meadows. + +I am only a woman, I can think only spasmodically. I love as one weeps, +but there comes a day of which this is the night, on which your forehead +touches the profound truth. You feel the loving-kindness of your heart +aroused, and you oddly understand that the perfect union of man and +woman has never been part of the natural scheme of things, and in order +to be happy together it is not enough to love one another. + + * * * * * + +Come. We may return. Press me close to you, if you will, closer still. +Don't let us talk. + +I know why I am content: your arms, my all-powerful life, our firm +footsteps. I do not know why the slight shadow seems to have vanished: +to live, go forward, pierce the narrow track of the road with your clear +eyes for stars, follow a night one does not see.... + +And then, O God, in braving the heavens, to understand with love that +which transcends love. + + +X + +I hesitate to go out on the street. I feel that people's eyes are drawn +to my figure. There's no use fooling myself. The little girls actually +point to me with furtive, vinegary glances, for they are more +ingenuously hypocritical than women. Their insistent gaze embarrasses +me. + +Two long months to wait before the first cry of my child! If only I +carried nothing beside my child. I feel also an imprisoned love +developing which beats at the bars of its cage and chafes so that I +don't know how to distract it. + +The layette is quite ready; swaddling-bands warm to the touch, chemises +like a doll's, caps which will never be of use; the equipment of a +marionette; linen as soft as lint, bibs round and puffy as cockades. I +have spread everything out in front of me, and each article as it passes +through my hands assumes a shadowy lifelikeness. + +Two months before I shall really know whether I am to be like other +mothers, a brooding hen, with folded wings and in-turned heart, +passionate for my own children, cattish and carping in my attitude +toward other children. Two months before I shall know the secret force +of that wild love which, they say, springs up all at once. + +I am being initiated however. The other women give me a hearty welcome; +they make the impression of crowding together to make room for me. A +real sisterhood? Or the imperceptible joy of seeing a rival temporarily +diminished? Under their escort I enter into the forbidden arcana. "What +do you feel? _I_----" They make me a target for their reminiscences. + +Each shamelessly outdoes the other. From the quantity and finished +preciseness of the details narrated I infer that the story has been oft +told. The least loquacious are the mothers who "have had a lot of them." +These have nothing left but a vast, frequently refreshed memory in which +their life merges in a blur with the life they have so many times +carried beneath their hearts. + +Which of them am I to believe? Many have broached the subject to me, +many have discussed it, none has told me the secret of being a mother, +the word that would reveal, the sign, flashing and disappearing, by +which the treasure awaiting me would shine from afar, which would _make +me understand_. I have heard them bemoan the misery of the months before +childbirth and the sufferings of childbirth itself. I have heard them +boast, with the reverence of fetich-worship, of the care they gave their +little ones. But here their maternity stops. I still do not know. I have +two months to wait. + +I plunge my fingers into the milky mass of the little garments. "Do +you," I say to my husband, "see the head of your child underneath this +hood? Let us try to imagine...." + +He smiles without answering, shaken in his flesh, so lucid and so well +prepared for his approaching fatherhood that I feel myself a hundred +leagues behind. He, at least, knows why he will love his child, why he +already loves it. + +As for me, my vision is obscured by the disconcerting pictures drawn by +the other women. Perhaps also I am under the ancestral pressure exerted +by the long line of my foremothers. Why should I be different? What +quality would make me better? + +The animal heaviness reasserts its rights. My body is an unwieldy sheath +overspread with sleepiness, ramified by thick blood, its cells given +over to contented, torpid well-being. My very heart is struck with +stupor. + +To lie at full length, on my bed beneath the weight of my breasts of +rock, no longer to move or think, only to feel at momentary intervals a +light stirring, a caress, which gently turns on its self and folds its +wings. + + +XI + +I scarcely dare to get up. She knew me in my slenderness of the previous +summer, when I took the torrid paths like a goat leaping dangerous +mountain tracks. It was from my brisk manner of ready, go! she told me, +that she could tell how warm our love was. + +We were living in the same inn. The very first day I was struck by the +blooming youthfulness of this woman who so skilfully escaped the burden +of the forties and constantly trailed a lover, a lover with a vindictive +eye and bullish neck and forehead. Perhaps on close inspection you might +suspect the fine tracery of wrinkles on her transparent skin. +Nevertheless she shone resplendent as we younger women don't know how to +shine. + +Black on white, a head surcharged with mystery and night, two jewels, +no, two green pools, a mouth that revealed the shape of a kiss better +than other mouths, a figure not very tall but with a race and suppleness +which lent dignity. Clothes planned to reveal the curves of her body. +Movements kindling I know not what lights. Woman, in short, with all a +woman has in her of the venomous and the childlike. + +We sat directly opposite each other at table. The charm of her vivid +smile, glowing face, and darting movements turned the frugal meal for me +into a riotous feast. + +One morning as I was starting out on a walk by myself for nowhere in +particular she came up to me in an easy spontaneous way, as if there +really did exist a sisterhood among women. Part of her loveliness was a +deep, maternal voice; in crystal tones she plunged into a surprising +eulogy of the relationship between my husband and me. She had noticed +us. How perfectly united we must be! "Married? Absurd!" She pouted. But +we had such a way of locking arms, and looking and waiting for each +other, also such a.... + +She went on talking and talking. I was rather bewildered.... Was it +really _us_ she was describing--sombre with passion, eagerly relishing a +concord that was pregnant with storms which might break suddenly from a +clear sky? Wasn't it more like her own love? I was at a loss how to +answer. Still I could not recognize ourselves. She clutched me and +laughingly declared I was a little savage, and my being a little savage +pleased her. + +We came to where the country takes a sudden dip, so that to be visible +to the heavens it has to cling to the bronzed trunks of the +half-stripped cork-trees. We went on breasting the wind. I knitted my +brows. Everything she said breathed, at least to me, another age or +another sphere; it all hinged on love, was dedicated to love, and by +that very fact created a distance between us. I saw her cramped and +confined by the very thing that gave her so much vitality; I saw it was +her crucifixion. She was nothing but the instinct for love restricted to +the need of man. Nevertheless she attracted me. + +We got to know each other better. She astonished me more and more. +Whether she and her lover carried on a squally conversation on the bench +in the hall or whether she wandered along the narrow, brambly paths in a +sort of ferocious abandon, or whether she came to me and threw her +thorny crown at my feet with a radiant gesture, she was Woman as men +have described her, as they have wanted her. She was the ancient bearer +of a fatal property, the creature who either subdues her opponent or is +subdued by him, and knows nothing else; the sorry creature of tears and +fascinations.... + +She never spoke of her life or of herself. We were two women, our lot +therefore was the same, she was in love, I was in love. What else need +one want? + +"Good-bye for the present," she cried as the cart set off down the road +at a snail's pace. She stood with her head inclined tenderly sidewise +and her floating veil prolonging the farewell.... There was a bend in +the road. I thought that was to be my last view of her. + +But a little while ago as I was going to lie down, an imperious ring +tore the silence. Actually she, her smile, her veil, her dress a tangle +of silver. + +"What a pretty little nest! How comfortable you must be! Well, well. +Still happy?" + +And then--there!--her laugh with a little savagery in it. She notices +that I am expecting a baby. "Well, of all things!" She throws her gloves +into the air, seats herself, gets up again, and from her hectic +restlessness I infer that she feels defrauded. My home is too cozy and +my manner too tranquil. Not, of course, that she wants to find me in +misfortune, but it's as though I have passed over into an enemy's camp. + +She has come because she is in trouble. I do my best. I hold her hands +in mine and try to trace the ravages of grief on her faun face because +she keeps saying: "I'm so miserable." She must be suffering. But I +cannot get myself to be moved. + +This is her story. Her lover has betrayed her, she is sure of it. In +tidying his drawers she found letters from a woman referring to a recent +rendezvous. She thought she'd die when she read them.... Still I am +unmoved. She warms up to her theme. At breakfast, then and there, a +terrible scene; they fly at each other.... Disgust seizes me.... To show +my interest and stimulate my pity, I ask some questions. "So you had an +explanation and could come to an understanding?" She snatches her hands +away and draws back. "Aren't you listening?" + +To come to an understanding! That would be too easy. They rushed at each +other at the first pretext, each resorting to shifts and dodges and +keeping silent as to the real issue, though recognizing the other's +grievance. "He beat me." + +She closes her beautiful victimized eyes. She has displayed the seven +wounds of her heart; and the least she expects is the shelter of my +breast and the succor of my arms.... + +"But it would be so simple to tell each other the truth and try to +understand each other...." + +She keeps her flexible panther-like body from bounding up. "The truth! +what truth? Do you think love is so simple? He has deceived me. That's +the only truth I need to know." She gives herself up to tears, and her +clear eyes turn into two bloodshot orbs. + +Should I tell her that I am insensible to such despair, and her love is +merely a mistake proceeding from books, it really isn't love? Should I +tell her that love is logical and simple at bottom, and is less in its +transports than in the gentleness it conveys? Should I tell her that men +like change more than women and for a man to snatch at a passing +temptation does not mean that he is trying to reach the love he prefers? +Should I? + +She anticipates me. "I understand, I understand, you are not in love. +Poor little thing, you'll see when you love!" She sends her prophetic +look around the orderly room and the, to her, inconceivable quiet. What +polite excuse can she find for getting away quickly? She came a long way +to meet a real sister in love. We ought to have groaned together over +the common enemy who is also the common God; then she would have +departed in her honorable failure aided and reinforced for the eternal +contest. + +Shall I let her leave like this? I have been able to secure a serenity +which she does not surmise; it would be a charity to beg her to try to +secure the same serenity. This woman ... I shall say to her: "A beloved +is neither a God nor an enemy, he is a friend you must discover in spite +of passion. I know it's hard and needs an iron will and devotion, but I +swear one succeeds...." + + * * * * * + +She raises the window-shade. Her face stands out--is it the +same?--marred by the light. + +The borders of her green eyes show the streaky after-effects of tears, +her cheeks are lined, her lips have lost their blood and youthful red, +the two tendons of her lovely marble neck twitch, and the cherished body +in its holiday attire collapses like a broken toy. + +I approach her, holding out in my comradely arms the new spirit that +will blossom on the new earth. I am not the only one; other young women +would speak as I do. The love by which we live is not like the love the +others die of. + + * * * * * + +But when I come close to her she steps into the full light ... I give up +the idea of explaining myself. There is nothing to say. She is twenty +years older than we are. + + +XII + +I have the feeling that I am not prepared; it is a sort of +embarrassment, an obscure terror, and when I get myself to say so to the +other women, they laugh and hush me up. "Don't worry. The knowledge +comes of itself. Just being a mother teaches you how to raise a child." + +It was by chance that I came to this street. I was walking along. The +hospital. A dull flat smell surrounded the sordid building with a +leprous haze. The doorway was swallowing up a long line of women from +off the gray canyon of the street. I do not know what struck me--I +retraced my steps and followed the women in. + +We were made to wait in a room heavy with a brew of musty drug smells. +Someone shut the door, and immediately there broke out a fearful hubbub, +a concert of human meowings, bawls, pipings. A panic nearly seized me. +With the dull patience of animals penned in together the women formed +into groups and filled out blank forms, rocking and bobbing the light +fragile bundles they each carried in their arms. + +I went up to one of them, leaned over and looked upon the crumpled patch +of a little old red face. Then I realized I had come there to occupy +myself in my period of expectancy and catch a glimpse of my child in +advance. + +The woman's face was bloodless, like the face of a drowned corpse, and +fanned by long colorless locks limp as seaweed. Seeing the supplication +in my eyes she lifted up the thick dirty-gray shawl with the air of a +benefactress. "Three months." The first thing they tell of a child is +its age. + +The little worm very leisurely wrinkled its forehead of peeling satin +and stretched itself, opened two rather glassy eyes encircled by mauve, +and let out its guttural wail through a toothless aperture upholstered +with flesh. The provident mother had already pulled a rubber pacifier +out of her pocket, which transformed the wail into a monotonous greedy +gurgle. "Will you be quiet! They're an awful trouble. You'll see," she +declared, gauging my heavy figure. "I had bad luck, I had no milk. No +use giving him gravy or bread soaked and boiled. He doesn't get any good +out of them. If you think you can fatten them on the doctor's fine +words, as if the doctors even know what they're talking about!" + +"I believe you!" bawled a big blonde. The baby which she had a +triumphant way of carrying had hanging cheeks and bottle-blue eyes in +button-hole slits. "Just look at mine. At nine months it ate like us. +What do you say to that, eh?" + +A group gathered. "What are you here for then?" asked a huge creature +with a gray ogress head, high cheekbones and skin streaked with fine +veins. The blonde turned her baby over and showed its chubby flesh +covered with a crusty, scabby, red-streaked sheath. "Oh, only this." + +The ogress dropped into an empty place on the bench and paraded her +darling on her knees. "My daughter's," she explained to the circle +around her. "Her third. Maybe you think she hasn't got something to +worry about--three babies and working in a factory. Babies--I know a +thing or two about babies. I've had eleven." There was a general stir of +compassion followed by protests. "I have two left." She danced the mite +on her knee. Her tower of a body swayed back and forth, through her +half-open jacket you could divine her dead breasts. There was something +weird and horrible in the dismal accustomedness of her knees. + +"The doctors make you fuss such a lot. You give the babies too much, and +you don't give 'em enough, and you don't bathe 'em, and you don't weigh +'em. There wasn't such a lot of talk in my time, but they grew up all +the same. I said to my daughter, 'Look here, you let me alone, either I +know what to do or I don't know what to do.' I used to give mine +toast-water, that was all." She tucked up the lank pads of hair clinging +to either side of her face. "You boil two or three crusts of bread...." + +"Oh, I know," interrupted the woman with the drowned-corpse face. + +"Mine has bronchitis," went on the ogress. "I wonder where he caught it. +He never goes out and he sleeps close to the stove. I am going to try +and see if I can't get a bottle of syrup...." + +The folding-doors opened, a white-clad nurse made a sign, and all rose, +each with the same enamored hugging-to-her of her wailing burden. + +The crowd poured into an immense, well-heated room paved with white +flag-stones and painted white. The light beat down hard through a row of +bay-windows. At the far end presided a handsome old man in a white +smock, an immaculate nurse at his side. "The doctor!" whispered the +women in a tone of awed hostility. The man did indeed seem indifferent +and just as God should be. + +Spread out symmetrically on the bare table in front of him among other +instruments was a complete apparatus of justice, bright and +glittering--a set of scales with a basket and a row of copper weights +drawing clamorous notes from the straggling music of the sunshine. + +With remarkable dexterity the women undid the swaddling-clothes, +turning, tucking up, unwrapping. The blonde swelled out her bosom as she +stuck it full of pins; the ogress held her pins between her teeth. A +suffocating odor of warm wool, sour milk, perspiration, and stale flesh +arose amid the cries. + +The line began to move. One after the other they went up tendering their +children like poor plucked bruised flowers, with the idolatrous, +skulking faith of believers approaching God. + +From my bench, my heart frightfully wrung, I saw each showing me what I +might make of my child ... a baby with its neck seamed with a reddish +crack ... a baby with tiny, tiny limbs beneath an abdomen swelling like +a bagpipe ... a baby whose ribs striped its body like a zebra's hide ... +a baby with a back all covered with boils.... + +"He has green movements." "He has a swollen stomach." "He has ringworm." +"He coughs." And the same slack answers to the doctor's questions: "I +don't know.--I don't know.--I don't know." + +The man cast his sovereign glance over the printed form held out to him, +handled the little body, remained impassive while pronouncing his rapid +decision, and took up the next case. + +Among the lethargic flock who went away with bowed heads, some, to rally +their spirits, mumbled the flesh of their babies with fierce kisses as +if to take revenge and show that this man after all had done them +harm.... + + * * * * * + +I got up, dragging my double weight. + +So this is the maternal infatuation which is so sanctified and revered. +"I don't know.--I don't know.--I don't know." And I presumptuously was +going to commit the same folly, I, who knew no better than they, who had +not learned the unknown love awaiting me.... + +Why doesn't that man, the doctor, who _knows_, arise and snatch away +these lives contaminated by the fond ignorance of the mothers, and +proclaim that the instinct is fallible, fatal, even criminal? + + * * * * * + +Most of the women met me again under the porte-cochère, because I walked +with difficulty. The one with the drowned-corpse face gave me a friendly +little nod. + +"You will see," her nod said, "it will soon be your turn...." + +Yes, I know.... To be a mother.... In return for the gift of life, to +have the right of death over one's child. And to use that right. + + +XIII + +A rending, moments repeated incessantly, torture indescribable, pain +embedded in the body, battle, cruel cries.... + +I remember everything and every second. I remember the seconds when I +gnawed at my bedclothes, when I howled like a wild beast. I remember all +of them and others. I remember that none of them was ever the last, how +the hours added themselves to the seconds in an excruciating, inhuman +succession of throes in which my whole being set furiously upon itself, +how I no longer had the strength to suffer. + +I twisted my head from side to side like a dying animal in entreaty; I +stifled it in the pillows; it was wet with perspiration; I felt a new +convulsion begin and break like a wave. And when an infernal force tore +me with a pang greater than all the others, I heard vaguely a cry that +was no longer mine, a film passed over my pupils, I sank into an abyss +sunlit and sultry. It was over ... it was over ... I fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +Did I remain in that state of lethargy and inertia for long? When I +opened my eyes the whiteness and blankness of the walls of my room +seemed to be released by a spring. About me was a startling silence +peopled with sibilant whispers. I saw women stooping, then disappearing +with their arms full of linen. + + * * * * * + +My baby! My baby! + +His father, exultant, held him out to me. I became fully conscious. But +goodness, how ugly he was! The shrivelled face of an old woman, the +profile of a vulture, a forehead covered with plushy mucosities, cheeks +smeared as with the yolk of an egg, hands on the outside exactly like a +bird's and on the inside creased and red. And real nails! + +At the fontanelle the pulse beneath the skin throbbed terrifyingly, and +the fuzz on his skull was skimpier than pin-feathers on a fledgling. + +I took him in my arms, stiff and long in his swaddling-clothes. His eyes +opened half way and showed a glassy violet with milky gleams. + +Our child? We both in turn dropped timid solemn kisses on his downy +cheeks made of a sweet smell, and I dared not say anything. + + * * * * * + +Well?... The call of the blood, the rejoicing of the flesh, the issue of +love, the instinct, the lurid mother-instinct at last? + +No! + + +XIV + +I should like to hold these things fast, for always. + +I see them now as they really are, just as I see my son in his present +form. But it is not enough to say: "I see them." I have carefully +preserved all my pictures of him; I want to keep intact the memory of +the heart he gave me. + +This is not difficult to tell. Other feelings are too bound up with self +for description. You'd have to explain a person's whole nature to +understand them. Love is indefinable, grief is indefinable, but a +mother's heart can open up like a book. It is uniform and simple, free +from all alloy, and its very infiniteness is like finiteness. + +My little boy is near me, awkwardly assaying his first steps in the +garden. Without raising my eyes from my work I watch him and I thank +him. + +It is he. Although he changes from day to day, I know his ways by heart: +the big curl in which the sunlight lies coiled, the almost imperceptible +arch of his eyebrows, mere shades of lines, the red pollen blown on the +petals of his cheeks, his profile of curves, his neck of +mother-of-pearl, the spreading fan of his fingers, his unique form which +is unique only to me. + +I must rack my brain in order to force into my memory that once he lay +hidden in my warm womb and I carried him as though he were one of my +organs, as though he were a secret, that I carried him as one carries a +joy or a pain. I no longer remember this. + +I am in a hurry for him to grow up and be able to listen; I should like +to talk to him. I have found words for the others, though they awoke in +me only an uncertain love and set my heart in chaos. He has given me an +intelligible emotion, and to him I have said nothing. + +I love him as I love no one, because he is the sole human being for whom +I am _responsible_. My love is responsibility first and foremost. If he +bends over, I suppress a cry; if the sun shines too strong on him, I +shield him with my body; if he makes a new gesture, a slight disquiet +flits through me. In whatever concerns him danger seems to lurk. He is a +lively, approachable child, people like him, and when they come up and +speak to him, I smile a pleasant, natural smile, though his life and his +death keep up an incessant sport within me and incessantly it devolves +upon me to secure his life. It is a tragic stake, a terribly cruel +problem; it is the entire basis of mother-love. + + * * * * * + +He has run as far as the ivy thicket, thirty yards from my chair. I +tremble so that I have to get up and leave my work. Every now and then +he comes tottering to present me with a shaving of wood fished up from +the sand he plays in, a big earth-coated pebble, treasure-troves of all +sorts. "Look, mother." His attention flatters me. + +If I were to disappear without leaving anything?... Without leaving a +will? Or suppose that from beyond the tomb I were to say: "Before you +took your first steps your life was all arranged. In order that you +should be happy I kept you from having dignity or a sense of justice. No +need for you to undergo the bitter struggle that presses upon a man, the +primordial cares of existence, honesty--honor, in short. Are you not my +child? If I have taken trouble and pains it was to deprive human beings +all for your sake. You will be exempted from earning your bread and +pursuing an occupation. You will depend upon the labor of others, you +will be under the delusion that you are distinguished from those upon +whom you depend. That is the end to which my efforts will have served." +But this is wrong, unwholesome, dishonorable. + + * * * * * + +When he is grown up into a tall young man whom people take notice of, +shall I have the courage to look him in the face and say: + +"You are not everything to me: you never have been my whole passion. I +have cherished you on my knees, I have served you, I have idolized you. +I have never deceived myself. I knew perfectly that in loving a child +one gives without ever receiving. I have reserved the highest place for +others. It is not to you that I have dedicated the essential thing in my +life, its supreme reason, if a supreme reason can be found. + +"Therefore you have the right to leave me. You must be finer, you must +repudiate me. I bow before what you are. I free you from the duty in +which children are cooped up, and I assume the duty myself. Whatever I +may have done, never let my course of life be an example to you; there +is no example; you, nothing but you, is what will count. + +"You will have so much to do, everything I have failed to do. Go, keep +your face set forward, never turn back. What were you born for if not to +depart from me? To be sure, you are flesh of my flesh, but a part of my +flesh that is unlike me, a contrary current that has emanated from +me.... You say no to everything I am. + +"Does it hurt me to see you disappear? Am I alarmed? Do I suffer? That +does not concern you. _I was forewarned_. On the day you were born I was +told that the tearing-away process would last as long as I last. We +leave each other each minute. Your head mounts upward towards the +heavens, mine draws closer to the earth. + +"It is right and proper that this should be so. Without you, you know, +my existence would be justified. It was not merely to bring you into the +world that I was born. The thing is that your existence should be +justified.... No, do not delay. Life is nothing but a departure and +every time one halts one commits treason. + +"I shall have to come to understand many things, thanks to you. I have +always tried to be clear and know myself, but when I went to the bottom +of things, I mean to the bottom of myself, there always remained +_another_ soul, a rebellious soul which refused to reveal its mystery, +and I have doubted whether it is humanly possible to learn the truth of +it. + +"I was not mistaken. The real, unknown part of myself, my unreachable +soul, is in your eyes. You will see through what I have got no knowledge +of. If you beheld how I look at you! You are like the travellers who +come from afar, from the lands of fable concealed under lovely names of +gold. You resemble those travellers. Your eyes will see beyond the +horizon in which I go astray. I tell you that of the two of us the one +who ought to kneel, listen, and learn is not you. + +"My little baby, I shall owe to you the sole love that is sorrowful and +perfect, the love that neither barters nor expects reward. Since I have +given everything, you will owe me nothing." + + * * * * * + +Shall I have the courage to say this to him? It will be hard perhaps, +but already I find that it is a veritable grace from heaven to have +twenty years in which to attain to such courage. + + * * * * * + +Here he is coming back, running this time and brandishing in his plump +hand a twig he has broken off all by himself. He drops plump on his +knees as on two round balls, all hampered in his clumsy race to me. His +chubby cheeks are stained with crimson. He throws himself on me. +"Mother," he lisps, the little flatterer.... + +The mournful moment of a kiss, the exasperating moment of an abortive +embrace, the fleeting moment of contact--he is gone. + + +XV + +The test has been made. + +We have lived side by side in the heart of the country, we have done the +humble things of daily life together, have shared its immediate +exigencies, have enjoyed the wild spirit of long walks together, the +redolent silence of the little wood, all the freedom written on the face +of the earth and carried by the waters. After this we shall feel that +the looks we exchange are sisterly, and I have the improbable hope of +some day being able to say: "I have found a woman friend." + +Her very name seems wonderful. Eva.... + +I met her in the office where I work. What a lovely vision the first +day! You so rarely find strength blended with sweetness in a woman that +her bearing seemed a little supernatural. It was merely self-assurance, +however, and the majesty of perfect health that gave her her superb +manner of treading the waves. You noticed her tallness and fearless +vitality, and did not try to question her eyes for the secret being in +her. This was fully expressed by her quick gestures, the smile of her +frank lips, the fearless carriage of her head, the straightforward look +of her beautiful brown eyes. + +A sort of reserve established a connection between us at first. + +I noticed her diligence, her desire to do well, and a something like +heroism, which made her rush into the forefront of life and carry away a +little more than her share of the burden. + +Our silent understanding lasted for some time. Perhaps without our +knowledge the intuition brooding in women brought us closer than words +could have done. One evening in speaking of her home and saying how +happily she looked forward to meeting her husband, she used a phrase so +tender, warm and chaste that I caught a glimpse of the woman in her. Her +face, always behind a mask of energy, turned gentle and serious as if +veiled by serenity. I imagined a couple in her image, for it is the +woman who makes or unmakes the couple. She must have achieved a deep +marriage.... The weather was fine and bright, and we left for home +together. + +I think I shall always remember her pure voice, which revealed the +restlessness of living like a burning bush hidden behind strength and +youth.... I kept wishing we'd never reach the corner where we had to +separate. + +But there it was already. The red of the sky threw its glow on her face +and spread an impalpable halo of dusty rays behind her. "Till +to-morrow," she said. I almost ran off, my heart swelling with +gratitude. I remember my eyes smarted. + +That was several months ago. When we decided to spend our vacation +together, I felt beforehand that we were going to be friends. + +We made the rash experiment of bringing two couples, two poor couples, +under the same poor roof. We did it and we were gay and happy in the +doing. It makes you believe in miracles. + +I do believe in miracles. It is not a miracle that this beautiful woman +with the tanned cheeks walking beside me is the strongest attraction in +the landscape because of the tall stem of her body, the dancing refrain +of her steps, and the brilliance of her complexion. Other women have +passed over the ageless earth who were as alive, as charming, as +stirring. The miracle is that her brow is clear, her manner clean-cut, +her gaze straight and sure and keen with intelligence; that she goes +lovingly toward a love which she has built with her own hands; that she +is free and strives to be sincere in her freedom. Our mothers knew not. +The woman in us owes them nothing but our faults. + +If you look at this woman carrying her will on her shoulders, leading +her will on towards the realization of her inner idea, towards the +simple desire to be brave, to love, to be truthful; if you see her +passing in nature, if you see how she moves, how she takes into her +being the keen sea-air and how aware she is of everything, the great +eucalyptus, its gray-green leaves tossing in the wind, the ochre-colored +slope checkered with vines, the sleepy languor of the lovely coast-line +robed in blue, you can tell at a glance that our humanity is strangely +new. + +When she returns to her and her husband's orderly, flower-decked room, +what a life she will stir up; what creative power, what inspiration, +what harmony she will contribute to their relation. + + * * * * * + +Will she and I succeed in producing that supreme masterpiece known as +friendship? Friendship between two women used to seem almost impossible +to me. I have always seen women leagued against man. They meet only to +connive, and when they meet, humanity divides into two camps with the +woman's camp almost wholly devoted to the concoction of plots and lies. +Two women together? Two enemies confronting each other. If they cease +from their rivalry, it is in order to set traps for male weakness. + + * * * * * + +She turns round. "Quick, we ought to be back already." Her smile is so +confiding and my heart so happy, she is so radiant, so wholesome and her +presence is so forceful that some day, I say to myself, the name of +friendship will have to be the same as of love. + + +XVI + +An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped +with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream. + +We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose +early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to +this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself. + +The setting for our lunch was all it should be--the midday sun blazing +down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the +scenery framed in the arch of the arbor. + +Two years.... + +The afternoon passed tranquilly. + +He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and +the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze +was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing +up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes +only--this being a day apart from other days--for the broad effects of +the great stretch of landscape. + +A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before +turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the +great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of +mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs. + + * * * * * + +Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end +which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all. + +The same current of the spirit--if not the same spirit--drives its waves +through us. The same flame--if not the same heart--mounts within us. The +same love of truth--if not the same truth--throws the light of day +between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and +united. + +We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other. + +Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to +explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; +you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he +wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is +reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his +concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have +nodded my head. "Yes, exactly." + +But if I had also been told: "A day will come when you will have nothing +more to learn of each other, nothing more to tell each other; without +mutual explanations you will understand everything," I should have +denied the possibility. I should have cried out that a whole century +wouldn't be enough to bring two human beings into harmony, because human +beings change from second to second. I should have said it was +blasphemy. + +But the day did come. + +There is a region of soft azure outlines where words have been +extinguished. _He_ exists and I exist. + +It is a little green arbor where nothing, in short, binds us together, +neither the flaming leafage, nor the smell of invisible murmuring water, +nor the languishing hour; neither the nights past and gone, nor the days +to come, nor the little child asleep at home in his cradle. If anything +binds us together, it is the freedom that each of us has found, nothing +else. + + * * * * * + +One must never say "This is love," for love is the heaven that the heart +has in prospect, and the whole of space is yet to be traversed.... It is +an immense feeling which speaks and impels you and is made up of +certainty and clearness. + +I am sure of him. + +He might see a weapon of crime in my hands--or at least some symbolic +weapon, something he holds a crime--without a shrug of his shoulders. +Remembering that my tenderness is unfailing, he would say to me "all +right," then he would come to me to find out why what I was doing was +right. + +And he is sure of me. He could leave us, his hearth, his love, his +child, without so much as a glance back. I should merely say: "He had to +go, he must submit to our love, and go his own way. That is how we love +each other." + +A moment at the foot of a hill, a great moment, so welcoming, so stable, +and so peaceful that it is like an open doorway before which you must +commune with yourself before entering. Two years gone by. Before me the +rest of my life. + + * * * * * + +I have also had my doubts and fears. In the beginning I said to myself: +"Will life allow such a love? What will become of this ardor and +determination? And he, will he allow me to love him as my heart +dictates?" + +We have gone through daily cares together, poverty, weariness, all the +formidable common things. We got many laughs and more strength out of +them. In the evening his step would sound on the dark landing; I would +run to the door to meet his smile; he would kiss me; the hours would +fly.... That is the way two years unrolled their seasons and brought +forth their fruits, and we became strict with each other because +perfection revealed her face to us from afar. + +So, without a word said, by minutes added to minutes, by the divine +simplicity to which one approaches, you reach the promised land and the +very heart of love. + +I say what I see. Life does allow all the ardor, all the sublimity of +two human beings to flourish; and in their relation to each other she +grants even the impossible. I say what he and I are. + + * * * * * + +With one accord we rise, we know it is time. Our child is waiting for +us, our house, our to-morrows, a thousand impatient desires, and all the +things you don't think of in advance. + +We follow the line of the bank. Where to? I do not know, but I know it +is sweet, very sweet, and his arm is linked in mine. + +Ahead of us are two banks set with houses and edged with reeds +sharp-edged and long as swords. + +It gives you a sort of dizziness to follow the banks straight ahead +without removing your eyes. These two lines, separated forever and +mingled forever by the current, are fascinating. + +A marvel. Is it not a marvel? An arch. Rising from the ground on either +side, its loving, solid curve clasps both banks and brings them together +in an embrace. Nevertheless they are like two convicts. Yet at one point +they become a single bank; they touch, they merge. Then they go on, +their bed widening out. In spite of appearances they are still closely +united in order to sustain the deepening river which will place its +mouth on the mouth of the ocean. + + * * * * * + +Yes ... one more look.... + +Above the slope leaning down to lull itself in bliss, the sky has just +enshrined a light cloud the color of periwinkles, and the arch resounds +like an Hallelujah in stone. + +Come. + + +XVII + +He entered. + +I cannot say how I reacted to the first steps he took into my life. I +have only a confused impression left. The man who entered was not one to +whom I could be indifferent. He was an aspect of my own being which was +taking form and moving outside myself without recognizing me. + +He approached shyly enough. My heart rose ... he approached ... I felt +vaguely that a large event involving me was taking place in far-off +regions, and the shadow of his body spread an immense new something +before my eyes. + +I thought him very gentle. I noticed the metallic clearness of his +restless gaze, and that his figure suggested a great tree which +dominates the other trees and lowers its branches so as not to be alone. + +What was he going to do among these people, what attitude would he, the +single sane person in the entire gathering, assume? How was he going to +behave in this brilliant drawing-room filled with twittering women, +dazzling lights, bare shoulders, ripples of laughter, and heavy +perfumes? + +I had tried hard to cut a figure but soon had to confess myself beaten. +The women spoke a language not like the rest of the world's. Their +vocabulary was limited to "masterpiece," "infamous," "divine," +"diabolical," "delicious," "intriguing." In their presence an average, +disgracefully normal, tame creature like myself without vices or +virtues, had to keep mum. + +The old gentleman advancing screened my escape from the group in which I +had been trapped, and I managed to retreat to a safe corner, from which +I saw the women fasten on him with a buzz of talk, a whole gamut of rosy +bosoms and a great display of fireworks.... Further off the hostess was +keeping a watchful eye to see that no one of the women distinguished +herself too much. The elderly laughing gentleman must have been some one +of importance.... + +The tobacco-laden air was gradually getting to be unbreathable. The +noise pounded incessantly. I sat riveted to my chair without daring to +move, as though a nightmare were upon me, the sort in which a terrible +load oppresses your chest, though you remain conscious. "I am dying, I +am dying." The load weighs more heavily. "No, I am dreaming, I am going +to wake myself up." But you are impotent; you can't shake the load off +and you can't come out of the nightmare. + + * * * * * + +It was just as I was exerting every muscle and scrap of courage to +escape from the oppressive spectacle--I had devised a polite +pretext--when he entered. + +The hostess went to meet him with her wide smile, her hand uplifted, and +the phrase of greeting she had repeated at least twenty times since I +had been in the room. + +She steered him my way, threw out a rising syllable, a descending +syllable, like two balls between our two faces, and then propelled him +over to the group while I listened to the muffled echo of his name bury +itself in my heart. + +I forgot the smoke, the noise, my eagerness to leave. Even the weight +lifted from my chest in the very way a nightmare suddenly takes wing and +yields to a dream of clear, bright meanderings. + +They did not pay much attention to him. The loud dame who presided over +the group captured all eyes. She was plump and short; as she talked she +flapped her arms like fins, and every now and then let out from her +chest as from a great case a vibrant laugh, which sent undulations over +her salmon-colored bosom. When she herself had done laughing, she would +cast her eyes about in quest of approval as though levying tribute from +the faces. But when she encountered the newcomer, she had to stop +because his frank gaze pronounced disapproval and denial. + +How I wanted to thank him! + +The company had been too much for me; it became too much for him. Soon I +saw him cast about for a retreat.... For a second his eyes glided over +me, I alarmed him as he had alarmed me. Then he slunk away, with the +same crushed, crestfallen manner that I must have had. + +He walked off ... the curtain of palms ... he disappeared. + +By fits and starts the nightmare returned, clutching me with clammy +tentacles. The noise fell in slabs, the weight on my chest suffocated +me. Through a mist phantoms glided by, exchanging absurd bows, +disjointed gestures, and disconnected remarks. A woman in a spangled +gown with hair like flaxen wood-shavings turned and showed a chalky +face. Others followed her, branded with painted red smiles. They were +all hurrying. Refreshments were being served under the rotunda. The +subdued clash of silver against glass sounded along with the clatter of +china, little exclamations, and the shuffling of feet. + +I am dreaming. Impossible that a gathering of human beings should be +such an outrage on life, such a parody of it. When living persons come +together and have attired themselves beautifully, it is for the +interchange of what is best in them, not for the spilling of gall and +the raising of a hubbub. I must be dreaming. + +Little groups were coming back; women's laughter cut the curdled air +like sharp lashes. + + * * * * * + +Again I made a painful effort and rose. With the looks of the women +riddling me and paralyzed by the men's attention, I crossed the room +driven by a force that operated for me. I found myself beside him. + + * * * * * + +He raised his eyes slowly. Did he smile? I no longer know. But he +looked--as I must have looked--as though he were gazing into light. + + +XVIII + +I have a new friend. + +A friend.... When I see him, it is like a revision of all I am, a kind +of unusual sincerity that urges me on, amplifies me, and carries me +toward him. + +When he is away, I have the impression of having discovered a treasure +within myself from which I draw in deep draughts.... + +And also of hymns striking up beneath my tread. + +XIX + +"Why? Yes, tell me why you squeezed my hand so hard?" + +I lean towards him, my head touches his chest. He is enraptured, +overwhelmed, and as smiling as the night when it is about to pass. + +He did not answer. + +A silky wind blows down from a sheltering eminence and carves his face +and makes me cling to him. Are we on the borders of the true silence, +the ultimate silence in which human beings find themselves face to face? +"You! You!" + +A terraced garden. If this were another evening, I should be discovering +in detail how beautiful the garden is. Each walk opens up a paradise, +cool and secret as a spring, and the pebbles shine like glowworms. +Borders of irises with violet fragrance dissolving among their stems, a +profusion of spreading boughs, and near our bench a thicket from which +at intervals darts the straight streak of a gray-bird's flight. Below us +in the distant semi-circle across the fading daylight the sparkling +apparition of a group of houses lighting up. + +The sight of all this beauty fills me with such a glow--almost hurts +me--because I feel _he_ is looking at me.... He says: "Your shining +curly hair, your broad, clear forehead, your mouth, your eyes." +Mentioned in his quivering passionate voice my hair, my forehead, my +mouth, my eyes are so new that I close my eyes so as to see them ... +And I did not know.... + +The garden has changed. Pale ochre reflections. Little shivers damp and +creeping. Heavy black pockets on the parasol tops of the trees. The +mournful andante of a swaying cypress. As though it were the first time, +my beloved, that we were alone and had only found each other this +evening under the narrow sky. + +The shadows spread haphazard piling up in ridges, drawing after them dim +white trails. Unknown thoughts escape from everywhere. They are too +swift for me. The breeze carries them away. His face at my right, +blurred except for the prominent features, is silvered over and turned +into a medallion.... + +Am I quite sure that he is still close to me? I tighten my hand in his. +The true, regular pulse at his wrist assures me all is well and down +here everything is fair and _true_. The garden and the leaves, the +multiplying lights of the town, the gloaming are all real. + +The air is stirring and freshening up. Let us walk. Straight ahead of us +as far as the last terrace with its ornamental balustrade; then we will +follow the Broad Walk at the entrance of the garden. + +He takes my arm gently. I do not dare to lean on it, though the weight +of his presence bears me to the ground. I feel I am alone in upholding +his life. Who will tell him, who will ever tell him the whole drama that +this means? Will he ever know how I see him, how he lives for me? Other +people and he himself see his huge figure, always a little bowed as if +he never dared to be altogether tall, the steel of his eyes, and the +slope of his forehead, which every shadow exaggerates, and his gaze +bemired in clouds. They may see his simplicity and transparent +kindliness; but at this they stop. + +I am caught in what is inexpressible in him. I assume all the questions +a man may put to himself without being able to solve them, all the vague +poignant evils. And when he appears, I feel that a word has been +fashioned to express everything, but not a single word to express his +face. It is too outside of everything, too mysterious, perhaps too like +my own. + +We are at the Broad Walk, a solemn pile in which the trees go two by +two, close together, erect--a cathedral. A chilly silence lays a sheet +on your shoulders, the nave boldly thrusts its black pillars upwards, +and the branches topping the vault wed in the sky. + +In spite of yourself you say something in a very low voice. "Up there, +that red glow as through a stained-glass window." + +"Tell me you love me ... tell me ... tell me you love me...." + +He has said _me_, he has said _you_, as if it were possible to stand +this shock on your breast without turning pale. He sees I am sinking and +passes his irresistible arm about my body. The future tears itself to +pieces at the bottom of my life. At the end of the Broad Walk the last +golden ray goes down in a black mass. I do not know how to say these +things, but I raise my head like a slow remonstrance and I hold my gaze +up to him. Have I said everything? + +Let us return. I can go no further. He takes my hand and presses it with +the warm strength of his fingers. It is limp and inert, the palm +lifeless and cold. + +What have I done to deserve this diaphanous gloaming, this prolonged +rhapsody rising about us? I have loved once already, and that counts I +know. But if I had not had this great passion to love another man, if I +did not still have it, would my heart be so clairvoyant? Would the new +evening be as mild as it is? But if in spite of my deepened heart, I am +not yet all-embracing and big enough? + +We have gone the full length of the Broad Walk and back. Have we really +gone so far? Behind us the view retreats into the opaque distance, and +the whole pile, as mournful as a church abandoned by God, fades away +slowly beneath a pall of silence. Our walk is almost at an end. We still +have to cross a deserted spot, where thin bushes hold up their charred +arms to support the slanting line of the gold and black rays. + + * * * * * + +Does he see this high dizzy instant passing close within our reach? I +might snatch it perhaps but for these mad throbbings, this veil over my +eyes, the dryness of my lips. Only the fragments of the instant reach +me, but even they are beautiful enough to dazzle me. + +He stops and faces me and his gaze fixes on my throat. Doubtless he too +is catching the fragments.... + +What are you to do when you are a mere humble human being and have no +power to retain the superhuman moments? + +May my longing for truth at least flame out. My love of truth is my +finest quality, my one merit. May it shake me as the wind shakes a tree, +and may my hands, if they dare, rend these garments which hide me from +his eye. Garments are a lie, and the moment is naked.... + +He has understood. He trembles so visibly that I feel my breasts quiver +like twin flowers and my whole being stir. He draws me to him and holds +without daring to embrace me, small, panting, fainting away.... + + * * * * * + +The pile has been swallowed up, the Broad Walk has turned black, the +beautiful moment has fled through my fault; we have only a few steps +farther to go. If I have nothing to give him, may he at least share with +me the one idea I still retain. + +This idea is the strange knowledge I have of my body, but of a body no +longer mine, so lucid has it become, full of resonances, coursing blood, +warmth and appeal ... a body of mysterious flesh and tense limbs, as +bright as a torch, as sensitive as a soul ... a body I want to give +him--my body and my arms. + + +XX + +"No, don't get up, stay where you are; it is I. + +"You told me you were not going to work this evening, so I came. I want +to talk to you. + +"I am going to sit beside you, if you don't mind, on the cushion on the +floor under the window, where I like to sit when it is as light as it is +now. + +"I hesitate, not because it's hard to say. On the contrary, it's too +simple, and things too simple are beyond words to express. + +"I really have nothing to tell you. You understood. You know. But it is +right for me to come and right that the confession I want to make should +revert to our love, for it has to do with our love. + +"How you look at me.... Your eyes probe to the depths.... Yes. That is +it.... You do see, don't you? I love him. + +"Perhaps the confession, which is so long, so long in beginning and has +weighed so heavily, is already finished?... No. Since my eyes are +overflowing, I have not yet made it. Well, listen, I have no idea any +more of what I am going to tell you, but don't interrupt, let me say +everything.... + +"Oh, I wanted to speak in orderly sequence, and I promised myself I +should not be moved but would talk to you quite simply. When I came in, +I felt I was growing and rising. I heard my own words stirring like live +things.... But they are trivial; they hurt me so I wish I could find +others. + +"To think that here at this window we have so often talked of love, not +of our love, but of all love. You remember? You used to say--I think it +was you: 'What is beautiful is not the face you love so dearly, it is +the need to love it dearly. What matters is not the delirium in which +two people lose themselves, but the truth they discover.' And when you +and I evoked those two rays of light which are one, love and truth, our +words were so vast that we had to stop talking. + +"This evening--do you know why?--instead of telling their splendid +secret my words are mere splinters ripping my throat.... Yet when we +used to talk here, I did not know love was so beautiful; we did not say +it was. + +"You certainly saw the change in me, and you guessed. The morning when +you stopped in front of me and restrained the exclamation in your +breast, I was sure you knew. Perhaps it was very apparent. I came and +went in a radiance; the house grew chilly, everything in the house was +conscious of it and unnatural. Evenings I worked later and later, as if +I were afraid of falling asleep, and when we discussed things, it was I +who explained, I who knew. You must have seen, too, how often I buried +myself in silence, content in it sometimes, then tortured. + +"You observed me. There was no reason for speaking one day rather than +another? + +"A reason has arisen. + +"It was yesterday evening. Walking beside him I suddenly realized that +in him, in us, in me, there was a sort of attraction; I responded to +it--with all the strong, fine need of truth you gave me. It is this need +of truth which brings me to you this evening. + +"Take it, take it before giving it back to me. Don't let us ask whether +it is more painful for you who receive it than for me who bestow it. Let +us forget that man retains the proud authority of the male in his flesh +and says "possess" as of a thing. Don't let us ask whether the union +between man and woman is sublime to this degree. Let ours take that +stand. One always has the time to suffer in, but there is only one time +in which to love in truth. + +"See, maybe it is at this very moment when my voice is worn threadbare +and in spite of yourself you push my head away and hold yourself up as +if you were about to fall, that we draw closer together than ever +before. + +"You are watching the night as it comes creeping ... you see, don't you? +There is no question, not for a moment, of parting, nor of my loving you +less. Because our hearts are turned towards each other to-day. A miracle +is taking place. It will not be undone. + +"Listen to me. Listen to me as if you could understand. Let me spread at +your feet the infinity I hold.... Since he came, if you only knew, I +love you more. Not only do I feel your smile and your whole presence +around me like a thousand arms and with even more than one heart, but I +feel surer of myself, nobler, and--admit it--more beautiful.... To love +you is to think perfection, nobility, light, and to stretch my hands out +to them. It is nothing else. + +"To go to him is to continue myself; it is not to lessen you. + +"But.... Is it the dusk or the reflection of the tree? Your cheeks are +ashen, your eyes are quite wet, and in spite of everything, in spite of +everything I am hurting you.... At the moment that you love like a God, +you suffer like a man.... + +"It is because our understanding is a high one that your grief is deep +and my confession necessary. + +"If you knew, if you knew.... + +"You see, I still tremble before stopping just as I hesitated before +sitting down, because once my confession is made we shall both feel that +it is closed forever. + +"Does one ever know whether one has not omitted the essential word, the +life word, the one that means everything and has not been said? I no +longer know. It is as if I still had it within me.... + +"Let me stay where I am, near you, for a long time. You will let my head +rest on your knees, the night will succeed better than I in revealing +the heart unseen. + +"Perhaps he has come already.... Tell me ... do you hear him?" + + +XXI + +How happy I was!... I listened without stirring to the deep throbbing of +his life. I came to know him better through the regular pulsing of his +neck, the twisting of his arms and the warmth that passed between us +than through our past meetings. All the warm invisible things that work +in the depths of a human being, the changing fate, the mystery +circulating in the blood, were talking into my ears. + +Here we were alongside each other, breathing in unison--can you have +enough of such happiness? I entrusted my entire being to him; it was a +pure, holy fulfilment. + + * * * * * + +There's no use trying to sum matters up differently. It may be that at +death you find the higher expression, the illumination so sought for, +but the living have no other way of saying the truth to each other than +through the flesh. + + * * * * * + +You understand, don't you, that you have to rest from living? No longer +to have this gaping heart, this pitiless, relentless love, but simply to +lie stretched out close against him, so that the whole universe comes +rushing to you, the mystery reveals itself, and life finds +consolation.... Does God ever bestow greater charity? + + * * * * * + +I have just given him my life, my body, my very depths, and he is gone +to sleep. + +Then, a human being never knows what another human being gives him? + +Physical love joins nothing, leaves nothing. Nevertheless, it seems to +bring everything, and it does bring everything at the red moment of +embrace. + +The joy at which I grasped has departed; my lips are dry, my arms empty. + +Yet a little while ago I thought I was going to live like God. And to +have had the hope of living like God for a single instant is in itself +beautiful enough. + + +XXII + +"You really want to know what I am thinking of? And why I look so +obstinate with my eyebrows projecting like a black roof over my eyes? + +"I was working out an idea, the sort of idea that seems silly when you +try to express it, but is really quite reasonable and logical.... + +"Why do you insist upon my telling you? I assure you it's so simple that +you, a man, won't understand. + +"Well then. I was thinking of your wife.... No, don't interrupt ... the +woman who shares your name, your home, your meals, the money you earn, +your cares; the woman who lives beside you--here's the one wrong--in +utter ignorance of your love for me. + +"I was imagining--this is where the vagary commences--a meeting between +the two of us, not a meeting of constrained smiles, not the +confrontation of two human beings, with elements of the dramatic and the +divine. Do try to follow me. Put together the details I am going to give +you one by one the way they are in reality. Give the extraordinary +interview the ordinary setting of humble, banal, tame everydayness. I +told you it was a silly notion. + + * * * * * + +"I go to visit her. The interview takes place amid her familiar +accustomed things, which assist and protect her. She sits beside the +window--her little sewing-table, her work-basket, a dozen scattered +articles. She sews without thinking of much, in the broad daylight so +dazzlingly brilliant that you can't see the swing of the pendulum. Her +head is bent, the sunlight grazes her neck. You feel her spirit is with +her needle and thread, that is, crystallized in calm. Her tranquillized +body submits in advance to the impending visit. She has only to lift her +eyes to know the limits set to her being, the very boundary-line of +everything she awaits. + + * * * * * + +"I enter. I go to her. My steps erect a hedge of sound around me. To +make myself seen I raise my voice.... How make myself heard? I do not +know.... Since truth is triumphant, the announcement of my presence may +be triumphant also. It may write 'I love him' all over me before we +shake hands or even give each other the first look. + +"She knows. She knows everything. I feel bathed in a vast thankfulness. +Just imagine: when people talk of you, she is the only one in the world +who knows down to the very roots of her being the full content of their +words. It is as if I were speaking to God. + +"Well, I begin. Laughing, crying I impart what cannot be imparted. I +hurry. The words flowing from my lips warm me with their generous wine, +and I hear love pouring forth. + +"I see myself, almost on my knees, scarcely perceiving her. Is it to her +that I address myself? I speak merely in order to remove a barrier +obstructing the light and to say the truth. + +"In the breathless words that I pour out at her feet it is not a +question perhaps of either her or myself. Why should it be? I never +considered that I was doing her a wrong. If she reads my face, she will +see things as they are. Have I turned anything away from her, have I +diminished her portion, have I deprived her of anything? I have simply +given you everything. + +"Don't say she might repulse me and would be right if she did, because +that, after all, would be the human way to act. Human to you means +everything that deceives itself and denies the essential grace, +everything that falls and dies in the mud of the road. Are you quite +sure that a woman when she loves does not feel that sort of humanity +die? + + * * * * * + +"You look at me dubiously. Of course you cannot know. You men tolerate +an understanding between two women when it exists for the sake of +cherishing the dust-covered memory of a man. A tomb reassures you. You +will never allow life as a pretext. According to you we have no right to +a sisterhood until it is too late. + + * * * * * + +"In my unfailing and fatal sincerity I say your wife might understand. +Truth striking the ear is bound to impress. And that I should be alive +as I am alive at this moment, with the eloquence and magic that spring +from real presences, is also bound to impress. Look at me. Need I say a +single word? Isn't a great love with eyes uplifted convincing? + +"When you tell me sometimes that I am beautiful, it is like a gift. She +would see me bearing this gift, and if she perceived her forty years +moaning and fading at my approach, she would understand that age in a +woman is an offense love cannot forgive. + + * * * * * + +"Your eyes are searching space. You are wondering where such a +conversation would lead her and me. Don't bother. It would merely lead +me to the side of truth and her to its summit. I imagined that was +enough and one could stop there. + +"I imagined that after I had spoken, she would rise and stand without +taking a single step, upright and solemn, her work at her feet, she +would feel the morals of the world collapse, its false hells, its +hardness and harshness, its monstrous delusions, everything that +sheathed her in a coat of mail and incited her to self-defense.... +Feeling her heart set at liberty, she would think of you, but of you +with your body sloughed; of your real self hidden where neither she nor +I can penetrate. + +"Then she would draw nearer--would she know to what? It is a deep-seated +law in us to try desperately to approach something. She would rediscover +the dazzling moments when her twenty years of age gave her the power to +bid the submissive universe do everything for your good. It would be a +similar instant that I would place like a sheaf of wheat in her open +arms. Don't you see? + +"The room sparkles in all its sunlight; every surface sends forth +gleams; the day calls to the day and floats before her. Are we rivals? +We are simply sisters in the same love. I want to take her hands because +I remember that once you chose her.... + +"Well.... + +"But my notion is squelched. I couldn't help it. Your astonished +expression squelched it. Before I spoke, when the idea was still +imprisoned behind the wall of my forehead, it gave me a light like a +torch, I assure you. You questioned me, and now it's a mocking +will-o'-the-wisp, teasing me from a distance and vanishing as I advance. +Didn't I tell you it was an idea not to be handled? + +"I have fallen short of caressing a bit of truth between my clasped +hands. It escaped me.... And you smile consoled." + + +XXIII + +Twice we said we would part at the turn of the road, at that tree, +exactly at that tree, and twice we passed by laughing at our weakness. +We still could not believe in the separation at hand. + +But the moment was upon us. + +There, at the house hidden behind the trees and bushes, you will go on, +and I will stand still. + +He pressed my hand with increasing tenderness. My laugh taunted us with +so much assurance that I tried to believe in it. To fill up the gaps, we +blustered and said the needless inconsequent things people always say +when they face a long separation. + +It was a little before noon. The sheeted shadows cast by the sunlight +burned and smoked in bluish waves. Between the trees of the woods +stretching beside the sea liquid flakes blinded your eyes. You'd see +annoying red spots long after you'd turned your eyes away. + +I said to myself: "Only a few steps more and it will be over. One step +less and another minute will be plucked from our parting." To keep down +my emotion I hurriedly spoke of _something else_. + +It must have rained in the morning. When we brushed against the +branches, the silence was broken at our feet by the limpid sound of +falling drops, the leaves wore a new skin, and the atmosphere, +impregnated with freshness, smiled the smile of nature when she wants to +dry her tears. The depths of the woods were enveloped in a blue down; a +troop of squat little fir-trees, their skirts on a level with the +ground, rang a crisp chime. + +We hurried, so at one in our approaching distress that we went too fast. +The house behind the trees and bushes came into more prominent +view--shutters like eyes pitilessly closed, pointed teeth of a +gray-painted fence, threatening minutiae of a garden descending a bushy +battered skull of a slope. But after all, there can be no such thing as +separation between us two.... And for a moment, to prove the strength of +love, yes, for a moment, I was ready to run. + + * * * * * + +Here we are at the house. Seen at close range with its covering of red +tiles and rugged face and front fanned by two dwarf firs, the little +house in the way of our free career does not seem very imposing. + +It must be. What's the use of delaying any more? Is it saddening to part +when each carries away the other? For I carry away your voice, and the +sadness of your eyes, and this kiss I give you.... I do not leave you; I +am not even distressed. Look, I am leaving you. + +I took a few steps away. They rang under my eyes. I picked up every +detail of our parting and held it pressed against my heart, each grain +of red earth, each flash of mica in the road. It was not so +difficult.... + +Behind me I heard him walking away with a tread heavier than mine, which +seemed to set stones tumbling down a mountainside.... Two months.... +What is an absence of two months? I decided not to turn around. + +The road narrowed and became a serpent of clay, then a creamy winding. I +tried so hard to think of nothing that I noticed a great many surprising +things we had not observed before. That tree with a heavy black ball at +the end of its longest branch which the birds of heaven had stuffed with +earth and was now grass-grown; the slope with a red covering of rich +plants made, you'd think, of fingers dipped in blood.... + +It was in spite of myself that I faced about. A dark figure just this +side of the last bend in the road. + +Ah, he turns round; he heard me. Could we remain apart? I stretch my +arms out to him, I begin to run. Why did we talk of other things a few +minutes ago? Were we insane?... + +I have already passed the dead aloe, I am near the house with its two +firs. My abrupt race swells my decision not to leave him. I lift my +eyes. He didn't see me. + +His form is no more than a black point, a blind insect nibbling at the +road and entering the earth's lair.... One last step. It is over, it is +over. + + * * * * * + +My arms fall, I turn back stumbling, dizzy. How can you tell what sort +of a road it is when the sun is the color of mourning and the summer has +the taste of tears?... Doesn't he know? + + * * * * * + +Noon. The Angelus tosses its twelve bronze strokes at the sun and they +slowly dissolve. But I am insensible to everything. Everything. The host +of trees, the flashing breastplate of the sea turn around an empty +space. + +Why this sky stretching out after the branches, why this sparkling +happiness, why this sleepiness of the earth when I am racked and branded +with a red-hot iron by what I failed to say while there was still time? + + + + +BOOK III + +_BECOMING_ + + + + +I + + +I had been counting the days until I could call the day I was yearning +for by its name, a name new to me every morning. To have said good-bye +for two months, to have lived apart so long and almost without news, and +now finally to be able to caress the ardent moment which gives each back +to the other, if only for a short space; to caress it as you hold your +hands up to the fire. By a great effort I succeeded in remaining calm. + +I had put my house in order, filled my vases with flowers, and made +myself beautiful. My velvet gown dulled the light, so that by contrast I +seemed to have a halo round my bared neck. + +The hour drew near. The clock struck. But, no, the clock must be +fast.... The next moments stabbed the silence, dragging on leaden feet. +I went to the window. On turning back into the room, I was delighted to +discover a few things to do. The little round corner table was standing +tipped, there were too many leaves in the bouquet ... and this wisp of +hair straggling down my cheek. No, he was not coming. Waiting is a death +died over and over again. + +At last.... + +To think I could have breathed till now! You! He moved toward me rather +timidly, almost as if he were a stranger. It occurred to me that he was +not familiar with my home. A panic seized me: he might not like it. + +But in one bound I was close to him, my head on his shoulder and his +arms around me. I forgot everything. "I am so happy, so happy." We found +ourselves in my little room, where the flowers piercing the twilight +opened wide their mock hearts.... + +But how he had changed; his face had grown thinner.... Why that overcast +brow, that look of depression, that manner of not being at home?... What +was the matter with him?... What was the matter with him? + +Though there had been no time for conversation, and we had merely +exchanged awkward, random questions, I felt suddenly that our hearts had +ceased to beat in unison. + +He should speak. I must know! Nothing is worse than not knowing.... + +"I'll tell you," he began, resting his head on his hands. He had +suffered too much by our separation; he had realized this forcibly again +just now when he entered my home where everything dispossessed him; he +could no longer live without me, so far away; he needed me all the time, +every minute. Oh, he knew there was something irrational in his +entreaty, but all he had was plain common sense. "Listen to me," he +said, "there's an instinct, an instinct stronger ... but you don't +understand ... there ... I've told you everything ... that's all." + +He began again. His expostulations breathed an awful storm; while an icy +clearness and a terrible calm rose in me. Fear crept into me down to the +very marrow of my bones. What could I say to a man who suddenly talked +another language? All I had was the words we used to.... + +"Answer me, I beg of you, answer me, even if it is no, but answer +me...." + +Did I have to begin all over again--give everything and explain +everything all over again? Until then I had been carried along on the +sustaining bosom of a powerful stream. Now a torrent furiously +discharged its troubled waters and infernal foam into the even flow, and +I had to fight my way back up against the current in a desperate +life-and-death struggle. + +So it seems that the bonds of flesh make mock of you; instead of +uniting, they detach, leaving each of you to wrestle and paralyze the +other's limbs like entangling undergrowth. + +And does it seem that the bonds of the spirit are not strong enough +because they always lack some link or word or look? + +If it were not that I had found complete harmony with another human +being, I should have doubted whether a man and a woman could ever love, +that is, ever understand each other. + +The thought inspired me with supreme strength. A hot wave kissed my +mouth and ears; I pushed him away. + +His wife. She was the first consideration. Remembering her gentleness, I +spoke of her gently. + +To be with me he could give up twenty years of his life in common, +twenty years of attentions and indulgences, twenty deeply rooted years. +She was a frail loving woman who had once been beautiful; she was nearly +forty, which in a woman is to have no age.... Wouldn't my presence, +consequently, result in hurting another woman?... And would I do such a +thing, I who brought so much warmth of feeling and enthusiasm to what +was beautiful, right, and high-spirited? + +"In loving you I wanted everything about you to be brighter, easier and +more perfect; and just when I rapturously believed I had succeeded, you +come and brusquely ask me to remove the light from another being. That's +what you are really asking me to do. + +"More. The man in whose name I built my house--don't be afraid it's his +suffering I dread; I love him enough to rise above pity. But I thought I +told you that he is necessary to my effulgence; you understand, +necessary.... Remember, he is the one to whom I told the truth, in whose +presence I could live while at the same time holding your presence, who +has suffered through me without loving me the less, and prefers my +happiness to his own heart's happiness. That's the sort of man he is. +That sort of man exists. And you would deprive me of him! + +"But if, to get me away from him, you were to offer something superior, +a more perfect means of elevating me and teaching me to _know_, I should +go unafraid, perhaps without hesitating. Love is the thing that +elevates life.... But you, what do you offer? Feeling, instinct. +Instinct is not a reason...." + +I had risen while speaking. My cheeks and forehead were burning. His +face, plunged in the snowy curtain, was quite changed. Was it the look +in his eyes or the folds around his mouth? + +"Then you don't love me?..." He repeated this like a child taken with +the words, and dropped his head in his hands. + +That the light fell about me in gray veils may have been only a fleeting +phenomenon. It cannot be that love will desert you suddenly. + +The rest of his stay was of no avail, and when awkwardness fell between +us, he rose, pressed his hands down on my shoulders, and gave me a long, +sombre stare. Then he left. I heard the door close slowly. + +Then he doesn't understand? But the love I feel for him is a true love. +It is not that unstable impulse which passion carries off in a puff of +wind. My love, like my life, craves all the victories I have gained, all +the people who are dear to me. And my eyes take in whatever they can of +sky and color.... Nothing forbids me to breathe. Why am I forbidden to +love whatever I love? + +My love, you will conquer, you will make yourself understood. You are +not this man who is leaving, nor the other man, nor anyone; you are a +heart of flesh exposed ... a restless heart without limit, a heart +forever beating and forever aimless. Do not let a single one who has +ever been with you fade and drop away. If love cannot conquer, what +else is there to resort to? + +And I ran out to overtake him. + + +II + +Only a few months since the first day of the war, yet I cannot recall +one thing about it. + +What I know is, that until the end it will remain the outstanding day of +my life, the day of days. No matter what happens later, we who have +lived through it have drunk at one draught the dregs of all the +centuries, we have borne all the thunder of the heavens on our +shoulders. Those who ask "Why exactly us" do not know that misfortune is +always waiting to extort its tax. + +I do not speak of the older people, those of the _other_ generation, of +the other age: they have not been touched. + +But we, we on that day! + +After all, I can recall several words and impressions, but they are no +more illuminating than the way my folks used to describe the day I was +born. "You looked like a little red monkey, you didn't cry much, your +grandmother was the first to kiss you, it was a dreadfully hot evening." + +And I can also recall Mr. Barret's gray stony face, his huge, petrified +figure, when he entered the office where we were talking and regaining a +little hope. "It's here!" he discharged from the doorway. None of us +gave any sign of understanding. "It's posted on the bulletin boards!" he +shouted, and advanced into the room like a weapon about to descend. + +As a field of wheat catches fire stalk by stalk until the whole is in a +blaze, so we caught fire in our stupor, each spiked to the ground by his +own flame. + +Fire! Fire! Moments of scarlet, strangled breathing, souls cowering in +bosoms, horror, too much horror already, wide-open eyes staring into +space.... + +I remember I had to lean against the wall, and other trifling incidents, +but my impotent dismay, my realization of all the folly let loose upon +the world no more come back to me than the taste of the first gulp of +life at birth. + +I must have kept a clear brain and steady legs, because I ran straight +home.... What street, what hell, where was I?... I had no eyes for the +street nor ears for the humming in my head, nor consciousness even of +the daze that was driving me on. + +We met in front of the house whose quiet walls still enclosed our +happiness. We passed under the porte-cochère heavily, passively, like +beasts driven to slaughter, and the staircase was an ascent to Calvary. +I do not think we exchanged a single word. When the door closed upon us +we embraced without kissing, and my cheek against his shoulder was wet +with tears that were not of my shedding. + +It had occurred to me that he might leave for the war, but like every +other thought this one too was promptly chilled and crushed. Nor can I +say that it was the idea of his going that made me suffer the most. I +was stupefied beyond the power to suffer. I was just as ready to burst +out laughing or tear off my arms. I let myself be touched, handled, and +moved like a stone thrown into space. But contact with him restored me a +little, a very little, to the realization of what I was going to lose. + +The days succeeding were spat from a volcano; nothing remains of them +but ashes. You learned new words; a whole language born of the moment +slipped from your tongue; countries became persons with distinct +individualities, gestures and features. You actually fed on what +appeared in the newspapers, picking up items like grains of manna. Men +alone counted--men, men. Life was in their hands, life and the fate of +the world. So and so many killed--abstractions with which the world +juggled in figures. Death, a human divinity after all, settled down +familiarly. Nothing was like anything that had gone before. + +People began to talk of glory.... + +A day came: his departure. + +I got his things ready as I always did before a trip, from a list, with +my usual mania for taking along too many things. After filling his bag +with all the necessaries, I stowed a tiny bottle of my perfume in it, a +cigarette-case, his last birthday gift, some dried flowers, and our +baby's photograph. I childishly pictured his exclamation of delighted +surprise when he would remove his shirts and the picture would fall out. + +Before he left the house, hardly recognizable in his uniform, he kissed +his son savagely and pressed him long and hard, bending low to hide his +tears.... On the way he spoke mostly of the child--commonplaces to +deaden his pain. "Don't let him be too much of a bother. You must be +strict with him, you know." I saw he was entrusting his share in his +survival to me, and it was better to avoid reference to a parting that +marched on to death. + +Regiments were springing up on all sides, troops of men with innocent +eyes and faces shining with pride; sons, brothers, lovers, changed into +statues of men, in a confusion of brass bands, cheers, red and gold, +clashing of arms, and tramping of feet. + +If only this were hell in its completeness! But he was not there. He had +left six days before without my being able to say good-bye to him. + +There was the last kiss, the fixed, tangible second when you part for +good and the yard of space between you actually counts. You were two +bodies clasped, then you became only one body, two arms ... a soul +locked in a leaden coffin. + +There were the wretched minutes when you summon all your illusions to +your assistance. "Nothing can possibly happen to him ... of course not +to _him_...." + +I returned, dragging my misery like a chain. I was one of the vast herd +which fretted the surface of the earth like a canker, moulded and moved +by a deadly maniac hand.... Never before has there been such a herd. + +Being a woman, I felt withdrawn from the herd, exactly as I had felt on +the first day of the war that humanity was cut in two--men and women. + +I was impotent, curdled, set aside. Like the other women I passed by the +young men with orders to die and only a few days to live, though their +bearing was of men who had long to live. I passed by the other women, +useless flesh of the earth, faint-hearted flesh for grieving.... + +I went.... In another sense it was the herd that passed by, that +she-thing, in countless numbers, dancing bacchantes with hideous +hyena-laughter and robes smelling of red blood and heavy wine, +compliant.... + +You no longer saw yourself, because you had been swallowed up in a +living craw. + + * * * * * + +Where were you, my sisters from everywhere, women of Europe, you, Trude +and Clara and Mania? What were you doing? Were you weeping? + +You saw, didn't you, that bloody sky with forked black signs, that +summer swooning away, that day?... Why was not your voice heard in +denunciation of the universal slaughter? + +Why was not my own voice heard, when there were outcries in my throat, +tears in my flesh? + + +III + +I am becoming horribly accustomed to going about the empty apartment +alone. I find I no longer think of the scowling walls, the dumb silence, +the dim windows. They wrap me in a vague acquiescence. Habit is exerting +its awful power. + +I seem to be gliding down a slope where there is no one at the bottom to +warn me that there may be a precipice ahead or tell me whither this +strange existence leads. + +My days are regulated according to the rules I myself have made to apply +only to myself; I go, I come, I turn the key in the lock; I loiter; then +I rush at my work. Sometimes the mirror casts a sudden image which runs +away busily at my approach. My shadow and the creaking under my tread +are all I have for company. + +Yet this is not the first time I have lived alone. There once was a room +with a flowered quilt, a moth-eaten carpet and a rickety door which +opened like the lid of a devil-in-the-bandbox on the mahogany wig and +scarlet smile of Mme. Noël. But everything was so different! I brought +nothing to that virgin space except the desire to fill it; my body knew +nothing; my inner being cried out for too many things to be able to hold +any of them, and had I dared, I would have stretched my arms out through +the window to embrace the air of life.... + +My solitude now is like rotten fruit; it scorches my entrails like a +fiery drink. It is a strange solitude. + +Two men peopled my life and fertilized and vivified it. But wasn't that +very long ago and somewhere else? Come, try to remember.... + +I do not know; they are neither dead nor alive. To be sure they are +hungry and thirsty and get bored as living people do, but they are +locked up in the earth's carcass like the real dead; and it may be that +at this very moment when I am imagining them warm and active, they are +already stiff and cold. To be absolutely truthful, to go down to the +bottom of things, there is scarcely anything in common between the two +men who went to war and me who stayed behind. + +Sometimes when I am alone, I lean over, way over, to touch the very +bottom of things so as to feel the pain of it. + +Yes, letters pass between us. When I read their letters I try to imagine +their surroundings and the crass details of their life; the fir-trees of +the Argonne, the name of a regiment which I know by heart like a prayer, +frost-bitten feet, the incessant thunder, and the arrival of the postman +which draws us a little closer together. Then there is Carency--the +place makes no difference--the light cavalry.... Attack, formation, the +first rank mowed down, the second, the third; he alone standing upright +in the front of the fourth rank, a struggle lasting a century, the +confused subsidence, and my portrait snug under his blue jacket. And +that night last week when he was nearly dying of thirst and crawled out +over the open field, groping for something to drink. A miracle, a pool! +He fills his mess cup and empties it at one draught. He spits out thick +threads, they hang from his mouth--bits of brains.... A pool of human +blood from which he has quenched his thirst. + +I receive a letter nearly every morning. The envelope burns in my +fingers: the written lines make a pretense of talking and telling you +things, as if I were not standing in front of him as you stand in front +of a window-pane which you frost with your breath so that you can't see +what's on the other side. + +I write to them before I go to bed. Nothing important ever turns up, so +I make a lot of the little everyday affairs--what happens at the office +or at lunch in the restaurant where the people discuss and wrangle and +the smells turn you sick. I tell them how forlorn the house looks, and +how well the child is getting along in the country, that I do some work +after dinner to make a little more money. Besides, there's always some +anecdote to relate.... Twelve strokes cutting into the metallic +night.... Sometimes when I fold my letter I have a sense of having +written about somebody else. + +Nevertheless, the thought of them is an obsession; it is a red point +about which I develop and revolve and add to myself. + +And sometimes, too, when I shut my eyes, bizarre notions swoop down on +me, a horrid swarm of bats. "How many women are there to-night," I +wonder, "who are tossing about in the thin warmth of their beds, +distracted creatures, tormented, empty-armed, who, however, are the +bigger for all this, easy in their minds and free already in their +bitter freedom?" + +Yes there are many women to-night without husbands or lovers who wonder +as they lie in bed; then they sit up and lean on their elbows ... they +don't _know_ yet or suspect anything ... but they don't sleep, they +can't sleep; it's too absurd to think that a woman can live all alone, +sleep alone, even breathe. And then it might be that the closest union +is a prison after all. + +At last I fall asleep, and in the morning, in the bald, shivering +twilight, I go back to my doings of the day before, somewhat cowardly +doings. Dull habit, which greases the machinery of life, leads me +blindly along the streets to the office. + +Was it only two months ago that with despair in my heart I passed this +corner where the chestnut-stand sends up its whistling steam? His letter +in my bosom had told of the night attack and of his possible death; a +brief, heart-rending farewell. Is he in less danger this morning, is he +less cold, less hungry? I just passed the same corner worried for fear I +might be late. The whole way I had been thinking of my dress and winter +hat. + +That's how you get used to the martyrdom of others. + +Even if it is the flesh of your flesh that undergoes the martyrdom, even +if it is the man of your love--ah, don't say no--you get _used_ to it. +In suffering one person cannot take the place of another, and pain +cannot be shared. The first day, because grief turns your head, you +think you are sharing the other person's pain, but the other days, all +the other days? + +Why not have the courage to look crude reality crudely in the face? +There are no people who are inseparable, there are no couples who are +inseparable. + +He is in the trenches, the men are in the trenches, engulfed in misery, +exposed to danger, plagued by vermin, and I am here alive and untouched, +grazing this large wall patched with three-colored placards. "Women ... +your noble rôle ... noble work ... honor...." + +Honor? What honor? I work. Isn't that natural? He is suffering, he is +going to die. Didn't I see my own dormant energies wake up? And if he +has given all, have I not taken all? + +Five minutes to nine! I hurry, raising my coat collar in a shiver and +clasping my hands inside my soft muff. + +At the end of the street a dusty gust driving a handful of people along +like dead leaves, women with billowing skirts, a tramping, whistling +gang of blue-lipped street boys, and old Noël with his breath frozen on +his beard. + + * * * * * + +_They_ have left. Even if they return, they have left. That's the whole +thing. There will have been a space of time when they were wiped off +the face of the earth, and life went forward without them, was lived +without them, and women actually _continued_ without them.... + + +IV + +The typical young lover, well built, good-looking enough but without +charm; his youthfulness armed with a timid pretentiousness. I had always +avoided talking to him, but this evening he got hold of a foolish excuse +for walking home with me. I tried hard to speak of something else and +quickly switched the conversation on to another track when it took a +certain turn, while he, a hundred times more proficient than I, +certainly more obstinate, dragged the subject back to where he wanted it +to be. + +The eternal comedy of man. The same words--who will tell them that they +always use the same words?