ii
this austere teaching found my soul ready prepared and naturally predisposed to duty. my father’s
and mother’s example, added to the puritanical discipline to which they had submitted the earliest
impulses of my heart, inclined me still more towards what i used to hear called ‘virtue’. self-control
was as natural to me as self-indulgence to others, and this severity to which i was subjected, far from
being irksome to me, was soothing. it was not so much happiness which i sought in the future, as the
infinite effort to attain it, and in my mind i already confounded happiness with virtue. no doubt, like
all boys of fourteen, i was still unformed and pliable, but my love for alissa soon urged me further
and more deliberately along the road on which i had started. a sudden inward illumination made me
acquainted with myself. i saw myself as a brooding, half-fledged, wistful creature, somewhat careless
of others, somewhat unenterprising, and with no ambitions save for such victories as are to be gained
over self. i was fond of my books and cared only for the games which need reflection or effort. i did
not much frequent the society of my schoolfellows, and when i did take part in their amusements, it
was only out of affection or good nature. i made friends, however, with abel vautier who, the
following year, joined me in paris and was in my form at school. he was an agreeable, indolent boy,
for whom i had more liking than esteem, but at any rate he was someone with whom i could talk
about fongueusemare and le havre, where my thoughts were continually flying.
as for my cousin robert bucolin, who had been sent to the same school, he was two forms below
us and i saw him only on sundays. if he had not been the brother of my cousins, whom, however, he
was very unlike, i should have taken no pleasure in his society.
i was at that time entirely engrossed by my love, and it was in its light alone that these two
friendships had any importance for me. alissa was the pearl of great price of which the gospel
spoke, and i was like him who went and sold all that he had to buy it. child as i still was, am i wrong
in talking of love, and in giving this name to the feeling i had for my cousin? nothing that i
experienced later seems to me worthier of that name – and moreover, when i became old enough to
suffer from the more definite qualms of the flesh, my feeling did not greatly change in character; i
never sought more directly to possess her whom, as a child, i had sought only to deserve. work,
efforts, pious acts, i offered them all up, mystically, to alissa, and, indeed, invented a refinement of
virtue by which i often left her in ignorance of what i had done only for her sake. in this way i
became intoxicated, as it were, with the fumes of modesty, and accustomed myself, alas! regardless
of my own comfort, to feel no satisfaction in anything that did not cost me an effort.
was i alone to feel the spur of emulation? i do not think that alissa was touched by it, or that she
did anything for my sake or for me, though all my efforts were only for her. everything in her
unaffected and artless soul was of the most natural beauty. her virtue seemed like relaxation, so much
there was in it of ease and grace. the gravity of her look was made charming by her childlike smile; i
recall that gently and tenderly inquiring look, as she raised her eyes, and can understand how my
uncle, in his distress, sought support and counsel and comfort from his elder daughter. in the summer
that followed i often saw him talking to her. his grief had greatly aged him; he spoke little at meals,
or sometimes displayed a kind of forced gaiety which was more painful than his silence. he remained
smoking in his study until the hour of the evening when alissa would go to fetch him. he had to be
persuaded to go out; she led him off to the garden like a child. together they would go down the
flower-walk towards the place at the head of the steps leading down to the kitchen-garden, where we
had put out a few chairs.
one evening, i was lingering out of doors reading, and as i lay on the grass in the shade of one of
the big copper beeches, separated from the flower-walk only by the laurel hedge, which prevented me
from being seen but not from hearing, alissa’s and my uncle’s voices reached me. they had no doubt
been talking of robert; then i heard my name uttered by alissa, and i was just beginning to make out
their words, when my uncle exclaimed:
‘he! oh, he will always be fond of work.’
an involuntary listener, my first impulse was to go away, or at any rate make some movement to
show them that i was there; but what was i to do? cough? call out ‘i am here; i can hear you’? it was
much more awkwardness and shyness than curiosity to hear more which kept me quiet. and besides,
they were only passing by and i heard what they said only very indistinctly. but they came on slowly;
alissa no doubt, as was her habit, with a light basket on her arm, was cutting off the heads of faded
flowers and picking up from under the espaliers the unripe fruit, which the frequent sea-mists used so
often to bring down. i heard her clear voice:
‘papa, was uncle palissier a remarkable man?’
