Chapter III: Part ONE: I (2)

At Sylvie's request she showed her all her rooms. She would not have done this on her own initiative; she was afraid to gall her sister by displaying the comfort in which she lived, but to her relief Sylvie manifested not the slightest pique. She was perfectly at her ease, coming and going, looking and touching, as though she were at home. It was Annette, in fact, who was disturbed by this perfect poise; and at the same time her affection rejoiced in it. Passing by her sister's bed, Sylvie gave the pillow a friendly little pat. Curiously she examined the toilet table, making an accurate survey of the bottles at a glance; went absentmindedly into the library, enthused over a pair of curtains, criticised an arm-chair, tried another, poked her nose into a half-open cupboard, felt the silk of a dress; and, having made her tour, returned to Annette's bedroom where she sat down in the low armchair near the bed and went on with the conversation. Annette offered her tea, to which Sylvie preferred two fingers of sugared wine. Sucking a biscuit with the end of her tongue, Sylvie looked at Annette who was hesitating, wishing to speak; and she wanted to say to her:

"Out with it then!"

Finally Annette plucked up courage, and with a brusqueness that was caused by her suppressed affection she proposed to Sylvie that she come to live with her. Sylvie smiled, did not speak, swallowed her mouthful, dipped her crumbs and fingers in her wine, smiled again prettily, thanking her sister with eyes and a full mouth, shaking her head as one does when talking to a child. And then she said:

"Darling. . . ."

And she refused.

Annette insisted, pressing her; she tried to compel consent with an imperious violence. It was Sylvie's turn now not to wish to speak! She excused herself with half-words, in a caressing voice, slightly embarrassed and a little malicious as well. . . . (She was very fond of her big sister who was so abrupt, tender, and frank!) She said:

"I can't."

And Annette asked: "But why?"

And Sylvie replied: "I have a sweetheart."

For the space of a second Annette did not understand. Then she understood only too well, and she was dumbfounded. Watching her from the corner of one eye, Sylvie rose, still smiling, and left amid a twittering of little words and kisses.

VI

Annette was left to contemplate her destroyed castle. She felt a great, confused pain composed of mingled feelings. Bitter ones there were in plenty, which she would rather not have recognized, but which spasmodically made her throat contract. . . . She who had thought herself free from prejudice; the idea that this pretty sister of hers. . . . Oh! it was too painful! She could have wept over it. . . . Why? It was stupid! Jealousy again? . . . No!

She shrugged her shoulders and stood up. She wished to think no more about it. . . . With long strides she went from room to room, seeking distraction. Then she realized that she was retracting her sister's promenade through the apartment. She could think only of her. Of her and that other . . . Jealous, decidedly? No! No! No! No! . . . She stamped her foot angrily. She would not admit it! . . . But, whether she admitted it or not, the pain was gnawing at her heart. She sought moral explanations; and she found them. It was her purity that suffered. In her complex nature, rich in contradictory instincts that had not yet had occasion to conflict, there was no lack of puritanical forces. Yet it was not religious scruples that disturbed her. Brought up by a sceptical father and a free-thinking mother, outside the pale of any church, she was accustomed to discuss everything. She was not afraid to submit any social prejudice to the spirit of examination. She admitted free love; in theory she admitted it readily. Often in conversation with her father or with fellow students she had upheld it, and in this the juvenile desire to appear "advanced" had played an unimportant part; she sincerely thought that freedom in love was legitimate, natural, and even right. She had never thought of blaming the pretty girls of Paris who lived as they pleased; she regarded them sympathetically, certainly with more sympathy than the women of her middle-class world. . . . Well then, what was it that hurt her now? Sylvie was exercising her right. . . . Her right? No, not her right! Others, but not she! One is lenient with those one does not hold so high. For her sister as for herself Annette had, justly or not--yes, justly!--very strict standards. Love for one person only seemed to her an aristocracy of the heart. Sylvie had fallen. Annette blamed her for it! "One love only? Love for you! . . . Jealous girl, you are lying to yourself! . . ." But the more jealous she was of Sylvie, the more she loved her; and the more irritated she became with her, the more she loved her. One can be so greatly irritated only by those one loves!

Her little sisters charm was calmly working. It was useless to be annoyed, to wish that she were different. Little by little, Annette became conscious of another feeling: curiosity. Despite herself, her mind was trying to imagine Sylvie's mode of life. She thought about it entirely too much. She ended by putting herself in Sylvie's place; and she was rather confused to admit that she did not find it too bad. The scorn of herself, the indignant revolt that this produced, made her the more severe towards Sylvie. She continued to sulk, and forbade herself to visit her sister again.

Sylvie was not at all disturbed. That Annette gave no sign of life did not in any way trouble her. She had judged her big sister; she knew that Annette would come back. The period of waiting did not weigh upon her; she had enough to occupy her heart. First of all, her sweetheart, who occupied, nevertheless, only a corner of it, and that not for long. And there were so many other things! She loved Annette. But, after all, she had lived without her for almost twenty years. She could wait a few weeks more. . . . She imagined what was going on in her sister's mind. She found a certain amusement in this, mixed with a residue of hostility. Two rival races; two classes. When she had been at Annette's, Sylvie had compared their lives and conditions, although she had not appeared to do so. She was thinking:

"All the same, you see, we have our little advantages. I have what you haven't. . . . You thought that you could hold me, and you can't. Yes, go ahead, go ahead, pout and purse your lips! I have shocked your conventions. . . . What a blow, my poor Annette!"

