Chapter XII: Part IV: I (3)

He knew the place, as he had been there in his early youth. After a few steps in the direction of the mountain, which cut them off from all habitation, she uttered a cry of surprise. Before them an intact cloister arch reared its graceful curve under the entangled dome formed by the trees, enormous larches, evergreen and symbolizing protection, and white birches with silvery leaves. The old well, because of its covering of moss and wild flowers, could scarcely be distinguished from all this mass of verdure. And too, the bare roots of stunted fir trees, which had grown there, as in the midst of a forest, had clutched and loosened the stones. How did these stones still hold? By what miracle had time respected the purity of that arch which framed a whole portion of the forest and even a corner of sky, and stood there like a statue in a garden? The forest was already encroaching upon it and entwining it; wrapped in its embrace, it would soon disappear in the grass, and one would have to stoop to find any trace of it. Thus threatened, surrounded on all sides by a thick mass of branches and caressed by autumn in that wild landscape encircled by the mountains, it was only by its charm that it evoked the thought of man in the midst of Nature, and one knew that it was doomed.

Elizabeth looked at the arch, and Albert, a little behind, reserved all his emotion to observe her.

"I am afraid," he was thinking. "She is so delicate. She has been living for two years, almost three, with an attitude of uncertainty. How tired she must be! She needs peace. I shall know how to give it back to her. Now, yes, now, she is at one with me in my life, as we are both here...."

She had turned around to him, and in the big wide-open eyes which gazed upon him he no longer read that vaguely frightened expression which was habitual to her, but, instead, he saw fear, that fear which we experience from an immediate danger, or a vision fixed and near at hand. He quickly went to her:

"Elizabeth--what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing, nothing."

He wished to take her in his arms.

"Your eyes, your dear eyes, what did they see in the woods?"

She freed herself from his embrace, and as if she had an hallucination, held out her hand to indicate to him something or someone whom he did not see.

"There, there! She is there! Look! Between us!"

"Who?"

"She is always there--when you read to me in the evening, when you tell me that you love me, when you take me out walking. Just now you wanted to show me those ruins, to exchange our impressions. She does not wish it. She has come."

"But who?" he repeated, although he already knew.

"Anne de Sézery."

At the sound of her name which neither one nor the other had ever dared to utter, the distant girl with the golden eyes appeared actually to rise under the trees, there, near the cloister arch. Albert resolutely put away the phantom.

"Listen, Elizabeth," he said. "Nothing is between us, not even she. She has gone forever. Let us leave her. You are the wife of my youth. You have cared for our home alone so long. Do not destroy it, in your turn, for a shadow. I used to love your unawakened mind. When I believed it was so, I looked elsewhere for that happiness which we do not appreciate when it is within our grasp, and which requires such constant devotion, an almost daily watchfulness, to be realized and retained. Now I find it in you. I was not mistaken when I chose you. You are certainly the one who was to determine my life, my entire life. I love you and I beg you to forget."

She had listened to him, trembling, bending towards him, like those slender birches in the forest which rear themselves to reach the light. The last word aroused her again.

"But you, Albert, you. How could you forget her?"

"Near her, Elizabeth, I thought of you. Near you I do not think of her."

And with a curious persistence, she said:

"No, you cannot forget her. And I, I do not want to owe my happiness to her sacrifice. I have tried ever since your return. I cannot."

Surprised and dismayed by this mysterious allusion, he asked her:

"Her sacrifice? What sacrifice? I don't understand."

"That is quite right. You cannot understand."

And in the same frightened and compelling voice, she added this vague warning:

"You will understand to-night. You will choose to-night."

She would give him no other explanation. They had to go back to the forest house. They took the children and returned to Saint-Martin d'Uriage. The return was as dreary as the journey there had been gay. The children instinctively shared the sadness of their parents, who did not exchange a word. They guessed that they were again at variance. And Marie Louise, at a turn in the road, even went up to her father to ask him:

"Papa, you are not going away again?"

She received no answer. Deep in thought and absentminded, Albert did not lead the way. The day was fading. At this season, the days are so short. Below, the darkness which filled the depth of the valleys, was beginning to ascend the mountains, dispersing the rays of the sun. On coming out of the Prémol forest, the orchards and chestnut groves presented sheaf bouquets, made up of golden or copper leaves. The procession, which had gone along without a leader, came to a short cut, and found they were lost.

"Where are we?" asked Elizabeth.

She spoke to her husband with so much ease and security that he considered it a sign of confidence in the future. She showed herself so delicately to be a woman by putting herself under his protection, and yet how well she had directed his home during the time he had deserted her! He found out easily where they were. But they were obliged to climb the hill again. Night came on as they were still on the way. The donkey, laden with the two children, went on slowly, and Philippe, who hated the darkness, wanted someone else than "Brains" to lead him.

"You are not tired?" Albert often asked his wife.

"No, no."

