Part IV
I The Palms
At the end of March, in the mountainous districts, winter still holds sway. However, on Palm Sunday under a faint sun which gave to the pale sky the shade of a pearl in the light, Grenoble seemed to come to life again on its snowy horizon. Before the gate of the Cathedral, flower vendors, who had come from afar, even from beyond the Alps, as the harbingers of spring, showed and offered to the faithful who came to Mass, their bunches of green branches,—a little dead forest, scattered among the passersby, to be brought together again in the interior of the church, standing up bravely in the hands of all the worshipers. In anticipation they cried:
“Two sous for the blessed box-wood!”
Was it not a blessing in itself only to see that fresh verdure before the trees had even shown their buds?
Elizabeth, who was taking Marie Louise and Philippe to church (the latter having promised to be good during the service)—stopped before one of the improvised stands to select three palms. Absentmindedly, she gave more sous than the ragged little brunette had asked for.
“Here, Madame,—you have given me too much.”
“Keep the change. Where do you come from?”
“From Bardonèche in Italy.”
“What is your name?”
“Luisa.”
“And where are your parents?”
“They are very far from here.”
Marie Louise, who was clasping in her left hand a piece of money for the collection, held it out to the stranger, who took it without noticing her, as she stared open-mouthed at the young woman.
“And me? You didn’t say thank you to me,” said the child, vexed that her generosity should go unnoticed.
Luisa burst out laughing. Despite her innocent eyes she was very knowing, and in her enthusiasm, speaking again in her native tongue, she pointed to the object of her admiration:
“E bella come la Madona!” (She is as lovely as the Madonna!)
Elizabeth’s cheeks grew crimson. The compliment struck her like those flowers which are thrown into one’s face at flower fêtes, and which flatter and hurt one at the same time. She told her children to hurry.
“We shall be late—let us go in.”
Philippe Lagier, who was standing on the square and had witnessed this scene, came up to her, but made no allusion to what he had just overheard, so as not to offend her. They were nearing the church steps. She placed her foot on the first step.
“Are you not coming in?”
“Yes. Does that surprise you? I love the Catholic services. They are incomparably poetical. To-day I shall go in to find the spring.”
“Are you not seeking something else there?”
She smiled with that melancholy half-smile which harmonized so completely with her appealing expression. But she herself, had she confidence in God? She continued to mount the steps when he stopped her, not without visible emotion, but with great respect.
“Listen, Madame, I find you so changed....”
She wished to joke.
“Changed? It seems that it must be for the better. I have just heard so.”
“Yes. Italians have the privilege of crying out what we must content ourselves with thinking. It is not a question of that. The winter has affected your health somewhat: it is evident—you must consult....”
“No, no, I am very well, I assure you.”
She disappeared into the lobby. Abashed for a moment, he decided to follow her and sit a few rows behind her during Mass, so that she would not know of his presence. While her children’s clothes were very carefully looked after, she was wearing a modest black dress, which must have seen hard service and was beginning to look shiny. As she had drawn her mourning veil over her shoulder in front, he could see her blonde hair, of such childish fairness, so delicate, so silky, and a corner of her white neck. When she rose or knelt, in accordance with the rites of the service, he noticed the flexibility of her movements and that suave grace, as of a young girl with whom one could not dare to associate impure ideas. At intervals her profile was invisible, then again he would catch a glimpse of it, like a bright spot between her dark hat and dress. How little she resembled the blooming, but apathetic, unresponsive wife of Albert Derizel Sorrow, loneliness, the care of disposing of her time, had sharpened her features, and even the lines of her figure. Her slender body swayed like the long stalk of a flower. In her slimness, which began to grow alarming, she retained that look of youth, which she formerly had as a result of lack of all occupation, and which now suggested a sort of recoil from the disillusioning revelations of life.
“She will break down,” thought Philippe. “She will die of it. What can be done to save her?”
He was no longer actuated by selfish motives. In his heart, devoid of faith, but eager, she was his religious ideal, the Madonna with whom the little Italian had compared her.