And, laughing at the discomfiture which she imagined she read in Annette's face, she pressed her hand to her lips and threw a kiss. But, even while she told herself that Annette was suffering and that it was a bitter close for her to swallow, she was not offended. And, as one does when a child balks before a full spoon, she whispered, slyly and cajolingly:

"Come on, my little one! Open your mouth! There you are!"

It was not merely a question of shocked conventions. Sylvie knew perfectly well that she had wounded Annette in another feeling much less easily confessed. And the little brigand was delighted at the thought, for it made her feel that she was her sister's mistress; she would make the most of it. . . . "Poor Annette! Can you fight against yourself!" Sylvie was sure, absolutely sure, that she would "have" her. Mocking, yet at the same time touched, she whispered to her in imagination.

"Go on! I won't take advantage of it. . . ."

She wouldn't take advantage of it? . . .

And why not? It's amusing to take advantages. After all, life is war. To the victor are the spoils. If the vanquished consents, it's because it is to his advantage!

"Pshaw! We shall see!"

VII

One Monday morning Sylvie was doing some errands, when she caught sight of Annette, a little in front of her and walking in the same direction, on the Rue de Sèvres. She amused herself by following her for a time, so that she might observe her. Annette was walking with long strides, as was her habit. Sylvie, whose steps were short, quick, supple, dancing, laughed at her boyish, athletic pace; but she appreciated the beautiful harmony of her vigorous body. Head held straight, looking neither to right nor left, Annette was absorbed. Sylvie caught up with her and continued to walk beside her on the sidewalk without Annette's noticing her. Imitating her gait, and peeking from the corner of one eye at her big sister's cheek, which seemed paled by a melancholy shadow, Sylvie moved her lips, without turning her head, and said in a low voice:

"Annette. . . ."

It was impossible to hear in the noise of the street. Sylvie barely heard herself. Yet Annette heard. Or was it that she was conscious of this mocking "double" that had for some moments been silently escorting her? Suddenly she saw beside her the amused profile, the lips that moved comically without speaking, the little laughing eye with its sidewise glance. . . . Then she stopped, with one of those movements of impetuous joy that had already surprised and charmed Sylvie on one occasion. Abruptly she held out her arms. Her whole being quivered. Sylvie thought:

"She is going to spring. . . ."

For an instant only. Already she had recovered herself; and, almost coldly, she said:

"Good-morning, Sylvie."

But her cheeks were full of color, and her stiffness could not withstand the burst of laughter from the younger girl, who was delighted with her trick. Annette laughed with her:

"Oh! You've caught me!"

Sylvie took her arm, and they walked on, considerately suiting their steps to each other.

"Were you there long?" asked Annette.

"Oh! about a half-hour," Sylvie affirmed unhesitatingly.

"No?" exclaimed the credulous Annette.

"I followed your movements. I saw everything. Everything. You talked as you walked."

"It's not true, it's not true," protested Annette. "What a little liar! . . ."

Their two arms tightened. They began to chatter about the errands they had just done. They were perfectly happy. In the midst of an impassioned account of a White Sale at the Bon Marché, where one had been and where the other was going,--in the uproar of a street that they were crossing, slipping between the vehicles with the sure instinct of two little Parisiennes, Sylvie murmured in Annette's ear:

"You haven't kissed me!"

Annette's quick movement nearly crushed her. As they approached the sidewalk, still walking, their lips met. . . . Hugging each other closer, they were walking now along a quieter street, that led . . . Where did it lead? . . .

"Where are we going?"

They stopped, amused to find that in the midst of their chattering they had lost their way. Sylvie, clutching Annette, said:

"Let's lunch together."

Annette demurred,--(the unexpected charmed her, but embarrassed her a little too: she was methodical),--mentioning her old aunt, who was waiting for her. But Sylvie was not bothered by these trifling details: she had got hold of Annette, and she wasn't going to let her go. She made her telephone her aunt from a public station, and led her to a creamery which she knew. For the two young girls, and particularly for Annette, it was an outing, this little luncheon to which Sylvie insisted on treating her more fortunate sister. (Annette understood why.) Annette found everything exquisite. She went into ecstasies over the bread, over the well done cutlet. And, last of all, there were strawberries in cream on which they regaled themselves, licking them with their tongues.

But their tongues were even more occupied in talking than in eating. They spoke, however, of only insignificant things, drinking each other in, their eyes, their voices, and their radiance. Instinct has its roads, the shortest and the best. The time had not come to touch on essential subjects. They circled around, circled joyously, like those buzzing wasps that turn ten times around a plate before alighting. They did not alight. . . .

Sylvie stood up, and said: "Now it's time to go to work."

Annette assumed the dashed expression of a child abruptly robbed of its dessert, and exclaimed: "It has been so nice! I haven't had enough."

"Nor I," replied Sylvie, laughing. "When shall we do it again?"

