IV The New Life
At the end of May, Elizabeth left Grenoble to settle in the old house at Saint Martin. Her daughter, a little anæmic and nervous, needed a change of air, and the doctor advised the mountains. She asked her parents, not without a secret mental reservation, to accept her hospitality. M. Molay-Norrois refused her invitation.
“We will go to Uriage in the great heat, of course. But in the middle of winter!”
“The middle of winter, Father? It is spring, and to-morrow it will be summer.”
“Well, you must not count on me.”
As he appreciated the country only if he could enjoy city pleasures there, with a great deal of social intercourse, he would wait until the hotels of the little watering place were filled. After this refusal, Elizabeth begged Mme. Derize to accompany her.
“You,” she said to her, “will be our hostess. I had made up my mind to accept nothing more from Albert, and the property of Saint-Martin belongs to him. Marie Louise’s illness necessitates our going. When you are up there with me I shall have no such scruples.”
“Why have them? Albert has only one hearth, yours. He owes you his assistance.”
“I refuse it. Do you not understand?”
“No, a father has the care of his children. This separation causes me so much pain. As much as to you. He cannot realize it himself.”
“Never speak to him of me.”
“Of what should I speak to him, if not of his duty? Until my dying day, he will hear my complaint, if he persists in his wicked passion.”
“And what does he answer you?”
“Never a word about this subject.”
“You see, then!”
“We do not know his thoughts. Those who are proud do not willingly tell them, and his sin must increase his pride. When we are far from the truth, our spirit of rebellion naturally feeds on our wickedness. But comfort yourself, Elizabeth. When it is a question in my letters of you and your children I know how to spare your pride. I only want to ensure his recollection, his remorse.”
“Oh, his remorse!”
“He is asleep, perhaps, but he will awaken. Each of us has his hour, and particularly when we add to the numerous sorrows of life those of our own creation.”
She added, more sorrowfully:
“I feel old age coming on. Every day I ask God to grant me the joy of seeing you reconciled before I die.”
And as if she were following for herself alone the thread of her own reflections:—
“That will bring them together, perhaps.”
“What will, Mother?” asked Elizabeth. Mme. Derize looked at her, as if she had come back from afar, and said smilingly:
“Oh, nothing, my dear girl. One sometimes has strange ideas...”
The life of these two women at Saint-Martin d’Uriage was quite simple and monotonous. The care of the children, some reading, walks, and a little music or long conversations in the evening filled their days, which began and ended early. Mme. Derize often walked along the plane avenue which led to the Chapel. As Elizabeth did not accompany her there, she chose, by preference, the time when the latter took Marie Louise and Philippe out walking in the open air, in the woods or meadows nearby. Her limbs soon felt the fatigue which her mind, remaining active and even keen until old age, did not know.
Elizabeth, recalling that Albert had praised the benefit of physical fatigue in his note-books, trained herself to take a longer walk each day. At the beginning she had to listen to sarcasm from Marie Louise, who ran down the roads like a hare and reproached Philippe and her mother for their laziness. Little by little, as her physical condition improved, she covered greater distances and found that she took a new pleasure in this exercise that she had formerly disliked. On the slopes of Chamrousse, as far from the house as the little legs of her son would allow him to go, she looked with surprise (as if she had only just discovered them) at the high arches formed by the pine trees with their straight tops, resembling the columns of a cathedral. She was impressed by them with a sense of awe. Nature ceased to be to her, as in the previous autumn, a sorrowful companion.
Almost every evening, from the porch, she watched night come on. The flocks and their shepherds, who crowded around the pond, gave her that feeling of peace, which, at the close of day, the country exhales like a perfume.
Marie Louise had to admit that her mother walked almost as well as she did.
“But you can’t run!”
“Let us try.”
The young woman gathered up her skirts and tried. Her children, who had never seen her so merry, shouted joyfully and forgot to run with her. This new superiority aroused their enthusiasm.
“Certainly,” concluded the little girl, “the only thing left for you is the ravine.”
“Which ravine?”
“Papa’s.”
