Chapter X: Part TWO: XXIII (4)

As she came out she ran into Ruth and passed her coldly. Ruth stopped her and asked, "You are going to have it?"

"I have it."

She saw the other's forehead redden strangely. She was expecting some violent remark, but Ruth said nothing. Annette continued on her way, and the other followed her. They descended the stairs. As she reached the street, Annette, turning round, threw a rapid glance towards her defeated rival, and Ruth's dejected air touched her. In spite of her resolution to be hard, she went back and said to her, "I'm sorry. One has to live."

"Oh, I'm quite aware of that," said the other. "Some have all the luck. I never have any."

Her tone had entirely changed. Dejection without animosity. Annette made a movement to take her hand, but Ruth drew back her own.

"Come, don't feel badly! One day one of us loses; another day it will be the other."

"It's every day with me."

Annette recalled their first encounter when Ruth had succeeded in getting the place. Ruth did not reply and walked along dejectedly beside Annette.

"Couldn't I help you?" said Annette.

The blush overspread her forehead again. Wounded pride, emotion? Ruth said dryly, "No!"

"It would give me pleasure to do so," Annette insisted.

And with a familiar gesture she seized her arm. Ruth was surprised and pressed Annette's hand nervously under her arm, and, turning her head, she bit her lip. Then she tore herself away in irritation and walked off.

Annette let her go, following her with her eyes. She understood her: yes, one has no right to offer one's pity to one who does not ask for it.

A few days later, entering a dairy, she saw Ruth making some purchases. She held out her hand to her. This time Ruth took it, but with an icy air. She made an effort, however, to appear less sullen; she uttered a few common-place words, and Annette, satisfied with this ungenerous advance, replied. The two women discussed the prices of the things they had bought. Annette, though she did not show it, was astonished that Ruth spent more than she on fresh eggs and special milk. Ruth was a little ostentatious in paying in front of her. As they went out, Annette said, "How much it costs to live!" She almost excused herself for the eggs she had bought, saying, "They're for my child."

Ruth, with a lofty air, remarked, "Mine are for my husband."

Annette knew nothing about the other's life. "Is he ill?" she asked.

"No, but he is very delicate."

She spoke proudly of the care that his health required. Annette, who knew how touchy Ruth was, did not ask her any questions, but waited for her to speak. Ruth said nothing more and they were about to separate when Annette remembered. . . . She offered Ruth a job--the revision of some work by a foreigner--which had been offered to her and which she did not have time to undertake. Ruth at once showed the liveliest gratitude: money played in her life a capital rôle. Annette asked for her address in case she had other orders to pass on to her. Ruth hesitated and replied evasively.

"It's only to be of service to you," said Annette impatiently. "In any case, I live myself--" And she gave her address.

Ruth reluctantly gave her own. Annette felt rebuffed and decided to think no more about her.

But Ruth came and looked her up a few weeks later. She excused herself for having seemed so unfriendly. And this time she confided to her a little, not much, about her life. Born of a family of rich farmers, she had quarrelled with her father because she had wanted to come to Paris and teach. Her father had wounded her pride and she had sworn never to accept anything from him. She wanted to earn her own living. She had worn herself out. In spite of her energy, thinking was too much for her; she labored at her books like an animal at the plough; the blood swelled her temples; she was obliged to stop in a state of congestion. An incipient neurasthenia forced her to give up the examinations she was just ready to pass. She fell back upon giving private lessons. She was succeeding, with difficulty, in earning her living when she fell in love with a man whom she married and who became simply one burden the more. But this she did not say; Annette learned it elsewhere. She was acute enough to divine a part of the truth in the course of the discreet questions she asked her new friend. She saw that the husband had no occupation: he was an "intellectual," an "artist," a "writer." And she did not have to go very far to find what he wrote. Verses! . . .

Ruth had no more taste than any other little provincial soul. But the poetry overawed her.

She was in no haste to introduce her "artist." She kept him at home. But from this time forward she saw Annette more often--too often. She ended by overwhelming her with testimonials of friendship, flowers, attentions that were seldom very well inspired and only irritated Annette. She had no middle way: it was all or nothing with this passionate soul. She had never had a woman friend; she had never confided in anyone. From the moment when she made up her mind to like Annette she monopolized her. Annette was bored to death by this affection, and she realized that the husband would not find it easy to bear.

