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