"The sooner and the longer the better. . . . This ended too soon."

"This evening then. Meet me at the door of the shop at about six."

Annette was disconcerted.

"But shall we be alone?"

She was disturbed at the idea that she might meet "the other."

Sylvie read her meaning.

"Yes, yes, we shall be alone," she said indulgently, with an ironic emphasis. She calmly explained that her friend had gone to spend two or three days in the country with his family. Annette blushed when she saw that Sylvie had guessed; she did not remember that she had vowed, morning and evening, to give evidence of her moral disapprobation. So far as morality went, she now saw only one thing: "This evening _he_ will not be there."

What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together.

She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said: "Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a shot.

They met again, some hours later, at the exit of the frivolous swarm. Babbling, peering, trotting along, completing their hair-dressing before a pocket-mirror or before a stray looking-glass, the little seamstresses turned around as they passed and outstared Annette with their tired, sharp, curious eyes; then, ten steps further on, trotting, peering, babbling, they turned about to look at Sylvie who was kissing Annette. And Annette was pained to see that Sylvie had talked.

She took her sister to dine at Boulogne. Sylvie had invited herself. To spare the aunt, who would have exclaimed, "Oh!" and "Ah!" it was arranged on the way that Sylvie should be introduced as a friend. But this didn't prevent her, at the end of dinner, when the old lady was retiring to her own room, conquered by the charms of the little schemer, from calling her "Aunt" as though in familiar playfulness. . . .

Alone, in the great garden, by the light of a summer night. Tenderly intertwined, they walked with little steps, drinking in the fragrance of the weary flowers, exhaled at the close of a fine day. Like the flowers, their souls exhaled their secrets. This time Sylvie responded to Annette's questions, hiding little. She told the story of her life from infancy; and, first of all, her memories of her father. They spoke of him now without embarrassment, and with no mutual envy; he belonged to them both, and they judged him with an indulgent, ironic smile, as a big, amusing, charming fellow, not very substantial, not very well-behaved. . . . (All men are the same!) They bore him no ill-will. . . .

"You see, Annette, if he had been well-behaved, I wouldn't be here. . . ."

Annette pressed her hand.

"Aie! Don't squeeze so hard!"

After that Sylvie spoke of the florist shop, where as a child she had sat under the counter with the fallen flowers and woven her first dreams,--of her early experiences of Paris life, listening to the talk of her mother and the customers; then, when Delphine died (Sylvie had been thirteen), of her apprenticeship to a dressmaker, who had been her mother's friend and who had taken her in; then, after a year and the death of her employer who had been worn out by work (one wears out quickly in Paris!), of her various avatars. Harsh notations, bitter experiences, always gaily told, seen with drollery. In passing she painted types and characters, pricking with a needle on the weft of her narrative, a trait, a witticism, a word, or a face. She did not tell all; she had experimented with life a little more than she admitted, perhaps more than she cared to remember. She caught herself up short at the chapter on her friend,--of her last friend (if there had been other chapters, she kept them to herself.) A medical student, met at a ball in the quartier. (She would willingly go without dinner, to dance!) Not very handsome, but nice; big and brown, with laughing eyes that wrinkled at the corners; turned up nostrils, the nose of a good dog; amusing, affectionate. She described him with no trimmings, but with complaisance, praising his good qualities, as well as poking a little fun at him, satisfied with her choice. She interrupted herself to laugh at certain memories which she recounted, and at others which she did not. Annette, all ears, troubled and interested, was silent save for a few embarrassed words that she slipped in here and there. Sylvie held her hand, and with her other free hand she caressed the ends of Annette's fingers, one by one, while she spoke, as though she were plucking a garland. Perceiving her sister's embarrassment, she loved her for it and was amused by it.

The two young girls were seated on a bench beneath the trees, and they could no longer see each other in the darkness that had fallen. Sylvie, little devil, profited by this to describe scenes that were a trifle indecorous and decidedly amorous, so that she might completely intimidate her big sister. Annette sensed her malice, and did not know whether she should smile or censure; she would have liked to censure, but her little sister was so pretty! There was so much laughter in her voice, her joy seemed so wholesome! Annette scarcely breathed, trying to hide the tumult into which these amorous stories threw her. Sylvie, who could feel beneath her fingers the other's emotions, paused to enjoy the situation and to concoct some new deviltry: leaning towards Annette, she asked her frankly, in a lowered voice, if she too had a sweetheart. Annette started--she had not expected this--and blushed. Sylvie's piercing eyes sought to see her features in the protective gloom, and, failing this, she ran her fingers over Annette's cheek. . . .

"It's on fire," she said, laughing.

Annette laughed awkwardly, and blushed more furiously. Sylvie flung herself on her neck.

"My dear little stupid, what a darling you are! No, you are priceless! Don't be hurt! I'm mistaken. I love you devotedly. Love your Sylvie a little. She's not much good, but such as she is she's yours. Annette, my ducky! Hold out your lips; I love you!"

Passionately Annette clasped her in her arms, taking her breath away. Sylvie, disengaging herself, observed in the tone of a connoisseur:

"You know how to kiss all right. Who taught you?"

Annette rudely shut the girl's mouth with her hand.

"Don't be always joking!"

