Chapter II: Part 2

“Life has become a burden to me. If you do not take pity on me, madame, I shall cease to exist.... But I can hardly believe that you will reject me.... Do you dislike me?... I am a widower and well-off, you know....”

That was the only dark spot that troubled Gilberte’s serenity: the more or less discreet attentions which all those men paid her. Simare the younger went far more cleverly to work and tried to inspire confidence with a pretence of delicacy by which Gilberte allowed herself to be taken in. But Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx showed no pity: they pursued her relentlessly, speaking to her, not unnaturally, as to a woman who knows what life is and who could not well take offence at a declaration or even at the terms in which it was made.

Poor Gilberte did not take offence, but she was very much surprised; and the sighs and transports of those two men of forty bored her terribly. She avoided them and she also had to avoid young Lartiste, who tried the effect of poetry and fired the most passionate verses of Musset and Verlaine at her; the brother too of the Demoiselles Bottentuit, a schoolboy who was only let out on Thursdays and Sundays and who, the third time he saw her, threatened to kill himself at her feet; and lastly a cousin of Mlle. du Bocage, who was engaged to the elder Charmeron girl and who offered to break off the marriage and abandon a very good match if it caused her the faintest annoyance.

She no longer enjoyed at the Logis the atmosphere of peace and isolation so dear to her. Adèle had to defend the door, with the vigilance of a watch-dog, against the daring suitors who tried to obtain admission to her mistress upon some pretext:

“Madame is at home to nobody; I have positive instructions.”

The old servant saw through the disguise of M. le Hourteulx, who appeared dressed up as a beggar, and of Beaufrelant, who, in cap and blouse, came round with a green-grocer’s barrow.

Gilberte could not go for a stroll in her garden without seeing the figure of one or other of those importunate gentlemen on the right, in the next garden which ran from the castle down to the river. At nightfall, she was conscious of shadowy forms prowling round the manor-house. She felt herself spied upon on every side, stalked like a beast of the chase.

* * * * *

It was Easter Sunday. After dinner, Adèle and her husband went to the fair, just outside the town. Gilberte was left alone.

It had been raining; and the fresh smell of wet leaves and moist earth came through the open window of the boudoir which she had made into her study. The book which she was reading in an absent-minded way dropped to her lap and she sat dreaming, with her gaze lost in the blackness of the trees. And, quite without reason--for the least sound would have struck her ear--she was overcome with an indescribable sense of dread, which increased from moment to moment. The silence seemed to her unnatural and awful. The darkness was heavy with menace; and she could not take her eyes from it, sat spellbound by the unknown peril which she felt was there.

A recollection doubled her fears. On the evening before at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, a turn in the conversation had led her to say that her servants were going to this fair. So they knew that she was all alone at the Logis.

Her one thought was to close the window, fasten down the shutters and place an obstacle between herself and the snares that were being laid for her in the threatening darkness; and yet she dared not stir, as though the least movement would have exposed her to immediate dangers.... But what dangers?

She made an effort and rose from her chair. At the same moment, a head appeared and a man strode across the balcony and sprang into the room. It was Simare.

The revulsion of feeling was such that she almost felt inclined to laugh. Wearily, she sat down and murmured:

“Oh, monsieur, you ought not to have done this!... I should never have thought it of you....”

He flung himself on his knees:

“Do not judge me unheard.... I am not master of myself.... I have to go away for a month ... and I wanted to see you ... to tell you what I feel, what I suffer.... Oh, you don’t know how your indifference has tortured me.... My sadness, my admiration, my hopes, my emotion, when in your presence: you have understood none of these ... but then you never do understand.... At this very moment, when I am here, at your knees, when I am imploring you, when I am proclaiming my sorrow and my obsession, I feel that my words do not reach you. And yet they must. You must, you shall know what I have to say to you.... Listen to me....”

But Gilberte would not listen. Although her extreme innocence had preserved her at first contact with the world, nevertheless she was beginning to see a glimmer of the meaning of many things; and she was frightened of the words that were coming. No, she would not hear them from the lips of this man, she would not allow this man to be the first to speak them in her ear. She had a sudden intuition of their importance and their sweetness and their magic; and she felt that it was almost a contamination to hear them.

She entreated him:

“Be quiet.... I shall be so grateful if you will....”

“No, no,” he cried, “I must speak. Ever since I have known you, the words I have to say have been on my lips, suffocating me.... Gilberte, Gilberte, I....”

She gave a desperate glance, the glance of a victim which does not know how to defend itself and awaits the blow that is about to fall. He stammered:

“Oh, your eyes ... your eyes ...!”

He remained on his knees, humble and undecided, and repeated, in a low voice:

“Your eyes ... yes ... my father told me ... child’s eyes that put one off....”

He rose and struck his fist upon the table:

“No, after all, I will not allow myself to be thwarted. I mean to speak and I shall speak.... If your eyes prevent me, well, I sha’n’t see your eyes!”

He went to the lamp and, with a sudden movement, put it out.

Gilberte gave a scream. She tried to run away, stumbled over a chair and fell. She tried to call out; and her voice died away in her throat.

Then, powerless, she stirred no more.

