Chapter I (5)

All in a fever she got up and lit the lamp, and took pen and paper. She wrote to Christophe. Her illness was full upon her, or she would never even have thought of writing to him, so proud she was and timid. She did not know what she wrote. She was no longer mistress of herself. She called to him, and told him that she loved him ... In the middle of her letter she stopped, appalled. She tried to write it all over again: but her impulse was gone: her mind was a blank, and her head was aching: she had a horrible difficulty in finding words: she was utterly worn out. She was ashamed ... What was the good of it all? She knew perfectly well that she was trying to trick herself, and that she would never send the letter ... Even if she had wished to do so, how could she? She did not know Christophe's address ... Poor Christophe! And what could he do for her? Even if he knew all and were kind to her, what could he do?... It was too late! No, no: it was all in vain, the last dying struggle of a bird, blindly, desperately beating its wings. She must be resigned to it....

So for a long time she sat there by the table, lost in thought, unable to move hand or foot. It was past midnight when she struggled to her feet--bravely. Mechanically she placed the loose sheets of her letter in one of her few books, for she had the strength neither to put them in order nor to tear them up. Then she went to bed, shivering and shaking with fever. The key to the riddle lay near at hand: she felt that the will of God was to be fulfilled.--And a great peace came upon her.

On Sunday morning when Olivier came he found Antoinette in bed, delirious. A doctor was called in. He said it was acute consumption.

Antoinette had known how serious her condition was: she had discovered the cause of the moral turmoil in herself which had so alarmed her. She had been dreadfully ashamed, and it was some consolation to her to think that not she herself but her illness was the cause of it. She had managed to take a few precautions and to burn her papers and to write a letter to Madame Nathan: she appealed to her kindness to look after her brother during the first few weeks after her "death"--(she dared not write the word)....

The doctor could do nothing: the disease was too far gone, and Antoinette's constitution had been wrecked by the years of hardship and unceasing toil.

Antoinette was quite calm. Since she had known that there was no hope her agony and torment had left her. She lay turning over in her mind all the trials and tribulations through which she had passed: she saw that her work was done and her dear Olivier saved: and she was filled with unutterable joy. She said to herself:

"I have achieved that."

And then she turned in shame from her pride and said:

"I could have done nothing alone. God has given me His aid."

And she thanked God that He had granted her life until she had accomplished her task. There was a catch at her heart as she thought that now she had to lay down her life: but she dared not complain: that would have been to feel ingratitude towards God, who might have called her away sooner. And what would have happened if she had passed away a year sooner?--She sighed, and humbled herself in gratitude.

In spite of her weakness and oppression she did not complain,--except when she was sleeping heavily, when every now and then she moaned like a little child. She watched things and people with a calm smile of resignation. It was always a joy to her to see Olivier. She would move her lips to call him, though she made no sound: she would want to hold his hand in hers: she would bid him lay his head on the pillow near hers, and then, gazing into his eyes, she would go on looking at him in silence. At last she would raise herself up and hold his face in her hands and say:

"Ah! Olivier!... Olivier!..."

She took the medal that she wore round her neck, and hung it on her brother's. She commended her beloved Olivier to the care of her confessor, her doctor, everybody. It seemed as though she was to live henceforth in him, that, on the point of death, she was taking refuge in his life, as upon some island in uncharted seas. Sometimes she seemed to be uplifted by a mystic exaltation of tenderness and faith, and she forgot her illness, and sadness changed to joy in her,--a joy divine indeed that shone upon her lips and in her eyes. Over and over again she said:

"I am happy...."

Her senses grew dim. In her last moments of consciousness her lips moved and it seemed that she was repeating something to herself. Olivier went to her bedside and bent down over her. She recognized him once more and smiled feebly up at him: her lips went on moving and her eyes were filled with tears. They could not make out what she was trying to say.... But faintly Olivier heard her breathe the words of the dear old song they used to love so much, the song she was always singing:

"_I will come again, my sweet and bonny, I will come again._"

Then she relapsed into unconsciousness. So she passed away.

* * * * *

Unconsciously she had aroused a profound sympathy in many people whom she did not even know: in the house in which she lived she did not even know the names of the other tenants. Olivier received expressions of sympathy from people who were strangers to him. Antoinette was not taken to her grave unattended as her mother had been. Her body was followed to the cemetery by friends and schoolfellows of her brother, and members of the families whose children she had taught, and people whom she had met without saying a word of her own life or hearing a word from them, though they admired her secretly, knowing her devotion, and many of the poor, and the housekeeper who had helped her, and even many of the small tradesmen of the neighborhood. Madame Nathan had taken Olivier under her wing on the day of his sister's death, and she had carried him off in spite of himself, and done her best to turn his thoughts away from his grief.

If it had come later in his life he could never have borne up against such a catastrophe,--but now it was impossible for him to succumb absolutely to his despair. He had just begun a new life; he was living in a community, and had to live the common life whatever he might be feeling. The full busy life of the _École_, the intellectual pressure, the examinations, the struggle for life, all kept him from withdrawing into himself: he could not be alone. He suffered, but it proved his salvation. A year earlier, or a few years earlier, he must have succumbed.

