V Elizabeth’s Awakening
The remainder of the note-book consisted of blank pages. Albert had given up his diary on that date, and the sudden silence, after so long a confession, spoke volumes. Elizabeth turned over the leaves till the last, seeking an excess of sadness with which to avoid reflection. At last, she lost all external pretext of escaping from her own thoughts. She looked at the clock: it was three in the morning. Her body on fire, she dragged herself mechanically to the window and opened it. Fainting, she sought relief, she wanted to call for help. The peace of night prevented her crying aloud. In place of the moonlight she had left, she found herself face to face with darkness, and went back to put out the lamp. Then she rested on her elbows.
She could distinguish only the vague slope of the meadows and the dark mass of the mountain on the other side of the valley. But, over the black arch stretched like a velvet cloth, countless stars stood out in relief. She saw such nights every time she returned from an evening party. Nevertheless, this one was different—new. She inhaled its sweet breath eagerly. The air breathed out by the rose trees in the garden, and the pine trees in the park laden with a healthy scent, caressed her like the hand of a friend. She felt a cold delicate touch on her overheated cheek, and leaned forward to get the full benefit of its relief. And in her gratitude she noticed the different lights, the continued throbbing of the stars whose multitude had never interested her. One particularly, which was nearing the summit of Les Quatre Seigneurs rapidly changed color, being alternately green and rose like an opal. So the night, which, in her indifference, had thus far seemed only lifeless chaos, stirred itself, took pity on her, comforted her as a living being, as the only living being capable of lightening her despair.
But this same night, whose pure calmness she invoked, was wrapping in its coolness of closing summer, the love of Albert and Anne. By a sudden change she detested it, and called for daylight, less indulgent to lovers, and therefore less distressing to her. After accepting her desertion patiently and calmly for five months, she was now rebelling and wringing her hands, as she reproached the night. Ignorance, the feeling of offended dignity, contempt, no longer protected her from the jealous fury which possessed her. They were together at this hour—side by side, and too late she knew the strength of that passion which had attracted them, the one to the other, and which she herself, by leaving him, had allowed to develop. This Anne de Sézery whom she had received in her home without heeding her ardent nature, whom she had never looked at except to find fault with her—of whom she never thought till then, except to attribute to her the basest of motives, she now pictured with her golden eyes, her face lighted up by emotion and the intellectual delight which emanated from her. She hated her—while she tried to be just to her. She was keenly alive to her suffering, as though she had just been deceived.
A cry which echoed from afar aroused her. It was one of those calls which the shepherds send from one hill to another: a prolonged and lingering note—followed by a sharp trill which seemed to mock her. It was repeated once, then again, growing more distant, less distinct. The silence added to it, accentuated its dual expression of mockery and despair. Was it the signal of a lover or the good-by of shepherd? Elizabeth, overwhelmed, listened for its repetition. The return to her thoughts tired her so, that she longed to find rest from the expression of her sorrow in any external manifestation, even in discordant music. But in the silence, she surrendered again to the loneliness of love. Had she ever felt that love before, or, so aroused, was she experiencing it for the first time? It dispelled triumphantly, with brutality and certainty, all the contempt she had felt in the past few weeks, since she had known of the secret wickedness going on about her in the name of love. She even forgave Philippe Lagier his impertinent confession, for the sake of the warning he had given her at Grenoble, which now came back to her memory like a realized prediction.
“To love, if one sincerely loves you,” he had said—“if one spares you every difficulty, every effort, is not to one’s credit. To love when you are deserted, betrayed, forgotten, when your heart is trampled upon,—that is love.”
Why had she then rebelled against such just words? Albert had trampled on her heart all that night—had she ever loved him as she did at that hour when she was opening her eyes wide to the obscurity of life? The morning when he had first whispered in her ear the words that every young girl expects and which do not surprise her, the afternoon when her fiancé had shyly touched her cheek with his lips at St. Martin d’Uriage, the evening she became a wife without even understanding how to make of her suffering an offering of love, none of these experiences had brought her memories, comparable in depth of feeling to this distress which was crushing her. Did she have to lose her happiness to know its value?—And she had even lost it without understanding it. That her humiliation might be complete, she had to learn it from another love which was passed over her, like an infectious illness, devouring her with its fire.
The increasing coolness of those last hours of night did not calm her fever. The wind grew cooler, as it touched her face—She clung to the window sash with all her strength to support herself. So many and such overwhelming thoughts crushed her at the same time. Murmurs, then short stifled sobs from the children’s room, made her start, listen, but she did not move from her place. Contrary to her habits, she did not go to the door, but let Marie Louise, whose voice she had distinguished, fight alone against her nightmare. She shut herself up savagely in her despair, and the last sentence of Albert’s diary, so cruel in its selfishness, became intelligible to her. The little girl had gone to sleep again when she felt able to go to her.
“The cup... of happiness” she thought in recalling the last words the child had said.
She had held it in her hands—the divine cup—She had received it as a treasure which was her due, and scarcely noticing it, she had quaffed it unconcernedly, and had then allowed it to be taken from her.
