Chapter VI: Part 6

"You are romantic and think only of love! Men who have suffered as they have, prefer to think of their own comfort, and of those who make them comfortable. I knew a nurse seventy years old for whom her patients clamored like children. Were they in love with her?"

"That proves nothing. A blind man feels very clearly whether the woman near him is one who charms."

"Then he ought also to feel the compassion that he inspires, and that does not lead to love."

"Are you uncomfortable in the presence of a blind man?"

"It is an undefinable emotion; my head turns. I lose my self-command."

"You didn't seem to, here."

"One does almost involuntarily the thing that costs the most, if one is determined to comfort those whose misfortunes arouse your emotions."

And they talked of other things.

XXXIV

Odette would no doubt have forgotten "her" blind man if a visit which Mme. de Blauve paid her had not recalled him to mind in the most unexpected manner.

Mme. de Blauve, whose calmness had always impressed every one, from the time when she was living under the bombardment of Rheims through the days in which she had made the sacrifice of her husband, her two sons, and, one may say, her daughter, now appeared unnerved. She had grown thin; her eyes were sunken; she was evidently suffering.

With her habitual resolution she opened to Odette the purpose of her visit. She had heard--it was rumored--that her dear friend, having amply and worthily overpassed the period of her widowhood, was purposing--not by inclination, but in order to accomplish a great act of charity--to become the wife of a blinded officer. People were talking about it. She herself had been extremely moved by the news, and all the more because she feared that she had incurred a certain responsibility in the matter, having probably been one of the first to urge upon the young widow the duty of a second marriage.

Odette was amazed. What were people about? Never had she had the slightest idea of such a thing. Startled at first, she went on, almost laughing, to hear what Mme. de Blauve had to say.

"It is untrue, you say," said Mme. de Blauve; "but, my little friend, experience has taught me that there is always a grain of truth at the bottom of a wide-spread rumor. Whether good or bad, such plants do not grow out of nothing."

Odette told her upon how slight a fact this rumor might possibly have been based. She had lunched at Clotilde Avvogade's with a blinded officer, and Clotilde insisted that she had pleased him.

"Nothing more would be needed!" said Mme. de Blauve, "and your friend has probably told the story all around. It must be so, for I have heard the name of the man, the institution where he has been re-educated; I even know all about his circumstances; he is a widower without fortune of any sort, and father of two little children about whom he feels great anxiety."

"Well," said Odette, "for my part I knew nothing of these last particulars, and this is surely a proof that my romance has not gone very far."

Mme. de Blauve was lost in apologies. Nevertheless, she did not go so far as to regret the step she had taken. If it proved to have no reason in the present case, an analogous case might arise; she knew Odette's susceptibility, the noble impulses of her soul, and it was her duty to warn her against impressions and impulses----

"What!" interrupted Odette; "you, madame, whose daughter----"

"Yes, yes, precisely I, 'whose daughter'--It is because my daughter has made a marriage--beautiful, surely, from the moral point of view, but, after all, a marriage--how shall I say it--somewhat daring, that I believe myself to be authorized to say to you: 'My very dear child, be careful, reflect!' Understand me; I regret nothing that has occurred; I congratulate myself on the happiness which my daughter is assuring to a victim of the war, who is a hundred times deserving of it. Let me tell you, by way of parenthesis, that my daughter has hope of a child, and I trust that God will bring everything out right, although----"

"Although," repeated Odette anxiously.

"Although--oh, the dear child is lacking neither in love nor in admiration for her husband, who is a hero; but our poor human nature has strange revulsions--I tell you, you alone, in confidence; since my daughter has reason for hope of becoming a mother, she feels--alas! it is frightful, let me whisper it to you--she feels a sort of apprehension at the sight of her husband, whose terrible affliction you know of!-- We must, at all costs, prevent her husband having the slightest suspicion of the--temporary--feeling that he inspires, and the young wife is obliged to put the strongest restraint upon herself in order to show nothing. Just how far this incessant constraint is consistent with the happy maintenance of her condition, and with hope for its normal outcome, who shall say? This is what we are asking ourselves, this is our anxiety."

"Oh, dear, dear madame, how sorry I am for you!"

"You understand that I would not wish to have to be sorry for you, in my turn, for a reason like this. It was to avoid it that I came here, as much humiliated by my apprehensions as I was proud on the day of the marriage. You have no plan of the sort, you tell me, my child? So much the better! But I have become excessively apprehensive; I am afraid of characters like yours, which may be inclined to do too well. Sometimes a little pride enters into the good or the noble things that we do. Do you understand?"

XXXV

Mme. de Blauve had taken her leave with these words, and Odette, still breathless at the thought that there could be any question of her marrying, a little ruffled, even, remembered only the secret discomfiture confessed to by the mother of the poor little bride. It was one more cause of horror added to all those of which she was the daily witness. Her calamity had doubtless shaken Mme. de Blauve's spirit to the point of causing in her mind a sort of hallucination as to the fate which might be threatening the young widow. Or else Mme. de Blauve had made the most of slight rumors with no basis of truth, as a pretext for coming to confess her own anxiety. Or else--a conjecture which barely touched Odette's mind--Mme. de Blauve, as she had herself intimated, always erring through pride, felt a frightful satisfaction in the dangers with which she and her family were perpetually menaced, jealously guarding this bitter eminence, lest it might be seized upon by others! For one can come even to such a point.

What analogy could there be between the marriage of the little de Blauve girl, an ignorant child, with one of the most horribly mutilated of soldiers, and an imaginary marriage between her, Odette, who was going on to her thirtieth year, with a blinded man who was not disfigured? Young girls, women, were marrying blinded men every day; many more of them would do so, one must hope! The case might indeed be peculiarly delicate for her, a widow still in love with her husband, and who was peculiarly sensitive to blindness; but if the case ever occurred it was she alone who had the right to judge of it. No one knew either the lasting nature of her grief or her personal repugnances; the matter in no slightest degree deserved attention.