And yet he did as far as possible retire into isolation in the memory of his sister. It was a great sorrow to him that he could not keep the rooms where they had lived together: but he had no money. He hoped that the people who seemed to be interested in him would understand his distress at not being able to keep the things that had been hers. But nobody seemed to understand. He borrowed some money and made a little more by private tuition and took an attic in which he stored all that he could preserve of his sister's furniture: her bed, her table, and her armchair. He made it the sanctuary of her memory. He took refuge there whenever he was depressed. His friends thought he was carrying on an intrigue. He would stay there for hours dreaming of her with his face buried in his hands: unhappily he had no portrait of her except a little photograph, taken when she was a child, of the two of them together. He would talk to her and weep ... Where was she? Ah! if she had been at the other end of the world, wherever she might be and however inaccessible the spot,--with what great joy and invincible ardor he would have rushed forth in search of her, though a thousand sufferings lay in wait for him, though he had to go barefoot, though he had to wander for hundreds of years, if only it might be that every step would bring him nearer to her!... Yes, even though there were only one chance in a thousand of his ever finding her ... But there was nothing ... Nowhere to go ... No way of ever finding her again ... How utterly lonely he was now! Now that she was no longer there to love and counsel and console him, inexperienced and childish as he was, he was flung into the waters of life, to sink or swim!... He who has once had the happiness of perfect intimacy and boundless friendship with another human being has known the divinest of all joys,--a joy that will make him miserable for the remainder of his life....

_Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria_....

For a weak and tender soul it is the greatest of misfortunes ever to have known the greatest happiness.

But though it is sad indeed to lose the beloved at the beginning of life, it is even more terrible later on when the springs of life are running dry. Olivier was young: and, in spite of his inborn pessimism, in spite of his misfortune, he had to live his life. As often seems to happen after the loss of those dear to us, it was as though when Antoinette passed away she had breathed part of her soul into her brother's life. And he believed it was so. Though he had not such faith as hers, yet he did arrive at a vague conviction that his sister was not dead, but lived on in him, as she had promised. There is a Breton superstition that those who die young are not dead, but stay and hover over the places where they lived until they have fulfilled the normal span of their existence.--So Antoinette lived out her life in Olivier.

He read through the papers he had found in her room. Unhappily she had burned most of them. Besides, she was not the sort of woman to keep notes and tallies of her inner life. She was too modest to uncloak her inmost thoughts in morbid babbling indiscretion. She only kept a little notebook which was almost unintelligible to anybody else--a bare record in which she had written down without remark certain dates, and certain small events in her daily life, which had given her joys and emotions, which she had no need to write down in detail to keep alive. Almost all these dates were connected with some event in Olivier's life. She had kept every letter he had ever written to her, without exception.--Alas! He had not been so careful: he had lost almost all the letters she had written to him. What need had he of letters? He thought he would have his sister always with him: that dear fount of tenderness seemed inexhaustible: he thought that he would always be able to quench his thirst of lips and heart at it: he had most prodigally squandered the love he had received, and now he was eager to gather up the smallest drops.... What was his emotion when, as he skimmed through one of Antoinette's books, he found these words written in pencil on a scrap of paper:

"Olivier, my dear Olivier!..."

He almost swooned. He sobbed and kissed the invisible lips that so spoke to him from the grave.--Thereafter he took down all her books and hunted through them page by page to see if she had not left some other words of him. He found the fragment of the letter to Christophe, and discovered the unspoken romance which had sprung to life in her: so for the first time he happed upon her emotional life, that he had never known in her and never tried to know: he lived through the last passionate days, when, deserted by himself, she had held out her arms to the unknown friend. She had never told him that she had seen Christophe before. Certain words in her letter revealed the fact that they had met in Germany. He understood that Christophe had been kind to Antoinette, in circumstances the details of which were unknown to him, and that Antoinette's feeling for the musician dated from that day, though she had kept her secret to the end.

Christophe, whom he loved already for the beauty of his art, now became unutterably dear to him. She had loved him: it seemed to Olivier that it was she whom he loved in Christophe. He moved heaven and earth to meet him. It was not an easy matter to trace him. After his rebuff Christophe had been lost in the wilderness of Paris: he had shunned all society and no one gave a thought to him.--After many months it chanced that Olivier met Christophe in the street: he was pale and sunken from the illness from which he had only just recovered. But Olivier had not the courage to stop him. He followed him home at a distance. He wanted to write to him, but could not screw himself up to it. What was there to say? Olivier was not alone: Antoinette was with him: her love, her modesty had become a part of him: the thought that his sister had loved Christophe made him as bashful in Christophe's presence as though he had been Antoinette. And yet how he longed to talk to him of her!--But he could not. Her secret was a seal upon his lips.

He tried to meet Christophe again. He went everywhere where he thought Christophe might be. He was longing to shake hands with him. And when he saw him he tried to hide so that Christophe should not see him.

* * * * *

At last Christophe saw him at the house of some mutual friends where they both happened to be one evening. Olivier stood far away from him and said nothing: but he watched him. And no doubt the spirit of Antoinette was hovering near Olivier that night: for Christophe saw her in Olivier's eyes: and it was her image, so suddenly evoked, that made him cross the room and go towards the unknown messenger, who, like a young Hermes, brought him the melancholy greeting of the blessed dead.

THE HOUSE