But she slackened her pace. Knowing that she was tired, he pitied her still more, cherishing her with that tenderness which surrounds and refreshes its object, as the sea an island. At last the procession arrived at Saint Martin, accompanied by the flocks which were being led to the pond. It was a slow trail of oxen and sheep in the twilight. The shepherds called their separate flocks. They were gathered around the water which flowed through a tree trunk. But even this disorder was tranquil. The peace of evening was descending on the mountain-side.

Once again in the house, Albert asked Elizabeth:

"Now, will you explain to me? All along the way I have thought of nothing else."

"Presently," she said. "When the children are asleep."

VII

THE OPENED EYES

After dinner, which was a cheerful meal, despite the general weariness, she took Marie Louise and Philippe and put them to bed herself. A moment later, she came back alone to the drawing-room, where her husband, standing motionless before the fire, was anxiously awaiting her return. She held out two letters to him. She had the same expression of fear which he had noticed at the Chartreuse de Prémol.

"Read," she murmured. "When they are asleep, I shall come back."

He read first the letter Elizabeth had received from Anne de Sézery, and that revelation of a voluntary renunciation aroused in him, as a storm stirs the calm waters of a lake, all the passionate recollections which he had buried in his heart. For a moment he was crushed, possessed, carried beyond himself. What had become of her, whom he had not suspected to be capable of such a sacrifice? The second letter, addressed to Philippe Lagier, informed him. In India, at the Epiphany School, she was filling the office of Sister of Mercy, and found there the occupation of her great soul. She would never write again. With a woman's intuition, she had understood in her far-away post, her lover's resistance to his own happiness, and was letting him know of the consolation she was finding in her new life, and of the vow she had taken to make sure that her renunciation had not been in vain.

"With you, uncertainty may last for a lifetime," she said to her rival, whom she overwhelmed somewhat with her magnanimity. Albert hated uncertainty and he would have to choose before Elizabeth's return. Circumstances would not allow him to hesitate when his surging thoughts were seeking direction. In refusing to owe her reconquered place to a person whose character was still to remain a mystery; in giving him the knowledge of Mlle. de Sézery's splendid courage, even divested of the exigencies which lessened its value, did not Elizabeth reveal a greatness of soul equivalent to Anne's? With what superiority both women gave proof of their love! Ah, man, whatever he may do, is always surpassed in this, and if he wishes to be favorably judged, he must invoke the continuance of his efforts to create a lasting work, an enduring structure: passion never fills his life completely, forever.

The minutes passed. How should he welcome Elizabeth? He could only take her in his arms and give back to her confidence and the peace of her heart. And he would even hide his wound from her. Anne, far away--Anne, lost to him--Anne idealized by her flight, would remain in his life like one of those mysterious divinities to whom one offers occult homage. Many men's hearts contain these idols, and no one divines it. It is the secret garden of each and every one. He would cultivate his secret garden as a thing apart, rather than have his wife henceforth know the least doubt, the slightest suffering.

He had arrived at this resolution when he saw Elizabeth before him. She had returned unheard. She stood waiting for the words he was going to say, her body bent by anxiety, as a stem by the weight of the flower it supports. Then he took the two letters and threw them into the flames. They watched them twist, blacken, dwindle away, and when it was all over, he drew her to him, trying to smile, so as not to alarm her.

"You see, the fire has devoured them. It is you I love."

In an indistinct voice she asked:

"And her?"

"I have so much pity for her."

"Only pity?"

"Yes."

This was the cruel grave which he gave Anne de Sézery.

But she fixed him with her questioning eyes, with her immense eyes, and this look disturbed him. He felt it pierce him like a sharp point. She had reflected too much, suffered too much, lived too much in these last years not to know his deepest thoughts. Conquered, subdued by this effort of which she bore the touching trace, the application with which by stone she had reconstructed their devastated hearth, he was afraid of lying to her, and gently taking her face between his hands to draw her to him, he said quite close to her:

"Elizabeth, do not look at me like that. Yes, this letter of Anne's has hurt me. But it is past now, I swear it. With her, whatever her love might be, we should walk towards death. With you, it is toward life."

"My Albert!"

"What a distance we have covered only to return to our starting point!"

"I am so weary!"

He rested the dear face against his shoulder.

"I am so happy here," she said with abandon.

Her sorrow, her deep sorrow had not been in vain. It had reestablished the unity of the family in her charge. How sadly she had learned that we are much more responsible for the little things than for the great ones in which circumstances play a large part, and that it is our duty, day by day, to strengthen the chain of our happiness, so easy to break. The future owed her compensations. She had been unable to retain the illusions of her youth. But she understood better, and he as well as she, the resisting force of human love when it is sustained by a sacred promise and the visible bond of children. With an energy which had been dormant she had accomplished the most difficult of all tasks: reconstruction. And in transforming her, that effort had made her more worthy of being loved, more developed in intelligence and charm. She had triumphed over her rival by her unswerving courage, as well as by her youth; and, freed at last, he recognized it.

"I have learned to love you," she said.

"My wife!"

This word would henceforth keep Albert's heart within bounds, and with his lips he closed the eyes that had opened little by little to an understanding of life.

THE END