--to reach the same goal. He made awkward, +crafty attempts, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and when he +saw I was escaping, he declared himself, throwing up his dice and +staking his very heart. His voice was rusty, his nose pointed downward, +his ears were fiery. + +Until then he had seemed fatuous, almost ridiculous in his little +perfidy. Now he was ennobled, like a saint, pure, supplicating. His +whole body took on grandeur. How he trembled, the poor boy! + +When my answer was given--a woman who doesn't love has a lot of ease +and gentleness at her command--"Forgive me," he said, "I have offended +you." + +I watched him as he walked away, his back bent, humiliated, I suppose, +but bathed all the same in the hope that rises from the words you dare +to utter. + +Forgive him! As if any woman ever harbored bitter feelings against the +man who gave her the great gift, as if a single one of us ever remained +untouched, as if a mysterious yet positive connection did not establish +itself the moment love was declared. + +I remember all the men who ever loved me. Each thinks he has discovered +you, and offers you your secret. Each does in fact discover you, and +also kisses you a little. + +I shall remember this young man, too; I shall remember the strip of +mackerel sky showing above the street crossing; I shall remember the +stammering mouth whose youth demanded its satisfaction from mine, the +mouth that touched mine in thought. + + +V + +I have had the sensation of death. + +Not in the instant of dying; that is still a part of life; but in the +instant after death. + +I had gone to the end of the pier, where the water lashes incessantly +and regularly, and seated myself facing the open sea. To right and left +the green shore curved and the fir-trees ran down toward the sea to +hold in the pale sandy strip edged with foam. Over my head the +procession of clouds. + +Sunday morning. The voice of the chimes from the old church, buried in +the heart of the island, was music sent by the air and tinted blue by +the waters. At each stroke you expected to see space divided in two. + +The sea was smooth and sleek with dark, wide, winding oily tracks, which +looked like roadways traced by the sure finger of God. + +Looking down at my feet I saw a sparkling play of meshes of rainbow +light. The iris fragments dented the surface, formed into chains, made a +covering of diamond facets, and drew downward full rainbows resting on +myriads of arches. It was an incessant disappearance and reappearance. + +It was fascinating to watch. The only thing that distracted me was a +swarm of miniature fish darting under the pier more lightly than +insects. For a moment they showed dove-colored, then orange; then they +melted away. You tried to fasten your eyes upon one of the cells of +water, just one. You had it, but no, it was another one. + +The sun was so hot you couldn't lift your head. A broad sunbeam falling +perpendicularly on the hard surface of the sea cut it in a blinding +fissure, which attached the foot of the pier to the horizon. + +Caught between the heat pouring down from the heavens and the freshness +rising from the water, my body lost its sense of weight, form, +equilibrium, and even of breathing. Every bit of feeling was gone from +my legs, my neck was burning. My soul and eyes existed for nothing +except the stable yet ever-changing mosaic which laughed a thousand +laughs at the face of the sky. + +There was nothing but light. Substance, eyes, body, memories, all seemed +to be losing themselves and making a plunge into light. + +There really was one moment in which I ceased to be. My existence +underwent a momentary eclipse. I was no longer some one obstinately +facing a realm of infinity in order to measure its limits, a very small +creature who wanted to add herself to nature. I was the immense, +permeating idea of the ocean, the sun and the sky. + +It was between the singing ether and the silvery water that I seemed to +foresee my nothingness, because when consciousness left me and I ceased +to be, the sparkling eyes of the sea formed again, the blue oily tracks +unfurled themselves, the glittering fissure sucked in the same line, the +blue deep followed its unchanging course. Everything kept on behind me. + + +VI + +Nothing but women.... + +Not a single pretty one. Two, four, ten, a hundred ... there must be two +hundred.... Not a single pretty one.... + +To be sure, the weak unsteady light discolors their faces and throws +drab blotches around their features, but that alone does not account for +the general stamp of dullness which makes them seem like a flock of +widows. The two men sitting apart on the crosswise bench like +well-behaved children who have just been punished, have a sorry air, not +at all the air of having done it on purpose. + +I am impatient. A woman addressing other women.... What is she going to +tell us? Will the audience brighten up? + +I am standing with my back to the platform facing the door to keep watch +for Eva for whom I am reserving a seat beside my own.... Alas, something +for a merciless eye to feed upon! I can hardly bear to look at that +uncultivated field of dingy heads. But there is nothing better to turn +to--moldy walls picked at and peeling, smeary stains on a colorless +floor. Your ears are pierced by a rising babel. + +Eva at last.... I draw a breath of relief and feel, as I always do, like +saying "Thank you" to her. Great floodgates open, my poise is +restored--a living proof.... Why this blitheness? Because of her smile, +her radiance, her frankness, the glory she carries about with her from +the clear image of her child and husband? I do not know. She exists, +that's all. When I think of her, I have a complete sense of happiness +and confidence.... Perhaps this is friendship. + +She has a little trouble making her way through the hall. Her head, set +in velvet, rises above the field of heads like a taller, brighter +stalk; the precious gems of her eyes show in full. She sees me, her face +brightens.... "Thank you," I say, very low just to myself. After all +there will be one fine face in the room. + +We had scarcely shaken hands and seated ourselves when silence fell, +broken here and there by coughing. + +The speech. + +The woman making the speech is also ugly. Yet what resources in that +ample body. Under the armor of her corset, there are fine, noble lines, +I am sure. Under her sausage sleeves there are the arms of a mother, +even perhaps of a woman in love; the huge pancake on the nape of her +neck shows she has long shining hair silky to the touch; and what +tenderness in the depth of her eyes which dart glances in our direction. +If she dared, what sweetness.... + +She came to speak to us from a platform for the purpose of conveying her +idea and a little of her soul, unaware that a valiant soul is a visible +soul. The only means we have of showing our souls, sharing them and +giving them freedom, are the ordinary means--our actions, the bare flesh +of our lips, the sincere tears of our eyes, our bodies which encase our +souls, our smiles which beautify our souls, and our voices. + +This woman's soul is a strained voice, but how marvellous. The rows in +the audience remain stationary, each head staying fixed in the position +it held at the first word she uttered. + +The women's horrid cares, their marketing, their husbands, their +children, their dishwashing, their difficulty in making ends meet, all +the everyday trifles that weigh on women and enslave them, are driven +far away. The pale blonde with faded eyes beside Eva probably made the +same O of her mouth when she spelled out her letters as a child. The old +woman nodding "Yes, yes"--the two plumes in her bonnet respond "Yes, +yes"--has forgotten her stupid drudgery. + +They are all stamped with a sort of pathetic imprint; love is their +element, their strength, their medium. They listen with love and +understand through love. Love gives them this serious, fixed +attentiveness. + +The woman with the burning insignia of her stove on her fiery cheeks has +lost all traces of worry except for the scolding expression of the +mother whom you imagine with a horde of children jumping round her like +little rabbits. And the thin girl with the dusky gaze--we've all seen +her kneeling in the shadow of a confessional mumbling her sins with her +mouth glued to a wooden grating from the other side of which comes the +warm breath of a man without a face--what ardor she, too, is capable of! + +Instead of the voice of the speaker on the platform it is the women's +outcries that I hear. + +These women have been imprisoned by themselves, hampered by their own +lives, and what lives! what a miserable heap of desires and troubles in +the face of the immense thing which gathers all beings together and +makes them resemble one another, the thing unanimous and intangible that +I hardly see. I don't even know its name. Before it I am like a blind +man who has never seen the sun, but suddenly feels it shining on his +forehead and exclaims: "There is light!" It is this _thing_ that has +made all these women come here to-night and bestow their childish +presence, their somewhat uncouth attention, their tragic lips which +would kiss everything. Do they feel the great current rising from them +which seeks to be caught and held fast, a current altogether new in the +human atmosphere?... Not yet. Not yet. + +How subdued Eva looks; her gaze seems clipped short; she's frowning. Her +expression makes me uncomfortable. + +Hands flutter like white leaves; a bow from the platform; the meeting is +over. + +The auditors stretch themselves a little, then rise to the accompaniment +of clattering benches, gossamer sighs, and the sound of two hundred +bodies moving and coming back to themselves. A faint cackling, then a +full chorus of barnyard noises mounting and spreading. + +I plant myself up against the wall to let them pass and see who will +cast thorny glances at my hat, dress and shoes. + +"Come on," cries Eva. Her forehead is drawn in hard lines. "Come on." + +Outside, the night blowing upon the parting groups of women gives their +scattered voices resonance. + +Eva takes my arm ... but no, I feel like being by myself. I repel her +bluntly, as you throw aside a branch you have broken. She instinctively +draws her cloak around her. + +"What an absurd evening! Those women!" she says. + +She is right, I am sure. Every one of the women, it was easy to see, was +ugly and petty, but together, multiplied and magnified, their +individualities wiped out, they revealed I cannot say what unformed +hope, what substance, what richness.... If only I could explain this to +Eva! + +"Hurry, hurry, here comes my street-car! Good night!" + +The buzzing of an electric bell, an intense disk of light, another +buzzing, and the little illuminated house stops. With a flutter of her +skirts and a wave of her hand, Eva disappears. + +Has she really gone? Goodness, what is she carrying away with her?... + +In the nebulous depth of the long avenue I can still distinguish a +vanishing star gliding along its mechanical path. + +I had said: "Here is my friend, my companion, my sister." On this +evening, tender as dawn, she has left behind in me a great emotion which +she does not understand. + + +VII + +"A lady," the fat concierge told me. "Been here twice. Well, a sort of +lady, a ... you understand. Her cheeks--her skirt--you can see her legs +up to here.... Believe me or don't believe me, but she's twin pea to +your Marie. If she comes back, what shall I tell her? I won't let that +sort into my house! Eh? Kick her out?" + +"Oh but, M. Etienne, I am at home to-day. Let her come up." + +I closed my door blushing. + +Through the banisters I recognized her. Actually Marie! + +"Come in...." + +She went in ahead of me to the dining-room--"my dining-room," she used +to call it--and seated herself deliberately. Genuine timidity hides +itself behind a mask of absurd audacity. + +"Marie ... Marie ... is it possible?" + +She was wearing a large red straw hat turned up at one side and weighted +down on the other side by a nodding mass of huge black plumes, two tall +elastic antennae, the sort worn by horses drawing hearses. Under the +chalky enamel you couldn't see her freckles, but her eyes, her lovely +eyes of purest aquamarine, with glints of indigo from her blackened +lashes, still retained their dewy look of astonishment. + +Here was Marie. At last I was going to know why she was so mute and why +she ran away one evening without taking along her bundle of clothes or +her prayer-book. I was going to find out how a poor little servant girl +rebelling against kindness could become a poor little swaggering +over-dressed prostitute. + +"I have come for my things." + +"They are still here, Marie; I'll go and get them." + +But I couldn't budge. This phenomenon coming so close to me was +appalling. I looked at her. She had the soft, awkward charm of a little +astonished beast. Seated there in my presence she made an ingenuous, +piteous sight, like a ladybird you're afraid of crushing, or a wilful +timid lamb withdrawing from your caress. + +I noticed all sorts of minutiae--that she carried a cloth hand-bag, an +exact copy of a bag of mine, and tied her shoe-latchets the very same +way I did mine; was very neat, her shoes polished, her hands clean, her +neck fairly waxed with soap. Her gaze, once aimless and imprisoned, +harpooned the things in my room and withdrew freighted with +discoveries.... And she gave me acid, persistent looks like the looks +one woman gives another. "Has she aged?" her looks questioned, "has she +changed, is she prettier?" Her eyes roved around the room. "Ah, that +little étagère was not there in my time, nor that engraving.... Who's +doing her work? The place looks well kept." She parted the collar of her +jacket at the opening to show off her imitation brooch. The child had +become feminized, she seemed older than ever. + +"Why, Marie? Why?" + +I couldn't restrain myself any longer. She leaned her elbow on the +table. When she raised her eyes, they were underlined with red and two +slow tears cut little pathways down the powder on her cheeks. I jumped +up and took her hands. + +"I didn't like--I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't my +fault. No one cared about me...." + +The great answer to the riddle. They all have this devouring need. What +they ask of love and look for in love is "someone to care about them." + +"And then my hair, my Breton dress ... everybody stared at me. 'Aren't +you ashamed?' I used to think." + +Another need--to be like other people, to be just as good as anyone +else--why not?--to have a bag like madam and hats like the hats you see +on the street.... + +"That's all," she added. + +It was all. When women sell themselves, it is not poverty necessarily +that drives them to it. You don't know the hell of jealousy that burns +in all of us. There are some women who make themselves beautiful less +for the sake of pleasing men than for annoying other women. + +"You must be unhappy." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Is a poor little thing like Marie sensual? Women are rarely sensual. If +they are, they have not been so from the start; they have become so. + +Her Breton accent came back. "Madam," she said in her singsong of four +years ago and in the same servile tone. Now she felt like relieving +herself and telling me everything. There was one man who really didn't +disgust her, but he was at the front, and if only he could come back! In +the meantime she practiced economies and perhaps they could fix up a +home and perhaps he would marry her. But if he did not come back, +then-- + +I had been to blame, I alone. I had been satisfied to deplore her grim +silence and do nothing. But I ought to have humiliated myself so as to +earn her smile. I ought by talking to her to have driven out of her +heart the longing to equal and surpass which prevents us all from being +human sisters. I should have.... + +We are all to blame for the prostitutes, we are the ones at whom the +stones should be cast. Nearly all of them are little Maries with the +craving for just one man, the peaceful healthy desire for a secure +hearth, but we tolerate poverty, and we don't know how to talk to each +other. + +She put her package under her arm. I did not know what to do. I went up +to her, humble of heart, and rather awkwardly kissed her cheek streaked +by tears and sullied by paint. + +She started, shaken by a revulsion. The liquid blue of her eyes turned +sharp and aggressive, her lips narrowed; she held her little bag close +like booty. Then she departed, leaving the door open for the smoky +darkness of the landing to creep into my rooms. She had the untamable, +sullen expression of a hunted beast. + + +VIII + +Twenty days passed without news. + +When I woke up, the early sunlight had a reassuring effect, the morning +chattered familiarly, my terror of the night before took wings like a +fancy. Hope swelled within me. + +The postman's ring, sharp, strident, unbearable, reopened the wound. I +rushed to the door. Nothing. A circular, an ordinary letter which I +didn't have the will to open. + + * * * * * + +It was exactly twenty-two days. I forced myself to sit down at the +table, but my courage was completely gone, and the alarms of the night +which haunted the room gripped me by the throat. Well, there would be +something to-morrow. It was impossible.... + +Anxiety, from the moment it began, made me neglect myself--no prinking, +no housework, dust powdering my furniture. The most I did was to turn +back my bedclothes. What did all these things matter? I wanted to sleep, +sleep.... + +Coming back from work I slipped into my flannel dressing gown and +slippers and let down my hair. I did not even take the time to warm up +my dinner prepared beforehand in the morning. The plate was on the +table, an orange, a piece of bread.... I'd eat. + +I couldn't. The mouthfuls choked me. I couldn't do one thing. I was +overwhelmed, almost paralyzed, by an unconquerable weakness. I threw +myself in my armchair. I would put the room in order the next day. I +would work twice as hard, but not to-night.... + +Sleep.... + +Torpor gained complete possession of me. The darkness gathered, and when +the last streak of twilight came through the window fluttering on my +eyelids, a little hope returned. + +After all, twenty-two days was not so terrible. Many people had had to +wait longer. Hadn't I had to wait sixteen days once? Letters get lost on +the way. + +I visualized a scene--a hospital ward, a row of beds, white coverings, +nurses. How was it I had not thought of it before? Wounded!... A slight +wound which kept him from writing.... I welcomed the certainty. It was +so comforting that I tried to hold on to it by jumping right up and +shaking off anxiety and being happy. Anxiety is an insult to love. + +I groped for the lamp, turned on the light, and laid some reading matter +on the table. The disorder was dismal but--to-morrow was another day. I +sat down to read. + +The lines leapt at my eyes. You'd have thought them an army of ants +running over the page, running, yet always remaining at the same place. +Should I try to work? Should I try to make up a package for him? That +would be two packages this week, but two are not a whole lot. + +My heart gave a great leap. The door-bell rang. Who could it be at this +hour? My very life went round in a whirlwind, I flew to the door. + +Some one in black shrinking in the dark doorway in the humble attitude +of a sister of charity requesting alms for the poor. My aunt Finot! + +I murmured a few little hypocrisies and put up my hair. I was fuming +inwardly, although actually a little relieved at the prospect of a +visit, which even if tedious would mean a human presence, a tangible +certainty. I was so upset I came near saying "Tante Finot" and giving +away the nickname by which she had been called in the family for twenty +years. + +"Come in, aunt...." + +She stepped in ahead of me, hunching up her body. The disorder struck +me ... my home was usually so neat ... and my dressing gown ... my +run-down slippers-- + +"An awkward hour for a visit, I know," said Aunt Finot, sitting down. +"Are you feeling quite well, dear?" + +"Dear" in that mouth with lips like two tight-drawn catguts! It stabbed +like a dagger.... She sat perched on the edge of the chair twisting the +straps of her hand-bag. The lamplight threw dusky shadows on her +skeleton frame and turned her eyes into the sharp-gleaming eyes of an +executioner. My God! + +"Has anything happened," I asked, "anything dreadful?" + +"You see, dear ... don't get excited ... listen...." + +"Dead!" + +An abyss yawned at my feet, something flashed and grazed my eyelids. +I... + +My aunt rose slowly. I saw her hands on the table knotted like a tangle +of cords. + +"Don't get excited. Your family received bad news, I don't know from +what source. I asked them if it was official. They were all half +crazy--afraid to come and tell you.... I always felt an affection for +you, you know...." + +"Yes, yes, I understand; he's dead." + +There she still stood, her knotted hands on the table, a grin widening +her flat features. There she still stood. + +"Aunt, please leave me alone, please do." + +Perhaps she went on talking a little, perhaps she leaned over to kiss +me, perhaps I heard words falling from her lips like pellets of lead: +"country--trial--sacrifice." The door closed upon my slaughtered love. + +I know I tried to stand up--it was like trying to lift a tombstone--and +drag myself to the window to lean my forehead on the pane; but something +pulled at me from deep within, something cold and incomprehensible, like +a slimy slug, like a deep gash in living flesh. And a strange dizziness, +not entirely physical, threw me back into the armchair. + +The walls of this black hissing pit into which I fell were the walls of +my dining-room, the very same walls papered in a scallop design, and I +saw a cloud of tiny coal-black butterflies, mere specks, whirl without +end from the blackened lamp-chimney. + +My being turned into something enormous and gaping, which fed constantly +upon a great wound. I was so overwhelmed with a senseless horror that at +moments during the night his death seemed quite normal and natural. But +when I withdrew my hand from under my head a multitude of serpents +wriggled about within me, and I felt suffocated again and began to +tumble through emptiness, while little pointed teeth bit my blood and +left behind a penetrating icy poison. + +It has ever been the same, Lord God. Suffering is too monotonous.... +When a bit of sense and ordinary life returned and cried in my ears: "It +is over. Never more," I felt that suffering is too monotonous; and when +a clamor of revolt sounded in my being: "They have killed him!" I felt +that suffering is too monotonous. + +And when the dawn came tapping at the window and creeping toward the +table, drab and livid, when I rose from my bruised knees, and when the +humming and buzzing began in the indifferent house, I still felt that +suffering is too monotonous. + + +IX + +Your beloved is dead. + +News that comes from the depths of the ages or the depths of the flesh; +you can't tell. + +One day--there--a clap of thunder. It bursts from your flesh and tries +to enter your flesh again. It beats at the portals of your heart, +besieges your ears, howls round your entrails, but there is no place for +it, no part of your body wants it, your soul retreats to shelter, your +heart drips black blood, your mind goes round and round. News, News! +Your beloved is dead! + +No need for the thunder to break. I knew it was brewing in me. + +When we used to come back from work and I kissed him with this very +mouth and embraced him with these very arms, pressing him so hard that +he laughed sometimes, it was premonition of the News that kept my lips +sealed to his cheek so long, and turned my arms into iron clutches, and +gave me warning when I woke up, and frightened me in the dark. + +We used to talk about it and try to imagine what separation by death +would be like. "If I die, if you die." We wanted to provide against it, +we had accepted it. + +My beloved, the knowledge of misfortune is not the misfortune itself; +the knowledge of death is not death itself. When we were together we +never imagined I should suffer so much. When people are together, they +can't imagine what it is to be alone. + +It is like childbirth over again, I assure you: I remember your face +when I shrieked in travail. I am more torn now, and you are not here to +hold my hands. + +Why do they all say suffering is necessary and ennobling? I can testify +that suffering doesn't do any good. + +I used to be a gay, active woman, who went about with chest expanded, a +body full of pleasure, lips like kisses, and cheeks alive with color. I +used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and stay up until late at +night. After the day's work in the evening I'd say "to-morrow" as if +anticipating the loveliest day in the world. I had poverty, laughter, an +appetite, I had a perfect union with another, and I maintain that this +counts. I led a life according to my own will; I had a bright child. I +had all this, I _was_ all this, this was my lot.... + +To-day I am a woman whose eyes are swollen and corroded with salt tears, +whose features are sharpened, whose shoulders stoop, whose black dress +bags on her reduced figure, whose eyes are turned inward, whose house is +untidy and whose evenings drop into darkness without the lamplight. My +little one has to call me.... I love him without a smile, and as for +myself, I hate myself. + +I used to try to be kind and make it pleasant for people in my home. I +am like a thistle withered on its stem, I am like a fruit cut open and +thrown out on the street. I am useless and bitter--I am bad. + +When people come to me, I feel the pricking of their thorns, and I +wallow in gall. They are all enveloped in an awful respect for death. It +revolts me. + +My family comes to visit me, each one of them chockful of advice and +dropping honied words.... Yet I was more worthwhile when I was happy. +Why didn't they incline themselves when there was still time? They seem +to send up a cry of relief. "At last! You're suffering! At last a person +can approach you!" They console me and lull me; they are crows +quarreling over the remains of a charnel-house. + +But when they have the effrontery to extol his virtues, it is too much; +my grief springs to the attack. The idea! They hated him while he lived! +Keep quiet, don't insult him! I wish to be alone with the knowledge that +he is dead. + +But I don't utter a word; grief has lips of stone; I keep my secret +locked within me while seeming to listen to them. I sit in front of the +fire, my hair loose, my forehead drawn, watching the flames blaze and +the embers fall. After all, their presence, their footsteps pawing the +silence, mean only a little additional pain. Time passes, and they're +sure to go eventually. + +Has the door closed on them? I don't know. I can hardly move. + +I am alone with you, my knees clasped in my hands, while the castle in +the fire slowly crumbles on its gray dust. + +Some mourners at least have the consolation of mourning real dead--real +dead whom they have seen stiffen into death, whose last words they have +received, whose last agonies they have tried to soothe, for whom they +have done everything they could. + +But you, beloved, are you dead? I don't even know. "Fallen on the field +of honor?" What does that mean? Was it in the evening or the morning? +Were you alone? Did you cry out? Did you suffer terribly? Did you open +your eyes once more? Perhaps you couldn't, perhaps you called and called +for me? Perhaps you thought I should have come? Ah yes, I should have +been there; it is my fault. I have always cured you, you know I have. I +simply had to hold your head in my hands and your pain was eased. + +But I didn't die--I didn't die at the moment of your death, that moment +too frightful to speak of. I didn't die when life was drowned in your +mouth. We knew the whole truth concerning each other, yet when you were +dying I may have been smiling. + +For fifteen nights, fifteen days, fifteen years my heart has been crying +that you are dead and that it has lost the hope of ever seeing you again +in your clothes exactly as you used to look, with that manner of +yours.... Fifteen days since I have been trying to learn again, begin +all over again, and call everything into question again. Fifteen days of +impotence. I see only what is. + +There is earth on your hands, on your eyes, on every part of your body +wherever it may be. Your feet are cold and gray like the feet of a +pauper, your skin is bloated, worms are preying upon you. I don't want +to--I cannot see you as you are. When I think of you I have a false +vision of your living self with your cheeks of the color of life and +your dear natural gestures. How can I help being all bewildered? Nothing +is left. Even the memory of you changes from day to day. I can no longer +recall the right tone of your voice. Your corpse is hidden. It is as if +I were suffering for no reason at all. + +Not to know how to suffer, perhaps that is what suffering is.... Not to +divine where you are, is that your death? + +The sparkling hearth-fire has scattered and gone out. Fire has devoured +fire. A few embers reddening here and there, a porous heap of fanciful +firebrands. + +And now, and now, my beloved, if I no longer see you, I do see the +consuming truth. I see it and here it is: I let you go. I consented. +There's no doubt of it, it was _I_ who killed you.... + + +X + +I felt a great need for fresh air and light. What the nature of this +hunger and thirst was I cannot tell.... The sunshine suddenly lighted up +the window-frame. Its golden rays coming through the open casement and +falling obliquely upon the objects in my room filled it with numerous +fires. It was a salute. + +To be out of doors, to walk, to feel the sun on my skin! + +I had a letter to mail. The thought of it brought me to my feet, +impatient, ready. + +Should I take the little one along? But how about a good long walk, the +semblance of distraction?... I decided to go alone. + +With my eyes close to the image in the mirror, I powdered my face and +puffed my hair on each side under my hat as I used to do. How the least +prinking helps a woman! Instead of the really ugly pointed little face +smeared with pallor, which, without arousing my shame, had visibly +lengthened these past weeks, there was a face of warm, even whiteness +and of an oval not so pronounced, eyes which, even if dark-rimmed, had +lost their fixity, and a shower of red tendrils like coppery breaths +blown on my forehead. + +The early spring was making itself felt. A raw wind was raising the dust +of the streets. Assailed at the first step by the blue, dancing, +swirling air, I walked falteringly, like a prisoner who has just been +released and doesn't know where to turn. + +Everything the same. The old bridge still stretching its badly joined +planks from the paved street to the road where the wistaria bloomed. The +patched, mossy roof of the old wash-house a few steps from the mill +still displaying its dog's-eared edges. The same vistas across the green +breaches between the houses. + +Every corner of the town held out a memory to me--here a two-year-old +memory, here a distinct vision crouching. I called to the vision and +welcomed it. My life was not dead, and my heart was open and there was +still a man to love me.... + +I had been unjust in the black moment of despair. My share of love and +light still remained. Did he know I was a widow? Since he had been taken +prisoner six months ago, no news had reached me and I didn't know if he +had received any of my letters. + +The broad sunshine expanded my chest and warmed up a vision so tender--a +hope or a memory--that I was stung by a pang of remorse and almost felt +like chasing it away. + +I reached the center of the town, where there were more people and +especially more well-to-do people. + +Feminine figures, which I recognized, came toward me at a dull gait. I +knew them; I had seen these old ladies at prayers two years before. They +wore the same dresses and the same hats, the sort you don't see anywhere +except in the provinces.... Hypocritical hands as I passed the houses, +lifted the crocheted curtains. I was preceded by mystery and followed by +whisperings. + +Every passerby seemed to be blaming me for the dazzling sunlight which +my eyes were embracing; every house scowled, and the whole street, in +spite of the pleasant weather, wore veritable mourning, not mere sadness +and solemnity, but mourning, and the people looked as though they were +in a slow funeral procession, the women strangled in black, upholstered +in crepe, and buried alive in their hoods and veils. + +The Cathedral square was resplendent with profane joy. The birds swooped +from one to the other of the great, white-dappled plane-trees, and every +now and then one perched on the statue in the fountain, a clumsy girl +with petticoat of stone and turned-up sleeves, a decent bosom bared, a +sheaf in one arm, and an eternally dried-up urn in the other arm. +Through its high lanceolate windows and the tracery of the two +rose-windows Notre Dame was drinking in light and making mock of its +ancient front. + +It was a brilliant day, and the world rejoiced. I tasted the savor of +living. In spite of myself I fell into the nervous, elastic step of old +and drank in the living air like an intoxicating elixir. + +An idea took lodgment--he was familiar with this scene, these crabbed +shops, hostile promenaders, and square of bourgeoning; he had walked on +these cobblestones; and at the edge of the town was his little summer +villa. The idea went round and round, very fast; and I was weak; so I +clutched at it for support. + + * * * * * + +Another veiled woman in black.... + +That figure tending to heaviness but graceful and in the very mould of +femininity is not unfamiliar. I have seen the woman before. You can +tell from a distance that she wears the mark of the widow, a hood-like +hat faced with white. + +She too;... + +I am interested in her. In the country you are interested in everybody +you meet. + +Who is she, I wonder. She seems to be about forty, but neither her hair +nor her cheeks have lost their freshness. Who.... + +My heart bursts, alarm comes rushing, misfortune approaches.... She +walks toward me--she is only a few feet away.... If she would only +stop ... it is she ... his wife! + + * * * * * + +In the time it takes to walk only a few feet you can undergo the acutest +agony. I held my breath and for a second time felt death strike me with +its thunderbolt. I had time to become a widow too. + +She advanced terribly: it was death advancing along the sidewalk. I felt +I must detain and implore her. With jaws set I restrained a great +convulsive outcry and flung myself in her way.... My lips gave a sort of +cluck.... She fixed her eyes straight ahead and turned away deliberately +as if from a drunken beggar. + +I looked and looked after her.... + + * * * * * + +She departs--forever--her skirt grazing the ground. Her veil carries +away the remnant of my joy, leaving me there stupefied and convulsed, +alone under the sun. She departs.... + +My God!... + + +XI + +My son is growing up. + +He has reddish-brown ringlets, his cheeks are vermilion, the blue of his +eyes radiates seraphic calm. He is probably going to be very handsome. +Often people stop me on the street to tell me how lovely he is, and for +a moment I feel some pride. + +He is beginning to show human traits; he talks, he expresses a desire to +touch and possess things, and likes to listen to stories, which used to +make no appeal: "And then, Mamma? Tell me, what next?..." I always begin +by kissing him. + +My heart has grown with him. I have just begun to feel that his +existence is rooted in my own existence. What welds me to him are not +only the pains I take for him, or my perpetual anxiety. I am welded to +him by the kisses he already gives me. When he says "Mamma" in his +inimitable way, I am proud and overwhelmed; when he puts his arms round +my neck, it is as if I were usurping a reward too perfect for me. + +The terror with which he filled me when he was so little and frail is +disappearing. I have rocked him, watched over him and suckled him; he +has strong legs and a strong body; nevertheless a much greater terror is +growing in me. + +The greatest terror of my life. To bring up a child, to hold in your +hands not only what he will be, but what he may be; and to decree +everything, the colors he looks at, the words he hears! To give birth a +second time to a living creature. To be worthy of it.... + +And to have nothing to help you but a heart wise yet too intellectual, +the heart of an adult. + +To have this timid heart, the maternal heart, too prompt and misleading. + +Not to have anything else! + + +XII + +I was sitting on the grass beside the rugged, windswept path which +follows the curve of the sea. Instinctively I straightened up out of my +careless attitude into the attitude of a woman in danger. + +He is coming closer, he is very near.... + +He forces himself to assume the indifferent, I don't-know-you air of +some one happening to be passing by, but he shortens his strides, and in +spite of himself his face dilates and beams with the delight of the +hunter striking the trail. A little more, and he'd let out a whistle. + +Should I try to escape through the woods by cutting across the railroad +track? Should I?... + +"How do you do?" + +"How do you do?" + +The man is handsome, decidedly handsome, even in the full light, and I +smile at his coming as I smiled a few moments ago when the sun climbed +over the slope. + +I had always seen him in the dusk when he returned to his smart white +house held fast in a coil of green. He would stop a moment at the rusty +gate and give me a lingering glance out of his long-lashed eyes. +Yesterday evening when we passed each other on the road, his eyes were +like black enamel, but now in the bare light of the morning they are of +a more crystalline gray than the sea. + +A tragic duel of looks ... a thousand questions asked and answered ... +wonderful understanding ... dizziness ... unbearable dizziness. + +He stands balancing himself on his feet searching the ground for the +nascent lie. Then he puts a direct, confident question--is this +magnificent weather going to last? I in my turn dissemble and scrutinize +the silent, motionless horizon. + +Safe! Hypocrisy between us. He has found a suitable topic and exploits +it cleverly in jerky little phrases, rather sensual, like the kisses you +give a child. He points his three-cornered head at me and tosses back +his thick black mane. + +He shuffles his feet. "Answer me," beg the glittering eyes. "Answer +me.... I am asking you a question...." + +No, I don't want to answer. A word thrown out now and then with the +fervent assurance one always has under a desirous gaze; also the +defensive attitude men force upon you. I lean over and begin to pluck +the rich grass methodically, producing a fine, fresh scent and the dry, +peaceful sound of a browsing beast. Two bare spots in the velvety slope +and several light blades zigzagging in the wind.... + +Will he go? + +He understands. His chest collapses like a pair of bellows and he draws +his two long legs together ostentatiously. + +Why this tricky manoeuvring? Why thoughts unspoken? I am a part of the +tender landscape to him, and I realize he is looking at me tenderly. Why +not dare to make a pure, natural confession? + +"Good-bye?" + +"Good-bye." + +I can't be irritated with this man; I haven't the courage to; the +weather is too lovely. + +When you see the jolly morning frolicking on the road in cap-and-bells +and look over where the blue curve of paradise lovingly touches the +brown curve of the earth, all you feel is a warm indulgence. + +It is too beautiful. The trees mingle their branches, the rays of +sunshine mingle their warmth, the birds mingle their songs. Down below, +the tide is coming in with the rush of clanking chains submerged by a +host of swift, frisky little waves.... + +And this man with the knavish eyes is nothing more than a black particle +blown by the wind to the end of this promontory where a few clustered +pines taper into the azure. + +It is too beautiful. All you can do is close your eyes. + +I close them--to shut out for a while the dazzle of the water in the +indigo basin, the thousand golden bubbles in its centre, the thousand +silver teeth biting at its edge. I don't want to think any more. All I +want to feel are the warm darts which pierce my hands resting on the +grass and the peculiar sense of well-being which takes the place of +everything else.... + +Have I really slept?... Sweetness, the sweetness of lips kissed by +breezes, a sweetness complete and overwhelming ... a delicious life. + +But ... this black gown ... my dead ... I have nothing but my grief, +nothing but my grief. What wrong have I perpetrated that my grief should +forever sing in my ears? + +Ah, just to forget.... Everywhere the earth breathing happiness, the +blue, blue rolling waves, the almond trees veiled in faery whiteness, +everywhere the nuptials of joy. + +Grief, where are you? Everywhere space terribly alive, with hope in +every color and death just died for the last time. + + +XIII + +It happened as it does in novels. The man suddenly feels the beast of +prey panting within him and yields to it hotly; the woman writhes under +the fiery coercion and gropingly reassumes the ancient ways that have +come down from time immemorial.... + +Even to the words I used. Where did they come from, the words that cut +him like a lash, whipped up his desire, and then fell on his face like +drops of ice water? + +I was ashamed. I straightened my hair and left the room. How was it +nothing warned me that I must be on my guard against the man alongside +of whom I had been working daily? Had I been blind? I tried to extract +something significant from my recollections ... but no.... + +I am going to leave him soon, and I must speak to him. + +His disappointment gives him a humanizing air of meekness. It inclines +me to him. You feel intensely that other doors are open and, if you +wanted to, you could knock and gain admittance. + +This grim laconic man, whose ways are confined to the ways of command, +who has been sterilized and handcuffed by the barren power which money +confers, looks at me intently with eyes raised like a child's. Women are +wrong in supposing that a man forsakes them when he renounces his +desire. + +I speak to him disconnectedly, but I am leading up to what I want to +say. And he moves his face a little forward and still a little further +forward; it's as though he were drawing closer, step by step, step by +step. And everything external about me is effaced by degrees, my +sunshiny hair, my mouth, my body present but concealed, my entire +femininity. An infallible instinct tells me this. He takes in my voice +alone, and is surprised that my voice talks nothing but sense. But he +is going to know if it will talk sense straight to the end, so he +settles himself more comfortably in his armchair, lets his eyebrows +relax, and loses all thought of himself. His logic is being appealed to. + +"Now as to your money ... you know if I married you it would not be for +your love.... Your money?... It doesn't count? You're right, it doesn't +count.... I might not have discovered it at once. I might have said, as +I did the other day, that I don't love you. I might also have thought of +my aversion to the idea of marriage. Don't look like that. Marriage as +it is to-day is immoral and stupid. Don't say my marriage was perfect. +The man I lost was a rare soul. For ordinary people like you and me +marriage brings nothing but misfortune and mediocrity. + +"To marry is to lie, to deceive both yourself and the other one; and +when a man and a woman harbor infinite hopes, when they look out upon +perpetually changing horizons, when they have the choice of all the +roads in the world, and the whole of life spreads out before them, it is +absurd to suppose that they can ever subject themselves to each other. + +"You marry, you pledge your soul, you promise your flesh. Once +imprisoned, you maim yourself, and should the call of love some day +become too strong, what other alternative than to lie or break the +chains? Deceit or catastrophe; there is no choice. Love does not +reconcile the primitive hatred between man and woman: on the contrary, +it sharpens it; and for two people to venture upon the impossible +enterprise of joining together two opposite destinies the full length of +their courses, requires a spirit that neither you nor I possess, a +spirit greater than nature bestows; it also takes the intellect of a +God. I assure you it does.... + +"Perhaps you would have waited till the very end to bring out your trump +argument. But I would have rejected your seductive words angrily. They +would not be to the point. The point is, that if I were to become your +wife, my lot would be as I have described it. + +"You lean forward, you approve what I say. + +"The simple fact is, I couldn't live. There would be no use my trying. I +should not have the strength every day to witness a real death unless I +had the tiredness and the sort of forgiveness that come from hard work. +I simply couldn't eat with appetite, I couldn't sleep in peace. + +"And in the morning, if I did not know that this exultation, this unruly +vigor, this swarming of scattered inclinations could not be controlled, +dammed and curbed by laws ... no, I would not dare to begin to live +again.... + +"In a single day there are too many temptations, in a single body too +many feelings; the inner life, remote and _secondary_, must learn +through humble duty to subdue itself by merely keeping its attention +fastened upon the external life. If we listened to the goodness, the +heaven we all carry round within us, what would become of us? I for my +part would not be capable of resisting long.... I believe you understand +me. You yourself have felt what a help and support your daily routine +is. I never paid much attention to you, you were only one of the many +supernumeraries on the stage of my work, but I respected you because you +made a part of my efforts, and you too took great pains with your work. + +"Every time I left you, I felt gentler. Though fatigued I felt free to +think of myself, buoyant, wiser, unloaded, as if my sins had been +forgiven me.... I had paid my debt; I owed nothing. + +"I do not know if work in itself is a good deed. God probably never +meant it for us. Not to lie does not mean to discern the truth, and to +work is not to find the truth, but it is to have the right to advance +toward truth and put oneself in a state of grace and health. + +"Then remember that you dared to offer me this miserable fate, me who in +doing the same work lived beside you as if under the same roof, who felt +imbued with an austere ardor. But you saw nothing, learned nothing, +understood nothing. You horrified me. What you did yesterday! Good +heavens! You attacked, I defended; we are quits. + +"And the money spread out glitteringly to gag me at night.... + +"You must be just. While you were going through your day's work it never +occurred to you that I had my day's work too, and my strong arms and +the energy and chastity deep-seated in my body.... What was the value, +the slight importance I possess as a person to you? What was my peace to +you? + +"Even if you make fun of the exigencies of the soul, do you think it's a +question of the soul alone? And how about one's relation to other +people? You go out of your house on to the street, you see the crowds on +their way to shops, offices and factories. You have to look the +working-people in the face.... Tell me, how do the men and women who +have _nothing to do_ look the workers in the face? + +"I see this doesn't touch you. You are withdrawing. To keep you leaning +toward me, I myself and I alone have to be the subject under discussion. +I must be uncovered, laid naked, by what I say...." + +I felt a sudden surge of blood to my cheeks and my lips; our looks +crossed like swords. + + * * * * * + +Here I am with nothing more to do, my arms hanging at my sides, the +sudden weight of my useless words on my shoulders. The man follows my +example and rises. + +"I shall go away, very far away. Don't mind. That's the good of being a +woman who works; you're not afraid. You may be at the mercy of +misfortune, which is always lurking, but not at the mercy of human +beings.... + +"That's all, I'll go now...." + +In the silence that cuts in I feel how this man is wishing I'd never +go--wishing it so strongly that for a moment he touches love and a path +is opened along which I could take a step, but only a single step, no +more. + +My eyes stare into space. I hear the mournful, eternal good-bye you say +to things--this table at which I worked, the afternoon sunlight laughing +through the window, all the familiar objects, which reel slightly from +the separation now beginning, from the nascence of everything that is to +be.... + +He presses my hand. And I think of all the men you could convince if you +wanted to take the trouble.... + +If you had the time.... + +If life were not a choice. + + +XIV + +Her head is nodding and dropping lower and lower, her fingers are gently +loosening their hold on the square of embroidery: my mother has gone to +sleep. + +She comes to see me frequently now, and always arrives panting, loaded +down with luscious fruit or bottles of golden wine "from your father." +When she prolongs her stay after dinner too late to return home that +night, I give my room up to her. You can tell--poor mother--that her +visits are undertaken for duty's sake--pilgrimages on which she never +fares forth without a preliminary struggle: "That child--you can't +leave her all alone--you've got to be sorry for her." + +When I opened the door for her this evening, I could see there was +something on her mind. Her face was drawn, and contrary to her wont she +kissed me two or three times. Was there going to be a battle? + +Dinner was over, but I still waited. + +"Oh, by the way, my dear, this idea of yours--your plan to go away--it +isn't serious, is it? How about your position? Are you really going to +carry things to such extremes? Your obstinacy is very annoying. What +whimsies you used to have when you were a young girl, that faddy notion +about earning your own living ... and marrying against our will--yes, +against our will.... Your poor husband is dead; so you've paid, and your +father and I are willing to let bygones be bygones. If you come and live +with us, you know you'll lead a nice quiet life and have everything you +need. Your room will be kept in order for you, I will help you bring up +the boy, you will be able to go out as much as you want to. We will give +you perfect freedom.... And you mustn't forget you still have a future, +you're young.... Why don't you say something? Am I an enemy? Am I not +considering your good?" + +My mother floundered for more arguments. So to avoid idle discussion I +threw my arms around her neck. + +She smiled a good full smile, thinking the battle was won and everything +was settled without much difficulty.... Now that she was satisfied, her +best arguments came crowding: she had known from the start that I would +agree with her. + +"You haven't only just yourself to consider, you see. When a woman has a +child, she doesn't do any and everything she feels like doing." + +Now I had to explain! + +"Mamma, dear...." + +I was biting my lips and probably wore the same obstinate look I did as +a little girl, because she pushed me away and her eyes flashed. + +"And what about us? In what sort of a position do you think it places +us?... Think a little. People will see you suddenly running away as if +we had refused to take you in. What do you think we'll be taken for? And +you, my goodness! How will it look for a young woman to go away all by +herself, on an adventure?" + +Her face was purple, her voice came out in a rush, her arms extended +beyond her shadow. She was quite beside herself. + +I don't know what made me do it, whether my worn nerves or my terror at +always, no matter what I did, seeing a gulf yawn between us--I burst +into tears. + +With her stubborn patience my mother often went to extremes, but she +could not resist the argument of tears. She was taken aback. I had +conquered. She put her arms round me in a large, warm, cradling embrace, +planted short little kisses all over my hair, comforted me in my +distress. "Come, dear, don't cry, don't cry." + +I made a tremendous effort to shake off a frightful impression. If I had +had to pay with my life to get rid of it, I would have paid with my +life. But drop by drop the poison filtered into my heart and changed it +into a bitter heart which seemed unlike my own. + +With all the appearance of humility in her drooping shoulders and bowed +head, armed with the tricky sweetness of a person accustomed to +yielding, my mother drew our chairs closer together and tried to console +me at any price by talking of something else. She held out her +needlework. + +"A tray-cover. I noticed you haven't got one.... Rows of hemstitching +with a square of filet in the centre. Do you like it?" + +I dabbed my eyes, forced a smile, and leaned over to watch her draw the +threads. "Wonderful," I said, "marvellously fine, and such tedious +work." I forced myself to fill up the gaps in the conversation. + +The evening flagged slowly and gently. The oil in the lamp was giving +out. A drowse gradually laid itself upon the delicate maternal face; +under the scant light beginning to smell of smoke, it looked almost like +a mummy's. + +She is asleep now. + + * * * * * + +My imagination is free; the frightful impression carries me far back to +a time shrouded in dimness which resembles my childhood days. + +A mere baby still. At night caressing hands tucked me in bed. I held up +my forehead for the kisses of a fairy.... + +A little girl who ran and fell and hurt her forehead and palms and flew +with her troubles to the living Providence. "Did you hurt yourself?... +Ah, you're bleeding!" I felt the thrill of the miraculous wound because +she caught me in her arms and pressed my undeserved suffering to her +heart. Then she tended me, oh, so gently. When she finished, I secretly +regretted that the hurt was assuaged and I had no more blood to offer, +red flowing blood, in exchange for the doting tenderness that it brought +raining down upon me. + +A long illness. A veritable angel hovering all the time. Clouds in my +room, clouds on my bed, and a constant buzzing in my ears. When the +angel moved, a current of freshness reached me, a magnificent hand +raised the head which weighed like a ball of fire, and the heavenly +voice said in the tone of ordinary mothers: "Drink, darling!" + + * * * * * + +When my memory brings me up to the moments of effort, the real moments +which count, I find myself an orphan. + +No, you were not there, mother, when my inner life developed, nor the +first morning when I saw clearly, nor when my love came. You were never +with me at any time when my good will acted, never, never. It was you +who stayed behind and left me. I went on my way. Should I have stopped +to stay behind with you? + +You idolized my littleness, my tears, my naughtinesses. You covered them +all up, I know. But one can't keep on being ill, or naughty, or a little +tot. + +You are the mother, you pardon everything. When father scolded us, you +came with a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your +teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say: +"I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you +are wrong." + +But see here, mother, this is what I have done: will you forgive me +this: + +I have invoked the truth, I have taken pains, I have climbed up, I have +striven, I have had radiant moments, days of flowering, and happiness +was the same age as myself. Mother, have you forgiven me this? + +I am not better-hearted than you, but it is the life about me which +demands that one do more, love more. This is what differentiates and +actually divides us. + +Everything that sings and invites one out into the good old world, the +"out-of-doors," seems pernicious to you. What you would have wanted was +to stand barring the door with your arms crossed and refuse me the fresh +air. You yourself avaricious but destitute would have liked me to salute +your avarice and praise your destitution. "Will you set yourself up in +judgment over your father and mother?" + +Mother, when children grow up, their eyes open.... And if my son sees me +fallen lower than his love, lower than my own love, let him accuse and +condemn me. + +No, it will not always be the same thing, as you say, for that depends +neither upon him nor you, but only upon me. You do not know, you do not +know! + +With its expiring breath the lamp sends out a blackish, leaping light, +which splashes shadows on the pendulous surroundings. + +I had never noticed the puffiness of her lids, nor the sharpness of her +cheekbones, nor the drooping corners of her tender mouth, nor the +flatness and thinness of her hair, which used to be full and flaming as +my own. Never before had I remarked the tragic similarity between the +dead and the sleeping. And I did not know that immutable Truth sometimes +has the ring of a curse and makes you cry, and yet is Truth. + + * * * * * + +The scissors gliding to the floor awakened her with a start. "What, +still crying?" + +She gave the lamp a shake to force a bit of light and said in her +resigned tone, instinctively but unconsciously touching my horrible +thought: "Wipe your eyes, dear ... the dead have to be forgotten...." + + +XV + +The storm raked the streets and stunned the houses.... All night long it +raged; and once the thunder crashed so close by that I jumped out of bed +terror-stricken to make sure the shutters were closed. + +The morning dawned sullen, dragging lazy, gray wings on the earth and +taking flight only at the furious onslaught of the wind. + +To comb my hair I seated myself close to the window with my face to the +mirror on the wall. + +Outside, the downpour and incessant sharp rattle, the blue-lacquered +roofs, the wan drift of the clouds. In front of me, an image which had +my name. + +The more eager a woman is to please, the less she sees _herself_ in the +mirror. What she sees is the idea others have of her, a sort of +consciousness of her power, the irrepressible desire to attract. + +When I sat down before the glass just now, I must have seen _myself_; +suddenly I felt afraid. + +I had raised the tumble of ringlets from my forehead and saw a gleam--my +first white hair. Then I scanned my face closely, pitilessly. At the +outer corners of my eyes a place was preparing for a fine meshwork which +would close up when I laughed. + +A mad need fell upon me--to see myself again and again. Around each +corner of my mouth an invisible line had chosen its pathway; the +perfect oval of my face slipped slightly from its frame; under the chin +there was an imperceptible mass which would never yield to any amount of +massage. + +I wanted to run away, I wanted to look, I wanted.... I tell you my heart +was leaping from between my ribs, so that you could have taken it in +your hand. + +How many years are there left?... Ten years?... Eight years?... Perhaps +only six in which to continue to be the very same woman I am. + +A day will come immersed in the other days, similar to the other days, +when this woman will be dead while I shall live. + +I try to question space. I turn in every direction. The storm has +increased. The rain is coming down in sheets and rebounding in mist. The +polished pavements are cracked by quivering little ripples. The tempest +drives the people ahead like leaves. + +Whence this dread which blows like a typhoon from the future, breathing +on my youth and freezing my blood? Whence these two words which gnaw at +my breast like a canker? Six years.... + +No, no, it is impossible. I believe in the deluge, in the thunder, in +misfortune, in oblivion. Not in that. Why should this face of mine with +its curves, its marble purity and its color change? Why? I have always +had a fair amount of courage, I have always done what I had to do, but +this renunciation, this hideous acquiescence. I haven't got the courage +for that, no, I haven't. + +I am prepared to accept death. If necessary, I will stretch my hands out +to it. Let the one moment of my life which wipes out the other moments +flow into nothingness. Take, strike, I am prepared.... + +But that "six years, no more," should be written on my face, that people +should see my face and I should hold it up smilingly like a ruthless +gift to those I love, that I should bear the signs upon me of dull +decay, wrinkles, falling hair, withered cheeks, and dimmed eyes.... What +if I refuse?... + +I could no longer bear to look into the mirror and see what was going to +be. I held my face to the pane on which a dismal music was drumming. + +I have had deep feelings as plentiful and coming as thick and fast as +these drops of rain; some feelings have been vaster than the soul +itself; but the only feeling truly like woman, the only feeling +essentially woman, which weds her soul while wedding her body, is the +immense desire to be beautiful. I have lived through my love of others, +I love my child as though I were still carrying it, yet all the time, +from waking up in the morning until going to bed at night, year in and +year out, from as far back as I can remember, I was cloaked and upheld +by a will to please. + +I was not more beautiful than other women, but I wanted to be. In spite +of me and in spite of themselves, the men hovered about me, lavish of +their glances. I moved like a ray of joy, life was a festival redder +than war; I expressed myself without saying a word, all hearts were +ready, they gave me more love than I asked for and almost as much as I +needed. + +That was the air I breathed and had to breathe. Is it good, is it bad? +It is an instinct which keeps turning rapidly round and round in you. If +you were to pull it up, it would sprout again. + +Then how can it be that some day, though I shall have done nothing to +bring it on, the territory of this indestructible instinct will be +clouded over and made barren forever after? How can it be that I shall +no longer please if I still want to please? + + * * * * * + +The rain is beating upon the streaked window-pane and glides down +against my cheeks in long transparent tears. Every chink in the room is +an inlet for the wind. Around me there is a wailing as if drawn from a +sad, dreary bowstring. + +Is it the woman of the mirror? Is it the woman that I am? You can't tell +which woman is speaking to the other woman.... + +"So you're of the sort to let yourself be disheartened? + +"You thought you had said all the good-byes there are to say in life. +There is one left, even more awful than the others. You have dragged +yourself over mouldering graves, yet when you arose you found something +to keep you alive. But as yet you are unworthy of this last good-bye: +To survive it, you need a grandeur you don't possess, a more solid +strength than the furtive power you're proud of. You believed you were +pure, and you were quite sure you lived in your entirety. Look!..." + +How ashamed I am, O God. What a stranger the woman opposite me is.... + + * * * * * + +At the outset I said to the husband I chose: "I shall cherish your +happiness as much as I cherish my love for you; and if ever your +happiness assumes the features of another woman, that woman shall be +dear to me." + +When another woman approached, I knitted my brows and formed a secret +vow to blacken her in his eyes. + + * * * * * + +He loved me as you love your life, as you sing, as you kiss. And I +reproached him for not leaning over close enough and telling me tender +things over and over again every day. I had plighted my troth; in order +not to take it back, I needed actions, words; to keep it, I had to put +his heart to the proof. + + * * * * * + +When I came to know another love, my instinct could not rise to the +height of my idea. I did not know how to bring the two men together, nor +did I know how to make the woman who loved him receive the truth. + +And I allowed useless people, useless existences to come to me. I saw +them fighting around me like quarrelsome, chattering sparrows around a +tree; I saw them pillage and carry away in their beaks the ripe fruit of +my days. To know how to live is to know how to choose. I did not know. + + * * * * * + +Everywhere shame. Everywhere in the past, the hell of what I have lost. + +These hands capable of everything have done almost nothing. I contented +myself with little and believed in humility. + +I silenced nearly every appeal within me. I let regard for others govern +and restrain me. I still feel how the imperious look of an unforgettable +passerby once tore me; the rude superior deprecation in that look was +like a cry rising above the night. Several indifferent persons were +about me, my spirit fixed upon them. Perhaps it was the last of my life +which a stranger mercilessly carried off in the depths of his being. I +let him pass. + + * * * * * + +I believed myself beautiful. Beauty is a promise which no woman has ever +kept. I have seen my features in the glass, but I have not looked for +the mission to which I was appointed. What human being ever perceives +that he wears a distinctive badge? + +The wind redoubles in strength and howls in the face of the sky. The +rain-spout near the window is choking, the drops rap-tap-tap on the +pane: "What have you done? What have you done?" + +Lord, I am looking myself in the face. While waiting for the light to +appear and the clouds to scatter, for the damp air to shine between the +drops of sunlight, for the good genius who must teach us to grow old, +for the inaccessible perfection for which I was built, I look and look +at myself.... + + * * * * * + +I went to the window to watch the storm and smoothe my hair. Leaning +toward the mirror it was God I found. + +God is there, I see Him approaching when I approach and smiling when I +smile, God who carries me and whom I carry, God palpitating with faith, +God who lowers His head.... + +I believe in myself. + + +XVI + +I cannot sleep. + +There's no good-bye to say, it is late, everything is ready, and yet I +am stifling in this empty room, which lives only through my sleeping son +and me. + +But he sleeps.... + +I hardly recognize him when he sleeps, and I have to go close to him. He +fell asleep a moment ago and is lying exactly the way I placed him, with +his arm outstretched. Is there anything tenderer and frailer to behold +than this little rounded face with its fine veins and pearly curves? +Beneath his sleep and the warmth of his cheeks, life is working, and +what a hurry it is in! + +I lean down closer, almost touching the fine down of gold on his +forehead, his velvety warmth, his scarcely perceptible breath. As +always, I feel both terrified and transported by this immense +littleness, and consumed by a longing to put my lips to him.... I draw +back: I must not wake him up. + + * * * * * + +I move away from the crib. The will to question the present which is +passing takes a stronger hold of me this evening than usual. + +No, it is not to you I turn, my child. + +The best in me, the true, God, and my soul do not concern you. + +Perhaps I am too hasty in saying this. Perhaps I have paid too much +attention to the gulf between my generation and the old blind +generation. Probably the gulf between your generation and mine is not so +deep, but when I look carefully I do not find that you are the profound +motive. + +Nothing holds out the promise that in the future we can really give each +other a single day. When I look at you, I am astonished that I gave you +life--it is such a miracle to have caused a creature to live. I am at +the verge of the space separating us. I do not find you there. I go my +way, you go your opposite way, and though there be nothing impossible in +the world, our mutual understanding is impossible. I shall never attain +to your height. + +You were born to contradict, since you must surpass, the palpitating +question that I am, my acts, their purpose. You, whom I carried in my +womb nine months, will never be anything but a stranger in my wet eyes +and to the kisses of my lips, a stranger who departs with my blood in +his veins. + +You have come. But I did not sink into the fatal pit that engulfs +mothers, the inevitable snare. It's so hard to resist the weak little +thing which can't talk. How can you be expected to resist? A woman +eclipses herself for the sake of the child she brings into the world, +and at the first cry, the mother is in danger. It is the mother we +should try to save. There's no need to be afraid that the +mother-instinct will cool off. The earth will cool off sooner! + +To have children. Love is born with them, but love is not enough. And to +try with all your might to fulfill your own destiny. And misfortune if +the children fall behind! + +Sleep, my little one.... + + * * * * * + +I have opened the window; the night breathes upon my face. In the wide +outdoors, where the darkness is naked and the freshness is blue, the +expanse opens out like a river. Below, the clustered houses--a sombre +vegetation, a confused, winking mass, a starry profundity, vast and +chaotic, with no boundary lines between city and sky. + +My eyes look tranquilly upon the black future piled up at my feet. My +eyes are no longer restless, because now I know for all time what the +future holds. I know that soon I shall be tired and go to sleep, and +when I wake up in the white daylight my son will put his arms round my +neck so prettily. I will smile, then the time for parting will come. The +hidden days contain the unknown.... But forever and ever it will be +suffering. + +The future is not a question you ask; it is the suffering that awaits +you. Suffering is the answer to every question, and every instant claws +the flesh. If you listen intently, you will hear that the echo of +everything is a sob. + +It is suffering. Suffering does not find a vent, it does not bleed in +any cry, it clings to you, and nothing reveals it because it is +omnipresent, so present and so plain that you can't look for or find it. +It is not the tears choking your throat, nor the groan at night, nor the +knell of a parting footstep, nor the mourning which stifles you, nor the +heart in your breast, for that would be too little. When suffering +begins with exuberant sunshine and mornings like a flourish of trumpets, +it is even more terrible because it is further away.... Suffering is +more. It is unlike anything else. It is regular, steady as the breath, +amazing, tolerable, and it is not the last word you say, it is also the +first word; it follows its mortal, monotonous course, and you realize it +has no name: to _live_ is to suffer. + +Is it human misery? No, human suffering. Stammering nights, groping +footsteps. Whither and why? No, there's no time to lose, you jump up and +go, go, because you haven't suffered enough yet. Look. + +When I leave to-morrow with my suffering in my breast I shall go in +advance of suffering. I shall not hesitate in the doorway. Looking back +into the room I shall not say what I have often said: "You are a bit of +myself, good-bye. Since my eyes will no longer be here to see you, give +them a picture of yourself to take along." + +Suffering is self-sufficient. You don't associate things with it, I +shall have my back turned, my body will be impatient to lean forward. I +no longer care for memories. + + * * * * * + +Not one. Not even the memory of you, my two dead lovers. Other dead are +further on, where I am going, or rather, other suffering. And your +suffering is over because you are dead. + +The pictures I have of you rise less and less frequently in my memory. +How I cherished them at first! Some especially.... That little +station-platform where we met ... the transparent morning flew ahead of +your footsteps, the spring was intoxicated, I ran into your outstretched +arms.... And the path where I cried, the sunset sinking away between the +branches, my head grazing your shoulder like a fruit falling from the +tree.... And another.... And another.... + +It is over. I carry you differently. Some of your ways, which I +acquired, stick to me from habit. My voice often has your inflection, +and when I am animated I feel I have made some of your ideas my own. If +I don't remember you so clearly, it is because I _live_ you and the +legacy you left me rises and falls with my breathing. + +In my fierce survival I have preserved only what is of use to me. All +the rest has decomposed; it is nothing to me any more. We should break +away from this burden of the dead. The dead are the living who have +abandoned us, and sooner or later, whether we wish to or not, we forget +them. + + * * * * * + +I loved my dead dearly, so dearly that it seemed to me my being inclined +towards them the moment they appeared--so dearly that because of them, +who have gone, love has remained. + +Love proclaims its law. You must show your love, it cries. + +Somewhere in the world to-night there are faces lying dormant for me, +persons to whom I have things to say. I am waiting for them, I stretch +my arms out to them, I know they will come because of my need for +embraces, a desire for caresses, so strong to-night that I jump up with +a start. It is as if half of my body were missing. I see myself deserted +and frightfully widowed, and my mouth quivers with hunger and thirst for +another mouth. + +I know a man is on the way. I shall recognize him. I shall have the +somewhat bitter audacity you must have in order to confess yourself the +immense thing you are. I shall stir him, I shall do everything; you can +go the full lengths of the sublime that dwells within you. + +As soon as he will rise above the horizon he will realize from my mere +expression that I have long lost the trick of lying. + +And when I read the first glance he gives me, when desire bewilders him +a little and forces him back within himself, I shall be happy to be +beautiful. Beneath his eyes my sound healthy self will brace up again, +my inexhaustible twenty-seven years, my rounded limbs, everything which +goes slightly to pieces when love is absent. Here is the offering, +blond, slim, laughing, which I already present to you.... He will +perceive uncomprehendingly that if I am a little more beautiful than +myself, it is because by virtue of loving one comes to resemble the love +one feels. + +When he will have looked at me long, I will explain what each of my +features means; I will speak. Because silence is beautiful after the +last words, and it is the woman who has the most to say. + +I may have a stronger expression than other women, perhaps a slightly +more taciturn expression, too. My solitude would account for this. Women +are not sufficiently alive to the fact that one should live alone, +depart alone, and return alone, and that there is no one outside one's +self. No one. In going to meet love again, I who have been twice widowed +and have my child to make me feel more isolated, shall find nothing but +another solitude. To be sure, there will be kisses, meetings, a symphony +of voices. Yet in spite of everything to know you're alone, all the +time.... + +All the time.... + +If I had reached this secure kingdom through my own power I should be +very proud. But I don't deserve the credit. My dead lovers gave me this +awful superhuman gift. For there comes a moment when you have taken from +some one else everything there was to be taken. Without his noticing he +becomes useless, he must disappear. Who resigns himself to this? + +My lovers bestowed upon me the love I was capable of, attentive and +complete, they bestowed upon me the intelligence of my blood, my tears +and my words.... And then they gave me up. They performed this supreme +deed. + +And now when enlarged by love I desire love again, I give it its place. +Love is not the essential thing. I have often said: "Life, my life." The +phrase has assumed the shape of my lips because it says the essential +thing. Love, after all is nothing but the most beautiful moment. + +I summon all the moments of my life. Even the least thrilling cling just +as deeply by roots of flesh. + +Life wishes to become what it never has been: It is ready, it is +empty.... Until to-night human words filled it saying: + +"Nothing changes here below; nothing can possibly change: love goes on +from age to age, death was and will be, life is forever the same, and +man is always man." To express this the word "eternal" has been +invented. + +I do not know. I came, I, a woman, and like every other creature, I too +began by loving. Life was _not_ the same, I swear it was not the same. +Life had a different taste, I shouldered it differently, and my death, +while resembling other deaths, does not exist by the same idea. + +I am; everything is changed. + +And even if I had never lived, other women are ready to change the +earth. You can't tell yet what the women of my generation are capable +of. They themselves don't know altogether. + +The memory of what they have always been told weighs upon them. Man is a +fierce, greedy lover. With bloodshot eyes like a blind man, he has +fallen upon the feverish couch where lies the vanquished enemy. He has +brought his boiling sap, and between his clasped arms a great +tenderness. When he has risen from the couch, he has been sad, his eyes +have been wasted, his tenderness worn out. And he has said: "This is +woman." + +This has lasted long. I do not know if there hasn't been some reason for +it. I simply say I live. I am honest, exact, I have muscles of steel, I +like people to say what is, I am loyal, willing, I earn my living, and I +am inured to suffering. What truth does one fail to recognize when it +shows its face? + +I think. I want. I know. + +It has taken me a long time to take in the humble things I now know. I +commenced with very little; my youth passed in chaos, I had to suffer +very much. So it is not chance, random truths that I follow. I do not +set limits to them. Even my death will not disprove them. Thus, a few +scattered fragments hover. I snatched and caught them in moments of +alert intelligence, I held them fast with my willing heart, I gripped +them between clenched teeth to keep from losing them. + + * * * * * + +The wind rises on the right. Is it not the wind that has extinguished +those dots of gold, the houses, without deepening the dark of the town? + +I see the wind, it is blowing near. And here, immobile, upright in my +heavy rectitude, I share with the wind the moments which are driving it +on. One by one. I fly with them, one by one. + +I go where they are going, even elsewhere, and my death perhaps is far +from reaching its limits. It has been on the way a long time, it will +stop when I am completely tired out, when there will be nothing more for +me to do, when my breath will not be an indispensable breath. Then that +will be all. They say it is hard to die. Does that mean that the world +holds something more tragic than life? + +The wind has swollen the whole sky. The sky is ready to drop down from +on high--ah, let the sky fall! The wind pins itself to my face. It has +become so violent that I cross my arms on my breast to brave it. The +infinite future, as though it too were swollen, approaches the houses. + +How can I tell what the future holds? No use searching the violet depths +of the horizon or breathing in the whole of the sky. The times to come +are beyond my reach. They give no sign. + +There, below, all I see is my own existence. But how I see it! Flashing, +assiduous, full of free spaces, brooding, crimson in my veins, paling +slightly at the horizon, departing in the starless wind, and returning +in haste to my limbs. + +The woof of the night has changed color again. + +Can it be that what I am is a promise of something that should be? + + * * * * * + +The wind blows stronger. + +No, it is not for nothing that to-night I am drawing a deeper breath +than on all other nights, a breath stronger than my strength, rising up +over my life. + +Night passes, as pure as a summoning voice. + +Then it must be, Lord, that soon, perhaps at dawn, you must go further +than your journey and, in flashes of your being, reach heights higher +than everything you have said, live to the last drop of your blood, live +more than life? + +Here I am. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman, by Magdeleine Marx + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 33943-8.txt or 33943-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/4/33943/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Woman + +Author: Magdeleine Marx + +Translator: Adele Szold Seltzer + +Release Date: October 5, 2010 [EBook #33943] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>WOMAN</h1> + +<h2>By MAGDELEINE MARX</h2> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Introduction by</span><br /> +HENRI BARBUSSE</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Translated by Adele Szold Seltzer</span></h3> + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +THOMAS SELTZER<br /> +1920</h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1920, by<br /> +THOMAS SELTZER, Inc.</h3> + +<h3><i>First printing June, 1920</i><br /> +<i>Second printing July, 1920</i></h3> + +<h3>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h3> + +<h3><i>All rights reserved</i></h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK I <span class="smcap">Being Born</span></a><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK II <span class="smcap">Being</span></a><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III <span class="smcap">Becoming</span></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>A splendid book in which a soul lives so profoundly human and so purely +feminine that any words of introduction seem leaden and intrusive. You +feel as though you were violating the essential delicacy and powerful +life of this soul to comment upon the remarkable revelation of it +between the very covers that contain the revelation.</p> + +<p>Yet, as a modest friend of letters, I should like to express an opinion +here—the author did not ask me for it—and pay homage to the brilliant +originality of this work. I want to give myself the pleasure of saying +how important I think it is.</p> + +<p>It expresses—and this is a fact of considerable literary and moral +import—what has never been exactly expressed before. It expresses +Woman.</p> + +<p>The more woman has been spoken about, you might say, the less she has +been revealed. She has been hidden under a plethora of words. The +supreme vision rising up out of these pages is as luminous as a heavenly +revelation. From the author's tone, so simple and penetrating, you +perceive that women feel differently about the things that we men see +and proudly proclaim.</p> + +<p>The thought and spirit of <i>Woman</i> will be a surprise and a shock to the +old masculine traditions, in which women also acquiesce, probably +because of their old traditions of slavery. But we know that always and +everywhere the opposition such thought arouses is sublimely lacking in +truth.</p> + +<p>Here is a woman who cries out with magnificent impressive sincerity +against the fallacy of the maternal instinct—the "call of the +blood"—against the exclusiveness of love; who knows and asserts that +death kills only the dead, and not those who are left behind; who +recreates in new forms the law and the creed of the relations between +man and woman, motherhood, and suffering. And this new expression of +woman—a new expression, therefore, of the whole of life—this striking +gospel, young and strong, which overcomes artificial, unnatural ideas, +resounds at the very time when woman is at last entering humanity and is +preparing to change her rôle of breeder of children and handmaid in +common.</p> + +<p>The book is strictly, religiously objective. Everything is perceived +only through the eyes, the mind, the heart of the "heroine"—the word +usage thrusts upon us for this woman who has no name, who is just truly +herself. Through the commanding will of the author the creative richness +of the book springs altogether from the magnificent oneness of a human +being. No outside approach mars this unity. In no other book perhaps so +markedly as in this has the integrity of an individual been more +respected, and never has an imaginary character so consistently warded +off whatever is not of itself. You don't even seem to feel that this +"Woman" talks or tells a story. You simply know what she knows.</p> + +<p>And because of this very fact, this intimate association which unites us +jealously with this one being of all others, the book is poignant and +moving. A world is born beneath our eyes. In some scenes, short or long +but always important and vital, a tragedy shudders, and the entire +succession of the events of life, ordinary and on a big scale, passes in +the book in clear outline, in essential poetry.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>To say this is to say that the author is a master, that her technique is +subtle, that the action concentrates all the dramas of the world in one +spiritual drama, and the book reveals a prodigious gift for presenting a +whole of vast impressions which creates unity.</p> + +<p><i>Woman</i> does not belong to any class of writing; it is not tied down by +any formula; it does not lower itself by imitating. It is a powerful, a +rebel, a virgin work, and it ranks Magdeleine Marx among the loftiest +poets of our age.</p> + +<p><i>HENRI BARBUSSE.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_I" id="BOOK_I"></a>BOOK I</h2> + +<h3><i>BEING BORN</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>The sun was beginning to shine.</p> + +<p>I had been walking and walking....</p> + +<p>I had just left the brambly path which cuts a bed of sand through the +forest, laying bare its rusty bowels.</p> + +<p>I felt full-fed by the subtle nourishment that space distils, crammed +with air, and my forehead seemed drawn taut. Was it the motes dancing in +the sunbeams? I don't know. I was spent. The fancy throbbed beneath my +temples, did its work, and I let it go.</p> + +<p>You must have been sincere at least once in your life to know what an +hour is face to face with yourself, a whole hour, step by step, minute +by minute. And I never had been sincere. Now I escaped from my clogging +limbs, from the clay of myself. Until now I had done nothing but breathe +and sleep. All of a sudden I was alive. It was intoxicating....</p> + +<p>Dizzy though I was I felt an exhausting need to keep on going.</p> + +<p>I penetrated deep into the woods walking at random, my mind almost a +blank. When the leafy undergrowth enclosed me, I let myself slide to the +ground on to the dried-up grass, the fallen twigs, and the crackling +russet pine-needles.</p> + +<p>All about in a dense circle, the rugged plant life. A moving splendor +in the play of the varying greens. Damp, aromatic smells. And a sense of +invisible swarming life everywhere....</p> + +<p>The silence, so fresh and penetrating, was like a living thing, and I +turned round several times thinking I heard some one behind me panting. +No one. The uneven trunks of the great trees; lower down, behind their +serrated green, a slate-colored screen of mist; here, the +shadow-broidered ground; above, the patches of blue sky—and I.</p> + +<p>I....</p> + +<p>I was a little ashamed to link my Self to myself in this way, to give my +Self its value. The old attitude of humility, of attaching no importance +to Self—was that going to begin again? Now I felt more profoundly alone +than in the harmonious exaltation I had experienced while walking. In a +mixture of alarm and idleness I tried not to remain motionless, but to +plant my elbows on the ground and lie flat on the grass with my head +between my hands, so as to divert myself with living noise.... I could +not.</p> + +<p>Then I stretched out on my back, my eyes fixed on the sky, my body +relaxed; and the full-blooded tide of my thoughts flowed over me.</p> + +<p>They flowed on, of themselves, no longer halting, as they had on the +walk, on the edge of each discovery; I no longer kept saying to myself +as when I hammered out my pitiless steps: "I have lied, I have always +lied, I have lived only on the outskirts of my life...." The air was +still, the soul alone sounded, and the soul also was at peace. I went +down into the depths—to find the soul's sweet beginnings, I suppose.</p> + +<p>There were no beginnings. Though my early memories came back obediently, +they were not illuminating. The catechism.... With outstretched hands +and rounded voice, the Abbé Daudret was telling of the wicked, those +whom the Almighty was waiting to punish in the hereafter. Crushed by the +word wicked, stifled by the heavy solemnity of the church, withdrawn +into my littleness, I comprehended, with dull, recurring pangs, that I +was among the damned, I, the model little girl. We went home again; I +was calm, unruffled, obedient, but if any one used the word sinful in my +hearing, if I came across it threatening in black and white, I felt as +if a brutal fist had struck my shoulder; I blushed, a swift remorse +flamed in my bowels; that word was meant for me, <i>I</i> was the guilty one.</p> + +<p>At last one day I found out why I was guilty. I had not known before.</p> + +<p>I had been summoned to the small drawing-room; the shutters were closed; +my mother, a dim figure in the twilight, was saying good-bye to a lady +in deep mourning whose veil framed a face of alabaster. How beautiful +she was! The quivering shadows made a halo around her. I scarcely dared +to approach her because I remembered the whispers that buzzed about her +name and the envy that glittered in the eyes of the women. How beautiful +she was!... Her heavy lashes weighed down her lids.... I wanted to say +something to her, just one word. I could not, could not even repeat what +my mother, leaning towards me, told me to say.... As the lady was +leaving she turned in the doorway, fixed her great wide eyes on me and +said with an even sadder note in her velvety voice: "The child is going +to be beautiful."</p> + +<p>I heard myself exclaim with joy. As soon as the door closed, I ran to +the glass, which seemed to be waiting for me. My whole being was aflame +as I raised myself on tiptoe to receive the first echo of her words from +the mirror.... But my mother was already coming back and saying +severely: "You know it isn't true...." I was still on tiptoe. "You are +ugly!" My spirits dropped and instantly were bottled up in me. +Everything was clear, I understood, I understood....</p> + +<p>It was an epitome of my life. The seasons passed; I maintained silence, +always, hiding my good qualities, hiding my bad qualities, encountering +only remorse between the two extremes; for it is by remorse that they +are joined together.</p> + +<p>Consequently my mind stored up no happening, no deeper or fainter +impression, only remorse. Remorse never left me.</p> + +<p>But yes, it did leave me, just now, suddenly, at the bend of the road, +where the bank slopes gently down to the ditch, when I bowed my head to +the thought, "They think me gentle, simple, just like the others; they +say I am cleverer. It is only because I dissemble more than the +others."</p> + +<p>At that I raised my eyes.</p> + +<p>"What after all does my lying matter to them? Do they want the truth? +No. They spurn it, scourge it, hunt it down. They are not worth trying +to find out the truth for. Enough."</p> + +<p>The sunshine seemed to tighten its clutch on the earth and whitewashed +the pathway.</p> + +<p>"But it is not this matter of lying that one must bewail; the point is, +there is an essential <i>something else</i>. There is—I feel there is—the +true life, my life, and it is this true life that I have betrayed. My +true life is now pushing on, bravely, along the gray stony path.... I +don't know where it is going, nor what it is, since I have never seen it +in anything that I have done, but it must live. If I die for it, what +does it matter? It will live on. It was hidden in my body, it stayed +there ashamed of itself, then came at night to beset me with its sadness +and put me to sleep with the taste of dust and ashes on my lips; and in +the morning, as soon as my eyes opened, was it the light that flooded +over me, painted the walls of my room with flame, and instantly died +away?"</p> + +<p>The blue density of the forest, the corrugated, soaring columns of the +trees, high and distinct in their parallel lives, the clear quivering +azure are all around me. Where is their obscure will?</p> + +<p>I have come to these things, I have lain down in their midst, I have +watched them. Before these things one no longer lies. And behold, I +find myself.</p> + +<p>I see myself as I am.</p> + +<p>My heavy hair, flame-colored, which gives out little glints of light +above my forehead, my complexion with the mother-of-pearl coloring of +the full daylight, the violet reflections in my eyes deepened by the +scanty shade of the trees, the firm red line of my lips, and beneath my +light dress, the fleet suppleness encased in my limbs.</p> + +<p>Is it possible? I am no longer ashamed to be like this, nor to <i>know</i> +what I am like. I have let fall, at last, like a bothersome mask, the +modest air that makes people say: "She's all the prettier because she +doesn't know she's pretty."</p> + +<p>Do you think, pray, that there is a single woman in the world who, if +she is good looking, doesn't know it?</p> + +<p>I know, I know with a vengeance, that I am beautiful; I know it better +than anything else about myself. There are not only looking-glasses, +there are all the men. Whether old man, beggar, or chance passerby, you +drink in, in one long intoxicating draught: "I am beautiful." And the +women, if you know the terror in their eyes, the appeal, the envy, and +their mute defense.... You seem unaware, smiling, distant, but you are +on the eager watch for the pain you inflict.</p> + +<p>To please.... In the presence of other people to please is wicked +vanity, strutting, flaunting vanity; but here, on the bony ground, it is +simply a bit of me. It is a power which has been given me, I shall not +give it back; it is merely a harmony, a response to the beauty I feel, a +craving to convince, a very strong craving; my life is lovelier than I.</p> + +<p>My life is here. But what makes up my life? Not entirely my rosy good +health, nor this firm equilibrium which exercises control in the centre +of my being. My health and poise are, chiefly, the things that remove me +from my life. My life is a need to use my muscles, it is vigorous +movement, it is the notion I have that I can crush the world between my +arms; yes, the longing to run, to take part in everything, to shout +aloud, to dance; this animal ardor and glow in movement, this +uncontrollable blood, this body swelling with liberty, with sap, with +bursts of laughter, this unexpected gift of myself to myself, this +curiosity and contentment, this zest and turmoil....</p> + +<p>I have heard others speak of youth, I have seen the word of quicksilver +glitter on the pages of books; I am still ignorant of its meaning; I am +not quite twenty.</p> + +<p>I hug to me all that is mine; it is not much. At first there was nothing +above my head but a liquid ocean of silence, I saw nothing but a forest +without perspective, but my watchful solitude became supernatural; and +now as I see the solemnity of the trees, their strong solid reaching up +towards heaven, as I see <i>myself</i>, I feel very deeply that I am alive +for the first time.</p> + +<p>I do not wish to think of the future. Let the future wait for me; it is +as if a new era were beginning....</p> + +<p>And may memory never take possession of this morning of utter unreserve; +memory might distort it. And may memory never say: "This was the day of +your birth and you were excited."</p> + +<p>I am not unduly excited.... The present is always very simple. The sun +is only an iridescent frolic, which flits and laughs without resting on +the chapped bark of the pines.</p> + +<p>This moment—this and none other—is made up of my robust body, the +lullaby rustle of the wind-stirred leaves, the fragrance of resinous +wood, the screech of a great bird, and the sky cleft by its black and +white passage.</p> + +<p>No illumination or help from elsewhere. Slowly, gropingly, by great +effort, I arrive at lukewarm moments in which it is as though my head +were leaning on my heart. Am I going to <i>know</i> at last and make up my +mind? But when I put my hand on my breast, everything collapses and I +have to begin all over again.</p> + +<p>It is because there is an empty past which rings to the touch like an +empty bowl, a lack of practice which benumbs your arms, a sort of +shame.... You don't attain to your real truth at the first attempt.</p> + +<p>And then above all—you must be honest with yourself—you don't seek +your true self with a <i>constant</i> heart; far oftener you try to distract +your mind from the thought of it. About me on the ground are patches of +light, and I am simply bent upon catching them. I stretch out my hand, +stoop down, put my cheek to them, they quiver and vanish; in their place +a piercing warmth steals dancing over my face.</p> + +<p>Then, without my having done anything and without my being worthy of it, +the sacred mood of revolt returns, lifts me up, and forces me to my +knees; I hear the rising breath of a sudden call....</p> + +<p>Is it my life, O God? Whither does it go—answer!—when it develops in a +deep breast, and you approach, again and again, as I am now approaching, +something infinite whose name you seek to know?</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Will the noise never stop? But there are walls to shut it out.</p> + +<p>Let them hop about, shout, dance, amuse themselves. As for me, I have +left them, I am alone in my room, I don't want to see or hear them any +more.</p> + +<p>I burrow my head desperately in the dark depths of the cushions. In +vain. The eddying music follows its implacable course, drapes its +arabesques of melody about me, and when I stop my ears, still keeps +whirling round and round.</p> + +<p>A mazurka. Who was it begged for a mazurka? Ah yes, I remember. When I +left the group of young girls sitting on the watch, a quivering basket +of artificial flowers, one of them was saying: "After the mazurka, I'll +take <i>him</i> out into the garden, where I'll manage to make him kiss me."</p> + +<p>Which of them? It is easy to imagine her: they are all alike. She +laughs, I am certain, and expands her budding breasts; her beaded tunic +sparkles and strikes a rivulet of light against her pretty legs; she has +glossy hair faultlessly dressed and when she turns round in the mazurka, +you see she has one of those plump, discreet faces over which feelings +slide without leaving a mark.</p> + +<p>But I am forgetting. Mother had to take part in the dance too, as it was +the only one she knew and it unrolled tender memories. She braced +herself, then started off, her features gently composed, leaning on my +father, who accommodated his step to hers while seeming to guide her. +"Let's see, that's not it ..." and they set out again—one, two, three, +four—heavy, both of them, with their reputation as a happy, united +couple, and laden with the looks that follow them.</p> + +<p>If one knew....</p> + +<p>The engaged couples have disappeared, swallowed up by the nearest dark +corners, where passion is of scarlet and nothing exists but arms and +lips and bodies surmised. When the music will have finished and they +will have reappeared, the chatter and the sharp raw laugh of the young +fiancée will be heard; she will open her eyes wide, like this; her +childish mouth will be seen, and her slim figure, which retains an air +of awkward shyness. "How unsophisticated she is," they will say in +gratitude to her for being an example of the velvety purity of the young +girls.</p> + +<p>The last measures. They are all perspiring, out of breath, soberly +triumphant, and as they go back to their chairs each man gives a last +squeeze of the slender arm he is about to relinquish.</p> + +<p>My father is entirely engrossed in his guests; he has led mamma, dizzy, +back to her chair, and has moved off. As she sits there with her +eyelashes fluttering, you would think she has returned from a wonderful +long journey. "I am happy, happy," she is reflecting. "I have such a +good husband." The wounds of every day are closed—they have to be +overlooked—and if any cloud darkens the horizon, it is that she is +thinking of me: "But that is what marriage means, my little daughter; +you'll see, it is just a big renunciation: you will change, you too, and +do like the rest; look at me; am I unhappy?"</p> + +<p>No, you are not unhappy, my poor little mother, with your injured voice, +your charitable eyes, and your lifeless gestures; you are dead; it is +twenty years since you have had a will of your own, a desirous look, a +single manifestation of impatience, a stray impulse, an hour, anything +you can call your own; it is twenty years since you renounced. But your +husband never goes out, he has his wife and children, he earns your +living, a comfortable living; everyone respects him, and "one cannot +have everything."</p> + +<p>As for you, you can live contentedly with a twenty-year-old unhappiness +upon your shoulders; you breathe, you go about; the women around you +have the same fate, and this sustains you. But we, mother, who are +different, the daughters of my generation, we who have sensual hearts, +reasoning minds, new energies—<i>I</i>, who have done nothing, I cannot, I +tell you, and if a future is given me, I want to snatch whatever it +holds.</p> + +<p>The music has stopped; I cannot hear them any more.... It is as if my +heart were beginning to live.</p> + +<p>The tangible darkness of the room deepens little by little. Its peace, +its solitude. I can distinguish the walls, or rather the vaporous +shadows of walls, the windows where the cold light of the garden is +paling, the indistinct rectangle which stretches along the ceiling ... +and in that silence in which God is rooted is the hunted soul returning +to its place.</p> + +<p>Ah, shattered again! The music sets the hubbub going....</p> + +<p>Besides, certain words are too beautiful, and you say them to intoxicate +yourself, but when they are gone, you realize, your arms are empty.</p> + +<p>I asked myself: "What is youth?" This is what youth is: that terrible +thing, that sin, that torture which one must stifle: it is my pure +intoxication defiled by their impure intoxication. I wanted to sing my +youth, give it out, exhale it. Jeering life is below, with its people, +its fouling habits, its sneers and titters. They were quite right; you +can't escape it. You must adapt yourself to it; it is the law. I will +adapt myself; I will have a husband; he will be kind, faithful; there +will be no one beside him; he will be all in all to me; he will skirt +the shores of my being; he will pronounce judgment on all my actions, my +comings and goings, my looks; his word will be final. I shall lie in his +bed every night; he will see my timid body, my naked sleep, my sleeping +life; he will stand upright in my life as in a garden which one is not +afraid to ravage, and when truth will pass by us, he will sit still and +let it pass.</p> + +<p>I shall have no more confused desires, no more sudden impulses of +kindliness, no more agonized expectancy, and no more of those +questionings which make a stifling desert about me. I shall be +satisfied. If my hell returns at times to visit me, that red-eyed +narrow-chested hell, my husband will be there, seated opposite me at +table; he will raise his head. "What's the matter, aren't you hungry?"</p> + +<p>The soul, the essence, the deep voice from within—words, mere words.... +There is nothing but the noise below. And only that. And I must return +to it. Well, come on, go down, speak, smile. All existences are alike. +When there is no longer a single lie left to tell, it means the time has +come to die.</p> + +<p>Why obstinately wish to discover a way out and knock your head against a +stone wall? There is no way out. You must not cherish the impossible; +get up and go gaily downstairs. A little cold water, a little powder; +this is a grief you are not permitted to indulge in.