Part III
I The First Stage
A German legend, intended to illustrate that time is a mere convention, tells of the marvelous adventure of a young monk, who, doubting eternity, was attracted by the song of a bird in a wood near his hermitage. It was such a delightful song that one never tired of listening to it. When the monk returned to his convent he recognized no one there, and according to his recollections, it was found that three hundred years had elapsed since his departure. He had thought they were only a few minutes.
Elizabeth, after sitting up all night, was so worn out that she believed, on the contrary, that she bore the weight of long years. She was not prepared to penetrate so far into the forest of life. She had sought the way so keenly, that she was tired to death. Her health suffered for it, and she was obliged to remain in bed several days. Her illness was attributed to the treachery of early September evenings which simulate the softness of the summer, and are really cold. This enforced rest allowed her to deepen the resolutions which were to change her life. She felt herself unequal to seeing the visitors who wished to pay her a sick-call, and unable to recommence the worldly show, of which her new point of view showed her the emptiness. As soon as she was well, she declared her intention of settling at St. Martin d’Uriage.
“That is madness,” her father objected, “nobody lives in the mountains in the autumn, particularly when recovering from a bad fever. And what will our friends say?”
Quietly, but firmly, she gave her reasons:
“To begin with, it is not the mountains. The sharper air will give me back my health and strengthen the children. And, moreover, I want to see fewer people. It is better in my position. And you will come to us frequently.”
“To Albert’s,” corrected M. Molay-Norrois, who was surprised to find such determination in place of her usual pliable indifference.
Offended, she replied:
“It is true, but he will not come there.”
“And if you were mistaken?”
“You will take me, Father.”
Pleased to have proved in a word, the value of his paternal rôle, he no longer insisted.
The country house at Saint-Martin was opened again. The children recognized again with shouts of joy, the wooden porches which encircle the walls. A large garden, enclosed by a hedge, separated it from the country road. It was rather a deserted orchard where fruit trees, wild plants and flowers grew without cultivation. On the side of the farm, groups of pine-trees, an arbor and a stream gave it the appearance of a park. Opposite the entrance gate, an alley of plane trees extended to the church, which, new-built, stands against an old Roman steeple with a stone roof, the last vestige of an ancient chapel.
The village of St. Martin is built on a projection of the slopes of Chamrousse. From the mountain, a sea of verdure, meadows and pine woods seem to burst forth into these scattered hamlets, as if to submerge them. Below, that is in the foreground, the Chateau of Saint-Ferriol, standing bolt upright on a wooded promontory, with a pretty swaggering air, looks defiantly at the fortress with its towers, gables and superimposed terraces. Some seven hundred feet below, the fresh valley of Uriage is stretched out. From this terrace hidden by trees, one looks out on an extended view which is bordered by the mountains of Drac and by the Chartreuse in the distance. As the bell nearby sounded the last Angelus, Elizabeth, who had just finished putting her room in order, saw from her window the flocks returning, as evening came up from the plain. The peace of the country was so complete that she felt it in her heart.
The lights in the Casino and the hotels were being turned on. She was happy to be so far away from them. Here, she could master herself. An impression which dated from the first days of her marriage naturally recurred to her. Albert, on such an evening, had taken her hand to kiss it.
“See,” he had said, “we are separated from the whole world. With my work and you, I want nothing more.”
She had not understood the fullness of happiness which he hoped to find in her, and that this simple happiness must be jealously guarded.
Night began to frighten her. She feared sleeping in this old building, with its long passages and huge rooms, in which every corner seemed as if it concealed some unknown danger. She dared not inspect the rooms, nor fall asleep. For a long time she heard the tick of an old clock standing in the corridor, which seemed at every stroke to announce ghosts. She had never been afraid of anything when Albert was there. Henceforth it would require training to establish her courage and strengthen her weakness.