Sylvie kissed her palm.

"Forgive me, I won't do it any more."

And, with her cheek resting on her sister's arm, Sylvie remained discreetly silent, listening, watching against the obscure transparence of a patch of sky, hollowed out of the semi-darkness by the branches of the trees, Annette's face which was bent toward her as she spoke in a low voice.

Annette was opening her heart. In her turn she was telling of the happy plenitude of her solitary youth, that dawn of a little Diana, passionate but untroubled, who took joy in what she desired no less than in what she possessed, for between the one and the other there was for her only the distance between to-day and to-morrow. And she was so sure of the morrow that she tasted in advance the perfume of jasmine on the trellis, without hastening to gather it.

She described the calm egotism of those years, empty of events but rich in the sweetness of dreams. She told of the intimacy, the absorbing affection, that bound her to her father. And, in telling about herself, she had the singular experience of discovering herself; for, until this moment, she had never had occasion to analyse her past. She was, momentarily, frightened by it. She halted in her narrative; now she had difficulty in expressing herself, now she expressed herself with a troubled, pictorial ardor. Sylvie did not always understand and was amused, but she listened less than she observed the expression of face, voice and body.

Annette now confessed the jealous suffering she had felt at discovery of the second family that her father had hidden from her, and the turmoil into which she had been thrown by the existence of a rival, a sister. With her burning frankness, she dissimulated nothing that had made her blush; her passion reawakened as she evoked it. She said, "I hated you! . . ." in so fierce a tone that she stopped, checked by the sound of her own voice. Sylvie, much less stirred but deeply interested, felt Annette's hand trembling against her cheek, and thought:

"There is fire, underneath there!"

Annette had picked up the thread of the confession that were costing her so dear. And Sylvie was saying to herself:

"How funny she is to tell me all this!"

But she felt growing within her a respect for her strange, big sister; it was mocking, certainly, but infinitely tender, and it made her rub her cheek cajolingly against the sisterly palm. . . .

Annette had come to the point in her narrative at which the attraction of her unknown sister had taken possession of her, despite her resistance, the point at which she had seen Sylvie for the first time. But here frankness could not conquer the emotion of her heart. She tried to go on, stopped, gave it up, and said:

"I can't. . . ."

There was silence. Sylvie was smiling. She stood up, put her face close to her sister's, and, pinching her chin, she whispered very low:

"You are a great lover."

"I!" protested Annette, thoroughly confused.

Sylvie had risen from the bench, and, standing in front of her sister, she pressed Annette's head against her body and said:

"Poor . . . poor Annette! . . ."

VIII

After this, the two sisters saw each other constantly. Not a week went by without their getting together. Sylvie would come to Boulogne in the evening to surprise Annette. More rarely Annette went to Sylvie's. By a tacit agreement they so arranged things that Annette should not meet the friend. They adopted a regular day for lunching together at the creamery, and played at making rendezvous here and there in Paris. They took an equal pleasure in being together. It became a necessity. The hours dragged on the days when they did not see each other; the old aunt could not succeed in breaking Annette's silence, and Sylvie was a sullen puzzle to her sweetheart, who was in no way to blame. The one thing that made the waiting bearable was the thought of all that they would have to say to each other when they met again. But this consolation did not always suffice, and never was Annette happier than on one evening when Sylvie rang her bell, after ten o'clock, saying that she could not wait until the morrow to kiss her. Annette was eager to have her stay with, her; but the little one, who had sworn that she had only five minutes to stay, had gone off on the run, like a shot, without a word, after an hour of prattling.

Annette would have liked Sylvie to enjoy the benefit of her house and her worldly goods. But Sylvie had a brusque way of avoiding all temptations; she had got it into her head--her obstinate little head--that she would accept no monetary loan. On the other hand, she made no fuss about accepting a toilet article, or even "borrowing" it (what she borrowed she forgot to return). It even happened that once or twice she snitched . . . oh! nothing important! . . . And, of course, she would never have touched a bit of money. Money, that's sacred! But a little knickknack, a valueless ornament: she couldn't resist it. Annette had noticed this trick of the little _gazza ladra_, and she was embarrassed by it. Why didn't Sylvie ask her? She would have been so happy to give! She tried not to see. But the sisters found their greatest pleasure in exchanging a blouse, a corset cover, underwear: Annette's love fed on this. Sylvie was an expert in the art of fixing her sister's dresses, and her taste modified Annette's more sober taste. The effect was not always very happy, for Annette in her excess of enthusiasm would sometimes exaggerate the imitation beyond what suited her individual style, and Sylvie, amused, would have to restrain her zeal. Much more cautious, she knew how, without admitting it, to profit by what she learned from Annette's sober distinction,--certain shades of speech, gesture and manner; but her copy was so cunning that one would have thought that her model had borrowed from her.