He seized her hand and raised it to his lips.

She made a weak attempt to release herself, but strength failed her.

She said, simply:

“Please, monsieur ... I have never done you any harm.... I have always been kind to you.... Please....”

His hand slacked its grasp. They remained opposite each other. What was he going to say to her? At her wits’ end, with her heart wildly beating, she tried, through the darkness, through the great, impenetrable silence that enshrouded the two of them, to see Simare’s face, to read his tumultuous thoughts, his will.... A few seconds passed....

Then he said:

“I beg your pardon.... I am a scoundrel.... I wanted to force you to take my name, to share my existence.... It was cowardly and base of me.... Still, there was more in me, believe me, than wicked designs.... Oh, I hear your heart beating ... do not tremble!... You will never be in danger from any one ... it is not only your eyes that protect you: there is the sound of your voice, there is your silence, there is the air you breathe, your mere presence.... Forgive me....”

He went away, She dimly saw him cross the window-rail and presently heard the sound of his steps as he walked down the gravel-path in the garden.

Gilberte rushed to the door. She could not have stayed for another instant in the solitude of that room.

It was an intolerable agony, of which she felt the grip even more now that Simare was no longer there. Where should she go? To Mme. de la Vaudraye’s? She remembered vaguely that it was not one of her “evenings,” because of the fair. No matter. She wanted people, lights, bustle, men and women in whose presence she could master her fears and pluck up courage.

She ran to her bedroom, put on her hat and cloak.... But no, she dared not go out....

A noise came from the square in front of the Logis, on the town side; the noise of an altercation, of a struggle. She drew back the curtains. Two men were fighting under her windows. In her fright, she flew to the bolt, locked herself in and crouched down in the furthest corner of her room. Her instinct, her weakness impelled her to hide herself, to know nothing of what was happening, to wait.... But the din increased. There were shouts and moans.

Then she was ashamed of her cowardice. It was impossible for her to continue in that nervous inactivity. She wanted to interfere, to help, if there were still time. Bravely, she opened the door, went down the stairs, walked out into the square and up to the combatants.

By the light of the lamp she recognized Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx.

Rolling on the ground, covered with mud, hatless, their clothes all disarranged, they were fighting with a sort of mad rage, with the stubbornness of two mortal enemies rejoicing in an opportunity of vengeance long deferred. They struck at each other in turns, collared each other, bashed each other’s faces with their fists, wrestled violently. And this amid insults and exclamations of triumph:

“Here, you villain, take that!”

“One for you!”

“Ah, my fine fellow, you caught it this time! How did that strike you?”

And they called Gilberte to witness, like the queen of a tournament in whose honour two of her knights were breaking a lance:

“What do you think of that, madame?”

“Got in there with my left, madame!”

“Ah, he was looking out for you, the scoundrel!”

“Oh, you blackguard, you were prowling round her house!”

Abandoning all attempts at interference, she turned to move away. They rose with difficulty and followed her, each hustling his rival as he went on trying to get rid of him. But the heat of the struggle brought them to the ground again; and she ran away.

The first street to which her steps led her came out in front of the church. The La Vaudrayes’ house was close by; and she hastened to it.

No one answered when she rang the bell. Still, there was a light in the drawing-room. She tapped at one of the windows. Some one came to the door. It was Guillaume de la Vaudraye.

“You, madame!” he exclaimed.

“Where’s your mother? Where’s your mother?” she panted.

“My mother is at Caen, on business; I am alone in the house.”

She walked to the drawing-room unsteadily and sank into a chair.

“What is the matter? Why are you here?”

She whispered, in a broken voice:

“They came.... They are following me.... I am frightened of them....”

“Simare, was it?... And Le Hourteulx, I suppose ... and Beaufrelant....”

“Yes ... so I daren’t go back....”

“But Adèle ... and her husband?”

“Gone to the fair.”

He thought for a moment and said:

“I will go and fetch them. It’s some way off. Take a rest until we come: you need it.”

Gilberte, utterly exhausted, fell asleep.

Adèle woke her. There was a taxi waiting for her. Guillaume did not show himself again.

VI

A NEW FRIEND

Two days later Domfront could not believe its ears when it heard that all relations had been broken off between the La Vaudrayes on the one hand and Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx on the other. The two no longer formed part of the _salon_.

“Oh, nonsense! Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx, who have been there longer than anybody, who date back to the days when the La Vaudrayes saw their friends at the Logis: it’s impossible!”

“It’s quite true, for all that. I heard it from Mme. Duval, who is constantly at all three houses; and she saw the letters which Mme. de la Vaudraye wrote.”

“Well, you can say what you please, but it’s a great pity. M. le Hourteulx: such a fine voice! And M. Beaufrelant: such a brilliant talker! And have you heard the reason?”

“No, I can’t imagine.... If I hear the least thing, I’ll let you know.”

Gilberte was very much vexed when Adèle told her what had happened. She had no doubt that Guillaume de la Vaudraye had told his mother what he knew of the incident and she was distressed at being the cause of disagreement, complication and gossip.

“Perhaps,” she thought, “all this would not have come about if I had not been looked upon as married.”