</p> + +<p>Once again and for all time I shall go to them. If they are boisterous, +spineless, unobservant, with no warmth in them, perhaps after all at +some time at the bottom of their hearts they have felt, if only vaguely +and vanishingly, the jealous fever which weighs like a heart; perhaps +they have suffered; perhaps in looking back, when the sunshine has burst +forth, they have understood that the period of their twenties was +sacred. The twenties! And we, the youth, say to ourselves: wisdom is +within us, the future is within us, and reason, salt, blood, the truth. +It is ourselves, only ourselves. And we wish to open our hearts and say +to those who pass: "Come to us, ask us. It is from us that everything +can be learned; we can explain the secret things, the inner meanings, +the words hidden in the folds of the body, the startling confessions +that are breathed on the highways, everything that is changeful, for +nothing is permanent but change; we know everything, and more than +everything; we who have never loved, we know the whole of love." Perhaps +<i>they</i>, the dancers downstairs, have stretched out their arms, tasted +the fresh morning with their lips, felt the beating of a heart of sobs; +perhaps they have once <i>been</i> their hope. I shall do what they have +done; it is my turn; my time for withering will surely come too.</p> + +<p>The farandole! Ah, they are holding each other's hands, the old folks +are also joining in. "Let's enjoy ourselves!" Their faces are tense, and +above their footsteps and above the avalanche of their bodies, I hear +the shrill cries of the young girls.</p> + +<p>They are leaving the drawing-room; it sounds as if they were +approaching.</p> + +<p>Don't come here. Even if it is dark in this room, even if I have wept, +and even if the walls have taken on this aspect of distress, it does not +mean that I can be reduced to your level.</p> + +<p>The galop moves faster, wilder. The chain in the center is flung +together in a heap, those at the end are almost scattered. The last one +waves his arm in the air. The noise sickens me.</p> + +<p>The floor of my room quivers. I will go down, I will go down to them....</p> + +<p>But not yet....</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>It is done....</p> + +<p>How shall I bring myself to believe it, how tell myself it is true, that +<i>it</i> is done, that it is an accomplished fact? And why is it that an +absurd recollection obsesses me instead of the thing that has just taken +place? Recollections are not considerate. They thrust themselves upon +you willy-nilly.... It was one day when I was still little and wore my +hair in a plait down my back tied with a red ribbon. An idea struck me +and set me all a-quiver, to surprise my mother by secretly filling her +vase with flowers, the beautiful blue vase with the band of gold, erect +on its massive pedestal like a slim thing on a throne. I was very +careful, I held my breath, my movements were sedulously controlled.... +The vase toppled and made a clear, ringing sound. I can still hear it. +My father came in unexpectedly. He stopped—he always was severe—took +me by the shoulder, and shook me like a wind-tossed sapling. Then he +dragged me to my room and on the threshold gave me a slap which sent me +staggering. There was a whistling in my ears. I was drunk, dazed, +completely bewildered.... Then he shut the door.</p> + +<p>When I came to my senses, I ran to the glass, I don't know why, for +nothing, "just to see." A wine-colored mark streaked with red was +spreading over my cheek. I held the back of my hand up and felt the glow +even without touching it.</p> + +<p>It was burning, but, oddly enough, it did not hurt. I was conscious of +not suffering pain, and instantly a sadness filled me, utter and sudden +as a bitter flood. I didn't know why I was sad. Even now I only glimpse +the reason imperfectly. Children who are simple are also more subtle +than we. It was my fate to be defrauded, not to have a definite reason +for shedding tears over myself, not to suffer in real earnest from an +undeserved punishment, not to be able to cherish the compensation or +possess the impregnable asylum, the inexhaustible resource that grief +always is. It was when I touched my cheek which did not hurt that I +threw myself on my bed crying, alone, yes really alone for the first +time. And to-night it is just the same way.</p> + +<p>I have run away from home. Here I am cast out on the street in the +night. There is a fine blinding sleet; I do not know as yet where I am +going to spend the night, but that doesn't hurt any more than the slap +on my cheek hurt. Am I unfeeling? I push on straight ahead, the houses +follow one another, the streets meet and cross, the separate shadows are +only one and the same shadow. I stop now and then arrested by the +consciousness of having forgotten to suffer.</p> + +<p>I have been walking a good hour.</p> + +<p>How penetrating the night is. An hour of utter aloneness, an hour empty +and bare. Ah, that it may be so until the end. Let misery come, the +unknown, humiliations, but let the truth come also. You perish trying to +do without the truth....</p> + +<p>That scene.... Can the memory of it be annihilated, so that nothing +remains, not even the grotesque memory of a memory?</p> + +<p>He blazed with fury, he lashed the air first with one arm then the +other; his features swelled with rage and suddenly looked youthful.... +Now that I come to think of it, he looked exactly the same as on the day +of the blue vase, only this time he did not dare to slap me. That's why +he gesticulated so wildly. I listened to him at first with an +indifferent air; I was accustomed to his storms—well, the thing would +soon blow over. And before my eyes the familiar scene, which the +lighting up of the chandelier always placidly ushered in, was being set +according to the daily ritual—the smoking tureen, which Leontine, who +had entered with her padded tread, was placing on the table (she removed +her red hands, finger by finger, and stole her sidewise glance at me), +and the transparent play of the glasses, with iridescent stems giving +back the glitter of the silver and the white sheen of the tablecloth.</p> + +<p>Although my eyes were occupied in following intently the details of the +dinner-table, a heavy travail was going on within me. A legion of +slumbering desires, halting impulses, dead aspirations were rousing +themselves noiselessly, almost without my consciousness. Thoughts that +come in the morning when one's eyes open, "To-day! to-day," hopes dashed +to the ground, deceptions, sighs—their tune rose to the surface and +changed to a peal which drew me on. Yet I remained on the spot, like a +beast with lowered head led by a rope.</p> + +<p>I saw his gesture in time.</p> + +<p>He was advancing towards me, his fist raised. Did he mean to strike? +What did it matter? I was no longer in a condition to judge. A roll of +thunder was shivering my inner trouble into a thousand bits, there was a +flash of lightning which unloosened everything, even my tongue. I was +speaking, I was speaking at last....</p> + +<p>What did I say? Really, almost nothing, because in the frantic swiftness +of his anger he broke in upon my first words. "Get out, get out!" He +showed me his hand as if he were cursing his hand, too, forever.</p> + +<p>The door closing behind me made a very long and very impressive sound.</p> + +<p>I was on the landing of the staircase. No sound. The electric light +cruelly exaggerated the red spiral of the carpet and touched each copper +bar of the banisters with a tiny comet.</p> + +<p>Alone.</p> + +<p>And suddenly ... what did it all mean? I no longer understood. +That outburst of cries, that tempest, that sort of comedy, my +reply ... what ... I went and sat down, tempted equally to laugh and to +cry. I wanted to think ... but it was already done, an almost outside +force was pushing me off my hinges. "Escaped!" I was like a prisoner who +sees the door left open inadvertently.</p> + +<p>I knocked gently, my entire presence of mind returning to me in a rush. +Leontine came with a pseudo-contrite expression and an air of saying +"Hush!" while beneath her manner was the concentrated delight of an +animal lying in wait. "They are at dinner," she whispered while I got my +things together, a frock, a blouse, some toilet articles, a little +money, some linen, a few books.</p> + +<p>I closed the front door on myself, slowly, without faltering, slowly. It +was done. It was not difficult.</p> + +<p>A faint wind blew from the street below which chilled me.... Ah, you are +trembling already, you are drawing back. That fine courage of yours, +where is it? Where is your all-powerful will, and your still surer +hope?...</p> + +<p>It was not out of cowardice that I was trembling; but as I advanced +towards my Self, street by street, house by house, through my first +ordeal, I got a blunter, deeper knowledge of my Self, and a sudden fear +entered my breast.</p> + +<p>I am really not a strong person. What had been struggling in me so +forcibly was not my own strength; it was simply the reaction from the +<i>others</i>. A strong person would know at the very first step what mandate +to derive from the power animating him; before destroying he would have +built up. When a bird finds its cage open and takes flight, it does not +hesitate, it has the idea of space, it spreads its wings, it knows where +to fly, and how high.</p> + +<p>I know nothing. I am setting out, that's all. Neither before nor behind +me is the irresistible urge which is the start of a great career. Nor do +I see close by the rising shape of my life. Nor about me is the ringing +mirth of faery liberty. Nothing but a little tiredness, a little +emptiness in my head, a little emptiness in my heart.... I am not a +strong person.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, mother, good-bye to your transparent eyes, to your shoulders +which will always shrug for the wrong side, good-bye to your tender +lying.</p> + +<p>You see, I am no longer faint-hearted, because I can walk away from you +forever and venture upon a vague future without a glow of eagerness. All +I need is something to beckon to me.... There is nothing ahead of me +except the quiet artery of a thoroughfare hemmed in by inky houses and +the darkness, which melts away at the panes of the street-lamps and +makes them dance and quiver below and twinkle like eyes at the top. +Liberty has the taste of fog....</p> + + +<p>BOARDING-HOUSE</p> + +<p>Shall I cross this unfriendly threshold covered with a mangy rug? I +should so much like to stop walking and go to sleep. Shall I choose this +house which exhales the smell of a cellar, this gloomy shelter, these +dingy walls? Shall I....</p> + +<p>Come on, fate is everywhere. This is the place I must enter.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>I have found work....</p> + +<p>A fortnight, a hundred hopes, a fortnight.... The unfriendly atmosphere +of stiff faces. "The position is filled." Stairs mounted four steps at a +time, then descended gravely, catechisms begun with questions that +embarrass and so often ending with questions that make you blush. Then +one fine day—by what magic?—the position is not filled, and you +answer yes to everything required; the sky is clear, you will start +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>I have not drained to its dregs the joy there is in working at my +nondescript job from morning until evening. To work for your bread, to +feel dignified and straight. You cannot talk, to be sure, but at least +you do not lie, you are in repose, you let the waves of your being pile +up, and every evening you return to a docile home, where the silence is +always nigh to flowering....</p> + +<p>The boarding-house, however, is not hospitable; you never satisfy your +hunger, and my narrow room with its threadbare carpet and mouldy ceiling +is like a badly kept cage. But it's Sunday morning and I have undertaken +to make it inviting.</p> + +<p>A handkerchief twisted about my hair, a white blouse and bare arms.... +By persisting and rubbing again, by chasing the dust, by trying a place +for the books twenty times over, by pushing the chairs about, by +scraping away the layers of encrusted filth, I am bound to triumph. To +judge of the effect, I stop several times and perch on the tattered arm +of the red-flowered armchair; the place looks better already. But to it +again!</p> + +<p>No pictures, no ornaments. I have taken down the sentimental prints +hypocritically concealing the scars of the wall-paper. Nothing but the +bare room and the high window with its dim panes.</p> + +<p>The bed of a doubtful mahogany burrows into the bashful retreat of the +alcove. The wardrobe would wabble if it were not secured by a thick +rope tied to the rosette on the front. The rosette is typical of a +curious character that the room has for all its dinginess. There was an +attempt to decorate with a profusion of flowers. Flowers everywhere, +spread broadcast over the walls, cutting off the corners of the +wash-boards, and trailing their sallow procession in a border around the +top of the walls. They are even woven into the stuff on the back of the +armchair, they appear almost effaced in the maroon-colored linoleum, and +ravelled out and faded in the cretonne curtains.... In this cemetery, +the sweet violets blooming on my table have a sensual, almost insolent +splendor; their petals look red.</p> + +<p>For all its bareness, my room radiates light; the meagre sunlight shines +in through the window and is already transfiguring the place; I feel +comfortable in it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Oftener and oftener I ask myself what is my reason for existence, my +true, my sole destiny. Doubtless one must sleep in a room for a long +time before encountering the soul that prepares itself there.</p> + +<p>I am, I know, like a person who wants to build a big house without +having a site or materials, who says nevertheless: "No, not this site, +no, not this material." But this is of no importance, I realize. Once +you have submitted to the wholesome discipline enjoined by poverty, you +receive in return energetic muscles and a patient outlook.</p> + +<p>I wait; and no longer having any need to complain or criticize, I wait +with a smile. Everything is simpler than one thinks, and everything is +easier, and it seems to me that—</p> + +<p>Someone is knocking at the door.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?"</p> + +<p>The landlady, Mme. Noël.</p> + +<p>Mme. Noël is more of an imp than a woman. She has the figure, the voice, +and the darting roguishness of a slim young thing of twelve.</p> + +<p>When I was getting settled the first morning, I suddenly heard her +insect-step close by—I had left my door open—and without giving me +time to draw back, she besieged me with questions:</p> + +<p>"How old do you think I am?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Guess anything."</p> + +<p>"Thirty-four ... thirty-three ... thirty."</p> + +<p>On looking at her closely a few seconds, it seemed to me she was +probably forty.</p> + +<p>"Fifty-two, my dear!" To convince me of her age she stuck her finger +under a slab of hair waved and dyed red and actually exposed an +abundance of fading white hair.</p> + +<p>Her face was no bigger than a fist, with cheeks like baked apples. Her +shrewd naked eyes pried about. She came farther into the room and +perched lightly on one of my rickety pieces of furniture, balancing it +with her body. Then she began to unfold the story of her life, +rummaging, unpacking, digging it up by huge armfuls: her husband, her +lover, and then another, a painter she adored. The first one came +back.... Love, adventures.... So it is possible to speak about your love +and adventures?</p> + +<p>Before leaving me—I was quite dazed; which must have been +evident—lowering her voice a little:</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> is so good.... I myself am not crazy about him, but <i>he</i> loves me +so...."</p> + +<p>"He?"</p> + +<p>"The boarding-house—it is not only for what it pays, you understand. +It's for <i>the company</i>!"</p> + +<p>"The company?"</p> + +<p>With the springy elegance of a cat, her tapering elbows breaking the +evenness of her outline, Mme. Noël slid on to the bed. The mattress +reared up, the coverings billowed, the pillow, struck slantwise, was +about to fall. But she needed so little room, and she carefully patted +the hollow she made for herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, is there nothing you want?... Ah, these young things—a +handkerchief round their heads and they still look pretty."</p> + +<p>Instinctively I pulled off my handkerchief. I stammered: "To keep off +the dust" and—what could I do to make her go?—I smiled awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the way, I came near forgetting to tell you. If ... you want to +receive in your room ... after all, what of it? You surely have +somebody.... It's just between us women. A beautiful girl like you, it +would be a shame.... You won't be bashful, will you? To me love is +sacred. And you will tell your little secrets to Mme. Noël? I have told +you mine. Only of course you will be careful not to make any noise. I +say this on account of the Russians in the next room. They used to +receive swarms of people up to all hours. The rumpus! I tell you, I put +a stop to it. But you, you're different. I liked you from the start."</p> + +<p>I had to answer, I was going to answer ... but my tongue was dry with +confusion. Besides, how edge a word in? There she was back at her huge +pile of love stories. She even tried to pump me, lifting and lowering +her powdered little nose; one scrap of information she set aside for use +presently. At last she disappeared trippingly with a pointed <i>au revoir</i> +which crisped the hide of her cheeks.</p> + +<p>An odor of imitation white lilac persists, but so much sunshine streams +in through the open window, so many quickening exhalations that the odor +will soon be dissipated.</p> + +<p>Love ... yes....</p> + +<p>Perhaps by listening hard to the inner voice you may get to let it speak +out loud. If I give in to this habit, I want to hear myself say: "I do +not like love." I even want to add: "Keep it away," because love seems +to be an outside force which smites or spares without your having +deserved or banished it.</p> + +<p>I have seen too many couples in which the man is nothing but a craving +for conquest, the woman nothing, absolutely nothing, but a need to be +conquered. I have seen too many who have not been visited by grace and +have damned themselves to mutual ruin. A veritable attack and a +semblance of defence. I have seen what is taken for love.</p> + +<p>I have seen women steeped in trickery; the wilier they were the more +love surrounded them. I have seen the heavy looks of men set about +everywhere like traps.... I am worth nothing as yet, but my sound +heart—I refuse it. And I say it quite low to exorcise the invisible +danger: I do not like love.</p> + +<p>"To me love is sacred...."</p> + +<p>I understand fully what those small, naked, prying eyes were glorifying. +And in the adventurous life of those eyes I see neither more nor fewer +blemishes and lies than in the eyes of the young girls. Neither more nor +fewer. At moments there even flashed in those eyes sparks, reflections, +gleams....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A cloud is darkening the window; my room is obliterated.</p> + +<p>But if by leaning forward and boldly offering my face to the sun and +stretching out further, I could take in all his golden bounty and all +his light?</p> + +<p>I withdraw hastily from the springtime window because when a gentle +flame ran over my wrist I became aware of lack of dignity: my untidy +hair, the dust on me, the disorderly room.</p> + +<p>Since the sun lives, since I long for it, love must exist. I shall find +the proof of it. Quickly, my Sunday frock, order about me, flowers....</p> + +<p>Keep it far away from me. I do not feel I am ready....</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Trude's twenty-fourth birthday. Twenty-four candles around the monster +of a cake. Trude announces that Edda, the youngest of us, is to light +the candles when we're ready for the toasts and the dessert.</p> + +<p>I lent my vases, my old red-flowered armchair, and my draperies. This +morning when the preparations were completed and their voices in triple +unison leapt to me: "Come and look!" I was in the room in three bounds +like an answering echo.</p> + +<p>It really looked nice. Who would have recognized Clara's impossible +room? Heavy ropes of foliage dotted with roses festooned the walls, my +beautiful blue stuff entirely hid the toilet-table, flowers covered the +mantelpiece and starred the corners of the mirror; and the table covered +with a white cloth was gay with pyramids of fruit.</p> + +<p>Now the guests are all here except Markowitch, who said beforehand he +would be late. "I am not going to seat you," Clara cries to them above +the rising hubbub. "Choose your own places." And she turns her back to +give the last touches to the table. Her heavy braided knot hangs low on +the nape of her neck. In spite of the two spreading wings of her skirt +at her waist line she looks thinner than ever in her greenish dress. +Someone glides up behind her, a pink arm for an instant twines about her +waist. "Clara, can I help?" She turns round. Dahlia.</p> + +<p>Dahlia is not an ordinary creature; she is no one; she is <i>the young +girl</i>. But that really is saying nothing. Juliet and Miranda are dead; +our times are not made for a creature of the dawn who is supposed to be +finer than the promise of herself, but who is already herself; who is +supposed not to be ignorant, who is pure and who, in order to love, does +not await love.</p> + +<p>Dahlia comes of another age; she comes from the country of fjords and +legends. Her father was exiled, she wanted to go with him, they had no +money; they made almost the whole journey on foot. One evening when +their heavy limbs would carry them no further, they were stranded in a +squalid quarter on the outskirts of Paris. They took a room.... The next +day the man did not get up. And since then Dahlia has bowed her head to +the yoke and works all day long for a poor monthly wage in an office +where the walls press upon her like a vice. "It's to keep up my father's +spirits," she said with a shake of her head when I saw her the second +time.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the first time. I had come in a little later than +usual, and probably more tired, too. I did not even think of lighting +the lamp, the dusk was unreal ... heavens!... a vision took shape +between the threshold and the shadows, scarcely daring.... There was a +brow set in pale gold, the delicate blur of a face, eyes like a +thousand forget-me-nots; between two young arms the strait, retiring +modesty of the angels, and their light movements also. She drew nearer. +"We have made a cake, the sort we make at home, let's divide." She +disappeared. Her present remained behind on my table....</p> + +<p>In her thin linen dress this evening, with a whiff of paradise about +her, Dahlia seems to be enveloped in a pink illumination. She smiles on +everybody as one must smile at happiness when one catches a glimpse of +it.</p> + +<p>"Your beautiful red dress," she assures Trude, gently clasping the soft +spindles of her hands.</p> + +<p>How can Trude remain simple and genuinely Puritanical beneath her +trappings of beaded crimson plush and cuirass of some hodgepodge of gold +caught in at the hips. I fancy she is too simple for finery to add to +her personality. Real or imitation the fineries give way; it is she who +adorns them. Whatever she wears is sanctified and comes to resemble her, +everything except her threefold name, Gertrude, Trude, Trudel.</p> + +<p>She has the peculiar brilliance of the Russians, sombre, subterranean, +almost undefinable. Whatever she does, whether she laughs, or is +excited, or talks with fire of ordinary things, she always has a finger +lifted in the air and her wide gaze raised Christ-like. She has the +mouth of an evangelist. Her irises set in clear white have glints of +jet. She wears the glossy foliage of her black locks straight back from +her forehead, an intense forehead crowning her like a diadem.... What +other woman would dare the supreme immodesty of displaying a bare +forehead? What woman would gain by doing it? The strange thing is, Trude +is beautiful only by a kind of miracle; the least little bit more, and +her cheeks would stick out over the cheekbones of a Tartar; the least +little bit less, and her nose would be obliterated. The lakes of her +eyes tranquilly conceal the raging waves in their depths. How many, by a +shade of ill-luck, have escaped beauty? Trude, by a miracle, has escaped +ugliness.</p> + +<p>Mania, her sister, so different with her agile, insinuating body, +lovingly fingers the presents. "You have not seen everything, Trude. Do +come." Books, prints, china, and elegant embroidered articles—pretty +things all from poor people who will soon be setting out on foot in the +darkness for their distant lodgings in order to save carfare. For we are +all as poor as poor can be. Except Markowitch. Mania told me he was +"immensely rich," had at least two hundred dollars a month spending +money.</p> + +<p>It is hard to say whether it is our poverty that creates this +comradeship among us. You come in and you feel at ease, you feel <i>good</i>, +you love all of them, even Lonnie, the little Swiss with cheeks +lacquered with rouge, and even Michael with his tight compressed nose +peaking out of the profile of a hen—Michael perhaps more than the +others.</p> + +<p>So much the worse for Markovitch: we are going to begin. The hubbub dies +down a little; everyone finds a place, two on the same chair, some on +the bed, a good many on the floor, young men, young girls holding each +other's hands, so close together, so pure, that I can still not accustom +myself....</p> + +<p>"It is your turn, Mania."</p> + +<p>A song, liquid, then fiery, comes from among the reeds and carries you +far off—down there—to those wild plains chiseled by the wind where the +streams, driven to the surface and threshed by their rocky beds, have +the fury of torrents. What a potency of attention on these serious +faces!</p> + +<p>Isn't that Markovitch?</p> + +<p>"Come in!"</p> + +<p>With his hardened features wrought in granite he, too, is a force. His +bulbous eyes search the gathering and find what they are looking for.... +Dahlia raises her head, blushes, and is veiled in delicate purple up to +the golden edge of her hair. She is aware of the love of this great +spoilt boy; we are all aware of it; but she has refused to be his wife +because she does not love him. He will not speak of it again; +nevertheless they continue to meet straightforwardly. With a free, +rounded movement of her arms, like the handles of an amphora, she points +to a vacant place beside her. "Here." Then in dismay: "Don't make a +noise."</p> + +<p>Prikoff is telling of a childhood recollection. You seem to see him as +both the fantastic gnome and the father in the tale. You see huts +assailed by icy blizzards, hazy visions of bodies blue with cold, love +of <i>somewhere else</i>.... Despite his huge jaw and unkempt mass of hair, +what benignity, mildness, and gentleness. It is as though he were +talking to little children gathered close about him.</p> + +<p>Is time passing? No one notices it, we have forgotten it. Time escapes +youth gathered together and bound in a sheaf; it escapes Clara's bosom +from which a plaintive <i>lied</i> is rising, while the hungry hands around +Dahlia, who is doling out the manna, make time tarry. A real poor folk's +supper, the supper of persons who are hungry at all hours. Thick slices +of rare meat on bread, solid pastry, big bright fruit. One should see +these robust young girls munching even the meat.</p> + +<p>How fond I am of them all! Among them I feel for the first time what the +human voice really is; for the first time feel the warmth which is +shared and communicated from being to being, which makes of a single +entity a group of entities, of a field of separate ears of corn the +human harvest.</p> + +<p>I wouldn't know how to choose among them. But one of the young men might +slightly frighten and disconcert me; his accent might seem barbarous. My +trim dress, my too-dainty shoes, and my fluffy blouses, all the things +that constitute my element, might cause me to feel compunction. And +maybe too I might feel ashamed of the hour I spend every morning +anxiously pressed close to the glass as if I were begging myself to be +beautiful.</p> + +<p>I should have the same feeling on behalf of the girls as for myself; at +bottom I do not discriminate between men and women. I should go even +further. If friendship drew me to one of them, my compunction would +change to grief. Really, can one forgive Clara her over-trimmed dress +conceived in a nightmare? Can one forgive all of them their down-at-heel +shoes, the lack of care and regard for others that they show in their +appearance?</p> + +<p>Should I adjust my days with no ups and downs in them to their volcanic +days? "What's it all coming to?" cries Trude sometimes, and throws +herself on her bed sobbing and losing herself in her emotions. Time +passes and dies—one day, two days—suddenly she rises. She has +forgotten her office, her meals, everything. She leans her forehead +against the window-pane, and her tears flow bitterly.</p> + +<p>If we became intimate, would they forgive me my neat room, my +punctuality, my scrupulous adherence to rule and system, my moderation +in everything? In the first days of our being neighbors they used to +say: "You know, the little Frenchwoman who always comes and goes at the +same time and makes so little noise and uses powder?" That quite +described me.</p> + +<p>This evening of the reunion of these serious creatures runs on by leaps +and bounds and rises to a pitch by fits and starts. There is a glowing +dewiness about Dahlia; Markovitch follows her with the green pupils of +his bulbous eyes. And all of a sudden the whole company is fired at the +same time. Without expecting to they burst into song—who threw the +spark?—and the room lights up like a hearth all aglow with voices....</p> + +<p>Fifteen flames mingled, but only a single flame. It is a song that rages +and mounts higher, and jerks and jolts, and is convulsed with raucous +shouts, in which the joy becomes frenetic and the laughter has a shudder +in it. They bring to their singing the fervor and the earnestness of +application that they bring to everything.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I am sitting in the retreat of the little chimney-piece hidden from +their eyes, and I should like to ask their forgiveness for not knowing +their fervid song and not being in harmony with them. I should like to +ask pardon of all of them for everything.</p> + +<p>I should like to ... I should like to....</p> + +<p>Breathes there a human being on earth who has nothing to forgive, whom +one has nothing to forgive?...</p> + +<p>To be with him, his equal, close to him, face to face with him, <i>and +alone with one</i>.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>The two Loiseaus and I were sitting in their dining-room, a narrow +rectangle with waxed floor and small straw mats here and there exactly +like a convent parlor.</p> + +<p>The evening—a dark evening out of doors—encompassed the walls with +mystery. The darker it grew the less we felt like getting up and +lighting the lamp. Why bother after all? There was a whole grate full of +flames. They leaped and emitted a lively red crackling, shot forth +luminous circles, hung high in the hearth, dancing tongues of fire, +orange-colored mountain crests, aigrettes of blue light, grimaces of +demons ... whirlpools ... fairyland ... crash and collapse ... +foolery....</p> + +<p>All of us felt drowsy, each imprisoned in his own silence. The shadows +quivered gently above our shoulders. The silence, a trifle stagnant +emanating from the three of us, seemed to be compressed up under the +toned-down white of the ceiling.</p> + +<p>I was curled up in front of the hearth, my eyes at the mercy of the +glowing surge, my chin thrust forward. A languid sense of well-being +spread all around, played over the hollow of your arms, and padded the +nape of your neck: you thought of nothing.</p> + +<p>The two Loiseaus are people who know how to be silent; you spend Friday +evening with them, and everything—except themselves—tells you that +they are pleased with the presence that makes three silhouettes dance in +the room.</p> + +<p>They are not very old, but there's no denying they <i>are</i> old bachelors, +because in their company you don't feel the torturing constraint and +embarrassment which the <i>others</i> make you feel because you're a woman.</p> + +<p>When you come, they hold out their hands good-naturedly. Rémy, the great +big patient Rémy, takes my hat, my gloves rolled into a ball, and my +cloak. He steps on my cloak and is vaguely alarmed. This adds to his +confusion, and when he hangs my things on the rack in the hall he is so +awkward in his carefulness that my hat rolls to the ground. We sit down +and talk of the office—you cannot start by not talking—and when every +topic is exhausted, I suggest making tea, a suggestion well worth the +making just to rouse the gourmand look in the old boys' eyes. "Oh yes, +some tea." You can almost hear them purr.</p> + +<p>I busy myself with an ease become superlative. It is possible that for +an instant I find myself a woman again between two attentive men, +converted into the household goddess—she who performs the rites and +dispenses the food and offers the milk, just a thimbleful, while the +men's eyes are upon her as she bends over the cups. This constrains my +movements and makes me tread more lightly and mince my steps. I scarcely +displace the shadows.</p> + +<p>My two old friends!</p> + +<p>Rémy pursues his reading with a frank absorption which dominates his +whole body. His heavy forehead bulges, his clenched fists form two +undefined cubes on the page. Migo (when I look at him I call him Migo, +too), rolls his cigarette. This evening he is inclined to be talkative. +He rubs up his memory:</p> + +<p>"The first day you came to the office what a timid manner you had."</p> + +<p>The recollections play upon an irresistible note. Rémy emerges from his +corner, his good blue eyes rising to the bait; a vision hung on a +thread, persons long faded. And it must be confessed that all three of +us let ourselves be captured; the same smile widens our features.</p> + +<p>The door-bell rings.... Yes, it rang.</p> + +<p>The triple peal sends our heads apart. Rémy rises, hostile and resigned. +He is always the one to open the door.</p> + +<p>Waiting in every circumstance, even when nothing is at stake, is +painful. The spirit recoils and contracts, and space is left for +thoughts of an inevitable misfortune and for the twinkling vision of the +things which disappear. In a single instant life can completely change +its aspect....</p> + +<p>A sweeping draught. It brings in the voice of a young man. I want to +leave. The two Loiseaus hover about him. "What a surprise! How nice!" +They rub their hands. "Come in and sit down!"</p> + +<p>It is too late to leave; the stranger is already bowing to me, and the +mingled exclamations pretty well hide my stammering. I am so ashamed of +myself for stammering.</p> + +<p>The newcomer seats himself near the fire on the little black chair to +the right of Migo. He wants the lamp to stay unlighted. But it is no +longer the same. Our silence has been routed, and the languor, and the +warmth also....</p> + +<p>I am in a good position to observe him. How old? Thirty-four, +thirty-five perhaps. Is he really handsome? Hard to say. He is too dark. +His face is strongly chiseled, his cheeks sunken, his forehead hard as +a hammer. The long line of his jaw lends refinement to his countenance, +which is lit by eyes fearlessly open, in which the gray, in spots, seems +steeped in phosphorous. His gestures are repressed and rather +commanding. He talks little, but when he does talk his fire contrasts +with the rarity of his words, gives them value, makes them seem to issue +all alive from the bowels of the earth, while he sits with his body +upright, as if at a distance, the flicker from the hearth enamelling, +then removing, the burnished black of his hair ... I bethink myself: we +have not yet had tea. I hope it will be just right this evening.</p> + +<p>One by one I take out of their hiding-place the cups with the gold +lines, the lovely ones, the only embroidered tea-cloth, the teapot with +the golden spout, and the flowers, wan in the night. I set the luxury of +these things on the table. With my head shrouded in the light-dark and +my shoulders swathed in a fleece of shadow, how good it is to be among +them, screened by my movements, not sitting but standing so that I can +look upon the happy trio. Him especially. For alongside of him, who +hardly speaks, the two Loiseaus, beaming and voluble, seem suddenly tame +and stunted.</p> + +<p>A pleasant sight, quite new to me, this group of three faces on which a +common childhood springs to life, fond joys shared in the past, and +names that are no more. They have almost forgotten that a woman is +present. This reassures me.</p> + +<p>But if <i>he</i>, when he raises his eyes and sees me, is going to remember I +am a woman and turn to me too civilly and kindle the usual warfare under +the bland honey of the customary phrases! No ... not he ... not this +man. He is so frank and so fine with his two friends; what he says is so +right, and he speaks so directly, without straining for effect. No, not +he.</p> + +<p>I offer each of them a trembling cup which they accept without +trembling. Then I quickly withdraw again to the protecting shadow where +my place is hollowed out, to listen to this amazing presence which my +heart scans.</p> + +<p>He has spoken to me.</p> + +<p>He has spoken to me as never yet a man has spoken: without trying to see +or please me, without any ulterior thoughts, just as he speaks to the +two Loiseaus, probably just as he speaks to himself when alone. It does +happen, then, that from the depths of simple obscurity, unexpectedly, +one hears real words, real naked words from a man?</p> + +<p>I answer in the same good faith, I no longer feel any fear or the need +for self-defence. I feel a delight which helps me. And the perfume of +the words that rises from the four of us—it is upon him I bestow it.</p> + +<p>From the embers comes a live heat which settles on your cheekbones; your +neck unconsciously stretches towards the red point where the +conversation, which also crackles and sparkles, rests its centre. This +stranger close to me seems like a king leaning over the edge of a +fountain; the light carves his smile and courts that familiar brow.... +Is he still a stranger?</p> + +<p>But suddenly, what time is it? Twenty past eleven! Time to go. Yes, yes, +I must go.</p> + +<p>At the shock which brings me to my feet the whole group breaks up. They +discuss who is to see me home, and I have to refuse three offers at the +same time.</p> + +<p>Give me your brotherly hands, I want to go home by myself. And you, turn +upon me those eyes so different from other men's eyes.</p> + +<p>As I go down the stairs the fidgety advice repeated a hundred times, +which Rémy hurls at me over the banisters every Friday, descends upon my +head. "Don't walk so fast, look where you're going." The last scraps of +warning roll like billiard balls. Rémy, old friend, have no fear, go in +again. I am carrying away an immense wonder. It is hurrying me along in +its round. I want to dance, to cry....</p> + +<p>Rémy's voice is cut off abruptly, along with the cone of light in which +the steps reeled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>On the street ... a narrow, formidable street, full of a palpable, +limpid night.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Whither goes the volatile sky pursued by the pale flock of clouds? +Whither go those grand transports which seize and overwhelm you? Here +below there is a man honest in his voice, straightforward in his look, a +brotherly man. And I have met him!</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>For the first time I have spoken about myself to a living being. Not so +much in words or details or episodes as in the profound desire to open +up the depths of my soul and finally give a true view of it.</p> + +<p>To talk of oneself! That enigmatic, incomplete, elusive, warm thing, +tossed by conflicting currents, adding to itself constantly, this thing +that one is. To say what it is!... To tell of it with modest lips, with +lids raised, with voice sure, with silence....</p> + +<p>I should never have believed in the possibility of such a boon. And in +the first minutes of our being together on Sunday, I still did not know +of the possibility.</p> + +<p>Two weeks after the Friday at the Loiseaus', I was stamping my feet with +the cold in the queue of people waiting at the little door of the +theatre to buy the two-franc seats. I happened to turn and was +mechanically studying the faces—there he stood eight or nine persons +away....</p> + +<p>My delighted gaze rested upon him so hard that his head turned +compliantly. He saw me, his face lighted up. The crowd was interested, +the women stared with their unabashed curiosity, the men joked, but not +one of them, you may be sure, was willing to budge. Through the +interstices between the hats, our cheeks glowing with the wind, we +exchanged greetings, and I divined rather than heard that he wanted to +see me. It was at that moment that I felt as if I were flinging myself +overboard.</p> + +<p>"Next Sunday at my house if you like?"</p> + +<p>A strange current was carrying me away. Certain prejudices must be +deep-rooted. What was so extraordinary about receiving him in my room? +The fact that I took the initiative of inviting him seemed to be +trumpeted to the four quarters of the globe; and when his answer came +calm and natural, I couldn't continue to face him; I had to hide my +burning ears up against the old gentleman in the greatcoat, who fastened +his mocking persistent faun's gaze upon me. During the concert I felt by +turns as if I had committed a crime and a glorious feat.</p> + +<p>"Two o'clock," I had called to him.</p> + +<p>I was up early in the morning, and by ten minutes to two everything was +ready. The flowers and foliage bought at market had had time to freshen +up and expand. The petals of the anemones, shut up like a tight case in +the morning, were spreading in a crown around the big pompoms of black +pistils. The bed was successfully disguised by a draped covering, and my +room, all polished and groomed, shone like a jewel. It looked really +homelike. At the last moment I put on my dress of white woollen stuff, +the one with the cord girdle and elbow sleeves. The hardest task was the +arranging of my hair. Not to look untidy with a fiery mop of a head, yet +to be a little beautiful, oh joy, beautiful, to please him. I set-to +furiously on the image in the looking-glass.</p> + +<p>Five minutes to two. Three little raps, three moments of insensibility, +three echoes.</p> + +<p>My hand trembled slightly as I held it out to him, and when his gaze +travelled over me, an amazing sense of shame seized and chilled me. I +promptly hid my arms in my scarf. But my terror was quickly dissipated. +He conveyed the lofty ease of people of perfect simplicity. He was there +with all his manly gravity, all his attention, and his good smile +imparting a sense of security. I felt his calm transfuse itself into me.</p> + +<p>We sat down. I no longer know how we began or by what avenue of +conversation he came to tell me of his crushed childhood, his needy +youth, his mother, his studies, the present career he had chosen for +himself.... I listened; I followed him from year to year, from picture +to picture, from place to place; and within me a larger and larger void +was filling up with hopes and thoughts that seemed to have dwelt there +always.</p> + +<p>What a flood of sweetness, what warmth and space, and what.... I hardly +breathed....</p> + +<p>"Your turn...."</p> + +<p>He was sitting on my little chair near the window with his back partly +to the light. From the depths of the armchair, the white fleece of my +scarf looping at my feet, I saw the quality of his gaze.</p> + +<p>My story was not so straight and consecutive. Here and there I lost my +way and had to stop, with nothing more to say. Nevertheless, insight +into me kindled under his eyes, we advanced together as happy and at as +even a pace as if we were holding each other's hands; and my flimsy past +assumed a little weight.</p> + +<p>We spoke of love—you always speak of love when you talk about +yourself—but without distinguishing it from ourselves. Who can say what +love is? Love is I, it is he. On the day when I shall love, love will be +changed and will resemble me and will no longer be that love of which +one speaks in general. It will be I—I simply stirred up.</p> + +<p>When we were silent under the influence of the slack atmosphere of the +room, we two souls at the same pitch, my gaze plunged in the creamy +muslin of the curtains, I knew he found me beautiful. I realized I was +waiting for him to say so. I would have hugged his words, I should have +liked to see them come from his lips without covetousness, I should have +wanted them to be nothing but my craving for beauty....</p> + +<p>I believe I closed my eyes. A loving alliance took place between my +visible body and my hidden being. I was no longer divided against +myself. Thanks to him....</p> + +<p>How long did we remain that way, grave and smiling, opposite each other? +I cannot tell exactly....</p> + +<p>The flowers on the table with widespread petals held out their black +hearts to us. A gentle pearl-gray breeze was stirring the curtains.</p> + +<p>He is gone, is he? His going made no break or clash and left no sense of +finality. I had scarcely felt him take my hand when he released it, the +doorway was empty. I returned to the empty armchair in the room ennobled +by both his absence and his presence, my arms weighed down and my +spirits in eclipse....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Who is speaking? Who is there?</p> + +<p>Mme. Noël, the live puppet, is sticking her painted head in at the door; +the thread of light holds it as in a snare. She <i>here</i> at this +moment!... One impatient start and I go over to her. "My compliments, a +handsome fellow!" This time it is too much. "Such looks, such eyes! Good +for you!" Letting out a chain of cackles, the little floury face +retreats under cover, the streak of light narrows, gilds the frame of +the door, and dissolves in the shadow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Alone.... But am I still alone?</p> + +<p>The cold window-pane refreshes my forehead. The street lounges lazily in +its Sunday repose, and the room into which I turn back embraces a +fateful, solemn evening; its ripe perfume rises like incense, the +flower-decked mantelpiece resembles an altar beneath a cluster of +tapers.</p> + +<p>I no longer know ... I no longer know ...</p> + + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>He is often late. I have noticed that I am almost invariably the one to +have to wait. Work in his office ends at the same time as mine, but the +two places are at a distance from each other, and it always seems a long +time before I see him coming.</p> + +<p>The first minutes go by unheeded because the seven o'clock outpouring +streams by where I post myself on the sidewalk. No signal is given. At a +mysterious order and at a given moment a black wave foams and contracts +at the exit, and as in greeting to the open light sends up a thousand +exclamations, which make one long cry of relief.</p> + +<p>This evening it is still light, and the escaping crowd is not inclined +to hurry. The sluggishness of the air, the sonorousness, the droning, +the motley street ... the crowd condenses and remains coagulated on one +spot. Is it ever going to decide to pass on!</p> + +<p>When the day's work is over, you come back to the brilliant world +marvelling at the holiday sky, and blinking.... Summer is knocking at +the window ... it does you good to be standing on your legs expanding +your lungs. One group attracts you. They all look like wags, their +conversation fascinates; if you were to listen to them, you would remain +standing there with your hands in your pockets. But you are being +awaited at home, and the circle almost as soon as formed breaks up with +casual farewells flung over the shoulder.</p> + +<p>When the women hurry along, rain or shine, it is in the subconscious +urge to show themselves to everyone. Those who swelled the hubbub a +little while ago with jostling elbows and foreheads set like a +ram's—"get a move on you!"—are the first to display their pronounced +busts and the slowest to walk away with chirps and winged signs and nods +and a swaying of sinuous backs.</p> + +<p>The street is emptied. Some women still pace up and down the block. They +are waiting for someone too.</p> + +<p>There he is!</p> + +<p>From the busy far-end of the street, across the eddies of people, +nothing to tell me it is he but the shape of his hat. Again I feel the +security that his appearance always brings.</p> + +<p>His tall figure hemmed in by a group detaches itself, grows bigger, and +becomes more recognizable step by step. I go to meet him, slowly, +smiling despite myself as he hurries, and when our hands touch, my heart +breaks into bloom.... An overwhelming instant ... a soft ecstasy ... +fusion.... And every evening it is as if I had never found him....</p> + +<p>Let us go by the boulevards. The weather is so lovely, we have plenty of +time.</p> + +<p>Our questions tumble over one another, clear away bothersome trifles, do +not even wait for answers, take everything for granted—what happened +during the day, all the details, everything, and more than everything.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, what we listen to is our footsteps. We keep even +pace, our tread makes the same sound. A discovery flooding the heart—it +is a single step that is carrying us along.</p> + +<p>We walk side by side, and the space between us does not divide us. We +are followed and preceded by a whole procession of couples moving with a +slowness strangely rhythmic which leaves a wake behind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>We have told everything, everything we know, and everything we are. It +is not a question of being alike in order to be comrades, of springing +from the same roots or having drunk from the same source. The thing is, +for each to serve the truth which the other lives with the same heart as +his own, different truth.</p> + +<p>No, it is not a question of being alike. Haven't I observed a hundred +times that we are very different? How can one wish it otherwise? How +conceive that we whose age is not the same, whose bodies are so +different, whose characters are well-defined, and whose careers are +opposite should respond to the same influences? Why, each of us responds +to the veriest trifles according to his own temperament.... Does he +perceive as I do this street, the flower-beds of the big cafés, the +crowd with glowing eyes, the gritty dust? Is this instant the same +instant to him? I know it is not....</p> + +<p>A block. How shall we get through? The crossing of the huge +thoroughfares, with its din, its black swarming thousands, dashing +motors, clanging of bells, tooting of horns, discharges its mechanical +eruption upon the city. Let us run. He has slipped his strong arm under +mine; we take long joyous strides and finally land in peaceful territory +out of breath and radiant.</p> + +<p>Here at last is a boulevard where one can breathe, then an old +countrified street where silence has nested. We plunge into its +tranquillity.</p> + +<p>But ... I hadn't noticed—the red rises to my cheeks—his arm is still +under my arm, confident, natural. How is it that it never occurred to me +that it should always be so?</p> + +<p>Shall I dare to tell him how sweet it is to feel him so close to me, our +two lives joined, our two souls welded—how <i>necessary</i> it is to me?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Feelings depart quickly, and joy too. I can scarcely follow my feelings +and my joy. When my heart has slowed down, yes, <i>I</i> will speak to <i>him</i>, +I shall feel his breath on my voice, his warmth against my breast. And I +shall obey this visible will which comes running to me, springing from +the smiling house-fronts, falling from the sky padded with pink.</p> + +<p>We are drawing near to my lodgings.</p> + +<p>Still this street, where the gracious wind dances for its own pleasure. +A few moments, and we shall be leaving each other.</p> + +<p>Leaving each other...?</p> + +<p>Ah, I know now what to say. I know what the will of a little while ago +wanted, and my life and his life. I am going to find the words....</p> + +<p>"Listen. I have been thinking. Don't let us part again. Never. It is I +who am asking you. Let us live together ... I cannot say anything else, +that sums up everything, it is everything, to live together. Is it +love?... I don't know yet ... but I know we ought to live together, and +you, you know it too."</p> + +<p>My voice is thick and has the taste of tears; it scrapes in my dry +throat, it won't come out. He takes my two hands, draws me close to him, +his gaze caressing my eyes which strain to escape. With his body he +supports my rigid, awkward body, which struggles hard to remain upright +and does nothing but tremble.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The street has disappeared, the sound of the universe, the setting sun +which in a golden glory celebrates our sacred betrothal.</p> + +<p>From under my closed eyelids I no longer perceive anything but a heavy +black pendulum with impetuous strokes, which beats against my breast and +henceforth regulates our joint existences....</p> + + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>My family was exultant.</p> + +<p>Behold me returned to "proper" life, from which I had so long been +absent, by the massive trap-door of marriage.... I took on a value in +their reassured eyes, I became a somebody, and in the ardor of the first +moment they had the impression that they completely forgave me.</p> + +<p>They were exultant. They sent a charming gown to my lodgings and +apprised me that a big dinner was being arranged to give my future +husband the chance to become acquainted. In spite of my repugnance I was +caught in the cog-wheels. The joy of seeing my mother again made me pass +over everything indulgently.</p> + +<p>It was she who ruined the whole business. Could I not see her disdainful +attitude towards a man's poverty, her terrorized submission to the +world's judgment? "You know, you are supposed to be coming back from +England, we have even given details, don't contradict us...." And the +quasi-respect with which she encompassed me because of the authority +with which marriage crowns a daughter!</p> + +<p>There certainly was enough to frighten one. Their rejoicing smelled of +revenge. What stifling quality, I wonder, can marriage have? What +oppression, what defeats, what chains await me? Am I going to prison?</p> + +<p>But when I turn towards <i>him</i> and bathe my sight in the serene waters of +his eyes, I recover my assurance and soar with him again. For them, it +is clear, marriage is an irrevocable finality, a tight ring, the +oppression of that wild, free instinct which you breathe out with your +breath. To us marriage is only a word.</p> + +<p>Throughout the dinner time stood still, each second stagnated and told +a lie. And something indefinably foul and poisonous rose from their +attitude. Sometimes I felt as if I had never quitted this hypocritical +spot and this gilded furniture. I held aloof from him in apparent +indifference, but really to save our innocent love from their profane +eyes.</p> + +<p>They left us alone for a moment, and that moment is the one thing in the +whole evening of which I retain a clear picture although scarcely a week +has passed since then. In saying we were alone I am not quite accurate. +A law forbade that young people should be left alone together for a +single instant. My sister and her big boy of a fiancé were near us; we +were not quite sure which couple had been put in custody of the other.</p> + +<p>With arms fondly entwined about each other's waists they began to kiss +and hug. She held up her lips and uncoiled the serpent of her body +tantalizingly. When they were a little tired and their mouths blown, I +heard a panting sentence which ended with: "You will love me always?" +"Of course, always," he murmured in her ear.</p> + +<p>I blushed. Not from offended modesty, but he and I—we had never dreamed +of such vows. They seemed silly to me. How can one swear to love forever +and say to a man: "Unto all eternity I shall be the most beautiful, the +only one in your heart"? <i>Always</i>, <i>forever</i>, words which life at every +turn refutes, how is it that a live heart would not give them the lie?</p> + +<p>I must have looked a little haggard. My sister turning round saw that +we sat apart with a gloomy, distant manner. The same thought was in his +mind.</p> + +<p>"Aren't they cold for lovers?..." By way of reply to her own question, +she kissed her fiancé.</p> + + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>After fingering the deposit the old pot-bellied concierge livened up. +"Money from lovers isn't mere money, it means good luck."</p> + +<p>When he came back unexpectedly and with a paternal burr in his voice +offered us "a little candle-end to take the measurements with; so often +the ladies and gentlemen forget," it was chiefly to surprise us in an +embrace, or some laughing dispute interlarded with kisses.</p> + +<p>The apartment of three adjoining rooms like three cells in a honeycomb +is very nice. It must be bright in summer, the stairs are kept clean, +the courtyard is cool and fresh with its green lane of flower-pots. Our +windows look right out on the top of the tree. A mighty rare thing, a +tree in Paris. Spring mornings we shall be awakened by a fusillade of +bird songs.</p> + +<p>So this is where we shall live. These rooms, in which the atmosphere +seems low and cramped and the floor is all splintered, are to serve us +as domain and empire; these walls are to be our horizon.</p> + +<p>When I was a child and lay tucked in bed, I used to dream of "being +grown up...." Then when I was fifteen I'd say to myself "later on" so as +to hear another troubling, forbidden word echo in my ears. And now my +confused dreams are come to attend me here.... So here is the end of the +story; it is all here, the mirage.</p> + +<p>Only yesterday the sole reason for the existence of this place was a +jaundiced, weather-beaten sign on the street.... And now our double life +has found its temple, chosen its setting, and fixed upon its rallying +point.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So this is the place we shall call "home." When the rain beats down out +of doors and a wrecking wind blows, this will be our unchanging harbor. +Whenever we make a new friend and we have told him everything and there +are still more things to tell, we shall welcome him across this +threshold and within these walls and let him see our ultimate selves. +And when the golden May daylight rouses you from bed and sends you +running to the window to feel its radiant stroke on your cheek and vague +longings take possession of you, it will be the fastenings of this +window which will turn to let in the breath of the dawn.</p> + +<p>The little dining-room seems somewhat less desolate than the other wan +rooms. The ceiling still bears the mark of the hanging-lamp as a sign of +where the kindly light came from; a border of red arabesques runs round +the top of the walls, and the fireplace of russet imitation marble with +its pitted traces from invisible fingers of flame makes you feel as +though the grate were still warm.</p> + +<p>The kitchen is so tiny and so like a toy that there's not a thing in it, +not even an old knife left behind through oversight. In spite of the +floor with tiles missing like teeth from a mouth, the sink with dried-up +pores, the stove downy with rust, it is the one room that doesn't seem +to be crying for help. It needs only a glimmer in the stove and savory +smells to give it life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This is the moment to look life in the face—the real life, not the one +people talk about. Until now our love has rested merely upon a +foundation of clay. It has been facile, scarcely tangible. I perceive it +is a love to be.</p> + +<p>Now our love must be confronted with its kingdom, must have its +boundaries and landmarks fixed, must be asked to shine in truth and be +forced to the test. Let our love speak and inspire us. Later, when we +shall have furniture around us, like words already spoken, we shall be +less at ease.</p> + +<p>"If you like, this shall be your room. It suits you. The neutral paper +makes it restful for thinking, and the recess is all ready for a couch. +Look, it's waiting for you. I will take the other room because of the +clothes-closet, and I'll enjoy leaning out across the white window-sill +for the fresh air.</p> + +<p>"We shall visit each other. We shall be free and easy. You will come +and go and receive your friends, do as you please, without ever having +to account to me.</p> + +<p>"But we are going to suffer, perhaps, in order to remain content and +preserve the multitude of joys that one experiences when alone?</p> + +<p>"This dividing wall is nothing more, after all, than a thin membrane +through which the presence in the next room will ooze. When you are +surrounded by your friends in the lively hum and buzz of comradely +conversation, they will suddenly notice the shadow of an intruder moving +as a woman moves. In the bottom of their hearts they will have us much +married, you and me—the marriage of a friend is a little like a +theft—and without your suspecting it, at that very moment, in the very +midst of their talk, they will leave you.</p> + +<p>"Do you really believe we shall be happy? I, for my part, would not like +your friends to desert you. It seems unfair that you should be loved the +less because of love. Are you quite sure that one has the right to +impose one's unalloyed hope upon a person for a lifetime? Are you sure +that in the name of love the person one has chosen can remain the best +of all persons?... Tell me, are you sure you will not bear me a grudge?</p> + +<p>"And can the most beautiful union <i>remain</i> beautiful? For we are about +to sign a pact. There's no denying it. What's to be done about this +transport that we are, this constant expectation, this clinging +intoxication?</p> + +<p>"You know we shall have only each other intimately. Even inanimate +things will exert a tendency to influence us. When the little lodging +will take on our mould and there will be chairs to hold out our habits +to us and a brown pulsating clock, creature of even utterance and +over-sensitive soul, the fond familiar place will weigh and impose +itself upon us.</p> + +<p>"So the host of wishes, the magnificent secrets, the kernel of sadness, +the nomadic hopes must all be made to enter by this door into our +associated days? Tell me, how is one to act? Must happiness, <i>true</i> +happiness without law or bridle, also be shut up here, here and nowhere +else? And must happiness be the same for the two of us who are +different?</p> + +<p>"There's a children's fairy tale that once there was a princess whose +heavily embroidered robe was by a magic command made to pass through a +ring.</p> + +<p>"Lovers betrothed think they understand love. But they have not lived +together—and <i>every day</i>. They don't know what that means. Those who +love as in books do not contemplate a long journey when they set out +together, and if the short-lived blaze vanishes at the first turning in +the road, it is not a great misfortune. Another spark will do for +another kindling. And there are those who <i>renounce</i>, abdicate their own +selves, bend the knee, and trust to love.... But how are those to act +who are not cut in heroic marble, who do not want to lie or renounce, +who don't pity the <i>other</i> one, who are not afraid of themselves, who +love as people love in actual life, who are like us? Perhaps you know +better than I do. You are a man and older than I am, but I—I ask +myself....</p> + +<p>"I was ready, as women are, for great impossible things. I never thought +about them very clearly, but I felt my emotions pierce me like dagger +thrusts. They inspired me with an all-powerful spirit, and if I had had +to batter down mountains, or dash through a river of fire, or die in +your stead, I should have closed my eyes and done it at one go.</p> + +<p>"And behold the test. The test is here. Why is it that the thing one +awaits and expects never is the actual test? The actual test has only a +sorry way about it, a commonplace aspect, a very reduced compass; it +holds nothing but monotonous moments jogging along one after the other; +it stops just at the foreshortened shadow at your feet, and my arms +which I was about to open are, you see, arms of lead.</p> + +<p>"Before I entered these rooms love looked like you and the future shone +like a festival just beginning. What is left of all that? I no longer +hear the chimes of golden promises ringing in my ears. I no longer feel +the hosannas of my heart, and it's as though I scarcely saw you in the +gloomy corner where you are standing."</p> + +<p>I see the little dwelling where the hesitant evening has not yet taken +its place. The silence is laid bare, life is showing us her skeleton; +through the mottled panes one sees that the hour has red eyes and the +walls confronting us in their inflexible truthfulness have become our +four upright witnesses.</p> + +<p>I feel like running away.</p> + + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>When everybody was assigned a seat in the carriages, whips cracked and +the procession got under way.</p> + +<p>The carriage at the head in a splash of sunshine drew the whole line +after it, shattering the massive silence of the street. The occupants +were still settling themselves, the ladies with a great rustling of silk +and a vast deal of twisting and turning before they got themselves +comfortably installed, while the men were obliged to sit forward on the +edge of the seats and be very careful of the disposition of their legs.</p> + +<p>"Lovely weather," said one of the two ladies, "they're lucky." No one +answered. They held themselves in abeyance for the usual conviviality to +come later, and passed the time looking through the lowered windows at +the unknown quarter through which the procession was winding, where the +houses sank upon each other and the people in workaday clothes stood +still to stare with eyes of envy.</p> + +<p>The second carriage had set off at a rapid pace; the coachman was +holding in his frisky pair.</p> + +<p>"Say what you like, she's a beautiful bride."</p> + +<p>Like most very old ladies, this one suggested widowhood. Even in talking +she exhaled the attenuated sadness that invests old people with a +protective halo.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's just like the rest. What's in her favor is that she's fair. A +brunette bride always makes you think of a fly in milk. At least, that's +my opinion...."</p> + +<p>That was a good start. One remark led to another; the conversation +livened up. The ladies in their silk gowns felt conscious of sharing in +pomp and an important ceremony.</p> + +<p>"I was told she ran away from home last year, with...."</p> + +<p>The carriage jolted and zigzagged, but the group sat undisturbed. Each +felt drawn to the other three by a decidedly increasing sympathy.</p> + +<p>What spirit haunted these carriages? All these people were held by an +obsession. They had seen the bride in her starry whiteness and +persistently retained an image with a halo round it. The bride was the +sole topic.</p> + +<p>"I don't approve of a double standard," said another lady. "They did a +tremendous amount for her sister's wedding; you know they did, while +they're not doing a thing for this poor child." A shrug of the +shoulders. "I don't think it's fair."</p> + +<p>Everything she said came out with a ripple in it from the unevenness of +the paving. Her neighbor was plunged in dreams, unaware. A day triumphal +arose out of the distant past when she too walked in white. +"Twenty-seven years like one month! How time does fly!"</p> + +<p>They warmed up to their subject.</p> + +<p>"She is making a very bad match: he hasn't a cent...."</p> + +<p>"You forget she's well over twenty-two. A girl has got to take a husband +when she finds one. Husbands don't grow in the front-yard."</p> + +<p>The perspiration came out in beads on their fleshy foreheads. A stop. +What had happened? A block? An accident? Plumed hats were stuck out of +carriage doors. "Get in again, madam, you can't see anything. You'll +break your aigrette. If I tell you...."</p> + +<p>The procession shortened like a snake drawing in its coils.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha! I know someone who will not find it dull to-night!"</p> + +<p>Their laughter took on a sharper edge; smiles lurked in the corners of +their mouths just deep enough to show that they understood, that they +had their own recollections and at the same time were in well-bred +company.... This lady with the air of knowing a thing or two.... +What?... Without waiting to be importuned, she drew herself up +heroically and whispered something over the frilled hat of the little +girl beside her. They threw themselves back beaming, stuffed full. +"Impossible!"</p> + +<p>Boots creaked, gowns rustled. The carriages began to clatter through the +streets again.</p> + +<p>The laughter of young people. Not very loud. Hiding something sweet and +indefinably solemn. She was only fourteen. She had nothing but her thin +little feelings, which, however, kept her straight and haughty as an +Infanta. By leaning over slightly she succeeded in seeing the bride. The +bride ... the white word flitted about her like a light ball.... But +straightway she saw the bride her eyes fell. The same emotion had +surprised her on Sunday at mass when she saw the host rise in a beam of +light, and also when she listened to the hand-organ grind out arias. +Ecstasy leapt within her and hope sang: "Me too some day...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The last carriage kept behind; a low coupé with drawn shades. A stiffly +wired bouquet shed its fragrance within. As it sped rapidly by, heads +turned around for a long look and for the sake of the virginal memory it +left behind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I was in that last speeding carriage. I had obeyed my mother's +entreaties, I had agreed to figure in this masquerade.</p> + +<p>So as not to rumple my fairy dress I forced myself not to make a +movement but to remain impassive and avoid the least little stir. It was +my rôle to receive the host of looks converging upon me as if levelled +at a target, hard and fast, crowding, curious. I confess that beneath my +snowy veil and sanctified air I lent myself to the situation with a bit +of vanity.</p> + +<p>It takes me a long time to undress. My bridal costume is fastened by a +thousand hidden snaps and pins. I have trouble in getting out of it.</p> + +<p>My room frightens me. "Take possession of us," say the chairs and +tables. "Act, command, try your hand, you are in your own home, it is +your life which is arising, we are watching you. What are you going to +do?"</p> + +<p>The more the furniture goads, the heavier the languor that settles upon +me, the less I know, the less I advance. In vain I summon to my aid +ideas from without; none takes hold. I repeat, for example, that this is +the test of both of us, the beginning of our union. I fancy myself +clutching at resolutions, but they fall back at my approach and sink +routed into the folds of the curtains. Is it really necessary to +struggle? Wouldn't it be better to put my head in my hands and drop into +the softness and restfulness of my new armchair?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When we came here a little while ago, it was <i>he</i> who was the first to +experience this sort of trouble. We had been looking over our home and +when the tour was ended he took me in his arms, and I felt the warm +flesh of his kiss under my chin. A blow seemed to strike my bowels. I +tightened up into a ball, my muscles tense, thrown on the defensive. An +evil fear made me shiver. He raised his head. I had never seen him look +so tragic. His features were hardened, his eyes swimming ... I fell away +from him like a flower snapped from its stem.</p> + +<p>A sudden instinct sent me to the looking-glass, as if it held an answer +to everything. Maybe looking-glasses do offer the eternal answer to the +riddle of the universe.</p> + +<p>I had said to myself: "You will be close to him, you two will be alone +together, perhaps it will be beyond human power to try to be happy." I +used to fancy life as a struggle, a piece of work to be done, a +masterpiece, and imagined what my acts would be—all voluntary and +making for perfection. I forgot that they would have to be performed by +these arms with their warm flesh.</p> + +<p>I had thought: "He knows me through and through, I have made him read +everything." But no, he knows nothing. He does not know the lovely shape +of my breasts, the lyre of my hips, the curves of my legs, nor this +unknown body the expression of which is so changing that it is like some +murmured tale which the light embraces and tells aloud.</p> + +<p>It remains for me to bestow a final confidence upon him; that of the +body unveiling itself, <i>daring</i> to confess itself. Is this not the +purest confidence? But let it not come before its own hour, for it must +lead to a moment of truth so naked and so unexpected that it frightens +me a little.</p> + +<p>It is strange: this evening I live with the whole of my body for the +first time. I exist wherever it is. Even as I stand here fixed and tense +in front of the glass, I follow a line which may arch, swell and melt +away and which already bears the shape of love.</p> + +<p>I can imagine everything ... for there's no need of having loved in +order to be a lover. All I should have to do, if I dared, would be to +twine my arms around his neck, press him hard, and harder still, and the +moment would come when I should forget the modesty of my single life.</p> + +<p>And without knowing any more one would be lost, distraught, acquiescent, +lulled to sleep even to the soul, more beautiful than one is beautiful.</p> + +<p>I can go still further, for the flesh that clasps cannot be deceived. +When the man and the woman are united, it is the woman subdued, armed +with her weakness, who becomes the stronger. I am sure of it already. In +the depths of my ignorant flesh, I already feel domination germinating. +It is not I; it is a law older than I that is seeking to fulfill itself.</p> + +<p>And suddenly I am frightened....</p> + +<p>But I am mad.... Man, woman, nothing but two words, which are not of the +stuff of life. Is there a single emotion in which I recognize myself? +Truth? But it is the truth of others. The truth that reaches you is +always different. Isn't it senseless to dread what depends upon +yourself? Are we strangers that I should hesitate like this to run to +him? Isn't he on the other side of the door, he of whom my body is +<i>thinking</i>? Isn't it enough for us to look upon each other? Is there a +single question he cannot understand? One seeks happiness. It is all so +simple....</p> + +<p>Ah, let us go astray every day, let us deceive ourselves, let us suffer +alongside our own hearts, let us try to clasp the invisible! But this +evening there is nothing but a thin partition between my secret and +myself. I feel my heart throbbing as if it were laid bare. I am +beautiful, I am alive....</p> + +<p>Am I not right?...</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II</h2> + +<h3><i>BEING</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my +life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite +mournfulness with which it permeates a human being.</p> + +<p>She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and +her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a +singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a +little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the +room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her +body, you'd scarcely know she was there.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to +the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by +the wind.</p> + +<p>The great porte-cochère, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the +bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously. +Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to +let me pass.</p> + +<p>It is almost a sacrilege to speak in a raised voice as I do and bring in +so much of the outside air. "Is dinner ready, Marie, is everything +ready?" Since Marie never answers, I go straight into the kitchen. +Goodness, nothing done. Well, I'll have to get at the supper myself. +There's still a good half-hour left, I believe.</p> + +<p>As I hastily remove my wraps, I feel the dull pang that assails you at +the sight of disorder.</p> + +<p>There, I have the water boiling now and the cooking is well under way. I +didn't know I was so quick and capable. After all, Marie's only a child.</p> + +<p>Marie bustles about. I see her two reddish, porous, spatulate hands +pounce on things, I hear the clash of utensils. Her person becomes many +persons, she jostles me, moves hither and thither like a distracted +tortoise, bends almost double to pick up a strainer.... To be sure the +kitchen <i>is</i> tiny.</p> + +<p>I speak to her as one speaks to a child. "Do you understand me, Marie? +Don't be afraid, I am not unkind." The lifeless fixity of her face +suddenly comes undone, her features contract. Marie was dulled by the +monotonous gloom of an asylum in a distant quarter of the city. She +slightly raises the heavenly blue of her eyes without fastening them on +anything. I see her tenacious hatred wake up and stir. A single flash. +Then her red-rimmed eyes flutter and fall; she is in order again, in the +vague sort of order characteristic of things inaccessible and forlorn.</p> + +<p>I realize she cannot understand me. To her I mean constraint, uprooting, +exile, that unusualness which throws simple people out of their orbits. +And though she has never been accustomed to anything else than +maltreatment, neglect, and beatings, I understand.... I try to be +gentler, to smile when I turn toward her, for in the end visible +kindness should make itself seen.... And it would be so good to reclaim +this nature, to explain everything to her, beginning at the beginning.</p> + +<p>I recall the scene of yesterday evening. We were at table. She brought +in the smoking soup-tureen at arm's length. Her heavy tread rolled like +a cannon-ball upon our delight in being together, then she retreated to +the kitchen like a dog slinking to its kennel. A crash of china. I +jumped up.</p> + +<p>"Something broken?"</p> + +<p>"No, madam."</p> + +<p>"But, Marie...."</p> + +<p>"No, madam, no, madam...."</p> + +<p>I was close beside her and this time looked deep into her eyes. I saw +the freckles on her white skin, and there emanated from her the amazing +innocence of an accused child. Her voice came from her palpitating +throat with a quiver in it.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no."</p> + +<p>Poor Marie. I felt remorseful. "I beg your pardon, Marie, we were +mistaken."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless I didn't budge, as if I were at length going to learn why +one human being can be so terrorized by another.... She too stood +motionless. I did not notice that her attitude was rather peculiar. I +put my hand on her shoulders. "My little Marie...." At this she +staggered and trod heavily on breaking china. Her face was imploring....</p> + +<p>Hidden under her bell-shaped Breton petticoat which touched the floor +lay my pretty gray china cup shivered to bits.</p> + +<p>She behaved the way girls brought up by Sisters always do. She crouched +against the wall, her forehead hidden in the crook of her arm. Her bosom +as pinched as a wasp's went up and down precipitately, and the tears +began to flow.</p> + +<p>I stopped gathering up the pieces to console her gently.</p> + +<p>"It's not your fault, Marie ... come, don't cry, don't cry."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Marie close by is bending over the sink rubbing it with a brush round +and round always on the same spot. The water slaps on the tile floor and +squirts over my dress. Her movements have something eternal about them +and the appearance of never-ending complaint.</p> + +<p>There is nothing to say. Whatever I do, she remains dumb, and the more I +try to reach her, the more she avoids me.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But what does Marie matter? I force myself to get back to my own +affairs. And quickly. <i>He</i> will come in, there will be his gaiety, the +joy flashing in our voices, the day's doings to tell of, and our dear +union only a fortnight old....</p> + +<p>Marie is there; nothing can efface her. My irritation against her boils +up, then turns against myself. It is not pity I feel but rather an +intolerable impotence. I hurl myself with all my force against the +eclipsed expression of the Breton girl, and each time it hurts.</p> + +<p>Marie....</p> + +<p>And I used to think that to love was to feel yourselves alone. On the +contrary, it is to feel yourself to be many.</p> + +<p>No, no, love is not the emotion of two people. No, as soon as one feels +love one wants to love <i>everyone</i>, win over everyone, shine on everyone, +even on this ignorant head. What sin have I committed that a single +welcome should be denied me? She does not smile; that's my fault. What +is lacking in my love that I should face the vexation of a culpable +failure? My pity for Marie and my love for him are one, because I have +only one heart. And since my heart is repulsed, is it impure?</p> + +<p>Marie has resumed her feeble, beaten-down existence. She has set aside +the brush, her blue eyes look beyond the walls, she wipes her wet hands +on her apron—her hostile hands, which are peculiarly hers.</p> + +<p>What can one do? But there must be <i>something</i> she believes in, there +must be something one can do to move her, there must be some word to say +to uncover the tomb of her heart.</p> + +<p>I stopped. For a moment I left my work....</p> + +<p>Where find the ultimate words of love, the final words—simple and +difficult—when one does not even know the word to make one poor +inferior Marie blossom out?</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>When I am old I shall warm myself at the rich shining vision of the +first days of my love. I shall hold out the dry sticks of my arms. I +shall beg for a little fire, a little sap. I shall return to the present +with feebly beating heart and faltering step.</p> + +<p>Poor withered old woman, you do not remember; and others will bestow +upon you the charity of showing you a picture of lovers. You see us as +we, wife and husband, used to embrace, how I leapt to his side, how his +mouth clung to the fruits of my cheeks, and how we laughed a matchless +laughter. Well, that is enough for you, return to your winter, to the +virgin plain of your old age, to your years perched precipitously over +death.</p> + +<p>Am I the first by any chance to hide the truth from you?</p> + +<p>The truth of to-day has no brilliance or halo. My joy in being a young +bride is not at all what I used to fancy it would be.</p> + +<p>The dominant motive of my life at present, its great preoccupation, is +by no means to invent new words of love. It is to give battle to the +existence that one buys—buys with pennies and infinite pains.</p> + +<p>We are poor. As we each earn our own living, we have decided that I +shall manage the budget for both. It is my job to concoct the meals; and +they must be wholesome, pleasing to the eye, intelligently planned, +tasty. The house must be bright, beautiful, convenient, cozy, stamped +with an air of prosperity. Time has to be economized, a ceaseless +tyranny must be exercised over things, nothing may be neglected, order +must be adhered to slavishly, hygienic principles followed vigilantly. +And lastly, all these things, which are everything, must be accomplished +successfully, and so successfully that once caught and conquered they +will come easily.</p> + +<p>If only I had the money with which to fare forth to battle, it might be +easy, but the sum at my disposal is about enough for a doll's budget. +You could hold it on the tip of a knife; it is inexorably minute.</p> + +<p>Besides, girl that I am, I do not possess overly much of that courageous +ingenuity and imagination which go so far, nor of the determination +which clenches its fists and stares a sombre defiance.</p> + +<p>Love? Why does one never foresee that there will be accounts and money +cares, so important and so tormenting, and at the very start? Why +doesn't one know that these things take precedence over love, over +everything in daily life?</p> + +<p>You have to get up to do the marketing an hour earlier than you're used +to. You have to learn to sew because a new dress and the joy of +pleasing him are a wish of love, but also represent a sum of money.</p> + +<p>At the time I did not know it, but it was an immense triumph that he was +comfortable and happy when he returned home. There was the delight his +surprise gave me when, with great pride, I produced some jolly-looking +fruit for dessert. And see—there was the modest glory of having been +able to buy the lovely flowers for his room with my own coppers.</p> + +<p>As a girl I walked towards love anticipating fiery words, forceful +looks, and two solemn presences.... I used to say to myself: Love!...</p> + +<p>And behold, by way of humble events and simple tasks I have found the +affirmation of love.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>We were sleeping side by side, our breathing intermingled; and nothing +was sweeter than this nearness of our slumber.</p> + +<p>He put out the lamp and stretched himself beside me, and we remained +like that, silent, drowned in sweetness and the night. It was a living +impression of repose.</p> + +<p>Beside his close warmth a torpidity brooded, for the days were +exhausting, and while he raised himself slowly on his elbow to lull me +to sleep with his eyes, I broke away in spite of myself from the +beneficent clasp and fell asleep like a child.</p> + +<p>But last night, although nearly midnight, sleep was slow in coming. He +kissed my lips. Suddenly a strange will broke in me.... What instinct +was I obeying?... Then a violent repulsion. I knitted my brows. Ah, I +detested him....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night it was I who wide-eyed and curious watched him fall asleep.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>There was one second above all....</p> + +<p>If I had had the time to think, I should have thought that this second +was worth the whole of life, the whole of death, and even more than +life.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>The nights are links in a chain. Previously life consisted of day and +night; white, black; black, white. Since then life goes on unbrokenly.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>This morning when I caught a reflection of myself in the shop windows, I +noticed I had a strange air of authority, a self-assurance quite new and +indefinable, a manner crisper, more clear-cut. When I purchased my +provisions I had the courage to haggle, and the market-women treated me +as an equal.</p> + +<p>My firmness and decisiveness have made Marie reveal the pale ocean of +her eyes. A distance seems to have been set between us.</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>They point to us, just stopping short of using their index fingers, as +an example of a happy couple. They speak enviously of our great good +fortune as if we were bound on an adventurous voyage on which you embark +only once in your life.</p> + +<p>What do their "young couple," their "happy pair" mean? Do people really +imagine that you arrive at happiness so quickly and easily, and that to +be sent off <i>together</i> into the steep mountain country, life is in +itself enough to make you find the fulness of life?</p> + +<p>Happy!... When everything tends to estrange you, the opposite natures of +man and woman, their conflicting interests, their very physical +attraction for each other. Happy! When you realize that two beings, +however close they may be, are forever divided. When, no matter how free +you are, marriage forces you to restrain and prostrate yourself. When, +apart from your joint life, you have your own career to pursue. And +when, after the day's work is accomplished, come the night's kisses as +if to undo the good of the day's work—behold the body, the blood, the +lips of love—and you change from friends into lovers again.</p> + +<p>To be sure, there are occasionally moments of blinding delight, and it +is sweet to lean on a shoulder and have a second in the duel of life and +be with a man who smiles and takes you in his arms.</p> + +<p>But to be happy! To feel that your measure is filled, that you are +yourself and him.... Man and woman are above all enemies; you feel it at +every turn. And yet you tell yourself that at the heart of some +inaccessible firmament there does exist a sublime harmony and it <i>must</i> +be attained, even if the road to it is superhuman and your strength +fails. And this harmony and this road must be taken afresh every day, if +ever one approaches them, for a human being changes from day to day.</p> + +<p>I am already somewhat stronger and simpler, and somewhat appeased, but +still we are not "happy" as yet.</p> + + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>It is true; she was sincere....</p> + +<p>While talking she cast off her enormous furs and fiddled with her rings +in the unconscious wish to remove them. Her restless head was set high +on a neck encircled by pearls. Minus the litter of ornaments she would +have tempted you to hold your hand out to her.</p> + +<p>The landscape, swallowed up in long gulps by the window of the +railway-coach, had a sombre fascination for her, because it was moving +almost as fast as her pain. You saw her shoulders gradually shrink +together and slowly draw down the beautiful column of flesh supporting +her head. Then you saw them raised helplessly to ask the eternal +question, "What shall I do?" And then you saw them in the characteristic +gesture of all sufferers—thrown back as if to toss off the pack of +unhappiness loaded on her back.</p> + +<p>Her story burst and rose in precipitate bubbles. Her voice, at moments, +broke. The woman at her side remained perfectly calm, walled up in the +dull indifference accompanying the forties. At the jolting of the train +she merely shook her head—was she listening?—and turned toward the +flying window where her own story was passing.</p> + +<p>Darkness would soon be falling. So I had an excuse for going to sleep, +and as soon as I shut my eyes the young woman took up her tale of woe +anew, twice, three times, ten times. The whole of her misery escaped +from under a mask of restraint.</p> + +<p>"And listen, the other day...."</p> + +<p>Did I need to hear what she was going to say?</p> + +<p>At the end of one sentence I caught "my little girls." I could see her +little daughters—exactly alike, well-behaved, in airy frocks, two heads +with long, elastic curls, a twin step in walking—the sort of children +who are their parents all over again and invariably provoke the +question, "Whom does she look like—her father or her mother?" as if +you have to search into a child's origin.</p> + +<p>I could see her husband too. Haven't all these women the same way of +saying "my husband"? I could see him short, bustling, jovial—really not +a bad sort—and with a chubby face, the only kind I could possibly match +up with the young woman's insipid face. Though she said nothing of a +garden, I imagined a very strait-laced one with rectilinear, +timidly-flowering walks, the sort of garden that is not cherished with +love. And I also saw the family in their home, a substantial white-stone +ornate building. I raised my eyes furtively. I must have got a poor view +of her when she came in an hour ago. Now she looked pretty. Her features +were regular, her color had heightened, her quivering mouth showed her +lips to the fullest, and her distressed hand, pushing back her hair, +disclosed a brow eloquent, smooth and flawless as ivory. Certain women +derive their entire beauty from the pathetic. She was one of them.</p> + +<p>Her eyes turned from the scenery; I lowered my lids.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't understand me any more ... it's all over ... I am nothing to +him ... still ... a love match...."</p> + +<p>The scraps of her plaint were borne off by the wind, the engine snorted +more vigorously, and the last remnants went down with me in the roar of +a far-off, formidable lullaby.</p> + +<p>I soon awoke. Still bemoaning her lot, with the same phrase, it seemed +to me, always at the same point. She went on with such bitter +persistence that in the end you couldn't help learning her story by +heart. I did at any rate. The two women kept looking at each +other—shadowy vis-à-vis—the younger one far from the other, far from +us, far from everything, rooted in her life, in her square garden, in +her thirty years. It was as if she were talking aloud for the first +time.</p> + +<p>I listened. Each detail revealed a year, a corner of the house, an +important event. I felt a dull rage fermenting in me instead of the +timidity and compunction one usually experiences in trespassing upon +another's inmost recesses.</p> + +<p>Why? Perhaps because I, a stranger, had not the power to interpose and +hold the secret of this trouble so as to remedy it.</p> + +<p>Ah, I no longer need to listen nor need to know the man in order to feel +that he is right to lose himself in his business and be merely a good +father who sees in his wife nothing but the mother of his children and +shrugs his shoulders when she heaves with sighs.</p> + +<p>The evening air was blowing in cooler through the upper half of the +window. We were entering a plain where the green of the meadows was +deepening into mauve. Two rows of trees, which had been a profile +against the sky when seen from afar, turned into a black curtain +suddenly drawn. Here and there houses stood out as though groping in the +dark—faces blotted out as soon as arisen—one field swallowed up the +next; the ragged line of a hedge came and went; an embankment followed, +its slope daubed with brown, unwholesome stains, its top dressed with +tufted grass and straggling bushes, which moved their arms like signals.</p> + +<p>The young woman's brows were drawn. She was questioning the obscure +flickering stretch of space. I read the questions in her face: Why does +he merely graze her forehead when he comes back in the evening? Why does +he keep her out of everything? Why does he never feast on her presence +or heed her advice? How did he love her? She had been right a short +while before when she had said bitterly: "A little less than a +prostitute, a little more than a servant."</p> + +<p>The woman was certainly suffering and calling upon a God who could not +answer. At night when the close jealous house is asleep, she undoubtedly +falls to her knees in secret and wrings her barren hands and invokes +misery, love, grief, as if the sacred words were for the whole world. +Thou, God whom she implores, Thou knowest well the reason of her +trouble, a simple reason, brutal, elementary. Why dost Thou let her hunt +for others?</p> + +<p>I threw myself back because I both wanted and feared that my face might +betray me.</p> + +<p>The Midi was beginning, the first olive trees were rounding off the +landscape, the night sky was already smiling in the rosy light of dawn.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In our times no woman has the right to live under the shelter of a +man's labor. The woman who dares to accept such shelter should abdicate +and commit her dignity to the hands that are productive. She should +consent to her dethronement and take the condescending love that is fed +to the weaker without complaining.</p> + +<p>Men begin—the women know it well—by adoring this weakness. "My wife," +that piece of fragility, those useless days, those little arms which +don't know how to do anything, the jewels he brings home, the great +astonished eyes, the mincing steps, everything that is touching and +contrasts with the struggle of his existence. Then he comes to extract +pride from this relation. "It is I who protect, sustain, feed her. It is +I...." He mounts a few steps higher and sees her a little lower, +incapable, infantile, unequal to battle, unequal to his power. Each day +inevitably finds them a little farther apart, and she in approaching him +is bound to raise her eyes while he condescends. If his love lasts it +takes the very form of contempt, though neither is conscious of it. +Which is just and proper.</p> + +<p>A woman supported by her husband has no right to protest. If she is not +<i>earning</i> her living, she should have some work to do, should use her +arms, her idle strength, her health. Merely bringing children into the +world is not enough.</p> + +<p>The fat lady starts up from her entrenchment of cushions. "We are almost +there. We must get ready."</p> + +<p>Bags pulled open emit the animal odor of leather and give out nickel +glints as they are snapped shut again. Then the fire of the rings +disappears under the gloves. "We are there!" They are now quite free to +stare at me.</p> + +<p>What a metamorphosis. She has resumed her former appearance of a lady. +She is scarcely pretty. In the glimmer of the night-lamp she seems +sharp-featured and masked by a ghastly pallor, as if the generous sun +had abjured her forever.</p> + +<p>Each turn of the wheels brings us closer to the town. The young woman +drawing herself up reassumes her manner of a somebody. She is back in +her setting, already less unhappy because she is nearer her unhappiness. +She pulls out her watch. Five minutes still. Time enough to lean on +one's elbow and think sad thoughts pro tem, which come running like a +docile flock.