my uncle’s voice was low and indistinct: i could not make out his answer. alissa insisted: ‘very
remarkable, do you think?’
again an inaudible answer and again alissa’s voice:
‘jérôme is clever, isn’t he?’
how could i help straining to hear? but no! i could make out nothing. she went on:
‘do you think he will become a remarkable man?’
here my uncle raised his voice:
‘first, my dear, i should like to understand what you mean by “remarkable”. one can be very
remarkable without its showing – at any rate in the eyes of men – very remarkable in the eyes of
god.’
‘yes, that is what i mean,’ said alissa.
‘and then, one can’t tell yet. he’s too young. yes, certainly, he’s very promising, but that’s not
enough for success.’
‘what more must there be?’
‘oh, my child! i can hardly tell. there must be confidence, support, love –’
‘what do you mean by support?’ interrupted alissa.
‘the affection and esteem that have been lacking to me,’ answered my uncle, sadly; and then their
voices finally died away.
when i said my prayers that evening, i felt remorse for my unintentional eavesdropping and
resolved to confess it to my cousin. perhaps this time there was a mixture of curiosity in my
resolution.
at my first words the next day, she said:
‘but, jérôme, it’s very wrong to listen like that. you ought to have told us you were there or else
to have gone away.’
‘really, i didn’t listen – i just overheard you without meaning to. and you were only passing by.’
‘we were walking slowly.’
‘yes, but i hardly heard anything. i stopped hearing almost at once. what did uncle answer when
you asked him what was necessary for success?’
‘jérôme,’ she said, laughing, ‘you heard perfectly well. you are just making me repeat it for your
amusement.’
‘i really heard only the beginning – when he spoke of confidence and love.’
‘he said, afterwards, that a great many other things were necessary.’
‘and you, what did you answer?’
she suddenly became very serious.
‘when he spoke of support in life, i answered that you had your mother.’
‘oh, alissa, you know i shan’t always have her – and then, it’s not the same thing –’
she bent her head:
‘that’s what he said too.’
i took her hand, trembling.
‘whatever i hope to become later is for you.’
‘but jérôme, i may leave you too.’
my soul went into my words:
‘i shall never leave you.’
she raised her shoulders slightly:
‘aren’t you strong enough to walk alone? we must each of us find god by ourselves.’
‘but you must show me the way.’
‘why do you want any other guide but christ? do you think we are ever nearer to each other than
when each of us forgets the other, as we pray to god?’
‘yes,’ i interrupted, ‘that he may unite us. that is what i ask him morning and evening.’
‘don’t you understand what communion in god means?’
‘with my whole heart i understand. it means being rapturously united in the worship of the same
thing. i think it is just because i want to be united to you, that i worship what i know you worship
too.’
‘then your worship is not pure.’
‘don’t ask too much of me. i shouldn’t care for heaven if you were not there too.’
she put her fingers on her lips and answered with some solemnity:
‘“seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness.”’
as i put down our words i feel that they will seem very unchildlike to those who do not realize
the deliberate seriousness with which some children talk to each other. what am i to do? try to
excuse them? no! no more than i will colour them to make them look more natural.
we had procured the gospels in the vulgate and knew long passages of them by heart. alissa had
learnt latin with me, under the plea of helping her brother, but really, i think, in order to follow me in
my reading. and indeed, i could hardly bring myself to take pleasure in any study in which i knew
she would not keep me company. if this was sometimes a hindrance to me, it was not, as might be
supposed, because it hampered the growth of my mind; on the contrary, it was she who seemed to be
everywhere and easily ahead of me. but the course my mind pursued was always shaped with
reference to her, and what preoccupied us at that time, what we called ‘thought’, was often merely the
pretext for some more subtle communion, merely the disguise of feeling, merely the covering of love.