Marie Louise and Philippe had soon exhausted the novelty of change. The friendship of the farmers’ children, calling in the fowls to give them corn, the mystery of the barns and the farm implements, the heat of the stables, the joy of going into the fields with the cows in the charge of their nervous governess, only made them forget for a few days their motor trips and the children’s dances at the casino. They imperiously demanded more refined amusements. Their mother tried to take them walking to Prémol or to the Oursière Waterfall in the Chestnut woods. But she did not know the difference between mushrooms and toadstools, and the untiring youngsters wanted to drag her too far; unaccustomed to walking, she became exhausted before they did. This dual inferiority lessened her in their esteem. She ended by forgetting herself in trying to read stories to them. The library at Saint Martin, carelessly arranged on white pinewood shelves, contained all kinds of curious old books, novels of chivalry, collections of popular legends, ballads of France and other countries. Elizabeth had often seen her husband glance hurriedly over them and take out a volume which she thought was chosen at random, but from whose pages, fantastic heroes escaped. When she wished to do likewise, she saw how ignorant she was.
“You don’t know,” said Marie Louise condescendingly. “Papa knew. And then he did not read—he told us stories. It’s much nicer.”
And the impertinent little girl finished by saying:
“I will tell you the story of the ‘Cup of Happiness.’”
How difficult it was to keep a resolution! After the sad exaltation of her night of awakening, which had inspired her so tremendously in her desire for change and sacrifice, she was now hesitating at little daily obstacles and struggling against them. She would never attain the object which she sought. What was the good of trying? Albert would know nothing of it. The irreparable separated them. He belonged to another love. Thus discouraged, she ceased all resistance and gave way. But she increased her sorrow by worrying, as one irritates a wound by frequent probings. And, at night, the sight of the lights attracted her. She was already considering going back, renouncing the decision made at a time of deadly insomnia. Only self-love still retained her. She pictured the ironical glances of Mme. Passerat or of Mme. de Vimelle.
One day, as she was walking sadly down the plane-tree avenue, whose heavy leaves are the first to become discolored, after the arrival of autumn, she accepted the invitation of the chapel, the door of which was wide open. She never went there, except to take the children to Mass on Sunday. She tried to pray, but no prayer came to her—only complaints and recriminations against her fate. She remembered one of Albert’s reflections:—although an unbeliever, he still recognized the motive power of religious faith, but denied the existence of that faith in all those whose life was not the proof of it, at least in serious circumstances. And he added that he had scarcely known—except in the case of his mother—that constant elevation of thought in the humblest actions which are transfigured by the expression of an inner joy. This made her remorseful. She had had no news of Mme. Derize since she left Grenoble. She always spent the summer at Saint Martin: how had she stood the heat? Why should she have been thus deprived of the country air and the companionship of her grandchildren? Why strike her, punish her for a fault which she could not even understand, and so strongly condemned? Elizabeth was ashamed of her forgetfulness, and promised herself to make up for it the following day, while the heat and light of the whole month of September still permitted it. That was her prayer.
Next day, she had the children dressed early. They were delighted to go to Grenoble. But when it was time to leave, Marie Louise looked complainingly at the empty road:
“I don’t see the motor,” she said.
“We are going to walk as far as Uriage where we are to take the street car.”
“The car?” repeated the youngsters bitterly.
Spoiled by the Passerat motor, they had little liking for this mode of travel. Nevertheless, they were resigned. At the Boulevard des Adieux when they had to climb a dark staircase, they complained again.
“It is not nice, not nice,” said the little girl insolently.
“It is all dark,” Philippe added.
Children do not willingly take the part of those who are conquered: it is life that makes them do so. Elizabeth quieted them with difficulty. She was already worrying about her mother-in-law’s welcome, and did not want to bring two badly behaved children to see her. Old Fanchette, who opened the door for them, wore a cross face, as she greeted the young woman, but when she saw her thus accompanied, she was wreathed in smiles. Mme. Derize received her in her sweet, gentle way, as if she had not noticed the neglect she had suffered. In this way she prevented any apologies and awkwardness. She admired the rosy cheeks of the two children who were holding back, uncertain as to whether they should obey their instinctive respect for age, or respond to the tenderness she showed them.
“Back again in Grenoble?” she asked Elizabeth.
“Only for a time. We have come to lunch with you, Mother.”
Fanchette, who was listening, muttered between her teeth:
“Now we must feed them, the dinner-hunters!”
“You will fare very badly,” Mme. Derize replied in her quiet voice, “but so much the worse for you.”
