Chapter VI: Part ONE: I (6)

But Annette had suffered too much from the thought that Julien might reproach her some day (even if he never expressed it) if she married him. When it was no longer possible to ignore the irremediable weakness of his character and the futile hope of a lasting decision from which his troubled spirit would no longer try to draw back, she settled the question in good earnest. She wrote to Julien and told him not to prolong this useless torment any further. She was suffering, he was suffering, and they had to live. She had to work for her child, and he had his own work. She had taken him away from it too long. They had both been using up their strength, and they had none too much of it. Since they could not do each other the good they had hoped for, let them not do each other harm. They must not see each other any more. She thanked him for all that he had been to her.

Julien did not answer. Silence fell between them. But in their hearts, bitterness, regret, wounded passion still fought with one another.

XXII

Their love had not remained a secret from those who were close to them. Leopold had watched it with an annoyance he had not been able to conceal from Sylvie. His painful memory of that far from brilliant adventure of his had left in his mind an involuntary resentment which had not become less active a few months later. Far from it. For he found it possible to pretend to himself that he had forgotten the reason for it. Sylvie, already on the watch, was struck by his strange behavior: she observed him and she found it impossible to doubt that he was jealous. In accordance with the admirable logic of the heart, she was angry with Annette. She took a violent dislike to her. In a measure the state of her health explained these violent reactions. But the unfortunate thing in such cases is that the reverberation is prolonged beyond the condition that has caused them.

In October Sylvie gave birth to a little girl. Joy for everybody. Annette became as passionately attached to the child as if it had been her own. It gave Sylvie no pleasure to see it in her arms, and she no longer tried to conceal the hostility that she had hitherto repressed. Annette, who, for a few weeks, had been listening to unkind words from her sister, which she attributed to the passing illness, was no longer able to doubt Sylvie's estrangement. She said nothing, avoiding any occasion for annoying her. She hoped for a return of the old affection.

Sylvie was on her feet again. The relations between the two sisters remained apparently the same, and an outsider would not have noticed any change. But Annette observed in Sylvie a cold animosity that hurt her. She would have liked to take her hands and ask her, "What's the matter? What have you against me? Tell me, dear!"

But Sylvie's look froze her. She did not dare. She felt intuitively that if Sylvie spoke she would say something irreparable. It was much better to remain silent. Annette felt in her sister a wish to be unjust against which she could do nothing.

One day Sylvie said to Annette that she wanted to have a talk with her. Annette, with her heart beating, wondered, "What is she going to say to me?"

Sylvie said nothing that could offend Annette, not a word of her grievances. She talked to her about getting married.

Annette gently changed the subject. But Sylvie was insistent and suggested a match: a friend of Leopold, a sort of business agent, a journalist in some vague way, with a certain style, the manners of a man of the world, and varied, too varied, resources, who sold automobiles and wrote advertisements, acted as an intermediary between the manufacturers and their customers in clubs and drawing-rooms, and received commissions from both sides. It was a proof that Sylvie had changed greatly in relation to her sister that she could offer her such a choice, and Annette was aware of the lack of affection this deliberate slight indicated. With a gesture she stopped the description of the candidate. Sylvie took it in bad part, asking if Annette found the suggested suitor beneath her pretensions. Annette said that she had no pretensions except to live alone. Sylvie replied that this was easy to say, that it was all very well to want to live alone, but that first one had to have the power to do so.

"But do you think I can't?"

"You? I challenge you to do it!"

"You are unjust. I can earn my living."

"With the help of other people."

In the tone, even more than in the words, there was something intentionally wounding. Annette blushed, but she did not take her up; she did not want to bring about an open quarrel.

During the following weeks, Sylvie's ill-humor was very noticeable. Any pretext served her, the least disagreement in conversation, a detail in dress, Annette's lateness at dinner, the noise little Marc made on the stairs. They never went out together any more. If they had arranged for a walk on Sunday, she set out with Leopold, without saying anything to Annette, using the latter's unpunctuality as an excuse. Or at the last moment she would call off the party they had planned.

Annette saw that her presence was a burden. She spoke timidly of looking for an apartment in some other quarter that would be less remote from her pupils. She hoped they would protest, beg her to remain. They pretended not to have heard her.

She was cowardly; she stayed on. She clung to this affection which she felt was escaping her. It was not only Sylvie whom she did not want to leave. She was attached to little Odette. She endured more than one painful affront without seeming to notice it. She lengthened the intervals between her visits.

Even so, they were too frequent for Sylvie. She certainly had not returned to her normal state. An unwholesome jealousy was working in her. Once when Annette was innocently playing with Odette, without noticing a dry warning that Sylvie had given her to stop, the latter rose, irritated, and snatched the little girl from her arms. "Go away!" she said.

There was such animosity in her eyes that Annette, struck by it, said to her, "But what have I done? Don't look at me that way! I can't bear it. Do you want me to go away? Do you want me not to come back any more?"

"At last you understand," said Sylvie, cruelly.

Annette turned pale. "Sylvie!" she cried.

With a cold rage, Sylvie went on: "You are living at my expense. Very well. That's all right. But that's enough. My husband and my daughter are mine. Hands off!"

Annette, with white lips, repeated, in an agonized tone, "Sylvie, Sylvie!"

Then suddenly a transport seized her too. "You wicked thing!" she cried. "You will never see me again!"

She ran to the door and went out.

Ashamed of her violence, Sylvie pretended to laugh.

"We shall see her again this evening."

_SUMMER_