my mother may at first, perhaps, have been anxious about a feeling whose depth she had not as
yet gauged. but now that she felt her strength ebbing, she loved to gather us together in the same
maternal embrace. the heart disease from which she had long been suffering began to be more and
more troublesome. in the course of a particularly severe attack she sent for me:
‘my poor boy,’ she said, ‘i’m getting very old. some day i shall leave you suddenly.’
she stopped; her breathing was very difficult. then i broke out, irresistibly, with what it seemed
to me she was expecting me to say:
‘mamma... you know i want to marry alissa.’ and my sentence was no doubt the continuation of
her secret thoughts, for she went on at once:
‘yes, that is what i want to speak to you about, my jérôme.’
‘mamma,’ said i, sobbing, ‘you do think she loves me, don’t you?’
‘yes, my child.’ and several times she repeated tenderly: ‘yes, my child.’ she spoke with
difficulty. she added: ‘you must leave it to the lord.’ then as i was stooping over her, she put her
hand on my head and said:
‘may god keep you, my children! may god keep you both!’ then she fell into a doze, from
which i did not try to rouse her.
this conversation was never resumed. the next morning my mother felt better. i went back to
school and silence closed again over this semi-confidence. in any case, what more could i have
learnt? that alissa loved me i could not for a moment doubt. and, even if i could, doubt would for
ever have vanished from my heart at the time of the melancholy event which occurred soon after.
my mother passed away very quietly one evening when miss ashburton and i were with her. the
final attack which carried her off had not at first seemed worse than the preceding ones; it was only
towards the end that it became alarming and we had no time to send for any of our relations. it was
with our old friend that i watched the first night beside my dear mother’s body. i loved my mother
deeply, and wondered that in spite of my tears i should feel so little sadness. if i wept it was out of
pity for miss ashburton, whose friend – so many years younger than herself – had thus been taken by
god before her. but the secret thought that this bereavement would hasten an understanding with my
cousin greatly predominated over my grief.
my uncle arrived the next morning. he handed me a letter from his daughter, who did not come
till the day after with aunt plantier.
‘...jérôme, my friend, my brother’ [she wrote], ‘...how grieved i am not to have been able to speak those few
words to her before her death, which would have given her that great happiness she desired. may she forgive me
now! and may god alone guide us both henceforward! good-bye, my poor friend.
‘i am, more tenderly than ever,
‘your alissa.’
what could be the meaning of this letter? what were those words that she was grieved not to have
uttered – what could they be but those with which she would have plighted our future? i was still so
young, however, that i dared not ask her for her hand at once. and besides, what need had i of her
promise? were we not already as good as engaged? our love was no secret from our relations; my
uncle was no more opposed to it than my mother had been; on the contrary, he treated me already as
a son.
i spent the easter holidays, which began a few days later, at le havre, sleeping at aunt plantier’s
and taking nearly all my meals at uncle bucolin’s.
my aunt félicie plantier was the best of women, but neither my cousins nor i were on very
intimate terms with her. she was in a continual state of breathless bustle; her gestures were ungentle
and her voice unmusical; she harried us with caresses and at odd moments of the day, when the need
for effusion seized her, she would suddenly overwhelm us with the floods of her affection. uncle
bucolin was very fond of her, but merely from the tone of his voice when he spoke to her, it was easy
to understand how greatly he had preferred my mother.
‘my poor boy,’ she began one evening, ‘i don’t know what you are meaning to do this summer,
but i will wait to hear your plans before settling my own: if i can be useful to you –’
‘i have not thought much about it yet,’ i answered. ‘perhaps i shall travel.’
she went on:
‘you know that both here and at fongueusemare you will always be welcome. you will be doing
your uncle and juliette a pleasure by going to them...’
‘alissa, you mean.’
‘of course. i beg your pardon... would you believe it? i thought it was juliette you were in love
with! until a month ago – when your uncle told me – you know i’m very fond of you all, but i don’t
know you very well; i’ve seen so little of you... and then i’m not very observant; i have no time to
mind other people’s business. i always saw you playing with juliette – i thought to myself, she’s so
pretty, so gay –’
‘yes, i like playing with her still, but it’s alissa i love.’