And, as a matter of fact, she seemed, as a married woman, to be exposed to unpleasantness which she would have escaped in the position of a girl. Instead of the quiet which she had sought, she found, in the men’s behaviour, in their conversation, in their way of looking at her, in the persistency of their pursuit, a host of disturbing little annoyances which might well have troubled a mind less innocent than hers.

She went to Mme. de la Vaudraye, in the afternoon, and begged her to reconsider her decision.

“It is no use asking me,” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye. “I admit that, in writing to those two gentlemen, I did no more than my duty; but it was my son who pointed out to me how imperative that duty was.”

She was in a bad temper and, when all is said, with reason. No mistress of a house lightly gives up two individuals of the undoubted merit of M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx. She called out:

“Guillaume, Mme. Armand wants to talk to you!”

And, when her son entered the room, she went out.

Gilberte, who was always frightened by Guillaume’s obvious coldness and his excessive reserve, blushed as she made her request. Ought so much importance to be attached to an incident which the two gentlemen surely regretted and at which she could only laugh?

“My mother and I have no right to laugh at it,” he said. “We are responsible for all the people whom we introduce to you. If one of them treats you with disrespect, we must not expose you to meeting him here.”

“But how have they treated me with disrespect?... I assure you, I don’t see it....”

He looked at her, turned away his head and said, in a voice so abrupt that she could not make out whether his answer was full of contemptuous pity or affectionate admiration:

“It is the others, it is all of us who must see for you.... How can you be expected to see those things?”

He paused and continued:

“Are you very anxious to have those two boors back here?”

“For your mother’s sake, yes. I feel that the situation grieves her.”

“Why, of course,” he exclaimed, with cutting irony, “they are the two finest ornaments of her _salon_! How will the others do without them? How will they manage to rattle out the regulation tomfoolery? Will they ever be able to reach the required level of absurdity, affectation, stupidity and narrowness? Heavens, if we were a shade less dull and less inane, what a catastrophe!”

“It’s not right of you to talk like that, monsieur,” said Gilberte.

“What!” he said, taken aback.

“No, you ought not to laugh at what is a great pleasure to your mother. If some of her friends are a little eccentric, it is not for you to remark upon it.”

He rose, began to walk excitedly up and down the room and then, gradually mastering himself, came and sat opposite Gilberte again and said:

“You are right, madame. Besides, among all those people whom I cannot help criticizing, I have never heard you speak any but sensible, judicious, intelligent words, admirable for their kindness and wisdom. You always answer their most ridiculous questions as though they had asked you about the most interesting things in life. One word from you brings order and lucidity into the most absurd conversations.”

It was no longer the same voice. Usually so hard and dictatorial, it had become humble and grave. And his face, which was generally severe, bore an expression of infinite gentleness. One was no longer conscious of acrimony, constraint or distrust, but of the frank unreserve of a pent-up nature and of subdued melancholy.

Which of the two was the real Guillaume? Gilberte did not even ask herself the question, was only too happy to believe at once in the more attractive of the two images presented to her. And so she smiled upon this second Guillaume and said:

“Then ... those gentlemen ...?”

“Your two protégés shall resume the places which they fill so well. I insist, however, on a temporary exclusion as a punishment; for it is a punishment to Le Hourteulx and Beaufrelant. After that, if they are very good....”

“And you will be pleasant to them?”

“To them and to the others, at least as pleasant as I can.”

“Is it so very difficult?”

“Extremely! I can’t help it: I do not suffer fools gladly; they make me irritable and unjust. I have not your charity.”

“It only needs a little indulgence; think of your mother.”

“Oh, my mother, my mother!”

There was something sorrowful and harsh about this exclamation that struck Gilberte. She kept silence from a sense of delicacy. But Guillaume was passing through one of those periods when it is a relief to the over-burdened soul to confess its troubles:

“Have my mother and I ever understood each other? We have not an idea in common. Her wants are not mine, nor are mine hers. She offends all my tastes as I offend all hers. If I display so much bitterness against the merry-andrews who perform in her _salon_, it is because of her. I hate to see her countenancing their grimaces and posturings.”

She said nothing. He asked:

“You blame me for it, don’t you? Yes, yes, I feel it.... And how strange: in your presence, I too think that I am wrong and, while I was saying those things, I blushed as if I had uttered ugly thoughts!”

She laughed:

“They were not very pretty ones.”

“Never mind, I prefer you to know them. I do not wish to trick you into liking me. If I ever win your esteem, I want to do so without hypocrisy, without trying to hide my faults from you.”

No one had ever spoken to Gilberte with such seriousness and deference. She felt quite touched and, with a spontaneous movement, held out her hand to Guillaume:

“We shall be friends,” she said. “I am sure that we shall be friends.”

He was on the point of raising her small, gloved hand to his lips, but he restrained himself. And she went on:

“So this is the unsociable Guillaume de la Vaudraye! Will you believe that you quite frightened me with your surly ways? You did indeed!”

After this interview, Gilberte did two or three errands and returned to the Logis. It was drawing towards evening. She made for the summer-house and saw her dream-companion in the distance. She said to him, as though he could hear her and as though she felt bound to tell him the good news without delay:

“You know, I have a new friend!”