Yet, despite their intimacy, Annette succeeded in becoming familiar with only a part of her sister's life. Sylvie enjoyed her independence, and she liked to make it felt. At bottom she had never completely disarmed herself of her class hostility; Annette saw clearly that she was determined to have no one run her affairs or enter into her life save when she pleased. Besides, Sylvie's self-love had not failed to observe that her sister did not approve of everything about her. Notably her love affair. Although Annette tried to accept it, she did not know how to dissimulate the embarrassment that this subject caused her. Either she fled from it, or, when she was compelled to speak of it, with the sincere desire of pleasing Sylvie, there was a forced note in her tone that Sylvie detected; and she, with a word, would change the subject. This made Annette sad. With all her heart she wanted Sylvie to be happy, happy in her own way. And she did not wish to show that this way was not the one she would have preferred. But she did show it, indubitably. When one's feelings are strong, one is not very adroit. Sylvie was hurt by this, and she took revenge in silence. It was only by chance that Annette learned, several weeks after their occurrence, of certain important events in her young sister's life.

As a matter of fact it was impossible to make Sylvie acknowledge their importance; and, indeed, her elastic temperament may have thrown them off easily, but it was possible, too, that her pride made her pretend that this was so more than was really the case. It was incidentally that Annette learned that "for some time" (impossible to be precise: it was "ancient history") the friend had not been on the scene, the liaison had been broken. Sylvie did not seem at all affected by this; Annette was much more so, but it was not with regret. Awkwardly she tried to find out what had happened. Sylvie shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said:

"Nothing happened. It's happened, that's all."

Annette should have rejoiced, but these words of her sister hurt her. . . . What a strange feeling! How wrong she was! . . . Oh! that word "happen" . . . in the world of the heart! And she could laugh as she said it! . . .

But this great news (it was great news for Annette) was followed shortly by another discovery. One day when Annette announced her intention of coming to meet her sister when the shop let out, Sylvie remarked calmly:

"No, no, I'm not there any more. . . ."

"What?" exclaimed Annette in astonishment. "Since when?"

"Oh, quite a while. . . ."

(Still the same trick of avoiding an exact accounting! It might as well have been last evening as last year!)

"What happened?"

"The same riling that happens every year (just as in _Malbrough_ . . . "_sà Paques ou à la Trinité_ . . ."): The dead season comes immediately after the Grand-Prix. The employers all back the wrong horse, so as to have a generous excuse for giving us the gate."

"But where are you then?"

"Oh, I'm here and there. I run about and do a little bit of everything."

Annette was in consternation.

"Then you haven't any job, and you didn't tell me!"

With a little air of superiority, Sylvie explained (at heart not at all displeased by the emotion she had produced) that she slapped together cheap costumes for others to finish, hemmed little dresses, and sewed up men's trousers. And she made a great joke of it all in the telling. But Annette did not laugh. Pressing her inquiry further, she found that her sister was at her wits' end to find work and that she sometimes accepted tasks that were overtiring and disheartening. Now she understood why Sylvie had seemed pale "for some time"; why she had not come to see her for a number of days, offering feeble excuses and absurd lies, in order, no doubt, to spend a part of the night wearing out her fingers and her eyes in sewing. Sylvie, in her joking tone of affected indifference, continued to recount her little misadventures. But she saw that her sister's lips were trembling with anger. And, abruptly, Annette burst out:

"No! It's shameful! I can't, I simply can't bear it! What! you say you love me, and you yourself wanted us to be friends, you pretend to be one, and then you hide from me the most serious things that concern you! . . ."

Sylvie's curled lip said, "Pshaw! What of it! . . ." But Annette did not let her speak; the torrent was loosed.

"I had confidence in you, I thought that you would tell me about your trials and troubles as I tell you about mine, that we would share everything. And then you push me to one side as though I were a stranger; I know nothing, nothing! Except by chance, I should never have learned that you were in trouble, that you are hunting a job, that you are ruining your health; and you would take on any sort of work rather than tell me about it, when you know that it would be a joy for me to help you. . . . It's wrong, wrong! You have hurt me. It's a lack of frankness, a lack of friendship! But I won't stand it any longer! No! . . . To begin with you are coming to live with me, and you are going to stay here until the dead season is over. . . ."

Sylvie shook her head.

"You are coming, don't say no! Now listen to me, Sylvie; I won't forgive if you don't. If you say no, I will never see you again, in all my life. . . ."

Without taking the trouble to excuse herself or to explain, Sylvie, smiling and obstinate, answered:

"No, my dear, no."

She was quite pleased at Annette's agitation. Her big sister, who had tried to defeat her, was now no longer mistress of herself, she was almost in tears. Sylvie: was thinking: "How much prettier she is when she is animated!"

Her face purple with anger, Annette kept repeating, beseeching imperiously:

"Stay! . . . You will stay. . . . I want you to. . . . It's agreed? . . . You are going to stay? . . . You're staying? . . . Answer me! . . . It's yes? . . ."

And with the same exasperating smile, the little donkey replied:

"It's no, dearest."

Annette turned away from her, violently.

"Then, it's all over."

And turning her back, she went to the window, where she seemed oblivious to Sylvie's presence. The younger girl waited for a moment, then she got up and said in a wheedling voice:

"So long, Annette."

Annette did not turn around.

"Farewell," she replied.

Her hands were clenched. If she had moved, Heaven knows what would have happened! She would have wept, cried out. . . . She did not stir, haughty and icy. Sylvie, somewhat embarrassed, and not a little disturbed, but amused in spite of everything, took her departure; once behind the door, she thumbed her nose.

