Rose, following the common law, had no strength to fulfil her own will, but all strength to obey another's. Soon after arriving at Sainte-Colombe, five years ago, she came to know a young man who had since left the district. One day, when they were alone in the farmhouse kitchen, he flung his arms around her and, without a word, overcame her feeble resistance....
I could not help interrupting her story:
"Did you love him, Rose?"
"No," she said, "I did not!"
"Then, why did you yield?… Why?"
"I don't know," she sobbed. "He had such a strange, wild look, I was frightened...."
"But what did you do afterwards?"
"He asked me to go and see him; and I went whenever he asked me...."
"Then your godmother didn't know?"
"She guessed it on the first day; and, when I refused to take anything from him, she beat me and locked me up."
"Well, what then?"
"I managed to get out at night, by the roof...."
I would not let the subject drop:
"Then you were very, very happy when you were with him?"
But she exclaimed, artlessly:
"Oh, not at all! But he loved me, he said; and I thought that he would always stay here, for my sake.... He went away soon, without letting me know. When I understood that he was not coming back, I loathed myself and him … and I tried to do away with myself...."
She burst into fresh sobs.
I should have liked to rise and lead her away. I should have liked to say:
"Come, cease these repinings; let us walk across the silent fields and forget all this for ever! Every one feels love differently and looks at it in a different light. Come, waste no time in repentance and don't go on being angry with that man! Faults that diminish our ignorance are not faults, but almost graces which chance bestows upon us. Come! And break away from the bitterness that is spoiling your beauty!"
But, with a sigh, she leant her head on my shoulder and I sat motionless and dumb: that little action on her part suddenly altered the whole course of my feelings.
At moments of deep emotion, many different voices speak in our hearts. They seem to clash, to drown and contradict one another; but really they are hesitating and waiting. Even as human voices require the striking of a chord before harmonising, so do these inner voices wait for our unhappy friend to speak a word that shall unconsciously give the note of the thoughts that will comfort and soothe him.
Rose whispered:
"Oh, you do not speak! Your silence frightens me!"
"Don't be afraid of it, dearest. Silence nearly always means that the words which will follow will be just." And, summoning all my tenderness, I added, "You see, I am trying to bind all my most diverse thoughts together. I should like to hand them to you as I would a bunch of flowers, for you to choose the one that will restore your peace of mind. I am afraid of hurting you, I understand your wound so well."
The girl presses against my breast; and our kisses meet in a spontaneous outburst of affection....
Sadly I think of all those who are weeping, weeping over like sorrows. There are other wounded hearts bleeding in mine; my memory echoes with the mournful prayers of the poor deluded victims of love. Alas, we are all subject to the cruel and exquisite law that absorbs the firmest wills in its indifferent strength!
I feel Roseline's hands quivering under my fingers, but I dare not speak. The silence of the fields and the solemn darkness awe me. Do not our least words seem to be written on the velvet of the night in precious and lasting letters?…
3
At last, I wiped away her tears and long and gently tried to rally her. But, suddenly drawing herself up, Rose cried:
"I don't understand you, I no longer understand you! What you are saying is just so much more silence and I wait for your judgment in vain! You have, you must have, an opinion on what I have done. The reason why I hesitated so long to confess my fault was because I knew instinctively that you would blame me; and now I feel you so far from me.... Please judge me, be angry with me: it will be easier for you to forgive me afterwards!…"
I do not know why this blind insistence offended me. Until then I had remained calm; but at her words there burst from the depths of my being the voice of instinct, that voice which I had tried to stifle, almost unconsciously, by force of habit and training.... Oh, that blatant, piercing voice! It seemed to me to rend the darkness, to scoff at my heart and my sweet reasonableness! It was as though I saw all my kindly dreams of tolerance and indulgence fly into a thousand splinters! Never had I so clearly realised their brittleness. My anger was all the greater because it was still trammelled by fragments of my reason.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and shouted close to her face, which my eyes could not distinguish:
"Why, why will you rouse my instinct, my nerves, all those things which should never interfere in our judgments and beyond which we should try to look if we would understand the actions of others? You give the name of silence to the words spoken by my reason and you wish to be judged by a blind and senseless power! But that idiot power mercilessly condemns all the faults committed in its name! That power, which is making me tremble now with excitement, will tell you that you could have done nothing worse! Do you understand? Nothing, nothing! And it will overwhelm you with reproaches. For it is not your action that revolts me; it is your apathy, your flabbiness, your cowardice!… You gave yourself without knowing why! You did not surrender for the sake of the joy that makes us fairer and better! You did not surrender because love had taken your heart by storm! You did not sacrifice yourself to an idea: had it been vile and base, I could still have accepted it! No, you gave yourself without knowing why! You obeyed the will of the first-comer, as the silliest and most docile of wives obeys the recognised canons and conventions … without knowing why!… Ah, Rose, Rose! I wanted to help you to become strong and free. What a character, what a disposition you bring me! And yet I did not ask so much! I wanted your nature to have strength and flexibility, so that my hands might have taken it and moulded it. I looked forward to shaping it and giving it nobility and refinement...."
Tears choked my words. At that moment, the disappointment appeared to me complete and irreparable. Still, so as not to sadden her unduly, I murmured:
"Do not misunderstand me, my poor Rose; I am not saying that you soiled yourself by yielding to that man. I should not care much if you had; for, if the fairest forms could take birth from the mud in the gutter, you would see me plunge my hands in it without reluctance. No, what distresses me is your weakness; and I have simply likened your nature to a substance without consistency and impossible to mould."
Rose moaned and sobbed:
"To please you, I will brave everything.... Don't forsake me!… Go on loving me!…"
I divined rather than saw the body lying prone, with her head on the ground; and the paler shadow of her hair reminded me of the dear beauty of her. I grew calmer. The comfort of having said all that I had to say relieved my heart and sent rippling through my veins, like a cool stream, a more natural indulgence than that which had animated me at first. Bending over Rose, I reflected that reason weighs heavily on a woman's breast and that it is well to thrust it aside occasionally. I tried to reassure her between my kisses:
"I am wrong to be so irritable and despondent; forgive me! I believe that your nature will never be vivid or strong; but your newly-developed conscience will save you from fresh weaknesses. Besides, in some direction we shall find what you are capable of. Destiny asks little of us when we have little to give it; and events pass us by of their own accord. Your life can be gentle and passive and still be useful and good. It is my own fault if I am disappointed: I am always more or less of a child; and I become passionately enthusiastic on the strength of a smile, or a pure outline, or a beautiful profile. I ought not to have looked in you for what existed only in my imagination...."