And Gilberte saw nothing extraordinary in this sudden friendship, based upon the exchange of a few sentences. Was she not one of those unsophisticated beings who always obey the unreflecting impulse of their hearts, who look you straight in the eyes and who do not think it out of place to tell people how they feel towards them?

And so, the next evening, she went to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, quite happy at the thought of seeing her new friend again. A disappointment awaited her: Guillaume did not appear.

She went back next day. Guillaume came down to the drawing-room, bowed to her and seemed to take no further notice of her presence.

Thereupon, on the third day, while the others were listening to Mlle. du Bocage and M. Lartiste the elder in the duet from _Mireille_, Gilberte, finding that Guillaume was alone in the next room, went out to him. She at once saw that he tried to avoid her. Realizing this to be impossible, he gave a gesture of vexation and crossed his arms in an indifferent attitude.

“What about your promise?” she asked, playfully, but a little sadly. “You promised to make yourself pleasant to your enemies in the _salon_; and this is the best you can do! Am I not entitled to complain? Did we not shake hands as friends?”

He uncrossed his arms and his expression changed. Once again she felt the relaxation of a tense will, the immediate suppression of all resistance in this silent man whose square chin and inflexible eyes bore witness to his obstinacy.

“Good!” she said. “Capital! But you still look a little fierce.... That’s better!... And now, come along.”

He stopped her:

“Do not ask too much of me. You are so far above ordinary life, so inaccessible, that you can mix with those people and remain serene and untouched. I could only do so at the risk of deteriorating. One must make allowance for different temperaments. I shall be polite, that’s all.”

Then she stayed and they talked.

Often, after that, Gilberte had to go to him and open, as she said, the door of his prison-house, unbind his hands and deliver his captive soul. But she did it so easily that it amused them both.

“You have but to lift your little finger,” Guillaume would say, “to bring down the prison-walls.”

Under this uneven and rugged husk, Gilberte discovered the most exquisite and delicate of natures, a poet’s nature that was galled by all its surroundings, a child’s nature that his mother had kept in to the verge of pain. And it was often from the point of view of a child that Gilberte was glad to be with him. They would laugh at the least thing, with that childish laughter, which is so good just because it has no excuse except our need of laughter. They longed to run and skip and play.

“Oh dear, how young I am!” Guillaume would exclaim.

“I shall be two next year,” Gilberte declared.

They could be serious also. She asked him about his writing, wanted to read what he had printed. He refused, on the pretext that he was not satisfied. Nevertheless, he showed her a letter from the editor of an important review, a letter teeming with compliments.

He lent her his favorite books and she devoured them.

Mme. de la Vaudraye was in ecstasies. She was now certain that her dream would be realized. She was too clever to betray her delight and hid it under demonstrations of gratitude:

“How sweet of you, my dear Gilberte, to tame that wild savage! You will make quite a courtier of him.”

And she added, with a sigh:

“Oh, if you could only turn him into a more attentive son and make him more grateful to his mother for all the sacrifices she has made for him!”

The discord between Mme. de la Vaudraye and Guillaume was Gilberte’s greatest grief. Her love of harmony prompted her to make continual endeavours at reconciliation which were bound to fail as much because of the mother’s arid artificiality as of the son’s stubbornness and reserve.

She had to give up the attempt.

But she suffered another pain, arising from her extreme sensitiveness: at the close of day, she could no longer go to the ruined summer-house without a certain sense of discomfort. Her unknown friend was faithful to the daily tryst which they had made with their dreams; and, though Gilberte herself never failed to keep it, she felt as though she had done him some wrong. With her eyes fixed on the distant mountains melting into the deep blue of the heavens, she let herself drift into vague reveries, far, very far away from the homely valley where her first friend patiently waited for her thoughts to return to him. It was at such times, when the darkness overtook her amidst this delightful torpor, that she seemed to be coming back from a long journey. She was almost angry with herself. But why? She could not have said.

One day, at five o’clock, as she was going down to her garden, she received a note from Mme. de la Vaudraye.

“MY DEAR GILBERTE,

“Guillaume and I are going for a stroll in the Forest of Andaine.
It is such a fine evening: do come with us.”

Should she go? To do so meant a break in sweet custom that had lent such charm to the most oppressive hours of her life, meant throwing over the constant friendship of the bad days.

She wavered and, wavering, went up to her room, put on her things, went out and knocked at the La Vaudrayes’ door.

Whatever regrets may have lingered in her conscientious mind were very soon dispelled by the pleasure which the walk gave her from the start. Spring was trying her hand, at the tips of the branches, with tiny pale-green leaves and, along the roadsides and ditches, with those charming early flowers which are so dear to us: anemones, periwinkles, primroses, wild hyacinths, lilies of the valley.... Arched lanes sped into the depths of the woods. Sweet scents, songs and colours played and mingled in all the gladness of new-born nature.

They walked without speaking. Sometimes, Guillaume and Gilberte would point out to each other, with a glance, a corner of the landscape, or the outline of a tree, or the glint of a ray of sunshine, both wishing the other to share their delight and admiration.