‘all right, all right! it’s your affair. as for me, i hardly know her at all, so to speak. she talks less
than her sister. i suppose as you’ve chosen her you must have good reasons for it.’
‘but, aunt, i didn’t choose to love her, and i’ve never thought what reasons i had for –’
‘don’t be cross, jérôme. i didn’t mean anything. now, you’ve made me forget what i wanted to
say. oh, yes! i suppose, of course, it’ll all end with your marrying; but it wouldn’t be quite proper for
you to become engaged just yet because of your mourning – and then you’re still very young. i
thought, now that your mother isn’t there, your staying at fongueusemare mightn’t be considered
quite the thing.’
‘but, aunt, that’s just why i spoke of travelling.’
‘oh, well, my dear, i thought that my presence there might make things easier and i’ve arranged
to keep part of the summer free.’
‘if i asked miss ashburton she would certainly come with pleasure.’
‘yes, i know she’s coming already. but that’s not enough! i will come too. oh! i don’t pretend i
shall take your poor mother’s place,’ she added, suddenly bursting into sobs, ‘but i can look after the
housekeeping – and – well – you and your uncle and alissa needn’t feel uncomfortable.’
aunt félicie was mistaken as to the efficacy of her presence. to tell the truth we were only
uncomfortable because of her. in accordance with her announcement, she settled herself at
fongueusemare at the beginning of july, and miss ashburton and i joined her there soon after.
under the pretence of helping alissa to look after it, she filled the house, which had always been
so peaceful, with a continual hubbub. the zeal with which she set about being agreeable to us and
‘making things easier’, as she called it, was so overdone that alissa and i were nearly always
constrained and practically speechless when she was by. she must have thought us very cold... and
even if we had not been silent, would she have been able to understand the nature of our love?
juliette’s character, on the other hand, fitted in well enough with this exuberance; and perhaps my
affection for my aunt was tinged with a certain resentment at seeing her show such a marked
preference for the younger of her nieces.
one morning, after the arrival of the post, she sent for me:
‘my poor jérôme,’ she said, ‘i’m absolutely heartbroken; my daughter is ill and wants me; i shall
be obliged to leave you...’
puffed up with idle scruples, i went to find my uncle, not knowing whether i should dare to stay
on at fongueusemare after my aunt’s departure. but at my first words:
‘what,’ he cried, ‘will my poor sister think of next to complicate what is so very natural? why
should you leave us, jérôme? aren’t you already almost my child?’
my aunt had barely stayed a fortnight at fongueusemare. as soon as she was gone the house was
able to sink back again into peace. there dwelt in it once more a serenity that was very like
happiness. my mourning had not cast a shadow on our love, but had made it weightier. and in the
monotonous course of the life which then began, as if in some place of high resonance, each slightest
stirring of our hearts was audible.
some days after my aunt’s departure i remember we were discussing her one evening at table:
‘what a commotion!’ said we. ‘is it possible that the stir of life should leave her soul so little
respite? fair image of love, what becomes of your reflection here?’ ...for we remembered goethe’s
saying about madame de stein: ‘it would be beautiful to see the world reflected in that soul.’ and we
then and there established a kind of hierarchy, putting the contemplative faculties in the highest
place. my uncle, who up to then had been silent, reproved us, smiling sadly:
‘my children,’ said he, ‘god will recognize his image even though broken. let us beware of
judging men from a single moment of their lives. everything which you dislike in my poor sister is
the result of circumstances, with which i am too well acquainted to be able to criticize her as severely
as you do. there is not a single pleasing quality of youth which may not deteriorate in old age. what
you call “commotion” in félicie, was at first nothing but charming high spirits, spontaneity,
impulsiveness, and grace. we were not very different, i assure you, from what you are today. i was
rather like you, jérôme – more so, perhaps, than i imagine. félicie greatly resembled juliette as she
now is – yes, even physically – and i catch a likeness to her by starts, he added, turning to his
daughter, ‘in certain sounds of your voice: she had your smile – and that trick, which she soon lost, of
sitting sometimes, like you, without doing anything, her elbows in front of her and her forehead
pressed against the locked fingers of her hands.’