It was a mysterious, wild place, which she had never been able to find herself. Her father had once taken her there, and they had found difficulty in getting out, owing to the interlaced branches and briars and pebbles. She had retained a heroic memory of it with which she used to dazzle her friends on exceptional occasions.
Albert’s mother, who was informed of these adventures, told of the prowess of her son, who, in his first youth, had loved the mountains for the purity of their air, for their commanding views, and above all, for their dangers. Elizabeth, little by little, learned of her husband’s youth—after his childhood, about which she had never been curious. She was obliged, as well, to satisfy her children, who asked for stories of adventure. And there she was again, but now with method and a desire to succeed, at times kneeling on the floor, again mounted on a ladder, to explore the library shelves which stocked an entire room from floor to ceiling, into which she had previously seldom gone. After many searches, she found a volume of stories of Dauphiné, and began to wade through these tales; then, as she grew more familiar with them, she learned to change them, to bring out the dramatic effects, and to modify the endings in an optimistic way, so as not to sadden Marie Louise, who was too fond of the characters in her stories, while Philippe interpreted the catastrophes more philosophically. The devil who built a wall of enclosure round the park at Vizille, and who was captured by Marshall de Lesdiguières; the fairy Mélusine, who lived in the Sassenage caves, whose daughter was a siren and became a woman through love, especially aroused the children’s imagination, because they had visited these same places of enchantment the previous year in the Passerat’s motor, which was for them quite sufficient to give an air of reality to the legend.
“We did not see Mélusine at Sassenage, Mamma,” exclaimed Marie Louise.
“She is not there now.”
“Where is she?”
“Very far away in the sea.”
The little girl remained thoughtful, and then said:
“They ought to have told me her story while we were in the cave. It is so stupid to walk about a cave without hearing anything about the fairy!”
Elizabeth’s thoughts flew naturally to Albert, who would have been so amused at this remark. It was the artless criticism, so flattering to an historian, of so many travelers, who go around the world, seeing nothing but outward appearances, knowing of nothing but more or less picturesque forms. As to Philippe, he liked best the devil who builds walls and who is paid in monkey’s money.
Now that the library was in use again, the young woman made a habit of rummaging among the books. After attending to the needs of her children, she busied herself with her own. She reread certain of her husband’s works, which she had previously scanned hastily, merely from a sense of duty, and now found great pleasure in them. Then she read; biographies for preference, or memoirs which, because of their direct contact with life, suited her nature, more realistic than imaginative. Little by little, without being conscious of the slow metamorphosis which was taking place within her, she came to a better understanding of the human imprint of ancient civilization in our own country, and the importance of the past, of great men, of monuments and of works of art. By a strange conversion, she found herself acquiring her husband’s tastes when she was separated from him—no doubt forever. The influence of intellectual activity which he had never exercised over her in eight years of married life, was now being felt from a distance, and he would never know anything of it.
Better prepared for conversation, having reinforced her thoughts by new excursions into the world, it happened in the evening that the usual hour of bed-time passed, as she was talking to her mother-in-law—whose cultivated mind she at last understood—of subjects which formerly would not have interested her for a moment. Then glancing at the clock, one of them remarked:
“How late it is!”
And Elizabeth, tired out, soon fell asleep, instead of more freely and sorrowfully reviewing her troubles in the darkness of night, as she had for a long time been in the habit of doing.
Among the elements of instruction which the two women, assisting each other, gave to the children, she had reserved music for herself, in which she tried to cultivate their taste by singing simple popular airs, which she made them repeat. The house, on certain days, was filled with song and the village children stopped in front of the gate to listen. Little Philippe threw his big bell-like voice into the music like a ball into a game of nine pins, and the notes came out with great force. His sister used to be annoyed at this, but the dispute always ended in shouts of laughter.
This gayety seemed to an old peasant, Claude Terraz, who was passing down the road in his cart, to be a good sign, and seeing through the railings Mme. Derize, Sr., working in her garden, he allowed himself, by the established rights of a neighbor, to inquire:
“Well, Madame, has M. Albert come home?”
“Not yet, Claude.”
“But he will come back?”
“Soon, my friend. We are expecting him.”
“Ah, so much the better. There must be a man in the house. A man for the spade—a woman for the soup, and both to feed the youngsters.”