They sat down on the edge of a pool whose waters slumbered amidst a circle of old pines that joined their arms around them as though to dance a moveless measure. It was one of those abodes of silence that open only in the hearts of old forests. Those who are brought there by chance and who grasp the fitness of things are themselves silent.

Mme. de la Vaudraye exclaimed:

“On the first fine Sunday, we must make up a party and come here. It is a lovely spot for a picnic. What do you say?”

They did not reply. She continued:

“Every one will bring his own provisions. Of course, Mme. Charmeron will make her famous spiced beef and Mlle. du Bocage her prune-tart. And, at dessert, everybody must come out with a set of verses!”

Guillaume hurled a pebble violently into the mirror of the water.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.

He sprang up and confronted her, angrily, impatiently, with tense wrists. But, as he was about to speak, he met Gilberte’s eyes, sad and full of entreaty. He seemed quite dazed, his lips trembled and suddenly he took Mme. de la Vaudraye in his arms and began to kiss her with all his might, with all his fervent soul. And he blurted out:

“It’s quite right ... you’re my mother ... you’re my mother ... you’re entitled to say what you please.... What you say is right.... It’s my business to understand.... Oh, mother, if you only knew ...!”

VII

GILBERTE’S TWO FRIENDS

Gilberte did not go to the summer-house again. A feeling of delicacy kept her away. Nevertheless, each day, at the accustomed hour, something like a light cloud passed over her mind; and she was not far from accusing herself of ingratitude.

What was but a vague remorse towards a friend whom she had never known took a more definite shape, in another sense, with regard to him whom she now saw almost daily. She would so much have liked to offer him a brand-new friendship and to feel the excitement of it for the first time! True, there was no struggle between two sentiments, since one was so far-off and vague, the other so vivid and distinct. And yet....

There are childish conflicts which would not even ripple the most scrupulous soul, but which form the mighty storms of peaceful and innocent consciences such as Gilberte’s.

But all this took place deep down within herself, unconsciously, so to speak, and could not diminish her magical delight in living. For magic it was, something that approached a miracle, when she compared the gloom of the past with the dazzling life of the present. Whence did she derive the joy with which she thrilled at her awakening; the enthusiasm that swept her at the sight of a flower, of a landscape, of any spectacle a hundred times witnessed and never fully seen; that exaltation of thought, those sudden blushes, that inexplicable torpor of her whole being and, at the same time, that unchangeable serenity which doubled the uncertainty of her life with strength, faith, patience and certainty?

There was no allusion to the incident in the Forest of Andaine. But, from that time onward, Mme. de la Vaudraye looked upon her son in a different fashion; and, in the same way, in her conduct towards Gilberte, there was something that had hitherto been lacking: a touch of respect.

Guillaume said to Gilberte:

“You are a regular fairy, no, more than a fairy, for you exercise your power without knowing or trying. To do good, to disarm hatred, to heal wounds, to make others want to be indulgent and kind, you have no need even to wish. You have only to be as you are; and everything around you grows nobler and better.”

She listened and smiled. From him she accepted praise without blushing. He could have praised her beauty and enumerated all her charms without causing her to lower her eyes. He could not wound her maidenly modesty.

One morning, following upon a day when Gilberte had not been to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, Adèle came back from the town all out of breath:

“Oh, ma’am, here’s a nice to do! Yesterday, at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s evening, young M. Simare....”

“I thought he was away,” said Gilberte, interrupting her.

“He is back; and, last evening, he and M. Guillaume, during the duet from _Mireille_, had some words in a corner ... they were heard quarrelling.... It seems that the elder M. Simare told a story that wasn’t quite proper and M. Guillaume went for the son about it.”

“Oh, it’s all my fault!” said Gilberte to herself, feeling certain that Guillaume had taken the first opportunity to bring about a rupture.

And she asked:

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Mme. Duval saw two officers ringing at the Simares’ house just now and she says that M. Guillaume has ordered the landau from the hotel for presently ... but that has nothing to do with it.”

Though she did not foresee the possible consequences of an altercation between the two young men, Gilberte was convinced that no interference on her part would settle things, as it had done with M. le Hourteulx and M. Beaufrelant. Guillaume would not consent to have M. Simare admitted to the house again. The father would side with his son. Mme. de la Vaudraye would be furious at losing two of her regular visitors. In short, it meant a whole series of bothers and quarrels, of which Gilberte would have been the real cause.

She was very low-spirited at lunch. A presentiment of danger depressed her, but she could not have said of what sort it was nor whom it threatened.

Her suffering must have been genuine to induce her to rise suddenly, go out and turn her steps towards the La Vaudrayes’ house. But what she was doing must also have seemed to her very useless and very serious to make her stop suddenly, with frightened hesitation. How was she to act? Whom was she to influence? What events was she to avert?

The church was near and she went in. But she was unable to pray; and her anxiety became all the more painful inasmuch as she did not know its reason. Then, rather than return to the Logis, where inactivity would have been intolerable, she went along the high-road to the bottom of the valley, followed the Varenne for a short distance and then climbed up towards the Haute-Chapelle.