</p> + +<p>I put my hand up to my forehead to prevent her searching my eyes for the +fountain of compassion denied her. There is no compassion for her in me, +neither is there in the opal-tinted meadows, nor under the sapphire of +the sky. To find compassion she would have to reconstruct her life from +top to bottom. A fate such as hers lies outside the fate of humanity; +suffering such as hers is beside and apart from the suffering of +humanity. I say her fate has not made her suffer enough yet and the +woman does not deserve to live.</p> + +<p>A woman who does nothing is fallen in the sight of love.</p> + +<p>He and I are going to the country on our holiday. I have been thirsty +for its freshness....</p> + +<p>The carriage is empty now. You feel the double pulse of the train as it +rolls between two slopes spitting out rings of smoke, pursued, you'd +think, by its own speed, travelling on, on, on....</p> + + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>We've been here a week.</p> + +<p>Strange days, without axis or prop or stay, passed as if outside of +something, as if you had been asked to step up to a door but not invited +inside. Nature is not easy to reach and penetrate.</p> + +<p>We had longed to live in this spot conceiving it beforehand as an oasis +set in dew. And here it is under our feet with its earth which smells +good and its breezes which tinge our cheeks. For all our ardor and +assiduity nature preserves her mystery; she is an unresponsive mother +insensible to the clamor of her children. When we draw near, she stops +talking and either drops a veil or retires completely into seclusion. +"You would like to assay my movements, cull the delicate scent of the +grass blade by blade, meditate like this tree, follow the steps of the +peasants who are my only kith and kin, be a wave in space, unravel the +relations of things, and delude yourselves with my warmth. That is what +everybody wants. May your wish recoil on you. Do not try to reach me. +Do not turn your heads in my direction. Let the thrills and tremors of +your feelings pass between yourselves. I know you not."</p> + +<p>In order to arrive at a mutual understanding with nature, one +undoubtedly must have more of the heart of a recluse, a body more +inclined earthward, a face of greater taciturnity. We are intruders.</p> + +<p>It is only in the evening that you blend and fall into harmony with +everything. Night awaits you—you see—below the horizon, and we set out +to meet it.</p> + +<p>We take each other's arms, I feel my joy preparing; he smiles at the +care I take to prevent his catching cold, and off we go, arm in arm, +tramping to the tune of a sounding tread like two comrades who once were +schoolmates.</p> + +<p>The little nestling village lies far behind; at a gulp the turn in the +road swallows up the last hut. The landscape ahead is still variegated, +but as it draws gently nearer the colors wane, the ground flattens, the +features relax as in a face after a smile.</p> + +<p>Silence.... Twilight within us is falling also. To admit it we watch the +surrounding dusk with swelling chests and quivering nostrils.</p> + +<p>On the rising ground opposite a yellow point is kindled, another and +another, performing an unconscious duty—to usher in the night. And +night is now here. Close by, in the fields, she has already drowned the +olive-trees, which have no compact mass to offer in resistance, scarcely +even any outlines, defenseless, except for their hundred-year-old +trunks. Their life is a thing of quivering, silvery breezes, and when +the darkness comes slinking and whispering, a breath will lull their +gray-lined brows to sleep.</p> + +<p>Along the embankment on either side of the road, trees—you can't tell +what sort of trees any more—make great human gestures, as if to give +warning of a drama about to begin. Instinctively we quicken our pace and +draw closer together. The rich blood runs lively in our veins. We share +a fleeting warmth.</p> + +<p>And now noises spring up, noises that belong to night alone and are a +part of its peacefulness; mournful bayings, which echo throws back +faithfully from yon slope; the croaking of the frogs, which blight the +heart of the atmosphere; a human call now and then, direct and piercing, +and from the ground the metallic chirping of the crickets.</p> + +<p>How at ease you feel, full of loving-kindness, and how sincere you are. +You have sins lurking in your flesh, crimes piled up in your brain, a +sombre mood inhabiting your heart. Everything can be confessed and laid +bare. The night is all-comprehending. Night-time is different from the +stiffly starched daytime with its color and form to distract man from +his intimate verity. You can venture upon the wildest thoughts, expand +to your uttermost limits, forget your own existence, and discard all +past gestures. They were all inadequate. You don't want to retain any of +them except the gesture you would make here—spread your arms while +walking and hold your hands open like two pure, empty chalices.</p> + +<p>Complete blackness now. You can no longer distinguish between silence +and space, fear and the rustling; all things are merged in each other, +trees with trees, their masses with the slope, and the slope, deprived +of its contours, with the sky, which has come down to join the earth. +Everything is blended, obliterated. The very cypresses, during the +daytime a spear thrust at the azure, are also added to the darkness.</p> + +<p>Beneath our eyes, tired from not seeing anything, the road kindly +extends its vaporous pallor. Except for the road no line to arrest the +impulse within, no perspective. The only clear things, our own figures.</p> + +<p>We have never before entered such solitude together, nor ever before +been laid so bare to each other. It makes us walk slowly and solemnly, +as if we were passing beneath the eye of God.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The idea of us as a couple. We. We two.</p> + +<p>Must an idea, then, remain implanted in the hearts of human beings in +order to keep them upright? If I did not feel the pulsing of my love +constraining me to live, the night, with no reason to respect my spirit, +would stretch me out, I fancy, on any chance slope beneath the large +serenity.</p> + +<p>But I am upheld. Every intake of fresh air gives a new thrill and a +youthful vigor to the idea in my heart, and I feel it mounting so +swiftly that I must run to keep up with it. So as to hold it fast for +my protection I rake together my loveliest recollections. Are my +loveliest recollections those of our nights in each other's arms, our +kisses, the storm that beat against our bodies?... No, they are not. As +I raise my eyes to where the firmament should be—if it still exists—I +find the blessed peacefulness which comes from his presence. The +sentiment that grips my heart when I feel myself taking part in his life +is lofty. It has something in it of respect, and trust, and pity; it is +hard to say just what. It spurs me to action, even to boldness, and it +raises around me a strong wall in which I am secure.</p> + +<p>This is not a recollection; it is a bit of the future, and the future +alone is what you discover as you go forward into the infinite. At one +bound you mount to the summits of love. Love is the future magnetized by +the heart.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He is there. His profile is massive in outline. He towers over the +sunken country, the clods crunch beneath his feet. I walk close beside +him. I ask for nothing. Maybe my only wish is that my footsteps should +make less noise and my shoulders take up less room.</p> + +<p>But I have another wish. I know what it is. Although I love him with my +whole heart, I want to love him more. One does not attain to love once +for all; the heart can never be filled to the full. How far shall we go? +I can go on and on without stopping and outdistance the sources of the +night; my youth is inexhaustible, my feet will never weary. I want to +love him <i>more</i>.</p> + +<p>Space heaves a deeper breath. She is traversed by currents, scoops of +darkness, aromatic whiffs. The perfume sweetens the lips; flowers must +be dotting this hedge. And suddenly space goes mad. A black wind swirls +down from the tree-tops and fills the nocturnal expanse with the +creaking of branches.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Must we stop at the greatest moment, at the point where the road looks +supernatural, as though it possessed a density of its own and were +suspended in space?... I should have liked to walk further; one never +goes far enough. Must we really return to the stolid lamp and babbling +kisses?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Not immediately. Let us prolong this great sombre moment. Let us stay +here where even time might come to a standstill. The trees droop lower +here, and in these tranquil meadows the spirit may play hide-and-seek.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It is really unhappiness that makes you stop. I return from the night; +all I bring back is this strangled throat, a body like a tortoise-shell +covering a silent heart and blinded eyes.</p> + +<p>If I emerge from myself, disconsolateness everywhere, spread all over +the world. The sleeping desert....</p> + +<p>He is close beside me, but since he lives, he can do nothing for me. I +can do nothing for him. I used to think that in loving him I crowned +him. Love is not enough. This evening I saw his life rise from the +ground, distinct from love, <i>outside</i> of mine; I saw his life, bared to +all the winds, isolated from everything, raise and satisfy itself. I see +that this is right.</p> + +<p>His life is complete in itself, unique and important; his life is not +merely the image that inspires me, the voice that I evoke, the face I +love dearly. His life is an insuperable force, vivid, inviolable and +free, which my heart out of sheer love of him failed to recognize. I was +right a few minutes ago to want to blot myself out, because I ought not +to count. Beyond my limited, restricted presence, he has the whole of +infinity to breathe in.</p> + +<p>Then where are the nights which are to enlighten me? Of him I know +nothing but my love, nothing except that by his very existence he +contradicts what I know of him. Who will tell me how far I must go and +to what I must attain? I have slept in his arms, I have lived side by +side with all his cares, and I have given myself up to him with a joy +like unto which there is nothing. All I have given is myself. And yet +more is necessary.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And a great conviction rises up straight and strong and shines as if a +light had sprung from the midst of the meadows.</p> + +<p>I am only a woman, I can think only spasmodically. I love as one weeps, +but there comes a day of which this is the night, on which your forehead +touches the profound truth. You feel the loving-kindness of your heart +aroused, and you oddly understand that the perfect union of man and +woman has never been part of the natural scheme of things, and in order +to be happy together it is not enough to love one another.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Come. We may return. Press me close to you, if you will, closer still. +Don't let us talk.</p> + +<p>I know why I am content: your arms, my all-powerful life, our firm +footsteps. I do not know why the slight shadow seems to have vanished: +to live, go forward, pierce the narrow track of the road with your clear +eyes for stars, follow a night one does not see....</p> + +<p>And then, O God, in braving the heavens, to understand with love that +which transcends love.</p> + + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>I hesitate to go out on the street. I feel that people's eyes are drawn +to my figure. There's no use fooling myself. The little girls actually +point to me with furtive, vinegary glances, for they are more +ingenuously hypocritical than women. Their insistent gaze embarrasses +me.</p> + +<p>Two long months to wait before the first cry of my child! If only I +carried nothing beside my child. I feel also an imprisoned love +developing which beats at the bars of its cage and chafes so that I +don't know how to distract it.</p> + +<p>The layette is quite ready; swaddling-bands warm to the touch, chemises +like a doll's, caps which will never be of use; the equipment of a +marionette; linen as soft as lint, bibs round and puffy as cockades. I +have spread everything out in front of me, and each article as it passes +through my hands assumes a shadowy lifelikeness.</p> + +<p>Two months before I shall really know whether I am to be like other +mothers, a brooding hen, with folded wings and in-turned heart, +passionate for my own children, cattish and carping in my attitude +toward other children. Two months before I shall know the secret force +of that wild love which, they say, springs up all at once.</p> + +<p>I am being initiated however. The other women give me a hearty welcome; +they make the impression of crowding together to make room for me. A +real sisterhood? Or the imperceptible joy of seeing a rival temporarily +diminished? Under their escort I enter into the forbidden arcana. "What +do you feel? <i>I</i>——" They make me a target for their reminiscences.</p> + +<p>Each shamelessly outdoes the other. From the quantity and finished +preciseness of the details narrated I infer that the story has been oft +told. The least loquacious are the mothers who "have had a lot of them." +These have nothing left but a vast, frequently refreshed memory in which +their life merges in a blur with the life they have so many times +carried beneath their hearts.</p> + +<p>Which of them am I to believe? Many have broached the subject to me, +many have discussed it, none has told me the secret of being a mother, +the word that would reveal, the sign, flashing and disappearing, by +which the treasure awaiting me would shine from afar, which would <i>make +me understand</i>. I have heard them bemoan the misery of the months before +childbirth and the sufferings of childbirth itself. I have heard them +boast, with the reverence of fetich-worship, of the care they gave their +little ones. But here their maternity stops. I still do not know. I have +two months to wait.</p> + +<p>I plunge my fingers into the milky mass of the little garments. "Do +you," I say to my husband, "see the head of your child underneath this +hood? Let us try to imagine...."</p> + +<p>He smiles without answering, shaken in his flesh, so lucid and so well +prepared for his approaching fatherhood that I feel myself a hundred +leagues behind. He, at least, knows why he will love his child, why he +already loves it.</p> + +<p>As for me, my vision is obscured by the disconcerting pictures drawn by +the other women. Perhaps also I am under the ancestral pressure exerted +by the long line of my foremothers. Why should I be different? What +quality would make me better?</p> + +<p>The animal heaviness reasserts its rights. My body is an unwieldy sheath +overspread with sleepiness, ramified by thick blood, its cells given +over to contented, torpid well-being. My very heart is struck with +stupor.</p> + +<p>To lie at full length, on my bed beneath the weight of my breasts of +rock, no longer to move or think, only to feel at momentary intervals a +light stirring, a caress, which gently turns on its self and folds its +wings.</p> + + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>I scarcely dare to get up. She knew me in my slenderness of the previous +summer, when I took the torrid paths like a goat leaping dangerous +mountain tracks. It was from my brisk manner of ready, go! she told me, +that she could tell how warm our love was.</p> + +<p>We were living in the same inn. The very first day I was struck by the +blooming youthfulness of this woman who so skilfully escaped the burden +of the forties and constantly trailed a lover, a lover with a vindictive +eye and bullish neck and forehead. Perhaps on close inspection you might +suspect the fine tracery of wrinkles on her transparent skin. +Nevertheless she shone resplendent as we younger women don't know how to +shine.</p> + +<p>Black on white, a head surcharged with mystery and night, two jewels, +no, two green pools, a mouth that revealed the shape of a kiss better +than other mouths, a figure not very tall but with a race and suppleness +which lent dignity. Clothes planned to reveal the curves of her body. +Movements kindling I know not what lights. Woman, in short, with all a +woman has in her of the venomous and the childlike.</p> + +<p>We sat directly opposite each other at table. The charm of her vivid +smile, glowing face, and darting movements turned the frugal meal for me +into a riotous feast.</p> + +<p>One morning as I was starting out on a walk by myself for nowhere in +particular she came up to me in an easy spontaneous way, as if there +really did exist a sisterhood among women. Part of her loveliness was a +deep, maternal voice; in crystal tones she plunged into a surprising +eulogy of the relationship between my husband and me. She had noticed +us. How perfectly united we must be! "Married? Absurd!" She pouted. But +we had such a way of locking arms, and looking and waiting for each +other, also such a....</p> + +<p>She went on talking and talking. I was rather bewildered.... Was it +really <i>us</i> she was describing—sombre with passion, eagerly relishing a +concord that was pregnant with storms which might break suddenly from a +clear sky? Wasn't it more like her own love? I was at a loss how to +answer. Still I could not recognize ourselves. She clutched me and +laughingly declared I was a little savage, and my being a little savage +pleased her.</p> + +<p>We came to where the country takes a sudden dip, so that to be visible +to the heavens it has to cling to the bronzed trunks of the +half-stripped cork-trees. We went on breasting the wind. I knitted my +brows. Everything she said breathed, at least to me, another age or +another sphere; it all hinged on love, was dedicated to love, and by +that very fact created a distance between us. I saw her cramped and +confined by the very thing that gave her so much vitality; I saw it was +her crucifixion. She was nothing but the instinct for love restricted to +the need of man. Nevertheless she attracted me.</p> + +<p>We got to know each other better. She astonished me more and more. +Whether she and her lover carried on a squally conversation on the bench +in the hall or whether she wandered along the narrow, brambly paths in a +sort of ferocious abandon, or whether she came to me and threw her +thorny crown at my feet with a radiant gesture, she was Woman as men +have described her, as they have wanted her. She was the ancient bearer +of a fatal property, the creature who either subdues her opponent or is +subdued by him, and knows nothing else; the sorry creature of tears and +fascinations....</p> + +<p>She never spoke of her life or of herself. We were two women, our lot +therefore was the same, she was in love, I was in love. What else need +one want?</p> + +<p>"Good-bye for the present," she cried as the cart set off down the road +at a snail's pace. She stood with her head inclined tenderly sidewise +and her floating veil prolonging the farewell.... There was a bend in +the road. I thought that was to be my last view of her.</p> + +<p>But a little while ago as I was going to lie down, an imperious ring +tore the silence. Actually she, her smile, her veil, her dress a tangle +of silver.</p> + +<p>"What a pretty little nest! How comfortable you must be! Well, well. +Still happy?"</p> + +<p>And then—there!—her laugh with a little savagery in it. She notices +that I am expecting a baby. "Well, of all things!" She throws her gloves +into the air, seats herself, gets up again, and from her hectic +restlessness I infer that she feels defrauded. My home is too cozy and +my manner too tranquil. Not, of course, that she wants to find me in +misfortune, but it's as though I have passed over into an enemy's camp.</p> + +<p>She has come because she is in trouble. I do my best. I hold her hands +in mine and try to trace the ravages of grief on her faun face because +she keeps saying: "I'm so miserable." She must be suffering. But I +cannot get myself to be moved.</p> + +<p>This is her story. Her lover has betrayed her, she is sure of it. In +tidying his drawers she found letters from a woman referring to a recent +rendezvous. She thought she'd die when she read them.... Still I am +unmoved. She warms up to her theme. At breakfast, then and there, a +terrible scene; they fly at each other.... Disgust seizes me.... To show +my interest and stimulate my pity, I ask some questions. "So you had an +explanation and could come to an understanding?" She snatches her hands +away and draws back. "Aren't you listening?"</p> + +<p>To come to an understanding! That would be too easy. They rushed at each +other at the first pretext, each resorting to shifts and dodges and +keeping silent as to the real issue, though recognizing the other's +grievance. "He beat me."</p> + +<p>She closes her beautiful victimized eyes. She has displayed the seven +wounds of her heart; and the least she expects is the shelter of my +breast and the succor of my arms....</p> + +<p>"But it would be so simple to tell each other the truth and try to +understand each other...."</p> + +<p>She keeps her flexible panther-like body from bounding up. "The truth! +what truth? Do you think love is so simple? He has deceived me. That's +the only truth I need to know." She gives herself up to tears, and her +clear eyes turn into two bloodshot orbs.</p> + +<p>Should I tell her that I am insensible to such despair, and her love is +merely a mistake proceeding from books, it really isn't love? Should I +tell her that love is logical and simple at bottom, and is less in its +transports than in the gentleness it conveys? Should I tell her that men +like change more than women and for a man to snatch at a passing +temptation does not mean that he is trying to reach the love he prefers? +Should I?</p> + +<p>She anticipates me. "I understand, I understand, you are not in love. +Poor little thing, you'll see when you love!" She sends her prophetic +look around the orderly room and the, to her, inconceivable quiet. What +polite excuse can she find for getting away quickly? She came a long way +to meet a real sister in love. We ought to have groaned together over +the common enemy who is also the common God; then she would have +departed in her honorable failure aided and reinforced for the eternal +contest.</p> + +<p>Shall I let her leave like this? I have been able to secure a serenity +which she does not surmise; it would be a charity to beg her to try to +secure the same serenity. This woman ... I shall say to her: "A beloved +is neither a God nor an enemy, he is a friend you must discover in spite +of passion. I know it's hard and needs an iron will and devotion, but I +swear one succeeds...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She raises the window-shade. Her face stands out—is it the +same?—marred by the light.</p> + +<p>The borders of her green eyes show the streaky after-effects of tears, +her cheeks are lined, her lips have lost their blood and youthful red, +the two tendons of her lovely marble neck twitch, and the cherished body +in its holiday attire collapses like a broken toy.</p> + +<p>I approach her, holding out in my comradely arms the new spirit that +will blossom on the new earth. I am not the only one; other young women +would speak as I do. The love by which we live is not like the love the +others die of.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But when I come close to her she steps into the full light ... I give up +the idea of explaining myself. There is nothing to say. She is twenty +years older than we are.</p> + + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p>I have the feeling that I am not prepared; it is a sort of +embarrassment, an obscure terror, and when I get myself to say so to the +other women, they laugh and hush me up. "Don't worry. The knowledge +comes of itself. Just being a mother teaches you how to raise a child."</p> + +<p>It was by chance that I came to this street. I was walking along. The +hospital. A dull flat smell surrounded the sordid building with a +leprous haze. The doorway was swallowing up a long line of women from +off the gray canyon of the street. I do not know what struck me—I +retraced my steps and followed the women in.</p> + +<p>We were made to wait in a room heavy with a brew of musty drug smells. +Someone shut the door, and immediately there broke out a fearful hubbub, +a concert of human meowings, bawls, pipings. A panic nearly seized me. +With the dull patience of animals penned in together the women formed +into groups and filled out blank forms, rocking and bobbing the light +fragile bundles they each carried in their arms.</p> + +<p>I went up to one of them, leaned over and looked upon the crumpled patch +of a little old red face. Then I realized I had come there to occupy +myself in my period of expectancy and catch a glimpse of my child in +advance.</p> + +<p>The woman's face was bloodless, like the face of a drowned corpse, and +fanned by long colorless locks limp as seaweed. Seeing the supplication +in my eyes she lifted up the thick dirty-gray shawl with the air of a +benefactress. "Three months." The first thing they tell of a child is +its age.</p> + +<p>The little worm very leisurely wrinkled its forehead of peeling satin +and stretched itself, opened two rather glassy eyes encircled by mauve, +and let out its guttural wail through a toothless aperture upholstered +with flesh. The provident mother had already pulled a rubber pacifier +out of her pocket, which transformed the wail into a monotonous greedy +gurgle. "Will you be quiet! They're an awful trouble. You'll see," she +declared, gauging my heavy figure. "I had bad luck, I had no milk. No +use giving him gravy or bread soaked and boiled. He doesn't get any good +out of them. If you think you can fatten them on the doctor's fine +words, as if the doctors even know what they're talking about!"</p> + +<p>"I believe you!" bawled a big blonde. The baby which she had a +triumphant way of carrying had hanging cheeks and bottle-blue eyes in +button-hole slits. "Just look at mine. At nine months it ate like us. +What do you say to that, eh?"</p> + +<p>A group gathered. "What are you here for then?" asked a huge creature +with a gray ogress head, high cheekbones and skin streaked with fine +veins. The blonde turned her baby over and showed its chubby flesh +covered with a crusty, scabby, red-streaked sheath. "Oh, only this."</p> + +<p>The ogress dropped into an empty place on the bench and paraded her +darling on her knees. "My daughter's," she explained to the circle +around her. "Her third. Maybe you think she hasn't got something to +worry about—three babies and working in a factory. Babies—I know a +thing or two about babies. I've had eleven." There was a general stir of +compassion followed by protests. "I have two left." She danced the mite +on her knee. Her tower of a body swayed back and forth, through her +half-open jacket you could divine her dead breasts. There was something +weird and horrible in the dismal accustomedness of her knees.</p> + +<p>"The doctors make you fuss such a lot. You give the babies too much, and +you don't give 'em enough, and you don't bathe 'em, and you don't weigh +'em. There wasn't such a lot of talk in my time, but they grew up all +the same. I said to my daughter, 'Look here, you let me alone, either I +know what to do or I don't know what to do.' I used to give mine +toast-water, that was all." She tucked up the lank pads of hair clinging +to either side of her face. "You boil two or three crusts of bread...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know," interrupted the woman with the drowned-corpse face.</p> + +<p>"Mine has bronchitis," went on the ogress. "I wonder where he caught it. +He never goes out and he sleeps close to the stove. I am going to try +and see if I can't get a bottle of syrup...."</p> + +<p>The folding-doors opened, a white-clad nurse made a sign, and all rose, +each with the same enamored hugging-to-her of her wailing burden.</p> + +<p>The crowd poured into an immense, well-heated room paved with white +flag-stones and painted white. The light beat down hard through a row of +bay-windows. At the far end presided a handsome old man in a white +smock, an immaculate nurse at his side. "The doctor!" whispered the +women in a tone of awed hostility. The man did indeed seem indifferent +and just as God should be.</p> + +<p>Spread out symmetrically on the bare table in front of him among other +instruments was a complete apparatus of justice, bright and +glittering—a set of scales with a basket and a row of copper weights +drawing clamorous notes from the straggling music of the sunshine.</p> + +<p>With remarkable dexterity the women undid the swaddling-clothes, +turning, tucking up, unwrapping. The blonde swelled out her bosom as she +stuck it full of pins; the ogress held her pins between her teeth. A +suffocating odor of warm wool, sour milk, perspiration, and stale flesh +arose amid the cries.</p> + +<p>The line began to move. One after the other they went up tendering their +children like poor plucked bruised flowers, with the idolatrous, +skulking faith of believers approaching God.</p> + +<p>From my bench, my heart frightfully wrung, I saw each showing me what I +might make of my child ... a baby with its neck seamed with a reddish +crack ... a baby with tiny, tiny limbs beneath an abdomen swelling like +a bagpipe ... a baby whose ribs striped its body like a zebra's hide ... +a baby with a back all covered with boils....</p> + +<p>"He has green movements." "He has a swollen stomach." "He has ringworm." +"He coughs." And the same slack answers to the doctor's questions: "I +don't know.—I don't know.—I don't know."</p> + +<p>The man cast his sovereign glance over the printed form held out to him, +handled the little body, remained impassive while pronouncing his rapid +decision, and took up the next case.</p> + +<p>Among the lethargic flock who went away with bowed heads, some, to rally +their spirits, mumbled the flesh of their babies with fierce kisses as +if to take revenge and show that this man after all had done them +harm....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I got up, dragging my double weight.</p> + +<p>So this is the maternal infatuation which is so sanctified and revered. +"I don't know.—I don't know.—I don't know." And I presumptuously was +going to commit the same folly, I, who knew no better than they, who had +not learned the unknown love awaiting me....</p> + +<p>Why doesn't that man, the doctor, who <i>knows</i>, arise and snatch away +these lives contaminated by the fond ignorance of the mothers, and +proclaim that the instinct is fallible, fatal, even criminal?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Most of the women met me again under the porte-cochère, because I walked +with difficulty. The one with the drowned-corpse face gave me a friendly +little nod.</p> + +<p>"You will see," her nod said, "it will soon be your turn...."</p> + +<p>Yes, I know.... To be a mother.... In return for the gift of life, to +have the right of death over one's child. And to use that right.</p> + + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>A rending, moments repeated incessantly, torture indescribable, pain +embedded in the body, battle, cruel cries....</p> + +<p>I remember everything and every second. I remember the seconds when I +gnawed at my bedclothes, when I howled like a wild beast. I remember all +of them and others. I remember that none of them was ever the last, how +the hours added themselves to the seconds in an excruciating, inhuman +succession of throes in which my whole being set furiously upon itself, +how I no longer had the strength to suffer.</p> + +<p>I twisted my head from side to side like a dying animal in entreaty; I +stifled it in the pillows; it was wet with perspiration; I felt a new +convulsion begin and break like a wave. And when an infernal force tore +me with a pang greater than all the others, I heard vaguely a cry that +was no longer mine, a film passed over my pupils, I sank into an abyss +sunlit and sultry. It was over ... it was over ... I fell asleep.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Did I remain in that state of lethargy and inertia for long? When I +opened my eyes the whiteness and blankness of the walls of my room +seemed to be released by a spring. About me was a startling silence +peopled with sibilant whispers. I saw women stooping, then disappearing +with their arms full of linen.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>My baby! My baby!</p> + +<p>His father, exultant, held him out to me. I became fully conscious. But +goodness, how ugly he was! The shrivelled face of an old woman, the +profile of a vulture, a forehead covered with plushy mucosities, cheeks +smeared as with the yolk of an egg, hands on the outside exactly like a +bird's and on the inside creased and red. And real nails!</p> + +<p>At the fontanelle the pulse beneath the skin throbbed terrifyingly, and +the fuzz on his skull was skimpier than pin-feathers on a fledgling.</p> + +<p>I took him in my arms, stiff and long in his swaddling-clothes. His eyes +opened half way and showed a glassy violet with milky gleams.</p> + +<p>Our child? We both in turn dropped timid solemn kisses on his downy +cheeks made of a sweet smell, and I dared not say anything.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Well?... The call of the blood, the rejoicing of the flesh, the issue of +love, the instinct, the lurid mother-instinct at last?</p> + +<p>No!</p> + + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>I should like to hold these things fast, for always.</p> + +<p>I see them now as they really are, just as I see my son in his present +form. But it is not enough to say: "I see them." I have carefully +preserved all my pictures of him; I want to keep intact the memory of +the heart he gave me.</p> + +<p>This is not difficult to tell. Other feelings are too bound up with self +for description. You'd have to explain a person's whole nature to +understand them. Love is indefinable, grief is indefinable, but a +mother's heart can open up like a book. It is uniform and simple, free +from all alloy, and its very infiniteness is like finiteness.</p> + +<p>My little boy is near me, awkwardly assaying his first steps in the +garden. Without raising my eyes from my work I watch him and I thank +him.</p> + +<p>It is he. Although he changes from day to day, I know his ways by heart: +the big curl in which the sunlight lies coiled, the almost imperceptible +arch of his eyebrows, mere shades of lines, the red pollen blown on the +petals of his cheeks, his profile of curves, his neck of +mother-of-pearl, the spreading fan of his fingers, his unique form which +is unique only to me.</p> + +<p>I must rack my brain in order to force into my memory that once he lay +hidden in my warm womb and I carried him as though he were one of my +organs, as though he were a secret, that I carried him as one carries a +joy or a pain. I no longer remember this.</p> + +<p>I am in a hurry for him to grow up and be able to listen; I should like +to talk to him. I have found words for the others, though they awoke in +me only an uncertain love and set my heart in chaos. He has given me an +intelligible emotion, and to him I have said nothing.</p> + +<p>I love him as I love no one, because he is the sole human being for whom +I am <i>responsible</i>. My love is responsibility first and foremost. If he +bends over, I suppress a cry; if the sun shines too strong on him, I +shield him with my body; if he makes a new gesture, a slight disquiet +flits through me. In whatever concerns him danger seems to lurk. He is a +lively, approachable child, people like him, and when they come up and +speak to him, I smile a pleasant, natural smile, though his life and his +death keep up an incessant sport within me and incessantly it devolves +upon me to secure his life. It is a tragic stake, a terribly cruel +problem; it is the entire basis of mother-love.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He has run as far as the ivy thicket, thirty yards from my chair. I +tremble so that I have to get up and leave my work. Every now and then +he comes tottering to present me with a shaving of wood fished up from +the sand he plays in, a big earth-coated pebble, treasure-troves of all +sorts. "Look, mother." His attention flatters me.</p> + +<p>If I were to disappear without leaving anything?... Without leaving a +will? Or suppose that from beyond the tomb I were to say: "Before you +took your first steps your life was all arranged. In order that you +should be happy I kept you from having dignity or a sense of justice. No +need for you to undergo the bitter struggle that presses upon a man, the +primordial cares of existence, honesty—honor, in short. Are you not my +child? If I have taken trouble and pains it was to deprive human beings +all for your sake. You will be exempted from earning your bread and +pursuing an occupation. You will depend upon the labor of others, you +will be under the delusion that you are distinguished from those upon +whom you depend. That is the end to which my efforts will have served." +But this is wrong, unwholesome, dishonorable.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When he is grown up into a tall young man whom people take notice of, +shall I have the courage to look him in the face and say:</p> + +<p>"You are not everything to me: you never have been my whole passion. I +have cherished you on my knees, I have served you, I have idolized you. +I have never deceived myself. I knew perfectly that in loving a child +one gives without ever receiving. I have reserved the highest place for +others. It is not to you that I have dedicated the essential thing in my +life, its supreme reason, if a supreme reason can be found.</p> + +<p>"Therefore you have the right to leave me. You must be finer, you must +repudiate me. I bow before what you are. I free you from the duty in +which children are cooped up, and I assume the duty myself. Whatever I +may have done, never let my course of life be an example to you; there +is no example; you, nothing but you, is what will count.</p> + +<p>"You will have so much to do, everything I have failed to do. Go, keep +your face set forward, never turn back. What were you born for if not to +depart from me? To be sure, you are flesh of my flesh, but a part of my +flesh that is unlike me, a contrary current that has emanated from +me.... You say no to everything I am.</p> + +<p>"Does it hurt me to see you disappear? Am I alarmed? Do I suffer? That +does not concern you. <i>I was forewarned</i>. On the day you were born I was +told that the tearing-away process would last as long as I last. We +leave each other each minute. Your head mounts upward towards the +heavens, mine draws closer to the earth.</p> + +<p>"It is right and proper that this should be so. Without you, you know, +my existence would be justified. It was not merely to bring you into the +world that I was born. The thing is that your existence should be +justified.... No, do not delay. Life is nothing but a departure and +every time one halts one commits treason.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to come to understand many things, thanks to you. I have +always tried to be clear and know myself, but when I went to the bottom +of things, I mean to the bottom of myself, there always remained +<i>another</i> soul, a rebellious soul which refused to reveal its mystery, +and I have doubted whether it is humanly possible to learn the truth of +it.</p> + +<p>"I was not mistaken. The real, unknown part of myself, my unreachable +soul, is in your eyes. You will see through what I have got no knowledge +of. If you beheld how I look at you! You are like the travellers who +come from afar, from the lands of fable concealed under lovely names of +gold. You resemble those travellers. Your eyes will see beyond the +horizon in which I go astray. I tell you that of the two of us the one +who ought to kneel, listen, and learn is not you.</p> + +<p>"My little baby, I shall owe to you the sole love that is sorrowful and +perfect, the love that neither barters nor expects reward. Since I have +given everything, you will owe me nothing."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Shall I have the courage to say this to him? It will be hard perhaps, +but already I find that it is a veritable grace from heaven to have +twenty years in which to attain to such courage.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Here he is coming back, running this time and brandishing in his plump +hand a twig he has broken off all by himself. He drops plump on his +knees as on two round balls, all hampered in his clumsy race to me. His +chubby cheeks are stained with crimson. He throws himself on me. +"Mother," he lisps, the little flatterer....</p> + +<p>The mournful moment of a kiss, the exasperating moment of an abortive +embrace, the fleeting moment of contact—he is gone.</p> + + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p>The test has been made.</p> + +<p>We have lived side by side in the heart of the country, we have done the +humble things of daily life together, have shared its immediate +exigencies, have enjoyed the wild spirit of long walks together, the +redolent silence of the little wood, all the freedom written on the face +of the earth and carried by the waters. After this we shall feel that +the looks we exchange are sisterly, and I have the improbable hope of +some day being able to say: "I have found a woman friend."</p> + +<p>Her very name seems wonderful. Eva....</p> + +<p>I met her in the office where I work. What a lovely vision the first +day! You so rarely find strength blended with sweetness in a woman that +her bearing seemed a little supernatural. It was merely self-assurance, +however, and the majesty of perfect health that gave her her superb +manner of treading the waves. You noticed her tallness and fearless +vitality, and did not try to question her eyes for the secret being in +her. This was fully expressed by her quick gestures, the smile of her +frank lips, the fearless carriage of her head, the straightforward look +of her beautiful brown eyes.</p> + +<p>A sort of reserve established a connection between us at first.</p> + +<p>I noticed her diligence, her desire to do well, and a something like +heroism, which made her rush into the forefront of life and carry away a +little more than her share of the burden.</p> + +<p>Our silent understanding lasted for some time. Perhaps without our +knowledge the intuition brooding in women brought us closer than words +could have done. One evening in speaking of her home and saying how +happily she looked forward to meeting her husband, she used a phrase so +tender, warm and chaste that I caught a glimpse of the woman in her. Her +face, always behind a mask of energy, turned gentle and serious as if +veiled by serenity. I imagined a couple in her image, for it is the +woman who makes or unmakes the couple. She must have achieved a deep +marriage.... The weather was fine and bright, and we left for home +together.</p> + +<p>I think I shall always remember her pure voice, which revealed the +restlessness of living like a burning bush hidden behind strength and +youth.... I kept wishing we'd never reach the corner where we had to +separate.</p> + +<p>But there it was already. The red of the sky threw its glow on her face +and spread an impalpable halo of dusty rays behind her. "Till +to-morrow," she said. I almost ran off, my heart swelling with +gratitude. I remember my eyes smarted.</p> + +<p>That was several months ago. When we decided to spend our vacation +together, I felt beforehand that we were going to be friends.</p> + +<p>We made the rash experiment of bringing two couples, two poor couples, +under the same poor roof. We did it and we were gay and happy in the +doing. It makes you believe in miracles.</p> + +<p>I do believe in miracles. It is not a miracle that this beautiful woman +with the tanned cheeks walking beside me is the strongest attraction in +the landscape because of the tall stem of her body, the dancing refrain +of her steps, and the brilliance of her complexion. Other women have +passed over the ageless earth who were as alive, as charming, as +stirring. The miracle is that her brow is clear, her manner clean-cut, +her gaze straight and sure and keen with intelligence; that she goes +lovingly toward a love which she has built with her own hands; that she +is free and strives to be sincere in her freedom. Our mothers knew not. +The woman in us owes them nothing but our faults.</p> + +<p>If you look at this woman carrying her will on her shoulders, leading +her will on towards the realization of her inner idea, towards the +simple desire to be brave, to love, to be truthful; if you see her +passing in nature, if you see how she moves, how she takes into her +being the keen sea-air and how aware she is of everything, the great +eucalyptus, its gray-green leaves tossing in the wind, the ochre-colored +slope checkered with vines, the sleepy languor of the lovely coast-line +robed in blue, you can tell at a glance that our humanity is strangely +new.</p> + +<p>When she returns to her and her husband's orderly, flower-decked room, +what a life she will stir up; what creative power, what inspiration, +what harmony she will contribute to their relation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Will she and I succeed in producing that supreme masterpiece known as +friendship? Friendship between two women used to seem almost impossible +to me. I have always seen women leagued against man. They meet only to +connive, and when they meet, humanity divides into two camps with the +woman's camp almost wholly devoted to the concoction of plots and lies. +Two women together? Two enemies confronting each other. If they cease +from their rivalry, it is in order to set traps for male weakness.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She turns round. "Quick, we ought to be back already." Her smile is so +confiding and my heart so happy, she is so radiant, so wholesome and her +presence is so forceful that some day, I say to myself, the name of +friendship will have to be the same as of love.</p> + + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p>An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped +with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream.</p> + +<p>We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose +early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to +this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself.</p> + +<p>The setting for our lunch was all it should be—the midday sun blazing +down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the +scenery framed in the arch of the arbor.</p> + +<p>Two years....</p> + +<p>The afternoon passed tranquilly.</p> + +<p>He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and +the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze +was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing +up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes +only—this being a day apart from other days—for the broad effects of +the great stretch of landscape.</p> + +<p>A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before +turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the +great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of +mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end +which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all.</p> + +<p>The same current of the spirit—if not the same spirit—drives its waves +through us. The same flame—if not the same heart—mounts within us. The +same love of truth—if not the same truth—throws the light of day +between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and +united.</p> + +<p>We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other.</p> + +<p>Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to +explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; +you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he +wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is +reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his +concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have +nodded my head. "Yes, exactly."</p> + +<p>But if I had also been told: "A day will come when you will have nothing +more to learn of each other, nothing more to tell each other; without +mutual explanations you will understand everything," I should have +denied the possibility. I should have cried out that a whole century +wouldn't be enough to bring two human beings into harmony, because human +beings change from second to second. I should have said it was +blasphemy.</p> + +<p>But the day did come.</p> + +<p>There is a region of soft azure outlines where words have been +extinguished. <i>He</i> exists and I exist.</p> + +<p>It is a little green arbor where nothing, in short, binds us together, +neither the flaming leafage, nor the smell of invisible murmuring water, +nor the languishing hour; neither the nights past and gone, nor the days +to come, nor the little child asleep at home in his cradle. If anything +binds us together, it is the freedom that each of us has found, nothing +else.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One must never say "This is love," for love is the heaven that the heart +has in prospect, and the whole of space is yet to be traversed.... It is +an immense feeling which speaks and impels you and is made up of +certainty and clearness.</p> + +<p>I am sure of him.</p> + +<p>He might see a weapon of crime in my hands—or at least some symbolic +weapon, something he holds a crime—without a shrug of his shoulders. +Remembering that my tenderness is unfailing, he would say to me "all +right," then he would come to me to find out why what I was doing was +right.</p> + +<p>And he is sure of me. He could leave us, his hearth, his love, his +child, without so much as a glance back. I should merely say: "He had to +go, he must submit to our love, and go his own way. That is how we love +each other."</p> + +<p>A moment at the foot of a hill, a great moment, so welcoming, so stable, +and so peaceful that it is like an open doorway before which you must +commune with yourself before entering. Two years gone by. Before me the +rest of my life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I have also had my doubts and fears. In the beginning I said to myself: +"Will life allow such a love? What will become of this ardor and +determination? And he, will he allow me to love him as my heart +dictates?"</p> + +<p>We have gone through daily cares together, poverty, weariness, all the +formidable common things. We got many laughs and more strength out of +them. In the evening his step would sound on the dark landing; I would +run to the door to meet his smile; he would kiss me; the hours would +fly.... That is the way two years unrolled their seasons and brought +forth their fruits, and we became strict with each other because +perfection revealed her face to us from afar.</p> + +<p>So, without a word said, by minutes added to minutes, by the divine +simplicity to which one approaches, you reach the promised land and the +very heart of love.</p> + +<p>I say what I see. Life does allow all the ardor, all the sublimity of +two human beings to flourish; and in their relation to each other she +grants even the impossible. I say what he and I are.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>With one accord we rise, we know it is time. Our child is waiting for +us, our house, our to-morrows, a thousand impatient desires, and all the +things you don't think of in advance.</p> + +<p>We follow the line of the bank. Where to? I do not know, but I know it +is sweet, very sweet, and his arm is linked in mine.</p> + +<p>Ahead of us are two banks set with houses and edged with reeds +sharp-edged and long as swords.</p> + +<p>It gives you a sort of dizziness to follow the banks straight ahead +without removing your eyes. These two lines, separated forever and +mingled forever by the current, are fascinating.</p> + +<p>A marvel. Is it not a marvel? An arch. Rising from the ground on either +side, its loving, solid curve clasps both banks and brings them together +in an embrace. Nevertheless they are like two convicts. Yet at one point +they become a single bank; they touch, they merge. Then they go on, +their bed widening out. In spite of appearances they are still closely +united in order to sustain the deepening river which will place its +mouth on the mouth of the ocean.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Yes ... one more look....</p> + +<p>Above the slope leaning down to lull itself in bliss, the sky has just +enshrined a light cloud the color of periwinkles, and the arch resounds +like an Hallelujah in stone.</p> + +<p>Come.</p> + + +<h3>XVII</h3> + +<p>He entered.</p> + +<p>I cannot say how I reacted to the first steps he took into my life. I +have only a confused impression left. The man who entered was not one to +whom I could be indifferent. He was an aspect of my own being which was +taking form and moving outside myself without recognizing me.</p> + +<p>He approached shyly enough. My heart rose ... he approached ... I felt +vaguely that a large event involving me was taking place in far-off +regions, and the shadow of his body spread an immense new something +before my eyes.</p> + +<p>I thought him very gentle. I noticed the metallic clearness of his +restless gaze, and that his figure suggested a great tree which +dominates the other trees and lowers its branches so as not to be alone.</p> + +<p>What was he going to do among these people, what attitude would he, the +single sane person in the entire gathering, assume? How was he going to +behave in this brilliant drawing-room filled with twittering women, +dazzling lights, bare shoulders, ripples of laughter, and heavy +perfumes?</p> + +<p>I had tried hard to cut a figure but soon had to confess myself beaten. +The women spoke a language not like the rest of the world's. Their +vocabulary was limited to "masterpiece," "infamous," "divine," +"diabolical," "delicious," "intriguing." In their presence an average, +disgracefully normal, tame creature like myself without vices or +virtues, had to keep mum.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman advancing screened my escape from the group in which I +had been trapped, and I managed to retreat to a safe corner, from which +I saw the women fasten on him with a buzz of talk, a whole gamut of rosy +bosoms and a great display of fireworks.... Further off the hostess was +keeping a watchful eye to see that no one of the women distinguished +herself too much. The elderly laughing gentleman must have been some one +of importance....</p> + +<p>The tobacco-laden air was gradually getting to be unbreathable. The +noise pounded incessantly. I sat riveted to my chair without daring to +move, as though a nightmare were upon me, the sort in which a terrible +load oppresses your chest, though you remain conscious. "I am dying, I +am dying." The load weighs more heavily. "No, I am dreaming, I am going +to wake myself up." But you are impotent; you can't shake the load off +and you can't come out of the nightmare.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was just as I was exerting every muscle and scrap of courage to +escape from the oppressive spectacle—I had devised a polite +pretext—when he entered.</p> + +<p>The hostess went to meet him with her wide smile, her hand uplifted, and +the phrase of greeting she had repeated at least twenty times since I +had been in the room.</p> + +<p>She steered him my way, threw out a rising syllable, a descending +syllable, like two balls between our two faces, and then propelled him +over to the group while I listened to the muffled echo of his name bury +itself in my heart.</p> + +<p>I forgot the smoke, the noise, my eagerness to leave. Even the weight +lifted from my chest in the very way a nightmare suddenly takes wing and +yields to a dream of clear, bright meanderings.</p> + +<p>They did not pay much attention to him. The loud dame who presided over +the group captured all eyes. She was plump and short; as she talked she +flapped her arms like fins, and every now and then let out from her +chest as from a great case a vibrant laugh, which sent undulations over +her salmon-colored bosom. When she herself had done laughing, she would +cast her eyes about in quest of approval as though levying tribute from +the faces. But when she encountered the newcomer, she had to stop +because his frank gaze pronounced disapproval and denial.</p> + +<p>How I wanted to thank him!</p> + +<p>The company had been too much for me; it became too much for him. Soon I +saw him cast about for a retreat.... For a second his eyes glided over +me, I alarmed him as he had alarmed me. Then he slunk away, with the +same crushed, crestfallen manner that I must have had.</p> + +<p>He walked off ... the curtain of palms ... he disappeared.</p> + +<p>By fits and starts the nightmare returned, clutching me with clammy +tentacles. The noise fell in slabs, the weight on my chest suffocated +me. Through a mist phantoms glided by, exchanging absurd bows, +disjointed gestures, and disconnected remarks. A woman in a spangled +gown with hair like flaxen wood-shavings turned and showed a chalky +face. Others followed her, branded with painted red smiles. They were +all hurrying. Refreshments were being served under the rotunda. The +subdued clash of silver against glass sounded along with the clatter of +china, little exclamations, and the shuffling of feet.</p> + +<p>I am dreaming. Impossible that a gathering of human beings should be +such an outrage on life, such a parody of it. When living persons come +together and have attired themselves beautifully, it is for the +interchange of what is best in them, not for the spilling of gall and +the raising of a hubbub. I must be dreaming.</p> + +<p>Little groups were coming back; women's laughter cut the curdled air +like sharp lashes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Again I made a painful effort and rose. With the looks of the women +riddling me and paralyzed by the men's attention, I crossed the room +driven by a force that operated for me. I found myself beside him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He raised his eyes slowly. Did he smile? I no longer know. But he +looked—as I must have looked—as though he were gazing into light.</p> + + +<h3>XVIII</h3> + +<p>I have a new friend.</p> + +<p>A friend.... When I see him, it is like a revision of all I am, a kind +of unusual sincerity that urges me on, amplifies me, and carries me +toward him.</p> + +<p>When he is away, I have the impression of having discovered a treasure +within myself from which I draw in deep draughts....</p> + +<p>And also of hymns striking up beneath my tread.</p> + +<h3>XIX</h3> + +<p>"Why? Yes, tell me why you squeezed my hand so hard?"</p> + +<p>I lean towards him, my head touches his chest. He is enraptured, +overwhelmed, and as smiling as the night when it is about to pass.</p> + +<p>He did not answer.</p> + +<p>A silky wind blows down from a sheltering eminence and carves his face +and makes me cling to him. Are we on the borders of the true silence, +the ultimate silence in which human beings find themselves face to face? +"You! You!"</p> + +<p>A terraced garden. If this were another evening, I should be discovering +in detail how beautiful the garden is. Each walk opens up a paradise, +cool and secret as a spring, and the pebbles shine like glowworms. +Borders of irises with violet fragrance dissolving among their stems, a +profusion of spreading boughs, and near our bench a thicket from which +at intervals darts the straight streak of a gray-bird's flight. Below us +in the distant semi-circle across the fading daylight the sparkling +apparition of a group of houses lighting up.</p> + +<p>The sight of all this beauty fills me with such a glow—almost hurts +me—because I feel <i>he</i> is looking at me.... He says: "Your shining +curly hair, your broad, clear forehead, your mouth, your eyes." +Mentioned in his quivering passionate voice my hair, my forehead, my +mouth, my eyes are so new that I close my eyes so as to see them ... +And I did not know....</p> + +<p>The garden has changed. Pale ochre reflections. Little shivers damp and +creeping. Heavy black pockets on the parasol tops of the trees. The +mournful andante of a swaying cypress. As though it were the first time, +my beloved, that we were alone and had only found each other this +evening under the narrow sky.</p> + +<p>The shadows spread haphazard piling up in ridges, drawing after them dim +white trails. Unknown thoughts escape from everywhere. They are too +swift for me. The breeze carries them away. His face at my right, +blurred except for the prominent features, is silvered over and turned +into a medallion....</p> + +<p>Am I quite sure that he is still close to me? I tighten my hand in his. +The true, regular pulse at his wrist assures me all is well and down +here everything is fair and <i>true</i>. The garden and the leaves, the +multiplying lights of the town, the gloaming are all real.</p> + +<p>The air is stirring and freshening up. Let us walk. Straight ahead of us +as far as the last terrace with its ornamental balustrade; then we will +follow the Broad Walk at the entrance of the garden.</p> + +<p>He takes my arm gently. I do not dare to lean on it, though the weight +of his presence bears me to the ground. I feel I am alone in upholding +his life. Who will tell him, who will ever tell him the whole drama that +this means? Will he ever know how I see him, how he lives for me? Other +people and he himself see his huge figure, always a little bowed as if +he never dared to be altogether tall, the steel of his eyes, and the +slope of his forehead, which every shadow exaggerates, and his gaze +bemired in clouds. They may see his simplicity and transparent +kindliness; but at this they stop.</p> + +<p>I am caught in what is inexpressible in him. I assume all the questions +a man may put to himself without being able to solve them, all the vague +poignant evils. And when he appears, I feel that a word has been +fashioned to express everything, but not a single word to express his +face. It is too outside of everything, too mysterious, perhaps too like +my own.</p> + +<p>We are at the Broad Walk, a solemn pile in which the trees go two by +two, close together, erect—a cathedral. A chilly silence lays a sheet +on your shoulders, the nave boldly thrusts its black pillars upwards, +and the branches topping the vault wed in the sky.</p> + +<p>In spite of yourself you say something in a very low voice. "Up there, +that red glow as through a stained-glass window."</p> + +<p>"Tell me you love me ... tell me ... tell me you love me...."</p> + +<p>He has said <i>me</i>, he has said <i>you</i>, as if it were possible to stand +this shock on your breast without turning pale. He sees I am sinking and +passes his irresistible arm about my body. The future tears itself to +pieces at the bottom of my life. At the end of the Broad Walk the last +golden ray goes down in a black mass. I do not know how to say these +things, but I raise my head like a slow remonstrance and I hold my gaze +up to him. Have I said everything?</p> + +<p>Let us return. I can go no further. He takes my hand and presses it with +the warm strength of his fingers. It is limp and inert, the palm +lifeless and cold.</p> + +<p>What have I done to deserve this diaphanous gloaming, this prolonged +rhapsody rising about us? I have loved once already, and that counts I +know. But if I had not had this great passion to love another man, if I +did not still have it, would my heart be so clairvoyant? Would the new +evening be as mild as it is? But if in spite of my deepened heart, I am +not yet all-embracing and big enough?</p> + +<p>We have gone the full length of the Broad Walk and back. Have we really +gone so far? Behind us the view retreats into the opaque distance, and +the whole pile, as mournful as a church abandoned by God, fades away +slowly beneath a pall of silence. Our walk is almost at an end. We still +have to cross a deserted spot, where thin bushes hold up their charred +arms to support the slanting line of the gold and black rays.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Does he see this high dizzy instant passing close within our reach? I +might snatch it perhaps but for these mad throbbings, this veil over my +eyes, the dryness of my lips. Only the fragments of the instant reach +me, but even they are beautiful enough to dazzle me.</p> + +<p>He stops and faces me and his gaze fixes on my throat. Doubtless he too +is catching the fragments....</p> + +<p>What are you to do when you are a mere humble human being and have no +power to retain the superhuman moments?</p> + +<p>May my longing for truth at least flame out. My love of truth is my +finest quality, my one merit. May it shake me as the wind shakes a tree, +and may my hands, if they dare, rend these garments which hide me from +his eye. Garments are a lie, and the moment is naked....</p> + +<p>He has understood. He trembles so visibly that I feel my breasts quiver +like twin flowers and my whole being stir. He draws me to him and holds +without daring to embrace me, small, panting, fainting away....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The pile has been swallowed up, the Broad Walk has turned black, the +beautiful moment has fled through my fault; we have only a few steps +farther to go. If I have nothing to give him, may he at least share with +me the one idea I still retain.</p> + +<p>This idea is the strange knowledge I have of my body, but of a body no +longer mine, so lucid has it become, full of resonances, coursing blood, +warmth and appeal ... a body of mysterious flesh and tense limbs, as +bright as a torch, as sensitive as a soul ... a body I want to give +him—my body and my arms.</p> + + +<h3>XX</h3> + +<p>"No, don't get up, stay where you are; it is I.</p> + +<p>"You told me you were not going to work this evening, so I came. I want +to talk to you.</p> + +<p>"I am going to sit beside you, if you don't mind, on the cushion on the +floor under the window, where I like to sit when it is as light as it is +now.</p> + +<p>"I hesitate, not because it's hard to say. On the contrary, it's too +simple, and things too simple are beyond words to express.</p> + +<p>"I really have nothing to tell you. You understood. You know. But it is +right for me to come and right that the confession I want to make should +revert to our love, for it has to do with our love.</p> + +<p>"How you look at me.... Your eyes probe to the depths.... Yes. That is +it.... You do see, don't you? I love him.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the confession, which is so long, so long in beginning and has +weighed so heavily, is already finished?... No. Since my eyes are +overflowing, I have not yet made it. Well, listen, I have no idea any +more of what I am going to tell you, but don't interrupt, let me say +everything....</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wanted to speak in orderly sequence, and I promised myself I +should not be moved but would talk to you quite simply. When I came in, +I felt I was growing and rising. I heard my own words stirring like live +things.... But they are trivial; they hurt me so I wish I could find +others.</p> + +<p>"To think that here at this window we have so often talked of love, not +of our love, but of all love. You remember? You used to say—I think it +was you: 'What is beautiful is not the face you love so dearly, it is +the need to love it dearly. What matters is not the delirium in which +two people lose themselves, but the truth they discover.' And when you +and I evoked those two rays of light which are one, love and truth, our +words were so vast that we had to stop talking.</p> + +<p>"This evening—do you know why?—instead of telling their splendid +secret my words are mere splinters ripping my throat.... Yet when we +used to talk here, I did not know love was so beautiful; we did not say +it was.</p> + +<p>"You certainly saw the change in me, and you guessed. The morning when +you stopped in front of me and restrained the exclamation in your +breast, I was sure you knew. Perhaps it was very apparent. I came and +went in a radiance; the house grew chilly, everything in the house was +conscious of it and unnatural. Evenings I worked later and later, as if +I were afraid of falling asleep, and when we discussed things, it was I +who explained, I who knew. You must have seen, too, how often I buried +myself in silence, content in it sometimes, then tortured.</p> + +<p>"You observed me. There was no reason for speaking one day rather than +another?</p> + +<p>"A reason has arisen.</p> + +<p>"It was yesterday evening. Walking beside him I suddenly realized that +in him, in us, in me, there was a sort of attraction; I responded to +it—with all the strong, fine need of truth you gave me. It is this need +of truth which brings me to you this evening.</p> + +<p>"Take it, take it before giving it back to me. Don't let us ask whether +it is more painful for you who receive it than for me who bestow it. Let +us forget that man retains the proud authority of the male in his flesh +and says "possess" as of a thing. Don't let us ask whether the union +between man and woman is sublime to this degree. Let ours take that +stand. One always has the time to suffer in, but there is only one time +in which to love in truth.</p> + +<p>"See, maybe it is at this very moment when my voice is worn threadbare +and in spite of yourself you push my head away and hold yourself up as +if you were about to fall, that we draw closer together than ever +before.</p> + +<p>"You are watching the night as it comes creeping ... you see, don't you? +There is no question, not for a moment, of parting, nor of my loving you +less. Because our hearts are turned towards each other to-day. A miracle +is taking place. It will not be undone.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me. Listen to me as if you could understand. Let me spread at +your feet the infinity I hold.... Since he came, if you only knew, I +love you more. Not only do I feel your smile and your whole presence +around me like a thousand arms and with even more than one heart, but I +feel surer of myself, nobler, and—admit it—more beautiful.... To love +you is to think perfection, nobility, light, and to stretch my hands out +to them. It is nothing else.</p> + +<p>"To go to him is to continue myself; it is not to lessen you.</p> + +<p>"But.... Is it the dusk or the reflection of the tree? Your cheeks are +ashen, your eyes are quite wet, and in spite of everything, in spite of +everything I am hurting you.... At the moment that you love like a God, +you suffer like a man....</p> + +<p>"It is because our understanding is a high one that your grief is deep +and my confession necessary.</p> + +<p>"If you knew, if you knew....</p> + +<p>"You see, I still tremble before stopping just as I hesitated before +sitting down, because once my confession is made we shall both feel that +it is closed forever.</p> + +<p>"Does one ever know whether one has not omitted the essential word, the +life word, the one that means everything and has not been said? I no +longer know. It is as if I still had it within me....</p> + +<p>"Let me stay where I am, near you, for a long time. You will let my head +rest on your knees, the night will succeed better than I in revealing +the heart unseen.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he has come already.... Tell me ... do you hear him?"</p> + + +<h3>XXI</h3> + +<p>How happy I was!... I listened without stirring to the deep throbbing of +his life. I came to know him better through the regular pulsing of his +neck, the twisting of his arms and the warmth that passed between us +than through our past meetings. All the warm invisible things that work +in the depths of a human being, the changing fate, the mystery +circulating in the blood, were talking into my ears.</p> + +<p>Here we were alongside each other, breathing in unison—can you have +enough of such happiness? I entrusted my entire being to him; it was a +pure, holy fulfilment.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There's no use trying to sum matters up differently. It may be that at +death you find the higher expression, the illumination so sought for, +but the living have no other way of saying the truth to each other than +through the flesh.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>You understand, don't you, that you have to rest from living? No longer +to have this gaping heart, this pitiless, relentless love, but simply to +lie stretched out close against him, so that the whole universe comes +rushing to you, the mystery reveals itself, and life finds +consolation.... Does God ever bestow greater charity?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I have just given him my life, my body, my very depths, and he is gone +to sleep.</p> + +<p>Then, a human being never knows what another human being gives him?</p> + +<p>Physical love joins nothing, leaves nothing. Nevertheless, it seems to +bring everything, and it does bring everything at the red moment of +embrace.</p> + +<p>The joy at which I grasped has departed; my lips are dry, my arms empty.</p> + +<p>Yet a little while ago I thought I was going to live like God. And to +have had the hope of living like God for a single instant is in itself +beautiful enough.</p> + + +<h3>XXII</h3> + +<p>"You really want to know what I am thinking of? And why I look so +obstinate with my eyebrows projecting like a black roof over my eyes?</p> + +<p>"I was working out an idea, the sort of idea that seems silly when you +try to express it, but is really quite reasonable and logical....</p> + +<p>"Why do you insist upon my telling you? I assure you it's so simple that +you, a man, won't understand.</p> + +<p>"Well then. I was thinking of your wife.... No, don't interrupt ... the +woman who shares your name, your home, your meals, the money you earn, +your cares; the woman who lives beside you—here's the one wrong—in +utter ignorance of your love for me.</p> + +<p>"I was imagining—this is where the vagary commences—a meeting between +the two of us, not a meeting of constrained smiles, not the +confrontation of two human beings, with elements of the dramatic and the +divine. Do try to follow me. Put together the details I am going to give +you one by one the way they are in reality. Give the extraordinary +interview the ordinary setting of humble, banal, tame everydayness. I +told you it was a silly notion.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I go to visit her. The interview takes place amid her familiar +accustomed things, which assist and protect her. She sits beside the +window—her little sewing-table, her work-basket, a dozen scattered +articles. She sews without thinking of much, in the broad daylight so +dazzlingly brilliant that you can't see the swing of the pendulum. Her +head is bent, the sunlight grazes her neck. You feel her spirit is with +her needle and thread, that is, crystallized in calm. Her tranquillized +body submits in advance to the impending visit. She has only to lift her +eyes to know the limits set to her being, the very boundary-line of +everything she awaits.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I enter. I go to her. My steps erect a hedge of sound around me. To +make myself seen I raise my voice.... How make myself heard? I do not +know.... Since truth is triumphant, the announcement of my presence may +be triumphant also. It may write 'I love him' all over me before we +shake hands or even give each other the first look.</p> + +<p>"She knows. She knows everything. I feel bathed in a vast thankfulness. +Just imagine: when people talk of you, she is the only one in the world +who knows down to the very roots of her being the full content of their +words. It is as if I were speaking to God.</p> + +<p>"Well, I begin. Laughing, crying I impart what cannot be imparted. I +hurry. The words flowing from my lips warm me with their generous wine, +and I hear love pouring forth.</p> + +<p>"I see myself, almost on my knees, scarcely perceiving her. Is it to her +that I address myself? I speak merely in order to remove a barrier +obstructing the light and to say the truth.</p> + +<p>"In the breathless words that I pour out at her feet it is not a +question perhaps of either her or myself. Why should it be? I never +considered that I was doing her a wrong. If she reads my face, she will +see things as they are. Have I turned anything away from her, have I +diminished her portion, have I deprived her of anything? I have simply +given you everything.</p> + +<p>"Don't say she might repulse me and would be right if she did, because +that, after all, would be the human way to act. Human to you means +everything that deceives itself and denies the essential grace, +everything that falls and dies in the mud of the road. Are you quite +sure that a woman when she loves does not feel that sort of humanity +die?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"You look at me dubiously. Of course you cannot know. You men tolerate +an understanding between two women when it exists for the sake of +cherishing the dust-covered memory of a man. A tomb reassures you. You +will never allow life as a pretext. According to you we have no right to +a sisterhood until it is too late.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"In my unfailing and fatal sincerity I say your wife might understand. +Truth striking the ear is bound to impress. And that I should be alive +as I am alive at this moment, with the eloquence and magic that spring +from real presences, is also bound to impress. Look at me. Need I say a +single word? Isn't a great love with eyes uplifted convincing?</p> + +<p>"When you tell me sometimes that I am beautiful, it is like a gift. She +would see me bearing this gift, and if she perceived her forty years +moaning and fading at my approach, she would understand that age in a +woman is an offense love cannot forgive.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Your eyes are searching space. You are wondering where such a +conversation would lead her and me. Don't bother. It would merely lead +me to the side of truth and her to its summit. I imagined that was +enough and one could stop there.</p> + +<p>"I imagined that after I had spoken, she would rise and stand without +taking a single step, upright and solemn, her work at her feet, she +would feel the morals of the world collapse, its false hells, its +hardness and harshness, its monstrous delusions, everything that +sheathed her in a coat of mail and incited her to self-defense.... +Feeling her heart set at liberty, she would think of you, but of you +with your body sloughed; of your real self hidden where neither she nor +I can penetrate.</p> + +<p>"Then she would draw nearer—would she know to what? It is a deep-seated +law in us to try desperately to approach something. She would rediscover +the dazzling moments when her twenty years of age gave her the power to +bid the submissive universe do everything for your good. It would be a +similar instant that I would place like a sheaf of wheat in her open +arms. Don't you see?</p> + +<p>"The room sparkles in all its sunlight; every surface sends forth +gleams; the day calls to the day and floats before her. Are we rivals? +We are simply sisters in the same love. I want to take her hands because +I remember that once you chose her....</p> + +<p>"Well....</p> + +<p>"But my notion is squelched. I couldn't help it. Your astonished +expression squelched it. Before I spoke, when the idea was still +imprisoned behind the wall of my forehead, it gave me a light like a +torch, I assure you. You questioned me, and now it's a mocking +will-o'-the-wisp, teasing me from a distance and vanishing as I advance. +Didn't I tell you it was an idea not to be handled?</p> + +<p>"I have fallen short of caressing a bit of truth between my clasped +hands. It escaped me.... And you smile consoled."</p> + + +<h3>XXIII</h3> + +<p>Twice we said we would part at the turn of the road, at that tree, +exactly at that tree, and twice we passed by laughing at our weakness. +We still could not believe in the separation at hand.</p> + +<p>But the moment was upon us.</p> + +<p>There, at the house hidden behind the trees and bushes, you will go on, +and I will stand still.</p> + +<p>He pressed my hand with increasing tenderness. My laugh taunted us with +so much assurance that I tried to believe in it. To fill up the gaps, we +blustered and said the needless inconsequent things people always say +when they face a long separation.</p> + +<p>It was a little before noon. The sheeted shadows cast by the sunlight +burned and smoked in bluish waves. Between the trees of the woods +stretching beside the sea liquid flakes blinded your eyes. You'd see +annoying red spots long after you'd turned your eyes away.</p> + +<p>I said to myself: "Only a few steps more and it will be over. One step +less and another minute will be plucked from our parting." To keep down +my emotion I hurriedly spoke of <i>something else</i>.</p> + +<p>It must have rained in the morning. When we brushed against the +branches, the silence was broken at our feet by the limpid sound of +falling drops, the leaves wore a new skin, and the atmosphere, +impregnated with freshness, smiled the smile of nature when she wants to +dry her tears. The depths of the woods were enveloped in a blue down; a +troop of squat little fir-trees, their skirts on a level with the +ground, rang a crisp chime.</p> + +<p>We hurried, so at one in our approaching distress that we went too fast. +The house behind the trees and bushes came into more prominent +view—shutters like eyes pitilessly closed, pointed teeth of a +gray-painted fence, threatening minutiae of a garden descending a bushy +battered skull of a slope. But after all, there can be no such thing as +separation between us two.... And for a moment, to prove the strength of +love, yes, for a moment, I was ready to run.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Here we are at the house. Seen at close range with its covering of red +tiles and rugged face and front fanned by two dwarf firs, the little +house in the way of our free career does not seem very imposing.</p> + +<p>It must be. What's the use of delaying any more? Is it saddening to part +when each carries away the other? For I carry away your voice, and the +sadness of your eyes, and this kiss I give you.... I do not leave you; I +am not even distressed. Look, I am leaving you.</p> + +<p>I took a few steps away. They rang under my eyes. I picked up every +detail of our parting and held it pressed against my heart, each grain +of red earth, each flash of mica in the road. It was not so +difficult....</p> + +<p>Behind me I heard him walking away with a tread heavier than mine, which +seemed to set stones tumbling down a mountainside.... Two months.... +What is an absence of two months? I decided not to turn around.</p> + +<p>The road narrowed and became a serpent of clay, then a creamy winding. I +tried so hard to think of nothing that I noticed a great many surprising +things we had not observed before. That tree with a heavy black ball at +the end of its longest branch which the birds of heaven had stuffed with +earth and was now grass-grown; the slope with a red covering of rich +plants made, you'd think, of fingers dipped in blood....</p> + +<p>It was in spite of myself that I faced about. A dark figure just this +side of the last bend in the road.</p> + +<p>Ah, he turns round; he heard me. Could we remain apart? I stretch my +arms out to him, I begin to run. Why did we talk of other things a few +minutes ago? Were we insane?...</p> + +<p>I have already passed the dead aloe, I am near the house with its two +firs. My abrupt race swells my decision not to leave him. I lift my +eyes. He didn't see me.</p> + +<p>His form is no more than a black point, a blind insect nibbling at the +road and entering the earth's lair.... One last step. It is over, it is +over.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>My arms fall, I turn back stumbling, dizzy. How can you tell what sort +of a road it is when the sun is the color of mourning and the summer has +the taste of tears?... Doesn't he know?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Noon. The Angelus tosses its twelve bronze strokes at the sun and they +slowly dissolve. But I am insensible to everything. Everything. The host +of trees, the flashing breastplate of the sea turn around an empty +space.</p> + +<p>Why this sky stretching out after the branches, why this sparkling +happiness, why this sleepiness of the earth when I am racked and branded +with a red-hot iron by what I failed to say while there was still time?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III</h2> + +<h3><i>BECOMING</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>I had been counting the days until I could call the day I was yearning +for by its name, a name new to me every morning. To have said good-bye +for two months, to have lived apart so long and almost without news, and +now finally to be able to caress the ardent moment which gives each back +to the other, if only for a short space; to caress it as you hold your +hands up to the fire. By a great effort I succeeded in remaining calm.</p> + +<p>I had put my house in order, filled my vases with flowers, and made +myself beautiful. My velvet gown dulled the light, so that by contrast I +seemed to have a halo round my bared neck.</p> + +<p>The hour drew near. The clock struck. But, no, the clock must be +fast.... The next moments stabbed the silence, dragging on leaden feet. +I went to the window. On turning back into the room, I was delighted to +discover a few things to do. The little round corner table was standing +tipped, there were too many leaves in the bouquet ... and this wisp of +hair straggling down my cheek. No, he was not coming. Waiting is a death +died over and over again.</p> + +<p>At last....</p> + +<p>To think I could have breathed till now! You! He moved toward me rather +timidly, almost as if he were a stranger. It occurred to me that he was +not familiar with my home. A panic seized me: he might not like it.</p> + +<p>But in one bound I was close to him, my head on his shoulder and his +arms around me. I forgot everything. "I am so happy, so happy." We found +ourselves in my little room, where the flowers piercing the twilight +opened wide their mock hearts....</p> + +<p>But how he had changed; his face had grown thinner.... Why that overcast +brow, that look of depression, that manner of not being at home?... What +was the matter with him?... What was the matter with him?</p> + +<p>Though there had been no time for conversation, and we had merely +exchanged awkward, random questions, I felt suddenly that our hearts had +ceased to beat in unison.</p> + +<p>He should speak. I must know! Nothing is worse than not knowing....</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you," he began, resting his head on his hands. He had +suffered too much by our separation; he had realized this forcibly again +just now when he entered my home where everything dispossessed him; he +could no longer live without me, so far away; he needed me all the time, +every minute. Oh, he knew there was something irrational in his +entreaty, but all he had was plain common sense. "Listen to me," he +said, "there's an instinct, an instinct stronger ... but you don't +understand ... there ... I've told you everything ... that's all."</p> + +<p>He began again. His expostulations breathed an awful storm; while an icy +clearness and a terrible calm rose in me. Fear crept into me down to the +very marrow of my bones. What could I say to a man who suddenly talked +another language? All I had was the words we used to....</p> + +<p>"Answer me, I beg of you, answer me, even if it is no, but answer +me...."</p> + +<p>Did I have to begin all over again—give everything and explain +everything all over again? Until then I had been carried along on the +sustaining bosom of a powerful stream. Now a torrent furiously +discharged its troubled waters and infernal foam into the even flow, and +I had to fight my way back up against the current in a desperate +life-and-death struggle.</p> + +<p>So it seems that the bonds of flesh make mock of you; instead of +uniting, they detach, leaving each of you to wrestle and paralyze the +other's limbs like entangling undergrowth.</p> + +<p>And does it seem that the bonds of the spirit are not strong enough +because they always lack some link or word or look?</p> + +<p>If it were not that I had found complete harmony with another human +being, I should have doubted whether a man and a woman could ever love, +that is, ever understand each other.</p> + +<p>The thought inspired me with supreme strength. A hot wave kissed my +mouth and ears; I pushed him away.</p> + +<p>His wife. She was the first consideration. Remembering her gentleness, I +spoke of her gently.</p> + +<p>To be with me he could give up twenty years of his life in common, +twenty years of attentions and indulgences, twenty deeply rooted years. +She was a frail loving woman who had once been beautiful; she was nearly +forty, which in a woman is to have no age.... Wouldn't my presence, +consequently, result in hurting another woman?... And would I do such a +thing, I who brought so much warmth of feeling and enthusiasm to what +was beautiful, right, and high-spirited?</p> + +<p>"In loving you I wanted everything about you to be brighter, easier and +more perfect; and just when I rapturously believed I had succeeded, you +come and brusquely ask me to remove the light from another being. That's +what you are really asking me to do.</p> + +<p>"More. The man in whose name I built my house—don't be afraid it's his +suffering I dread; I love him enough to rise above pity. But I thought I +told you that he is necessary to my effulgence; you understand, +necessary.... Remember, he is the one to whom I told the truth, in whose +presence I could live while at the same time holding your presence, who +has suffered through me without loving me the less, and prefers my +happiness to his own heart's happiness. That's the sort of man he is. +That sort of man exists. And you would deprive me of him!</p> + +<p>"But if, to get me away from him, you were to offer something superior, +a more perfect means of elevating me and teaching me to <i>know</i>, I should +go unafraid, perhaps without hesitating. Love is the thing that +elevates life.... But you, what do you offer? Feeling, instinct. +Instinct is not a reason...."</p> + +<p>I had risen while speaking. My cheeks and forehead were burning. His +face, plunged in the snowy curtain, was quite changed. Was it the look +in his eyes or the folds around his mouth?</p> + +<p>"Then you don't love me?..." He repeated this like a child taken with +the words, and dropped his head in his hands.</p> + +<p>That the light fell about me in gray veils may have been only a fleeting +phenomenon. It cannot be that love will desert you suddenly.</p> + +<p>The rest of his stay was of no avail, and when awkwardness fell between +us, he rose, pressed his hands down on my shoulders, and gave me a long, +sombre stare. Then he left. I heard the door close slowly.</p> + +<p>Then he doesn't understand? But the love I feel for him is a true love. +It is not that unstable impulse which passion carries off in a puff of +wind. My love, like my life, craves all the victories I have gained, all +the people who are dear to me. And my eyes take in whatever they can of +sky and color.... Nothing forbids me to breathe. Why am I forbidden to +love whatever I love?</p> + +<p>My love, you will conquer, you will make yourself understood. You are +not this man who is leaving, nor the other man, nor anyone; you are a +heart of flesh exposed ... a restless heart without limit, a heart +forever beating and forever aimless. Do not let a single one who has +ever been with you fade and drop away. If love cannot conquer, what +else is there to resort to?</p> + +<p>And I ran out to overtake him.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Only a few months since the first day of the war, yet I cannot recall +one thing about it.</p> + +<p>What I know is, that until the end it will remain the outstanding day of +my life, the day of days. No matter what happens later, we who have +lived through it have drunk at one draught the dregs of all the +centuries, we have borne all the thunder of the heavens on our +shoulders. Those who ask "Why exactly us" do not know that misfortune is +always waiting to extort its tax.</p> + +<p>I do not speak of the older people, those of the <i>other</i> generation, of +the other age: they have not been touched.</p> + +<p>But we, we on that day!</p> + +<p>After all, I can recall several words and impressions, but they are no +more illuminating than the way my folks used to describe the day I was +born. "You looked like a little red monkey, you didn't cry much, your +grandmother was the first to kiss you, it was a dreadfully hot evening."</p> + +<p>And I can also recall Mr. Barret's gray stony face, his huge, petrified +figure, when he entered the office where we were talking and regaining a +little hope. "It's here!" he discharged from the doorway. None of us +gave any sign of understanding. "It's posted on the bulletin boards!" he +shouted, and advanced into the room like a weapon about to descend.</p> + +<p>As a field of wheat catches fire stalk by stalk until the whole is in a +blaze, so we caught fire in our stupor, each spiked to the ground by his +own flame.</p> + +<p>Fire! Fire! Moments of scarlet, strangled breathing, souls cowering in +bosoms, horror, too much horror already, wide-open eyes staring into +space....</p> + +<p>I remember I had to lean against the wall, and other trifling incidents, +but my impotent dismay, my realization of all the folly let loose upon +the world no more come back to me than the taste of the first gulp of +life at birth.</p> + +<p>I must have kept a clear brain and steady legs, because I ran straight +home.... What street, what hell, where was I?... I had no eyes for the +street nor ears for the humming in my head, nor consciousness even of +the daze that was driving me on.</p> + +<p>We met in front of the house whose quiet walls still enclosed our +happiness. We passed under the porte-cochère heavily, passively, like +beasts driven to slaughter, and the staircase was an ascent to Calvary. +I do not think we exchanged a single word. When the door closed upon us +we embraced without kissing, and my cheek against his shoulder was wet +with tears that were not of my shedding.</p> + +<p>It had occurred to me that he might leave for the war, but like every +other thought this one too was promptly chilled and crushed. Nor can I +say that it was the idea of his going that made me suffer the most. I +was stupefied beyond the power to suffer. I was just as ready to burst +out laughing or tear off my arms. I let myself be touched, handled, and +moved like a stone thrown into space. But contact with him restored me a +little, a very little, to the realization of what I was going to lose.</p> + +<p>The days succeeding were spat from a volcano; nothing remains of them +but ashes. You learned new words; a whole language born of the moment +slipped from your tongue; countries became persons with distinct +individualities, gestures and features. You actually fed on what +appeared in the newspapers, picking up items like grains of manna. Men +alone counted—men, men. Life was in their hands, life and the fate of +the world. So and so many killed—abstractions with which the world +juggled in figures. Death, a human divinity after all, settled down +familiarly. Nothing was like anything that had gone before.</p> + +<p>People began to talk of glory....</p> + +<p>A day came: his departure.</p> + +<p>I got his things ready as I always did before a trip, from a list, with +my usual mania for taking along too many things. After filling his bag +with all the necessaries, I stowed a tiny bottle of my perfume in it, a +cigarette-case, his last birthday gift, some dried flowers, and our +baby's photograph. I childishly pictured his exclamation of delighted +surprise when he would remove his shirts and the picture would fall out.</p> + +<p>Before he left the house, hardly recognizable in his uniform, he kissed +his son savagely and pressed him long and hard, bending low to hide his +tears.... On the way he spoke mostly of the child—commonplaces to +deaden his pain. "Don't let him be too much of a bother. You must be +strict with him, you know." I saw he was entrusting his share in his +survival to me, and it was better to avoid reference to a parting that +marched on to death.</p> + +<p>Regiments were springing up on all sides, troops of men with innocent +eyes and faces shining with pride; sons, brothers, lovers, changed into +statues of men, in a confusion of brass bands, cheers, red and gold, +clashing of arms, and tramping of feet.</p> + +<p>If only this were hell in its completeness! But he was not there. He had +left six days before without my being able to say good-bye to him.</p> + +<p>There was the last kiss, the fixed, tangible second when you part for +good and the yard of space between you actually counts. You were two +bodies clasped, then you became only one body, two arms ... a soul +locked in a leaden coffin.</p> + +<p>There were the wretched minutes when you summon all your illusions to +your assistance. "Nothing can possibly happen to him ... of course not +to <i>him</i>...."</p> + +<p>I returned, dragging my misery like a chain. I was one of the vast herd +which fretted the surface of the earth like a canker, moulded and moved +by a deadly maniac hand.... Never before has there been such a herd.</p> + +<p>Being a woman, I felt withdrawn from the herd, exactly as I had felt on +the first day of the war that humanity was cut in two—men and women.</p> + +<p>I was impotent, curdled, set aside. Like the other women I passed by the +young men with orders to die and only a few days to live, though their +bearing was of men who had long to live. I passed by the other women, +useless flesh of the earth, faint-hearted flesh for grieving....