The winter following Mme. Derize’s death—(one of those long winters to which the region of the Alps is exposed)—had not been kind to Elizabeth. She had lost her firmest support, the contagious courage which emanates from calmness in time of trial, and also the last effective tie which linked her with her husband. Thus she had followed a more difficult path. As that plain at Grenoble, surrounded by mountains, appears colder in its circle of ice, so she felt desolation and loneliness about her like high walls. Mme. Molay-Norrois, it is true, realizing this dangerous state of mind, had given more expression to her maternal tenderness, but in the way natural to her passive nature, and rather by lamentations than by actions. Was she not—excellent woman—monopolized by her husband, who was embittered by illness and was accepting old age without resignation? He had always exercised the despotism of his pleasure at home. But his bad temper was preferable to his infidelity. He might not have rebelled against the effects of old age, if he could have endured them with Mme. Passerat, instead of being aggravated by knowing she was taking advantage of her slimness to wear more youthful clothes, and that by a bold maneuver she had just taken away the attentions of M. de Vimelle from the rich Mme. Bonnard-Basson. Providence was watching over her in all her ventures. This last conquest aroused a sort of exasperation in M. Molay-Norrois which helped the circulation of bad blood and increased his bad temper. What comfort could anyone find in such a home?
Elizabeth had not given up her self-imposed duty of giving her children the elements of their education. Marie Louise was almost nine years old and Philippe was six. She must think of their futures. She desired a busy, well-filled youth for them, remembering the weakening relaxation she had known in hers, and hoped to be able to accustom them to find their happiness in everyday things. But her moods, even with them, were now more changeable. She varied from prostration to feverish desire to amuse and occupy herself. Must one not live every day? She cried, she laughed nervously over nothing. Consumed with fever, she spent too much energy, and then fell back into a state of languor. She tried to follow, as far as possible, the plans she had laid out for herself, but advanced unevenly, sometimes slowly, sometimes hurriedly.
Out of society, because of her mourning and her sorrow, she did not care to receive anyone, except her friend Blanche Vernier, whose discreet devotion was restful, but without influence, and whose four children were in themselves quite a company for play and study. She had even been obliged to reject the attentions of M. de Vimelle who had suddenly begun to take her under his protection. Wearied by the vulgarity of his mistress and the thankless rôle that she made him fill he had thought of taking an honorable revenge by paying attention to a woman whom nobody defended. His natural vanity gave him erroneous ideas of his own value. Defeated by Elizabeth he fell back on the mature, lively and more accommodating Mme. Passerat, the conquest of whom would be attended with more publicity. He avenged himself for his setback by reporting to society the infrequent visits of Philippe Lagier to the Rue Haxo. Mme. Molay-Norrois, told by her husband, warned her daughter of this.
Elizabeth was indignant. Upon introspection, however, she found she might reproach herself. It was true, these visits of Philippe were more pleasant to her than she had admitted to herself. He came in shyly, afraid of not being received, and began by talking commonplaces. Shyness in a man of his worth and self-possession is in itself a homage. Then he changed his tone, and spoke with all his wit which was quick and pointed, and which, under the influence of a new tenderness, opened out and became more scintillating. What he said—apart from the lasting pleasure which his words gave, and which helped to make her forget the limitations of her life,—revealed a silent adoration that could never again be directly expressed. In that sort of mystic exaltation which comes with a love that is repressed, he cleverly managed to encourage in her a hope, which all reason and his soul denied.
As a self-imposed task, he wrote very regularly to his friend. At first Albert had sent only hasty replies; but little by little he acquired the habit of confidence. His bitter critical letters did not breathe happiness, and now he began to ask for news of his children. Thus the tie broken by the death of Mme. Derize was cleverly mended by Philippe Lagier’s sincere friendship. Elizabeth, in the selfishness of her love, was not conscious that she had made such use of this friendship. Yet after rebelling against her mother’s warning, she was guided by it. Besides actual honesty, there is an honesty of appearances of which women of to-day think very little. Above all, she had not the right to take advantage of a sentiment, which, however respectful, had its origin in a generous devotion, and in which she took a certain pride, owing to her deserted state—so harmful to a woman in her prime.