How had she been unable to suspect what life could hold for her? She no longer defended herself against Albert’s accusations. To defend herself meant to increase the influence of the rival. She preferred to be the guilty one. Yes, in her home, one breathed the odor of death, and not the fascination of life. Instead of a warm light on entering, one met darkness—cold.
“Why,” she beseeched in condemning her past, “why was I not warned? I was so young, so simple and ignorant. Would I not have molded myself? Young girls do not know. No one tells them that everyone has to make his own home and watch his fire. They collect stones by chance, and the first breath of wind disperses their ashes. It is wicked not to help them.”
But her memory unhesitatingly gave her the answer. She remembered all the circumstances, particularly frequent in the first days of their marriage, when Albert had tried to shake off her apathy, to give to her a little vital energy. In traveling, at the fireside, in the wintertime, in Paris, on the terrace at Saint Martin, in the summer, he had tried to vivify the past, nature, art, books, the fleeting moment. How much time and effort he had used to try to interest her, to awaken her passion, to increase the value of her days! She thought of this with tenderness and understood it to be proofs of his love.
“He did love me. He loved me before he loved her—When he spoke to me enthusiastically, feelingly, about his favorite works or things of the past, it was love that he was holding out to me. To understand life one must love it—one must love. I see it now....”
She had built up that wall against which all force is useless: the power of unresponsiveness. Her resistance had been constant. To her understanding, to live meant to let live. Had she not filled daily her petty duties as mistress of the house, and her simple maternal duties as well? What more could she do? The bitterness her husband sometimes manifested, which he rapidly overcame, but which showed frequently on his face when he came home, had seemed unjust. Now she explained it to herself. The home lacked a living, happy soul to give meaning to the humblest cares; to the most trifling needs, diffusing that spirit of harmony, relaxation, peace, which allows the man of mental activity to follow the course of his thoughts, to gather them and afterwards give expression to them—not in muddled sentences, but with quiet authority, capable of soothing and comforting other people, and awakening them to a realization of the flight of time. So, by an exalted intuition, vague and pathetic—she began to understand the rôle that fate had assigned to her in which she had failed.
Her children had appreciated their father more than she had. When they welcomed him with their laughter, with their shouts of joy, and when they unceasingly asked him for new toys or stories, they were instinctively paying him homage. They attributed to him the power of doubling their happiness in life. And he himself met with only indolence or indifference, as if, in spite of his strength, he never had need of rest and relaxation. Year by year he felt himself more alone and unsatisfied. And other women, noticing that loneliness, waited upon him, and recognizing his superiority, tempted him. She had never guessed at this menace which hung over her. She had not anticipated Anne de Sézery. Without doubt she was the cause and origin of her own unhappiness.
She hastily withdrew from the window, seeing before her like an apparition, the most cruel passage of the diary, which entered so deeply into the heart of man,—that referring to the mystery, to the fatality of love,—that passage which dared to express the thought that even in happiness, one can never be quite sure of one’s desires. She held out her arms to push it from her. No, no, it would have been a warning to her to be on her guard. Defenseless, she had been surprised in her sleep. But her defeat was irreparable. The other one had understood too well what she had neglected. Reaching this last stage of the mad course that her thoughts followed without direction, she gave way to her despair. Why had she not been so cruelly wounded when she discovered her husband’s treachery? Sorrow was like love, an abyss whose depths can never be explored. The thought which took hold of her with all its force, which was like a death watch at the side of a departed relative, instantly transformed her knowledge, but not her courage. She saw clearly into the depths of her own soul, but she fathomed her weakness and gave way to it. Of what value to discover one’s mistake so late when all was lost?
Night was stealing away like a wolf. Over the mountain tops the first lights of dawn were appearing, all golden on a sky of green, a sky of a color, so delicate, so pure. The stars were fading away, melting into the fresh air as snow in the heat. Suddenly Elizabeth felt the touch of the sun upon her face which was bathed in tears. Overcome by her sorrow, she shuddered and put her hands over her eyes, as if to protect them from this unwelcome contact. The light shone through her fingers. All about her the garden, woods, meadows, all nature, was awakening. The trees, which had been so indistinct, were outlined against the golden light which was rising and filling space. In the bushes the birds were welcoming the return of day with joyous song. It was life which was again coming into its own with a full sense of possession. She too was filled with a mad longing to live.
To live? She did not know how, she would try. She would struggle against her stupidity, her apathy, her ignorance. For herself? It was too late. For her children who should not be like her. But was it not difficult then to think of anyone’s else happiness than her own? Timidly she went to her mirror, and beautified by the dawn as were the flowers, she saw herself, although pale and with reddened eyes, withal still so young, that hope entered into her heart like a sunbeam.
“I am young. She is not so young.”
She tried to smile at herself but could not. The dawning day bathed her in all its beauty. Nevertheless, she trembled with cold.
“The day—Life—They do not revive me.”
Turning from her mirror, she concentrated her mind, her poor tired mind, on a single idea—which became the axis of her actions, as a star that of the world.
“Now, yes, now, I know that I love him. And I hope for nothing from him but sorrow....”
And she understood vaguely that this exaltation of suffering signified a new life dawning for her.