She was not very proud--but a little proud, just the same--of her fine resistance. No more was Annette proud of her rage. In consternation she told herself now that she had burned her bridges: instead of conquering Sylvie by tact and patience, she had practically driven her away. Sylvie would never come back, that was a certainty. Annette, in her dilemma, had closed the door in her sister's face. And she had forbidden herself to reopen it to her. After all her declarations, she could not go after Sylvie! It would be a confession of defeat. Her pride wouldn't permit it; no more would her sense of justice. For Sylvie had behaved badly. . . . No, no, she would not go! . . .

She put on her hat and went straight to Sylvie's.

Sylvie had returned home. Thoughtfully she was examining the perplexing situation. She found it stupid, but she saw no way out; for she did not dream of bending to Annette's will, and no more could she believe that Annette would yield. At bottom she did not think the Duckling was wrong. But she did not wish to give in. Sylvie was not insensible to the blessings of fortune. Without its being apparent, Annette's wealth had awakened in her quite a little temptation and envy. (One can't help it, even when one is not--almost not--envious! When one has a young body, filled with fine little desires, can one help thinking what one would do with wealth, and how much better one would know how to enjoy it than the stupid people who have had it thrust into their mouths, all nicely cooked! . . . ) She did not admit it to herself, but she begrudged Annette her fortune, a little. Yet, if it was any fault of hers, Annette was trying to win forgiveness for it. But the point was that Sylvie would not pardon her. Oh! no one confesses these things to himself. Every one cherishes in his breast, well hidden, five or six little monsters. One does not boast of them, one seems not to see them; but one is in no hurry at all to get rid of them. . . . A more easily confessed feeling was that Sylvie, tempted by gifts that were denied her, liked to enjoy the luxury of appearing to disdain them. But, as a matter of fact, this luxury was devoid of charm; and it proved of scant service. No, it was decidedly true that Sylvie took no very keen pleasure in her victory. There was nothing to strut about; if she had won, it was at her own cost. What made this conclusion the more painful was that her situation was, in reality, decidedly unpleasant; and Sylvie was having a deal of difficulty in extricating herself from the scrape. The number of girls out of work was considerable, and naturally the employers took advantage of the situation. Nor was her health so splendid. The crushing heat of a torrid July, late hours, poor food, and bad drinking water had brought on an attack of enteritis which had left her in a weakened condition. Under the gridiron of her roof that was roasted by the sun, with blinds closed, Sylvie, half undressed, with burning skin, seeking some cool thing on which to lay her hands, was thinking how comfortable it would be in the Boulogne house; and as she was abundantly endowed with irony, in default of other gifts, she was making fun of her own stupidity. She had done well! . . . And to think that she and Annette were in accord, at bottom! Now they were at logger-heads. Good Heavens! how stupid they were! Neither one would give in! . . .

And being perfectly sure that she would not yield, that she would be stupid to the last, she was smiling, curling her pale lips, when she heard Annette's impetuous steps in the hall. She recognized them immediately, and bounded to her feet.

"Annette was coming back! . . . The darling girl! . . ."

She hadn't waited for her. . . . Annette was certainly "the best ever! . . ."

Annette was already in the room. Flushed with excitement and with the heat of her journey, she had no idea what she was going to do; but the moment she entered she knew immediately. Suffocated by the furnace-like atmosphere which pervaded the half-darkened room, she was again seized by a passionate anger. She marched up to Sylvie, who flung herself on her neck; she seized the girl's damp shoulders in impatient hands, and, without responding to her kisses, she said in an exasperated voice:

"I'm taking you away. . . . Get dressed! And don't argue!"

Sylvie argued just the same, in order not to lose the habit. She made a protesting face. But she surrendered herself. Annette imperiously dressed her, put on her shoes, buttoned her blouse, abruptly clapped her hat on her head, shoved her about like a parcel. Sylvie kept saying, "No, no, no," uttering indignant little cries for form's sake; but she was delighted at being bullied. When Annette had finished, Sylvie seized both her hands and kissed them, leaving the mark of her teeth upon them; then, laughing happily, she said:

"There's nothing else to do. . . . Madame Tempest! I surrender. . . . Carry me off!"

Annette carried her off. She had taken the girl's arm in her strong hands, that gripped like a vise. They got into a taxi. When they arrived, Sylvie said to Annette:

"Now I can tell you: well . . . I was dying to come."

"Why were you so bad?" demanded Annette, grumbling and happy.

Sylvie took Annette's hand, and with the curved index finger she tapped her own round little forehead.

"Yes, there's mischief in there!" exclaimed Annette.

"Just like yours," said Sylvie, showing her their two obstinate foreheads in the mirror. They were smiling at each other.

"And," added Sylvie, "we know whom that comes from."