</p> + +<p>I went.... In another sense it was the herd that passed by, that +she-thing, in countless numbers, dancing bacchantes with hideous +hyena-laughter and robes smelling of red blood and heavy wine, +compliant....</p> + +<p>You no longer saw yourself, because you had been swallowed up in a +living craw.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Where were you, my sisters from everywhere, women of Europe, you, Trude +and Clara and Mania? What were you doing? Were you weeping?</p> + +<p>You saw, didn't you, that bloody sky with forked black signs, that +summer swooning away, that day?... Why was not your voice heard in +denunciation of the universal slaughter?</p> + +<p>Why was not my own voice heard, when there were outcries in my throat, +tears in my flesh?</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>I am becoming horribly accustomed to going about the empty apartment +alone. I find I no longer think of the scowling walls, the dumb silence, +the dim windows. They wrap me in a vague acquiescence. Habit is exerting +its awful power.</p> + +<p>I seem to be gliding down a slope where there is no one at the bottom to +warn me that there may be a precipice ahead or tell me whither this +strange existence leads.</p> + +<p>My days are regulated according to the rules I myself have made to apply +only to myself; I go, I come, I turn the key in the lock; I loiter; then +I rush at my work. Sometimes the mirror casts a sudden image which runs +away busily at my approach. My shadow and the creaking under my tread +are all I have for company.</p> + +<p>Yet this is not the first time I have lived alone. There once was a room +with a flowered quilt, a moth-eaten carpet and a rickety door which +opened like the lid of a devil-in-the-bandbox on the mahogany wig and +scarlet smile of Mme. Noël. But everything was so different! I brought +nothing to that virgin space except the desire to fill it; my body knew +nothing; my inner being cried out for too many things to be able to hold +any of them, and had I dared, I would have stretched my arms out through +the window to embrace the air of life....</p> + +<p>My solitude now is like rotten fruit; it scorches my entrails like a +fiery drink. It is a strange solitude.</p> + +<p>Two men peopled my life and fertilized and vivified it. But wasn't that +very long ago and somewhere else? Come, try to remember....</p> + +<p>I do not know; they are neither dead nor alive. To be sure they are +hungry and thirsty and get bored as living people do, but they are +locked up in the earth's carcass like the real dead; and it may be that +at this very moment when I am imagining them warm and active, they are +already stiff and cold. To be absolutely truthful, to go down to the +bottom of things, there is scarcely anything in common between the two +men who went to war and me who stayed behind.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when I am alone, I lean over, way over, to touch the very +bottom of things so as to feel the pain of it.</p> + +<p>Yes, letters pass between us. When I read their letters I try to imagine +their surroundings and the crass details of their life; the fir-trees of +the Argonne, the name of a regiment which I know by heart like a prayer, +frost-bitten feet, the incessant thunder, and the arrival of the postman +which draws us a little closer together. Then there is Carency—the +place makes no difference—the light cavalry.... Attack, formation, the +first rank mowed down, the second, the third; he alone standing upright +in the front of the fourth rank, a struggle lasting a century, the +confused subsidence, and my portrait snug under his blue jacket. And +that night last week when he was nearly dying of thirst and crawled out +over the open field, groping for something to drink. A miracle, a pool! +He fills his mess cup and empties it at one draught. He spits out thick +threads, they hang from his mouth—bits of brains.... A pool of human +blood from which he has quenched his thirst.</p> + +<p>I receive a letter nearly every morning. The envelope burns in my +fingers: the written lines make a pretense of talking and telling you +things, as if I were not standing in front of him as you stand in front +of a window-pane which you frost with your breath so that you can't see +what's on the other side.</p> + +<p>I write to them before I go to bed. Nothing important ever turns up, so +I make a lot of the little everyday affairs—what happens at the office +or at lunch in the restaurant where the people discuss and wrangle and +the smells turn you sick. I tell them how forlorn the house looks, and +how well the child is getting along in the country, that I do some work +after dinner to make a little more money. Besides, there's always some +anecdote to relate.... Twelve strokes cutting into the metallic +night.... Sometimes when I fold my letter I have a sense of having +written about somebody else.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the thought of them is an obsession; it is a red point +about which I develop and revolve and add to myself.</p> + +<p>And sometimes, too, when I shut my eyes, bizarre notions swoop down on +me, a horrid swarm of bats. "How many women are there to-night," I +wonder, "who are tossing about in the thin warmth of their beds, +distracted creatures, tormented, empty-armed, who, however, are the +bigger for all this, easy in their minds and free already in their +bitter freedom?"</p> + +<p>Yes there are many women to-night without husbands or lovers who wonder +as they lie in bed; then they sit up and lean on their elbows ... they +don't <i>know</i> yet or suspect anything ... but they don't sleep, they +can't sleep; it's too absurd to think that a woman can live all alone, +sleep alone, even breathe. And then it might be that the closest union +is a prison after all.</p> + +<p>At last I fall asleep, and in the morning, in the bald, shivering +twilight, I go back to my doings of the day before, somewhat cowardly +doings. Dull habit, which greases the machinery of life, leads me +blindly along the streets to the office.</p> + +<p>Was it only two months ago that with despair in my heart I passed this +corner where the chestnut-stand sends up its whistling steam? His letter +in my bosom had told of the night attack and of his possible death; a +brief, heart-rending farewell. Is he in less danger this morning, is he +less cold, less hungry? I just passed the same corner worried for fear I +might be late. The whole way I had been thinking of my dress and winter +hat.</p> + +<p>That's how you get used to the martyrdom of others.</p> + +<p>Even if it is the flesh of your flesh that undergoes the martyrdom, even +if it is the man of your love—ah, don't say no—you get <i>used</i> to it. +In suffering one person cannot take the place of another, and pain +cannot be shared. The first day, because grief turns your head, you +think you are sharing the other person's pain, but the other days, all +the other days?</p> + +<p>Why not have the courage to look crude reality crudely in the face? +There are no people who are inseparable, there are no couples who are +inseparable.</p> + +<p>He is in the trenches, the men are in the trenches, engulfed in misery, +exposed to danger, plagued by vermin, and I am here alive and untouched, +grazing this large wall patched with three-colored placards. "Women ... +your noble rôle ... noble work ... honor...."</p> + +<p>Honor? What honor? I work. Isn't that natural? He is suffering, he is +going to die. Didn't I see my own dormant energies wake up? And if he +has given all, have I not taken all?</p> + +<p>Five minutes to nine! I hurry, raising my coat collar in a shiver and +clasping my hands inside my soft muff.</p> + +<p>At the end of the street a dusty gust driving a handful of people along +like dead leaves, women with billowing skirts, a tramping, whistling +gang of blue-lipped street boys, and old Noël with his breath frozen on +his beard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><i>They</i> have left. Even if they return, they have left. That's the whole +thing. There will have been a space of time when they were wiped off +the face of the earth, and life went forward without them, was lived +without them, and women actually <i>continued</i> without them....</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The typical young lover, well built, good-looking enough but without +charm; his youthfulness armed with a timid pretentiousness. I had always +avoided talking to him, but this evening he got hold of a foolish excuse +for walking home with me. I tried hard to speak of something else and +quickly switched the conversation on to another track when it took a +certain turn, while he, a hundred times more proficient than I, +certainly more obstinate, dragged the subject back to where he wanted it +to be.</p> + +<p>The eternal comedy of man. The same words—who will tell them that they +always use the same words?—to reach the same goal. He made awkward, +crafty attempts, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and when he +saw I was escaping, he declared himself, throwing up his dice and +staking his very heart. His voice was rusty, his nose pointed downward, +his ears were fiery.</p> + +<p>Until then he had seemed fatuous, almost ridiculous in his little +perfidy. Now he was ennobled, like a saint, pure, supplicating. His +whole body took on grandeur. How he trembled, the poor boy!</p> + +<p>When my answer was given—a woman who doesn't love has a lot of ease +and gentleness at her command—"Forgive me," he said, "I have offended +you."</p> + +<p>I watched him as he walked away, his back bent, humiliated, I suppose, +but bathed all the same in the hope that rises from the words you dare +to utter.</p> + +<p>Forgive him! As if any woman ever harbored bitter feelings against the +man who gave her the great gift, as if a single one of us ever remained +untouched, as if a mysterious yet positive connection did not establish +itself the moment love was declared.</p> + +<p>I remember all the men who ever loved me. Each thinks he has discovered +you, and offers you your secret. Each does in fact discover you, and +also kisses you a little.</p> + +<p>I shall remember this young man, too; I shall remember the strip of +mackerel sky showing above the street crossing; I shall remember the +stammering mouth whose youth demanded its satisfaction from mine, the +mouth that touched mine in thought.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>I have had the sensation of death.</p> + +<p>Not in the instant of dying; that is still a part of life; but in the +instant after death.</p> + +<p>I had gone to the end of the pier, where the water lashes incessantly +and regularly, and seated myself facing the open sea. To right and left +the green shore curved and the fir-trees ran down toward the sea to +hold in the pale sandy strip edged with foam. Over my head the +procession of clouds.</p> + +<p>Sunday morning. The voice of the chimes from the old church, buried in +the heart of the island, was music sent by the air and tinted blue by +the waters. At each stroke you expected to see space divided in two.</p> + +<p>The sea was smooth and sleek with dark, wide, winding oily tracks, which +looked like roadways traced by the sure finger of God.</p> + +<p>Looking down at my feet I saw a sparkling play of meshes of rainbow +light. The iris fragments dented the surface, formed into chains, made a +covering of diamond facets, and drew downward full rainbows resting on +myriads of arches. It was an incessant disappearance and reappearance.</p> + +<p>It was fascinating to watch. The only thing that distracted me was a +swarm of miniature fish darting under the pier more lightly than +insects. For a moment they showed dove-colored, then orange; then they +melted away. You tried to fasten your eyes upon one of the cells of +water, just one. You had it, but no, it was another one.</p> + +<p>The sun was so hot you couldn't lift your head. A broad sunbeam falling +perpendicularly on the hard surface of the sea cut it in a blinding +fissure, which attached the foot of the pier to the horizon.</p> + +<p>Caught between the heat pouring down from the heavens and the freshness +rising from the water, my body lost its sense of weight, form, +equilibrium, and even of breathing. Every bit of feeling was gone from +my legs, my neck was burning. My soul and eyes existed for nothing +except the stable yet ever-changing mosaic which laughed a thousand +laughs at the face of the sky.</p> + +<p>There was nothing but light. Substance, eyes, body, memories, all seemed +to be losing themselves and making a plunge into light.</p> + +<p>There really was one moment in which I ceased to be. My existence +underwent a momentary eclipse. I was no longer some one obstinately +facing a realm of infinity in order to measure its limits, a very small +creature who wanted to add herself to nature. I was the immense, +permeating idea of the ocean, the sun and the sky.</p> + +<p>It was between the singing ether and the silvery water that I seemed to +foresee my nothingness, because when consciousness left me and I ceased +to be, the sparkling eyes of the sea formed again, the blue oily tracks +unfurled themselves, the glittering fissure sucked in the same line, the +blue deep followed its unchanging course. Everything kept on behind me.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Nothing but women....</p> + +<p>Not a single pretty one. Two, four, ten, a hundred ... there must be two +hundred.... Not a single pretty one....</p> + +<p>To be sure, the weak unsteady light discolors their faces and throws +drab blotches around their features, but that alone does not account for +the general stamp of dullness which makes them seem like a flock of +widows. The two men sitting apart on the crosswise bench like +well-behaved children who have just been punished, have a sorry air, not +at all the air of having done it on purpose.</p> + +<p>I am impatient. A woman addressing other women.... What is she going to +tell us? Will the audience brighten up?</p> + +<p>I am standing with my back to the platform facing the door to keep watch +for Eva for whom I am reserving a seat beside my own.... Alas, something +for a merciless eye to feed upon! I can hardly bear to look at that +uncultivated field of dingy heads. But there is nothing better to turn +to—moldy walls picked at and peeling, smeary stains on a colorless +floor. Your ears are pierced by a rising babel.</p> + +<p>Eva at last.... I draw a breath of relief and feel, as I always do, like +saying "Thank you" to her. Great floodgates open, my poise is +restored—a living proof.... Why this blitheness? Because of her smile, +her radiance, her frankness, the glory she carries about with her from +the clear image of her child and husband? I do not know. She exists, +that's all. When I think of her, I have a complete sense of happiness +and confidence.... Perhaps this is friendship.</p> + +<p>She has a little trouble making her way through the hall. Her head, set +in velvet, rises above the field of heads like a taller, brighter +stalk; the precious gems of her eyes show in full. She sees me, her face +brightens.... "Thank you," I say, very low just to myself. After all +there will be one fine face in the room.</p> + +<p>We had scarcely shaken hands and seated ourselves when silence fell, +broken here and there by coughing.</p> + +<p>The speech.</p> + +<p>The woman making the speech is also ugly. Yet what resources in that +ample body. Under the armor of her corset, there are fine, noble lines, +I am sure. Under her sausage sleeves there are the arms of a mother, +even perhaps of a woman in love; the huge pancake on the nape of her +neck shows she has long shining hair silky to the touch; and what +tenderness in the depth of her eyes which dart glances in our direction. +If she dared, what sweetness....</p> + +<p>She came to speak to us from a platform for the purpose of conveying her +idea and a little of her soul, unaware that a valiant soul is a visible +soul. The only means we have of showing our souls, sharing them and +giving them freedom, are the ordinary means—our actions, the bare flesh +of our lips, the sincere tears of our eyes, our bodies which encase our +souls, our smiles which beautify our souls, and our voices.</p> + +<p>This woman's soul is a strained voice, but how marvellous. The rows in +the audience remain stationary, each head staying fixed in the position +it held at the first word she uttered.</p> + +<p>The women's horrid cares, their marketing, their husbands, their +children, their dishwashing, their difficulty in making ends meet, all +the everyday trifles that weigh on women and enslave them, are driven +far away. The pale blonde with faded eyes beside Eva probably made the +same O of her mouth when she spelled out her letters as a child. The old +woman nodding "Yes, yes"—the two plumes in her bonnet respond "Yes, +yes"—has forgotten her stupid drudgery.</p> + +<p>They are all stamped with a sort of pathetic imprint; love is their +element, their strength, their medium. They listen with love and +understand through love. Love gives them this serious, fixed +attentiveness.</p> + +<p>The woman with the burning insignia of her stove on her fiery cheeks has +lost all traces of worry except for the scolding expression of the +mother whom you imagine with a horde of children jumping round her like +little rabbits. And the thin girl with the dusky gaze—we've all seen +her kneeling in the shadow of a confessional mumbling her sins with her +mouth glued to a wooden grating from the other side of which comes the +warm breath of a man without a face—what ardor she, too, is capable of!</p> + +<p>Instead of the voice of the speaker on the platform it is the women's +outcries that I hear.</p> + +<p>These women have been imprisoned by themselves, hampered by their own +lives, and what lives! what a miserable heap of desires and troubles in +the face of the immense thing which gathers all beings together and +makes them resemble one another, the thing unanimous and intangible that +I hardly see. I don't even know its name. Before it I am like a blind +man who has never seen the sun, but suddenly feels it shining on his +forehead and exclaims: "There is light!" It is this <i>thing</i> that has +made all these women come here to-night and bestow their childish +presence, their somewhat uncouth attention, their tragic lips which +would kiss everything. Do they feel the great current rising from them +which seeks to be caught and held fast, a current altogether new in the +human atmosphere?... Not yet. Not yet.</p> + +<p>How subdued Eva looks; her gaze seems clipped short; she's frowning. Her +expression makes me uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Hands flutter like white leaves; a bow from the platform; the meeting is +over.</p> + +<p>The auditors stretch themselves a little, then rise to the accompaniment +of clattering benches, gossamer sighs, and the sound of two hundred +bodies moving and coming back to themselves. A faint cackling, then a +full chorus of barnyard noises mounting and spreading.</p> + +<p>I plant myself up against the wall to let them pass and see who will +cast thorny glances at my hat, dress and shoes.</p> + +<p>"Come on," cries Eva. Her forehead is drawn in hard lines. "Come on."</p> + +<p>Outside, the night blowing upon the parting groups of women gives their +scattered voices resonance.</p> + +<p>Eva takes my arm ... but no, I feel like being by myself. I repel her +bluntly, as you throw aside a branch you have broken. She instinctively +draws her cloak around her.</p> + +<p>"What an absurd evening! Those women!" she says.</p> + +<p>She is right, I am sure. Every one of the women, it was easy to see, was +ugly and petty, but together, multiplied and magnified, their +individualities wiped out, they revealed I cannot say what unformed +hope, what substance, what richness.... If only I could explain this to +Eva!</p> + +<p>"Hurry, hurry, here comes my street-car! Good night!"</p> + +<p>The buzzing of an electric bell, an intense disk of light, another +buzzing, and the little illuminated house stops. With a flutter of her +skirts and a wave of her hand, Eva disappears.</p> + +<p>Has she really gone? Goodness, what is she carrying away with her?...</p> + +<p>In the nebulous depth of the long avenue I can still distinguish a +vanishing star gliding along its mechanical path.</p> + +<p>I had said: "Here is my friend, my companion, my sister." On this +evening, tender as dawn, she has left behind in me a great emotion which +she does not understand.</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>"A lady," the fat concierge told me. "Been here twice. Well, a sort of +lady, a ... you understand. Her cheeks—her skirt—you can see her legs +up to here.... Believe me or don't believe me, but she's twin pea to +your Marie. If she comes back, what shall I tell her? I won't let that +sort into my house! Eh? Kick her out?"</p> + +<p>"Oh but, M. Etienne, I am at home to-day. Let her come up."</p> + +<p>I closed my door blushing.</p> + +<p>Through the banisters I recognized her. Actually Marie!</p> + +<p>"Come in...."</p> + +<p>She went in ahead of me to the dining-room—"my dining-room," she used +to call it—and seated herself deliberately. Genuine timidity hides +itself behind a mask of absurd audacity.</p> + +<p>"Marie ... Marie ... is it possible?"</p> + +<p>She was wearing a large red straw hat turned up at one side and weighted +down on the other side by a nodding mass of huge black plumes, two tall +elastic antennae, the sort worn by horses drawing hearses. Under the +chalky enamel you couldn't see her freckles, but her eyes, her lovely +eyes of purest aquamarine, with glints of indigo from her blackened +lashes, still retained their dewy look of astonishment.</p> + +<p>Here was Marie. At last I was going to know why she was so mute and why +she ran away one evening without taking along her bundle of clothes or +her prayer-book. I was going to find out how a poor little servant girl +rebelling against kindness could become a poor little swaggering +over-dressed prostitute.</p> + +<p>"I have come for my things."</p> + +<p>"They are still here, Marie; I'll go and get them."</p> + +<p>But I couldn't budge. This phenomenon coming so close to me was +appalling. I looked at her. She had the soft, awkward charm of a little +astonished beast. Seated there in my presence she made an ingenuous, +piteous sight, like a ladybird you're afraid of crushing, or a wilful +timid lamb withdrawing from your caress.</p> + +<p>I noticed all sorts of minutiae—that she carried a cloth hand-bag, an +exact copy of a bag of mine, and tied her shoe-latchets the very same +way I did mine; was very neat, her shoes polished, her hands clean, her +neck fairly waxed with soap. Her gaze, once aimless and imprisoned, +harpooned the things in my room and withdrew freighted with +discoveries.... And she gave me acid, persistent looks like the looks +one woman gives another. "Has she aged?" her looks questioned, "has she +changed, is she prettier?" Her eyes roved around the room. "Ah, that +little étagère was not there in my time, nor that engraving.... Who's +doing her work? The place looks well kept." She parted the collar of her +jacket at the opening to show off her imitation brooch. The child had +become feminized, she seemed older than ever.</p> + +<p>"Why, Marie? Why?"</p> + +<p>I couldn't restrain myself any longer. She leaned her elbow on the +table. When she raised her eyes, they were underlined with red and two +slow tears cut little pathways down the powder on her cheeks. I jumped +up and took her hands.</p> + +<p>"I didn't like—I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't my +fault. No one cared about me...."</p> + +<p>The great answer to the riddle. They all have this devouring need. What +they ask of love and look for in love is "someone to care about them."</p> + +<p>"And then my hair, my Breton dress ... everybody stared at me. 'Aren't +you ashamed?' I used to think."</p> + +<p>Another need—to be like other people, to be just as good as anyone +else—why not?—to have a bag like madam and hats like the hats you see +on the street....</p> + +<p>"That's all," she added.</p> + +<p>It was all. When women sell themselves, it is not poverty necessarily +that drives them to it. You don't know the hell of jealousy that burns +in all of us. There are some women who make themselves beautiful less +for the sake of pleasing men than for annoying other women.</p> + +<p>"You must be unhappy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>Is a poor little thing like Marie sensual? Women are rarely sensual. If +they are, they have not been so from the start; they have become so.</p> + +<p>Her Breton accent came back. "Madam," she said in her singsong of four +years ago and in the same servile tone. Now she felt like relieving +herself and telling me everything. There was one man who really didn't +disgust her, but he was at the front, and if only he could come back! In +the meantime she practiced economies and perhaps they could fix up a +home and perhaps he would marry her. But if he did not come back, +then—</p> + +<p>I had been to blame, I alone. I had been satisfied to deplore her grim +silence and do nothing. But I ought to have humiliated myself so as to +earn her smile. I ought by talking to her to have driven out of her +heart the longing to equal and surpass which prevents us all from being +human sisters. I should have....</p> + +<p>We are all to blame for the prostitutes, we are the ones at whom the +stones should be cast. Nearly all of them are little Maries with the +craving for just one man, the peaceful healthy desire for a secure +hearth, but we tolerate poverty, and we don't know how to talk to each +other.</p> + +<p>She put her package under her arm. I did not know what to do. I went up +to her, humble of heart, and rather awkwardly kissed her cheek streaked +by tears and sullied by paint.</p> + +<p>She started, shaken by a revulsion. The liquid blue of her eyes turned +sharp and aggressive, her lips narrowed; she held her little bag close +like booty. Then she departed, leaving the door open for the smoky +darkness of the landing to creep into my rooms. She had the untamable, +sullen expression of a hunted beast.</p> + + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>Twenty days passed without news.</p> + +<p>When I woke up, the early sunlight had a reassuring effect, the morning +chattered familiarly, my terror of the night before took wings like a +fancy. Hope swelled within me.</p> + +<p>The postman's ring, sharp, strident, unbearable, reopened the wound. I +rushed to the door. Nothing. A circular, an ordinary letter which I +didn't have the will to open.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was exactly twenty-two days. I forced myself to sit down at the +table, but my courage was completely gone, and the alarms of the night +which haunted the room gripped me by the throat. Well, there would be +something to-morrow. It was impossible....</p> + +<p>Anxiety, from the moment it began, made me neglect myself—no prinking, +no housework, dust powdering my furniture. The most I did was to turn +back my bedclothes. What did all these things matter? I wanted to sleep, +sleep....</p> + +<p>Coming back from work I slipped into my flannel dressing gown and +slippers and let down my hair. I did not even take the time to warm up +my dinner prepared beforehand in the morning. The plate was on the +table, an orange, a piece of bread.... I'd eat.</p> + +<p>I couldn't. The mouthfuls choked me. I couldn't do one thing. I was +overwhelmed, almost paralyzed, by an unconquerable weakness. I threw +myself in my armchair. I would put the room in order the next day. I +would work twice as hard, but not to-night....</p> + +<p>Sleep....</p> + +<p>Torpor gained complete possession of me. The darkness gathered, and when +the last streak of twilight came through the window fluttering on my +eyelids, a little hope returned.</p> + +<p>After all, twenty-two days was not so terrible. Many people had had to +wait longer. Hadn't I had to wait sixteen days once? Letters get lost on +the way.</p> + +<p>I visualized a scene—a hospital ward, a row of beds, white coverings, +nurses. How was it I had not thought of it before? Wounded!... A slight +wound which kept him from writing.... I welcomed the certainty. It was +so comforting that I tried to hold on to it by jumping right up and +shaking off anxiety and being happy. Anxiety is an insult to love.</p> + +<p>I groped for the lamp, turned on the light, and laid some reading matter +on the table. The disorder was dismal but—to-morrow was another day. I +sat down to read.</p> + +<p>The lines leapt at my eyes. You'd have thought them an army of ants +running over the page, running, yet always remaining at the same place. +Should I try to work? Should I try to make up a package for him? That +would be two packages this week, but two are not a whole lot.</p> + +<p>My heart gave a great leap. The door-bell rang. Who could it be at this +hour? My very life went round in a whirlwind, I flew to the door.</p> + +<p>Some one in black shrinking in the dark doorway in the humble attitude +of a sister of charity requesting alms for the poor. My aunt Finot!</p> + +<p>I murmured a few little hypocrisies and put up my hair. I was fuming +inwardly, although actually a little relieved at the prospect of a +visit, which even if tedious would mean a human presence, a tangible +certainty. I was so upset I came near saying "Tante Finot" and giving +away the nickname by which she had been called in the family for twenty +years.</p> + +<p>"Come in, aunt...."</p> + +<p>She stepped in ahead of me, hunching up her body. The disorder struck +me ... my home was usually so neat ... and my dressing gown ... my +run-down slippers—</p> + +<p>"An awkward hour for a visit, I know," said Aunt Finot, sitting down. +"Are you feeling quite well, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Dear" in that mouth with lips like two tight-drawn catguts! It stabbed +like a dagger.... She sat perched on the edge of the chair twisting the +straps of her hand-bag. The lamplight threw dusky shadows on her +skeleton frame and turned her eyes into the sharp-gleaming eyes of an +executioner. My God!</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened," I asked, "anything dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"You see, dear ... don't get excited ... listen...."</p> + +<p>"Dead!"</p> + +<p>An abyss yawned at my feet, something flashed and grazed my eyelids. +I...</p> + +<p>My aunt rose slowly. I saw her hands on the table knotted like a tangle +of cords.</p> + +<p>"Don't get excited. Your family received bad news, I don't know from +what source. I asked them if it was official. They were all half +crazy—afraid to come and tell you.... I always felt an affection for +you, you know...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I understand; he's dead."</p> + +<p>There she still stood, her knotted hands on the table, a grin widening +her flat features. There she still stood.</p> + +<p>"Aunt, please leave me alone, please do."</p> + +<p>Perhaps she went on talking a little, perhaps she leaned over to kiss +me, perhaps I heard words falling from her lips like pellets of lead: +"country—trial—sacrifice." The door closed upon my slaughtered love.</p> + +<p>I know I tried to stand up—it was like trying to lift a tombstone—and +drag myself to the window to lean my forehead on the pane; but something +pulled at me from deep within, something cold and incomprehensible, like +a slimy slug, like a deep gash in living flesh. And a strange dizziness, +not entirely physical, threw me back into the armchair.</p> + +<p>The walls of this black hissing pit into which I fell were the walls of +my dining-room, the very same walls papered in a scallop design, and I +saw a cloud of tiny coal-black butterflies, mere specks, whirl without +end from the blackened lamp-chimney.</p> + +<p>My being turned into something enormous and gaping, which fed constantly +upon a great wound. I was so overwhelmed with a senseless horror that at +moments during the night his death seemed quite normal and natural. But +when I withdrew my hand from under my head a multitude of serpents +wriggled about within me, and I felt suffocated again and began to +tumble through emptiness, while little pointed teeth bit my blood and +left behind a penetrating icy poison.</p> + +<p>It has ever been the same, Lord God. Suffering is too monotonous.... +When a bit of sense and ordinary life returned and cried in my ears: "It +is over. Never more," I felt that suffering is too monotonous; and when +a clamor of revolt sounded in my being: "They have killed him!" I felt +that suffering is too monotonous.</p> + +<p>And when the dawn came tapping at the window and creeping toward the +table, drab and livid, when I rose from my bruised knees, and when the +humming and buzzing began in the indifferent house, I still felt that +suffering is too monotonous.</p> + + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>Your beloved is dead.</p> + +<p>News that comes from the depths of the ages or the depths of the flesh; +you can't tell.</p> + +<p>One day—there—a clap of thunder. It bursts from your flesh and tries +to enter your flesh again. It beats at the portals of your heart, +besieges your ears, howls round your entrails, but there is no place for +it, no part of your body wants it, your soul retreats to shelter, your +heart drips black blood, your mind goes round and round. News, News! +Your beloved is dead!</p> + +<p>No need for the thunder to break. I knew it was brewing in me.</p> + +<p>When we used to come back from work and I kissed him with this very +mouth and embraced him with these very arms, pressing him so hard that +he laughed sometimes, it was premonition of the News that kept my lips +sealed to his cheek so long, and turned my arms into iron clutches, and +gave me warning when I woke up, and frightened me in the dark.</p> + +<p>We used to talk about it and try to imagine what separation by death +would be like. "If I die, if you die." We wanted to provide against it, +we had accepted it.</p> + +<p>My beloved, the knowledge of misfortune is not the misfortune itself; +the knowledge of death is not death itself. When we were together we +never imagined I should suffer so much. When people are together, they +can't imagine what it is to be alone.</p> + +<p>It is like childbirth over again, I assure you: I remember your face +when I shrieked in travail. I am more torn now, and you are not here to +hold my hands.</p> + +<p>Why do they all say suffering is necessary and ennobling? I can testify +that suffering doesn't do any good.</p> + +<p>I used to be a gay, active woman, who went about with chest expanded, a +body full of pleasure, lips like kisses, and cheeks alive with color. I +used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and stay up until late at +night. After the day's work in the evening I'd say "to-morrow" as if +anticipating the loveliest day in the world. I had poverty, laughter, an +appetite, I had a perfect union with another, and I maintain that this +counts. I led a life according to my own will; I had a bright child. I +had all this, I <i>was</i> all this, this was my lot....</p> + +<p>To-day I am a woman whose eyes are swollen and corroded with salt tears, +whose features are sharpened, whose shoulders stoop, whose black dress +bags on her reduced figure, whose eyes are turned inward, whose house is +untidy and whose evenings drop into darkness without the lamplight. My +little one has to call me.... I love him without a smile, and as for +myself, I hate myself.</p> + +<p>I used to try to be kind and make it pleasant for people in my home. I +am like a thistle withered on its stem, I am like a fruit cut open and +thrown out on the street. I am useless and bitter—I am bad.</p> + +<p>When people come to me, I feel the pricking of their thorns, and I +wallow in gall. They are all enveloped in an awful respect for death. It +revolts me.</p> + +<p>My family comes to visit me, each one of them chockful of advice and +dropping honied words.... Yet I was more worthwhile when I was happy. +Why didn't they incline themselves when there was still time? They seem +to send up a cry of relief. "At last! You're suffering! At last a person +can approach you!" They console me and lull me; they are crows +quarreling over the remains of a charnel-house.</p> + +<p>But when they have the effrontery to extol his virtues, it is too much; +my grief springs to the attack. The idea! They hated him while he lived! +Keep quiet, don't insult him! I wish to be alone with the knowledge that +he is dead.</p> + +<p>But I don't utter a word; grief has lips of stone; I keep my secret +locked within me while seeming to listen to them. I sit in front of the +fire, my hair loose, my forehead drawn, watching the flames blaze and +the embers fall. After all, their presence, their footsteps pawing the +silence, mean only a little additional pain. Time passes, and they're +sure to go eventually.</p> + +<p>Has the door closed on them? I don't know. I can hardly move.</p> + +<p>I am alone with you, my knees clasped in my hands, while the castle in +the fire slowly crumbles on its gray dust.</p> + +<p>Some mourners at least have the consolation of mourning real dead—real +dead whom they have seen stiffen into death, whose last words they have +received, whose last agonies they have tried to soothe, for whom they +have done everything they could.</p> + +<p>But you, beloved, are you dead? I don't even know. "Fallen on the field +of honor?" What does that mean? Was it in the evening or the morning? +Were you alone? Did you cry out? Did you suffer terribly? Did you open +your eyes once more? Perhaps you couldn't, perhaps you called and called +for me? Perhaps you thought I should have come? Ah yes, I should have +been there; it is my fault. I have always cured you, you know I have. I +simply had to hold your head in my hands and your pain was eased.</p> + +<p>But I didn't die—I didn't die at the moment of your death, that moment +too frightful to speak of. I didn't die when life was drowned in your +mouth. We knew the whole truth concerning each other, yet when you were +dying I may have been smiling.</p> + +<p>For fifteen nights, fifteen days, fifteen years my heart has been crying +that you are dead and that it has lost the hope of ever seeing you again +in your clothes exactly as you used to look, with that manner of +yours.... Fifteen days since I have been trying to learn again, begin +all over again, and call everything into question again. Fifteen days of +impotence. I see only what is.</p> + +<p>There is earth on your hands, on your eyes, on every part of your body +wherever it may be. Your feet are cold and gray like the feet of a +pauper, your skin is bloated, worms are preying upon you. I don't want +to—I cannot see you as you are. When I think of you I have a false +vision of your living self with your cheeks of the color of life and +your dear natural gestures. How can I help being all bewildered? Nothing +is left. Even the memory of you changes from day to day. I can no longer +recall the right tone of your voice. Your corpse is hidden. It is as if +I were suffering for no reason at all.</p> + +<p>Not to know how to suffer, perhaps that is what suffering is.... Not to +divine where you are, is that your death?</p> + +<p>The sparkling hearth-fire has scattered and gone out. Fire has devoured +fire. A few embers reddening here and there, a porous heap of fanciful +firebrands.</p> + +<p>And now, and now, my beloved, if I no longer see you, I do see the +consuming truth. I see it and here it is: I let you go. I consented. +There's no doubt of it, it was <i>I</i> who killed you....</p> + + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>I felt a great need for fresh air and light. What the nature of this +hunger and thirst was I cannot tell.... The sunshine suddenly lighted up +the window-frame. Its golden rays coming through the open casement and +falling obliquely upon the objects in my room filled it with numerous +fires. It was a salute.</p> + +<p>To be out of doors, to walk, to feel the sun on my skin!</p> + +<p>I had a letter to mail. The thought of it brought me to my feet, +impatient, ready.</p> + +<p>Should I take the little one along? But how about a good long walk, the +semblance of distraction?... I decided to go alone.</p> + +<p>With my eyes close to the image in the mirror, I powdered my face and +puffed my hair on each side under my hat as I used to do. How the least +prinking helps a woman! Instead of the really ugly pointed little face +smeared with pallor, which, without arousing my shame, had visibly +lengthened these past weeks, there was a face of warm, even whiteness +and of an oval not so pronounced, eyes which, even if dark-rimmed, had +lost their fixity, and a shower of red tendrils like coppery breaths +blown on my forehead.</p> + +<p>The early spring was making itself felt. A raw wind was raising the dust +of the streets. Assailed at the first step by the blue, dancing, +swirling air, I walked falteringly, like a prisoner who has just been +released and doesn't know where to turn.</p> + +<p>Everything the same. The old bridge still stretching its badly joined +planks from the paved street to the road where the wistaria bloomed. The +patched, mossy roof of the old wash-house a few steps from the mill +still displaying its dog's-eared edges. The same vistas across the green +breaches between the houses.</p> + +<p>Every corner of the town held out a memory to me—here a two-year-old +memory, here a distinct vision crouching. I called to the vision and +welcomed it. My life was not dead, and my heart was open and there was +still a man to love me....</p> + +<p>I had been unjust in the black moment of despair. My share of love and +light still remained. Did he know I was a widow? Since he had been taken +prisoner six months ago, no news had reached me and I didn't know if he +had received any of my letters.</p> + +<p>The broad sunshine expanded my chest and warmed up a vision so tender—a +hope or a memory—that I was stung by a pang of remorse and almost felt +like chasing it away.</p> + +<p>I reached the center of the town, where there were more people and +especially more well-to-do people.</p> + +<p>Feminine figures, which I recognized, came toward me at a dull gait. I +knew them; I had seen these old ladies at prayers two years before. They +wore the same dresses and the same hats, the sort you don't see anywhere +except in the provinces.... Hypocritical hands as I passed the houses, +lifted the crocheted curtains. I was preceded by mystery and followed by +whisperings.</p> + +<p>Every passerby seemed to be blaming me for the dazzling sunlight which +my eyes were embracing; every house scowled, and the whole street, in +spite of the pleasant weather, wore veritable mourning, not mere sadness +and solemnity, but mourning, and the people looked as though they were +in a slow funeral procession, the women strangled in black, upholstered +in crepe, and buried alive in their hoods and veils.</p> + +<p>The Cathedral square was resplendent with profane joy. The birds swooped +from one to the other of the great, white-dappled plane-trees, and every +now and then one perched on the statue in the fountain, a clumsy girl +with petticoat of stone and turned-up sleeves, a decent bosom bared, a +sheaf in one arm, and an eternally dried-up urn in the other arm. +Through its high lanceolate windows and the tracery of the two +rose-windows Notre Dame was drinking in light and making mock of its +ancient front.</p> + +<p>It was a brilliant day, and the world rejoiced. I tasted the savor of +living. In spite of myself I fell into the nervous, elastic step of old +and drank in the living air like an intoxicating elixir.</p> + +<p>An idea took lodgment—he was familiar with this scene, these crabbed +shops, hostile promenaders, and square of bourgeoning; he had walked on +these cobblestones; and at the edge of the town was his little summer +villa. The idea went round and round, very fast; and I was weak; so I +clutched at it for support.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Another veiled woman in black....</p> + +<p>That figure tending to heaviness but graceful and in the very mould of +femininity is not unfamiliar. I have seen the woman before. You can +tell from a distance that she wears the mark of the widow, a hood-like +hat faced with white.</p> + +<p>She too;...</p> + +<p>I am interested in her. In the country you are interested in everybody +you meet.</p> + +<p>Who is she, I wonder. She seems to be about forty, but neither her hair +nor her cheeks have lost their freshness. Who....</p> + +<p>My heart bursts, alarm comes rushing, misfortune approaches.... She +walks toward me—she is only a few feet away.... If she would only +stop ... it is she ... his wife!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In the time it takes to walk only a few feet you can undergo the acutest +agony. I held my breath and for a second time felt death strike me with +its thunderbolt. I had time to become a widow too.</p> + +<p>She advanced terribly: it was death advancing along the sidewalk. I felt +I must detain and implore her. With jaws set I restrained a great +convulsive outcry and flung myself in her way.... My lips gave a sort of +cluck.... She fixed her eyes straight ahead and turned away deliberately +as if from a drunken beggar.</p> + +<p>I looked and looked after her....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She departs—forever—her skirt grazing the ground. Her veil carries +away the remnant of my joy, leaving me there stupefied and convulsed, +alone under the sun. She departs....</p> + +<p>My God!...</p> + + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>My son is growing up.</p> + +<p>He has reddish-brown ringlets, his cheeks are vermilion, the blue of his +eyes radiates seraphic calm. He is probably going to be very handsome. +Often people stop me on the street to tell me how lovely he is, and for +a moment I feel some pride.</p> + +<p>He is beginning to show human traits; he talks, he expresses a desire to +touch and possess things, and likes to listen to stories, which used to +make no appeal: "And then, Mamma? Tell me, what next?..." I always begin +by kissing him.</p> + +<p>My heart has grown with him. I have just begun to feel that his +existence is rooted in my own existence. What welds me to him are not +only the pains I take for him, or my perpetual anxiety. I am welded to +him by the kisses he already gives me. When he says "Mamma" in his +inimitable way, I am proud and overwhelmed; when he puts his arms round +my neck, it is as if I were usurping a reward too perfect for me.</p> + +<p>The terror with which he filled me when he was so little and frail is +disappearing. I have rocked him, watched over him and suckled him; he +has strong legs and a strong body; nevertheless a much greater terror is +growing in me.</p> + +<p>The greatest terror of my life. To bring up a child, to hold in your +hands not only what he will be, but what he may be; and to decree +everything, the colors he looks at, the words he hears! To give birth a +second time to a living creature. To be worthy of it....</p> + +<p>And to have nothing to help you but a heart wise yet too intellectual, +the heart of an adult.</p> + +<p>To have this timid heart, the maternal heart, too prompt and misleading.</p> + +<p>Not to have anything else!</p> + + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p>I was sitting on the grass beside the rugged, windswept path which +follows the curve of the sea. Instinctively I straightened up out of my +careless attitude into the attitude of a woman in danger.</p> + +<p>He is coming closer, he is very near....</p> + +<p>He forces himself to assume the indifferent, I don't-know-you air of +some one happening to be passing by, but he shortens his strides, and in +spite of himself his face dilates and beams with the delight of the +hunter striking the trail. A little more, and he'd let out a whistle.</p> + +<p>Should I try to escape through the woods by cutting across the railroad +track? Should I?...</p> + +<p>"How do you do?"</p> + +<p>"How do you do?"</p> + +<p>The man is handsome, decidedly handsome, even in the full light, and I +smile at his coming as I smiled a few moments ago when the sun climbed +over the slope.</p> + +<p>I had always seen him in the dusk when he returned to his smart white +house held fast in a coil of green. He would stop a moment at the rusty +gate and give me a lingering glance out of his long-lashed eyes. +Yesterday evening when we passed each other on the road, his eyes were +like black enamel, but now in the bare light of the morning they are of +a more crystalline gray than the sea.</p> + +<p>A tragic duel of looks ... a thousand questions asked and answered ... +wonderful understanding ... dizziness ... unbearable dizziness.</p> + +<p>He stands balancing himself on his feet searching the ground for the +nascent lie. Then he puts a direct, confident question—is this +magnificent weather going to last? I in my turn dissemble and scrutinize +the silent, motionless horizon.</p> + +<p>Safe! Hypocrisy between us. He has found a suitable topic and exploits +it cleverly in jerky little phrases, rather sensual, like the kisses you +give a child. He points his three-cornered head at me and tosses back +his thick black mane.</p> + +<p>He shuffles his feet. "Answer me," beg the glittering eyes. "Answer +me.... I am asking you a question...."</p> + +<p>No, I don't want to answer. A word thrown out now and then with the +fervent assurance one always has under a desirous gaze; also the +defensive attitude men force upon you. I lean over and begin to pluck +the rich grass methodically, producing a fine, fresh scent and the dry, +peaceful sound of a browsing beast. Two bare spots in the velvety slope +and several light blades zigzagging in the wind....</p> + +<p>Will he go?</p> + +<p>He understands. His chest collapses like a pair of bellows and he draws +his two long legs together ostentatiously.</p> + +<p>Why this tricky manœuvring? Why thoughts unspoken? I am a part of the +tender landscape to him, and I realize he is looking at me tenderly. Why +not dare to make a pure, natural confession?</p> + +<p>"Good-bye?"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye."</p> + +<p>I can't be irritated with this man; I haven't the courage to; the +weather is too lovely.</p> + +<p>When you see the jolly morning frolicking on the road in cap-and-bells +and look over where the blue curve of paradise lovingly touches the +brown curve of the earth, all you feel is a warm indulgence.</p> + +<p>It is too beautiful. The trees mingle their branches, the rays of +sunshine mingle their warmth, the birds mingle their songs. Down below, +the tide is coming in with the rush of clanking chains submerged by a +host of swift, frisky little waves....</p> + +<p>And this man with the knavish eyes is nothing more than a black particle +blown by the wind to the end of this promontory where a few clustered +pines taper into the azure.</p> + +<p>It is too beautiful. All you can do is close your eyes.</p> + +<p>I close them—to shut out for a while the dazzle of the water in the +indigo basin, the thousand golden bubbles in its centre, the thousand +silver teeth biting at its edge. I don't want to think any more. All I +want to feel are the warm darts which pierce my hands resting on the +grass and the peculiar sense of well-being which takes the place of +everything else....</p> + +<p>Have I really slept?... Sweetness, the sweetness of lips kissed by +breezes, a sweetness complete and overwhelming ... a delicious life.</p> + +<p>But ... this black gown ... my dead ... I have nothing but my grief, +nothing but my grief. What wrong have I perpetrated that my grief should +forever sing in my ears?</p> + +<p>Ah, just to forget.... Everywhere the earth breathing happiness, the +blue, blue rolling waves, the almond trees veiled in faery whiteness, +everywhere the nuptials of joy.</p> + +<p>Grief, where are you? Everywhere space terribly alive, with hope in +every color and death just died for the last time.</p> + + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>It happened as it does in novels. The man suddenly feels the beast of +prey panting within him and yields to it hotly; the woman writhes under +the fiery coercion and gropingly reassumes the ancient ways that have +come down from time immemorial....</p> + +<p>Even to the words I used. Where did they come from, the words that cut +him like a lash, whipped up his desire, and then fell on his face like +drops of ice water?</p> + +<p>I was ashamed. I straightened my hair and left the room. How was it +nothing warned me that I must be on my guard against the man alongside +of whom I had been working daily? Had I been blind? I tried to extract +something significant from my recollections ... but no....</p> + +<p>I am going to leave him soon, and I must speak to him.</p> + +<p>His disappointment gives him a humanizing air of meekness. It inclines +me to him. You feel intensely that other doors are open and, if you +wanted to, you could knock and gain admittance.</p> + +<p>This grim laconic man, whose ways are confined to the ways of command, +who has been sterilized and handcuffed by the barren power which money +confers, looks at me intently with eyes raised like a child's. Women are +wrong in supposing that a man forsakes them when he renounces his +desire.</p> + +<p>I speak to him disconnectedly, but I am leading up to what I want to +say. And he moves his face a little forward and still a little further +forward; it's as though he were drawing closer, step by step, step by +step. And everything external about me is effaced by degrees, my +sunshiny hair, my mouth, my body present but concealed, my entire +femininity. An infallible instinct tells me this. He takes in my voice +alone, and is surprised that my voice talks nothing but sense. But he +is going to know if it will talk sense straight to the end, so he +settles himself more comfortably in his armchair, lets his eyebrows +relax, and loses all thought of himself. His logic is being appealed to.</p> + +<p>"Now as to your money ... you know if I married you it would not be for +your love.... Your money?... It doesn't count? You're right, it doesn't +count.... I might not have discovered it at once. I might have said, as +I did the other day, that I don't love you. I might also have thought of +my aversion to the idea of marriage. Don't look like that. Marriage as +it is to-day is immoral and stupid. Don't say my marriage was perfect. +The man I lost was a rare soul. For ordinary people like you and me +marriage brings nothing but misfortune and mediocrity.</p> + +<p>"To marry is to lie, to deceive both yourself and the other one; and +when a man and a woman harbor infinite hopes, when they look out upon +perpetually changing horizons, when they have the choice of all the +roads in the world, and the whole of life spreads out before them, it is +absurd to suppose that they can ever subject themselves to each other.</p> + +<p>"You marry, you pledge your soul, you promise your flesh. Once +imprisoned, you maim yourself, and should the call of love some day +become too strong, what other alternative than to lie or break the +chains? Deceit or catastrophe; there is no choice. Love does not +reconcile the primitive hatred between man and woman: on the contrary, +it sharpens it; and for two people to venture upon the impossible +enterprise of joining together two opposite destinies the full length of +their courses, requires a spirit that neither you nor I possess, a +spirit greater than nature bestows; it also takes the intellect of a +God. I assure you it does....</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would have waited till the very end to bring out your trump +argument. But I would have rejected your seductive words angrily. They +would not be to the point. The point is, that if I were to become your +wife, my lot would be as I have described it.</p> + +<p>"You lean forward, you approve what I say.</p> + +<p>"The simple fact is, I couldn't live. There would be no use my trying. I +should not have the strength every day to witness a real death unless I +had the tiredness and the sort of forgiveness that come from hard work. +I simply couldn't eat with appetite, I couldn't sleep in peace.</p> + +<p>"And in the morning, if I did not know that this exultation, this unruly +vigor, this swarming of scattered inclinations could not be controlled, +dammed and curbed by laws ... no, I would not dare to begin to live +again....</p> + +<p>"In a single day there are too many temptations, in a single body too +many feelings; the inner life, remote and <i>secondary</i>, must learn +through humble duty to subdue itself by merely keeping its attention +fastened upon the external life. If we listened to the goodness, the +heaven we all carry round within us, what would become of us? I for my +part would not be capable of resisting long.... I believe you understand +me. You yourself have felt what a help and support your daily routine +is. I never paid much attention to you, you were only one of the many +supernumeraries on the stage of my work, but I respected you because you +made a part of my efforts, and you too took great pains with your work.</p> + +<p>"Every time I left you, I felt gentler. Though fatigued I felt free to +think of myself, buoyant, wiser, unloaded, as if my sins had been +forgiven me.... I had paid my debt; I owed nothing.</p> + +<p>"I do not know if work in itself is a good deed. God probably never +meant it for us. Not to lie does not mean to discern the truth, and to +work is not to find the truth, but it is to have the right to advance +toward truth and put oneself in a state of grace and health.</p> + +<p>"Then remember that you dared to offer me this miserable fate, me who in +doing the same work lived beside you as if under the same roof, who felt +imbued with an austere ardor. But you saw nothing, learned nothing, +understood nothing. You horrified me. What you did yesterday! Good +heavens! You attacked, I defended; we are quits.</p> + +<p>"And the money spread out glitteringly to gag me at night....</p> + +<p>"You must be just. While you were going through your day's work it never +occurred to you that I had my day's work too, and my strong arms and +the energy and chastity deep-seated in my body.... What was the value, +the slight importance I possess as a person to you? What was my peace to +you?</p> + +<p>"Even if you make fun of the exigencies of the soul, do you think it's a +question of the soul alone? And how about one's relation to other +people? You go out of your house on to the street, you see the crowds on +their way to shops, offices and factories. You have to look the +working-people in the face.... Tell me, how do the men and women who +have <i>nothing to do</i> look the workers in the face?</p> + +<p>"I see this doesn't touch you. You are withdrawing. To keep you leaning +toward me, I myself and I alone have to be the subject under discussion. +I must be uncovered, laid naked, by what I say...."</p> + +<p>I felt a sudden surge of blood to my cheeks and my lips; our looks +crossed like swords.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Here I am with nothing more to do, my arms hanging at my sides, the +sudden weight of my useless words on my shoulders. The man follows my +example and rises.</p> + +<p>"I shall go away, very far away. Don't mind. That's the good of being a +woman who works; you're not afraid. You may be at the mercy of +misfortune, which is always lurking, but not at the mercy of human +beings....</p> + +<p>"That's all, I'll go now...."</p> + +<p>In the silence that cuts in I feel how this man is wishing I'd never +go—wishing it so strongly that for a moment he touches love and a path +is opened along which I could take a step, but only a single step, no +more.</p> + +<p>My eyes stare into space. I hear the mournful, eternal good-bye you say +to things—this table at which I worked, the afternoon sunlight laughing +through the window, all the familiar objects, which reel slightly from +the separation now beginning, from the nascence of everything that is to +be....</p> + +<p>He presses my hand. And I think of all the men you could convince if you +wanted to take the trouble....</p> + +<p>If you had the time....</p> + +<p>If life were not a choice.</p> + + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>Her head is nodding and dropping lower and lower, her fingers are gently +loosening their hold on the square of embroidery: my mother has gone to +sleep.</p> + +<p>She comes to see me frequently now, and always arrives panting, loaded +down with luscious fruit or bottles of golden wine "from your father." +When she prolongs her stay after dinner too late to return home that +night, I give my room up to her. You can tell—poor mother—that her +visits are undertaken for duty's sake—pilgrimages on which she never +fares forth without a preliminary struggle: "That child—you can't +leave her all alone—you've got to be sorry for her."</p> + +<p>When I opened the door for her this evening, I could see there was +something on her mind. Her face was drawn, and contrary to her wont she +kissed me two or three times. Was there going to be a battle?</p> + +<p>Dinner was over, but I still waited.</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the way, my dear, this idea of yours—your plan to go away—it +isn't serious, is it? How about your position? Are you really going to +carry things to such extremes? Your obstinacy is very annoying. What +whimsies you used to have when you were a young girl, that faddy notion +about earning your own living ... and marrying against our will—yes, +against our will.... Your poor husband is dead; so you've paid, and your +father and I are willing to let bygones be bygones. If you come and live +with us, you know you'll lead a nice quiet life and have everything you +need. Your room will be kept in order for you, I will help you bring up +the boy, you will be able to go out as much as you want to. We will give +you perfect freedom.... And you mustn't forget you still have a future, +you're young.... Why don't you say something? Am I an enemy? Am I not +considering your good?"</p> + +<p>My mother floundered for more arguments. So to avoid idle discussion I +threw my arms around her neck.</p> + +<p>She smiled a good full smile, thinking the battle was won and everything +was settled without much difficulty.... Now that she was satisfied, her +best arguments came crowding: she had known from the start that I would +agree with her.</p> + +<p>"You haven't only just yourself to consider, you see. When a woman has a +child, she doesn't do any and everything she feels like doing."</p> + +<p>Now I had to explain!</p> + +<p>"Mamma, dear...."</p> + +<p>I was biting my lips and probably wore the same obstinate look I did as +a little girl, because she pushed me away and her eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"And what about us? In what sort of a position do you think it places +us?... Think a little. People will see you suddenly running away as if +we had refused to take you in. What do you think we'll be taken for? And +you, my goodness! How will it look for a young woman to go away all by +herself, on an adventure?"</p> + +<p>Her face was purple, her voice came out in a rush, her arms extended +beyond her shadow. She was quite beside herself.</p> + +<p>I don't know what made me do it, whether my worn nerves or my terror at +always, no matter what I did, seeing a gulf yawn between us—I burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>With her stubborn patience my mother often went to extremes, but she +could not resist the argument of tears. She was taken aback. I had +conquered. She put her arms round me in a large, warm, cradling embrace, +planted short little kisses all over my hair, comforted me in my +distress. "Come, dear, don't cry, don't cry."</p> + +<p>I made a tremendous effort to shake off a frightful impression. If I had +had to pay with my life to get rid of it, I would have paid with my +life. But drop by drop the poison filtered into my heart and changed it +into a bitter heart which seemed unlike my own.</p> + +<p>With all the appearance of humility in her drooping shoulders and bowed +head, armed with the tricky sweetness of a person accustomed to +yielding, my mother drew our chairs closer together and tried to console +me at any price by talking of something else. She held out her +needlework.</p> + +<p>"A tray-cover. I noticed you haven't got one.... Rows of hemstitching +with a square of filet in the centre. Do you like it?"</p> + +<p>I dabbed my eyes, forced a smile, and leaned over to watch her draw the +threads. "Wonderful," I said, "marvellously fine, and such tedious +work." I forced myself to fill up the gaps in the conversation.</p> + +<p>The evening flagged slowly and gently. The oil in the lamp was giving +out. A drowse gradually laid itself upon the delicate maternal face; +under the scant light beginning to smell of smoke, it looked almost like +a mummy's.</p> + +<p>She is asleep now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>My imagination is free; the frightful impression carries me far back to +a time shrouded in dimness which resembles my childhood days.</p> + +<p>A mere baby still. At night caressing hands tucked me in bed. I held up +my forehead for the kisses of a fairy....</p> + +<p>A little girl who ran and fell and hurt her forehead and palms and flew +with her troubles to the living Providence. "Did you hurt yourself?... +Ah, you're bleeding!" I felt the thrill of the miraculous wound because +she caught me in her arms and pressed my undeserved suffering to her +heart. Then she tended me, oh, so gently. When she finished, I secretly +regretted that the hurt was assuaged and I had no more blood to offer, +red flowing blood, in exchange for the doting tenderness that it brought +raining down upon me.</p> + +<p>A long illness. A veritable angel hovering all the time. Clouds in my +room, clouds on my bed, and a constant buzzing in my ears. When the +angel moved, a current of freshness reached me, a magnificent hand +raised the head which weighed like a ball of fire, and the heavenly +voice said in the tone of ordinary mothers: "Drink, darling!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When my memory brings me up to the moments of effort, the real moments +which count, I find myself an orphan.</p> + +<p>No, you were not there, mother, when my inner life developed, nor the +first morning when I saw clearly, nor when my love came. You were never +with me at any time when my good will acted, never, never. It was you +who stayed behind and left me. I went on my way. Should I have stopped +to stay behind with you?</p> + +<p>You idolized my littleness, my tears, my naughtinesses. You covered them +all up, I know. But one can't keep on being ill, or naughty, or a little +tot.</p> + +<p>You are the mother, you pardon everything. When father scolded us, you +came with a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your +teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say: +"I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you +are wrong."</p> + +<p>But see here, mother, this is what I have done: will you forgive me +this:</p> + +<p>I have invoked the truth, I have taken pains, I have climbed up, I have +striven, I have had radiant moments, days of flowering, and happiness +was the same age as myself. Mother, have you forgiven me this?</p> + +<p>I am not better-hearted than you, but it is the life about me which +demands that one do more, love more. This is what differentiates and +actually divides us.</p> + +<p>Everything that sings and invites one out into the good old world, the +"out-of-doors," seems pernicious to you. What you would have wanted was +to stand barring the door with your arms crossed and refuse me the fresh +air. You yourself avaricious but destitute would have liked me to salute +your avarice and praise your destitution. "Will you set yourself up in +judgment over your father and mother?"</p> + +<p>Mother, when children grow up, their eyes open.... And if my son sees me +fallen lower than his love, lower than my own love, let him accuse and +condemn me.</p> + +<p>No, it will not always be the same thing, as you say, for that depends +neither upon him nor you, but only upon me. You do not know, you do not +know!</p> + +<p>With its expiring breath the lamp sends out a blackish, leaping light, +which splashes shadows on the pendulous surroundings.</p> + +<p>I had never noticed the puffiness of her lids, nor the sharpness of her +cheekbones, nor the drooping corners of her tender mouth, nor the +flatness and thinness of her hair, which used to be full and flaming as +my own. Never before had I remarked the tragic similarity between the +dead and the sleeping. And I did not know that immutable Truth sometimes +has the ring of a curse and makes you cry, and yet is Truth.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The scissors gliding to the floor awakened her with a start. "What, +still crying?"</p> + +<p>She gave the lamp a shake to force a bit of light and said in her +resigned tone, instinctively but unconsciously touching my horrible +thought: "Wipe your eyes, dear ... the dead have to be forgotten...."</p> + + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p>The storm raked the streets and stunned the houses.... All night long it +raged; and once the thunder crashed so close by that I jumped out of bed +terror-stricken to make sure the shutters were closed.</p> + +<p>The morning dawned sullen, dragging lazy, gray wings on the earth and +taking flight only at the furious onslaught of the wind.</p> + +<p>To comb my hair I seated myself close to the window with my face to the +mirror on the wall.</p> + +<p>Outside, the downpour and incessant sharp rattle, the blue-lacquered +roofs, the wan drift of the clouds. In front of me, an image which had +my name.</p> + +<p>The more eager a woman is to please, the less she sees <i>herself</i> in the +mirror. What she sees is the idea others have of her, a sort of +consciousness of her power, the irrepressible desire to attract.</p> + +<p>When I sat down before the glass just now, I must have seen <i>myself</i>; +suddenly I felt afraid.</p> + +<p>I had raised the tumble of ringlets from my forehead and saw a gleam—my +first white hair. Then I scanned my face closely, pitilessly. At the +outer corners of my eyes a place was preparing for a fine meshwork which +would close up when I laughed.</p> + +<p>A mad need fell upon me—to see myself again and again. Around each +corner of my mouth an invisible line had chosen its pathway; the +perfect oval of my face slipped slightly from its frame; under the chin +there was an imperceptible mass which would never yield to any amount of +massage.</p> + +<p>I wanted to run away, I wanted to look, I wanted.... I tell you my heart +was leaping from between my ribs, so that you could have taken it in +your hand.</p> + +<p>How many years are there left?... Ten years?... Eight years?... Perhaps +only six in which to continue to be the very same woman I am.</p> + +<p>A day will come immersed in the other days, similar to the other days, +when this woman will be dead while I shall live.</p> + +<p>I try to question space. I turn in every direction. The storm has +increased. The rain is coming down in sheets and rebounding in mist. The +polished pavements are cracked by quivering little ripples. The tempest +drives the people ahead like leaves.</p> + +<p>Whence this dread which blows like a typhoon from the future, breathing +on my youth and freezing my blood? Whence these two words which gnaw at +my breast like a canker? Six years....</p> + +<p>No, no, it is impossible. I believe in the deluge, in the thunder, in +misfortune, in oblivion. Not in that. Why should this face of mine with +its curves, its marble purity and its color change? Why? I have always +had a fair amount of courage, I have always done what I had to do, but +this renunciation, this hideous acquiescence. I haven't got the courage +for that, no, I haven't.</p> + +<p>I am prepared to accept death. If necessary, I will stretch my hands out +to it. Let the one moment of my life which wipes out the other moments +flow into nothingness. Take, strike, I am prepared....</p> + +<p>But that "six years, no more," should be written on my face, that people +should see my face and I should hold it up smilingly like a ruthless +gift to those I love, that I should bear the signs upon me of dull +decay, wrinkles, falling hair, withered cheeks, and dimmed eyes.... What +if I refuse?...</p> + +<p>I could no longer bear to look into the mirror and see what was going to +be. I held my face to the pane on which a dismal music was drumming.</p> + +<p>I have had deep feelings as plentiful and coming as thick and fast as +these drops of rain; some feelings have been vaster than the soul +itself; but the only feeling truly like woman, the only feeling +essentially woman, which weds her soul while wedding her body, is the +immense desire to be beautiful. I have lived through my love of others, +I love my child as though I were still carrying it, yet all the time, +from waking up in the morning until going to bed at night, year in and +year out, from as far back as I can remember, I was cloaked and upheld +by a will to please.</p> + +<p>I was not more beautiful than other women, but I wanted to be. In spite +of me and in spite of themselves, the men hovered about me, lavish of +their glances. I moved like a ray of joy, life was a festival redder +than war; I expressed myself without saying a word, all hearts were +ready, they gave me more love than I asked for and almost as much as I +needed.</p> + +<p>That was the air I breathed and had to breathe. Is it good, is it bad? +It is an instinct which keeps turning rapidly round and round in you. If +you were to pull it up, it would sprout again.</p> + +<p>Then how can it be that some day, though I shall have done nothing to +bring it on, the territory of this indestructible instinct will be +clouded over and made barren forever after? How can it be that I shall +no longer please if I still want to please?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The rain is beating upon the streaked window-pane and glides down +against my cheeks in long transparent tears. Every chink in the room is +an inlet for the wind. Around me there is a wailing as if drawn from a +sad, dreary bowstring.</p> + +<p>Is it the woman of the mirror? Is it the woman that I am? You can't tell +which woman is speaking to the other woman....</p> + +<p>"So you're of the sort to let yourself be disheartened?</p> + +<p>"You thought you had said all the good-byes there are to say in life. +There is one left, even more awful than the others. You have dragged +yourself over mouldering graves, yet when you arose you found something +to keep you alive. But as yet you are unworthy of this last good-bye: +To survive it, you need a grandeur you don't possess, a more solid +strength than the furtive power you're proud of. You believed you were +pure, and you were quite sure you lived in your entirety. Look!..."</p> + +<p>How ashamed I am, O God. What a stranger the woman opposite me is....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At the outset I said to the husband I chose: "I shall cherish your +happiness as much as I cherish my love for you; and if ever your +happiness assumes the features of another woman, that woman shall be +dear to me."</p> + +<p>When another woman approached, I knitted my brows and formed a secret +vow to blacken her in his eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He loved me as you love your life, as you sing, as you kiss. And I +reproached him for not leaning over close enough and telling me tender +things over and over again every day. I had plighted my troth; in order +not to take it back, I needed actions, words; to keep it, I had to put +his heart to the proof.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When I came to know another love, my instinct could not rise to the +height of my idea. I did not know how to bring the two men together, nor +did I know how to make the woman who loved him receive the truth.</p> + +<p>And I allowed useless people, useless existences to come to me. I saw +them fighting around me like quarrelsome, chattering sparrows around a +tree; I saw them pillage and carry away in their beaks the ripe fruit of +my days. To know how to live is to know how to choose. I did not know.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Everywhere shame. Everywhere in the past, the hell of what I have lost.</p> + +<p>These hands capable of everything have done almost nothing. I contented +myself with little and believed in humility.</p> + +<p>I silenced nearly every appeal within me. I let regard for others govern +and restrain me. I still feel how the imperious look of an unforgettable +passerby once tore me; the rude superior deprecation in that look was +like a cry rising above the night. Several indifferent persons were +about me, my spirit fixed upon them. Perhaps it was the last of my life +which a stranger mercilessly carried off in the depths of his being. I +let him pass.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I believed myself beautiful. Beauty is a promise which no woman has ever +kept. I have seen my features in the glass, but I have not looked for +the mission to which I was appointed. What human being ever perceives +that he wears a distinctive badge?</p> + +<p>The wind redoubles in strength and howls in the face of the sky. The +rain-spout near the window is choking, the drops rap-tap-tap on the +pane: "What have you done? What have you done?"</p> + +<p>Lord, I am looking myself in the face. While waiting for the light to +appear and the clouds to scatter, for the damp air to shine between the +drops of sunlight, for the good genius who must teach us to grow old, +for the inaccessible perfection for which I was built, I look and look +at myself....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I went to the window to watch the storm and smoothe my hair. Leaning +toward the mirror it was God I found.</p> + +<p>God is there, I see Him approaching when I approach and smiling when I +smile, God who carries me and whom I carry, God palpitating with faith, +God who lowers His head....</p> + +<p>I believe in myself.</p> + + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p>I cannot sleep.</p> + +<p>There's no good-bye to say, it is late, everything is ready, and yet I +am stifling in this empty room, which lives only through my sleeping son +and me.</p> + +<p>But he sleeps....</p> + +<p>I hardly recognize him when he sleeps, and I have to go close to him. He +fell asleep a moment ago and is lying exactly the way I placed him, with +his arm outstretched. Is there anything tenderer and frailer to behold +than this little rounded face with its fine veins and pearly curves? +Beneath his sleep and the warmth of his cheeks, life is working, and +what a hurry it is in!</p> + +<p>I lean down closer, almost touching the fine down of gold on his +forehead, his velvety warmth, his scarcely perceptible breath. As +always, I feel both terrified and transported by this immense +littleness, and consumed by a longing to put my lips to him.... I draw +back: I must not wake him up.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I move away from the crib. The will to question the present which is +passing takes a stronger hold of me this evening than usual.</p> + +<p>No, it is not to you I turn, my child.</p> + +<p>The best in me, the true, God, and my soul do not concern you.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I am too hasty in saying this. Perhaps I have paid too much +attention to the gulf between my generation and the old blind +generation. Probably the gulf between your generation and mine is not so +deep, but when I look carefully I do not find that you are the profound +motive.</p> + +<p>Nothing holds out the promise that in the future we can really give each +other a single day. When I look at you, I am astonished that I gave you +life—it is such a miracle to have caused a creature to live. I am at +the verge of the space separating us. I do not find you there. I go my +way, you go your opposite way, and though there be nothing impossible in +the world, our mutual understanding is impossible. I shall never attain +to your height.</p> + +<p>You were born to contradict, since you must surpass, the palpitating +question that I am, my acts, their purpose. You, whom I carried in my +womb nine months, will never be anything but a stranger in my wet eyes +and to the kisses of my lips, a stranger who departs with my blood in +his veins.</p> + +<p>You have come. But I did not sink into the fatal pit that engulfs +mothers, the inevitable snare. It's so hard to resist the weak little +thing which can't talk. How can you be expected to resist? A woman +eclipses herself for the sake of the child she brings into the world, +and at the first cry, the mother is in danger. It is the mother we +should try to save. There's no need to be afraid that the +mother-instinct will cool off. The earth will cool off sooner!</p> + +<p>To have children. Love is born with them, but love is not enough. And to +try with all your might to fulfill your own destiny. And misfortune if +the children fall behind!</p> + +<p>Sleep, my little one....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I have opened the window; the night breathes upon my face. In the wide +outdoors, where the darkness is naked and the freshness is blue, the +expanse opens out like a river. Below, the clustered houses—a sombre +vegetation, a confused, winking mass, a starry profundity, vast and +chaotic, with no boundary lines between city and sky.</p> + +<p>My eyes look tranquilly upon the black future piled up at my feet. My +eyes are no longer restless, because now I know for all time what the +future holds. I know that soon I shall be tired and go to sleep, and +when I wake up in the white daylight my son will put his arms round my +neck so prettily. I will smile, then the time for parting will come. The +hidden days contain the unknown.... But forever and ever it will be +suffering.</p> + +<p>The future is not a question you ask; it is the suffering that awaits +you. Suffering is the answer to every question, and every instant claws +the flesh. If you listen intently, you will hear that the echo of +everything is a sob.</p> + +<p>It is suffering. Suffering does not find a vent, it does not bleed in +any cry, it clings to you, and nothing reveals it because it is +omnipresent, so present and so plain that you can't look for or find it. +It is not the tears choking your throat, nor the groan at night, nor the +knell of a parting footstep, nor the mourning which stifles you, nor the +heart in your breast, for that would be too little. When suffering +begins with exuberant sunshine and mornings like a flourish of trumpets, +it is even more terrible because it is further away.... Suffering is +more. It is unlike anything else. It is regular, steady as the breath, +amazing, tolerable, and it is not the last word you say, it is also the +first word; it follows its mortal, monotonous course, and you realize it +has no name: to <i>live</i> is to suffer.</p> + +<p>Is it human misery? No, human suffering. Stammering nights, groping +footsteps. Whither and why? No, there's no time to lose, you jump up and +go, go, because you haven't suffered enough yet. Look.</p> + +<p>When I leave to-morrow with my suffering in my breast I shall go in +advance of suffering. I shall not hesitate in the doorway. Looking back +into the room I shall not say what I have often said: "You are a bit of +myself, good-bye. Since my eyes will no longer be here to see you, give +them a picture of yourself to take along."</p> + +<p>Suffering is self-sufficient. You don't associate things with it, I +shall have my back turned, my body will be impatient to lean forward. I +no longer care for memories.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Not one. Not even the memory of you, my two dead lovers. Other dead are +further on, where I am going, or rather, other suffering. And your +suffering is over because you are dead.</p> + +<p>The pictures I have of you rise less and less frequently in my memory. +How I cherished them at first! Some especially.... That little +station-platform where we met ... the transparent morning flew ahead of +your footsteps, the spring was intoxicated, I ran into your outstretched +arms.... And the path where I cried, the sunset sinking away between the +branches, my head grazing your shoulder like a fruit falling from the +tree.... And another.... And another....</p> + +<p>It is over. I carry you differently. Some of your ways, which I +acquired, stick to me from habit. My voice often has your inflection, +and when I am animated I feel I have made some of your ideas my own. If +I don't remember you so clearly, it is because I <i>live</i> you and the +legacy you left me rises and falls with my breathing.</p> + +<p>In my fierce survival I have preserved only what is of use to me. All +the rest has decomposed; it is nothing to me any more. We should break +away from this burden of the dead. The dead are the living who have +abandoned us, and sooner or later, whether we wish to or not, we forget +them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I loved my dead dearly, so dearly that it seemed to me my being inclined +towards them the moment they appeared—so dearly that because of them, +who have gone, love has remained.</p> + +<p>Love proclaims its law. You must show your love, it cries.</p> + +<p>Somewhere in the world to-night there are faces lying dormant for me, +persons to whom I have things to say. I am waiting for them, I stretch +my arms out to them, I know they will come because of my need for +embraces, a desire for caresses, so strong to-night that I jump up with +a start. It is as if half of my body were missing. I see myself deserted +and frightfully widowed, and my mouth quivers with hunger and thirst for +another mouth.</p> + +<p>I know a man is on the way. I shall recognize him. I shall have the +somewhat bitter audacity you must have in order to confess yourself the +immense thing you are. I shall stir him, I shall do everything; you can +go the full lengths of the sublime that dwells within you.</p> + +<p>As soon as he will rise above the horizon he will realize from my mere +expression that I have long lost the trick of lying.</p> + +<p>And when I read the first glance he gives me, when desire bewilders him +a little and forces him back within himself, I shall be happy to be +beautiful. Beneath his eyes my sound healthy self will brace up again, +my inexhaustible twenty-seven years, my rounded limbs, everything which +goes slightly to pieces when love is absent. Here is the offering, +blond, slim, laughing, which I already present to you.... He will +perceive uncomprehendingly that if I am a little more beautiful than +myself, it is because by virtue of loving one comes to resemble the love +one feels.</p> + +<p>When he will have looked at me long, I will explain what each of my +features means; I will speak. Because silence is beautiful after the +last words, and it is the woman who has the most to say.</p> + +<p>I may have a stronger expression than other women, perhaps a slightly +more taciturn expression, too. My solitude would account for this. Women +are not sufficiently alive to the fact that one should live alone, +depart alone, and return alone, and that there is no one outside one's +self. No one. In going to meet love again, I who have been twice widowed +and have my child to make me feel more isolated, shall find nothing but +another solitude. To be sure, there will be kisses, meetings, a symphony +of voices. Yet in spite of everything to know you're alone, all the +time....</p> + +<p>All the time....</p> + +<p>If I had reached this secure kingdom through my own power I should be +very proud. But I don't deserve the credit. My dead lovers gave me this +awful superhuman gift. For there comes a moment when you have taken from +some one else everything there was to be taken. Without his noticing he +becomes useless, he must disappear. Who resigns himself to this?</p> + +<p>My lovers bestowed upon me the love I was capable of, attentive and +complete, they bestowed upon me the intelligence of my blood, my tears +and my words.... And then they gave me up. They performed this supreme +deed.</p> + +<p>And now when enlarged by love I desire love again, I give it its place. +Love is not the essential thing. I have often said: "Life, my life." The +phrase has assumed the shape of my lips because it says the essential +thing. Love, after all is nothing but the most beautiful moment.</p> + +<p>I summon all the moments of my life. Even the least thrilling cling just +as deeply by roots of flesh.</p> + +<p>Life wishes to become what it never has been: It is ready, it is +empty.... Until to-night human words filled it saying:</p> + +<p>"Nothing changes here below; nothing can possibly change: love goes on +from age to age, death was and will be, life is forever the same, and +man is always man." To express this the word "eternal" has been +invented.</p> + +<p>I do not know. I came, I, a woman, and like every other creature, I too +began by loving. Life was <i>not</i> the same, I swear it was not the same. +Life had a different taste, I shouldered it differently, and my death, +while resembling other deaths, does not exist by the same idea.</p> + +<p>I am; everything is changed.</p> + +<p>And even if I had never lived, other women are ready to change the +earth. You can't tell yet what the women of my generation are capable +of. They themselves don't know altogether.</p> + +<p>The memory of what they have always been told weighs upon them. Man is a +fierce, greedy lover. With bloodshot eyes like a blind man, he has +fallen upon the feverish couch where lies the vanquished enemy. He has +brought his boiling sap, and between his clasped arms a great +tenderness. When he has risen from the couch, he has been sad, his eyes +have been wasted, his tenderness worn out. And he has said: "This is +woman."</p> + +<p>This has lasted long. I do not know if there hasn't been some reason for +it. I simply say I live. I am honest, exact, I have muscles of steel, I +like people to say what is, I am loyal, willing, I earn my living, and I +am inured to suffering. What truth does one fail to recognize when it +shows its face?</p> + +<p>I think. I want. I know.</p> + +<p>It has taken me a long time to take in the humble things I now know. I +commenced with very little; my youth passed in chaos, I had to suffer +very much. So it is not chance, random truths that I follow. I do not +set limits to them. Even my death will not disprove them. Thus, a few +scattered fragments hover. I snatched and caught them in moments of +alert intelligence, I held them fast with my willing heart, I gripped +them between clenched teeth to keep from losing them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The wind rises on the right. Is it not the wind that has extinguished +those dots of gold, the houses, without deepening the dark of the town?</p> + +<p>I see the wind, it is blowing near. And here, immobile, upright in my +heavy rectitude, I share with the wind the moments which are driving it +on. One by one. I fly with them, one by one.</p> + +<p>I go where they are going, even elsewhere, and my death perhaps is far +from reaching its limits. It has been on the way a long time, it will +stop when I am completely tired out, when there will be nothing more for +me to do, when my breath will not be an indispensable breath. Then that +will be all. They say it is hard to die. Does that mean that the world +holds something more tragic than life?</p> + +<p>The wind has swollen the whole sky. The sky is ready to drop down from +on high—ah, let the sky fall! The wind pins itself to my face. It has +become so violent that I cross my arms on my breast to brave it. The +infinite future, as though it too were swollen, approaches the houses.</p> + +<p>How can I tell what the future holds? No use searching the violet depths +of the horizon or breathing in the whole of the sky. The times to come +are beyond my reach. They give no sign.</p> + +<p>There, below, all I see is my own existence. But how I see it! Flashing, +assiduous, full of free spaces, brooding, crimson in my veins, paling +slightly at the horizon, departing in the starless wind, and returning +in haste to my limbs.</p> + +<p>The woof of the night has changed color again.</p> + +<p>Can it be that what I am is a promise of something that should be?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The wind blows stronger.</p> + +<p>No, it is not for nothing that to-night I am drawing a deeper breath +than on all other nights, a breath stronger than my strength, rising up +over my life.</p> + +<p>Night passes, as pure as a summoning voice.</p> + +<p>Then it must be, Lord, that soon, perhaps at dawn, you must go further +than your journey and, in flashes of your being, reach heights higher +than everything you have said, live to the last drop of your blood, live +more than life?</p> + +<p>Here I am.