And with this statement he whipped up his team of oxen and went on his way.
Those were the good days. There were bad ones too. Elizabeth, more refined and sensitive, had become very susceptible, irritable, and overemphasized the little things, or again settled into her former apathy. She knew the rebellion which crushes us as we battle in vain against the indifference of fate, and the despair which plunges our souls into the depths. In those hours, she wished she might hear of Albert’s death to put an end to the suffering which her jealousy brought. With delicate tact, but without words or allusions, Mme. Derize healed her wounds, as do those nurses in a sick-room, who work silently, but are never idle.
The heat of July brought back the summer crowd to the little station at Uriage. But the Molay-Norrois were not as socially active as they had been. Although they were again occupying Mélèzes on the slope which leads to the Castle of Saint-Ferriol, the Passerats had given up their villa and had rented one in the lower part of the valley near Vaulnaveys. The two families still saw each other, but less frequently. Through the Vimelles, the Passerats were making very aristocratic connections. M. Molay-Norrois, on a strict diet since his last attack of gout, was obliged to agree that he was better off at home, and was grateful for it to his wife. Attention to the state of his health had replaced every other thought in his mind. He took care of himself with the solicitude and keen zest with which he had always sought to please, and now indulged himself with consultations and medicines, as he had formerly done with the secret pleasures of love. He had not given up society, but had subordinated it to his health, and now entered into it with moderation. He who had spent hours on his toilette, and created fashions, now found an intimate charm in putting on his slippers and smoking a pipe after dinner, in noting with satisfaction that his digestion was in good order. Mme. Molay-Norrois, while she herself attended to his special soups and broths, a new occupation for her, took hope again, and did not wish for a too rapid or radical cure. Their two sons, Oliver and Victor, who came on leave one after the other, manifested toward Elizabeth a protecting affection which annoyed her. But they gave up no pleasures for her sake, and neither the one nor the other thought of curtailing his mode of living, which might have permitted their parents to make some arrangement about her dowry, which the young woman, living willingly on her own money, had never requested.
The motor picnics began again. The Derizes were invited. Elizabeth, not wishing to give her children luxurious habits, refused, quoting the advice of their physician, who advocated walking. She often went into Saint Martin to visit her father and mother, and one day, walking under the shade of the chestnut trees, she met the two young men, who, when they recognized her the previous year, had loudly praised her. Wearing a loose-fitting white flannel dress, which made her look younger, she held Philippe by the hand, while Marie Louise, who had spied some huckleberries, had climbed the hill a few steps behind. They stared at her with that coolness which our manners allow and do not stamp as a proof of bad breeding. Involuntarily the blood mounted to her cheeks. She wished to hurry on, and turned awkwardly to call her daughter. They also turned and slackened their steps. Marie Louise joined her at a gallop to tell her:
“You know, Mamma, you are more beautiful than you were last year.”
“Silly little thing, instead of talking nonsense, it would be better next time if you did not leave me.”
But the child clung to her idea which she would not give up.
“It is not nonsense. Those gentlemen down there said so.”
“Why did you listen to them?”
“Because they were talking about you.”
“That is no reason.”
The little girl would not allow herself to be quieted.
“There was a dark one and a light one. The dark one talked like this: ‘She has lost, she is thinner.’
“What have you lost, Mamma? And the light one said: ‘She is beautiful.’”
“Be quiet,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t like children who listen to the conversations of passersby.”