IX

Sylvie's room had been awaiting her for a long time. Even before knowing of Sylvie's existence, Annette had kept the cage ready for the friend who would come. The friend had not come; barely had her shadow been glimpsed, on two or three occasions. Annette's personality, which was sufficiently individual, her manners, alternately chilly and ardent, the impetuous character of the outbursts that overcame a reserved nature; and a certain quality that was strange, exigent and imperious, which, without her suspecting it, showed in flashes, even when she was permeated by the desire to give herself with a passionate humility,--all these things frightened away the young girls of her own age, who without doubt esteemed her and appreciated her essence (so to speak), but prudently and from a distance. Sylvie was the first to take possession of the friendly cage. One may be certain that she did not worry about it, and that it would not disturb her to leave it when the day came that she so pleased. She was not much intimidated by Annette. She did not even feel any surprise at the room in which she was installed. On her first visit, from certain little marks of ingenious affection, and from Annette's awkward confusion in showing it to her, she had guessed that it must be meant for her.

Now that she admitted her defeat--to her own gain--she no longer offered the least resistance. Still languid from her attack of enteritis, the little convalescent abandoned herself to the coddling with which her sister surrounded her. The doctor who was called in had found her anemic, and had recommended a change of air, a visit to the mountains. But neither of the girls was in a hurry to leave the common nest; and, cajolers that they were, they knew how to make the doctor say that, after all, Boulogne was well enough, and even, in a sense, that it was better for Sylvie first to regain her strength by a complete rest, before seeking the tonic of keen mountain air.

So Sylvie could indulge herself, and idle in bed. It was so long since she had been able to do that! It was delicious to sleep her fill, to make up for all the sleeps that she had lost, and--most delicious of all--to rest without sleeping, her limbs stretched out between the fine, soft sheets, her body experiencing the ultimate in drowsiness and happiness, while she searched with her foot for cool corners in the bed. And to dream, to dream! . . . Oh! they didn't go far, those dreams! Like a fly on the ceiling, they turned round and round. They did not even come to the end of a phrase. Twenty times, with sticky tongue, they repeated a story, a project, a memory of the shop, of love, or of a hat. In the midst of it they jumped head first again into the pool of sleep. . . .

"But see here, Sylvie, see here . . ." (she would protest dreamily), "That's no life. . . . Please get out of it!"

Half opening one eye, she would see her sister leaning over her, and she would make an effort (the words barely came out) to say:

"Annette! Wake me up."

Annette would say, "Little rascal!" and laugh, shaking her. Sylvie would play the baby.

"Oh, dear mamma, what have I done to be so sleepy?"

Annette's great love overflowed in maternal transports. Seated on the bed, it seemed to her that the dear head which she pressed against her breast was that of her daughter. Sylvie surrendered, with little plaintive protests:

"But how shall I ever be able to go back to work, afterwards?"

"You shan't work any more."

"Why, yes, I will, the idea!" Sylvie rebelled.

In an instant she was awake; pulling herself away from her sister, sitting up straight, the tousled girl fixed Annette with a look that defied her.

"So she still thinks that we want to keep her here by force! Get along with you, my girl!" said Annette, laughing. "Go, if your heart tells you to! No one is keeping you."

"If that's the case, I'll stay!" exclaimed the spirit of contradiction. And Sylvie slipped down into the bed again, tired from her effort.

But this indolence lasted for only a few days; and after that, when she was satiated with sleep, there came the time when it was impossible to keep her quiet. She traipsed about all day long, half-dressed: in her sister's slippers that were too big for her bare feet, in her sister's peignor that she tucked up toga fashion, with bare arms and legs, she went from room to room, looking at everything, exploring everything. She had not much notion of "thine." ("Mine" was another matter!) Annette having said to her, "You are at home," she had taken her at her word. She rummaged everywhere. She tried everything. She splashed for hours in the bath room. There was not a corner that she left uninspected. Annette found Sylvie with her nose in her papers, but these had bored her very quickly. And the amazed aunt received the invasion of the little half-dressed figure who ferreted about amongst all the furniture, moved everything around, addressed a few pretty words to their owner (who was following her every movement in fear and trembling) and then left everything in disorder, and the old lady at once scandalized and charmed.

The house was filled with an inexhaustible babble, with a chattering that had neither head nor tail, no end, and no reason to end. In no matter what place, in no matter what costume, perched on the arm of an easy chair, or comb in hand arranging their hair, or abruptly halted upon a step of the stairs, or in bathrobes after the morning tub,--the two friends talked, talked, talked; and, once started, this might last for hours or days. They forgot to go to bed; their aunt protested in vain, coughed, rapped on the ceiling. They tried to put a mute on their voices, to stifle their laughter; but at the end of five minutes . . . Pouf! Sylvie's little hautboys began to shrill, and there sounded the happy or indignant exclamations of Annette, who was always getting into a tangle, and whom the younger girl could easily put up a tree. This time the raps on the ceiling became really annoyed. Then they decided to "hit the hay"; but they still kept it up while they undressed. The two rooms adjoined, the doors were left open, and they were constantly crossing their frontiers, talking in skirts, talking without skirts; and they would have talked all night long, from one bed to the other, had not the sleep of youth come suddenly to put an end to their cluckling. It swooped down upon them in a flash, as a sparrow-hawk upon a chicken. They fell back upon their pillows, with open mouths, in the middle of a phrase. Annette slept like a lump; her sleep was heavy, frequently disturbed, stormy, drenched with dreams; she rumpled the sheets, she talked in her sleep, but she never awakened. Sylvie, a light sleeper with a tiny snore (if you had told her that, she would have cloaked herself in wounded dignity), would awake and listen in amusement to her sister's gibberish; sometimes she would get up and go over to the bed where Annette lay prostrate, with the sheets thrust up in a mountain by her crossed knees; and, bending over in the light of the night-lamp (for Annette could not sleep without a light), Sylvie would fascinatedly watch the dull, heavy but strangely passionate, sometimes tragic face of the sleeper who was drowning in the ocean of her dreams. She no longer recognized her. . . .