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman, by Magdeleine Marx + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 33943-h.htm or 33943-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/4/33943/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Woman + +Author: Magdeleine Marx + +Translator: Adele Szold Seltzer + +Release Date: October 5, 2010 [EBook #33943] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + WOMAN + + By MAGDELEINE MARX + + + INTRODUCTION BY + HENRI BARBUSSE + + TRANSLATED BY ADELE SZOLD SELTZER + + NEW YORK + THOMAS SELTZER + 1920 + + Copyright, 1920, by + THOMAS SELTZER, Inc. + + _First printing June, 1920_ + _Second printing July, 1920_ + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I BEING BORN + +BOOK II BEING + +BOOK III BECOMING + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +A splendid book in which a soul lives so profoundly human and so purely +feminine that any words of introduction seem leaden and intrusive. You +feel as though you were violating the essential delicacy and powerful +life of this soul to comment upon the remarkable revelation of it +between the very covers that contain the revelation. + +Yet, as a modest friend of letters, I should like to express an opinion +here--the author did not ask me for it--and pay homage to the brilliant +originality of this work. I want to give myself the pleasure of saying +how important I think it is. + +It expresses--and this is a fact of considerable literary and moral +import--what has never been exactly expressed before. It expresses +Woman. + +The more woman has been spoken about, you might say, the less she has +been revealed. She has been hidden under a plethora of words. The +supreme vision rising up out of these pages is as luminous as a heavenly +revelation. From the author's tone, so simple and penetrating, you +perceive that women feel differently about the things that we men see +and proudly proclaim. + +The thought and spirit of _Woman_ will be a surprise and a shock to the +old masculine traditions, in which women also acquiesce, probably +because of their old traditions of slavery. But we know that always and +everywhere the opposition such thought arouses is sublimely lacking in +truth. + +Here is a woman who cries out with magnificent impressive sincerity +against the fallacy of the maternal instinct--the "call of the +blood"--against the exclusiveness of love; who knows and asserts that +death kills only the dead, and not those who are left behind; who +recreates in new forms the law and the creed of the relations between +man and woman, motherhood, and suffering. And this new expression of +woman--a new expression, therefore, of the whole of life--this striking +gospel, young and strong, which overcomes artificial, unnatural ideas, +resounds at the very time when woman is at last entering humanity and is +preparing to change her role of breeder of children and handmaid in +common. + +The book is strictly, religiously objective. Everything is perceived +only through the eyes, the mind, the heart of the "heroine"--the word +usage thrusts upon us for this woman who has no name, who is just truly +herself. Through the commanding will of the author the creative richness +of the book springs altogether from the magnificent oneness of a human +being. No outside approach mars this unity. In no other book perhaps so +markedly as in this has the integrity of an individual been more +respected, and never has an imaginary character so consistently warded +off whatever is not of itself. You don't even seem to feel that this +"Woman" talks or tells a story. You simply know what she knows. + +And because of this very fact, this intimate association which unites us +jealously with this one being of all others, the book is poignant and +moving. A world is born beneath our eyes. In some scenes, short or long +but always important and vital, a tragedy shudders, and the entire +succession of the events of life, ordinary and on a big scale, passes in +the book in clear outline, in essential poetry. + + * * * * * + +To say this is to say that the author is a master, that her technique is +subtle, that the action concentrates all the dramas of the world in one +spiritual drama, and the book reveals a prodigious gift for presenting a +whole of vast impressions which creates unity. + +_Woman_ does not belong to any class of writing; it is not tied down by +any formula; it does not lower itself by imitating. It is a powerful, a +rebel, a virgin work, and it ranks Magdeleine Marx among the loftiest +poets of our age. + +_HENRI BARBUSSE._ + + + + +BOOK I + +_BEING BORN_ + + + + +I + + +The sun was beginning to shine. + +I had been walking and walking.... + +I had just left the brambly path which cuts a bed of sand through the +forest, laying bare its rusty bowels. + +I felt full-fed by the subtle nourishment that space distils, crammed +with air, and my forehead seemed drawn taut. Was it the motes dancing in +the sunbeams? I don't know. I was spent. The fancy throbbed beneath my +temples, did its work, and I let it go. + +You must have been sincere at least once in your life to know what an +hour is face to face with yourself, a whole hour, step by step, minute +by minute. And I never had been sincere. Now I escaped from my clogging +limbs, from the clay of myself. Until now I had done nothing but breathe +and sleep. All of a sudden I was alive. It was intoxicating.... + +Dizzy though I was I felt an exhausting need to keep on going. + +I penetrated deep into the woods walking at random, my mind almost a +blank. When the leafy undergrowth enclosed me, I let myself slide to the +ground on to the dried-up grass, the fallen twigs, and the crackling +russet pine-needles. + +All about in a dense circle, the rugged plant life. A moving splendor +in the play of the varying greens. Damp, aromatic smells. And a sense of +invisible swarming life everywhere.... + +The silence, so fresh and penetrating, was like a living thing, and I +turned round several times thinking I heard some one behind me panting. +No one. The uneven trunks of the great trees; lower down, behind their +serrated green, a slate-colored screen of mist; here, the +shadow-broidered ground; above, the patches of blue sky--and I. + +I.... + +I was a little ashamed to link my Self to myself in this way, to give my +Self its value. The old attitude of humility, of attaching no importance +to Self--was that going to begin again? Now I felt more profoundly alone +than in the harmonious exaltation I had experienced while walking. In a +mixture of alarm and idleness I tried not to remain motionless, but to +plant my elbows on the ground and lie flat on the grass with my head +between my hands, so as to divert myself with living noise.... I could +not. + +Then I stretched out on my back, my eyes fixed on the sky, my body +relaxed; and the full-blooded tide of my thoughts flowed over me. + +They flowed on, of themselves, no longer halting, as they had on the +walk, on the edge of each discovery; I no longer kept saying to myself +as when I hammered out my pitiless steps: "I have lied, I have always +lied, I have lived only on the outskirts of my life...." The air was +still, the soul alone sounded, and the soul also was at peace. I went +down into the depths--to find the soul's sweet beginnings, I suppose. + +There were no beginnings. Though my early memories came back obediently, +they were not illuminating. The catechism.... With outstretched hands +and rounded voice, the Abbe Daudret was telling of the wicked, those +whom the Almighty was waiting to punish in the hereafter. Crushed by the +word wicked, stifled by the heavy solemnity of the church, withdrawn +into my littleness, I comprehended, with dull, recurring pangs, that I +was among the damned, I, the model little girl. We went home again; I +was calm, unruffled, obedient, but if any one used the word sinful in my +hearing, if I came across it threatening in black and white, I felt as +if a brutal fist had struck my shoulder; I blushed, a swift remorse +flamed in my bowels; that word was meant for me, _I_ was the guilty one. + +At last one day I found out why I was guilty. I had not known before. + +I had been summoned to the small drawing-room; the shutters were closed; +my mother, a dim figure in the twilight, was saying good-bye to a lady +in deep mourning whose veil framed a face of alabaster. How beautiful +she was! The quivering shadows made a halo around her. I scarcely dared +to approach her because I remembered the whispers that buzzed about her +name and the envy that glittered in the eyes of the women. How beautiful +she was!... Her heavy lashes weighed down her lids.... I wanted to say +something to her, just one word. I could not, could not even repeat what +my mother, leaning towards me, told me to say.... As the lady was +leaving she turned in the doorway, fixed her great wide eyes on me and +said with an even sadder note in her velvety voice: "The child is going +to be beautiful." + +I heard myself exclaim with joy. As soon as the door closed, I ran to +the glass, which seemed to be waiting for me. My whole being was aflame +as I raised myself on tiptoe to receive the first echo of her words from +the mirror.... But my mother was already coming back and saying +severely: "You know it isn't true...." I was still on tiptoe. "You are +ugly!" My spirits dropped and instantly were bottled up in me. +Everything was clear, I understood, I understood.... + +It was an epitome of my life. The seasons passed; I maintained silence, +always, hiding my good qualities, hiding my bad qualities, encountering +only remorse between the two extremes; for it is by remorse that they +are joined together. + +Consequently my mind stored up no happening, no deeper or fainter +impression, only remorse. Remorse never left me. + +But yes, it did leave me, just now, suddenly, at the bend of the road, +where the bank slopes gently down to the ditch, when I bowed my head to +the thought, "They think me gentle, simple, just like the others; they +say I am cleverer. It is only because I dissemble more than the +others." + +At that I raised my eyes. + +"What after all does my lying matter to them? Do they want the truth? +No. They spurn it, scourge it, hunt it down. They are not worth trying +to find out the truth for. Enough." + +The sunshine seemed to tighten its clutch on the earth and whitewashed +the pathway. + +"But it is not this matter of lying that one must bewail; the point is, +there is an essential _something else_. There is--I feel there is--the +true life, my life, and it is this true life that I have betrayed. My +true life is now pushing on, bravely, along the gray stony path.... I +don't know where it is going, nor what it is, since I have never seen it +in anything that I have done, but it must live. If I die for it, what +does it matter? It will live on. It was hidden in my body, it stayed +there ashamed of itself, then came at night to beset me with its sadness +and put me to sleep with the taste of dust and ashes on my lips; and in +the morning, as soon as my eyes opened, was it the light that flooded +over me, painted the walls of my room with flame, and instantly died +away?" + +The blue density of the forest, the corrugated, soaring columns of the +trees, high and distinct in their parallel lives, the clear quivering +azure are all around me. Where is their obscure will? + +I have come to these things, I have lain down in their midst, I have +watched them. Before these things one no longer lies. And behold, I +find myself. + +I see myself as I am. + +My heavy hair, flame-colored, which gives out little glints of light +above my forehead, my complexion with the mother-of-pearl coloring of +the full daylight, the violet reflections in my eyes deepened by the +scanty shade of the trees, the firm red line of my lips, and beneath my +light dress, the fleet suppleness encased in my limbs. + +Is it possible? I am no longer ashamed to be like this, nor to _know_ +what I am like. I have let fall, at last, like a bothersome mask, the +modest air that makes people say: "She's all the prettier because she +doesn't know she's pretty." + +Do you think, pray, that there is a single woman in the world who, if +she is good looking, doesn't know it? + +I know, I know with a vengeance, that I am beautiful; I know it better +than anything else about myself. There are not only looking-glasses, +there are all the men. Whether old man, beggar, or chance passerby, you +drink in, in one long intoxicating draught: "I am beautiful." And the +women, if you know the terror in their eyes, the appeal, the envy, and +their mute defense.... You seem unaware, smiling, distant, but you are +on the eager watch for the pain you inflict. + +To please.... In the presence of other people to please is wicked +vanity, strutting, flaunting vanity; but here, on the bony ground, it is +simply a bit of me. It is a power which has been given me, I shall not +give it back; it is merely a harmony, a response to the beauty I feel, a +craving to convince, a very strong craving; my life is lovelier than I. + +My life is here. But what makes up my life? Not entirely my rosy good +health, nor this firm equilibrium which exercises control in the centre +of my being. My health and poise are, chiefly, the things that remove me +from my life. My life is a need to use my muscles, it is vigorous +movement, it is the notion I have that I can crush the world between my +arms; yes, the longing to run, to take part in everything, to shout +aloud, to dance; this animal ardor and glow in movement, this +uncontrollable blood, this body swelling with liberty, with sap, with +bursts of laughter, this unexpected gift of myself to myself, this +curiosity and contentment, this zest and turmoil.... + +I have heard others speak of youth, I have seen the word of quicksilver +glitter on the pages of books; I am still ignorant of its meaning; I am +not quite twenty. + +I hug to me all that is mine; it is not much. At first there was nothing +above my head but a liquid ocean of silence, I saw nothing but a forest +without perspective, but my watchful solitude became supernatural; and +now as I see the solemnity of the trees, their strong solid reaching up +towards heaven, as I see _myself_, I feel very deeply that I am alive +for the first time. + +I do not wish to think of the future. Let the future wait for me; it is +as if a new era were beginning.... + +And may memory never take possession of this morning of utter unreserve; +memory might distort it. And may memory never say: "This was the day of +your birth and you were excited." + +I am not unduly excited.... The present is always very simple. The sun +is only an iridescent frolic, which flits and laughs without resting on +the chapped bark of the pines. + +This moment--this and none other--is made up of my robust body, the +lullaby rustle of the wind-stirred leaves, the fragrance of resinous +wood, the screech of a great bird, and the sky cleft by its black and +white passage. + +No illumination or help from elsewhere. Slowly, gropingly, by great +effort, I arrive at lukewarm moments in which it is as though my head +were leaning on my heart. Am I going to _know_ at last and make up my +mind? But when I put my hand on my breast, everything collapses and I +have to begin all over again. + +It is because there is an empty past which rings to the touch like an +empty bowl, a lack of practice which benumbs your arms, a sort of +shame.... You don't attain to your real truth at the first attempt. + +And then above all--you must be honest with yourself--you don't seek +your true self with a _constant_ heart; far oftener you try to distract +your mind from the thought of it. About me on the ground are patches of +light, and I am simply bent upon catching them. I stretch out my hand, +stoop down, put my cheek to them, they quiver and vanish; in their place +a piercing warmth steals dancing over my face. + +Then, without my having done anything and without my being worthy of it, +the sacred mood of revolt returns, lifts me up, and forces me to my +knees; I hear the rising breath of a sudden call.... + +Is it my life, O God? Whither does it go--answer!--when it develops in a +deep breast, and you approach, again and again, as I am now approaching, +something infinite whose name you seek to know? + + +II + +Will the noise never stop? But there are walls to shut it out. + +Let them hop about, shout, dance, amuse themselves. As for me, I have +left them, I am alone in my room, I don't want to see or hear them any +more. + +I burrow my head desperately in the dark depths of the cushions. In +vain. The eddying music follows its implacable course, drapes its +arabesques of melody about me, and when I stop my ears, still keeps +whirling round and round. + +A mazurka. Who was it begged for a mazurka? Ah yes, I remember. When I +left the group of young girls sitting on the watch, a quivering basket +of artificial flowers, one of them was saying: "After the mazurka, I'll +take _him_ out into the garden, where I'll manage to make him kiss me." + +Which of them? It is easy to imagine her: they are all alike. She +laughs, I am certain, and expands her budding breasts; her beaded tunic +sparkles and strikes a rivulet of light against her pretty legs; she has +glossy hair faultlessly dressed and when she turns round in the mazurka, +you see she has one of those plump, discreet faces over which feelings +slide without leaving a mark. + +But I am forgetting. Mother had to take part in the dance too, as it was +the only one she knew and it unrolled tender memories. She braced +herself, then started off, her features gently composed, leaning on my +father, who accommodated his step to hers while seeming to guide her. +"Let's see, that's not it ..." and they set out again--one, two, three, +four--heavy, both of them, with their reputation as a happy, united +couple, and laden with the looks that follow them. + +If one knew.... + +The engaged couples have disappeared, swallowed up by the nearest dark +corners, where passion is of scarlet and nothing exists but arms and +lips and bodies surmised. When the music will have finished and they +will have reappeared, the chatter and the sharp raw laugh of the young +fiancee will be heard; she will open her eyes wide, like this; her +childish mouth will be seen, and her slim figure, which retains an air +of awkward shyness. "How unsophisticated she is," they will say in +gratitude to her for being an example of the velvety purity of the young +girls. + +The last measures. They are all perspiring, out of breath, soberly +triumphant, and as they go back to their chairs each man gives a last +squeeze of the slender arm he is about to relinquish. + +My father is entirely engrossed in his guests; he has led mamma, dizzy, +back to her chair, and has moved off. As she sits there with her +eyelashes fluttering, you would think she has returned from a wonderful +long journey. "I am happy, happy," she is reflecting. "I have such a +good husband." The wounds of every day are closed--they have to be +overlooked--and if any cloud darkens the horizon, it is that she is +thinking of me: "But that is what marriage means, my little daughter; +you'll see, it is just a big renunciation: you will change, you too, and +do like the rest; look at me; am I unhappy?" + +No, you are not unhappy, my poor little mother, with your injured voice, +your charitable eyes, and your lifeless gestures; you are dead; it is +twenty years since you have had a will of your own, a desirous look, a +single manifestation of impatience, a stray impulse, an hour, anything +you can call your own; it is twenty years since you renounced. But your +husband never goes out, he has his wife and children, he earns your +living, a comfortable living; everyone respects him, and "one cannot +have everything." + +As for you, you can live contentedly with a twenty-year-old unhappiness +upon your shoulders; you breathe, you go about; the women around you +have the same fate, and this sustains you. But we, mother, who are +different, the daughters of my generation, we who have sensual hearts, +reasoning minds, new energies--_I_, who have done nothing, I cannot, I +tell you, and if a future is given me, I want to snatch whatever it +holds. + +The music has stopped; I cannot hear them any more.... It is as if my +heart were beginning to live. + +The tangible darkness of the room deepens little by little. Its peace, +its solitude. I can distinguish the walls, or rather the vaporous +shadows of walls, the windows where the cold light of the garden is +paling, the indistinct rectangle which stretches along the ceiling ... +and in that silence in which God is rooted is the hunted soul returning +to its place. + +Ah, shattered again! The music sets the hubbub going.... + +Besides, certain words are too beautiful, and you say them to intoxicate +yourself, but when they are gone, you realize, your arms are empty. + +I asked myself: "What is youth?" This is what youth is: that terrible +thing, that sin, that torture which one must stifle: it is my pure +intoxication defiled by their impure intoxication. I wanted to sing my +youth, give it out, exhale it. Jeering life is below, with its people, +its fouling habits, its sneers and titters. They were quite right; you +can't escape it. You must adapt yourself to it; it is the law. I will +adapt myself; I will have a husband; he will be kind, faithful; there +will be no one beside him; he will be all in all to me; he will skirt +the shores of my being; he will pronounce judgment on all my actions, my +comings and goings, my looks; his word will be final. I shall lie in his +bed every night; he will see my timid body, my naked sleep, my sleeping +life; he will stand upright in my life as in a garden which one is not +afraid to ravage, and when truth will pass by us, he will sit still and +let it pass. + +I shall have no more confused desires, no more sudden impulses of +kindliness, no more agonized expectancy, and no more of those +questionings which make a stifling desert about me. I shall be +satisfied. If my hell returns at times to visit me, that red-eyed +narrow-chested hell, my husband will be there, seated opposite me at +table; he will raise his head. "What's the matter, aren't you hungry?" + +The soul, the essence, the deep voice from within--words, mere words.... +There is nothing but the noise below. And only that. And I must return +to it. Well, come on, go down, speak, smile. All existences are alike. +When there is no longer a single lie left to tell, it means the time has +come to die. + +Why obstinately wish to discover a way out and knock your head against a +stone wall? There is no way out. You must not cherish the impossible; +get up and go gaily downstairs. A little cold water, a little powder; +this is a grief you are not permitted to indulge in. + +Once again and for all time I shall go to them. If they are boisterous, +spineless, unobservant, with no warmth in them, perhaps after all at +some time at the bottom of their hearts they have felt, if only vaguely +and vanishingly, the jealous fever which weighs like a heart; perhaps +they have suffered; perhaps in looking back, when the sunshine has burst +forth, they have understood that the period of their twenties was +sacred. The twenties! And we, the youth, say to ourselves: wisdom is +within us, the future is within us, and reason, salt, blood, the truth. +It is ourselves, only ourselves. And we wish to open our hearts and say +to those who pass: "Come to us, ask us. It is from us that everything +can be learned; we can explain the secret things, the inner meanings, +the words hidden in the folds of the body, the startling confessions +that are breathed on the highways, everything that is changeful, for +nothing is permanent but change; we know everything, and more than +everything; we who have never loved, we know the whole of love." Perhaps +_they_, the dancers downstairs, have stretched out their arms, tasted +the fresh morning with their lips, felt the beating of a heart of sobs; +perhaps they have once _been_ their hope. I shall do what they have +done; it is my turn; my time for withering will surely come too. + +The farandole! Ah, they are holding each other's hands, the old folks +are also joining in. "Let's enjoy ourselves!" Their faces are tense, and +above their footsteps and above the avalanche of their bodies, I hear +the shrill cries of the young girls. + +They are leaving the drawing-room; it sounds as if they were +approaching. + +Don't come here. Even if it is dark in this room, even if I have wept, +and even if the walls have taken on this aspect of distress, it does not +mean that I can be reduced to your level. + +The galop moves faster, wilder. The chain in the center is flung +together in a heap, those at the end are almost scattered. The last one +waves his arm in the air. The noise sickens me. + +The floor of my room quivers. I will go down, I will go down to them.... + +But not yet.... + + +III + +It is done.... + +How shall I bring myself to believe it, how tell myself it is true, that +_it_ is done, that it is an accomplished fact? And why is it that an +absurd recollection obsesses me instead of the thing that has just taken +place? Recollections are not considerate. They thrust themselves upon +you willy-nilly.... It was one day when I was still little and wore my +hair in a plait down my back tied with a red ribbon. An idea struck me +and set me all a-quiver, to surprise my mother by secretly filling her +vase with flowers, the beautiful blue vase with the band of gold, erect +on its massive pedestal like a slim thing on a throne. I was very +careful, I held my breath, my movements were sedulously controlled.... +The vase toppled and made a clear, ringing sound. I can still hear it. +My father came in unexpectedly. He stopped--he always was severe--took +me by the shoulder, and shook me like a wind-tossed sapling. Then he +dragged me to my room and on the threshold gave me a slap which sent me +staggering. There was a whistling in my ears. I was drunk, dazed, +completely bewildered.... Then he shut the door. + +When I came to my senses, I ran to the glass, I don't know why, for +nothing, "just to see." A wine-colored mark streaked with red was +spreading over my cheek. I held the back of my hand up and felt the glow +even without touching it. + +It was burning, but, oddly enough, it did not hurt. I was conscious of +not suffering pain, and instantly a sadness filled me, utter and sudden +as a bitter flood. I didn't know why I was sad. Even now I only glimpse +the reason imperfectly. Children who are simple are also more subtle +than we. It was my fate to be defrauded, not to have a definite reason +for shedding tears over myself, not to suffer in real earnest from an +undeserved punishment, not to be able to cherish the compensation or +possess the impregnable asylum, the inexhaustible resource that grief +always is. It was when I touched my cheek which did not hurt that I +threw myself on my bed crying, alone, yes really alone for the first +time. And to-night it is just the same way. + +I have run away from home. Here I am cast out on the street in the +night. There is a fine blinding sleet; I do not know as yet where I am +going to spend the night, but that doesn't hurt any more than the slap +on my cheek hurt. Am I unfeeling? I push on straight ahead, the houses +follow one another, the streets meet and cross, the separate shadows are +only one and the same shadow. I stop now and then arrested by the +consciousness of having forgotten to suffer. + +I have been walking a good hour. + +How penetrating the night is. An hour of utter aloneness, an hour empty +and bare. Ah, that it may be so until the end. Let misery come, the +unknown, humiliations, but let the truth come also. You perish trying to +do without the truth.... + +That scene.... Can the memory of it be annihilated, so that nothing +remains, not even the grotesque memory of a memory? + +He blazed with fury, he lashed the air first with one arm then the +other; his features swelled with rage and suddenly looked youthful.... +Now that I come to think of it, he looked exactly the same as on the day +of the blue vase, only this time he did not dare to slap me. That's why +he gesticulated so wildly. I listened to him at first with an +indifferent air; I was accustomed to his storms--well, the thing would +soon blow over. And before my eyes the familiar scene, which the +lighting up of the chandelier always placidly ushered in, was being set +according to the daily ritual--the smoking tureen, which Leontine, who +had entered with her padded tread, was placing on the table (she removed +her red hands, finger by finger, and stole her sidewise glance at me), +and the transparent play of the glasses, with iridescent stems giving +back the glitter of the silver and the white sheen of the tablecloth. + +Although my eyes were occupied in following intently the details of the +dinner-table, a heavy travail was going on within me. A legion of +slumbering desires, halting impulses, dead aspirations were rousing +themselves noiselessly, almost without my consciousness. Thoughts that +come in the morning when one's eyes open, "To-day! to-day," hopes dashed +to the ground, deceptions, sighs--their tune rose to the surface and +changed to a peal which drew me on. Yet I remained on the spot, like a +beast with lowered head led by a rope. + +I saw his gesture in time. + +He was advancing towards me, his fist raised. Did he mean to strike? +What did it matter? I was no longer in a condition to judge. A roll of +thunder was shivering my inner trouble into a thousand bits, there was a +flash of lightning which unloosened everything, even my tongue. I was +speaking, I was speaking at last.... + +What did I say? Really, almost nothing, because in the frantic swiftness +of his anger he broke in upon my first words. "Get out, get out!" He +showed me his hand as if he were cursing his hand, too, forever. + +The door closing behind me made a very long and very impressive sound. + +I was on the landing of the staircase. No sound. The electric light +cruelly exaggerated the red spiral of the carpet and touched each copper +bar of the banisters with a tiny comet. + +Alone. + +And suddenly ... what did it all mean? I no longer understood. +That outburst of cries, that tempest, that sort of comedy, my +reply ... what ... I went and sat down, tempted equally to laugh and to +cry. I wanted to think ... but it was already done, an almost outside +force was pushing me off my hinges. "Escaped!" I was like a prisoner who +sees the door left open inadvertently. + +I knocked gently, my entire presence of mind returning to me in a rush. +Leontine came with a pseudo-contrite expression and an air of saying +"Hush!" while beneath her manner was the concentrated delight of an +animal lying in wait. "They are at dinner," she whispered while I got my +things together, a frock, a blouse, some toilet articles, a little +money, some linen, a few books. + +I closed the front door on myself, slowly, without faltering, slowly. It +was done. It was not difficult. + +A faint wind blew from the street below which chilled me.... Ah, you are +trembling already, you are drawing back. That fine courage of yours, +where is it? Where is your all-powerful will, and your still surer +hope?... + +It was not out of cowardice that I was trembling; but as I advanced +towards my Self, street by street, house by house, through my first +ordeal, I got a blunter, deeper knowledge of my Self, and a sudden fear +entered my breast. + +I am really not a strong person. What had been struggling in me so +forcibly was not my own strength; it was simply the reaction from the +_others_. A strong person would know at the very first step what mandate +to derive from the power animating him; before destroying he would have +built up. When a bird finds its cage open and takes flight, it does not +hesitate, it has the idea of space, it spreads its wings, it knows where +to fly, and how high. + +I know nothing. I am setting out, that's all. Neither before nor behind +me is the irresistible urge which is the start of a great career. Nor do +I see close by the rising shape of my life. Nor about me is the ringing +mirth of faery liberty. Nothing but a little tiredness, a little +emptiness in my head, a little emptiness in my heart.... I am not a +strong person. + +Good-bye, mother, good-bye to your transparent eyes, to your shoulders +which will always shrug for the wrong side, good-bye to your tender +lying. + +You see, I am no longer faint-hearted, because I can walk away from you +forever and venture upon a vague future without a glow of eagerness. All +I need is something to beckon to me.... There is nothing ahead of me +except the quiet artery of a thoroughfare hemmed in by inky houses and +the darkness, which melts away at the panes of the street-lamps and +makes them dance and quiver below and twinkle like eyes at the top. +Liberty has the taste of fog.... + + +BOARDING-HOUSE + +Shall I cross this unfriendly threshold covered with a mangy rug? I +should so much like to stop walking and go to sleep. Shall I choose this +house which exhales the smell of a cellar, this gloomy shelter, these +dingy walls? Shall I.... + +Come on, fate is everywhere. This is the place I must enter. + + +IV + +I have found work.... + +A fortnight, a hundred hopes, a fortnight.... The unfriendly atmosphere +of stiff faces. "The position is filled." Stairs mounted four steps at a +time, then descended gravely, catechisms begun with questions that +embarrass and so often ending with questions that make you blush. Then +one fine day--by what magic?--the position is not filled, and you +answer yes to everything required; the sky is clear, you will start +to-morrow. + +I have not drained to its dregs the joy there is in working at my +nondescript job from morning until evening. To work for your bread, to +feel dignified and straight. You cannot talk, to be sure, but at least +you do not lie, you are in repose, you let the waves of your being pile +up, and every evening you return to a docile home, where the silence is +always nigh to flowering.... + +The boarding-house, however, is not hospitable; you never satisfy your +hunger, and my narrow room with its threadbare carpet and mouldy ceiling +is like a badly kept cage. But it's Sunday morning and I have undertaken +to make it inviting. + +A handkerchief twisted about my hair, a white blouse and bare arms.... +By persisting and rubbing again, by chasing the dust, by trying a place +for the books twenty times over, by pushing the chairs about, by +scraping away the layers of encrusted filth, I am bound to triumph. To +judge of the effect, I stop several times and perch on the tattered arm +of the red-flowered armchair; the place looks better already. But to it +again! + +No pictures, no ornaments. I have taken down the sentimental prints +hypocritically concealing the scars of the wall-paper. Nothing but the +bare room and the high window with its dim panes. + +The bed of a doubtful mahogany burrows into the bashful retreat of the +alcove. The wardrobe would wabble if it were not secured by a thick +rope tied to the rosette on the front. The rosette is typical of a +curious character that the room has for all its dinginess. There was an +attempt to decorate with a profusion of flowers. Flowers everywhere, +spread broadcast over the walls, cutting off the corners of the +wash-boards, and trailing their sallow procession in a border around the +top of the walls. They are even woven into the stuff on the back of the +armchair, they appear almost effaced in the maroon-colored linoleum, and +ravelled out and faded in the cretonne curtains.... In this cemetery, +the sweet violets blooming on my table have a sensual, almost insolent +splendor; their petals look red. + +For all its bareness, my room radiates light; the meagre sunlight shines +in through the window and is already transfiguring the place; I feel +comfortable in it. + + * * * * * + +Oftener and oftener I ask myself what is my reason for existence, my +true, my sole destiny. Doubtless one must sleep in a room for a long +time before encountering the soul that prepares itself there. + +I am, I know, like a person who wants to build a big house without +having a site or materials, who says nevertheless: "No, not this site, +no, not this material." But this is of no importance, I realize. Once +you have submitted to the wholesome discipline enjoined by poverty, you +receive in return energetic muscles and a patient outlook. + +I wait; and no longer having any need to complain or criticize, I wait +with a smile. Everything is simpler than one thinks, and everything is +easier, and it seems to me that-- + +Someone is knocking at the door. + +"May I come in?" + +The landlady, Mme. Noel. + +Mme. Noel is more of an imp than a woman. She has the figure, the voice, +and the darting roguishness of a slim young thing of twelve. + +When I was getting settled the first morning, I suddenly heard her +insect-step close by--I had left my door open--and without giving me +time to draw back, she besieged me with questions: + +"How old do you think I am?" + +"I don't know." + +"Guess anything." + +"Thirty-four ... thirty-three ... thirty." + +On looking at her closely a few seconds, it seemed to me she was +probably forty. + +"Fifty-two, my dear!" To convince me of her age she stuck her finger +under a slab of hair waved and dyed red and actually exposed an +abundance of fading white hair. + +Her face was no bigger than a fist, with cheeks like baked apples. Her +shrewd naked eyes pried about. She came farther into the room and +perched lightly on one of my rickety pieces of furniture, balancing it +with her body. Then she began to unfold the story of her life, +rummaging, unpacking, digging it up by huge armfuls: her husband, her +lover, and then another, a painter she adored. The first one came +back.... Love, adventures.... So it is possible to speak about your love +and adventures? + +Before leaving me--I was quite dazed; which must have been +evident--lowering her voice a little: + +"_He_ is so good.... I myself am not crazy about him, but _he_ loves me +so...." + +"He?" + +"The boarding-house--it is not only for what it pays, you understand. +It's for _the company_!" + +"The company?" + +With the springy elegance of a cat, her tapering elbows breaking the +evenness of her outline, Mme. Noel slid on to the bed. The mattress +reared up, the coverings billowed, the pillow, struck slantwise, was +about to fall. But she needed so little room, and she carefully patted +the hollow she made for herself. + +"Well, is there nothing you want?... Ah, these young things--a +handkerchief round their heads and they still look pretty." + +Instinctively I pulled off my handkerchief. I stammered: "To keep off +the dust" and--what could I do to make her go?--I smiled awkwardly. + +"Oh, by the way, I came near forgetting to tell you. If ... you want to +receive in your room ... after all, what of it? You surely have +somebody.... It's just between us women. A beautiful girl like you, it +would be a shame.... You won't be bashful, will you? To me love is +sacred. And you will tell your little secrets to Mme. Noel? I have told +you mine. Only of course you will be careful not to make any noise. I +say this on account of the Russians in the next room. They used to +receive swarms of people up to all hours. The rumpus! I tell you, I put +a stop to it. But you, you're different. I liked you from the start." + +I had to answer, I was going to answer ... but my tongue was dry with +confusion. Besides, how edge a word in? There she was back at her huge +pile of love stories. She even tried to pump me, lifting and lowering +her powdered little nose; one scrap of information she set aside for use +presently. At last she disappeared trippingly with a pointed _au revoir_ +which crisped the hide of her cheeks. + +An odor of imitation white lilac persists, but so much sunshine streams +in through the open window, so many quickening exhalations that the odor +will soon be dissipated. + +Love ... yes.... + +Perhaps by listening hard to the inner voice you may get to let it speak +out loud. If I give in to this habit, I want to hear myself say: "I do +not like love." I even want to add: "Keep it away," because love seems +to be an outside force which smites or spares without your having +deserved or banished it. + +I have seen too many couples in which the man is nothing but a craving +for conquest, the woman nothing, absolutely nothing, but a need to be +conquered. I have seen too many who have not been visited by grace and +have damned themselves to mutual ruin. A veritable attack and a +semblance of defence. I have seen what is taken for love. + +I have seen women steeped in trickery; the wilier they were the more +love surrounded them. I have seen the heavy looks of men set about +everywhere like traps.... I am worth nothing as yet, but my sound +heart--I refuse it. And I say it quite low to exorcise the invisible +danger: I do not like love. + +"To me love is sacred...." + +I understand fully what those small, naked, prying eyes were glorifying. +And in the adventurous life of those eyes I see neither more nor fewer +blemishes and lies than in the eyes of the young girls. Neither more nor +fewer. At moments there even flashed in those eyes sparks, reflections, +gleams.... + + * * * * * + +A cloud is darkening the window; my room is obliterated. + +But if by leaning forward and boldly offering my face to the sun and +stretching out further, I could take in all his golden bounty and all +his light? + +I withdraw hastily from the springtime window because when a gentle +flame ran over my wrist I became aware of lack of dignity: my untidy +hair, the dust on me, the disorderly room. + +Since the sun lives, since I long for it, love must exist. I shall find +the proof of it. Quickly, my Sunday frock, order about me, flowers.... + +Keep it far away from me. I do not feel I am ready.... + + +V + +Trude's twenty-fourth birthday. Twenty-four candles around the monster +of a cake. Trude announces that Edda, the youngest of us, is to light +the candles when we're ready for the toasts and the dessert. + +I lent my vases, my old red-flowered armchair, and my draperies. This +morning when the preparations were completed and their voices in triple +unison leapt to me: "Come and look!" I was in the room in three bounds +like an answering echo. + +It really looked nice. Who would have recognized Clara's impossible +room? Heavy ropes of foliage dotted with roses festooned the walls, my +beautiful blue stuff entirely hid the toilet-table, flowers covered the +mantelpiece and starred the corners of the mirror; and the table covered +with a white cloth was gay with pyramids of fruit. + +Now the guests are all here except Markowitch, who said beforehand he +would be late. "I am not going to seat you," Clara cries to them above +the rising hubbub. "Choose your own places." And she turns her back to +give the last touches to the table. Her heavy braided knot hangs low on +the nape of her neck. In spite of the two spreading wings of her skirt +at her waist line she looks thinner than ever in her greenish dress. +Someone glides up behind her, a pink arm for an instant twines about her +waist. "Clara, can I help?" She turns round. Dahlia. + +Dahlia is not an ordinary creature; she is no one; she is _the young +girl_. But that really is saying nothing. Juliet and Miranda are dead; +our times are not made for a creature of the dawn who is supposed to be +finer than the promise of herself, but who is already herself; who is +supposed not to be ignorant, who is pure and who, in order to love, does +not await love. + +Dahlia comes of another age; she comes from the country of fjords and +legends. Her father was exiled, she wanted to go with him, they had no +money; they made almost the whole journey on foot. One evening when +their heavy limbs would carry them no further, they were stranded in a +squalid quarter on the outskirts of Paris. They took a room.... The next +day the man did not get up. And since then Dahlia has bowed her head to +the yoke and works all day long for a poor monthly wage in an office +where the walls press upon her like a vice. "It's to keep up my father's +spirits," she said with a shake of her head when I saw her the second +time. + +I shall never forget the first time. I had come in a little later than +usual, and probably more tired, too. I did not even think of lighting +the lamp, the dusk was unreal ... heavens!... a vision took shape +between the threshold and the shadows, scarcely daring.... There was a +brow set in pale gold, the delicate blur of a face, eyes like a +thousand forget-me-nots; between two young arms the strait, retiring +modesty of the angels, and their light movements also. She drew nearer. +"We have made a cake, the sort we make at home, let's divide." She +disappeared. Her present remained behind on my table.... + +In her thin linen dress this evening, with a whiff of paradise about +her, Dahlia seems to be enveloped in a pink illumination. She smiles on +everybody as one must smile at happiness when one catches a glimpse of +it. + +"Your beautiful red dress," she assures Trude, gently clasping the soft +spindles of her hands. + +How can Trude remain simple and genuinely Puritanical beneath her +trappings of beaded crimson plush and cuirass of some hodgepodge of gold +caught in at the hips. I fancy she is too simple for finery to add to +her personality. Real or imitation the fineries give way; it is she who +adorns them. Whatever she wears is sanctified and comes to resemble her, +everything except her threefold name, Gertrude, Trude, Trudel. + +She has the peculiar brilliance of the Russians, sombre, subterranean, +almost undefinable. Whatever she does, whether she laughs, or is +excited, or talks with fire of ordinary things, she always has a finger +lifted in the air and her wide gaze raised Christ-like. She has the +mouth of an evangelist. Her irises set in clear white have glints of +jet. She wears the glossy foliage of her black locks straight back from +her forehead, an intense forehead crowning her like a diadem.... What +other woman would dare the supreme immodesty of displaying a bare +forehead? What woman would gain by doing it? The strange thing is, Trude +is beautiful only by a kind of miracle; the least little bit more, and +her cheeks would stick out over the cheekbones of a Tartar; the least +little bit less, and her nose would be obliterated. The lakes of her +eyes tranquilly conceal the raging waves in their depths. How many, by a +shade of ill-luck, have escaped beauty? Trude, by a miracle, has escaped +ugliness. + +Mania, her sister, so different with her agile, insinuating body, +lovingly fingers the presents. "You have not seen everything, Trude. Do +come." Books, prints, china, and elegant embroidered articles--pretty +things all from poor people who will soon be setting out on foot in the +darkness for their distant lodgings in order to save carfare. For we are +all as poor as poor can be. Except Markowitch. Mania told me he was +"immensely rich," had at least two hundred dollars a month spending +money. + +It is hard to say whether it is our poverty that creates this +comradeship among us. You come in and you feel at ease, you feel _good_, +you love all of them, even Lonnie, the little Swiss with cheeks +lacquered with rouge, and even Michael with his tight compressed nose +peaking out of the profile of a hen--Michael perhaps more than the +others. + +So much the worse for Markovitch: we are going to begin. The hubbub dies +down a little; everyone finds a place, two on the same chair, some on +the bed, a good many on the floor, young men, young girls holding each +other's hands, so close together, so pure, that I can still not accustom +myself.... + +"It is your turn, Mania." + +A song, liquid, then fiery, comes from among the reeds and carries you +far off--down there--to those wild plains chiseled by the wind where the +streams, driven to the surface and threshed by their rocky beds, have +the fury of torrents. What a potency of attention on these serious +faces! + +Isn't that Markovitch? + +"Come in!" + +With his hardened features wrought in granite he, too, is a force. His +bulbous eyes search the gathering and find what they are looking for.... +Dahlia raises her head, blushes, and is veiled in delicate purple up to +the golden edge of her hair. She is aware of the love of this great +spoilt boy; we are all aware of it; but she has refused to be his wife +because she does not love him. He will not speak of it again; +nevertheless they continue to meet straightforwardly. With a free, +rounded movement of her arms, like the handles of an amphora, she points +to a vacant place beside her. "Here." Then in dismay: "Don't make a +noise." + +Prikoff is telling of a childhood recollection. You seem to see him as +both the fantastic gnome and the father in the tale. You see huts +assailed by icy blizzards, hazy visions of bodies blue with cold, love +of _somewhere else_.... Despite his huge jaw and unkempt mass of hair, +what benignity, mildness, and gentleness. It is as though he were +talking to little children gathered close about him. + +Is time passing? No one notices it, we have forgotten it. Time escapes +youth gathered together and bound in a sheaf; it escapes Clara's bosom +from which a plaintive _lied_ is rising, while the hungry hands around +Dahlia, who is doling out the manna, make time tarry. A real poor folk's +supper, the supper of persons who are hungry at all hours. Thick slices +of rare meat on bread, solid pastry, big bright fruit. One should see +these robust young girls munching even the meat. + +How fond I am of them all! Among them I feel for the first time what the +human voice really is; for the first time feel the warmth which is +shared and communicated from being to being, which makes of a single +entity a group of entities, of a field of separate ears of corn the +human harvest. + +I wouldn't know how to choose among them. But one of the young men might +slightly frighten and disconcert me; his accent might seem barbarous. My +trim dress, my too-dainty shoes, and my fluffy blouses, all the things +that constitute my element, might cause me to feel compunction. And +maybe too I might feel ashamed of the hour I spend every morning +anxiously pressed close to the glass as if I were begging myself to be +beautiful. + +I should have the same feeling on behalf of the girls as for myself; at +bottom I do not discriminate between men and women. I should go even +further. If friendship drew me to one of them, my compunction would +change to grief. Really, can one forgive Clara her over-trimmed dress +conceived in a nightmare? Can one forgive all of them their down-at-heel +shoes, the lack of care and regard for others that they show in their +appearance? + +Should I adjust my days with no ups and downs in them to their volcanic +days? "What's it all coming to?" cries Trude sometimes, and throws +herself on her bed sobbing and losing herself in her emotions. Time +passes and dies--one day, two days--suddenly she rises. She has +forgotten her office, her meals, everything. She leans her forehead +against the window-pane, and her tears flow bitterly. + +If we became intimate, would they forgive me my neat room, my +punctuality, my scrupulous adherence to rule and system, my moderation +in everything? In the first days of our being neighbors they used to +say: "You know, the little Frenchwoman who always comes and goes at the +same time and makes so little noise and uses powder?" That quite +described me. + +This evening of the reunion of these serious creatures runs on by leaps +and bounds and rises to a pitch by fits and starts. There is a glowing +dewiness about Dahlia; Markovitch follows her with the green pupils of +his bulbous eyes. And all of a sudden the whole company is fired at the +same time. Without expecting to they burst into song--who threw the +spark?--and the room lights up like a hearth all aglow with voices.... + +Fifteen flames mingled, but only a single flame. It is a song that rages +and mounts higher, and jerks and jolts, and is convulsed with raucous +shouts, in which the joy becomes frenetic and the laughter has a shudder +in it. They bring to their singing the fervor and the earnestness of +application that they bring to everything. + + * * * * * + +I am sitting in the retreat of the little chimney-piece hidden from +their eyes, and I should like to ask their forgiveness for not knowing +their fervid song and not being in harmony with them. I should like to +ask pardon of all of them for everything. + +I should like to ... I should like to.... + +Breathes there a human being on earth who has nothing to forgive, whom +one has nothing to forgive?... + +To be with him, his equal, close to him, face to face with him, _and +alone with one_. + + +VI + +The two Loiseaus and I were sitting in their dining-room, a narrow +rectangle with waxed floor and small straw mats here and there exactly +like a convent parlor. + +The evening--a dark evening out of doors--encompassed the walls with +mystery. The darker it grew the less we felt like getting up and +lighting the lamp. Why bother after all? There was a whole grate full of +flames. They leaped and emitted a lively red crackling, shot forth +luminous circles, hung high in the hearth, dancing tongues of fire, +orange-colored mountain crests, aigrettes of blue light, grimaces of +demons ... whirlpools ... fairyland ... crash and collapse ... +foolery.... + +All of us felt drowsy, each imprisoned in his own silence. The shadows +quivered gently above our shoulders. The silence, a trifle stagnant +emanating from the three of us, seemed to be compressed up under the +toned-down white of the ceiling. + +I was curled up in front of the hearth, my eyes at the mercy of the +glowing surge, my chin thrust forward. A languid sense of well-being +spread all around, played over the hollow of your arms, and padded the +nape of your neck: you thought of nothing. + +The two Loiseaus are people who know how to be silent; you spend Friday +evening with them, and everything--except themselves--tells you that +they are pleased with the presence that makes three silhouettes dance in +the room. + +They are not very old, but there's no denying they _are_ old bachelors, +because in their company you don't feel the torturing constraint and +embarrassment which the _others_ make you feel because you're a woman. + +When you come, they hold out their hands good-naturedly. Remy, the great +big patient Remy, takes my hat, my gloves rolled into a ball, and my +cloak. He steps on my cloak and is vaguely alarmed. This adds to his +confusion, and when he hangs my things on the rack in the hall he is so +awkward in his carefulness that my hat rolls to the ground. We sit down +and talk of the office--you cannot start by not talking--and when every +topic is exhausted, I suggest making tea, a suggestion well worth the +making just to rouse the gourmand look in the old boys' eyes. "Oh yes, +some tea." You can almost hear them purr. + +I busy myself with an ease become superlative. It is possible that for +an instant I find myself a woman again between two attentive men, +converted into the household goddess--she who performs the rites and +dispenses the food and offers the milk, just a thimbleful, while the +men's eyes are upon her as she bends over the cups. This constrains my +movements and makes me tread more lightly and mince my steps. I scarcely +displace the shadows. + +My two old friends! + +Remy pursues his reading with a frank absorption which dominates his +whole body. His heavy forehead bulges, his clenched fists form two +undefined cubes on the page. Migo (when I look at him I call him Migo, +too), rolls his cigarette. This evening he is inclined to be talkative. +He rubs up his memory: + +"The first day you came to the office what a timid manner you had." + +The recollections play upon an irresistible note. Remy emerges from his +corner, his good blue eyes rising to the bait; a vision hung on a +thread, persons long faded. And it must be confessed that all three of +us let ourselves be captured; the same smile widens our features. + +The door-bell rings.... Yes, it rang. + +The triple peal sends our heads apart. Remy rises, hostile and resigned. +He is always the one to open the door. + +Waiting in every circumstance, even when nothing is at stake, is +painful. The spirit recoils and contracts, and space is left for +thoughts of an inevitable misfortune and for the twinkling vision of the +things which disappear. In a single instant life can completely change +its aspect.... + +A sweeping draught. It brings in the voice of a young man. I want to +leave. The two Loiseaus hover about him. "What a surprise! How nice!" +They rub their hands. "Come in and sit down!" + +It is too late to leave; the stranger is already bowing to me, and the +mingled exclamations pretty well hide my stammering. I am so ashamed of +myself for stammering. + +The newcomer seats himself near the fire on the little black chair to +the right of Migo. He wants the lamp to stay unlighted. But it is no +longer the same. Our silence has been routed, and the languor, and the +warmth also.... + +I am in a good position to observe him. How old? Thirty-four, +thirty-five perhaps. Is he really handsome? Hard to say. He is too dark. +His face is strongly chiseled, his cheeks sunken, his forehead hard as +a hammer. The long line of his jaw lends refinement to his countenance, +which is lit by eyes fearlessly open, in which the gray, in spots, seems +steeped in phosphorous. His gestures are repressed and rather +commanding. He talks little, but when he does talk his fire contrasts +with the rarity of his words, gives them value, makes them seem to issue +all alive from the bowels of the earth, while he sits with his body +upright, as if at a distance, the flicker from the hearth enamelling, +then removing, the burnished black of his hair ... I bethink myself: we +have not yet had tea. I hope it will be just right this evening. + +One by one I take out of their hiding-place the cups with the gold +lines, the lovely ones, the only embroidered tea-cloth, the teapot with +the golden spout, and the flowers, wan in the night. I set the luxury of +these things on the table. With my head shrouded in the light-dark and +my shoulders swathed in a fleece of shadow, how good it is to be among +them, screened by my movements, not sitting but standing so that I can +look upon the happy trio. Him especially. For alongside of him, who +hardly speaks, the two Loiseaus, beaming and voluble, seem suddenly tame +and stunted. + +A pleasant sight, quite new to me, this group of three faces on which a +common childhood springs to life, fond joys shared in the past, and +names that are no more. They have almost forgotten that a woman is +present. This reassures me. + +But if _he_, when he raises his eyes and sees me, is going to remember I +am a woman and turn to me too civilly and kindle the usual warfare under +the bland honey of the customary phrases! No ... not he ... not this +man. He is so frank and so fine with his two friends; what he says is so +right, and he speaks so directly, without straining for effect. No, not +he. + +I offer each of them a trembling cup which they accept without +trembling. Then I quickly withdraw again to the protecting shadow where +my place is hollowed out, to listen to this amazing presence which my +heart scans. + +He has spoken to me. + +He has spoken to me as never yet a man has spoken: without trying to see +or please me, without any ulterior thoughts, just as he speaks to the +two Loiseaus, probably just as he speaks to himself when alone. It does +happen, then, that from the depths of simple obscurity, unexpectedly, +one hears real words, real naked words from a man? + +I answer in the same good faith, I no longer feel any fear or the need +for self-defence. I feel a delight which helps me. And the perfume of +the words that rises from the four of us--it is upon him I bestow it. + +From the embers comes a live heat which settles on your cheekbones; your +neck unconsciously stretches towards the red point where the +conversation, which also crackles and sparkles, rests its centre. This +stranger close to me seems like a king leaning over the edge of a +fountain; the light carves his smile and courts that familiar brow.... +Is he still a stranger? + +But suddenly, what time is it? Twenty past eleven! Time to go. Yes, yes, +I must go. + +At the shock which brings me to my feet the whole group breaks up. They +discuss who is to see me home, and I have to refuse three offers at the +same time. + +Give me your brotherly hands, I want to go home by myself. And you, turn +upon me those eyes so different from other men's eyes. + +As I go down the stairs the fidgety advice repeated a hundred times, +which Remy hurls at me over the banisters every Friday, descends upon my +head. "Don't walk so fast, look where you're going." The last scraps of +warning roll like billiard balls. Remy, old friend, have no fear, go in +again. I am carrying away an immense wonder. It is hurrying me along in +its round. I want to dance, to cry.... + +Remy's voice is cut off abruptly, along with the cone of light in which +the steps reeled. + + * * * * * + +On the street ... a narrow, formidable street, full of a palpable, +limpid night. + + * * * * * + +Whither goes the volatile sky pursued by the pale flock of clouds? +Whither go those grand transports which seize and overwhelm you? Here +below there is a man honest in his voice, straightforward in his look, a +brotherly man. And I have met him! + + +VII + +For the first time I have spoken about myself to a living being. Not so +much in words or details or episodes as in the profound desire to open +up the depths of my soul and finally give a true view of it. + +To talk of oneself! That enigmatic, incomplete, elusive, warm thing, +tossed by conflicting currents, adding to itself constantly, this thing +that one is. To say what it is!... To tell of it with modest lips, with +lids raised, with voice sure, with silence.... + +I should never have believed in the possibility of such a boon. And in +the first minutes of our being together on Sunday, I still did not know +of the possibility. + +Two weeks after the Friday at the Loiseaus', I was stamping my feet with +the cold in the queue of people waiting at the little door of the +theatre to buy the two-franc seats. I happened to turn and was +mechanically studying the faces--there he stood eight or nine persons +away.... + +My delighted gaze rested upon him so hard that his head turned +compliantly. He saw me, his face lighted up. The crowd was interested, +the women stared with their unabashed curiosity, the men joked, but not +one of them, you may be sure, was willing to budge. Through the +interstices between the hats, our cheeks glowing with the wind, we +exchanged greetings, and I divined rather than heard that he wanted to +see me. It was at that moment that I felt as if I were flinging myself +overboard. + +"Next Sunday at my house if you like?" + +A strange current was carrying me away. Certain prejudices must be +deep-rooted. What was so extraordinary about receiving him in my room? +The fact that I took the initiative of inviting him seemed to be +trumpeted to the four quarters of the globe; and when his answer came +calm and natural, I couldn't continue to face him; I had to hide my +burning ears up against the old gentleman in the greatcoat, who fastened +his mocking persistent faun's gaze upon me. During the concert I felt by +turns as if I had committed a crime and a glorious feat. + +"Two o'clock," I had called to him. + +I was up early in the morning, and by ten minutes to two everything was +ready. The flowers and foliage bought at market had had time to freshen +up and expand. The petals of the anemones, shut up like a tight case in +the morning, were spreading in a crown around the big pompoms of black +pistils. The bed was successfully disguised by a draped covering, and my +room, all polished and groomed, shone like a jewel. It looked really +homelike. At the last moment I put on my dress of white woollen stuff, +the one with the cord girdle and elbow sleeves. The hardest task was the +arranging of my hair. Not to look untidy with a fiery mop of a head, yet +to be a little beautiful, oh joy, beautiful, to please him. I set-to +furiously on the image in the looking-glass. + +Five minutes to two. Three little raps, three moments of insensibility, +three echoes. + +My hand trembled slightly as I held it out to him, and when his gaze +travelled over me, an amazing sense of shame seized and chilled me. I +promptly hid my arms in my scarf. But my terror was quickly dissipated. +He conveyed the lofty ease of people of perfect simplicity. He was there +with all his manly gravity, all his attention, and his good smile +imparting a sense of security. I felt his calm transfuse itself into me. + +We sat down. I no longer know how we began or by what avenue of +conversation he came to tell me of his crushed childhood, his needy +youth, his mother, his studies, the present career he had chosen for +himself.... I listened; I followed him from year to year, from picture +to picture, from place to place; and within me a larger and larger void +was filling up with hopes and thoughts that seemed to have dwelt there +always. + +What a flood of sweetness, what warmth and space, and what.... I hardly +breathed.... + +"Your turn...." + +He was sitting on my little chair near the window with his back partly +to the light. From the depths of the armchair, the white fleece of my +scarf looping at my feet, I saw the quality of his gaze. + +My story was not so straight and consecutive. Here and there I lost my +way and had to stop, with nothing more to say. Nevertheless, insight +into me kindled under his eyes, we advanced together as happy and at as +even a pace as if we were holding each other's hands; and my flimsy past +assumed a little weight. + +We spoke of love--you always speak of love when you talk about +yourself--but without distinguishing it from ourselves. Who can say what +love is? Love is I, it is he. On the day when I shall love, love will be +changed and will resemble me and will no longer be that love of which +one speaks in general. It will be I--I simply stirred up. + +When we were silent under the influence of the slack atmosphere of the +room, we two souls at the same pitch, my gaze plunged in the creamy +muslin of the curtains, I knew he found me beautiful. I realized I was +waiting for him to say so. I would have hugged his words, I should have +liked to see them come from his lips without covetousness, I should have +wanted them to be nothing but my craving for beauty.... + +I believe I closed my eyes. A loving alliance took place between my +visible body and my hidden being. I was no longer divided against +myself. Thanks to him.... + +How long did we remain that way, grave and smiling, opposite each other? +I cannot tell exactly.... + +The flowers on the table with widespread petals held out their black +hearts to us. A gentle pearl-gray breeze was stirring the curtains. + +He is gone, is he? His going made no break or clash and left no sense of +finality. I had scarcely felt him take my hand when he released it, the +doorway was empty. I returned to the empty armchair in the room ennobled +by both his absence and his presence, my arms weighed down and my +spirits in eclipse.... + + * * * * * + +Who is speaking? Who is there? + +Mme. Noel, the live puppet, is sticking her painted head in at the door; +the thread of light holds it as in a snare. She _here_ at this +moment!... One impatient start and I go over to her. "My compliments, a +handsome fellow!" This time it is too much. "Such looks, such eyes! Good +for you!" Letting out a chain of cackles, the little floury face +retreats under cover, the streak of light narrows, gilds the frame of +the door, and dissolves in the shadow. + + * * * * * + +Alone.... But am I still alone? + +The cold window-pane refreshes my forehead. The street lounges lazily in +its Sunday repose, and the room into which I turn back embraces a +fateful, solemn evening; its ripe perfume rises like incense, the +flower-decked mantelpiece resembles an altar beneath a cluster of +tapers. + +I no longer know ... I no longer know ... + + +VIII + +He is often late. I have noticed that I am almost invariably the one to +have to wait. Work in his office ends at the same time as mine, but the +two places are at a distance from each other, and it always seems a long +time before I see him coming. + +The first minutes go by unheeded because the seven o'clock outpouring +streams by where I post myself on the sidewalk. No signal is given. At a +mysterious order and at a given moment a black wave foams and contracts +at the exit, and as in greeting to the open light sends up a thousand +exclamations, which make one long cry of relief. + +This evening it is still light, and the escaping crowd is not inclined +to hurry. The sluggishness of the air, the sonorousness, the droning, +the motley street ... the crowd condenses and remains coagulated on one +spot. Is it ever going to decide to pass on! + +When the day's work is over, you come back to the brilliant world +marvelling at the holiday sky, and blinking.... Summer is knocking at +the window ... it does you good to be standing on your legs expanding +your lungs. One group attracts you. They all look like wags, their +conversation fascinates; if you were to listen to them, you would remain +standing there with your hands in your pockets. But you are being +awaited at home, and the circle almost as soon as formed breaks up with +casual farewells flung over the shoulder. + +When the women hurry along, rain or shine, it is in the subconscious +urge to show themselves to everyone. Those who swelled the hubbub a +little while ago with jostling elbows and foreheads set like a +ram's--"get a move on you!"--are the first to display their pronounced +busts and the slowest to walk away with chirps and winged signs and nods +and a swaying of sinuous backs. + +The street is emptied. Some women still pace up and down the block. They +are waiting for someone too. + +There he is! + +From the busy far-end of the street, across the eddies of people, +nothing to tell me it is he but the shape of his hat. Again I feel the +security that his appearance always brings. + +His tall figure hemmed in by a group detaches itself, grows bigger, and +becomes more recognizable step by step. I go to meet him, slowly, +smiling despite myself as he hurries, and when our hands touch, my heart +breaks into bloom.... An overwhelming instant ... a soft ecstasy ... +fusion.... And every evening it is as if I had never found him.... + +Let us go by the boulevards. The weather is so lovely, we have plenty of +time. + +Our questions tumble over one another, clear away bothersome trifles, do +not even wait for answers, take everything for granted--what happened +during the day, all the details, everything, and more than everything. + +As a matter of fact, what we listen to is our footsteps. We keep even +pace, our tread makes the same sound. A discovery flooding the heart--it +is a single step that is carrying us along. + +We walk side by side, and the space between us does not divide us. We +are followed and preceded by a whole procession of couples moving with a +slowness strangely rhythmic which leaves a wake behind. + + * * * * * + +We have told everything, everything we know, and everything we are. It +is not a question of being alike in order to be comrades, of springing +from the same roots or having drunk from the same source. The thing is, +for each to serve the truth which the other lives with the same heart as +his own, different truth. + +No, it is not a question of being alike. Haven't I observed a hundred +times that we are very different? How can one wish it otherwise? How +conceive that we whose age is not the same, whose bodies are so +different, whose characters are well-defined, and whose careers are +opposite should respond to the same influences? Why, each of us responds +to the veriest trifles according to his own temperament.... Does he +perceive as I do this street, the flower-beds of the big cafes, the +crowd with glowing eyes, the gritty dust? Is this instant the same +instant to him? I know it is not.... + +A block. How shall we get through? The crossing of the huge +thoroughfares, with its din, its black swarming thousands, dashing +motors, clanging of bells, tooting of horns, discharges its mechanical +eruption upon the city. Let us run. He has slipped his strong arm under +mine; we take long joyous strides and finally land in peaceful territory +out of breath and radiant. + +Here at last is a boulevard where one can breathe, then an old +countrified street where silence has nested. We plunge into its +tranquillity. + +But ... I hadn't noticed--the red rises to my cheeks--his arm is still +under my arm, confident, natural. How is it that it never occurred to me +that it should always be so? + +Shall I dare to tell him how sweet it is to feel him so close to me, our +two lives joined, our two souls welded--how _necessary_ it is to me? + + * * * * * + +Feelings depart quickly, and joy too. I can scarcely follow my feelings +and my joy. When my heart has slowed down, yes, _I_ will speak to _him_, +I shall feel his breath on my voice, his warmth against my breast. And I +shall obey this visible will which comes running to me, springing from +the smiling house-fronts, falling from the sky padded with pink. + +We are drawing near to my lodgings. + +Still this street, where the gracious wind dances for its own pleasure. +A few moments, and we shall be leaving each other. + +Leaving each other...? + +Ah, I know now what to say. I know what the will of a little while ago +wanted, and my life and his life. I am going to find the words.... + +"Listen. I have been thinking. Don't let us part again. Never. It is I +who am asking you. Let us live together ... I cannot say anything else, +that sums up everything, it is everything, to live together. Is it +love?... I don't know yet ... but I know we ought to live together, and +you, you know it too." + +My voice is thick and has the taste of tears; it scrapes in my dry +throat, it won't come out. He takes my two hands, draws me close to him, +his gaze caressing my eyes which strain to escape. With his body he +supports my rigid, awkward body, which struggles hard to remain upright +and does nothing but tremble. + + * * * * * + +The street has disappeared, the sound of the universe, the setting sun +which in a golden glory celebrates our sacred betrothal. + +From under my closed eyelids I no longer perceive anything but a heavy +black pendulum with impetuous strokes, which beats against my breast and +henceforth regulates our joint existences.... + + +IX + +My family was exultant. + +Behold me returned to "proper" life, from which I had so long been +absent, by the massive trap-door of marriage.... I took on a value in +their reassured eyes, I became a somebody, and in the ardor of the first +moment they had the impression that they completely forgave me. + +They were exultant. They sent a charming gown to my lodgings and +apprised me that a big dinner was being arranged to give my future +husband the chance to become acquainted. In spite of my repugnance I was +caught in the cog-wheels. The joy of seeing my mother again made me pass +over everything indulgently. + +It was she who ruined the whole business. Could I not see her disdainful +attitude towards a man's poverty, her terrorized submission to the +world's judgment? "You know, you are supposed to be coming back from +England, we have even given details, don't contradict us...." And the +quasi-respect with which she encompassed me because of the authority +with which marriage crowns a daughter! + +There certainly was enough to frighten one. Their rejoicing smelled of +revenge. What stifling quality, I wonder, can marriage have? What +oppression, what defeats, what chains await me? Am I going to prison? + +But when I turn towards _him_ and bathe my sight in the serene waters of +his eyes, I recover my assurance and soar with him again. For them, it +is clear, marriage is an irrevocable finality, a tight ring, the +oppression of that wild, free instinct which you breathe out with your +breath. To us marriage is only a word. + +Throughout the dinner time stood still, each second stagnated and told +a lie. And something indefinably foul and poisonous rose from their +attitude. Sometimes I felt as if I had never quitted this hypocritical +spot and this gilded furniture. I held aloof from him in apparent +indifference, but really to save our innocent love from their profane +eyes. + +They left us alone for a moment, and that moment is the one thing in the +whole evening of which I retain a clear picture although scarcely a week +has passed since then. In saying we were alone I am not quite accurate. +A law forbade that young people should be left alone together for a +single instant. My sister and her big boy of a fiance were near us; we +were not quite sure which couple had been put in custody of the other. + +With arms fondly entwined about each other's waists they began to kiss +and hug. She held up her lips and uncoiled the serpent of her body +tantalizingly. When they were a little tired and their mouths blown, I +heard a panting sentence which ended with: "You will love me always?" +"Of course, always," he murmured in her ear. + +I blushed. Not from offended modesty, but he and I--we had never dreamed +of such vows. They seemed silly to me. How can one swear to love forever +and say to a man: "Unto all eternity I shall be the most beautiful, the +only one in your heart"? _Always_, _forever_, words which life at every +turn refutes, how is it that a live heart would not give them the lie? + +I must have looked a little haggard. My sister turning round saw that +we sat apart with a gloomy, distant manner. The same thought was in his +mind. + +"Aren't they cold for lovers?..." By way of reply to her own question, +she kissed her fiance. + + +X + +After fingering the deposit the old pot-bellied concierge livened up. +"Money from lovers isn't mere money, it means good luck." + +When he came back unexpectedly and with a paternal burr in his voice +offered us "a little candle-end to take the measurements with; so often +the ladies and gentlemen forget," it was chiefly to surprise us in an +embrace, or some laughing dispute interlarded with kisses. + +The apartment of three adjoining rooms like three cells in a honeycomb +is very nice. It must be bright in summer, the stairs are kept clean, +the courtyard is cool and fresh with its green lane of flower-pots. Our +windows look right out on the top of the tree. A mighty rare thing, a +tree in Paris. Spring mornings we shall be awakened by a fusillade of +bird songs. + +So this is where we shall live. These rooms, in which the atmosphere +seems low and cramped and the floor is all splintered, are to serve us +as domain and empire; these walls are to be our horizon. + +When I was a child and lay tucked in bed, I used to dream of "being +grown up...." Then when I was fifteen I'd say to myself "later on" so as +to hear another troubling, forbidden word echo in my ears. And now my +confused dreams are come to attend me here.... So here is the end of the +story; it is all here, the mirage. + +Only yesterday the sole reason for the existence of this place was a +jaundiced, weather-beaten sign on the street.... And now our double life +has found its temple, chosen its setting, and fixed upon its rallying +point. + + * * * * * + +So this is the place we shall call "home." When the rain beats down out +of doors and a wrecking wind blows, this will be our unchanging harbor. +Whenever we make a new friend and we have told him everything and there +are still more things to tell, we shall welcome him across this +threshold and within these walls and let him see our ultimate selves. +And when the golden May daylight rouses you from bed and sends you +running to the window to feel its radiant stroke on your cheek and vague +longings take possession of you, it will be the fastenings of this +window which will turn to let in the breath of the dawn. + +The little dining-room seems somewhat less desolate than the other wan +rooms. The ceiling still bears the mark of the hanging-lamp as a sign of +where the kindly light came from; a border of red arabesques runs round +the top of the walls, and the fireplace of russet imitation marble with +its pitted traces from invisible fingers of flame makes you feel as +though the grate were still warm. + +The kitchen is so tiny and so like a toy that there's not a thing in it, +not even an old knife left behind through oversight. In spite of the +floor with tiles missing like teeth from a mouth, the sink with dried-up +pores, the stove downy with rust, it is the one room that doesn't seem +to be crying for help. It needs only a glimmer in the stove and savory +smells to give it life. + + * * * * * + +This is the moment to look life in the face--the real life, not the one +people talk about. Until now our love has rested merely upon a +foundation of clay. It has been facile, scarcely tangible. I perceive it +is a love to be. + +Now our love must be confronted with its kingdom, must have its +boundaries and landmarks fixed, must be asked to shine in truth and be +forced to the test. Let our love speak and inspire us. Later, when we +shall have furniture around us, like words already spoken, we shall be +less at ease. + +"If you like, this shall be your room. It suits you. The neutral paper +makes it restful for thinking, and the recess is all ready for a couch. +Look, it's waiting for you. I will take the other room because of the +clothes-closet, and I'll enjoy leaning out across the white window-sill +for the fresh air. + +"We shall visit each other. We shall be free and easy. You will come +and go and receive your friends, do as you please, without ever having +to account to me. + +"But we are going to suffer, perhaps, in order to remain content and +preserve the multitude of joys that one experiences when alone? + +"This dividing wall is nothing more, after all, than a thin membrane +through which the presence in the next room will ooze. When you are +surrounded by your friends in the lively hum and buzz of comradely +conversation, they will suddenly notice the shadow of an intruder moving +as a woman moves. In the bottom of their hearts they will have us much +married, you and me--the marriage of a friend is a little like a +theft--and without your suspecting it, at that very moment, in the very +midst of their talk, they will leave you. + +"Do you really believe we shall be happy? I, for my part, would not like +your friends to desert you. It seems unfair that you should be loved the +less because of love. Are you quite sure that one has the right to +impose one's unalloyed hope upon a person for a lifetime? Are you sure +that in the name of love the person one has chosen can remain the best +of all persons?... Tell me, are you sure you will not bear me a grudge? + +"And can the most beautiful union _remain_ beautiful? For we are about +to sign a pact. There's no denying it. What's to be done about this +transport that we are, this constant expectation, this clinging +intoxication? + +"You know we shall have only each other intimately. Even inanimate +things will exert a tendency to influence us. When the little lodging +will take on our mould and there will be chairs to hold out our habits +to us and a brown pulsating clock, creature of even utterance and +over-sensitive soul, the fond familiar place will weigh and impose +itself upon us. + +"So the host of wishes, the magnificent secrets, the kernel of sadness, +the nomadic hopes must all be made to enter by this door into our +associated days? Tell me, how is one to act? Must happiness, _true_ +happiness without law or bridle, also be shut up here, here and nowhere +else? And must happiness be the same for the two of us who are +different? + +"There's a children's fairy tale that once there was a princess whose +heavily embroidered robe was by a magic command made to pass through a +ring. + +"Lovers betrothed think they understand love. But they have not lived +together--and _every day_. They don't know what that means. Those who +love as in books do not contemplate a long journey when they set out +together, and if the short-lived blaze vanishes at the first turning in +the road, it is not a great misfortune. Another spark will do for +another kindling. And there are those who _renounce_, abdicate their own +selves, bend the knee, and trust to love.... But how are those to act +who are not cut in heroic marble, who do not want to lie or renounce, +who don't pity the _other_ one, who are not afraid of themselves, who +love as people love in actual life, who are like us? Perhaps you know +better than I do. You are a man and older than I am, but I--I ask +myself.... + +"I was ready, as women are, for great impossible things. I never thought +about them very clearly, but I felt my emotions pierce me like dagger +thrusts. They inspired me with an all-powerful spirit, and if I had had +to batter down mountains, or dash through a river of fire, or die in +your stead, I should have closed my eyes and done it at one go. + +"And behold the test. The test is here. Why is it that the thing one +awaits and expects never is the actual test? The actual test has only a +sorry way about it, a commonplace aspect, a very reduced compass; it +holds nothing but monotonous moments jogging along one after the other; +it stops just at the foreshortened shadow at your feet, and my arms +which I was about to open are, you see, arms of lead. + +"Before I entered these rooms love looked like you and the future shone +like a festival just beginning. What is left of all that? I no longer +hear the chimes of golden promises ringing in my ears. I no longer feel +the hosannas of my heart, and it's as though I scarcely saw you in the +gloomy corner where you are standing." + +I see the little dwelling where the hesitant evening has not yet taken +its place. The silence is laid bare, life is showing us her skeleton; +through the mottled panes one sees that the hour has red eyes and the +walls confronting us in their inflexible truthfulness have become our +four upright witnesses. + +I feel like running away. + + +XI + +When everybody was assigned a seat in the carriages, whips cracked and +the procession got under way. + +The carriage at the head in a splash of sunshine drew the whole line +after it, shattering the massive silence of the street. The occupants +were still settling themselves, the ladies with a great rustling of silk +and a vast deal of twisting and turning before they got themselves +comfortably installed, while the men were obliged to sit forward on the +edge of the seats and be very careful of the disposition of their legs. + +"Lovely weather," said one of the two ladies, "they're lucky." No one +answered. They held themselves in abeyance for the usual conviviality to +come later, and passed the time looking through the lowered windows at +the unknown quarter through which the procession was winding, where the +houses sank upon each other and the people in workaday clothes stood +still to stare with eyes of envy. + +The second carriage had set off at a rapid pace; the coachman was +holding in his frisky pair. + +"Say what you like, she's a beautiful bride." + +Like most very old ladies, this one suggested widowhood. Even in talking +she exhaled the attenuated sadness that invests old people with a +protective halo. + +"Oh, she's just like the rest. What's in her favor is that she's fair. A +brunette bride always makes you think of a fly in milk. At least, that's +my opinion...." + +That was a good start. One remark led to another; the conversation +livened up. The ladies in their silk gowns felt conscious of sharing in +pomp and an important ceremony. + +"I was told she ran away from home last year, with...." + +The carriage jolted and zigzagged, but the group sat undisturbed. Each +felt drawn to the other three by a decidedly increasing sympathy. + +What spirit haunted these carriages? All these people were held by an +obsession. They had seen the bride in her starry whiteness and +persistently retained an image with a halo round it. The bride was the +sole topic. + +"I don't approve of a double standard," said another lady. "They did a +tremendous amount for her sister's wedding; you know they did, while +they're not doing a thing for this poor child." A shrug of the +shoulders. "I don't think it's fair." + +Everything she said came out with a ripple in it from the unevenness of +the paving. Her neighbor was plunged in dreams, unaware. A day triumphal +arose out of the distant past when she too walked in white. +"Twenty-seven years like one month! How time does fly!" + +They warmed up to their subject. + +"She is making a very bad match: he hasn't a cent...." + +"You forget she's well over twenty-two. A girl has got to take a husband +when she finds one. Husbands don't grow in the front-yard." + +The perspiration came out in beads on their fleshy foreheads. A stop. +What had happened? A block? An accident? Plumed hats were stuck out of +carriage doors. "Get in again, madam, you can't see anything. You'll +break your aigrette. If I tell you...." + +The procession shortened like a snake drawing in its coils. + +"Ha, ha! I know someone who will not find it dull to-night!" + +Their laughter took on a sharper edge; smiles lurked in the corners of +their mouths just deep enough to show that they understood, that they +had their own recollections and at the same time were in well-bred +company.... This lady with the air of knowing a thing or two.... +What?... Without waiting to be importuned, she drew herself up +heroically and whispered something over the frilled hat of the little +girl beside her. They threw themselves back beaming, stuffed full. +"Impossible!" + +Boots creaked, gowns rustled. The carriages began to clatter through the +streets again. + +The laughter of young people. Not very loud. Hiding something sweet and +indefinably solemn. She was only fourteen. She had nothing but her thin +little feelings, which, however, kept her straight and haughty as an +Infanta. By leaning over slightly she succeeded in seeing the bride. The +bride ... the white word flitted about her like a light ball.... But +straightway she saw the bride her eyes fell. The same emotion had +surprised her on Sunday at mass when she saw the host rise in a beam of +light, and also when she listened to the hand-organ grind out arias. +Ecstasy leapt within her and hope sang: "Me too some day...." + + * * * * * + +The last carriage kept behind; a low coupe with drawn shades. A stiffly +wired bouquet shed its fragrance within. As it sped rapidly by, heads +turned around for a long look and for the sake of the virginal memory it +left behind. + + * * * * * + +I was in that last speeding carriage. I had obeyed my mother's +entreaties, I had agreed to figure in this masquerade. + +So as not to rumple my fairy dress I forced myself not to make a +movement but to remain impassive and avoid the least little stir. It was +my role to receive the host of looks converging upon me as if levelled +at a target, hard and fast, crowding, curious. I confess that beneath my +snowy veil and sanctified air I lent myself to the situation with a bit +of vanity. + +It takes me a long time to undress. My bridal costume is fastened by a +thousand hidden snaps and pins. I have trouble in getting out of it. + +My room frightens me. "Take possession of us," say the chairs and +tables. "Act, command, try your hand, you are in your own home, it is +your life which is arising, we are watching you. What are you going to +do?" + +The more the furniture goads, the heavier the languor that settles upon +me, the less I know, the less I advance. In vain I summon to my aid +ideas from without; none takes hold. I repeat, for example, that this is +the test of both of us, the beginning of our union. I fancy myself +clutching at resolutions, but they fall back at my approach and sink +routed into the folds of the curtains. Is it really necessary to +struggle? Wouldn't it be better to put my head in my hands and drop into +the softness and restfulness of my new armchair? + + * * * * * + +When we came here a little while ago, it was _he_ who was the first to +experience this sort of trouble. We had been looking over our home and +when the tour was ended he took me in his arms, and I felt the warm +flesh of his kiss under my chin. A blow seemed to strike my bowels. I +tightened up into a ball, my muscles tense, thrown on the defensive. An +evil fear made me shiver. He raised his head. I had never seen him look +so tragic. His features were hardened, his eyes swimming ... I fell away +from him like a flower snapped from its stem. + +A sudden instinct sent me to the looking-glass, as if it held an answer +to everything. Maybe looking-glasses do offer the eternal answer to the +riddle of the universe. + +I had said to myself: "You will be close to him, you two will be alone +together, perhaps it will be beyond human power to try to be happy." I +used to fancy life as a struggle, a piece of work to be done, a +masterpiece, and imagined what my acts would be--all voluntary and +making for perfection. I forgot that they would have to be performed by +these arms with their warm flesh. + +I had thought: "He knows me through and through, I have made him read +everything." But no, he knows nothing. He does not know the lovely shape +of my breasts, the lyre of my hips, the curves of my legs, nor this +unknown body the expression of which is so changing that it is like some +murmured tale which the light embraces and tells aloud. + +It remains for me to bestow a final confidence upon him; that of the +body unveiling itself, _daring_ to confess itself. Is this not the +purest confidence? But let it not come before its own hour, for it must +lead to a moment of truth so naked and so unexpected that it frightens +me a little. + +It is strange: this evening I live with the whole of my body for the +first time. I exist wherever it is. Even as I stand here fixed and tense +in front of the glass, I follow a line which may arch, swell and melt +away and which already bears the shape of love. + +I can imagine everything ... for there's no need of having loved in +order to be a lover. All I should have to do, if I dared, would be to +twine my arms around his neck, press him hard, and harder still, and the +moment would come when I should forget the modesty of my single life. + +And without knowing any more one would be lost, distraught, acquiescent, +lulled to sleep even to the soul, more beautiful than one is beautiful. + +I can go still further, for the flesh that clasps cannot be deceived. +When the man and the woman are united, it is the woman subdued, armed +with her weakness, who becomes the stronger. I am sure of it already. In +the depths of my ignorant flesh, I already feel domination germinating. +It is not I; it is a law older than I that is seeking to fulfill itself. + +And suddenly I am frightened.... + +But I am mad.... Man, woman, nothing but two words, which are not of the +stuff of life. Is there a single emotion in which I recognize myself? +Truth? But it is the truth of others. The truth that reaches you is +always different. Isn't it senseless to dread what depends upon +yourself? Are we strangers that I should hesitate like this to run to +him? Isn't he on the other side of the door, he of whom my body is +_thinking_? Isn't it enough for us to look upon each other? Is there a +single question he cannot understand? One seeks happiness. It is all so +simple.... + +Ah, let us go astray every day, let us deceive ourselves, let us suffer +alongside our own hearts, let us try to clasp the invisible! But this +evening there is nothing but a thin partition between my secret and +myself. I feel my heart throbbing as if it were laid bare. I am +beautiful, I am alive.... + +Am I not right?... + + + + +BOOK II + +_BEING_ + + + + +I + + +It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my +life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite +mournfulness with which it permeates a human being. + +She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and +her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a +singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a +little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the +room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her +body, you'd scarcely know she was there. + + * * * * * + +Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to +the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by +the wind. + +The great porte-cochere, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the +bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously. +Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to +let me pass. + +It is almost a sacrilege to speak in a raised voice as I do and bring in +so much of the outside air. "Is dinner ready, Marie, is everything +ready?" Since Marie never answers, I go straight into the kitchen. +Goodness, nothing done. Well, I'll have to get at the supper myself. +There's still a good half-hour left, I believe. + +As I hastily remove my wraps, I feel the dull pang that assails you at +the sight of disorder. + +There, I have the water boiling now and the cooking is well under way. I +didn't know I was so quick and capable. After all, Marie's only a child. + +Marie bustles about. I see her two reddish, porous, spatulate hands +pounce on things, I hear the clash of utensils. Her person becomes many +persons, she jostles me, moves hither and thither like a distracted +tortoise, bends almost double to pick up a strainer.... To be sure the +kitchen _is_ tiny. + +I speak to her as one speaks to a child. "Do you understand me, Marie? +Don't be afraid, I am not unkind." The lifeless fixity of her face +suddenly comes undone, her features contract. Marie was dulled by the +monotonous gloom of an asylum in a distant quarter of the city. She +slightly raises the heavenly blue of her eyes without fastening them on +anything. I see her tenacious hatred wake up and stir. A single flash. +Then her red-rimmed eyes flutter and fall; she is in order again, in the +vague sort of order characteristic of things inaccessible and forlorn. + +I realize she cannot understand me. To her I mean constraint, uprooting, +exile, that unusualness which throws simple people out of their orbits. +And though she has never been accustomed to anything else than +maltreatment, neglect, and beatings, I understand.... I try to be +gentler, to smile when I turn toward her, for in the end visible +kindness should make itself seen.... And it would be so good to reclaim +this nature, to explain everything to her, beginning at the beginning. + +I recall the scene of yesterday evening. We were at table. She brought +in the smoking soup-tureen at arm's length. Her heavy tread rolled like +a cannon-ball upon our delight in being together, then she retreated to +the kitchen like a dog slinking to its kennel. A crash of china. I +jumped up. + +"Something broken?" + +"No, madam." + +"But, Marie...." + +"No, madam, no, madam...." + +I was close beside her and this time looked deep into her eyes. I saw +the freckles on her white skin, and there emanated from her the amazing +innocence of an accused child. Her voice came from her palpitating +throat with a quiver in it. + +"No, no, no." + +Poor Marie. I felt remorseful. "I beg your pardon, Marie, we were +mistaken." + +Nevertheless I didn't budge, as if I were at length going to learn why +one human being can be so terrorized by another.... She too stood +motionless. I did not notice that her attitude was rather peculiar. I +put my hand on her shoulders. "My little Marie...." At this she +staggered and trod heavily on breaking china. Her face was imploring.... + +Hidden under her bell-shaped Breton petticoat which touched the floor +lay my pretty gray china cup shivered to bits. + +She behaved the way girls brought up by Sisters always do. She crouched +against the wall, her forehead hidden in the crook of her arm. Her bosom +as pinched as a wasp's went up and down precipitately, and the tears +began to flow. + +I stopped gathering up the pieces to console her gently. + +"It's not your fault, Marie ... come, don't cry, don't cry." + + * * * * * + +Marie close by is bending over the sink rubbing it with a brush round +and round always on the same spot. The water slaps on the tile floor and +squirts over my dress. Her movements have something eternal about them +and the appearance of never-ending complaint. + +There is nothing to say. Whatever I do, she remains dumb, and the more I +try to reach her, the more she avoids me. + + * * * * * + +But what does Marie matter? I force myself to get back to my own +affairs. And quickly. _He_ will come in, there will be his gaiety, the +joy flashing in our voices, the day's doings to tell of, and our dear +union only a fortnight old.... + +Marie is there; nothing can efface her. My irritation against her boils +up, then turns against myself. It is not pity I feel but rather an +intolerable impotence. I hurl myself with all my force against the +eclipsed expression of the Breton girl, and each time it hurts. + +Marie.... + +And I used to think that to love was to feel yourselves alone. On the +contrary, it is to feel yourself to be many. + +No, no, love is not the emotion of two people. No, as soon as one feels +love one wants to love _everyone_, win over everyone, shine on everyone, +even on this ignorant head. What sin have I committed that a single +welcome should be denied me? She does not smile; that's my fault. What +is lacking in my love that I should face the vexation of a culpable +failure? My pity for Marie and my love for him are one, because I have +only one heart. And since my heart is repulsed, is it impure? + +Marie has resumed her feeble, beaten-down existence. She has set aside +the brush, her blue eyes look beyond the walls, she wipes her wet hands +on her apron--her hostile hands, which are peculiarly hers. + +What can one do? But there must be _something_ she believes in, there +must be something one can do to move her, there must be some word to say +to uncover the tomb of her heart. + +I stopped. For a moment I left my work.... + +Where find the ultimate words of love, the final words--simple and +difficult--when one does not even know the word to make one poor +inferior Marie blossom out? + + +II + +When I am old I shall warm myself at the rich shining vision of the +first days of my love. I shall hold out the dry sticks of my arms. I +shall beg for a little fire, a little sap. I shall return to the present +with feebly beating heart and faltering step. + +Poor withered old woman, you do not remember; and others will bestow +upon you the charity of showing you a picture of lovers. You see us as +we, wife and husband, used to embrace, how I leapt to his side, how his +mouth clung to the fruits of my cheeks, and how we laughed a matchless +laughter. Well, that is enough for you, return to your winter, to the +virgin plain of your old age, to your years perched precipitously over +death. + +Am I the first by any chance to hide the truth from you? + +The truth of to-day has no brilliance or halo. My joy in being a young +bride is not at all what I used to fancy it would be. + +The dominant motive of my life at present, its great preoccupation, is +by no means to invent new words of love. It is to give battle to the +existence that one buys--buys with pennies and infinite pains. + +We are poor. As we each earn our own living, we have decided that I +shall manage the budget for both. It is my job to concoct the meals; and +they must be wholesome, pleasing to the eye, intelligently planned, +tasty. The house must be bright, beautiful, convenient, cozy, stamped +with an air of prosperity. Time has to be economized, a ceaseless +tyranny must be exercised over things, nothing may be neglected, order +must be adhered to slavishly, hygienic principles followed vigilantly. +And lastly, all these things, which are everything, must be accomplished +successfully, and so successfully that once caught and conquered they +will come easily. + +If only I had the money with which to fare forth to battle, it might be +easy, but the sum at my disposal is about enough for a doll's budget. +You could hold it on the tip of a knife; it is inexorably minute. + +Besides, girl that I am, I do not possess overly much of that courageous +ingenuity and imagination which go so far, nor of the determination +which clenches its fists and stares a sombre defiance. + +Love? Why does one never foresee that there will be accounts and money +cares, so important and so tormenting, and at the very start? Why +doesn't one know that these things take precedence over love, over +everything in daily life? + +You have to get up to do the marketing an hour earlier than you're used +to. You have to learn to sew because a new dress and the joy of +pleasing him are a wish of love, but also represent a sum of money. + +At the time I did not know it, but it was an immense triumph that he was +comfortable and happy when he returned home. There was the delight his +surprise gave me when, with great pride, I produced some jolly-looking +fruit for dessert. And see--there was the modest glory of having been +able to buy the lovely flowers for his room with my own coppers. + +As a girl I walked towards love anticipating fiery words, forceful +looks, and two solemn presences.... I used to say to myself: Love!... + +And behold, by way of humble events and simple tasks I have found the +affirmation of love. + + +III + +We were sleeping side by side, our breathing intermingled; and nothing +was sweeter than this nearness of our slumber. + +He put out the lamp and stretched himself beside me, and we remained +like that, silent, drowned in sweetness and the night. It was a living +impression of repose. + +Beside his close warmth a torpidity brooded, for the days were +exhausting, and while he raised himself slowly on his elbow to lull me +to sleep with his eyes, I broke away in spite of myself from the +beneficent clasp and fell asleep like a child. + +But last night, although nearly midnight, sleep was slow in coming. He +kissed my lips. Suddenly a strange will broke in me.... What instinct +was I obeying?... Then a violent repulsion. I knitted my brows. Ah, I +detested him.... + + * * * * * + +That night it was I who wide-eyed and curious watched him fall asleep. + + +IV + +There was one second above all.... + +If I had had the time to think, I should have thought that this second +was worth the whole of life, the whole of death, and even more than +life. + + +V + +The nights are links in a chain. Previously life consisted of day and +night; white, black; black, white. Since then life goes on unbrokenly. + + +VI + +This morning when I caught a reflection of myself in the shop windows, I +noticed I had a strange air of authority, a self-assurance quite new and +indefinable, a manner crisper, more clear-cut. When I purchased my +provisions I had the courage to haggle, and the market-women treated me +as an equal. + +My firmness and decisiveness have made Marie reveal the pale ocean of +her eyes. A distance seems to have been set between us. + + +VII + +They point to us, just stopping short of using their index fingers, as +an example of a happy couple. They speak enviously of our great good +fortune as if we were bound on an adventurous voyage on which you embark +only once in your life. + +What do their "young couple," their "happy pair" mean? Do people really +imagine that you arrive at happiness so quickly and easily, and that to +be sent off _together_ into the steep mountain country, life is in +itself enough to make you find the fulness of life? + +Happy!... When everything tends to estrange you, the opposite natures of +man and woman, their conflicting interests, their very physical +attraction for each other. Happy! When you realize that two beings, +however close they may be, are forever divided. When, no matter how free +you are, marriage forces you to restrain and prostrate yourself. When, +apart from your joint life, you have your own career to pursue. And +when, after the day's work is accomplished, come the night's kisses as +if to undo the good of the day's work--behold the body, the blood, the +lips of love--and you change from friends into lovers again. + +To be sure, there are occasionally moments of blinding delight, and it +is sweet to lean on a shoulder and have a second in the duel of life and +be with a man who smiles and takes you in his arms. + +But to be happy! To feel that your measure is filled, that you are +yourself and him.... Man and woman are above all enemies; you feel it at +every turn. And yet you tell yourself that at the heart of some +inaccessible firmament there does exist a sublime harmony and it _must_ +be attained, even if the road to it is superhuman and your strength +fails. And this harmony and this road must be taken afresh every day, if +ever one approaches them, for a human being changes from day to day. + +I am already somewhat stronger and simpler, and somewhat appeased, but +still we are not "happy" as yet. + + +VIII + +It is true; she was sincere.... + +While talking she cast off her enormous furs and fiddled with her rings +in the unconscious wish to remove them. Her restless head was set high +on a neck encircled by pearls. Minus the litter of ornaments she would +have tempted you to hold your hand out to her. + +The landscape, swallowed up in long gulps by the window of the +railway-coach, had a sombre fascination for her, because it was moving +almost as fast as her pain. You saw her shoulders gradually shrink +together and slowly draw down the beautiful column of flesh supporting +her head. Then you saw them raised helplessly to ask the eternal +question, "What shall I do?" And then you saw them in the characteristic +gesture of all sufferers--thrown back as if to toss off the pack of +unhappiness loaded on her back. + +Her story burst and rose in precipitate bubbles. Her voice, at moments, +broke. The woman at her side remained perfectly calm, walled up in the +dull indifference accompanying the forties. At the jolting of the train +she merely shook her head--was she listening?