“I have brought a pie with me and some of those little strawberries that you liked from the Chamrousse woods.”
“Ah, you spoil me.”
“Just as if we had nothing to give them to eat!” still grumbled the servant, who made no pretense of being logical.
This addition to the menu was very welcome. During the meal, Elizabeth realized, with a sense of details which only a woman can recognize, that there was a decrease of the comforts of life. She looked more attentively at Albert’s mother and saw a change in her face, which she had not noticed on her arrival. She attributed it to the heat of a long summer, endured without once leaving the town, surrounded by a chain of mountains which seem to focus the rays of the sun on the plain. How wicked she had been in not asking her to come up to Saint Martin, where every year she had enjoyed the good air! Immediately after luncheon, she made the offer which was in her mind.
“Mother,” she said, “we are going to take you to Uriage.”
“It is very late now,” objected Mme. Derize, who blushed immediately, fearing that her words would be construed as a complaint.
But the slight flush did not color her cheeks very long. She added:
“I mean to say that the season is already well advanced.”
“We have still part of September and October. Autumn often has many fine days. The church is only a few steps from the house. You will have the children. Come, I beg of you.”
Fanchette, who was clearing away the table, was still a victim of contradictory emotions, and rattled her dishes. They might have asked madame before, but a stay in the mountains would still do her good.
Mme. Derize, somewhat surprised at so much insistence, was looking kindly at her daughter-in-law. She asked herself to what this unexpected manifestation was due. Had she been right to entrust Albert’s books to the care of Philippe Lagier to be given to his young wife? She had blamed her initiative very much. She had often been remorseful and somewhat afraid. Could her mind be at ease, and did she even see a light in the dark future?
“I shall be very pleased to join you,” she finally accepted.
“No, no. This is a kidnapping. We are going to carry you off with us this evening.”
Like weak, shy people, Elizabeth manifested a nervous obstinacy. With an uncertain will, one seeks only immediate results.
“Well, let us make up our bundles,” answered the old lady almost gayly, understanding that state of mind.
When the arrival of Mme. Derize became known at Uriage, the entire Molay-Norrois set unanimously condemned Elizabeth. It was an absurdly sentimental concession. It would have been better to have continued to maintain her dignity. Saint Martin was little frequented. Nobody bothered to meet an old woman of commonplace family. M. Passerat, who had formerly had occasion to converse with her, took her part, but as usual, showed himself to be a coward.
“She is an educated woman, I assure you.”
“Yes, a former post-mistress,” said Mme. de Vimelle curtly.
Philippe Lagier, who had left for Florence the day following his distressing defeat, was no longer there to make them respect his old friend. However, Mme. Molay-Norrois visited her daughter more frequently, and even made advances to Albert’s mother. Elizabeth, absorbed in her one idea, showed herself to be unjust in not noticing these praiseworthy efforts. Another drama was being played about her which she never suspected.
The absent member of the family was never mentioned at Saint-Martin, but the thought of him abided there. It occupied the two women unceasingly, one of whom, the young wife, kept silent from pride, and the other from a motive of delicacy, feeling awkward even in presence of the children—in order not to violate instructions that she understood, but regretted. Mme. Derize did not compare the faults of her daughter-in-law with those of her son. She simply wanted to incline Elizabeth to indulgence. Orderly in her own inner life and very skeptical about the duration of illegitimate passions, she did not give up hope of Albert’s return.
For a fortnight this strained condition continued. In the evenings after Marie Louise and Philippe had gone to bed, it became particularly unbearable. The two women worked under the same lamp; one, wearing spectacles and bent over a thick woolen stocking intended to warm some poor neighbor’s baby in the wintertime; the other, very erect; guiding herself from a pattern of some tapestry on which she worked idly and without pleasure. They exchanged a few commonplaces, then the conversation stopped. The stillness of the country at night was all about them, penetrating and quieting them.
“Why does she not speak to me?” thought Elizabeth, reopening her wound. “Albert considered her so intelligent, so superior to poor silly little me. She does not bother with me. I am not worth the trouble. Then why did she come?”
She did not know that the older woman was reproaching herself in the same way.