"Annette? That? That's my sister? . . ."

She wanted to waken her abruptly and put her arms about her neck.

"Wolf, are you there?"

But she was too sure that the wolf was there to try the experiment. Less pure and more normal than her dangerous elder sister, she played with fire, but she was not burned by it.

They studied each other at length, while they were dressing and undressing, comparing themselves curiously. Annette had fits of primitive modesty that amused Sylvie, who was at once freer and franker. Annette often appeared cold, one would have said almost hostile; she went into tantrums, or she wept without cause. The fine Lyonnaise poise, of which she had formerly been so proud, seemed definitely lost. And the worst of it was--that she did not at all regret it.

Their confidences went further, now. It would not be easy to reproduce them all. It comes quite naturally to young girls who love each other to calmly say audacious things in their conversation, things that in their mouths preserve a semi-innocence, but which would have none were they repeated by another. In these talks the difference of their two natures was clearly shown: the laughing, child-like, perfectly assured unmorality of the one; and the passionate, disquieting, electrically charged seriousness of the other. There were clashes; Annette was exasperated by the greedy levity and wilful bawdiness with which Sylvie discussed amorous subjects. Audacious in her soul, she was reserved in her words; it seemed that she feared to hear what she thought. She had fits of shutting herself up in a double tower, in a fierce dumbness that she herself did not quite understand. Sylvie understood it much better. After she had lived with her for fifteen days, Sylvie knew Annette better than Annette knew herself.

Yet it was not that her mental faculties lifted her above the average of an agreeable Paris working girl. Aside from a practical sense that was very sound and cautious--but from which she never drew the most possible profit, because she almost always preferred to obey her caprices--she did not emerge from her own sphere to any great extent. Certainly everything amused her, but nothing really interested her except fashions. As for everything that had to do with art--pictures, music, books--she never got beyond the most ordinary stage of appreciation, and sometimes she didn't reach that. Annette was often embarrassed by her taste. Sylvie would realize it, and say:

"Ouf! I've put my foot in it again. . . . Well, tell me someone who behaves properly in society! . . ."

(She spoke of a picture as one speaks of a hat.)

"What should one admire? Once I know, I shall be able to do it as well as anyone else. . . ."

But on other occasions she was not so conciliatory; she held out stoutly for the hero of some newspaper serial or for some insipid romance which was to her the last word in art and sentiment. However, she obliged her elder sister to discover the value, or rather the artistic promise, of a genre that Annette had always insisted on running down without knowing anything about it: the movies, which Sylvie adored, indiscriminately.

It sometimes happened, too, that although she was incapable of feeling the beauty of a book which they were reading together, Sylvie understood better than Annette the power of certain pages, whose strange truth disconcerted her sister; for Sylvie knew life better than Annette did. And that is the Book of Books. Read it not who will. Everyone carries it in himself, written from the first to the last line. But to decipher it, one must be taught the language by the harsh master Experience. Sylvie had received lessons from him at an early age; she read fluently. Annette was beginning late. Slower to reach her, the lessons were to sink deeper.

X

The summer, this year, was excessively hot. By the middle of August the beautiful trees in the garden were already parched. In the close nights, Sylvie gasped for a passing breath of air. She had recuperated, but she was still wan and had little appetite. She was always a small eater, and if she could have had her way she would have frequently dined on nothing but an ice and fruit. But Annette kept watch over her, Annette grumbled. She was kept busy. Finally she decided on the trip to the mountains, that had been put off from week to week with the underlying hope that it might be avoided. She would have liked to keep her sister entirely to herself, all summer long.

They repaired to a spot in the Grisons that Annette remembered from a former visit as having a good, simple hotel, in a pastoral, restful setting of old Switzerland. But a few years had transformed everything. The hotel was swarming with people. It was a city of pretentious palaces. Automobile roads cut through the fields; and, in the depths of the woods, one could hear the grinding of an electric tramway. Annette wished to flee. But they were tired from a night and day of suffocating travel; they did not know where to go, and all they asked was to lie stretched out without stirring. Where they were, even if everything else had changed, the air at least had preserved its crystalline purity; Sylvie sucked it in with her tongue, as though she were licking a Parisian ice from a glass cup while she stood beside the cart of an ambulatory merchant in the midst of a roaring street. They told themselves they would stay for a few days, until it became a little cooler. And then they got used to it. They discovered the charm of the place.

It was a lively season. A tennis tournament was attracting the alert youth of three or four nations. There were informal dances, little plays. A buzzing swarm was loafing, flirting, showing off. Annette could have done without it; but Sylvie was frankly entertained, and the pleasure that she showed communicated itself to her sister. Both were high-spirited and had no reason to frown on the diversions of their age.