--and turned toward the +flying window where her own story was passing. + +Darkness would soon be falling. So I had an excuse for going to sleep, +and as soon as I shut my eyes the young woman took up her tale of woe +anew, twice, three times, ten times. The whole of her misery escaped +from under a mask of restraint. + +"And listen, the other day...." + +Did I need to hear what she was going to say? + +At the end of one sentence I caught "my little girls." I could see her +little daughters--exactly alike, well-behaved, in airy frocks, two heads +with long, elastic curls, a twin step in walking--the sort of children +who are their parents all over again and invariably provoke the +question, "Whom does she look like--her father or her mother?" as if +you have to search into a child's origin. + +I could see her husband too. Haven't all these women the same way of +saying "my husband"? I could see him short, bustling, jovial--really not +a bad sort--and with a chubby face, the only kind I could possibly match +up with the young woman's insipid face. Though she said nothing of a +garden, I imagined a very strait-laced one with rectilinear, +timidly-flowering walks, the sort of garden that is not cherished with +love. And I also saw the family in their home, a substantial white-stone +ornate building. I raised my eyes furtively. I must have got a poor view +of her when she came in an hour ago. Now she looked pretty. Her features +were regular, her color had heightened, her quivering mouth showed her +lips to the fullest, and her distressed hand, pushing back her hair, +disclosed a brow eloquent, smooth and flawless as ivory. Certain women +derive their entire beauty from the pathetic. She was one of them. + +Her eyes turned from the scenery; I lowered my lids. + +"He doesn't understand me any more ... it's all over ... I am nothing to +him ... still ... a love match...." + +The scraps of her plaint were borne off by the wind, the engine snorted +more vigorously, and the last remnants went down with me in the roar of +a far-off, formidable lullaby. + +I soon awoke. Still bemoaning her lot, with the same phrase, it seemed +to me, always at the same point. She went on with such bitter +persistence that in the end you couldn't help learning her story by +heart. I did at any rate. The two women kept looking at each +other--shadowy vis-a-vis--the younger one far from the other, far from +us, far from everything, rooted in her life, in her square garden, in +her thirty years. It was as if she were talking aloud for the first +time. + +I listened. Each detail revealed a year, a corner of the house, an +important event. I felt a dull rage fermenting in me instead of the +timidity and compunction one usually experiences in trespassing upon +another's inmost recesses. + +Why? Perhaps because I, a stranger, had not the power to interpose and +hold the secret of this trouble so as to remedy it. + +Ah, I no longer need to listen nor need to know the man in order to feel +that he is right to lose himself in his business and be merely a good +father who sees in his wife nothing but the mother of his children and +shrugs his shoulders when she heaves with sighs. + +The evening air was blowing in cooler through the upper half of the +window. We were entering a plain where the green of the meadows was +deepening into mauve. Two rows of trees, which had been a profile +against the sky when seen from afar, turned into a black curtain +suddenly drawn. Here and there houses stood out as though groping in the +dark--faces blotted out as soon as arisen--one field swallowed up the +next; the ragged line of a hedge came and went; an embankment followed, +its slope daubed with brown, unwholesome stains, its top dressed with +tufted grass and straggling bushes, which moved their arms like signals. + +The young woman's brows were drawn. She was questioning the obscure +flickering stretch of space. I read the questions in her face: Why does +he merely graze her forehead when he comes back in the evening? Why does +he keep her out of everything? Why does he never feast on her presence +or heed her advice? How did he love her? She had been right a short +while before when she had said bitterly: "A little less than a +prostitute, a little more than a servant." + +The woman was certainly suffering and calling upon a God who could not +answer. At night when the close jealous house is asleep, she undoubtedly +falls to her knees in secret and wrings her barren hands and invokes +misery, love, grief, as if the sacred words were for the whole world. +Thou, God whom she implores, Thou knowest well the reason of her +trouble, a simple reason, brutal, elementary. Why dost Thou let her hunt +for others? + +I threw myself back because I both wanted and feared that my face might +betray me. + +The Midi was beginning, the first olive trees were rounding off the +landscape, the night sky was already smiling in the rosy light of dawn. + + * * * * * + +In our times no woman has the right to live under the shelter of a +man's labor. The woman who dares to accept such shelter should abdicate +and commit her dignity to the hands that are productive. She should +consent to her dethronement and take the condescending love that is fed +to the weaker without complaining. + +Men begin--the women know it well--by adoring this weakness. "My wife," +that piece of fragility, those useless days, those little arms which +don't know how to do anything, the jewels he brings home, the great +astonished eyes, the mincing steps, everything that is touching and +contrasts with the struggle of his existence. Then he comes to extract +pride from this relation. "It is I who protect, sustain, feed her. It is +I...." He mounts a few steps higher and sees her a little lower, +incapable, infantile, unequal to battle, unequal to his power. Each day +inevitably finds them a little farther apart, and she in approaching him +is bound to raise her eyes while he condescends. If his love lasts it +takes the very form of contempt, though neither is conscious of it. +Which is just and proper. + +A woman supported by her husband has no right to protest. If she is not +_earning_ her living, she should have some work to do, should use her +arms, her idle strength, her health. Merely bringing children into the +world is not enough. + +The fat lady starts up from her entrenchment of cushions. "We are almost +there. We must get ready." + +Bags pulled open emit the animal odor of leather and give out nickel +glints as they are snapped shut again. Then the fire of the rings +disappears under the gloves. "We are there!" They are now quite free to +stare at me. + +What a metamorphosis. She has resumed her former appearance of a lady. +She is scarcely pretty. In the glimmer of the night-lamp she seems +sharp-featured and masked by a ghastly pallor, as if the generous sun +had abjured her forever. + +Each turn of the wheels brings us closer to the town. The young woman +drawing herself up reassumes her manner of a somebody. She is back in +her setting, already less unhappy because she is nearer her unhappiness. +She pulls out her watch. Five minutes still. Time enough to lean on +one's elbow and think sad thoughts pro tem, which come running like a +docile flock. + +I put my hand up to my forehead to prevent her searching my eyes for the +fountain of compassion denied her. There is no compassion for her in me, +neither is there in the opal-tinted meadows, nor under the sapphire of +the sky. To find compassion she would have to reconstruct her life from +top to bottom. A fate such as hers lies outside the fate of humanity; +suffering such as hers is beside and apart from the suffering of +humanity. I say her fate has not made her suffer enough yet and the +woman does not deserve to live. + +A woman who does nothing is fallen in the sight of love. + +He and I are going to the country on our holiday. I have been thirsty +for its freshness.... + +The carriage is empty now. You feel the double pulse of the train as it +rolls between two slopes spitting out rings of smoke, pursued, you'd +think, by its own speed, travelling on, on, on.... + + +IX + +We've been here a week. + +Strange days, without axis or prop or stay, passed as if outside of +something, as if you had been asked to step up to a door but not invited +inside. Nature is not easy to reach and penetrate. + +We had longed to live in this spot conceiving it beforehand as an oasis +set in dew. And here it is under our feet with its earth which smells +good and its breezes which tinge our cheeks. For all our ardor and +assiduity nature preserves her mystery; she is an unresponsive mother +insensible to the clamor of her children. When we draw near, she stops +talking and either drops a veil or retires completely into seclusion. +"You would like to assay my movements, cull the delicate scent of the +grass blade by blade, meditate like this tree, follow the steps of the +peasants who are my only kith and kin, be a wave in space, unravel the +relations of things, and delude yourselves with my warmth. That is what +everybody wants. May your wish recoil on you. Do not try to reach me. +Do not turn your heads in my direction. Let the thrills and tremors of +your feelings pass between yourselves. I know you not." + +In order to arrive at a mutual understanding with nature, one +undoubtedly must have more of the heart of a recluse, a body more +inclined earthward, a face of greater taciturnity. We are intruders. + +It is only in the evening that you blend and fall into harmony with +everything. Night awaits you--you see--below the horizon, and we set out +to meet it. + +We take each other's arms, I feel my joy preparing; he smiles at the +care I take to prevent his catching cold, and off we go, arm in arm, +tramping to the tune of a sounding tread like two comrades who once were +schoolmates. + +The little nestling village lies far behind; at a gulp the turn in the +road swallows up the last hut. The landscape ahead is still variegated, +but as it draws gently nearer the colors wane, the ground flattens, the +features relax as in a face after a smile. + +Silence.... Twilight within us is falling also. To admit it we watch the +surrounding dusk with swelling chests and quivering nostrils. + +On the rising ground opposite a yellow point is kindled, another and +another, performing an unconscious duty--to usher in the night. And +night is now here. Close by, in the fields, she has already drowned the +olive-trees, which have no compact mass to offer in resistance, scarcely +even any outlines, defenseless, except for their hundred-year-old +trunks. Their life is a thing of quivering, silvery breezes, and when +the darkness comes slinking and whispering, a breath will lull their +gray-lined brows to sleep. + +Along the embankment on either side of the road, trees--you can't tell +what sort of trees any more--make great human gestures, as if to give +warning of a drama about to begin. Instinctively we quicken our pace and +draw closer together. The rich blood runs lively in our veins. We share +a fleeting warmth. + +And now noises spring up, noises that belong to night alone and are a +part of its peacefulness; mournful bayings, which echo throws back +faithfully from yon slope; the croaking of the frogs, which blight the +heart of the atmosphere; a human call now and then, direct and piercing, +and from the ground the metallic chirping of the crickets. + +How at ease you feel, full of loving-kindness, and how sincere you are. +You have sins lurking in your flesh, crimes piled up in your brain, a +sombre mood inhabiting your heart. Everything can be confessed and laid +bare. The night is all-comprehending. Night-time is different from the +stiffly starched daytime with its color and form to distract man from +his intimate verity. You can venture upon the wildest thoughts, expand +to your uttermost limits, forget your own existence, and discard all +past gestures. They were all inadequate. You don't want to retain any of +them except the gesture you would make here--spread your arms while +walking and hold your hands open like two pure, empty chalices. + +Complete blackness now. You can no longer distinguish between silence +and space, fear and the rustling; all things are merged in each other, +trees with trees, their masses with the slope, and the slope, deprived +of its contours, with the sky, which has come down to join the earth. +Everything is blended, obliterated. The very cypresses, during the +daytime a spear thrust at the azure, are also added to the darkness. + +Beneath our eyes, tired from not seeing anything, the road kindly +extends its vaporous pallor. Except for the road no line to arrest the +impulse within, no perspective. The only clear things, our own figures. + +We have never before entered such solitude together, nor ever before +been laid so bare to each other. It makes us walk slowly and solemnly, +as if we were passing beneath the eye of God. + + + * * * * * + +The idea of us as a couple. We. We two. + +Must an idea, then, remain implanted in the hearts of human beings in +order to keep them upright? If I did not feel the pulsing of my love +constraining me to live, the night, with no reason to respect my spirit, +would stretch me out, I fancy, on any chance slope beneath the large +serenity. + +But I am upheld. Every intake of fresh air gives a new thrill and a +youthful vigor to the idea in my heart, and I feel it mounting so +swiftly that I must run to keep up with it. So as to hold it fast for +my protection I rake together my loveliest recollections. Are my +loveliest recollections those of our nights in each other's arms, our +kisses, the storm that beat against our bodies?... No, they are not. As +I raise my eyes to where the firmament should be--if it still exists--I +find the blessed peacefulness which comes from his presence. The +sentiment that grips my heart when I feel myself taking part in his life +is lofty. It has something in it of respect, and trust, and pity; it is +hard to say just what. It spurs me to action, even to boldness, and it +raises around me a strong wall in which I am secure. + +This is not a recollection; it is a bit of the future, and the future +alone is what you discover as you go forward into the infinite. At one +bound you mount to the summits of love. Love is the future magnetized by +the heart. + + * * * * * + +He is there. His profile is massive in outline. He towers over the +sunken country, the clods crunch beneath his feet. I walk close beside +him. I ask for nothing. Maybe my only wish is that my footsteps should +make less noise and my shoulders take up less room. + +But I have another wish. I know what it is. Although I love him with my +whole heart, I want to love him more. One does not attain to love once +for all; the heart can never be filled to the full. How far shall we go? +I can go on and on without stopping and outdistance the sources of the +night; my youth is inexhaustible, my feet will never weary. I want to +love him _more_. + +Space heaves a deeper breath. She is traversed by currents, scoops of +darkness, aromatic whiffs. The perfume sweetens the lips; flowers must +be dotting this hedge. And suddenly space goes mad. A black wind swirls +down from the tree-tops and fills the nocturnal expanse with the +creaking of branches. + + * * * * * + +Must we stop at the greatest moment, at the point where the road looks +supernatural, as though it possessed a density of its own and were +suspended in space?... I should have liked to walk further; one never +goes far enough. Must we really return to the stolid lamp and babbling +kisses? + + * * * * * + +Not immediately. Let us prolong this great sombre moment. Let us stay +here where even time might come to a standstill. The trees droop lower +here, and in these tranquil meadows the spirit may play hide-and-seek. + + * * * * * + +It is really unhappiness that makes you stop. I return from the night; +all I bring back is this strangled throat, a body like a tortoise-shell +covering a silent heart and blinded eyes. + +If I emerge from myself, disconsolateness everywhere, spread all over +the world. The sleeping desert.... + +He is close beside me, but since he lives, he can do nothing for me. I +can do nothing for him. I used to think that in loving him I crowned +him. Love is not enough. This evening I saw his life rise from the +ground, distinct from love, _outside_ of mine; I saw his life, bared to +all the winds, isolated from everything, raise and satisfy itself. I see +that this is right. + +His life is complete in itself, unique and important; his life is not +merely the image that inspires me, the voice that I evoke, the face I +love dearly. His life is an insuperable force, vivid, inviolable and +free, which my heart out of sheer love of him failed to recognize. I was +right a few minutes ago to want to blot myself out, because I ought not +to count. Beyond my limited, restricted presence, he has the whole of +infinity to breathe in. + +Then where are the nights which are to enlighten me? Of him I know +nothing but my love, nothing except that by his very existence he +contradicts what I know of him. Who will tell me how far I must go and +to what I must attain? I have slept in his arms, I have lived side by +side with all his cares, and I have given myself up to him with a joy +like unto which there is nothing. All I have given is myself. And yet +more is necessary. + + * * * * * + +And a great conviction rises up straight and strong and shines as if a +light had sprung from the midst of the meadows. + +I am only a woman, I can think only spasmodically. I love as one weeps, +but there comes a day of which this is the night, on which your forehead +touches the profound truth. You feel the loving-kindness of your heart +aroused, and you oddly understand that the perfect union of man and +woman has never been part of the natural scheme of things, and in order +to be happy together it is not enough to love one another. + + * * * * * + +Come. We may return. Press me close to you, if you will, closer still. +Don't let us talk. + +I know why I am content: your arms, my all-powerful life, our firm +footsteps. I do not know why the slight shadow seems to have vanished: +to live, go forward, pierce the narrow track of the road with your clear +eyes for stars, follow a night one does not see.... + +And then, O God, in braving the heavens, to understand with love that +which transcends love. + + +X + +I hesitate to go out on the street. I feel that people's eyes are drawn +to my figure. There's no use fooling myself. The little girls actually +point to me with furtive, vinegary glances, for they are more +ingenuously hypocritical than women. Their insistent gaze embarrasses +me. + +Two long months to wait before the first cry of my child! If only I +carried nothing beside my child. I feel also an imprisoned love +developing which beats at the bars of its cage and chafes so that I +don't know how to distract it. + +The layette is quite ready; swaddling-bands warm to the touch, chemises +like a doll's, caps which will never be of use; the equipment of a +marionette; linen as soft as lint, bibs round and puffy as cockades. I +have spread everything out in front of me, and each article as it passes +through my hands assumes a shadowy lifelikeness. + +Two months before I shall really know whether I am to be like other +mothers, a brooding hen, with folded wings and in-turned heart, +passionate for my own children, cattish and carping in my attitude +toward other children. Two months before I shall know the secret force +of that wild love which, they say, springs up all at once. + +I am being initiated however. The other women give me a hearty welcome; +they make the impression of crowding together to make room for me. A +real sisterhood? Or the imperceptible joy of seeing a rival temporarily +diminished? Under their escort I enter into the forbidden arcana. "What +do you feel? _I_----" They make me a target for their reminiscences. + +Each shamelessly outdoes the other. From the quantity and finished +preciseness of the details narrated I infer that the story has been oft +told. The least loquacious are the mothers who "have had a lot of them." +These have nothing left but a vast, frequently refreshed memory in which +their life merges in a blur with the life they have so many times +carried beneath their hearts. + +Which of them am I to believe? Many have broached the subject to me, +many have discussed it, none has told me the secret of being a mother, +the word that would reveal, the sign, flashing and disappearing, by +which the treasure awaiting me would shine from afar, which would _make +me understand_. I have heard them bemoan the misery of the months before +childbirth and the sufferings of childbirth itself. I have heard them +boast, with the reverence of fetich-worship, of the care they gave their +little ones. But here their maternity stops. I still do not know. I have +two months to wait. + +I plunge my fingers into the milky mass of the little garments. "Do +you," I say to my husband, "see the head of your child underneath this +hood? Let us try to imagine...." + +He smiles without answering, shaken in his flesh, so lucid and so well +prepared for his approaching fatherhood that I feel myself a hundred +leagues behind. He, at least, knows why he will love his child, why he +already loves it. + +As for me, my vision is obscured by the disconcerting pictures drawn by +the other women. Perhaps also I am under the ancestral pressure exerted +by the long line of my foremothers. Why should I be different? What +quality would make me better? + +The animal heaviness reasserts its rights. My body is an unwieldy sheath +overspread with sleepiness, ramified by thick blood, its cells given +over to contented, torpid well-being. My very heart is struck with +stupor. + +To lie at full length, on my bed beneath the weight of my breasts of +rock, no longer to move or think, only to feel at momentary intervals a +light stirring, a caress, which gently turns on its self and folds its +wings. + + +XI + +I scarcely dare to get up. She knew me in my slenderness of the previous +summer, when I took the torrid paths like a goat leaping dangerous +mountain tracks. It was from my brisk manner of ready, go! she told me, +that she could tell how warm our love was. + +We were living in the same inn. The very first day I was struck by the +blooming youthfulness of this woman who so skilfully escaped the burden +of the forties and constantly trailed a lover, a lover with a vindictive +eye and bullish neck and forehead. Perhaps on close inspection you might +suspect the fine tracery of wrinkles on her transparent skin. +Nevertheless she shone resplendent as we younger women don't know how to +shine. + +Black on white, a head surcharged with mystery and night, two jewels, +no, two green pools, a mouth that revealed the shape of a kiss better +than other mouths, a figure not very tall but with a race and suppleness +which lent dignity. Clothes planned to reveal the curves of her body. +Movements kindling I know not what lights. Woman, in short, with all a +woman has in her of the venomous and the childlike. + +We sat directly opposite each other at table. The charm of her vivid +smile, glowing face, and darting movements turned the frugal meal for me +into a riotous feast. + +One morning as I was starting out on a walk by myself for nowhere in +particular she came up to me in an easy spontaneous way, as if there +really did exist a sisterhood among women. Part of her loveliness was a +deep, maternal voice; in crystal tones she plunged into a surprising +eulogy of the relationship between my husband and me. She had noticed +us. How perfectly united we must be! "Married? Absurd!" She pouted. But +we had such a way of locking arms, and looking and waiting for each +other, also such a.... + +She went on talking and talking. I was rather bewildered.... Was it +really _us_ she was describing--sombre with passion, eagerly relishing a +concord that was pregnant with storms which might break suddenly from a +clear sky? Wasn't it more like her own love? I was at a loss how to +answer. Still I could not recognize ourselves. She clutched me and +laughingly declared I was a little savage, and my being a little savage +pleased her. + +We came to where the country takes a sudden dip, so that to be visible +to the heavens it has to cling to the bronzed trunks of the +half-stripped cork-trees. We went on breasting the wind. I knitted my +brows. Everything she said breathed, at least to me, another age or +another sphere; it all hinged on love, was dedicated to love, and by +that very fact created a distance between us. I saw her cramped and +confined by the very thing that gave her so much vitality; I saw it was +her crucifixion. She was nothing but the instinct for love restricted to +the need of man. Nevertheless she attracted me. + +We got to know each other better. She astonished me more and more. +Whether she and her lover carried on a squally conversation on the bench +in the hall or whether she wandered along the narrow, brambly paths in a +sort of ferocious abandon, or whether she came to me and threw her +thorny crown at my feet with a radiant gesture, she was Woman as men +have described her, as they have wanted her. She was the ancient bearer +of a fatal property, the creature who either subdues her opponent or is +subdued by him, and knows nothing else; the sorry creature of tears and +fascinations.... + +She never spoke of her life or of herself. We were two women, our lot +therefore was the same, she was in love, I was in love. What else need +one want? + +"Good-bye for the present," she cried as the cart set off down the road +at a snail's pace. She stood with her head inclined tenderly sidewise +and her floating veil prolonging the farewell.... There was a bend in +the road. I thought that was to be my last view of her. + +But a little while ago as I was going to lie down, an imperious ring +tore the silence. Actually she, her smile, her veil, her dress a tangle +of silver. + +"What a pretty little nest! How comfortable you must be! Well, well. +Still happy?" + +And then--there!--her laugh with a little savagery in it. She notices +that I am expecting a baby. "Well, of all things!" She throws her gloves +into the air, seats herself, gets up again, and from her hectic +restlessness I infer that she feels defrauded. My home is too cozy and +my manner too tranquil. Not, of course, that she wants to find me in +misfortune, but it's as though I have passed over into an enemy's camp. + +She has come because she is in trouble. I do my best. I hold her hands +in mine and try to trace the ravages of grief on her faun face because +she keeps saying: "I'm so miserable." She must be suffering. But I +cannot get myself to be moved. + +This is her story. Her lover has betrayed her, she is sure of it. In +tidying his drawers she found letters from a woman referring to a recent +rendezvous. She thought she'd die when she read them.... Still I am +unmoved. She warms up to her theme. At breakfast, then and there, a +terrible scene; they fly at each other.... Disgust seizes me.... To show +my interest and stimulate my pity, I ask some questions. "So you had an +explanation and could come to an understanding?" She snatches her hands +away and draws back. "Aren't you listening?" + +To come to an understanding! That would be too easy. They rushed at each +other at the first pretext, each resorting to shifts and dodges and +keeping silent as to the real issue, though recognizing the other's +grievance. "He beat me." + +She closes her beautiful victimized eyes. She has displayed the seven +wounds of her heart; and the least she expects is the shelter of my +breast and the succor of my arms.... + +"But it would be so simple to tell each other the truth and try to +understand each other...." + +She keeps her flexible panther-like body from bounding up. "The truth! +what truth? Do you think love is so simple? He has deceived me. That's +the only truth I need to know." She gives herself up to tears, and her +clear eyes turn into two bloodshot orbs. + +Should I tell her that I am insensible to such despair, and her love is +merely a mistake proceeding from books, it really isn't love? Should I +tell her that love is logical and simple at bottom, and is less in its +transports than in the gentleness it conveys? Should I tell her that men +like change more than women and for a man to snatch at a passing +temptation does not mean that he is trying to reach the love he prefers? +Should I? + +She anticipates me. "I understand, I understand, you are not in love. +Poor little thing, you'll see when you love!" She sends her prophetic +look around the orderly room and the, to her, inconceivable quiet. What +polite excuse can she find for getting away quickly? She came a long way +to meet a real sister in love. We ought to have groaned together over +the common enemy who is also the common God; then she would have +departed in her honorable failure aided and reinforced for the eternal +contest. + +Shall I let her leave like this? I have been able to secure a serenity +which she does not surmise; it would be a charity to beg her to try to +secure the same serenity. This woman ... I shall say to her: "A beloved +is neither a God nor an enemy, he is a friend you must discover in spite +of passion. I know it's hard and needs an iron will and devotion, but I +swear one succeeds...." + + * * * * * + +She raises the window-shade. Her face stands out--is it the +same?--marred by the light. + +The borders of her green eyes show the streaky after-effects of tears, +her cheeks are lined, her lips have lost their blood and youthful red, +the two tendons of her lovely marble neck twitch, and the cherished body +in its holiday attire collapses like a broken toy. + +I approach her, holding out in my comradely arms the new spirit that +will blossom on the new earth. I am not the only one; other young women +would speak as I do. The love by which we live is not like the love the +others die of. + + * * * * * + +But when I come close to her she steps into the full light ... I give up +the idea of explaining myself. There is nothing to say. She is twenty +years older than we are. + + +XII + +I have the feeling that I am not prepared; it is a sort of +embarrassment, an obscure terror, and when I get myself to say so to the +other women, they laugh and hush me up. "Don't worry. The knowledge +comes of itself. Just being a mother teaches you how to raise a child." + +It was by chance that I came to this street. I was walking along. The +hospital. A dull flat smell surrounded the sordid building with a +leprous haze. The doorway was swallowing up a long line of women from +off the gray canyon of the street. I do not know what struck me--I +retraced my steps and followed the women in. + +We were made to wait in a room heavy with a brew of musty drug smells. +Someone shut the door, and immediately there broke out a fearful hubbub, +a concert of human meowings, bawls, pipings. A panic nearly seized me. +With the dull patience of animals penned in together the women formed +into groups and filled out blank forms, rocking and bobbing the light +fragile bundles they each carried in their arms. + +I went up to one of them, leaned over and looked upon the crumpled patch +of a little old red face. Then I realized I had come there to occupy +myself in my period of expectancy and catch a glimpse of my child in +advance. + +The woman's face was bloodless, like the face of a drowned corpse, and +fanned by long colorless locks limp as seaweed. Seeing the supplication +in my eyes she lifted up the thick dirty-gray shawl with the air of a +benefactress. "Three months." The first thing they tell of a child is +its age. + +The little worm very leisurely wrinkled its forehead of peeling satin +and stretched itself, opened two rather glassy eyes encircled by mauve, +and let out its guttural wail through a toothless aperture upholstered +with flesh. The provident mother had already pulled a rubber pacifier +out of her pocket, which transformed the wail into a monotonous greedy +gurgle. "Will you be quiet! They're an awful trouble. You'll see," she +declared, gauging my heavy figure. "I had bad luck, I had no milk. No +use giving him gravy or bread soaked and boiled. He doesn't get any good +out of them. If you think you can fatten them on the doctor's fine +words, as if the doctors even know what they're talking about!" + +"I believe you!" bawled a big blonde. The baby which she had a +triumphant way of carrying had hanging cheeks and bottle-blue eyes in +button-hole slits. "Just look at mine. At nine months it ate like us. +What do you say to that, eh?" + +A group gathered. "What are you here for then?" asked a huge creature +with a gray ogress head, high cheekbones and skin streaked with fine +veins. The blonde turned her baby over and showed its chubby flesh +covered with a crusty, scabby, red-streaked sheath. "Oh, only this." + +The ogress dropped into an empty place on the bench and paraded her +darling on her knees. "My daughter's," she explained to the circle +around her. "Her third. Maybe you think she hasn't got something to +worry about--three babies and working in a factory. Babies--I know a +thing or two about babies. I've had eleven." There was a general stir of +compassion followed by protests. "I have two left." She danced the mite +on her knee. Her tower of a body swayed back and forth, through her +half-open jacket you could divine her dead breasts. There was something +weird and horrible in the dismal accustomedness of her knees. + +"The doctors make you fuss such a lot. You give the babies too much, and +you don't give 'em enough, and you don't bathe 'em, and you don't weigh +'em. There wasn't such a lot of talk in my time, but they grew up all +the same. I said to my daughter, 'Look here, you let me alone, either I +know what to do or I don't know what to do.' I used to give mine +toast-water, that was all." She tucked up the lank pads of hair clinging +to either side of her face. "You boil two or three crusts of bread...." + +"Oh, I know," interrupted the woman with the drowned-corpse face. + +"Mine has bronchitis," went on the ogress. "I wonder where he caught it. +He never goes out and he sleeps close to the stove. I am going to try +and see if I can't get a bottle of syrup...." + +The folding-doors opened, a white-clad nurse made a sign, and all rose, +each with the same enamored hugging-to-her of her wailing burden. + +The crowd poured into an immense, well-heated room paved with white +flag-stones and painted white. The light beat down hard through a row of +bay-windows. At the far end presided a handsome old man in a white +smock, an immaculate nurse at his side. "The doctor!" whispered the +women in a tone of awed hostility. The man did indeed seem indifferent +and just as God should be. + +Spread out symmetrically on the bare table in front of him among other +instruments was a complete apparatus of justice, bright and +glittering--a set of scales with a basket and a row of copper weights +drawing clamorous notes from the straggling music of the sunshine. + +With remarkable dexterity the women undid the swaddling-clothes, +turning, tucking up, unwrapping. The blonde swelled out her bosom as she +stuck it full of pins; the ogress held her pins between her teeth. A +suffocating odor of warm wool, sour milk, perspiration, and stale flesh +arose amid the cries. + +The line began to move. One after the other they went up tendering their +children like poor plucked bruised flowers, with the idolatrous, +skulking faith of believers approaching God. + +From my bench, my heart frightfully wrung, I saw each showing me what I +might make of my child ... a baby with its neck seamed with a reddish +crack ... a baby with tiny, tiny limbs beneath an abdomen swelling like +a bagpipe ... a baby whose ribs striped its body like a zebra's hide ... +a baby with a back all covered with boils.... + +"He has green movements." "He has a swollen stomach." "He has ringworm." +"He coughs." And the same slack answers to the doctor's questions: "I +don't know.--I don't know.--I don't know." + +The man cast his sovereign glance over the printed form held out to him, +handled the little body, remained impassive while pronouncing his rapid +decision, and took up the next case. + +Among the lethargic flock who went away with bowed heads, some, to rally +their spirits, mumbled the flesh of their babies with fierce kisses as +if to take revenge and show that this man after all had done them +harm.... + + * * * * * + +I got up, dragging my double weight. + +So this is the maternal infatuation which is so sanctified and revered. +"I don't know.--I don't know.--I don't know." And I presumptuously was +going to commit the same folly, I, who knew no better than they, who had +not learned the unknown love awaiting me.... + +Why doesn't that man, the doctor, who _knows_, arise and snatch away +these lives contaminated by the fond ignorance of the mothers, and +proclaim that the instinct is fallible, fatal, even criminal? + + * * * * * + +Most of the women met me again under the porte-cochere, because I walked +with difficulty. The one with the drowned-corpse face gave me a friendly +little nod. + +"You will see," her nod said, "it will soon be your turn...." + +Yes, I know.... To be a mother.... In return for the gift of life, to +have the right of death over one's child. And to use that right. + + +XIII + +A rending, moments repeated incessantly, torture indescribable, pain +embedded in the body, battle, cruel cries.... + +I remember everything and every second. I remember the seconds when I +gnawed at my bedclothes, when I howled like a wild beast. I remember all +of them and others. I remember that none of them was ever the last, how +the hours added themselves to the seconds in an excruciating, inhuman +succession of throes in which my whole being set furiously upon itself, +how I no longer had the strength to suffer. + +I twisted my head from side to side like a dying animal in entreaty; I +stifled it in the pillows; it was wet with perspiration; I felt a new +convulsion begin and break like a wave. And when an infernal force tore +me with a pang greater than all the others, I heard vaguely a cry that +was no longer mine, a film passed over my pupils, I sank into an abyss +sunlit and sultry. It was over ... it was over ... I fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +Did I remain in that state of lethargy and inertia for long? When I +opened my eyes the whiteness and blankness of the walls of my room +seemed to be released by a spring. About me was a startling silence +peopled with sibilant whispers. I saw women stooping, then disappearing +with their arms full of linen. + + * * * * * + +My baby! My baby! + +His father, exultant, held him out to me. I became fully conscious. But +goodness, how ugly he was! The shrivelled face of an old woman, the +profile of a vulture, a forehead covered with plushy mucosities, cheeks +smeared as with the yolk of an egg, hands on the outside exactly like a +bird's and on the inside creased and red. And real nails! + +At the fontanelle the pulse beneath the skin throbbed terrifyingly, and +the fuzz on his skull was skimpier than pin-feathers on a fledgling. + +I took him in my arms, stiff and long in his swaddling-clothes. His eyes +opened half way and showed a glassy violet with milky gleams. + +Our child? We both in turn dropped timid solemn kisses on his downy +cheeks made of a sweet smell, and I dared not say anything. + + * * * * * + +Well?... The call of the blood, the rejoicing of the flesh, the issue of +love, the instinct, the lurid mother-instinct at last? + +No! + + +XIV + +I should like to hold these things fast, for always. + +I see them now as they really are, just as I see my son in his present +form. But it is not enough to say: "I see them." I have carefully +preserved all my pictures of him; I want to keep intact the memory of +the heart he gave me. + +This is not difficult to tell. Other feelings are too bound up with self +for description. You'd have to explain a person's whole nature to +understand them. Love is indefinable, grief is indefinable, but a +mother's heart can open up like a book. It is uniform and simple, free +from all alloy, and its very infiniteness is like finiteness. + +My little boy is near me, awkwardly assaying his first steps in the +garden. Without raising my eyes from my work I watch him and I thank +him. + +It is he. Although he changes from day to day, I know his ways by heart: +the big curl in which the sunlight lies coiled, the almost imperceptible +arch of his eyebrows, mere shades of lines, the red pollen blown on the +petals of his cheeks, his profile of curves, his neck of +mother-of-pearl, the spreading fan of his fingers, his unique form which +is unique only to me. + +I must rack my brain in order to force into my memory that once he lay +hidden in my warm womb and I carried him as though he were one of my +organs, as though he were a secret, that I carried him as one carries a +joy or a pain. I no longer remember this. + +I am in a hurry for him to grow up and be able to listen; I should like +to talk to him. I have found words for the others, though they awoke in +me only an uncertain love and set my heart in chaos. He has given me an +intelligible emotion, and to him I have said nothing. + +I love him as I love no one, because he is the sole human being for whom +I am _responsible_. My love is responsibility first and foremost. If he +bends over, I suppress a cry; if the sun shines too strong on him, I +shield him with my body; if he makes a new gesture, a slight disquiet +flits through me. In whatever concerns him danger seems to lurk. He is a +lively, approachable child, people like him, and when they come up and +speak to him, I smile a pleasant, natural smile, though his life and his +death keep up an incessant sport within me and incessantly it devolves +upon me to secure his life. It is a tragic stake, a terribly cruel +problem; it is the entire basis of mother-love. + + * * * * * + +He has run as far as the ivy thicket, thirty yards from my chair. I +tremble so that I have to get up and leave my work. Every now and then +he comes tottering to present me with a shaving of wood fished up from +the sand he plays in, a big earth-coated pebble, treasure-troves of all +sorts. "Look, mother." His attention flatters me. + +If I were to disappear without leaving anything?... Without leaving a +will? Or suppose that from beyond the tomb I were to say: "Before you +took your first steps your life was all arranged. In order that you +should be happy I kept you from having dignity or a sense of justice. No +need for you to undergo the bitter struggle that presses upon a man, the +primordial cares of existence, honesty--honor, in short. Are you not my +child? If I have taken trouble and pains it was to deprive human beings +all for your sake. You will be exempted from earning your bread and +pursuing an occupation. You will depend upon the labor of others, you +will be under the delusion that you are distinguished from those upon +whom you depend. That is the end to which my efforts will have served." +But this is wrong, unwholesome, dishonorable. + + * * * * * + +When he is grown up into a tall young man whom people take notice of, +shall I have the courage to look him in the face and say: + +"You are not everything to me: you never have been my whole passion. I +have cherished you on my knees, I have served you, I have idolized you. +I have never deceived myself. I knew perfectly that in loving a child +one gives without ever receiving. I have reserved the highest place for +others. It is not to you that I have dedicated the essential thing in my +life, its supreme reason, if a supreme reason can be found. + +"Therefore you have the right to leave me. You must be finer, you must +repudiate me. I bow before what you are. I free you from the duty in +which children are cooped up, and I assume the duty myself. Whatever I +may have done, never let my course of life be an example to you; there +is no example; you, nothing but you, is what will count. + +"You will have so much to do, everything I have failed to do. Go, keep +your face set forward, never turn back. What were you born for if not to +depart from me? To be sure, you are flesh of my flesh, but a part of my +flesh that is unlike me, a contrary current that has emanated from +me.... You say no to everything I am. + +"Does it hurt me to see you disappear? Am I alarmed? Do I suffer? That +does not concern you. _I was forewarned_. On the day you were born I was +told that the tearing-away process would last as long as I last. We +leave each other each minute. Your head mounts upward towards the +heavens, mine draws closer to the earth. + +"It is right and proper that this should be so. Without you, you know, +my existence would be justified. It was not merely to bring you into the +world that I was born. The thing is that your existence should be +justified.... No, do not delay. Life is nothing but a departure and +every time one halts one commits treason. + +"I shall have to come to understand many things, thanks to you. I have +always tried to be clear and know myself, but when I went to the bottom +of things, I mean to the bottom of myself, there always remained +_another_ soul, a rebellious soul which refused to reveal its mystery, +and I have doubted whether it is humanly possible to learn the truth of +it. + +"I was not mistaken. The real, unknown part of myself, my unreachable +soul, is in your eyes. You will see through what I have got no knowledge +of. If you beheld how I look at you! You are like the travellers who +come from afar, from the lands of fable concealed under lovely names of +gold. You resemble those travellers. Your eyes will see beyond the +horizon in which I go astray. I tell you that of the two of us the one +who ought to kneel, listen, and learn is not you. + +"My little baby, I shall owe to you the sole love that is sorrowful and +perfect, the love that neither barters nor expects reward. Since I have +given everything, you will owe me nothing." + + * * * * * + +Shall I have the courage to say this to him? It will be hard perhaps, +but already I find that it is a veritable grace from heaven to have +twenty years in which to attain to such courage. + + * * * * * + +Here he is coming back, running this time and brandishing in his plump +hand a twig he has broken off all by himself. He drops plump on his +knees as on two round balls, all hampered in his clumsy race to me. His +chubby cheeks are stained with crimson. He throws himself on me. +"Mother," he lisps, the little flatterer.... + +The mournful moment of a kiss, the exasperating moment of an abortive +embrace, the fleeting moment of contact--he is gone. + + +XV + +The test has been made. + +We have lived side by side in the heart of the country, we have done the +humble things of daily life together, have shared its immediate +exigencies, have enjoyed the wild spirit of long walks together, the +redolent silence of the little wood, all the freedom written on the face +of the earth and carried by the waters. After this we shall feel that +the looks we exchange are sisterly, and I have the improbable hope of +some day being able to say: "I have found a woman friend." + +Her very name seems wonderful. Eva.... + +I met her in the office where I work. What a lovely vision the first +day! You so rarely find strength blended with sweetness in a woman that +her bearing seemed a little supernatural. It was merely self-assurance, +however, and the majesty of perfect health that gave her her superb +manner of treading the waves. You noticed her tallness and fearless +vitality, and did not try to question her eyes for the secret being in +her. This was fully expressed by her quick gestures, the smile of her +frank lips, the fearless carriage of her head, the straightforward look +of her beautiful brown eyes. + +A sort of reserve established a connection between us at first. + +I noticed her diligence, her desire to do well, and a something like +heroism, which made her rush into the forefront of life and carry away a +little more than her share of the burden. + +Our silent understanding lasted for some time. Perhaps without our +knowledge the intuition brooding in women brought us closer than words +could have done. One evening in speaking of her home and saying how +happily she looked forward to meeting her husband, she used a phrase so +tender, warm and chaste that I caught a glimpse of the woman in her. Her +face, always behind a mask of energy, turned gentle and serious as if +veiled by serenity. I imagined a couple in her image, for it is the +woman who makes or unmakes the couple. She must have achieved a deep +marriage.... The weather was fine and bright, and we left for home +together. + +I think I shall always remember her pure voice, which revealed the +restlessness of living like a burning bush hidden behind strength and +youth.... I kept wishing we'd never reach the corner where we had to +separate. + +But there it was already. The red of the sky threw its glow on her face +and spread an impalpable halo of dusty rays behind her. "Till +to-morrow," she said. I almost ran off, my heart swelling with +gratitude. I remember my eyes smarted. + +That was several months ago. When we decided to spend our vacation +together, I felt beforehand that we were going to be friends. + +We made the rash experiment of bringing two couples, two poor couples, +under the same poor roof. We did it and we were gay and happy in the +doing. It makes you believe in miracles. + +I do believe in miracles. It is not a miracle that this beautiful woman +with the tanned cheeks walking beside me is the strongest attraction in +the landscape because of the tall stem of her body, the dancing refrain +of her steps, and the brilliance of her complexion. Other women have +passed over the ageless earth who were as alive, as charming, as +stirring. The miracle is that her brow is clear, her manner clean-cut, +her gaze straight and sure and keen with intelligence; that she goes +lovingly toward a love which she has built with her own hands; that she +is free and strives to be sincere in her freedom. Our mothers knew not. +The woman in us owes them nothing but our faults. + +If you look at this woman carrying her will on her shoulders, leading +her will on towards the realization of her inner idea, towards the +simple desire to be brave, to love, to be truthful; if you see her +passing in nature, if you see how she moves, how she takes into her +being the keen sea-air and how aware she is of everything, the great +eucalyptus, its gray-green leaves tossing in the wind, the ochre-colored +slope checkered with vines, the sleepy languor of the lovely coast-line +robed in blue, you can tell at a glance that our humanity is strangely +new. + +When she returns to her and her husband's orderly, flower-decked room, +what a life she will stir up; what creative power, what inspiration, +what harmony she will contribute to their relation. + + * * * * * + +Will she and I succeed in producing that supreme masterpiece known as +friendship? Friendship between two women used to seem almost impossible +to me. I have always seen women leagued against man. They meet only to +connive, and when they meet, humanity divides into two camps with the +woman's camp almost wholly devoted to the concoction of plots and lies. +Two women together? Two enemies confronting each other. If they cease +from their rivalry, it is in order to set traps for male weakness. + + * * * * * + +She turns round. "Quick, we ought to be back already." Her smile is so +confiding and my heart so happy, she is so radiant, so wholesome and her +presence is so forceful that some day, I say to myself, the name of +friendship will have to be the same as of love. + + +XVI + +An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped +with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream. + +We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose +early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to +this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself. + +The setting for our lunch was all it should be--the midday sun blazing +down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the +scenery framed in the arch of the arbor. + +Two years.... + +The afternoon passed tranquilly. + +He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and +the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze +was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing +up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes +only--this being a day apart from other days--for the broad effects of +the great stretch of landscape. + +A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before +turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the +great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of +mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs. + + * * * * * + +Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end +which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all. + +The same current of the spirit--if not the same spirit--drives its waves +through us. The same flame--if not the same heart--mounts within us. The +same love of truth--if not the same truth--throws the light of day +between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and +united. + +We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other. + +Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to +explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; +you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he +wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is +reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his +concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have +nodded my head. "Yes, exactly." + +But if I had also been told: "A day will come when you will have nothing +more to learn of each other, nothing more to tell each other; without +mutual explanations you will understand everything," I should have +denied the possibility. I should have cried out that a whole century +wouldn't be enough to bring two human beings into harmony, because human +beings change from second to second. I should have said it was +blasphemy. + +But the day did come. + +There is a region of soft azure outlines where words have been +extinguished. _He_ exists and I exist. + +It is a little green arbor where nothing, in short, binds us together, +neither the flaming leafage, nor the smell of invisible murmuring water, +nor the languishing hour; neither the nights past and gone, nor the days +to come, nor the little child asleep at home in his cradle. If anything +binds us together, it is the freedom that each of us has found, nothing +else. + + * * * * * + +One must never say "This is love," for love is the heaven that the heart +has in prospect, and the whole of space is yet to be traversed.... It is +an immense feeling which speaks and impels you and is made up of +certainty and clearness. + +I am sure of him. + +He might see a weapon of crime in my hands--or at least some symbolic +weapon, something he holds a crime--without a shrug of his shoulders. +Remembering that my tenderness is unfailing, he would say to me "all +right," then he would come to me to find out why what I was doing was +right. + +And he is sure of me. He could leave us, his hearth, his love, his +child, without so much as a glance back. I should merely say: "He had to +go, he must submit to our love, and go his own way. That is how we love +each other." + +A moment at the foot of a hill, a great moment, so welcoming, so stable, +and so peaceful that it is like an open doorway before which you must +commune with yourself before entering. Two years gone by. Before me the +rest of my life. + + * * * * * + +I have also had my doubts and fears. In the beginning I said to myself: +"Will life allow such a love? What will become of this ardor and +determination? And he, will he allow me to love him as my heart +dictates?" + +We have gone through daily cares together, poverty, weariness, all the +formidable common things. We got many laughs and more strength out of +them. In the evening his step would sound on the dark landing; I would +run to the door to meet his smile; he would kiss me; the hours would +fly.... That is the way two years unrolled their seasons and brought +forth their fruits, and we became strict with each other because +perfection revealed her face to us from afar. + +So, without a word said, by minutes added to minutes, by the divine +simplicity to which one approaches, you reach the promised land and the +very heart of love. + +I say what I see. Life does allow all the ardor, all the sublimity of +two human beings to flourish; and in their relation to each other she +grants even the impossible. I say what he and I are. + + * * * * * + +With one accord we rise, we know it is time. Our child is waiting for +us, our house, our to-morrows, a thousand impatient desires, and all the +things you don't think of in advance. + +We follow the line of the bank. Where to? I do not know, but I know it +is sweet, very sweet, and his arm is linked in mine. + +Ahead of us are two banks set with houses and edged with reeds +sharp-edged and long as swords. + +It gives you a sort of dizziness to follow the banks straight ahead +without removing your eyes. These two lines, separated forever and +mingled forever by the current, are fascinating. + +A marvel. Is it not a marvel? An arch. Rising from the ground on either +side, its loving, solid curve clasps both banks and brings them together +in an embrace. Nevertheless they are like two convicts. Yet at one point +they become a single bank; they touch, they merge. Then they go on, +their bed widening out. In spite of appearances they are still closely +united in order to sustain the deepening river which will place its +mouth on the mouth of the ocean. + + * * * * * + +Yes ... one more look.... + +Above the slope leaning down to lull itself in bliss, the sky has just +enshrined a light cloud the color of periwinkles, and the arch resounds +like an Hallelujah in stone. + +Come. + + +XVII + +He entered. + +I cannot say how I reacted to the first steps he took into my life. I +have only a confused impression left. The man who entered was not one to +whom I could be indifferent. He was an aspect of my own being which was +taking form and moving outside myself without recognizing me. + +He approached shyly enough. My heart rose ... he approached ... I felt +vaguely that a large event involving me was taking place in far-off +regions, and the shadow of his body spread an immense new something +before my eyes. + +I thought him very gentle. I noticed the metallic clearness of his +restless gaze, and that his figure suggested a great tree which +dominates the other trees and lowers its branches so as not to be alone. + +What was he going to do among these people, what attitude would he, the +single sane person in the entire gathering, assume? How was he going to +behave in this brilliant drawing-room filled with twittering women, +dazzling lights, bare shoulders, ripples of laughter, and heavy +perfumes? + +I had tried hard to cut a figure but soon had to confess myself beaten. +The women spoke a language not like the rest of the world's. Their +vocabulary was limited to "masterpiece," "infamous," "divine," +"diabolical," "delicious," "intriguing." In their presence an average, +disgracefully normal, tame creature like myself without vices or +virtues, had to keep mum. + +The old gentleman advancing screened my escape from the group in which I +had been trapped, and I managed to retreat to a safe corner, from which +I saw the women fasten on him with a buzz of talk, a whole gamut of rosy +bosoms and a great display of fireworks.... Further off the hostess was +keeping a watchful eye to see that no one of the women distinguished +herself too much. The elderly laughing gentleman must have been some one +of importance.... + +The tobacco-laden air was gradually getting to be unbreathable. The +noise pounded incessantly. I sat riveted to my chair without daring to +move, as though a nightmare were upon me, the sort in which a terrible +load oppresses your chest, though you remain conscious. "I am dying, I +am dying." The load weighs more heavily. "No, I am dreaming, I am going +to wake myself up." But you are impotent; you can't shake the load off +and you can't come out of the nightmare. + + * * * * * + +It was just as I was exerting every muscle and scrap of courage to +escape from the oppressive spectacle--I had devised a polite +pretext--when he entered. + +The hostess went to meet him with her wide smile, her hand uplifted, and +the phrase of greeting she had repeated at least twenty times since I +had been in the room. + +She steered him my way, threw out a rising syllable, a descending +syllable, like two balls between our two faces, and then propelled him +over to the group while I listened to the muffled echo of his name bury +itself in my heart. + +I forgot the smoke, the noise, my eagerness to leave. Even the weight +lifted from my chest in the very way a nightmare suddenly takes wing and +yields to a dream of clear, bright meanderings. + +They did not pay much attention to him. The loud dame who presided over +the group captured all eyes. She was plump and short; as she talked she +flapped her arms like fins, and every now and then let out from her +chest as from a great case a vibrant laugh, which sent undulations over +her salmon-colored bosom. When she herself had done laughing, she would +cast her eyes about in quest of approval as though levying tribute from +the faces. But when she encountered the newcomer, she had to stop +because his frank gaze pronounced disapproval and denial. + +How I wanted to thank him! + +The company had been too much for me; it became too much for him. Soon I +saw him cast about for a retreat.... For a second his eyes glided over +me, I alarmed him as he had alarmed me. Then he slunk away, with the +same crushed, crestfallen manner that I must have had. + +He walked off ... the curtain of palms ... he disappeared. + +By fits and starts the nightmare returned, clutching me with clammy +tentacles. The noise fell in slabs, the weight on my chest suffocated +me. Through a mist phantoms glided by, exchanging absurd bows, +disjointed gestures, and disconnected remarks. A woman in a spangled +gown with hair like flaxen wood-shavings turned and showed a chalky +face. Others followed her, branded with painted red smiles. They were +all hurrying. Refreshments were being served under the rotunda. The +subdued clash of silver against glass sounded along with the clatter of +china, little exclamations, and the shuffling of feet. + +I am dreaming. Impossible that a gathering of human beings should be +such an outrage on life, such a parody of it. When living persons come +together and have attired themselves beautifully, it is for the +interchange of what is best in them, not for the spilling of gall and +the raising of a hubbub. I must be dreaming. + +Little groups were coming back; women's laughter cut the curdled air +like sharp lashes. + + * * * * * + +Again I made a painful effort and rose. With the looks of the women +riddling me and paralyzed by the men's attention, I crossed the room +driven by a force that operated for me. I found myself beside him. + + * * * * * + +He raised his eyes slowly. Did he smile? I no longer know. But he +looked--as I must have looked--as though he were gazing into light. + + +XVIII + +I have a new friend. + +A friend.... When I see him, it is like a revision of all I am, a kind +of unusual sincerity that urges me on, amplifies me, and carries me +toward him. + +When he is away, I have the impression of having discovered a treasure +within myself from which I draw in deep draughts.... + +And also of hymns striking up beneath my tread. + +XIX + +"Why? Yes, tell me why you squeezed my hand so hard?" + +I lean towards him, my head touches his chest. He is enraptured, +overwhelmed, and as smiling as the night when it is about to pass. + +He did not answer. + +A silky wind blows down from a sheltering eminence and carves his face +and makes me cling to him. Are we on the borders of the true silence, +the ultimate silence in which human beings find themselves face to face? +"You! You!" + +A terraced garden. If this were another evening, I should be discovering +in detail how beautiful the garden is. Each walk opens up a paradise, +cool and secret as a spring, and the pebbles shine like glowworms. +Borders of irises with violet fragrance dissolving among their stems, a +profusion of spreading boughs, and near our bench a thicket from which +at intervals darts the straight streak of a gray-bird's flight. Below us +in the distant semi-circle across the fading daylight the sparkling +apparition of a group of houses lighting up. + +The sight of all this beauty fills me with such a glow--almost hurts +me--because I feel _he_ is looking at me.... He says: "Your shining +curly hair, your broad, clear forehead, your mouth, your eyes." +Mentioned in his quivering passionate voice my hair, my forehead, my +mouth, my eyes are so new that I close my eyes so as to see them ... +And I did not know.... + +The garden has changed. Pale ochre reflections. Little shivers damp and +creeping. Heavy black pockets on the parasol tops of the trees. The +mournful andante of a swaying cypress. As though it were the first time, +my beloved, that we were alone and had only found each other this +evening under the narrow sky. + +The shadows spread haphazard piling up in ridges, drawing after them dim +white trails. Unknown thoughts escape from everywhere. They are too +swift for me. The breeze carries them away. His face at my right, +blurred except for the prominent features, is silvered over and turned +into a medallion.... + +Am I quite sure that he is still close to me? I tighten my hand in his. +The true, regular pulse at his wrist assures me all is well and down +here everything is fair and _true_. The garden and the leaves, the +multiplying lights of the town, the gloaming are all real. + +The air is stirring and freshening up. Let us walk. Straight ahead of us +as far as the last terrace with its ornamental balustrade; then we will +follow the Broad Walk at the entrance of the garden. + +He takes my arm gently. I do not dare to lean on it, though the weight +of his presence bears me to the ground. I feel I am alone in upholding +his life. Who will tell him, who will ever tell him the whole drama that +this means? Will he ever know how I see him, how he lives for me? Other +people and he himself see his huge figure, always a little bowed as if +he never dared to be altogether tall, the steel of his eyes, and the +slope of his forehead, which every shadow exaggerates, and his gaze +bemired in clouds. They may see his simplicity and transparent +kindliness; but at this they stop. + +I am caught in what is inexpressible in him. I assume all the questions +a man may put to himself without being able to solve them, all the vague +poignant evils. And when he appears, I feel that a word has been +fashioned to express everything, but not a single word to express his +face. It is too outside of everything, too mysterious, perhaps too like +my own. + +We are at the Broad Walk, a solemn pile in which the trees go two by +two, close together, erect--a cathedral. A chilly silence lays a sheet +on your shoulders, the nave boldly thrusts its black pillars upwards, +and the branches topping the vault wed in the sky. + +In spite of yourself you say something in a very low voice. "Up there, +that red glow as through a stained-glass window." + +"Tell me you love me ... tell me ... tell me you love me...." + +He has said _me_, he has said _you_, as if it were possible to stand +this shock on your breast without turning pale. He sees I am sinking and +passes his irresistible arm about my body. The future tears itself to +pieces at the bottom of my life. At the end of the Broad Walk the last +golden ray goes down in a black mass. I do not know how to say these +things, but I raise my head like a slow remonstrance and I hold my gaze +up to him. Have I said everything? + +Let us return. I can go no further. He takes my hand and presses it with +the warm strength of his fingers. It is limp and inert, the palm +lifeless and cold. + +What have I done to deserve this diaphanous gloaming, this prolonged +rhapsody rising about us? I have loved once already, and that counts I +know. But if I had not had this great passion to love another man, if I +did not still have it, would my heart be so clairvoyant? Would the new +evening be as mild as it is? But if in spite of my deepened heart, I am +not yet all-embracing and big enough? + +We have gone the full length of the Broad Walk and back. Have we really +gone so far? Behind us the view retreats into the opaque distance, and +the whole pile, as mournful as a church abandoned by God, fades away +slowly beneath a pall of silence. Our walk is almost at an end. We still +have to cross a deserted spot, where thin bushes hold up their charred +arms to support the slanting line of the gold and black rays. + + * * * * * + +Does he see this high dizzy instant passing close within our reach? I +might snatch it perhaps but for these mad throbbings, this veil over my +eyes, the dryness of my lips. Only the fragments of the instant reach +me, but even they are beautiful enough to dazzle me. + +He stops and faces me and his gaze fixes on my throat. Doubtless he too +is catching the fragments.... + +What are you to do when you are a mere humble human being and have no +power to retain the superhuman moments? + +May my longing for truth at least flame out. My love of truth is my +finest quality, my one merit. May it shake me as the wind shakes a tree, +and may my hands, if they dare, rend these garments which hide me from +his eye. Garments are a lie, and the moment is naked.... + +He has understood. He trembles so visibly that I feel my breasts quiver +like twin flowers and my whole being stir. He draws me to him and holds +without daring to embrace me, small, panting, fainting away.... + + * * * * * + +The pile has been swallowed up, the Broad Walk has turned black, the +beautiful moment has fled through my fault; we have only a few steps +farther to go. If I have nothing to give him, may he at least share with +me the one idea I still retain. + +This idea is the strange knowledge I have of my body, but of a body no +longer mine, so lucid has it become, full of resonances, coursing blood, +warmth and appeal ... a body of mysterious flesh and tense limbs, as +bright as a torch, as sensitive as a soul ... a body I want to give +him--my body and my arms. + + +XX + +"No, don't get up, stay where you are; it is I. + +"You told me you were not going to work this evening, so I came. I want +to talk to you. + +"I am going to sit beside you, if you don't mind, on the cushion on the +floor under the window, where I like to sit when it is as light as it is +now. + +"I hesitate, not because it's hard to say. On the contrary, it's too +simple, and things too simple are beyond words to express. + +"I really have nothing to tell you. You understood. You know. But it is +right for me to come and right that the confession I want to make should +revert to our love, for it has to do with our love. + +"How you look at me.... Your eyes probe to the depths.... Yes. That is +it.... You do see, don't you? I love him. + +"Perhaps the confession, which is so long, so long in beginning and has +weighed so heavily, is already finished?... No. Since my eyes are +overflowing, I have not yet made it. Well, listen, I have no idea any +more of what I am going to tell you, but don't interrupt, let me say +everything.... + +"Oh, I wanted to speak in orderly sequence, and I promised myself I +should not be moved but would talk to you quite simply. When I came in, +I felt I was growing and rising. I heard my own words stirring like live +things.... But they are trivial; they hurt me so I wish I could find +others. + +"To think that here at this window we have so often talked of love, not +of our love, but of all love. You remember? You used to say--I think it +was you: 'What is beautiful is not the face you love so dearly, it is +the need to love it dearly. What matters is not the delirium in which +two people lose themselves, but the truth they discover.' And when you +and I evoked those two rays of light which are one, love and truth, our +words were so vast that we had to stop talking. + +"This evening--do you know why?--instead of telling their splendid +secret my words are mere splinters ripping my throat.... Yet when we +used to talk here, I did not know love was so beautiful; we did not say +it was. + +"You certainly saw the change in me, and you guessed. The morning when +you stopped in front of me and restrained the exclamation in your +breast, I was sure you knew. Perhaps it was very apparent. I came and +went in a radiance; the house grew chilly, everything in the house was +conscious of it and unnatural. Evenings I worked later and later, as if +I were afraid of falling asleep, and when we discussed things, it was I +who explained, I who knew. You must have seen, too, how often I buried +myself in silence, content in it sometimes, then tortured. + +"You observed me. There was no reason for speaking one day rather than +another? + +"A reason has arisen. + +"It was yesterday evening. Walking beside him I suddenly realized that +in him, in us, in me, there was a sort of attraction; I responded to +it--with all the strong, fine need of truth you gave me. It is this need +of truth which brings me to you this evening. + +"Take it, take it before giving it back to me. Don't let us ask whether +it is more painful for you who receive it than for me who bestow it. Let +us forget that man retains the proud authority of the male in his flesh +and says "possess" as of a thing. Don't let us ask whether the union +between man and woman is sublime to this degree. Let ours take that +stand. One always has the time to suffer in, but there is only one time +in which to love in truth. + +"See, maybe it is at this very moment when my voice is worn threadbare +and in spite of yourself you push my head away and hold yourself up as +if you were about to fall, that we draw closer together than ever +before. + +"You are watching the night as it comes creeping ... you see, don't you? +There is no question, not for a moment, of parting, nor of my loving you +less. Because our hearts are turned towards each other to-day. A miracle +is taking place. It will not be undone. + +"Listen to me. Listen to me as if you could understand. Let me spread at +your feet the infinity I hold.... Since he came, if you only knew, I +love you more. Not only do I feel your smile and your whole presence +around me like a thousand arms and with even more than one heart, but I +feel surer of myself, nobler, and--admit it--more beautiful.... To love +you is to think perfection, nobility, light, and to stretch my hands out +to them. It is nothing else. + +"To go to him is to continue myself; it is not to lessen you. + +"But.... Is it the dusk or the reflection of the tree? Your cheeks are +ashen, your eyes are quite wet, and in spite of everything, in spite of +everything I am hurting you.... At the moment that you love like a God, +you suffer like a man.... + +"It is because our understanding is a high one that your grief is deep +and my confession necessary. + +"If you knew, if you knew.... + +"You see, I still tremble before stopping just as I hesitated before +sitting down, because once my confession is made we shall both feel that +it is closed forever. + +"Does one ever know whether one has not omitted the essential word, the +life word, the one that means everything and has not been said? I no +longer know. It is as if I still had it within me.... + +"Let me stay where I am, near you, for a long time. You will let my head +rest on your knees, the night will succeed better than I in revealing +the heart unseen. + +"Perhaps he has come already.... Tell me ... do you hear him?" + + +XXI + +How happy I was!... I listened without stirring to the deep throbbing of +his life. I came to know him better through the regular pulsing of his +neck, the twisting of his arms and the warmth that passed between us +than through our past meetings. All the warm invisible things that work +in the depths of a human being, the changing fate, the mystery +circulating in the blood, were talking into my ears. + +Here we were alongside each other, breathing in unison--can you have +enough of such happiness? I entrusted my entire being to him; it was a +pure, holy fulfilment. + + * * * * * + +There's no use trying to sum matters up differently. It may be that at +death you find the higher expression, the illumination so sought for, +but the living have no other way of saying the truth to each other than +through the flesh. + + * * * * * + +You understand, don't you, that you have to rest from living? No longer +to have this gaping heart, this pitiless, relentless love, but simply to +lie stretched out close against him, so that the whole universe comes +rushing to you, the mystery reveals itself, and life finds +consolation.... Does God ever bestow greater charity? + + * * * * * + +I have just given him my life, my body, my very depths, and he is gone +to sleep. + +Then, a human being never knows what another human being gives him? + +Physical love joins nothing, leaves nothing. Nevertheless, it seems to +bring everything, and it does bring everything at the red moment of +embrace. + +The joy at which I grasped has departed; my lips are dry, my arms empty. + +Yet a little while ago I thought I was going to live like God. And to +have had the hope of living like God for a single instant is in itself +beautiful enough. + + +XXII + +"You really want to know what I am thinking of? And why I look so +obstinate with my eyebrows projecting like a black roof over my eyes? + +"I was working out an idea, the sort of idea that seems silly when you +try to express it, but is really quite reasonable and logical.... + +"Why do you insist upon my telling you? I assure you it's so simple that +you, a man, won't understand. + +"Well then. I was thinking of your wife.... No, don't interrupt ... the +woman who shares your name, your home, your meals, the money you earn, +your cares; the woman who lives beside you--here's the one wrong--in +utter ignorance of your love for me. + +"I was imagining--this is where the vagary commences--a meeting between +the two of us, not a meeting of constrained smiles, not the +confrontation of two human beings, with elements of the dramatic and the +divine. Do try to follow me. Put together the details I am going to give +you one by one the way they are in reality. Give the extraordinary +interview the ordinary setting of humble, banal, tame everydayness. I +told you it was a silly notion. + + * * * * * + +"I go to visit her. The interview takes place amid her familiar +accustomed things, which assist and protect her. She sits beside the +window--her little sewing-table, her work-basket, a dozen scattered +articles. She sews without thinking of much, in the broad daylight so +dazzlingly brilliant that you can't see the swing of the pendulum. Her +head is bent, the sunlight grazes her neck. You feel her spirit is with +her needle and thread, that is, crystallized in calm. Her tranquillized +body submits in advance to the impending visit. She has only to lift her +eyes to know the limits set to her being, the very boundary-line of +everything she awaits. + + * * * * * + +"I enter. I go to her. My steps erect a hedge of sound around me. To +make myself seen I raise my voice.... How make myself heard? I do not +know.... Since truth is triumphant, the announcement of my presence may +be triumphant also. It may write 'I love him' all over me before we +shake hands or even give each other the first look. + +"She knows. She knows everything. I feel bathed in a vast thankfulness. +Just imagine: when people talk of you, she is the only one in the world +who knows down to the very roots of her being the full content of their +words. It is as if I were speaking to God. + +"Well, I begin. Laughing, crying I impart what cannot be imparted. I +hurry. The words flowing from my lips warm me with their generous wine, +and I hear love pouring forth. + +"I see myself, almost on my knees, scarcely perceiving her. Is it to her +that I address myself? I speak merely in order to remove a barrier +obstructing the light and to say the truth. + +"In the breathless words that I pour out at her feet it is not a +question perhaps of either her or myself. Why should it be? I never +considered that I was doing her a wrong. If she reads my face, she will +see things as they are. Have I turned anything away from her, have I +diminished her portion, have I deprived her of anything? I have simply +given you everything. + +"Don't say she might repulse me and would be right if she did, because +that, after all, would be the human way to act. Human to you means +everything that deceives itself and denies the essential grace, +everything that falls and dies in the mud of the road. Are you quite +sure that a woman when she loves does not feel that sort of humanity +die? + + * * * * * + +"You look at me dubiously. Of course you cannot know. You men tolerate +an understanding between two women when it exists for the sake of +cherishing the dust-covered memory of a man. A tomb reassures you. You +will never allow life as a pretext. According to you we have no right to +a sisterhood until it is too late. + + * * * * * + +"In my unfailing and fatal sincerity I say your wife might understand. +Truth striking the ear is bound to impress. And that I should be alive +as I am alive at this moment, with the eloquence and magic that spring +from real presences, is also bound to impress. Look at me. Need I say a +single word? Isn't a great love with eyes uplifted convincing? + +"When you tell me sometimes that I am beautiful, it is like a gift. She +would see me bearing this gift, and if she perceived her forty years +moaning and fading at my approach, she would understand that age in a +woman is an offense love cannot forgive. + + * * * * * + +"Your eyes are searching space. You are wondering where such a +conversation would lead her and me. Don't bother. It would merely lead +me to the side of truth and her to its summit. I imagined that was +enough and one could stop there. + +"I imagined that after I had spoken, she would rise and stand without +taking a single step, upright and solemn, her work at her feet, she +would feel the morals of the world collapse, its false hells, its +hardness and harshness, its monstrous delusions, everything that +sheathed her in a coat of mail and incited her to self-defense.... +Feeling her heart set at liberty, she would think of you, but of you +with your body sloughed; of your real self hidden where neither she nor +I can penetrate. + +"Then she would draw nearer--would she know to what? It is a deep-seated +law in us to try desperately to approach something. She would rediscover +the dazzling moments when her twenty years of age gave her the power to +bid the submissive universe do everything for your good. It would be a +similar instant that I would place like a sheaf of wheat in her open +arms. Don't you see? + +"The room sparkles in all its sunlight; every surface sends forth +gleams; the day calls to the day and floats before her. Are we rivals? +We are simply sisters in the same love. I want to take her hands because +I remember that once you chose her.... + +"Well.... + +"But my notion is squelched. I couldn't help it. Your astonished +expression squelched it. Before I spoke, when the idea was still +imprisoned behind the wall of my forehead, it gave me a light like a +torch, I assure you. You questioned me, and now it's a mocking +will-o'-the-wisp, teasing me from a distance and vanishing as I advance. +Didn't I tell you it was an idea not to be handled? + +"I have fallen short of caressing a bit of truth between my clasped +hands. It escaped me.... And you smile consoled." + + +XXIII + +Twice we said we would part at the turn of the road, at that tree, +exactly at that tree, and twice we passed by laughing at our weakness. +We still could not believe in the separation at hand. + +But the moment was upon us. + +There, at the house hidden behind the trees and bushes, you will go on, +and I will stand still. + +He pressed my hand with increasing tenderness. My laugh taunted us with +so much assurance that I tried to believe in it. To fill up the gaps, we +blustered and said the needless inconsequent things people always say +when they face a long separation. + +It was a little before noon. The sheeted shadows cast by the sunlight +burned and smoked in bluish waves. Between the trees of the woods +stretching beside the sea liquid flakes blinded your eyes. You'd see +annoying red spots long after you'd turned your eyes away. + +I said to myself: "Only a few steps more and it will be over. One step +less and another minute will be plucked from our parting." To keep down +my emotion I hurriedly spoke of _something else_. + +It must have rained in the morning. When we brushed against the +branches, the silence was broken at our feet by the limpid sound of +falling drops, the leaves wore a new skin, and the atmosphere, +impregnated with freshness, smiled the smile of nature when she wants to +dry her tears. The depths of the woods were enveloped in a blue down; a +troop of squat little fir-trees, their skirts on a level with the +ground, rang a crisp chime. + +We hurried, so at one in our approaching distress that we went too fast. +The house behind the trees and bushes came into more prominent +view--shutters like eyes pitilessly closed, pointed teeth of a +gray-painted fence, threatening minutiae of a garden descending a bushy +battered skull of a slope. But after all, there can be no such thing as +separation between us two.... And for a moment, to prove the strength of +love, yes, for a moment, I was ready to run. + + * * * * * + +Here we are at the house. Seen at close range with its covering of red +tiles and rugged face and front fanned by two dwarf firs, the little +house in the way of our free career does not seem very imposing. + +It must be. What's the use of delaying any more? Is it saddening to part +when each carries away the other? For I carry away your voice, and the +sadness of your eyes, and this kiss I give you.... I do not leave you; I +am not even distressed. Look, I am leaving you. + +I took a few steps away. They rang under my eyes. I picked up every +detail of our parting and held it pressed against my heart, each grain +of red earth, each flash of mica in the road. It was not so +difficult.... + +Behind me I heard him walking away with a tread heavier than mine, which +seemed to set stones tumbling down a mountainside.... Two months.... +What is an absence of two months? I decided not to turn around. + +The road narrowed and became a serpent of clay, then a creamy winding. I +tried so hard to think of nothing that I noticed a great many surprising +things we had not observed before. That tree with a heavy black ball at +the end of its longest branch which the birds of heaven had stuffed with +earth and was now grass-grown; the slope with a red covering of rich +plants made, you'd think, of fingers dipped in blood.... + +It was in spite of myself that I faced about. A dark figure just this +side of the last bend in the road. + +Ah, he turns round; he heard me. Could we remain apart? I stretch my +arms out to him, I begin to run. Why did we talk of other things a few +minutes ago? Were we insane?... + +I have already passed the dead aloe, I am near the house with its two +firs. My abrupt race swells my decision not to leave him. I lift my +eyes. He didn't see me. + +His form is no more than a black point, a blind insect nibbling at the +road and entering the earth's lair.... One last step. It is over, it is +over. + + * * * * * + +My arms fall, I turn back stumbling, dizzy. How can you tell what sort +of a road it is when the sun is the color of mourning and the summer has +the taste of tears?... Doesn't he know? + + * * * * * + +Noon. The Angelus tosses its twelve bronze strokes at the sun and they +slowly dissolve. But I am insensible to everything. Everything. The host +of trees, the flashing breastplate of the sea turn around an empty +space. + +Why this sky stretching out after the branches, why this sparkling +happiness, why this sleepiness of the earth when I am racked and branded +with a red-hot iron by what I failed to say while there was still time? + + + + +BOOK III + +_BECOMING_ + + + + +I + + +I had been counting the days until I could call the day I was yearning +for by its name, a name new to me every morning. To have said good-bye +for two months, to have lived apart so long and almost without news, and +now finally to be able to caress the ardent moment which gives each back +to the other, if only for a short space; to caress it as you hold your +hands up to the fire. By a great effort I succeeded in remaining calm. + +I had put my house in order, filled my vases with flowers, and made +myself beautiful. My velvet gown dulled the light, so that by contrast I +seemed to have a halo round my bared neck. + +The hour drew near. The clock struck. But, no, the clock must be +fast.... The next moments stabbed the silence, dragging on leaden feet. +I went to the window. On turning back into the room, I was delighted to +discover a few things to do. The little round corner table was standing +tipped, there were too many leaves in the bouquet ... and this wisp of +hair straggling down my cheek. No, he was not coming. Waiting is a death +died over and over again. + +At last.... + +To think I could have breathed till now! You! He moved toward me rather +timidly, almost as if he were a stranger. It occurred to me that he was +not familiar with my home. A panic seized me: he might not like it. + +But in one bound I was close to him, my head on his shoulder and his +arms around me. I forgot everything. "I am so happy, so happy." We found +ourselves in my little room, where the flowers piercing the twilight +opened wide their mock hearts.... + +But how he had changed; his face had grown thinner.... Why that overcast +brow, that look of depression, that manner of not being at home?... What +was the matter with him?... What was the matter with him? + +Though there had been no time for conversation, and we had merely +exchanged awkward, random questions, I felt suddenly that our hearts had +ceased to beat in unison. + +He should speak. I must know! Nothing is worse than not knowing.... + +"I'll tell you," he began, resting his head on his hands. He had +suffered too much by our separation; he had realized this forcibly again +just now when he entered my home where everything dispossessed him; he +could no longer live without me, so far away; he needed me all the time, +every minute. Oh, he knew there was something irrational in his +entreaty, but all he had was plain common sense. "Listen to me," he +said, "there's an instinct, an instinct stronger ... but you don't +understand ... there ... I've told you everything ... that's all." + +He began again. His expostulations breathed an awful storm; while an icy +clearness and a terrible calm rose in me. Fear crept into me down to the +very marrow of my bones. What could I say to a man who suddenly talked +another language? All I had was the words we used to.... + +"Answer me, I beg of you, answer me, even if it is no, but answer +me...." + +Did I have to begin all over again--give everything and explain +everything all over again? Until then I had been carried along on the +sustaining bosom of a powerful stream. Now a torrent furiously +discharged its troubled waters and infernal foam into the even flow, and +I had to fight my way back up against the current in a desperate +life-and-death struggle. + +So it seems that the bonds of flesh make mock of you; instead of +uniting, they detach, leaving each of you to wrestle and paralyze the +other's limbs like entangling undergrowth. + +And does it seem that the bonds of the spirit are not strong enough +because they always lack some link or word