At three o’clock, feeling a little tired, she made for the shade on the skirt of a little wood and sat down. She had hardly left the road when the hotel landau passed and turned down the forest-lane. Was Guillaume in it?

A sound of harness-bells, the crack of a whip told her that another carriage was on its way. A break came dashing along, carrying Simare and a couple of officers, and disappeared down the same lane.

For a second, Gilberte stood breathless at a horrible thought. She would not, no, she would not have it! Then, suddenly, she began to run at full speed. A cross-roads brought her to a stop forthwith. Which of the three roads should she take?

She chose the one on the right, but, after running fifty yards, went back to the middle one and then to the one on the left. After that, she roamed at random, beating the copses, hunting on the grass for the marks of carriage-wheels, flinging herself among the ferns, listening and looking with all her nerves on edge....

A shot ... and a second, at almost the same moment ... close by....

She gave a scream and fell to the ground.

A few minutes passed. As though in a dream, she saw, through the branches, the two carriages driving by. Then voices sounded:

“I assure you, doctor, I am not mistaken. It was a woman screaming.”

She had not the strength to raise her eyelids or speak; but she felt that two men were coming towards her. One of them bent over her and took her hand:

“It’s nothing. She has only fainted.”

“In that case, doctor, don’t wait,” said the other voice. “I will see her home.”

The mist in which she was struggling lifted slowly. She perceived the smell of the earth on which she lay. She made an effort to throw off the feeling of sleep that numbed her and she opened her eyes. Guillaume was standing before her.

“You, you?” she whispered. “Oh, how glad I am! And M. Simare?”

“He’s not hurt either.”

“That’s a good thing.”

There was a pause; and then she asked:

“Why did you do it? It was not right.”

“I lost my head, when he spoke to me last night, and I yielded to an irresistible impulse of hatred. I did not know what I was doing.”

“But your mother?”

“I have managed to hide the truth from her so far. One of my seconds said that he would tell her.”

“Go to her, run as fast as you can.... She will be so anxious until she sees you.... Go at once....”

“No.”

He was so firm that she despaired of persuading him. And yet she wanted him to go. Then she looked at him and smiled:

“To please me,” she said.

“Very well,” he said, “but you must come too.”

She at once summoned her pluck and rose to her feet; and, when she expressed her wish to get back without delay he led her through the short cuts where there was hardly room to walk side by side. But their pace slackened at once; and they stopped three times to rest on the road. Gilberte no longer displayed any hurry. What did they say? Nothing but insignificant words, which they did not remember afterwards. Nevertheless, when uttering them, they felt that they had never been interested in weightier matters. What importance could suddenly have attached, in the course of a walk, to the sight of two initials interlaced on the bark of a tree, or to the flight of a bird, or to a stone rolling down a slope! Whereas, to them, these were so many astounding incidents that deserved a stop and the interchange of a few ecstatic words.

A contest between some insect and a squad of five ants that were trying to drag it away kept them for quite a long time. Who would be the victor? Gilberte took pity on the insect and saved it when it was on the point of falling in the fray. Guillaume exclaimed, in accents of profound conviction:

“You are the most generous-hearted creature I have ever met.”

Guillaume compared the moss at the foot of an oak to velvet; and Gilberte became aware that all the poetry in the world was summed up in her companion.

Having exhausted their original reflexions, their brilliant remarks and their mutual admiration, they were silent until they emerged from the wood. A lane of apple-trees led them past furze and rocks. At the foot of the slope ran the Varenne. After they had taken a turn, Gilberte cried:

“Look, that might be my garden, on the other side.... Why, so it is!... There’s the Logis.... Where are we?”

She walked on. They came to a cluster of small fir-trees. When they had passed them, they were just opposite the ruined summer-house, with only the width of the valley in between.

Gilberte gave a start. That spur of the hill, that circle of red rocks surrounding it, that cluster of firs: was this not the spot where the unknown stranger, for months ...?

A flood of contradictory feelings welled up within her: feelings of gratitude towards the invisible friend, feelings of confusion towards the actual friend, memories of the dear past and visions of the present. How she wished that she had not come to this place with Guillaume! She felt inclined to exclaim:

“Go away! Go away!”

But, on turning her head, she was stupefied at the sight of his pallor and the change in his face:

“What’s the matter? Why don’t you say something? Speak to me!”

She broke off. A sudden thought struck her, an improbable, but madly delightful idea. She fixed her eyes on his, looked down into his very soul; and the truth appeared to her so clearly that, leaning against the side of the rock, she gasped:

“It was you all the time!... It was you!...”

Not for a moment did the shadow of a fear that she was mistaken, cross her. Holding her head between her hands and closing her eyes, she took refuge in her happiness as in an inaccessible dwelling from which not even he could have driven her.

He was speaking now, kneeling before her; and it seemed to Gilberte as though two voices were joined in that one voice of entreaty, as though the unknown friend were joining his prayer to Guillaume’s, blending his image with Guillaume’s, mingling with him and beseeching her with the same hands, adoring her with the same heart:

“Gilberte, it was the day on which you arrived at Domfront, You were in the public gardens, near the ruins, and I saw you raise your mourning-veil. Since that day, my life has been wrapped up in yours. When you went over the Logis with my mother, I was there, hiding behind a curtain. You stopped close by me, I was able to take you in my eyes, to lock you in my breast like a treasure; I heard your voice, I breathed your fragrance and I lived on that memory for weeks, seeking you, calling you, hovering round the Logis, hoping for a chance meeting. Oh, the delight of it when I saw you from here, one afternoon, and when you came back next day and every day, every day! I was not sure, but it appeared to me that you saw me ... and then ... that it was just a little because of me that you came back.”