“She is suffering,” the latter said to herself. “She would suffer less, if she told me her secret which I guess, yet fear I may be mistaken. I ought to get closer to her, draw her to me and comfort her, and yet, I dare not—I feel a weight in my heart, which is choking and oppressing me. My lips are about to open, they do open, and I remain silent. Why, O my God, have I so little courage?”
Elizabeth, overcome, was the first to make up her mind, as they were walking along the plane tree avenue, lightly crushing the dead leaves.
“Mother, do you know where he is now?”
Trembling with emotion, Albert’s mother answered quickly:
“He does not write to me very often, and not at length. He is traveling.”
“In which country?”
“His last letter was dated from Iran in Spain.”
She added, as Elizabeth asked no further:
“It is on the other side of the Pyrenees, but quite near the frontier.”
This poor sentence fell like one of those heavy autumn leaves, which the slightest breeze carries off. And that was all. The opportunity they had so long awaited had passed.
That evening Elizabeth did not go to bed until very late. She came back into the drawing-room after her mother-in-law had gone, and tried to read a book to cool her fever. To concentrate her attention, she put her hands on either side of her face. Half an hour passed and she had not turned one page. She was still reading the same words—
“He is traveling—he is traveling.”
She recalled the uncommon trips on which she had accompanied her husband to Germany, Munich and Nuremberg, to Touraine, to the castles on the bank of the Loire. The departure was to Albert an exuberant happiness, a “joy of conquest” he called it:—he was going to take possession of new countries. In the picture-galleries, as he stood before a landscape rich in historical association, he would grow enthusiastic, explain, comment, make comparisons that she did not even try to grasp. Little by little this good humor changed—he became distrait, absorbed in himself, and ceased to tell her his impressions. And their return was silent and unresponsive. Why?
Why? She had never inquired. Dull and passive, she asked herself very few questions, and did not try to live her own life, or even Albert’s with him. What companionship did she give him? As soon as she began to question herself thus, a quantity of small forgotten details came back to her mind.—How much luggage she had always needed! And what importance she had attached to the thousand inconveniences which no traveler avoids! She needed so many things, she complained of everything, as if Albert could keep the trains from smoking, the rain from falling, the sun from overheating, the hotel kitchen from smelling, the tradesmen from stealing, the women from wearing big hats in the theaters, and fatigue from coming. The worst of all was that she had no curiosity. Curiosity is an incentive which lessens the annoyances of the trip for the sake of the pleasures which are before us. “Nothing interests you,” he had said one day with a forced laugh. She now understood the mistake she had made in giving the same value to the petty necessities of life as to serious, vital, new experiences. But most women make this mistake, and that was one excuse. Of what use was an excuse with a husband like Albert who had so often offered to guide her?
She got up slowly to look in the dictionary, then in an atlas for this mysterious Iran. She found it on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, in the heart of the Basque country. He had planned this journey a long time ago. It was a necessary voyage for material for one of his volumes on “The Peasant.” There, he said, in the shelter of the mountains, the traditions of the family were preserved in their primitive purity. Some time ago he had suggested taking her there, but with little insistence, when he learned that comforts had to be dispensed with. She found in a Baedeker of Spain with which he had provided himself in advance, praise of the countries which bathe the Bidassoa, and an account of the customs peculiar to the province of Guipuzcoa. These strange syllables which had formerly amused her, now made her thoughtful. She, who had never, so to speak, exercised her imagination, saw clearly, on an evening richer in warmth and color than those of Dauphiné, a peasant cart at Iran, driving along a road separated from a river by leafless bushes, and on the back seat of the cart, close to each other, sat Anne de Sézery and Albert, who was covering his companion’s shoulders with an old horse blanket. “Thus clad, she had never appeared more charming to me”—a little sentence from his diary which was indelibly engraved on her heart. That woman would never take account of any inconveniences on a journey, or glance anxiously, with her much praised golden eyes at the changing scene.
Elizabeth fell asleep thinking of these sad pictures. The next day, she was vexed with the old lady, whom she blamed for her nightmares. When the postman came, she was surprised to find herself watching the mail, to see if there were a letter from Albert to his mother. One day a letter came, bearing the postmark of Paris. She was a little relieved by it, as if the intimacy which was torturing her would be lessened by the return.