At last she succeeded in surprising and catching a glimpse of the precious bird: a dull, insignificant man with vague blue eyes who gave the impression that he was a secret devotee of absinthe. Very vain and far from sure of himself, utterly mediocre, he was anxious for Annette's good opinion. He did not love his wife, but he found it convenient to be pampered by her and assumed languishing, piteous, sad airs in the name of his health, his unrecognized talents and the envy of his fellow-writers. Annette pierced him through and through with her clear eyes. He was cautious with her and moderated the jeremiads for which the silent irony of his listener was waiting. But Ruth swallowed everything whole; she was incapable of judging and as proud as Artaban. . . . "Let her keep her illusions. She needs some one to love, a man to protect. She has a passionately domestic soul. She would lie down under his feet. . . ." But sometimes she quarrelled with him bitterly. Once, as Annette was climbing the stairs, she heard the "poet" bawling and whining. Ruth was slapping her husband.

Annette no longer had any doubt that the best part of Ruth's money was spent for José's loafing and absinthe. He played the races also. Ruth never complained: she struggled to save up enough for him to publish a volume of his poems. But he was in no hurry to write them. And when, one day, she went over her accounts she discovered that he had stolen three-quarters of the money: he had robbed himself!

That day, with her pride utterly broken, she confessed her misery to Annette. She would not have spoken if it had concerned herself alone. But for years she had been wearing herself out for him--"for his glory," as she said. And he had destroyed it himself!

One confidence leads to another. Annette ended by learning almost all of Ruth's sufferings. Her health was ruined. She was growing weaker every day and less able to restrain her thoughts. As death approached her eyes were opened and she realized the inanity of this man and his lack of affection. José was hardly ever at home any more. He would steal away, finding no pleasure in the society of a sick, disappointed wife.

When her last days came, Ruth had no illusions left. She declared, however, with sincere pride, that she regretted nothing and that she would do it all over again.

"_That_ has killed me. But I have lived by it."

She did not believe in anything; she expected nothing, either in this world or in the other. . . .

Annette was alone with her when she lay on her deathbed. A hemorrhage of the brain had struck her down.

José, who had fled at the approach of death, showed his timorous face a few moments afterwards. He had a brief moment of feeling. After he had wept, his first words were, "But what in heaven's name is to become of me?"

"You'll find someone else to support you," said Annette.

He threw her a spiteful glance. And he let Annette pay the funeral expenses.

"There you are!" Annette thought, by the bedside of the dead woman. "She was a tower of pride, will, ascetic devotion. . . . What good did it all do? What a mess! Giving oneself to a dog! Poor Ruth was hard. She was not hard enough. One must be harder still."

XXXV

Reaction against the deception of the heart--my accursed heart which is only there to delude me. My head and my senses will and know. My heart is blind. It is my business to direct it. Reaction against love, and against sacrifice, and against goodness.

In everyone's life, as in the life of society, there are phases of feeling that succeed one another without resembling one another. Their first law, indeed, is not to resemble one another. While one phase is in the ascendant, everyone shares in it with complete seriousness, feeling nothing but contempt for the ridiculousness of the phases that have passed out of date and convinced that his phase is and will always be the best. . . . Annette passed in this way through a phase of hardness.

But whatever one's garment may be, the human being remains the same. One cannot get along without others. The proudest needs his share of affection; and the more circumstances oblige one to shut oneself in, the more one's treacherous mind conspires to betray one.

Annette felt very strong. Strong in her experience and her intelligence, firm, practical, disillusioned. She was sure now that she could live by her will--of course, by working, but the work too was her will. She did not fear any lack of this. She did not need anyone's help. Nor was she going to put herself out either to please or to displease.

She had found herself in competition lately with a new kind of rival, men. She gave lessons to boys to prepare them for school and examinations. She was successful, but along with her success came the increasing animosity of those to whom she was preferred. They considered themselves thwarted. There was no question of gallantry any more. The most destitute of consideration were the married men: their wives spurred them on. They slandered Annette: what would they not insinuate in regard to the means by which she managed to reach the best places? Annette, with her hard, attractive smile on her lips, followed her own road, scornful of public opinion.

At bottom, however, there was the invisible stamp of the wear and tear exacted by these long years of merciless toil. Her fortieth year was approaching. Life had passed and she had not realized it. An obscure feeling of revolt was rising within her. All this lost life, this life without love, without action, without luxury, without any rich joy. . . . And all that she had missed she had been so completely fitted to enjoy!

What was the use of thinking of it? It was too late now!

Too late?

_SUMMER_