or look? + +If it were not that I had found complete harmony with another human +being, I should have doubted whether a man and a woman could ever love, +that is, ever understand each other. + +The thought inspired me with supreme strength. A hot wave kissed my +mouth and ears; I pushed him away. + +His wife. She was the first consideration. Remembering her gentleness, I +spoke of her gently. + +To be with me he could give up twenty years of his life in common, +twenty years of attentions and indulgences, twenty deeply rooted years. +She was a frail loving woman who had once been beautiful; she was nearly +forty, which in a woman is to have no age.... Wouldn't my presence, +consequently, result in hurting another woman?... And would I do such a +thing, I who brought so much warmth of feeling and enthusiasm to what +was beautiful, right, and high-spirited? + +"In loving you I wanted everything about you to be brighter, easier and +more perfect; and just when I rapturously believed I had succeeded, you +come and brusquely ask me to remove the light from another being. That's +what you are really asking me to do. + +"More. The man in whose name I built my house--don't be afraid it's his +suffering I dread; I love him enough to rise above pity. But I thought I +told you that he is necessary to my effulgence; you understand, +necessary.... Remember, he is the one to whom I told the truth, in whose +presence I could live while at the same time holding your presence, who +has suffered through me without loving me the less, and prefers my +happiness to his own heart's happiness. That's the sort of man he is. +That sort of man exists. And you would deprive me of him! + +"But if, to get me away from him, you were to offer something superior, +a more perfect means of elevating me and teaching me to _know_, I should +go unafraid, perhaps without hesitating. Love is the thing that +elevates life.... But you, what do you offer? Feeling, instinct. +Instinct is not a reason...." + +I had risen while speaking. My cheeks and forehead were burning. His +face, plunged in the snowy curtain, was quite changed. Was it the look +in his eyes or the folds around his mouth? + +"Then you don't love me?..." He repeated this like a child taken with +the words, and dropped his head in his hands. + +That the light fell about me in gray veils may have been only a fleeting +phenomenon. It cannot be that love will desert you suddenly. + +The rest of his stay was of no avail, and when awkwardness fell between +us, he rose, pressed his hands down on my shoulders, and gave me a long, +sombre stare. Then he left. I heard the door close slowly. + +Then he doesn't understand? But the love I feel for him is a true love. +It is not that unstable impulse which passion carries off in a puff of +wind. My love, like my life, craves all the victories I have gained, all +the people who are dear to me. And my eyes take in whatever they can of +sky and color.... Nothing forbids me to breathe. Why am I forbidden to +love whatever I love? + +My love, you will conquer, you will make yourself understood. You are +not this man who is leaving, nor the other man, nor anyone; you are a +heart of flesh exposed ... a restless heart without limit, a heart +forever beating and forever aimless. Do not let a single one who has +ever been with you fade and drop away. If love cannot conquer, what +else is there to resort to? + +And I ran out to overtake him. + + +II + +Only a few months since the first day of the war, yet I cannot recall +one thing about it. + +What I know is, that until the end it will remain the outstanding day of +my life, the day of days. No matter what happens later, we who have +lived through it have drunk at one draught the dregs of all the +centuries, we have borne all the thunder of the heavens on our +shoulders. Those who ask "Why exactly us" do not know that misfortune is +always waiting to extort its tax. + +I do not speak of the older people, those of the _other_ generation, of +the other age: they have not been touched. + +But we, we on that day! + +After all, I can recall several words and impressions, but they are no +more illuminating than the way my folks used to describe the day I was +born. "You looked like a little red monkey, you didn't cry much, your +grandmother was the first to kiss you, it was a dreadfully hot evening." + +And I can also recall Mr. Barret's gray stony face, his huge, petrified +figure, when he entered the office where we were talking and regaining a +little hope. "It's here!" he discharged from the doorway. None of us +gave any sign of understanding. "It's posted on the bulletin boards!" he +shouted, and advanced into the room like a weapon about to descend. + +As a field of wheat catches fire stalk by stalk until the whole is in a +blaze, so we caught fire in our stupor, each spiked to the ground by his +own flame. + +Fire! Fire! Moments of scarlet, strangled breathing, souls cowering in +bosoms, horror, too much horror already, wide-open eyes staring into +space.... + +I remember I had to lean against the wall, and other trifling incidents, +but my impotent dismay, my realization of all the folly let loose upon +the world no more come back to me than the taste of the first gulp of +life at birth. + +I must have kept a clear brain and steady legs, because I ran straight +home.... What street, what hell, where was I?... I had no eyes for the +street nor ears for the humming in my head, nor consciousness even of +the daze that was driving me on. + +We met in front of the house whose quiet walls still enclosed our +happiness. We passed under the porte-cochere heavily, passively, like +beasts driven to slaughter, and the staircase was an ascent to Calvary. +I do not think we exchanged a single word. When the door closed upon us +we embraced without kissing, and my cheek against his shoulder was wet +with tears that were not of my shedding. + +It had occurred to me that he might leave for the war, but like every +other thought this one too was promptly chilled and crushed. Nor can I +say that it was the idea of his going that made me suffer the most. I +was stupefied beyond the power to suffer. I was just as ready to burst +out laughing or tear off my arms. I let myself be touched, handled, and +moved like a stone thrown into space. But contact with him restored me a +little, a very little, to the realization of what I was going to lose. + +The days succeeding were spat from a volcano; nothing remains of them +but ashes. You learned new words; a whole language born of the moment +slipped from your tongue; countries became persons with distinct +individualities, gestures and features. You actually fed on what +appeared in the newspapers, picking up items like grains of manna. Men +alone counted--men, men. Life was in their hands, life and the fate of +the world. So and so many killed--abstractions with which the world +juggled in figures. Death, a human divinity after all, settled down +familiarly. Nothing was like anything that had gone before. + +People began to talk of glory.... + +A day came: his departure. + +I got his things ready as I always did before a trip, from a list, with +my usual mania for taking along too many things. After filling his bag +with all the necessaries, I stowed a tiny bottle of my perfume in it, a +cigarette-case, his last birthday gift, some dried flowers, and our +baby's photograph. I childishly pictured his exclamation of delighted +surprise when he would remove his shirts and the picture would fall out. + +Before he left the house, hardly recognizable in his uniform, he kissed +his son savagely and pressed him long and hard, bending low to hide his +tears.... On the way he spoke mostly of the child--commonplaces to +deaden his pain. "Don't let him be too much of a bother. You must be +strict with him, you know." I saw he was entrusting his share in his +survival to me, and it was better to avoid reference to a parting that +marched on to death. + +Regiments were springing up on all sides, troops of men with innocent +eyes and faces shining with pride; sons, brothers, lovers, changed into +statues of men, in a confusion of brass bands, cheers, red and gold, +clashing of arms, and tramping of feet. + +If only this were hell in its completeness! But he was not there. He had +left six days before without my being able to say good-bye to him. + +There was the last kiss, the fixed, tangible second when you part for +good and the yard of space between you actually counts. You were two +bodies clasped, then you became only one body, two arms ... a soul +locked in a leaden coffin. + +There were the wretched minutes when you summon all your illusions to +your assistance. "Nothing can possibly happen to him ... of course not +to _him_...." + +I returned, dragging my misery like a chain. I was one of the vast herd +which fretted the surface of the earth like a canker, moulded and moved +by a deadly maniac hand.... Never before has there been such a herd. + +Being a woman, I felt withdrawn from the herd, exactly as I had felt on +the first day of the war that humanity was cut in two--men and women. + +I was impotent, curdled, set aside. Like the other women I passed by the +young men with orders to die and only a few days to live, though their +bearing was of men who had long to live. I passed by the other women, +useless flesh of the earth, faint-hearted flesh for grieving.... + +I went.... In another sense it was the herd that passed by, that +she-thing, in countless numbers, dancing bacchantes with hideous +hyena-laughter and robes smelling of red blood and heavy wine, +compliant.... + +You no longer saw yourself, because you had been swallowed up in a +living craw. + + * * * * * + +Where were you, my sisters from everywhere, women of Europe, you, Trude +and Clara and Mania? What were you doing? Were you weeping? + +You saw, didn't you, that bloody sky with forked black signs, that +summer swooning away, that day?... Why was not your voice heard in +denunciation of the universal slaughter? + +Why was not my own voice heard, when there were outcries in my throat, +tears in my flesh? + + +III + +I am becoming horribly accustomed to going about the empty apartment +alone. I find I no longer think of the scowling walls, the dumb silence, +the dim windows. They wrap me in a vague acquiescence. Habit is exerting +its awful power. + +I seem to be gliding down a slope where there is no one at the bottom to +warn me that there may be a precipice ahead or tell me whither this +strange existence leads. + +My days are regulated according to the rules I myself have made to apply +only to myself; I go, I come, I turn the key in the lock; I loiter; then +I rush at my work. Sometimes the mirror casts a sudden image which runs +away busily at my approach. My shadow and the creaking under my tread +are all I have for company. + +Yet this is not the first time I have lived alone. There once was a room +with a flowered quilt, a moth-eaten carpet and a rickety door which +opened like the lid of a devil-in-the-bandbox on the mahogany wig and +scarlet smile of Mme. Noel. But everything was so different! I brought +nothing to that virgin space except the desire to fill it; my body knew +nothing; my inner being cried out for too many things to be able to hold +any of them, and had I dared, I would have stretched my arms out through +the window to embrace the air of life.... + +My solitude now is like rotten fruit; it scorches my entrails like a +fiery drink. It is a strange solitude. + +Two men peopled my life and fertilized and vivified it. But wasn't that +very long ago and somewhere else? Come, try to remember.... + +I do not know; they are neither dead nor alive. To be sure they are +hungry and thirsty and get bored as living people do, but they are +locked up in the earth's carcass like the real dead; and it may be that +at this very moment when I am imagining them warm and active, they are +already stiff and cold. To be absolutely truthful, to go down to the +bottom of things, there is scarcely anything in common between the two +men who went to war and me who stayed behind. + +Sometimes when I am alone, I lean over, way over, to touch the very +bottom of things so as to feel the pain of it. + +Yes, letters pass between us. When I read their letters I try to imagine +their surroundings and the crass details of their life; the fir-trees of +the Argonne, the name of a regiment which I know by heart like a prayer, +frost-bitten feet, the incessant thunder, and the arrival of the postman +which draws us a little closer together. Then there is Carency--the +place makes no difference--the light cavalry.... Attack, formation, the +first rank mowed down, the second, the third; he alone standing upright +in the front of the fourth rank, a struggle lasting a century, the +confused subsidence, and my portrait snug under his blue jacket. And +that night last week when he was nearly dying of thirst and crawled out +over the open field, groping for something to drink. A miracle, a pool! +He fills his mess cup and empties it at one draught. He spits out thick +threads, they hang from his mouth--bits of brains.... A pool of human +blood from which he has quenched his thirst. + +I receive a letter nearly every morning. The envelope burns in my +fingers: the written lines make a pretense of talking and telling you +things, as if I were not standing in front of him as you stand in front +of a window-pane which you frost with your breath so that you can't see +what's on the other side. + +I write to them before I go to bed. Nothing important ever turns up, so +I make a lot of the little everyday affairs--what happens at the office +or at lunch in the restaurant where the people discuss and wrangle and +the smells turn you sick. I tell them how forlorn the house looks, and +how well the child is getting along in the country, that I do some work +after dinner to make a little more money. Besides, there's always some +anecdote to relate.... Twelve strokes cutting into the metallic +night.... Sometimes when I fold my letter I have a sense of having +written about somebody else. + +Nevertheless, the thought of them is an obsession; it is a red point +about which I develop and revolve and add to myself. + +And sometimes, too, when I shut my eyes, bizarre notions swoop down on +me, a horrid swarm of bats. "How many women are there to-night," I +wonder, "who are tossing about in the thin warmth of their beds, +distracted creatures, tormented, empty-armed, who, however, are the +bigger for all this, easy in their minds and free already in their +bitter freedom?" + +Yes there are many women to-night without husbands or lovers who wonder +as they lie in bed; then they sit up and lean on their elbows ... they +don't _know_ yet or suspect anything ... but they don't sleep, they +can't sleep; it's too absurd to think that a woman can live all alone, +sleep alone, even breathe. And then it might be that the closest union +is a prison after all. + +At last I fall asleep, and in the morning, in the bald, shivering +twilight, I go back to my doings of the day before, somewhat cowardly +doings. Dull habit, which greases the machinery of life, leads me +blindly along the streets to the office. + +Was it only two months ago that with despair in my heart I passed this +corner where the chestnut-stand sends up its whistling steam? His letter +in my bosom had told of the night attack and of his possible death; a +brief, heart-rending farewell. Is he in less danger this morning, is he +less cold, less hungry? I just passed the same corner worried for fear I +might be late. The whole way I had been thinking of my dress and winter +hat. + +That's how you get used to the martyrdom of others. + +Even if it is the flesh of your flesh that undergoes the martyrdom, even +if it is the man of your love--ah, don't say no--you get _used_ to it. +In suffering one person cannot take the place of another, and pain +cannot be shared. The first day, because grief turns your head, you +think you are sharing the other person's pain, but the other days, all +the other days? + +Why not have the courage to look crude reality crudely in the face? +There are no people who are inseparable, there are no couples who are +inseparable. + +He is in the trenches, the men are in the trenches, engulfed in misery, +exposed to danger, plagued by vermin, and I am here alive and untouched, +grazing this large wall patched with three-colored placards. "Women ... +your noble role ... noble work ... honor...." + +Honor? What honor? I work. Isn't that natural? He is suffering, he is +going to die. Didn't I see my own dormant energies wake up? And if he +has given all, have I not taken all? + +Five minutes to nine! I hurry, raising my coat collar in a shiver and +clasping my hands inside my soft muff. + +At the end of the street a dusty gust driving a handful of people along +like dead leaves, women with billowing skirts, a tramping, whistling +gang of blue-lipped street boys, and old Noel with his breath frozen on +his beard. + + * * * * * + +_They_ have left. Even if they return, they have left. That's the whole +thing. There will have been a space of time when they were wiped off +the face of the earth, and life went forward without them, was lived +without them, and women actually _continued_ without them.... + + +IV + +The typical young lover, well built, good-looking enough but without +charm; his youthfulness armed with a timid pretentiousness. I had always +avoided talking to him, but this evening he got hold of a foolish excuse +for walking home with me. I tried hard to speak of something else and +quickly switched the conversation on to another track when it took a +certain turn, while he, a hundred times more proficient than I, +certainly more obstinate, dragged the subject back to where he wanted it +to be. + +The eternal comedy of man. The same words--who will tell them that they +always use the same words?--to reach the same goal. He made awkward, +crafty attempts, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and when he +saw I was escaping, he declared himself, throwing up his dice and +staking his very heart. His voice was rusty, his nose pointed downward, +his ears were fiery. + +Until then he had seemed fatuous, almost ridiculous in his little +perfidy. Now he was ennobled, like a saint, pure, supplicating. His +whole body took on grandeur. How he trembled, the poor boy! + +When my answer was given--a woman who doesn't love has a lot of ease +and gentleness at her command--"Forgive me," he said, "I have offended +you." + +I watched him as he walked away, his back bent, humiliated, I suppose, +but bathed all the same in the hope that rises from the words you dare +to utter. + +Forgive him! As if any woman ever harbored bitter feelings against the +man who gave her the great gift, as if a single one of us ever remained +untouched, as if a mysterious yet positive connection did not establish +itself the moment love was declared. + +I remember all the men who ever loved me. Each thinks he has discovered +you, and offers you your secret. Each does in fact discover you, and +also kisses you a little. + +I shall remember this young man, too; I shall remember the strip of +mackerel sky showing above the street crossing; I shall remember the +stammering mouth whose youth demanded its satisfaction from mine, the +mouth that touched mine in thought. + + +V + +I have had the sensation of death. + +Not in the instant of dying; that is still a part of life; but in the +instant after death. + +I had gone to the end of the pier, where the water lashes incessantly +and regularly, and seated myself facing the open sea. To right and left +the green shore curved and the fir-trees ran down toward the sea to +hold in the pale sandy strip edged with foam. Over my head the +procession of clouds. + +Sunday morning. The voice of the chimes from the old church, buried in +the heart of the island, was music sent by the air and tinted blue by +the waters. At each stroke you expected to see space divided in two. + +The sea was smooth and sleek with dark, wide, winding oily tracks, which +looked like roadways traced by the sure finger of God. + +Looking down at my feet I saw a sparkling play of meshes of rainbow +light. The iris fragments dented the surface, formed into chains, made a +covering of diamond facets, and drew downward full rainbows resting on +myriads of arches. It was an incessant disappearance and reappearance. + +It was fascinating to watch. The only thing that distracted me was a +swarm of miniature fish darting under the pier more lightly than +insects. For a moment they showed dove-colored, then orange; then they +melted away. You tried to fasten your eyes upon one of the cells of +water, just one. You had it, but no, it was another one. + +The sun was so hot you couldn't lift your head. A broad sunbeam falling +perpendicularly on the hard surface of the sea cut it in a blinding +fissure, which attached the foot of the pier to the horizon. + +Caught between the heat pouring down from the heavens and the freshness +rising from the water, my body lost its sense of weight, form, +equilibrium, and even of breathing. Every bit of feeling was gone from +my legs, my neck was burning. My soul and eyes existed for nothing +except the stable yet ever-changing mosaic which laughed a thousand +laughs at the face of the sky. + +There was nothing but light. Substance, eyes, body, memories, all seemed +to be losing themselves and making a plunge into light. + +There really was one moment in which I ceased to be. My existence +underwent a momentary eclipse. I was no longer some one obstinately +facing a realm of infinity in order to measure its limits, a very small +creature who wanted to add herself to nature. I was the immense, +permeating idea of the ocean, the sun and the sky. + +It was between the singing ether and the silvery water that I seemed to +foresee my nothingness, because when consciousness left me and I ceased +to be, the sparkling eyes of the sea formed again, the blue oily tracks +unfurled themselves, the glittering fissure sucked in the same line, the +blue deep followed its unchanging course. Everything kept on behind me. + + +VI + +Nothing but women.... + +Not a single pretty one. Two, four, ten, a hundred ... there must be two +hundred.... Not a single pretty one.... + +To be sure, the weak unsteady light discolors their faces and throws +drab blotches around their features, but that alone does not account for +the general stamp of dullness which makes them seem like a flock of +widows. The two men sitting apart on the crosswise bench like +well-behaved children who have just been punished, have a sorry air, not +at all the air of having done it on purpose. + +I am impatient. A woman addressing other women.... What is she going to +tell us? Will the audience brighten up? + +I am standing with my back to the platform facing the door to keep watch +for Eva for whom I am reserving a seat beside my own.... Alas, something +for a merciless eye to feed upon! I can hardly bear to look at that +uncultivated field of dingy heads. But there is nothing better to turn +to--moldy walls picked at and peeling, smeary stains on a colorless +floor. Your ears are pierced by a rising babel. + +Eva at last.... I draw a breath of relief and feel, as I always do, like +saying "Thank you" to her. Great floodgates open, my poise is +restored--a living proof.... Why this blitheness? Because of her smile, +her radiance, her frankness, the glory she carries about with her from +the clear image of her child and husband? I do not know. She exists, +that's all. When I think of her, I have a complete sense of happiness +and confidence.... Perhaps this is friendship. + +She has a little trouble making her way through the hall. Her head, set +in velvet, rises above the field of heads like a taller, brighter +stalk; the precious gems of her eyes show in full. She sees me, her face +brightens.... "Thank you," I say, very low just to myself. After all +there will be one fine face in the room. + +We had scarcely shaken hands and seated ourselves when silence fell, +broken here and there by coughing. + +The speech. + +The woman making the speech is also ugly. Yet what resources in that +ample body. Under the armor of her corset, there are fine, noble lines, +I am sure. Under her sausage sleeves there are the arms of a mother, +even perhaps of a woman in love; the huge pancake on the nape of her +neck shows she has long shining hair silky to the touch; and what +tenderness in the depth of her eyes which dart glances in our direction. +If she dared, what sweetness.... + +She came to speak to us from a platform for the purpose of conveying her +idea and a little of her soul, unaware that a valiant soul is a visible +soul. The only means we have of showing our souls, sharing them and +giving them freedom, are the ordinary means--our actions, the bare flesh +of our lips, the sincere tears of our eyes, our bodies which encase our +souls, our smiles which beautify our souls, and our voices. + +This woman's soul is a strained voice, but how marvellous. The rows in +the audience remain stationary, each head staying fixed in the position +it held at the first word she uttered. + +The women's horrid cares, their marketing, their husbands, their +children, their dishwashing, their difficulty in making ends meet, all +the everyday trifles that weigh on women and enslave them, are driven +far away. The pale blonde with faded eyes beside Eva probably made the +same O of her mouth when she spelled out her letters as a child. The old +woman nodding "Yes, yes"--the two plumes in her bonnet respond "Yes, +yes"--has forgotten her stupid drudgery. + +They are all stamped with a sort of pathetic imprint; love is their +element, their strength, their medium. They listen with love and +understand through love. Love gives them this serious, fixed +attentiveness. + +The woman with the burning insignia of her stove on her fiery cheeks has +lost all traces of worry except for the scolding expression of the +mother whom you imagine with a horde of children jumping round her like +little rabbits. And the thin girl with the dusky gaze--we've all seen +her kneeling in the shadow of a confessional mumbling her sins with her +mouth glued to a wooden grating from the other side of which comes the +warm breath of a man without a face--what ardor she, too, is capable of! + +Instead of the voice of the speaker on the platform it is the women's +outcries that I hear. + +These women have been imprisoned by themselves, hampered by their own +lives, and what lives! what a miserable heap of desires and troubles in +the face of the immense thing which gathers all beings together and +makes them resemble one another, the thing unanimous and intangible that +I hardly see. I don't even know its name. Before it I am like a blind +man who has never seen the sun, but suddenly feels it shining on his +forehead and exclaims: "There is light!" It is this _thing_ that has +made all these women come here to-night and bestow their childish +presence, their somewhat uncouth attention, their tragic lips which +would kiss everything. Do they feel the great current rising from them +which seeks to be caught and held fast, a current altogether new in the +human atmosphere?... Not yet. Not yet. + +How subdued Eva looks; her gaze seems clipped short; she's frowning. Her +expression makes me uncomfortable. + +Hands flutter like white leaves; a bow from the platform; the meeting is +over. + +The auditors stretch themselves a little, then rise to the accompaniment +of clattering benches, gossamer sighs, and the sound of two hundred +bodies moving and coming back to themselves. A faint cackling, then a +full chorus of barnyard noises mounting and spreading. + +I plant myself up against the wall to let them pass and see who will +cast thorny glances at my hat, dress and shoes. + +"Come on," cries Eva. Her forehead is drawn in hard lines. "Come on." + +Outside, the night blowing upon the parting groups of women gives their +scattered voices resonance. + +Eva takes my arm ... but no, I feel like being by myself. I repel her +bluntly, as you throw aside a branch you have broken. She instinctively +draws her cloak around her. + +"What an absurd evening! Those women!" she says. + +She is right, I am sure. Every one of the women, it was easy to see, was +ugly and petty, but together, multiplied and magnified, their +individualities wiped out, they revealed I cannot say what unformed +hope, what substance, what richness.... If only I could explain this to +Eva! + +"Hurry, hurry, here comes my street-car! Good night!" + +The buzzing of an electric bell, an intense disk of light, another +buzzing, and the little illuminated house stops. With a flutter of her +skirts and a wave of her hand, Eva disappears. + +Has she really gone? Goodness, what is she carrying away with her?... + +In the nebulous depth of the long avenue I can still distinguish a +vanishing star gliding along its mechanical path. + +I had said: "Here is my friend, my companion, my sister." On this +evening, tender as dawn, she has left behind in me a great emotion which +she does not understand. + + +VII + +"A lady," the fat concierge told me. "Been here twice. Well, a sort of +lady, a ... you understand. Her cheeks--her skirt--you can see her legs +up to here.... Believe me or don't believe me, but she's twin pea to +your Marie. If she comes back, what shall I tell her? I won't let that +sort into my house! Eh? Kick her out?" + +"Oh but, M. Etienne, I am at home to-day. Let her come up." + +I closed my door blushing. + +Through the banisters I recognized her. Actually Marie! + +"Come in...." + +She went in ahead of me to the dining-room--"my dining-room," she used +to call it--and seated herself deliberately. Genuine timidity hides +itself behind a mask of absurd audacity. + +"Marie ... Marie ... is it possible?" + +She was wearing a large red straw hat turned up at one side and weighted +down on the other side by a nodding mass of huge black plumes, two tall +elastic antennae, the sort worn by horses drawing hearses. Under the +chalky enamel you couldn't see her freckles, but her eyes, her lovely +eyes of purest aquamarine, with glints of indigo from her blackened +lashes, still retained their dewy look of astonishment. + +Here was Marie. At last I was going to know why she was so mute and why +she ran away one evening without taking along her bundle of clothes or +her prayer-book. I was going to find out how a poor little servant girl +rebelling against kindness could become a poor little swaggering +over-dressed prostitute. + +"I have come for my things." + +"They are still here, Marie; I'll go and get them." + +But I couldn't budge. This phenomenon coming so close to me was +appalling. I looked at her. She had the soft, awkward charm of a little +astonished beast. Seated there in my presence she made an ingenuous, +piteous sight, like a ladybird you're afraid of crushing, or a wilful +timid lamb withdrawing from your caress. + +I noticed all sorts of minutiae--that she carried a cloth hand-bag, an +exact copy of a bag of mine, and tied her shoe-latchets the very same +way I did mine; was very neat, her shoes polished, her hands clean, her +neck fairly waxed with soap. Her gaze, once aimless and imprisoned, +harpooned the things in my room and withdrew freighted with +discoveries.... And she gave me acid, persistent looks like the looks +one woman gives another. "Has she aged?" her looks questioned, "has she +changed, is she prettier?" Her eyes roved around the room. "Ah, that +little etagere was not there in my time, nor that engraving.... Who's +doing her work? The place looks well kept." She parted the collar of her +jacket at the opening to show off her imitation brooch. The child had +become feminized, she seemed older than ever. + +"Why, Marie? Why?" + +I couldn't restrain myself any longer. She leaned her elbow on the +table. When she raised her eyes, they were underlined with red and two +slow tears cut little pathways down the powder on her cheeks. I jumped +up and took her hands. + +"I didn't like--I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't my +fault. No one cared about me...." + +The great answer to the riddle. They all have this devouring need. What +they ask of love and look for in love is "someone to care about them." + +"And then my hair, my Breton dress ... everybody stared at me. 'Aren't +you ashamed?' I used to think." + +Another need--to be like other people, to be just as good as anyone +else--why not?--to have a bag like madam and hats like the hats you see +on the street.... + +"That's all," she added. + +It was all. When women sell themselves, it is not poverty necessarily +that drives them to it. You don't know the hell of jealousy that burns +in all of us. There are some women who make themselves beautiful less +for the sake of pleasing men than for annoying other women. + +"You must be unhappy." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Is a poor little thing like Marie sensual? Women are rarely sensual. If +they are, they have not been so from the start; they have become so. + +Her Breton accent came back. "Madam," she said in her singsong of four +years ago and in the same servile tone. Now she felt like relieving +herself and telling me everything. There was one man who really didn't +disgust her, but he was at the front, and if only he could come back! In +the meantime she practiced economies and perhaps they could fix up a +home and perhaps he would marry her. But if he did not come back, +then-- + +I had been to blame, I alone. I had been satisfied to deplore her grim +silence and do nothing. But I ought to have humiliated myself so as to +earn her smile. I ought by talking to her to have driven out of her +heart the longing to equal and surpass which prevents us all from being +human sisters. I should have.... + +We are all to blame for the prostitutes, we are the ones at whom the +stones should be cast. Nearly all of them are little Maries with the +craving for just one man, the peaceful healthy desire for a secure +hearth, but we tolerate poverty, and we don't know how to talk to each +other. + +She put her package under her arm. I did not know what to do. I went up +to her, humble of heart, and rather awkwardly kissed her cheek streaked +by tears and sullied by paint. + +She started, shaken by a revulsion. The liquid blue of her eyes turned +sharp and aggressive, her lips narrowed; she held her little bag close +like booty. Then she departed, leaving the door open for the smoky +darkness of the landing to creep into my rooms. She had the untamable, +sullen expression of a hunted beast. + + +VIII + +Twenty days passed without news. + +When I woke up, the early sunlight had a reassuring effect, the morning +chattered familiarly, my terror of the night before took wings like a +fancy. Hope swelled within me. + +The postman's ring, sharp, strident, unbearable, reopened the wound. I +rushed to the door. Nothing. A circular, an ordinary letter which I +didn't have the will to open. + + * * * * * + +It was exactly twenty-two days. I forced myself to sit down at the +table, but my courage was completely gone, and the alarms of the night +which haunted the room gripped me by the throat. Well, there would be +something to-morrow. It was impossible.... + +Anxiety, from the moment it began, made me neglect myself--no prinking, +no housework, dust powdering my furniture. The most I did was to turn +back my bedclothes. What did all these things matter? I wanted to sleep, +sleep.... + +Coming back from work I slipped into my flannel dressing gown and +slippers and let down my hair. I did not even take the time to warm up +my dinner prepared beforehand in the morning. The plate was on the +table, an orange, a piece of bread.... I'd eat. + +I couldn't. The mouthfuls choked me. I couldn't do one thing. I was +overwhelmed, almost paralyzed, by an unconquerable weakness. I threw +myself in my armchair. I would put the room in order the next day. I +would work twice as hard, but not to-night.... + +Sleep.... + +Torpor gained complete possession of me. The darkness gathered, and when +the last streak of twilight came through the window fluttering on my +eyelids, a little hope returned. + +After all, twenty-two days was not so terrible. Many people had had to +wait longer. Hadn't I had to wait sixteen days once? Letters get lost on +the way. + +I visualized a scene--a hospital ward, a row of beds, white coverings, +nurses. How was it I had not thought of it before? Wounded!... A slight +wound which kept him from writing.... I welcomed the certainty. It was +so comforting that I tried to hold on to it by jumping right up and +shaking off anxiety and being happy. Anxiety is an insult to love. + +I groped for the lamp, turned on the light, and laid some reading matter +on the table. The disorder was dismal but--to-morrow was another day. I +sat down to read. + +The lines leapt at my eyes. You'd have thought them an army of ants +running over the page, running, yet always remaining at the same place. +Should I try to work? Should I try to make up a package for him? That +would be two packages this week, but two are not a whole lot. + +My heart gave a great leap. The door-bell rang. Who could it be at this +hour? My very life went round in a whirlwind, I flew to the door. + +Some one in black shrinking in the dark doorway in the humble attitude +of a sister of charity requesting alms for the poor. My aunt Finot! + +I murmured a few little hypocrisies and put up my hair. I was fuming +inwardly, although actually a little relieved at the prospect of a +visit, which even if tedious would mean a human presence, a tangible +certainty. I was so upset I came near saying "Tante Finot" and giving +away the nickname by which she had been called in the family for twenty +years. + +"Come in, aunt...." + +She stepped in ahead of me, hunching up her body. The disorder struck +me ... my home was usually so neat ... and my dressing gown ... my +run-down slippers-- + +"An awkward hour for a visit, I know," said Aunt Finot, sitting down. +"Are you feeling quite well, dear?" + +"Dear" in that mouth with lips like two tight-drawn catguts! It stabbed +like a dagger.... She sat perched on the edge of the chair twisting the +straps of her hand-bag. The lamplight threw dusky shadows on her +skeleton frame and turned her eyes into the sharp-gleaming eyes of an +executioner. My God! + +"Has anything happened," I asked, "anything dreadful?" + +"You see, dear ... don't get excited ... listen...." + +"Dead!" + +An abyss yawned at my feet, something flashed and grazed my eyelids. +I... + +My aunt rose slowly. I saw her hands on the table knotted like a tangle +of cords. + +"Don't get excited. Your family received bad news, I don't know from +what source. I asked them if it was official. They were all half +crazy--afraid to come and tell you.... I always felt an affection for +you, you know...." + +"Yes, yes, I understand; he's dead." + +There she still stood, her knotted hands on the table, a grin widening +her flat features. There she still stood. + +"Aunt, please leave me alone, please do." + +Perhaps she went on talking a little, perhaps she leaned over to kiss +me, perhaps I heard words falling from her lips like pellets of lead: +"country--trial--sacrifice." The door closed upon my slaughtered love. + +I know I tried to stand up--it was like trying to lift a tombstone--and +drag myself to the window to lean my forehead on the pane; but something +pulled at me from deep within, something cold and incomprehensible, like +a slimy slug, like a deep gash in living flesh. And a strange dizziness, +not entirely physical, threw me back into the armchair. + +The walls of this black hissing pit into which I fell were the walls of +my dining-room, the very same walls papered in a scallop design, and I +saw a cloud of tiny coal-black butterflies, mere specks, whirl without +end from the blackened lamp-chimney. + +My being turned into something enormous and gaping, which fed constantly +upon a great wound. I was so overwhelmed with a senseless horror that at +moments during the night his death seemed quite normal and natural. But +when I withdrew my hand from under my head a multitude of serpents +wriggled about within me, and I felt suffocated again and began to +tumble through emptiness, while little pointed teeth bit my blood and +left behind a penetrating icy poison. + +It has ever been the same, Lord God. Suffering is too monotonous.... +When a bit of sense and ordinary life returned and cried in my ears: "It +is over. Never more," I felt that suffering is too monotonous; and when +a clamor of revolt sounded in my being: "They have killed him!" I felt +that suffering is too monotonous. + +And when the dawn came tapping at the window and creeping toward the +table, drab and livid, when I rose from my bruised knees, and when the +humming and buzzing began in the indifferent house, I still felt that +suffering is too monotonous. + + +IX + +Your beloved is dead. + +News that comes from the depths of the ages or the depths of the flesh; +you can't tell. + +One day--there--a clap of thunder. It bursts from your flesh and tries +to enter your flesh again. It beats at the portals of your heart, +besieges your ears, howls round your entrails, but there is no place for +it, no part of your body wants it, your soul retreats to shelter, your +heart drips black blood, your mind goes round and round. News, News! +Your beloved is dead! + +No need for the thunder to break. I knew it was brewing in me. + +When we used to come back from work and I kissed him with this very +mouth and embraced him with these very arms, pressing him so hard that +he laughed sometimes, it was premonition of the News that kept my lips +sealed to his cheek so long, and turned my arms into iron clutches, and +gave me warning when I woke up, and frightened me in the dark. + +We used to talk about it and try to imagine what separation by death +would be like. "If I die, if you die." We wanted to provide against it, +we had accepted it. + +My beloved, the knowledge of misfortune is not the misfortune itself; +the knowledge of death is not death itself. When we were together we +never imagined I should suffer so much. When people are together, they +can't imagine what it is to be alone. + +It is like childbirth over again, I assure you: I remember your face +when I shrieked in travail. I am more torn now, and you are not here to +hold my hands. + +Why do they all say suffering is necessary and ennobling? I can testify +that suffering doesn't do any good. + +I used to be a gay, active woman, who went about with chest expanded, a +body full of pleasure, lips like kisses, and cheeks alive with color. I +used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and stay up until late at +night. After the day's work in the evening I'd say "to-morrow" as if +anticipating the loveliest day in the world. I had poverty, laughter, an +appetite, I had a perfect union with another, and I maintain that this +counts. I led a life according to my own will; I had a bright child. I +had all this, I _was_ all this, this was my lot.... + +To-day I am a woman whose eyes are swollen and corroded with salt tears, +whose features are sharpened, whose shoulders stoop, whose black dress +bags on her reduced figure, whose eyes are turned inward, whose house is +untidy and whose evenings drop into darkness without the lamplight. My +little one has to call me.... I love him without a smile, and as for +myself, I hate myself. + +I used to try to be kind and make it pleasant for people in my home. I +am like a thistle withered on its stem, I am like a fruit cut open and +thrown out on the street. I am useless and bitter--I am bad. + +When people come to me, I feel the pricking of their thorns, and I +wallow in gall. They are all enveloped in an awful respect for death. It +revolts me. + +My family comes to visit me, each one of them chockful of advice and +dropping honied words.... Yet I was more worthwhile when I was happy. +Why didn't they incline themselves when there was still time? They seem +to send up a cry of relief. "At last! You're suffering! At last a person +can approach you!" They console me and lull me; they are crows +quarreling over the remains of a charnel-house. + +But when they have the effrontery to extol his virtues, it is too much; +my grief springs to the attack. The idea! They hated him while he lived! +Keep quiet, don't insult him! I wish to be alone with the knowledge that +he is dead. + +But I don't utter a word; grief has lips of stone; I keep my secret +locked within me while seeming to listen to them. I sit in front of the +fire, my hair loose, my forehead drawn, watching the flames blaze and +the embers fall. After all, their presence, their footsteps pawing the +silence, mean only a little additional pain. Time passes, and they're +sure to go eventually. + +Has the door closed on them? I don't know. I can hardly move. + +I am alone with you, my knees clasped in my hands, while the castle in +the fire slowly crumbles on its gray dust. + +Some mourners at least have the consolation of mourning real dead--real +dead whom they have seen stiffen into death, whose last words they have +received, whose last agonies they have tried to soothe, for whom they +have done everything they could. + +But you, beloved, are you dead? I don't even know. "Fallen on the field +of honor?" What does that mean? Was it in the evening or the morning? +Were you alone? Did you cry out? Did you suffer terribly? Did you open +your eyes once more? Perhaps you couldn't, perhaps you called and called +for me? Perhaps you thought I should have come? Ah yes, I should have +been there; it is my fault. I have always cured you, you know I have. I +simply had to hold your head in my hands and your pain was eased. + +But I didn't die--I didn't die at the moment of your death, that moment +too frightful to speak of. I didn't die when life was drowned in your +mouth. We knew the whole truth concerning each other, yet when you were +dying I may have been smiling. + +For fifteen nights, fifteen days, fifteen years my heart has been crying +that you are dead and that it has lost the hope of ever seeing you again +in your clothes exactly as you used to look, with that manner of +yours.... Fifteen days since I have been trying to learn again, begin +all over again, and call everything into question again. Fifteen days of +impotence. I see only what is. + +There is earth on your hands, on your eyes, on every part of your body +wherever it may be. Your feet are cold and gray like the feet of a +pauper, your skin is bloated, worms are preying upon you. I don't want +to--I cannot see you as you are. When I think of you I have a false +vision of your living self with your cheeks of the color of life and +your dear natural gestures. How can I help being all bewildered? Nothing +is left. Even the memory of you changes from day to day. I can no longer +recall the right tone of your voice. Your corpse is hidden. It is as if +I were suffering for no reason at all. + +Not to know how to suffer, perhaps that is what suffering is.... Not to +divine where you are, is that your death? + +The sparkling hearth-fire has scattered and gone out. Fire has devoured +fire. A few embers reddening here and there, a porous heap of fanciful +firebrands. + +And now, and now, my beloved, if I no longer see you, I do see the +consuming truth. I see it and here it is: I let you go. I consented. +There's no doubt of it, it was _I_ who killed you.... + + +X + +I felt a great need for fresh air and light. What the nature of this +hunger and thirst was I cannot tell.... The sunshine suddenly lighted up +the window-frame. Its golden rays coming through the open casement and +falling obliquely upon the objects in my room filled it with numerous +fires. It was a salute. + +To be out of doors, to walk, to feel the sun on my skin! + +I had a letter to mail. The thought of it brought me to my feet, +impatient, ready. + +Should I take the little one along? But how about a good long walk, the +semblance of distraction?... I decided to go alone. + +With my eyes close to the image in the mirror, I powdered my face and +puffed my hair on each side under my hat as I used to do. How the least +prinking helps a woman! Instead of the really ugly pointed little face +smeared with pallor, which, without arousing my shame, had visibly +lengthened these past weeks, there was a face of warm, even whiteness +and of an oval not so pronounced, eyes which, even if dark-rimmed, had +lost their fixity, and a shower of red tendrils like coppery breaths +blown on my forehead. + +The early spring was making itself felt. A raw wind was raising the dust +of the streets. Assailed at the first step by the blue, dancing, +swirling air, I walked falteringly, like a prisoner who has just been +released and doesn't know where to turn. + +Everything the same. The old bridge still stretching its badly joined +planks from the paved street to the road where the wistaria bloomed. The +patched, mossy roof of the old wash-house a few steps from the mill +still displaying its dog's-eared edges. The same vistas across the green +breaches between the houses. + +Every corner of the town held out a memory to me--here a two-year-old +memory, here a distinct vision crouching. I called to the vision and +welcomed it. My life was not dead, and my heart was open and there was +still a man to love me.... + +I had been unjust in the black moment of despair. My share of love and +light still remained. Did he know I was a widow? Since he had been taken +prisoner six months ago, no news had reached me and I didn't know if he +had received any of my letters. + +The broad sunshine expanded my chest and warmed up a vision so tender--a +hope or a memory--that I was stung by a pang of remorse and almost felt +like chasing it away. + +I reached the center of the town, where there were more people and +especially more well-to-do people. + +Feminine figures, which I recognized, came toward me at a dull gait. I +knew them; I had seen these old ladies at prayers two years before. They +wore the same dresses and the same hats, the sort you don't see anywhere +except in the provinces.... Hypocritical hands as I passed the houses, +lifted the crocheted curtains. I was preceded by mystery and followed by +whisperings. + +Every passerby seemed to be blaming me for the dazzling sunlight which +my eyes were embracing; every house scowled, and the whole street, in +spite of the pleasant weather, wore veritable mourning, not mere sadness +and solemnity, but mourning, and the people looked as though they were +in a slow funeral procession, the women strangled in black, upholstered +in crepe, and buried alive in their hoods and veils. + +The Cathedral square was resplendent with profane joy. The birds swooped +from one to the other of the great, white-dappled plane-trees, and every +now and then one perched on the statue in the fountain, a clumsy girl +with petticoat of stone and turned-up sleeves, a decent bosom bared, a +sheaf in one arm, and an eternally dried-up urn in the other arm. +Through its high lanceolate windows and the tracery of the two +rose-windows Notre Dame was drinking in light and making mock of its +ancient front. + +It was a brilliant day, and the world rejoiced. I tasted the savor of +living. In spite of myself I fell into the nervous, elastic step of old +and drank in the living air like an intoxicating elixir. + +An idea took lodgment--he was familiar with this scene, these crabbed +shops, hostile promenaders, and square of bourgeoning; he had walked on +these cobblestones; and at the edge of the town was his little summer +villa. The idea went round and round, very fast; and I was weak; so I +clutched at it for support. + + * * * * * + +Another veiled woman in black.... + +That figure tending to heaviness but graceful and in the very mould of +femininity is not unfamiliar. I have seen the woman before. You can +tell from a distance that she wears the mark of the widow, a hood-like +hat faced with white. + +She too;... + +I am interested in her. In the country you are interested in everybody +you meet. + +Who is she, I wonder. She seems to be about forty, but neither her hair +nor her cheeks have lost their freshness. Who.... + +My heart bursts, alarm comes rushing, misfortune approaches.... She +walks toward me--she is only a few feet away.... If she would only +stop ... it is she ... his wife! + + * * * * * + +In the time it takes to walk only a few feet you can undergo the acutest +agony. I held my breath and for a second time felt death strike me with +its thunderbolt. I had time to become a widow too. + +She advanced terribly: it was death advancing along the sidewalk. I felt +I must detain and implore her. With jaws set I restrained a great +convulsive outcry and flung myself in her way.... My lips gave a sort of +cluck.... She fixed her eyes straight ahead and turned away deliberately +as if from a drunken beggar. + +I looked and looked after her.... + + * * * * * + +She departs--forever--her skirt grazing the ground. Her veil carries +away the remnant of my joy, leaving me there stupefied and convulsed, +alone under the sun. She departs.... + +My God!... + + +XI + +My son is growing up. + +He has reddish-brown ringlets, his cheeks are vermilion, the blue of his +eyes radiates seraphic calm. He is probably going to be very handsome. +Often people stop me on the street to tell me how lovely he is, and for +a moment I feel some pride. + +He is beginning to show human traits; he talks, he expresses a desire to +touch and possess things, and likes to listen to stories, which used to +make no appeal: "And then, Mamma? Tell me, what next?..." I always begin +by kissing him. + +My heart has grown with him. I have just begun to feel that his +existence is rooted in my own existence. What welds me to him are not +only the pains I take for him, or my perpetual anxiety. I am welded to +him by the kisses he already gives me. When he says "Mamma" in his +inimitable way, I am proud and overwhelmed; when he puts his arms round +my neck, it is as if I were usurping a reward too perfect for me. + +The terror with which he filled me when he was so little and frail is +disappearing. I have rocked him, watched over him and suckled him; he +has strong legs and a strong body; nevertheless a much greater terror is +growing in me. + +The greatest terror of my life. To bring up a child, to hold in your +hands not only what he will be, but what he may be; and to decree +everything, the colors he looks at, the words he hears! To give birth a +second time to a living creature. To be worthy of it.... + +And to have nothing to help you but a heart wise yet too intellectual, +the heart of an adult. + +To have this timid heart, the maternal heart, too prompt and misleading. + +Not to have anything else! + + +XII + +I was sitting on the grass beside the rugged, windswept path which +follows the curve of the sea. Instinctively I straightened up out of my +careless attitude into the attitude of a woman in danger. + +He is coming closer, he is very near.... + +He forces himself to assume the indifferent, I don't-know-you air of +some one happening to be passing by, but he shortens his strides, and in +spite of himself his face dilates and beams with the delight of the +hunter striking the trail. A little more, and he'd let out a whistle. + +Should I try to escape through the woods by cutting across the railroad +track? Should I?... + +"How do you do?" + +"How do you do?" + +The man is handsome, decidedly handsome, even in the full light, and I +smile at his coming as I smiled a few moments ago when the sun climbed +over the slope. + +I had always seen him in the dusk when he returned to his smart white +house held fast in a coil of green. He would stop a moment at the rusty +gate and give me a lingering glance out of his long-lashed eyes. +Yesterday evening when we passed each other on the road, his eyes were +like black enamel, but now in the bare light of the morning they are of +a more crystalline gray than the sea. + +A tragic duel of looks ... a thousand questions asked and answered ... +wonderful understanding ... dizziness ... unbearable dizziness. + +He stands balancing himself on his feet searching the ground for the +nascent lie. Then he puts a direct, confident question--is this +magnificent weather going to last? I in my turn dissemble and scrutinize +the silent, motionless horizon. + +Safe! Hypocrisy between us. He has found a suitable topic and exploits +it cleverly in jerky little phrases, rather sensual, like the kisses you +give a child. He points his three-cornered head at me and tosses back +his thick black mane. + +He shuffles his feet. "Answer me," beg the glittering eyes. "Answer +me.... I am asking you a question...." + +No, I don't want to answer. A word thrown out now and then with the +fervent assurance one always has under a desirous gaze; also the +defensive attitude men force upon you. I lean over and begin to pluck +the rich grass methodically, producing a fine, fresh scent and the dry, +peaceful sound of a browsing beast. Two bare spots in the velvety slope +and several light blades zigzagging in the wind.... + +Will he go? + +He understands. His chest collapses like a pair of bellows and he draws +his two long legs together ostentatiously. + +Why this tricky manoeuvring? Why thoughts unspoken? I am a part of the +tender landscape to him, and I realize he is looking at me tenderly. Why +not dare to make a pure, natural confession? + +"Good-bye?" + +"Good-bye." + +I can't be irritated with this man; I haven't the courage to; the +weather is too lovely. + +When you see the jolly morning frolicking on the road in cap-and-bells +and look over where the blue curve of paradise lovingly touches the +brown curve of the earth, all you feel is a warm indulgence. + +It is too beautiful. The trees mingle their branches, the rays of +sunshine mingle their warmth, the birds mingle their songs. Down below, +the tide is coming in with the rush of clanking chains submerged by a +host of swift, frisky little waves.... + +And this man with the knavish eyes is nothing more than a black particle +blown by the wind to the end of this promontory where a few clustered +pines taper into the azure. + +It is too beautiful. All you can do is close your eyes. + +I close them--to shut out for a while the dazzle of the water in the +indigo basin, the thousand golden bubbles in its centre, the thousand +silver teeth biting at its edge. I don't want to think any more. All I +want to feel are the warm darts which pierce my hands resting on the +grass and the peculiar sense of well-being which takes the place of +everything else.... + +Have I really slept?... Sweetness, the sweetness of lips kissed by +breezes, a sweetness complete and overwhelming ... a delicious life. + +But ... this black gown ... my dead ... I have nothing but my grief, +nothing but my grief. What wrong have I perpetrated that my grief should +forever sing in my ears? + +Ah, just to forget.... Everywhere the earth breathing happiness, the +blue, blue rolling waves, the almond trees veiled in faery whiteness, +everywhere the nuptials of joy. + +Grief, where are you? Everywhere space terribly alive, with hope in +every color and death just died for the last time. + + +XIII + +It happened as it does in novels. The man suddenly feels the beast of +prey panting within him and yields to it hotly; the woman writhes under +the fiery coercion and gropingly reassumes the ancient ways that have +come down from time immemorial.... + +Even to the words I used. Where did they come from, the words that cut +him like a lash, whipped up his desire, and then fell on his face like +drops of ice water? + +I was ashamed. I straightened my hair and left the room. How was it +nothing warned me that I must be on my guard against the man alongside +of whom I had been working daily? Had I been blind? I tried to extract +something significant from my recollections ... but no.... + +I am going to leave him soon, and I must speak to him. + +His disappointment gives him a humanizing air of meekness. It inclines +me to him. You feel intensely that other doors are open and, if you +wanted to, you could knock and gain admittance. + +This grim laconic man, whose ways are confined to the ways of command, +who has been sterilized and handcuffed by the barren power which money +confers, looks at me intently with eyes raised like a child's. Women are +wrong in supposing that a man forsakes them when he renounces his +desire. + +I speak to him disconnectedly, but I am leading up to what I want to +say. And he moves his face a little forward and still a little further +forward; it's as though he were drawing closer, step by step, step by +step. And everything external about me is effaced by degrees, my +sunshiny hair, my mouth, my body present but concealed, my entire +femininity. An infallible instinct tells me this. He takes in my voice +alone, and is surprised that my voice talks nothing but sense. But he +is going to know if it will talk sense straight to the end, so he +settles himself more comfortably in his armchair, lets his eyebrows +relax, and loses all thought of himself. His logic is being appealed to. + +"Now as to your money ... you know if I married you it would not be for +your love.... Your money?... It doesn't count? You're right, it doesn't +count.... I might not have discovered it at once. I might have said, as +I did the other day, that I don't love you. I might also have thought of +my aversion to the idea of marriage. Don't look like that. Marriage as +it is to-day is immoral and stupid. Don't say my marriage was perfect. +The man I lost was a rare soul. For ordinary people like you and me +marriage brings nothing but misfortune and mediocrity. + +"To marry is to lie, to deceive both yourself and the other one; and +when a man and a woman harbor infinite hopes, when they look out upon +perpetually changing horizons, when they have the choice of all the +roads in the world, and the whole of life spreads out before them, it is +absurd to suppose that they can ever subject themselves to each other. + +"You marry, you pledge your soul, you promise your flesh. Once +imprisoned, you maim yourself, and should the call of love some day +become too strong, what other alternative than to lie or break the +chains? Deceit or catastrophe; there is no choice. Love does not +reconcile the primitive hatred between man and woman: on the contrary, +it sharpens it; and for two people to venture upon the impossible +enterprise of joining together two opposite destinies the full length of +their courses, requires a spirit that neither you nor I possess, a +spirit greater than nature bestows; it also takes the intellect of a +God. I assure you it does.... + +"Perhaps you would have waited till the very end to bring out your trump +argument. But I would have rejected your seductive words angrily. They +would not be to the point. The point is, that if I were to become your +wife, my lot would be as I have described it. + +"You lean forward, you approve what I say. + +"The simple fact is, I couldn't live. There would be no use my trying. I +should not have the strength every day to witness a real death unless I +had the tiredness and the sort of forgiveness that come from hard work. +I simply couldn't eat with appetite, I couldn't sleep in peace. + +"And in the morning, if I did not know that this exultation, this unruly +vigor, this swarming of scattered inclinations could not be controlled, +dammed and curbed by laws ... no, I would not dare to begin to live +again.... + +"In a single day there are too many temptations, in a single body too +many feelings; the inner life, remote and _secondary_, must learn +through humble duty to subdue itself by merely keeping its attention +fastened upon the external life. If we listened to the goodness, the +heaven we all carry round within us, what would become of us? I for my +part would not be capable of resisting long.... I believe you understand +me. You yourself have felt what a help and support your daily routine +is. I never paid much attention to you, you were only one of the many +supernumeraries on the stage of my work, but I respected you because you +made a part of my efforts, and you too took great pains with your work. + +"Every time I left you, I felt gentler. Though fatigued I felt free to +think of myself, buoyant, wiser, unloaded, as if my sins had been +forgiven me.... I had paid my debt; I owed nothing. + +"I do not know if work in itself is a good deed. God probably never +meant it for us. Not to lie does not mean to discern the truth, and to +work is not to find the truth, but it is to have the right to advance +toward truth and put oneself in a state of grace and health. + +"Then remember that you dared to offer me this miserable fate, me who in +doing the same work lived beside you as if under the same roof, who felt +imbued with an austere ardor. But you saw nothing, learned nothing, +understood nothing. You horrified me. What you did yesterday! Good +heavens! You attacked, I defended; we are quits. + +"And the money spread out glitteringly to gag me at night.... + +"You must be just. While you were going through your day's work it never +occurred to you that I had my day's work too, and my strong arms and +the energy and chastity deep-seated in my body.... What was the value, +the slight importance I possess as a person to you? What was my peace to +you? + +"Even if you make fun of the exigencies of the soul, do you think it's a +question of the soul alone? And how about one's relation to other +people? You go out of your house on to the street, you see the crowds on +their way to shops, offices and factories. You have to look the +working-people in the face.... Tell me, how do the men and women who +have _nothing to do_ look the workers in the face? + +"I see this doesn't touch you. You are withdrawing. To keep you leaning +toward me, I myself and I alone have to be the subject under discussion. +I must be uncovered, laid naked, by what I say...." + +I felt a sudden surge of blood to my cheeks and my lips; our looks +crossed like swords. + + * * * * * + +Here I am with nothing more to do, my arms hanging at my sides, the +sudden weight of my useless words on my shoulders. The man follows my +example and rises. + +"I shall go away, very far away. Don't mind. That's the good of being a +woman who works; you're not afraid. You may be at the mercy of +misfortune, which is always lurking, but not at the mercy of human +beings.... + +"That's all, I'll go now...." + +In the silence that cuts in I feel how this man is wishing I'd never +go--wishing it so strongly that for a moment he touches love and a path +is opened along which I could take a step, but only a single step, no +more. + +My eyes stare into space. I hear the mournful, eternal good-bye you say +to things--this table at which I worked, the afternoon sunlight laughing +through the window, all the familiar objects, which reel slightly from +the separation now beginning, from the nascence of everything that is to +be.... + +He presses my hand. And I think of all the men you could convince if you +wanted to take the trouble.... + +If you had the time.... + +If life were not a choice. + + +XIV + +Her head is nodding and dropping lower and lower, her fingers are gently +loosening their hold on the square of embroidery: my mother has gone to +sleep. + +She comes to see me frequently now, and always arrives panting, loaded +down with luscious fruit or bottles of golden wine "from your father." +When she prolongs her stay after dinner too late to return home that +night, I give my room up to her. You can tell--poor mother--that her +visits are undertaken for duty's sake--pilgrimages on which she never +fares forth without a preliminary struggle: "That child--you can't +leave her all alone--you've got to be sorry for her." + +When I opened the door for her this evening, I could see there was +something on her mind. Her face was drawn, and contrary to her wont she +kissed me two or three times. Was there going to be a battle? + +Dinner was over, but I still waited. + +"Oh, by the way, my dear, this idea of yours--your plan to go away--it +isn't serious, is it? How about your position? Are you really going to +carry things to such extremes? Your obstinacy is very annoying. What +whimsies you used to have when you were a young girl, that faddy notion +about earning your own living ... and marrying against our will--yes, +against our will.... Your poor husband is dead; so you've paid, and your +father and I are willing to let bygones be bygones. If you come and live +with us, you know you'll lead a nice quiet life and have everything you +need. Your room will be kept in order for you, I will help you bring up +the boy, you will be able to go out as much as you want to. We will give +you perfect freedom.... And you mustn't forget you still have a future, +you're young.... Why don't you say something? Am I an enemy? Am I not +considering your good?" + +My mother floundered for more arguments. So to avoid idle discussion I +threw my arms around her neck. + +She smiled a good full smile, thinking the battle was won and everything +was settled without much difficulty.... Now that she was satisfied, her +best arguments came crowding: she had known from the start that I would +agree with her. + +"You haven't only just yourself to consider, you see. When a woman has a +child, she doesn't do any and everything she feels like doing." + +Now I had to explain! + +"Mamma, dear...." + +I was biting my lips and probably wore the same obstinate look I did as +a little girl, because she pushed me away and her eyes flashed. + +"And what about us? In what sort of a position do you think it places +us?... Think a little. People will see you suddenly running away as if +we had refused to take you in. What do you think we'll be taken for? And +you, my goodness! How will it look for a young woman to go away all by +herself, on an adventure?" + +Her face was purple, her voice came out in a rush, her arms extended +beyond her shadow. She was quite beside herself. + +I don't know what made me do it, whether my worn nerves or my terror at +always, no matter what I did, seeing a gulf yawn between us--I burst +into tears. + +With her stubborn patience my mother often went to extremes, but she +could not resist the argument of tears. She was taken aback. I had +conquered. She put her arms round me in a large, warm, cradling embrace, +planted short little kisses all over my hair, comforted me in my +distress. "Come, dear, don't cry, don't cry." + +I made a tremendous effort to shake off a frightful impression. If I had +had to pay with my life to get rid of it, I would have paid with my +life. But drop by drop the poison filtered into my heart and changed it +into a bitter heart which seemed unlike my own. + +With all the appearance of humility in her drooping shoulders and bowed +head, armed with the tricky sweetness of a person accustomed to +yielding, my mother drew our chairs closer together and tried to console +me at any price by talking of something else. She held out her +needlework. + +"A tray-cover. I noticed you haven't got one.... Rows of hemstitching +with a square of filet in the centre. Do you like it?" + +I dabbed my eyes, forced a smile, and leaned over to watch her draw the +threads. "Wonderful," I said, "marvellously fine, and such tedious +work." I forced myself to fill up the gaps in the conversation. + +The evening flagged slowly and gently. The oil in the lamp was giving +out. A drowse gradually laid itself upon the delicate maternal face; +under the scant light beginning to smell of smoke, it looked almost like +a mummy's. + +She is asleep now. + + * * * * * + +My imagination is free; the frightful impression carries me far back to +a time shrouded in dimness which resembles my childhood days. + +A mere baby still. At night caressing hands tucked me in bed. I held up +my forehead for the kisses of a fairy.... + +A little girl who ran and fell and hurt her forehead and palms and flew +with her troubles to the living Providence. "Did you hurt yourself?... +Ah, you're bleeding!" I felt the thrill of the miraculous wound because +she caught me in her arms and pressed my undeserved suffering to her +heart. Then she tended me, oh, so gently. When she finished, I secretly +regretted that the hurt was assuaged and I had no more blood to offer, +red flowing blood, in exchange for the doting tenderness that it brought +raining down upon me. + +A long illness. A veritable angel hovering all the time. Clouds in my +room, clouds on my bed, and a constant buzzing in my ears. When the +angel moved, a current of freshness reached me, a magnificent hand +raised the head which weighed like a ball of fire, and the heavenly +voice said in the tone of ordinary mothers: "Drink, darling!" + + * * * * * + +When my memory brings me up to the moments of effort, the real moments +which count, I find myself an orphan. + +No, you were not there, mother, when my inner life developed, nor the +first morning when I saw clearly, nor when my love came. You were never +with me at any time when my good will acted, never, never. It was you +who stayed behind and left me. I went on my way. Should I have stopped +to stay behind with you? + +You idolized my littleness, my tears, my naughtinesses. You covered them +all up, I know. But one can't keep on being ill, or naughty, or a little +tot. + +You are the mother, you pardon everything. When father scolded us, you +came with a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your +teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say: +"I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you +are wrong." + +But see here, mother, this is what I have done: will you forgive me +this: + +I have invoked the truth, I have taken pains, I have climbed up, I have +striven, I have had radiant moments, days of flowering, and happiness +was the same age as myself. Mother, have you forgiven me this? + +I am not better-hearted than you, but it is the life about me which +demands that one do more, love more. This is what differentiates and +actually divides us. + +Everything that sings and invites one out into the good old world, the +"out-of-doors," seems pernicious to you. What you would have wanted was +to stand barring the door with your arms crossed and refuse me the fresh +air. You yourself avaricious but destitute would have liked me to salute +your avarice and praise your destitution. "Will you set yourself up in +judgment over your father and mother?" + +Mother, when children grow up, their eyes open.... And if my son sees me +fallen lower than his love, lower than my own love, let him accuse and +condemn me. + +No, it will not always be the same thing, as you say, for that depends +neither upon him nor you, but only upon me. You do not know, you do not +know! + +With its expiring breath the lamp sends out a blackish, leaping light, +which splashes shadows on the pendulous surroundings. + +I had never noticed the puffiness of her lids, nor the sharpness of her +cheekbones, nor the drooping corners of her tender mouth, nor the +flatness and thinness of her hair, which used to be full and flaming as +my own. Never before had I remarked the tragic similarity between the +dead and the sleeping. And I did not know that immutable Truth sometimes +has the ring of a curse and makes you cry, and yet is Truth. + + * * * * * + +The scissors gliding to the floor awakened her with a start. "What, +still crying?" + +She gave the lamp a shake to force a bit of light and said in her +resigned tone, instinctively but unconsciously touching my horrible +thought: "Wipe your eyes, dear ... the dead have to be forgotten...." + + +XV + +The storm raked the streets and stunned the houses.... All night long it +raged; and once the thunder crashed so close by that I jumped out of bed +terror-stricken to make sure the shutters were closed. + +The morning dawned sullen, dragging lazy, gray wings on the earth and +taking flight only at the furious onslaught of the wind. + +To comb my hair I seated myself close to the window with my face to the +mirror on the wall. + +Outside, the downpour and incessant sharp rattle, the blue-lacquered +roofs, the wan drift of the clouds. In front of me, an image which had +my name. + +The more eager a woman is to please, the less she sees _herself_ in the +mirror. What she sees is the idea others have of her, a sort of +consciousness of her power, the irrepressible desire to attract. + +When I sat down before the glass just now, I must have seen _myself_; +suddenly I felt afraid. + +I had raised the tumble of ringlets from my forehead and saw a gleam--my +first white hair. Then I scanned my face closely, pitilessly. At the +outer corners of my eyes a place was preparing for a fine meshwork which +would close up when I laughed. + +A mad need fell upon me--to see myself again and again. Around each +corner of my mouth an invisible line had chosen its pathway; the +perfect oval of my face slipped slightly from its frame; under the chin +there was an imperceptible mass which would never yield to any amount of +massage. + +I wanted to run away, I wanted to look, I wanted.... I tell you my heart +was leaping from between my ribs, so that you could have taken it in +your hand. + +How many years are there left?... Ten years?... Eight years?... Perhaps +only six in which to continue to be the very same woman I am. + +A day will come immersed in the other days, similar to the other days, +when this woman will be dead while I shall live. + +I try to question space. I turn in every direction. The storm has +increased. The rain is coming down in sheets and rebounding in mist. The +polished pavements are cracked by quivering little ripples. The tempest +drives the people ahead like leaves. + +Whence this dread which blows like a typhoon from the future, breathing +on my youth and freezing my blood? Whence these two words which gnaw at +my breast like a canker? Six years.... + +No, no, it is impossible. I believe in the deluge, in the thunder, in +misfortune, in oblivion. Not in that. Why should this face of mine with +its curves, its marble purity and its color change? Why? I have always +had a fair amount of courage, I have always done what I had to do, but +this renunciation, this hideous acquiescence. I haven't got the courage +for that, no, I haven't. + +I am prepared to accept death. If necessary, I will stretch my hands out +to it. Let the one moment of my life which wipes out the other moments +flow into nothingness. Take, strike, I am prepared.... + +But that "six years, no more," should be written on my face, that people +should see my face and I should hold it up smilingly like a ruthless +gift to those I love, that I should bear the signs upon me of dull +decay, wrinkles, falling hair, withered cheeks, and dimmed eyes.... What +if I refuse?... + +I could no longer bear to look into the mirror and see what was going to +be. I held my face to the pane on which a dismal music was drumming. + +I have had deep feelings as plentiful and coming as thick and fast as +these drops of rain; some feelings have been vaster than the soul +itself; but the only feeling truly like woman, the only feeling +essentially woman, which weds her soul while wedding her body, is the +immense desire to be beautiful. I have lived through my love of others, +I love my child as though I were still carrying it, yet all the time, +from waking up in the morning until going to bed at night, year in and +year out, from as far back as I can remember, I was cloaked and upheld +by a will to please. + +I was not more beautiful than other women, but I wanted to be. In spite +of me and in spite of themselves, the men hovered about me, lavish of +their glances. I moved like a ray of joy, life was a festival redder +than war; I expressed myself without saying a word, all hearts were +ready, they gave me more love than I asked for and almost as much as I +needed. + +That was the air I breathed and had to breathe. Is it good, is it bad? +It is an instinct which keeps turning rapidly round and round in you. If +you were to pull it up, it would sprout again. + +Then how can it be that some day, though I shall have done nothing to +bring it on, the territory of this indestructible instinct will be +clouded over and made barren forever after? How can it be that I shall +no longer please if I still want to please? + + * * * * * + +The rain is beating upon the streaked window-pane and glides down +against my cheeks in long transparent tears. Every chink in the room is +an inlet for the wind. Around me there is a wailing as if drawn from a +sad, dreary bowstring. + +Is it the woman of the mirror? Is it the woman that I am? You can't tell +which woman is speaking to the other woman.... + +"So you're of the sort to let yourself be disheartened? + +"You thought you had said all the good-byes there are to say in life. +There is one left, even more awful than the others. You have dragged +yourself over mouldering graves, yet when you arose you found something +to keep you alive. But as yet you are unworthy of this last good-bye: +To survive it, you need a grandeur you don't possess, a more solid +strength than the furtive power you're proud of. You believed you were +pure, and you were quite sure you lived in your entirety. Look!..." + +How ashamed I am, O God. What a stranger the woman opposite me is.... + + * * * * * + +At the outset I said to the husband I chose: "I shall cherish your +happiness as much as I cherish my love for you; and if ever your +happiness assumes the features of another woman, that woman shall be +dear to me." + +When another woman approached, I knitted my brows and formed a secret +vow to blacken her in his eyes. + + * * * * * + +He loved me as you love your life, as you sing, as you kiss. And I +reproached him for not leaning over close enough and telling me tender +things over and over again every day. I had plighted my troth; in order +not to take it back, I needed actions, words; to keep it, I had to put +his heart to the proof. + + * * * * * + +When I came to know another love, my instinct could not rise to the +height of my idea. I did not know how to bring the two men together, nor +did I know how to make the woman who loved him receive the truth. + +And I allowed useless people, useless existences to come to me. I saw +them fighting around me like quarrelsome, chattering sparrows around a +tree; I saw them pillage and carry away in their beaks the ripe fruit of +my days. To know how to live is to know how to choose. I did not know. + + * * * * * + +Everywhere shame. Everywhere in the past, the hell of what I have lost. + +These hands capable of everything have done almost nothing. I contented +myself with little and believed in humility. + +I silenced nearly every appeal within me. I let regard for others govern +and restrain me. I still feel how the imperious look of an unforgettable +passerby once tore me; the rude superior deprecation in that look was +like a cry rising above the night. Several indifferent persons were +about me, my spirit fixed upon them. Perhaps it was the last of my life +which a stranger mercilessly carried off in the depths of his being. I +let him pass. + + * * * * * + +I believed myself beautiful. Beauty is a promise which no woman has ever +kept. I have seen my features in the glass, but I have not looked for +the mission to which I was appointed. What human being ever perceives +that he wears a distinctive badge? + +The wind redoubles in strength and howls in the face of the sky. The +rain-spout near the window is choking, the drops rap-tap-tap on the +pane: "What have you done? What have you done?" + +Lord, I am looking myself in the face. While waiting for the light to +appear and the clouds to scatter, for the damp air to shine between the +drops of sunlight, for the good genius who must teach us to grow old, +for the inaccessible perfection for which I was built, I look and look +at myself.... + + * * * * * + +I went to the window to watch the storm and smoothe my hair. Leaning +toward the mirror it was God I found. + +God is there, I see Him approaching when I approach and smiling when I +smile, God who carries me and whom I carry, God palpitating with faith, +God who lowers His head.... + +I believe in myself. + + +XVI + +I cannot sleep. + +There's no good-bye to say, it is late, everything is ready, and yet I +am stifling in this empty room, which lives only through my sleeping son +and me. + +But he sleeps.... + +I hardly recognize him when he sleeps, and I have to go close to him. He +fell asleep a moment ago and is lying exactly the way I placed him, with +his arm outstretched. Is there anything tenderer and frailer to behold +than this little rounded face with its fine veins and pearly curves? +Beneath his sleep and the warmth of his cheeks, life is working, and +what a hurry it is in! + +I lean down closer, almost touching the fine down of gold on his +forehead, his velvety warmth, his scarcely perceptible breath. As +always, I feel both terrified and transported by this immense +littleness, and consumed by a longing to put my lips to him.... I draw +back: I must not wake him up. + + * * * * * + +I move away from the crib. The will to question the present which is +passing takes a stronger hold of me this evening than usual. + +No, it is not to you I turn, my child. + +The best in me, the true, God, and my soul do not concern you. + +Perhaps I am too hasty in saying this. Perhaps I have paid too much +attention to the gulf between my generation and the old blind +generation. Probably the gulf between your generation and mine is not so +deep, but when I look carefully I do not find that you are the profound +motive. + +Nothing holds out the promise that in the future we can really give each +other a single day. When I look at you, I am astonished that I gave you +life--it is such a miracle to have caused a creature to live. I am at +the verge of the space separating us. I do not find you there. I go my +way, you go your opposite way, and though there be nothing impossible in +the world, our mutual understanding is impossible. I shall never attain +to your height. + +You were born to contradict, since you must surpass, the palpitating +question that I am, my acts, their purpose. You, whom I carried in my +womb nine months, will never be anything but a stranger in my wet eyes +and to the kisses of my lips, a stranger who departs with my blood in +his veins. + +You have come. But I did not sink into the fatal pit that engulfs +mothers, the inevitable snare. It's so hard to resist the weak little +thing which can't talk. How can you be expected to resist? A woman +eclipses herself for the sake of the child she brings into the world, +and at the first cry, the mother is in danger. It is the mother we +should try to save. There's no need to be afraid that the +mother-instinct will cool off. The earth will cool off sooner! + +To have children. Love is born with them, but love is not enough. And to +try with all your might to fulfill your own destiny. And misfortune if +the children fall behind! + +Sleep, my little one.... + + * * * * * + +I have opened the window; the night breathes upon my face. In the wide +outdoors, where the darkness is naked and the freshness is blue, the +expanse opens out like a river. Below, the clustered houses--a sombre +vegetation, a confused, winking mass, a starry profundity, vast and +chaotic, with no boundary lines between city and sky. + +My eyes look tranquilly upon the black future piled up at my feet. My +eyes are no longer restless, because now I know for all time what the +future holds. I know that soon I shall be tired and go to sleep, and +when I wake up in the white daylight my son will put his arms round my +neck so prettily. I will smile, then the time for parting will come. The +hidden days contain the unknown.... But forever and ever it will be +suffering. + +The future is not a question you ask; it is the suffering that awaits +you. Suffering is the answer to every question, and every instant claws +the flesh. If you listen intently, you will hear that the echo of +everything is a sob. + +It is suffering. Suffering does not find a vent, it does not bleed in +any cry, it clings to you, and nothing reveals it because it is +omnipresent, so present and so plain that you can't look for or find it. +It is not the tears choking your throat, nor the groan at night, nor the +knell of a parting footstep, nor the mourning which stifles you, nor the +heart in your breast, for that would be too little. When suffering +begins with exuberant sunshine and mornings like a flourish of trumpets, +it is even more terrible because it is further away.... Suffering is +more. It is unlike anything else. It is regular, steady as the breath, +amazing, tolerable, and it is not the last word you say, it is also the +first word; it follows its mortal, monotonous course, and you realize it +has no name: to _live_ is to suffer. + +Is it human misery? No, human suffering. Stammering nights, groping +footsteps. Whither and why? No, there's no time to lose, you jump up and +go, go, because you haven't suffered enough yet. Look. + +When I leave to-morrow with my suffering in my breast I shall go in +advance of suffering. I shall not hesitate in the doorway. Looking back +into the room I shall not say what I have often said: "You are a bit of +myself, good-bye. Since my eyes will no longer be here to see you, give +them a picture of yourself to take along." + +Suffering is self-sufficient. You don't associate things with it, I +shall have my back turned, my body will be impatient to lean forward. I +no longer care for memories. + + * * * * * + +Not one. Not even the memory of you, my two dead lovers. Other dead are +further on, where I am going, or rather, other suffering. And your +suffering is over because you are dead. + +The pictures I have of you rise less and less frequently in my memory. +How I cherished them at first! Some especially.... That little +station-platform where we met ... the transparent morning flew ahead of +your footsteps, the spring was intoxicated, I ran into your outstretched +arms.... And the path where I cried, the sunset sinking away between the +branches, my head grazing your shoulder like a fruit falling from the +tree.... And another.... And another.... + +It is over. I carry you differently. Some of your ways, which I +acquired, stick to me from habit. My voice often has your inflection, +and when I am animated I feel I have made some of your ideas my own. If +I don't remember you so clearly, it is because I _live_ you and the +legacy you left me rises and falls with my breathing. + +In my fierce survival I have preserved only what is of use to me. All +the rest has decomposed; it is nothing to me any more. We should break +away from this burden of the dead. The dead are the living who have +abandoned us, and sooner or later, whether we wish to or not, we forget +them. + + * * * * * + +I loved my dead dearly, so dearly that it seemed to me my being inclined +towards them the moment they appeared--so dearly that because of them, +who have gone, love has remained. + +Love proclaims its law. You must show your love, it cries. + +Somewhere in the world to-night there are faces lying dormant for me, +persons to whom I have things to say. I am waiting for them, I stretch +my arms out to them, I know they will come because of my need for +embraces, a desire for caresses, so strong to-night that I jump up with +a start. It is as if half of my body were missing. I see myself deserted +and frightfully widowed, and my mouth quivers with hunger and thirst for +another mouth. + +I know a man is on the way. I shall recognize him. I shall have the +somewhat bitter audacity you must have in order to confess yourself the +immense thing you are. I shall stir him, I shall do everything; you can +go the full lengths of the sublime that dwells within you. + +As soon as he will rise above the horizon he will realize from my mere +expression that I have long lost the trick of lying. + +And when I read the first glance he gives me, when desire bewilders him +a little and forces him back within himself, I shall be happy to be +beautiful. Beneath his eyes my sound healthy self will brace up again, +my inexhaustible twenty-seven years, my rounded limbs, everything which +goes slightly to pieces when love is absent. Here is the offering, +blond, slim, laughing, which I already present to you.... He will +perceive uncomprehendingly that if I am a little more beautiful than +myself, it is because by virtue of loving one comes to resemble the love +one feels. + +When he will have looked at me long, I will explain what each of my +features means; I will speak. Because silence is beautiful after the +last words, and it is the woman who has the most to say. + +I may have a stronger expression than other women, perhaps a slightly +more taciturn expression, too. My solitude would account for this. Women +are not sufficiently alive to the fact that one should live alone, +depart alone, and return alone, and that there is no one outside one's +self. No one. In going to meet love again, I who have been twice widowed +and have my child to make me feel more isolated, shall find nothing but +another solitude. To be sure, there will be kisses, meetings, a symphony +of voices. Yet in spite of everything to know you're alone, all the +time.... + +All the time.... + +If I had reached this secure kingdom through my own power I should be +very proud. But I don't deserve the credit. My dead lovers gave me this +awful superhuman gift. For there comes a moment when you have taken from +some one else everything there was to be taken. Without his noticing he +becomes useless, he must disappear. Who resigns himself to this? + +My lovers bestowed upon me the love I was capable of, attentive and +complete, they bestowed upon me the intelligence of my blood, my tears +and my words.... And then they gave me up. They performed this supreme +deed. + +And now when enlarged by love I desire love again, I give it its place. +Love is not the essential thing. I have often said: "Life, my life." The +phrase has assumed the shape of my lips because it says the essential +thing. Love, after all is nothing but the most beautiful moment. + +I summon all the moments of my life. Even the least thrilling cling just +as deeply by roots of flesh. + +Life wishes to become what it never has been: It is ready, it is +empty.... Until to-night human words filled it saying: + +"Nothing changes here below; nothing can possibly change: love goes on +from age to age, death was and will be, life is forever the same, and +man is always man." To express this the word "eternal" has been +invented. + +I do not know. I came, I, a woman, and like every other creature, I too +began by loving. Life was _not_ the same, I swear it was not the same. +Life had a different taste, I shouldered it differently, and my death, +while resembling other deaths, does not exist by the same idea. + +I am; everything is changed. + +And even if I had never lived, other women are ready to change the +earth. You can't tell yet what the women of my generation are capable +of. They themselves don't know altogether. + +The memory of what they have always been told weighs upon them. Man is a +fierce, greedy lover. With bloodshot eyes like a blind man, he has +fallen upon the feverish couch where lies the vanquished enemy. He has +brought his boiling sap, and between his clasped arms a great +tenderness. When he has risen from the couch, he has been sad, his eyes +have been wasted, his tenderness worn out. And he has said: "This is +woman." + +This has lasted long. I do not know if there hasn't been some reason for +it. I simply say I live. I am honest, exact, I have muscles of steel, I +like people to say what is, I am loyal, willing, I earn my living, and I +am inured to suffering. What truth does one fail to recognize when it +shows its face? + +I think. I want. I know. + +It has taken me a long time to take in the humble things I now know. I +commenced with very little; my youth passed in chaos, I had to suffer +very much. So it is not chance, random truths that I follow. I do not +set limits to them. Even my death will not disprove them. Thus, a few +scattered fragments hover. I snatched and caught them in moments of +alert intelligence, I held them fast with my willing heart, I gripped +them between clenched teeth to keep from losing them. + + * * * * * + +The wind rises on the right. Is it not the wind that has extinguished +those dots of gold, the houses, without deepening the dark of the town? + +I see the wind, it is blowing near. And here, immobile, upright in my +heavy rectitude, I share with the wind the moments which are driving it +on. One by one. I fly with them, one by one. + +I go where they are going, even elsewhere, and my death perhaps is far +from reaching its limits. It has been on the way a long time, it will +stop when I am completely tired out, when there will be nothing more for +me to do, when my breath will not be an indispensable breath. Then that +will be all. They say it is hard to die. Does that mean that the world +holds something more tragic than life? + +The wind has swollen the whole sky. The sky is ready to drop down from +on high--ah, let the sky fall! The wind pins itself to my face. It has +become so violent that I cross my arms on my breast to brave it. The +infinite future, as though it too were swollen, approaches the houses. + +How can I tell what the future holds? No use searching the violet depths +of the horizon or breathing in the whole of the sky. The times to come +are beyond my reach. They give no sign. + +There, below, all I see is my own existence. But how I see it! Flashing, +assiduous, full of free spaces, brooding, crimson in my veins, paling +slightly at the horizon, departing in the starless wind, and returning +in haste to my limbs. + +The woof of the night has changed color again. + +Can it be that what I am is a promise of something that should be? + + * * * * * + +The wind blows stronger. + +No, it is not for nothing that to-night I am drawing a deeper breath +than on all other nights, a breath stronger than my strength, rising up +over my life. + +Night passes, as pure as a summoning voice. + +Then it must be, Lord, that soon, perhaps at dawn, you must go further +than your journey and, in flashes of your being, reach heights higher +than everything you have said, live to the last drop of your blood, live +more than life? + +Here I am. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman, by Magdeleine Marx + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 33943.txt or 33943.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/4/33943/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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