The embarrassment which had crept in between her mother-in-law and herself increased like a thick fog in which neither could distinguish her real feelings. What comfort could she expect from this presence? Anything which reminded her of Albert irritated her, weakened her, and everything did recall him. Did Mme. Derize take into account the uselessness of her intervention? She manifested a desire to return to Grenoble. October gave every indication of being cold. The morning of her departure, succeeding in overcoming her fear, she at last said to Elizabeth that which she had been preparing since the day after her arrival:
“My child, have confidence and be patient. Your time will come. It cannot fail to come. Only you must not find morbid pleasure in your sorrow.”
But the young wife showed an expressionless face.
“I do not understand you, Mother. I have no sorrow. I never give a thought to it.”
Mme. Derize tried to smile.
“You came,” she said, “to see me, to hear news of him.”
“You are wrong. It was not right that you should be deprived of your grand-children’s company on his account.”
Then Albert’s mother, who had exhausted the limit of her boldness, was silenced, when Elizabeth could no longer keep back her tears.
“My dear little girl, why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. It is nervousness.”
“I know it is, and I love you all the more for it. I shall always be with you. But why make your trouble harder to bear? Wait with perseverance, but with calmness. Occupy yourself with Marie Louise and Philippe. They are your reason for hope and you belong entirely to them at this time. Be busy, very busy. Fill your days. And pray.”
“I no longer know how.”
“Go back soon to Grenoble—I shall teach you. Good-by, my child. May God keep you.”
The two women kissed each other. Elizabeth watched the jaunting-car which took Mme. Derize to Uriage, until it disappeared round a corner and was hidden by a chestnut tree.
“Why has she gone?” she sighed, when she could no longer see.
After this departure her parents fled from deserted Uriage. Alone and made keen by sorrow, she experienced that melancholy, which, with the coming of autumn, arises from the earth at every step in the country, and which, until now, she had considered only as poet’s imaginings. She understood now just what Albert had felt two years ago—the unhappiness of an incomplete or misunderstood life, so powerful to vivify all nature. The plane tree avenue, heaped up with thick, strong leaves, no longer hid the Chapel whose invitation, on that account, became more evident; but that was not where she chose to walk. She preferred the roads which go into the heart of the chestnut woods, and where, from time to time one glimpses the picturesque mountains. But she did not venture far because of her fear. Her children were surprised at her changed mood. She thought less about them than of her sorrow. In the evening when she saw the cattle come home and drink from the little pond, she hated this peace that the animals and their drivers inhaled. October enveloped her with an anguish in which she knew a charm. It was a pleasure to experience pain.
Her entire household was conscious of this weakened condition. At last one day she received some news from Grenoble. Madame Derize, uneasy at not seeing her come back, wrote her a pressing letter, the ending of which revealed a power to foresee:
“My dear Elizabeth,” wrote the lady, “this time of year and loneliness are not good for you. And you are not thinking of Marie Louise and Philippe. It is time to occupy yourself with their studies, to give them companions for their work and play. You yourself need a little distraction and social intercourse. Come to Grenoble, I beg of you. We shall see each other often, shall we not? If you do not come this week, I shall come and bring you myself—because I am anxious about you, my child....”
She was amenable to the first influence. She hastened her preparations, to the great joy of the two youngsters, satiated with the pleasures of the country.
“All the same,” said Marie Louise, “Grenoble is not Paris.”
“It is not Saint Martin either,” answered Philippe philosophically.
When it was time to get into the carriage, Elizabeth did not want to go away. In town, she would resume her ordinary life: the home of her parents where she was not at home, and the trial for separation, with reference to which she had had several questions from her lawyer that she had left unanswered. She would lose that liberty of suffering from which she derived so much comfort. She would be obliged to busy herself with her children, to use her days, instead of which she had been giving herself entirely to her own sorrow.
When she lost sight of the Château of Saint-Ferriol which overlooks the valley of Uriage, and when she had entered the valley of Gière, whose sides were covered with hardy golden bushes, it seemed to her that her life was also narrowing, and that she was going far away from her love which she mistook for her sorrow. The children laughed and their merriment pained her. She was coming back to real life, in which actions count for more than wishes and regrets.