In fact, at the point that Odette had reached, she could imagine no limit to devotion. In the marriages now in question, there was no mention of anything that had formerly been called happiness; the only thought was of kindliness toward most deserving beings who were suffering under the greatest of misfortunes, and the greater their misfortune, the greater, it appeared, ought to be the pleasure of alleviating it. She did not approve of Mme. de Blauve, if it was she who had urged her daughter to a marriage of charity, but she could perfectly understand the daughter's having made such a marriage. If a temporary check now and then occurred, it was due to a pathological condition which would eventually cease. She recalled to mind one of her friends, a perfectly well-balanced girl, married to a very fine man whom she adored, who had taken a dislike to her husband during the whole period of her pregnancy, without in the least knowing why.

A few days later Odette received a letter from Mme. de Calouas, still in Surville, alluding to the prospect of her marriage to a blinded officer. So the utterly unfounded rumor had made its way to the depths of Normandy! And Mme. de Calouas, who was wisdom itself, and utterly removed from any suggestion that might have acted upon Mme. de Blauve, wrote to her as Mme. de Blauve had spoken: "Yes, dear friend, marry; I have never concealed from you that it is almost your duty. But beware of an excess of zeal! Take care not to undertake more than a woman of your temperament, brought up as you have been, attached to a beloved memory as you still are, will be able to endure. Remember that many of us can be heroic for a few seconds, a few hours, a few days, but that is very different from a whole lifetime."

Odette smiled, not only at the thought of what people were thinking of her, but at the solicitude which they expressed for her, and that sort of obsession for heroic acts which every one seemed to cherish. Odette had not the slightest intention of performing a heroic act. Nothing in her character had ever inclined her in that direction. Her heart was made for loving. She loved, she was sure that she loved. The one whom she loved was her husband--her Jean. She could ill analyze the character of the tenderness which at the same time she felt for every suffering creature on earth. And that was all. What would they have of her?

XXXVI

Nevertheless she continued to be disturbed by the strange rumor which had been set afloat, which was still afloat, and she promised herself to speak about it to Clotilde, who without doubt had been the cause of its diffusion.

On drawing near to the house in which Clotilde lived, she met Lieutenant Avvogade guiding his blinded man by the arm. She had not so much as thought of avoiding such an encounter.

When the blind man recognized Odette's voice his whole face was transfigured. He turned pale; he hardly had courage to speak. But she felt the effort with which his closed eyelids were directed toward the point in space from which her voice had come; her perfume had been wafted to him. This blinded man was looking at her, was seeing her in his imagination; perhaps he was seeing her much more beautiful, more alluring, than he had dreamed! He had been disturbed because opportunities to be with her had no longer been afforded him, and he did not know that it was not she herself who had prevented them. But an inward instinct, stronger than he had yet known, filled him with ecstasy in that moment of the young woman's presence. He inhaled her like a flower, he listened to her, was saturated with her. Believing himself to be behind the veil which hid the daylight from him, as behind a screen, he neglected to keep a watch on himself, to impose constraint upon himself. His emotion was evident to those who saw him, and the agitation of a man so much to be pitied impressed her profoundly.

Odette told him that she had learned that he had two little children. Then the blinded man extended his hand to her; his throat contracted; he could not utter a word. Without hesitation Odette took the hand of this man, so good-hearted and so wretched, and let her own be enfolded in his. Not a word had been added to those alluding to the children, yet she felt that she had never heard from human lips such an expression of gratitude.

*
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They were there, under the trees of the Square of the United States, one of the beauty spots of opulent, worldly Paris, where so many conventional words and actions must have been exchanged; and this agitated silence, those clasped hands, result of the universal woe, seemed to embody as in marble the symbol of a new beauty which effaced all that had before been known.

As the blind man made a motion to relinquish her hand, Odette said:

"_Au revoir_, messieurs"; and left them. The blind man remained motionless, either because he could not think it possible that she should go, or because he waited for his friend, who hesitated to urge him to leave the place.

*
* *

Odette did not go up to Clotilde, even at the risk of permitting her lack of protestation to be accepted as acquiescence. She felt herself incapable of talking with any one whose heart was not overflowing. She did not disdain the sight of her flowers, her preoccupation with personal pleasures; she would despise nothing, these were tastes which inspired her rather with pity. Toward those who have greatly suffered it was not pity that she felt, but _attraction_; an irresistible attraction.

*
* *

She was soon joined by one who greeted her. It was La Villaumer, returning from a visit to a sick man in the Rue Bizet. He turned toward the two men who were going away and asked Odette:

"Then it is true? They told me----"

"Only one single thing is true," said Odette, "and that is that they told you."

"There is only one single thing true," replied La Villaumer, "and that is that you feel as imperative a need to do good, as most poor mortals of good being done to them. If I had not seen--I should say to you, as others will say to you: 'My friend, take care, keep yourself in hand!' But I have just seen the face of this man who is deprived of light, and who perhaps feels the lack of you more than of the beauty of the light, and I tremble-- It seems to me that I see you, my poor dear friend, reaching the last stage of an evolution which I have watched as if it had been my own. Many will look upon this acme of your self-sacrifice as an immolation. But I recall to mind the words that I have so often spoken to myself: 'You no longer Count!' The individual is dead-- Provisionally, but for a time which we cannot estimate, the individual is dead-- In fact, you yourself have perceived that you no longer have any rights, not even the right to mourn your unending grief. The moment has come to mourn more largely, more grandly, with the only grief that can save a soul like yours. The only hope of a resurrection lies in giving oneself to the common need, and losing oneself in it with love."