It was more than sixteen months since she had separated from her husband. She had certainly changed very much, and did not notice it herself until she had made alterations in her old dresses, which, as a matter of economy, she still wished to wear. Slighter, she appeared to be like those stems, which add grace to a flower, as they grow longer. Her limbs, a little long in proportion to her figure, had gained, by her habit of walking, a greater ease, a freer gait. Her long neck, very white, which she generally left bare, carried her head more gracefully. It might be said that she had let her overweight, which had made her body heavy and weak, fall from her like a garment. The friends of her family, for the most part, regretted it, thinking she was pining away, and that it was so sad for such a pretty woman. The open air and her natural good health fortunately counteracted the slow results of the mental anguish which was undermining her. But even these assets could not prevent the imprint of suffering on her youthful face. Two creases had stamped themselves at each corner of her little mouth. The outline of her face was finer. A little wrinkle showed between the eyebrows. Her dark eyes, outlined by the bluish circle around them, reflected a deeper life. Sometimes languid, sometimes ardent, their expression always revealed to those who understood, a little fright and homesickness, like the tender look of those tame deer, who as they eat from your hand, are always afraid of being ill-treated, and are thinking of their broad native woods. The play of color on her cheeks was also quicker; it came and went at almost the same moment. And even her voice had taken on a more serious intonation, and seemed to have a deeper tone. Thus changed, with her flimsy gowns and big summer hats, she looked more and more like those English portraits which give to women so much charm and dignity. But it was one of those portraits which one comes back to see again, because of not gaining at one glance a full sense of its beauty.
The new peace she found at Les Mélèzes, made her mother happy. But Elizabeth heard and disliked the echo of gossip which, as in all watering places, was making the rounds at Uriage. What did it matter to her that Mme. de Vimelle could no longer seriously ignore her husband’s liaison, or that Mme. Passerat had promoted Counselor Prémereux to the degree of chief steward of her kitchen? One day they told her of the coming marriage of Philippe Lagier, who had been living for some time at the Park Hotel.
“To whom?” she asked, interestedly.
“To Mlle. Berthe Rivière.”
She recalled the girl who had played tennis with a grace intended to attract the spectators. Before going home to Saint Martin, she went out of her way to go to the tennis-court. Mlle. Rivière, chuckling with laughter which sang the joy of life, was scoring, while her partner, Philippe Lagier, transformed into a faithful knight, was disrespectfully devouring her with his eyes.
“Yours!” they shouted to him.
But he lost the ball. And the young girl, sure of her power, let him lose the game without a murmur.
“Already!” thought Elizabeth, as she walked along the chestnut path which took her back to her solitude.
How soon one was forgotten! What lies, these love vows! It only needed a smile revealing gleaming teeth, a fresh skin, a movement of the hips to substitute a new desire for the most exalted emotion. But perhaps she was not one of those who inspire lasting passions. Perhaps she left only a fleeting impression, soon to vanish, as she had sometimes heard it said of certain women with pure impassive features. This little wound to her self-love she added to that from which she was suffering, and which would never be healed.
A few days later, invited to dinner at Mélèzes with some other people, she found herself placed at table next to Philippe Lagier, who had Mlle. Rivière as his dinner partner. Would she take advantage of this? The barrister turned toward her, and to keep her attention, made use of all the resources of a mind trained to please. He understood perfectly the art of conversation which lends color and picturesqueness to all subjects, and which seems to imply a flattering sympathy. The glare of the lights, the bright dresses, the bare shoulders, the air warm, but invigorating, which came in through the open window, contributed to a harmony in which life unfolds itself in an atmosphere of joy. She was listening to Philippe, whose intelligent features were unattractive only when in repose. Near him, she gave no further thought to the scene which had separated them. Soothed, forgetting her trouble, happy, she was enjoying her success. All at once, raising her head, she saw fixed upon her the gaze of Mlle. Rivière. It was a look of distress, expressing not hatred, but despair and admiration. It said so clearly, “You are too beautiful. I know well that I cannot struggle against you—have pity!”—that she was upset by it, because it made her think of herself. Thus for a few minutes she had fully enjoyed her power over a man whose dead or dying passion for her, self-love induced her to revive; and at the same time, she had felt herself to be mastered by the conversation of this man whose subtle meaning she still feared. In addition she had unscrupulously risked breaking another heart. She was ashamed of her vanity, and particularly of her weakness for which she reproached herself as a traitor. Turning from Philippe, she gave him back to Mlle. Rivière, but he had lost his high spirits. At the end of the evening, she refused his offer to escort her home to Saint Martin. On the road at night, as she passed the place where the year before she had rebelled so violently, her new conduct seemed incomprehensible and the humiliation she felt in her own estimation, aroused in her a greater indulgence toward the faults of others, and at the same time a resolution to watch herself more closely.