“I saw you, yes, I saw you,” said Gilberte, without removing her clasped hands from her face.

He asked:

“Are you crying?”

“I am so happy!”

“Happy?”

“Yes, happy because it was you.”

“Gilberte,” he begged, “I would give worlds to see your tears.”

She showed her dear face all wet with tears, all smiling with tears. He whispered:

“I love you.”

She seemed surprised and repeated, gravely:

“You love me ... you love me....”

He watched her anxiously. But the bright features lit up anew and she said to Guillaume, gaily and blithely, as though she had made the most wonderful and unexpected of discoveries:

“But, you know, Guillaume, I love you too.”

She had the look of a delighted child. She could have clapped her hands, so great was the enchantment of that magnificent vision of love, so sweet was it to know that she loved and was loved.

She leant over to him prettily:

“Then you are the one I was loving all the time and it is you that I love, Guillaume?”

“Gilberte ... please....”

“What do you want? Tell me what you want, Guillaume.”

“Your eyes, Gilberte, to kiss your innocent eyes, your eyes which are like the eyes of a little girl.”

Closing the lids, she offered her eyes, as though it were a quite natural thing. He took her in his arms and drew her to him. But a shiver passed through her at once. She made an instinctive movement of resistance and moaned:

“No ... no ... oh, please don’t!...”

She was not laughing now. A blush covered her cheeks and forehead. She no longer dared look at him; and Guillaume’s eyes almost hurt her. This time, it was the real, perturbing, mysterious revelation of love. Shaken with emotion, she faltered:

“Go away ... please go away....”

He kissed the hem of her skirt, picked some leaves, some blades of grass that Gilberte’s feet had trodden and went away.

VIII

THE APPOITMENT

“GILBERTE:

“I must not see you again. When you read these lines, I shall have
left Domfront. You are rich and I am poor: you need look for no
other explanation of my departure and of my conduct in the past. I
loved you from the first; and from the first I swore that I would
shun you and for ever conceal the feeling with which you inspire
me.

“Do you now understand why I behaved so coldly to you from the
beginning, though my heart throbbed at the mere sound of your
voice; why I was so hard to my mother, whose plans were obvious to
all and drove me to exasperation: I was afraid lest you should
think that I was privy to them; why I kept in the background,
hiding among those rocks, looking at you from a distance as at a
goal which I knew was, and wished it to be, inaccessible?

“But you came to me, Gilberte: that is all my excuse. You came to
me out of kindness to my mother, perhaps also prompted by that
instinct which makes us conscious of love where it lies deepest.
What could I do against your fascination? I did not even struggle.
I closed my eyes to all that was not you, you and your beauty and
your smile and your charming grace and the colour of your hair and
the freshness of your cheeks and the rhythm of your footsteps; and,
with not a further thought of my oath or the inevitable
consequences of my weakness, I accepted the infinite joy that came
to me. Oh, Gilberte, those few weeks!... But there was something
which I had never imagined in my boldest dreams: you loved me, you
also loved me.

“You love me, which means that happiness is within my reach
to-morrow, the next day, every day. It is there, I have but to
take it; a word from me and you are my wife. For I know you, my
beloved: the gift of your heart is the gift of your entire life.

“And so I must go, if I would not be overcome by temptation....

“Oh, Gilberte, you do not know what I am feeling and suffering, you
who do not know what you are, you who are all that is most human
and most divine, most noble and most simple, a miracle of harmony,
attractiveness and light. But you know nothing of yourself and will
never know anything. One could tell you and your mirror could teach
you all the perfections of your face and form; and yet you would
not know them. Were you a child of ten, wearing the white frock of
your first communion, I should proclaim my admiration with the same
frankness and with no greater fear of hurting your modesty. The
whole world might be at your feet, chanting your praises; and you
would be none the less humble. That is the marvel of your
ingenuous nature. All is merged in your purity, as in a great,
limpid sea in which every impurity would vanish. It is impossible
to think of you without evoking images of whiteness, of
transparency, of crystal water. By what mystery has it come that
the trials of life, the realities of marriage have not soiled the
freshness of your innocent eyes?

“And so I shall never see your eyes again: your eyes of the dawn,
your eyes fresh as the dew, your kind, ignorant, gentle eyes, so
fond, so gay, so sad....”

She lowered her head, overcome with emotion. Mme. de la Vaudraye, who had brought her this letter from her son and who waited for her to finish reading it, said, rather aggressively:

“I should be glad of a word of explanation, Gilberte. Yesterday, my son fights a duel without any adequate cause. To-day, he leaves me, without giving me any reason. Have these two incidents anything to do with you? You must admit their seriousness to a mother.”

Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders:

“Are you so very rich?”