Philippe, delicately warned by her, came to the Rue Haxo only at rare intervals. It was a cruel deprivation for him. There he had really spent intense hours, realizing the greatest of all joys,—the joy of sacrifice. So, not having seen Elizabeth for almost a month, it was excusable that he should stop in the Cathedral Square at the hour of High Mass, in the hope of meeting her there; and he was better able than anyone who saw her daily to notice how thin she was, and all the symptoms of illness that she showed.
During the service he was wondering how he could help her. A change of air, a trip to Provence, to one of those little places, where one need only open his eyes to take in the joy of light and free space! Yes, but she was obstinately refusing Albert’s assistance, and her own small resources limited her to a modest life without luxury. Perhaps that would decide the Molay-Norrois to take her back with them. How could they help noticing how she was fading? But how could Albert have gone away after being struck with her new fascination, her frailness? So he looked at her with pity. His prayers dwelt upon her. She was the tabernacle, which, like an offering, held the pure wish for self-sacrifice for which he was indebted to her.
Elizabeth tried—not less vainly, to follow the service. A memory and a fear returned to her successively with her prayers. The memory carried her back ten years to the time of her engagement on a Palm Sunday. It was on a sunny April day. But she felt no pleasure in being less than twenty and in love. Albert had gone to this same church with her and her parents. The vendors were offering their green branches too. Thoughtlessly she dwelt on the verge of an emotion, to which another, better informed or more far-sighted, would have given herself joyfully. Now she understood—after ten years—what an opportunity for uplifting their hearts she had lost in accepting with indifference that happy coincidence of the reawakening of nature, symbolized by the religious festival and the birth of their love.
“Look,” he had said, “at all those branches of box-wood on the ground, for you—it seems as if you were walking in spring.”
“Yes, it is Palm Sunday,” she had answered.
This very simple response dispelled surprise. Was not love something which was due to little girls, and which admits of no pain? Her fiancé had then admired that tranquillity which contained the germ of their separation. How should she have expected to be deceived before understanding the care we must take of our happiness? Why had no one aroused her,—then, while there was still time—from that apathy which makes us sink into the beaten path, and does not allow us to reach the height from which we see the light and a broad vision? She would at least know how to save her children from her short-comings. They would not need despair to open their eyes to the sorrows of life. She would preserve their strength of feeling, their responsiveness, and they should be like young armed warriors, not heedless and enervated.
Would she have that power? That very morning, as she was dressing herself, she noticed how pale and thin she was, and before she could arrange her hair, she had been obliged to begin again several times, her arms heavy and stricken with an inexplicable weakness. Philippe Lagier had certainly noticed it. The remark of such a keen observer, coming back to her mind, startled her. Perhaps she was in danger. But what did a more or less long life matter to her? The last picture she had of Albert was that of a traveler, who sets out without looking back, without even suspecting the humiliated love, sobbing in the darkness a few feet away. Then why should one want so much to live? Marie Louise and Philippe, her own flesh, her blessing, and her new hope—Albert would have them. It was his right. After her death, he would marry that woman. And that woman would become the mother of her children. Ah, no, no, she could not conceive of that without a shudder of horror. She must live; at any price, she must live.
“Mamma, what is the matter with you?” asked Marie Louise, bending over her.
While the faithful worshiper had risen to receive the priest’s blessing, Elizabeth remained kneeling, her head hidden, her shoulders shaking. The child repeated her question, and slipped her hand softly under her mother’s arm to pat her cheek.
“Why are you crying? Philippe is good—and I love you so much.”
For the child’s sake, Elizabeth calmed herself at once. She drew down her veil to hide her wet eyes, and standing erect, she smiled.
“There is nothing the matter with me.”
With this effort, she returned to her prayer. It was a desperate, exigent supplication which she addressed to God like an accusation:
“You would not allow that—you would not allow that!”
Comforted little by little, she promised herself to consult a doctor, to take care of herself, to fight against her illness. Philippe, who had noticed her emotion, dared not approach her, as she went out. His look, as he bowed to her, was filled with so much respect and compassion, that it made her uneasy. At the foot of the steps, little Luisa waved her sheaf of branches, crying.
“The blessed box, two sous.”
When she recognized the young woman, she stopped short and forgot her sales.
“Primavera!” (Spring!), she said.
Elizabeth, touched and comforted by this spontaneous admiration, gave her a little piece of silver. But she shook her head—For her, there was no more spring.