"Had they got married?"
"No. And, though they performed a very natural action with the utmost simplicity, this was certainly not due to loftiness of soul or breadth of mind. But one felt that their knowledge of the manners and morals of other civilizations had simplified their moral outlook, just as their actual physical outlook had been dimmed through seeing nature under so many aspects."
Rose began to laugh:
"There is nothing of that kind at the boarding-house," she said. "For the moment, we have no old people: nothing but students, two American women, a Spanish lady...."
Then she hesitated a little and added:
"There's an artist, too, an artist who has begun to paint my portrait."
"Your portrait! And you never told me?"
I am interrupted by a violent movement from Rose. She has turned round and, in the gathering dusk, her whirling umbrella comes down furiously on a man's hat, smashing it in and knocking it off his head. A gentleman is standing before us, very well-dressed and looking very uncomfortable. He stammers out a vague excuse and tries to escape, but the indignant girl addresses him noisily. An altercation follows; the loafers stop to listen; a crowd gathers round us; and a policeman hurries towards us from the other side of the road. Fortunately, an empty cab passes; and I just have time to jump in, followed by Rose, who continues to brandish a threatening umbrella through the window.
Then at last I obtain an explanation of the disturbance. It appears that, without my noticing it, the man had been following us for an hour; and his silent homage had ended by incensing the girl.
I kiss her at the door of the boarding-house and walk back thoughtfully through the streets, reflecting on the surprises which that uncivilised character holds in store for me.
2
Rose had perhaps insulted a man who was simply taking pleasure in admiring her, I thought to myself. What did she know of his intentions? In any case, is not a silent look enough to keep importunity at a distance?
Generally speaking, those who go after us in this way because of the swing of our hips, or the mass of hair gleaming on our neck, or a shapely shoe under a lifted skirt, are uninteresting; and among all the coarse, silly or timid admirers whom a woman can encounter in the street there are perhaps one or two at most who will leave an ineffaceable mark on her memory. But why not always admit the most charitable construction?
3
I had been wandering a long time at random. Feeling a little tired, I turned into the Parc Monceau, at the time when it was too late for the mothers and babies and too early for the lovers' invasion. I sat down by the transparent lake which so prettily reflects its diadem of arbours. A young willow drooped in gentle sadness over the face of the water; and white ducks glided past me in the evening mist. The waning blue light mingled with the pale vapour that rises over Paris at nightfall; and all this made a mauve sky behind the dark trees. It was soft and melancholy, but not grave; and I lingered on, amid the beauty of the scene, rapt in some woman's reverie. Then a lamp was lighted behind the bench on which I sat; and on the ground before me I saw a shadow beside my own. I understood and did not turn my head.
A man had followed me. I felt his eyes resting heavily on my profile, on my cheek and on my ungloved hands. He was evidently going to speak. Annoyed at this, I took a little volume from my pocket and, to protect my solitude, began to read.
But soon I guessed that he was reading with me; and my mind thus mingling with a stranger's passed over the words without quite following them. His persistency angered me; and I closed the book.
Then he said to me:
"Yes, you are very beautiful."
The words fell into my soul with a disquieting resonance. I rose with a flushed face and then hesitated. It was certainly one of those gross and lying pieces of flattery which we all of us hear at times. Nevertheless, I resisted the instinctive impulse that would have made me move away. Is not modesty in such a case merely another stratagem of our coquetry? We flee, the man pursues and the wrong impression is confirmed.
Standing in front of him, I frankly turned my eyes on his. Then he softly repeated the same words.
Was it the exquisite modulation of his voice? Or again were the gentle, friendly words the sudden revelation of a troubled life, a sensitive soul ready to pour itself out in a single phrase and longing to crystallise itself in one unparalleled second? They surprised me, those words of his, they seemed to me new words, grave words, because I had not believed that it was possible to speak them in that way to a stranger, to speak them in a voice that asked for nothing.
My whole attitude must have betrayed my twofold astonishment. My eyes questioned his. Their expression underwent no change. He was really asking for nothing. Then I smiled and answered, simply:
"I thank you. A woman is always glad to be told that."
Taking off his hat, he rose and bowed. I moved away with a slight feeling of discomfort: would he commit the stupidity of following me? Had I made a mistake? No, he resumed his seat. He had not blundered either.
4
When two people do not know each other and will not meet again, the words exchanged between them, if they are not mere commonplaces, become fraught with a strange significance and leave behind them a trail of melancholy like a mourning-veil; it is the surprise of those voices which speak to each other and will never be heard again, the fleeting encounter between glance and glance, the smile which knows not where to rest and yet would fain enrich the remembrance with a ray of kindness.
The essential image of a human life is contained in a moment like that. It awakens, hesitates, seeks, thinks that it has found, speaks a word and relapses into nothingness.
Chapter VII
1
Rose's profile stands out in relief against the dark velvet of the box. Her soft, fair hair parts into two waves that are like two streams of honey following the curve of her cheek. Her long neck is very white in the black gown that frames it; and her gloved hands rest near the fan that lies opened on her knees like a swan's wing. She is sitting straight up, with her eyes fixed in front of her. Her attitude is as dignified and cold as a circlet of brilliants on a beautiful forehead.
I am alone, at the back of the box. I prefer to listen like that, in the shadow, unseen. Is not the attention of a woman who is anything of a coquette, that slight, fitful attention, always affected a little by the thought, however unconscious, of the effect which she is producing?
2
I am struck by the general attitude of reverence. In the great silence through which the music swells, the lives of all those present seem penetrated with harmony.
I look at them as at so many open temples, which their thoughts have deserted in order to join one another in an invisible communion. There is a kind of homage in the bent heads and lowered eyes of the men. The women are silent. The fans cease fluttering. The souls of the audience are uplifted like the silent instruments of a human symphony that mysteriously rises and rises till it mingles with the other and is absorbed in it. If some part of us exists beyond words and forms, if our thought sometimes floats in regions of pure mentality, is it not this principle deprived of consciousness which bathes in the tremulous waves of sound?