The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started:

“Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!”

“How can I? He has gone away!”

“And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn’t his going distress you? Don’t you love him?”

“Yes, I love him.”

“Then write to him.”

“Write to him?”

“Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you....”

She spoke with a certain embarrassment: and this made Gilberte feel awkward. However, she said:

“I can’t write. Guillaume alone can solve the question that lies between him and his conscience.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye gave an impatient gesture and cried:

“You can’t write! What a ridiculous scruple! Is it any worse to write to a young man than to go walking about the country with him, as I hear you did yesterday? What! My son fights a duel because of you, he leaves me because of you; and, when I, his mother, ask you ...! Well, what’s the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?”

A chair suddenly pushed aside, an overturned flower-vase bore evidence to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s burst of irritation. She flew out again:

“Oh, yes, it’s all very well, but one can’t stand that eternal gentleness of yours! Here am I, telling you how wrong you are, and you listen in such a queer way that I end by putting myself in the wrong. One always feels with you as though one were in front of an indulgent judge, who graciously forgives one’s faults. And yet it’s you who are at fault!”

“Why, of course!” said Gilberte, all confusion.

“Then why do I look like a prisoner being judged?”

“Oh, but you don’t!”

“Yes, I do. It’s all very well for you to bend your head and all very well for me to rave and yell: any one would think that I was to blame and that you were making allowances. You must admit, it is enough to make one lose all patience.”

Presumably, Mme. de la Vaudraye was afraid of growing still more impatient, for she went away without another word.

Gilberte called on her, next day, and kissed her affectionately. There was not a word said about their difference of the day before.

They saw each other every day. According to the weather, they walked in the town or walked about the neighbourhood, leaning on each other’s arm and heedless of any but themselves. But they invariably returned at the same hour.

“Ah, it’s five o’clock: here are the ladies coming back!” people said.

This regularity was due to Gilberte. As soon as she was free, she went to the ruined summer-house and sat there until dinnertime.

“But why this hurry?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. “You never give me a minute over.”

“And what about my daily appointment?” said Gilberte, laughing.

“Your appointment?”

“Why, yes, with your son: what would he think of me if I were not punctual?”

In the course of a longer excursion than usual, Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was fond of turning the conversation on her past greatness, pointed out the limits of the property once possessed by her ancestors. They extended along both banks of the Varenne, as far as the spot where it joined the Andainette.

“To say nothing of what we owned on the forest side: the Revolution robbed us of that. Why, on the death of my father, the whole of the valley still belonged to us! My marriage-portion included everything down to the Bas-Moulin. And you should have seen the Logis in those days! Such furniture! Such works of art!”

Gilberte, to humour her, asked:

“And how did you lose it?”

“Oh, it’s a long story, a heap of mysterious business-schemes in which my poor husband, a decent man, if ever there was one, allowed himself to be robbed by a company-promoter called Despriol. You remember that empty house, near Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, which took your fancy yesterday, I don’t quite know why? Well, that’s where Despriol and his wife lived, up to fifteen years ago. Henriette Despriol was a charming woman; she and I were great friends; and she used to come to the Logis when she liked ... so did her husband, for M. de la Vaudraye was never happy out of his sight; and I did not dream of suspecting him, for he struck me as a good-natured, honest man and M. de la Vaudraye was careful to hide from me the dangerous speculations into which his evil genius was dragging him. Everything was discovered in an hour. Despriol took to flight, after losing, or rather stealing, all that remained to us. We were ruined.”

She paused and then continued:

“There’s worse than that. On the same evening, my dear friend Henriette came and flung herself on her knees before me and implored me to give her money to join her husband, who was in concealment in the neighbourhood, and to enable them to leave the country and retrieve their fortunes. It was a piece of brazen impudence; and I showed her the door. Unfortunately, I left her alone, for a moment, in my bedroom. An hour after, I saw that a box containing all my jewels had disappeared. We rushed to her house: she was gone.”

“Did you prosecute them?”

“We notified the police, but they were never found. Five years ago, I received a letter from Henriette in which she said, ‘The ten thousand francs which my husband sent you this morning represent the value of the jewels. It is the first money which we have been able to put by. I am longing for the day when we shall be in a position to settle with you altogether and when I shall have the right to beg your forgiveness for all the harm that we have done you. Until that day comes there will be no rest for your repentant friend.”

“And since then ...?”

“Since then, I have received another letter, a few months ago, in which she told me that her husband was dead and that she was on her way to me with all the money she owed me.”

“Well?”

“Nothing but lies! Nobody came. Do people like that come and pay back the money they have stolen! No, they were a couple of thieves. You ask anybody at Domfront about M. and Mme. Despriol: a nice reputation they left behind them! If either of them thought of coming back here, they’d be stoned in the streets! Henriette indeed! Why, I should spit in her face, that I would, the sneak, the hypocrite!...”

She uttered those words with an accent of implacable hatred charged with all the rancour of those fifteen years of poverty and privation. Gilberte shuddered. The evil expression on that face filled her with a sort of repugnance. Nevertheless, she took Mme. de la Vaudraye’s hand and, raising it to her lips, murmured:

“You poor dear!”