miss ashburton turned towards me and said almost in a whisper:
‘it is your mother that alissa is like.’
the summer that year was splendid. the whole world seemed steeped in azure. our fervour
triumphed over evil – over death; the shades gave way before us. every morning i was awakened by
my joy; i rose at dawn and sprang to meet the coming day... when i dream of that time, it comes
back to me all fresh with dew. juliette, an earlier riser than her sister, whose habit it was to sit up very
late at nights, used to come out into the garden with me. she was the messenger between her sister
and me; i talked to her interminably of our love, and she never seemed tired of listening. i told her
what i dared not tell alissa, with whom excess of love made me constrained and shy. alissa seemed
to lend herself to this child’s play and to be delighted that i should talk so happily to her sister,
ignoring or feigning to ignore that in reality we talked only of her.
oh, lovely shifts of love, of love’s very excess, by what hidden ways you led us, from laughter to
tears, from the most artless joy to the exactions of virtue!
the summer sped by so pure, so smooth, that of its swift-slipping days scarce anything remains in
my memory. its only events were talks and readings.
‘i have had a melancholy dream,’ said alissa to me on one of the last mornings of the holidays. ‘i
was alive and you were dead. no, i didn’t see you die. it was merely – that you were dead. it was
horrible; it was so impossible, that i managed to get it granted for you to be simply absent. we were
parted and i felt that there was a way of getting to you; i tried to find out how, and i made such an
effort to succeed that it woke me up.
‘this morning i think i was under the impression of my dream; it seemed as if it were still going
on. i felt as if i were still parted from you – going to be parted from you for a long, long time –’ and
she added very low: ‘all my life – and that all our lives we should have to make a great effort...’
‘why?’
‘each of us a great effort to come together again.’
i did not take these words seriously, or perhaps i was afraid to take them seriously. with a beating
heart, and in a sudden fit of courage, i said to her, as though protesting:
‘well, as for me, this morning i dreamt that i was going to marry you – so surely, that nothing,
nothing would be able to part us, except death.’
‘do you think that death is able to part?’ asked she.
‘i mean –‘
‘i think that death, on the contrary, is able to bring together – yes, bring together what has been
parted in life.’
the whole of this conversation sank into us so deeply that i can still hear the very intonation of
the words we used. and yet i did not realize all their gravity until later.
the summer sped by. already nearly all the fields lay bare, with their wider spaces more emptied
of hope. the evening before – no, two evenings before my departure, i went out with juliette and we
wandered down to the shrubbery at the end of the lower garden.
‘what were you repeating yesterday to alissa?’ she asked.
‘when do you mean?’
‘when you stayed behind us on the quarry bench.’
‘oh! some verses of baudelaire’s, i think.’
‘what were they? won’t you say them to me?’
‘“bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres”’ i began rather ungraciously; but no
“sooner had i started than she interrupted me and took up the lines in a changed and trembling voice:
‘“adieu! vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!”’
‘what! you know them?’ i cried, extremely astonished. ‘i thought you didn’t care for poetry...’
‘why? because you never repeat me any?’ said she, laughing, though in rather a forced way.
‘sometimes you seem to think i’m perfectly idiotic.’
‘it’s quite possible to be very intelligent and not care for poetry. i’ve never heard you repeat any
or ask me to repeat you any.’
‘because that’s alissa’s business.’ she was silent for a few minutes and then asked abruptly:
‘you’re going away the day after tomorrow?’
‘yes, i must.’
‘what are you going to do this winter?’
‘it’s my first year at the école normale.’
‘when do you think of marrying alissa?’
‘not before i’ve done my military service. and indeed, not before i have a better idea of what i
mean to do afterwards.’
‘don’t you know yet?’
‘i don’t want to know yet. too many things appeal to me. i want to put off for as long as i can
having to choose and settle down to only one thing.’
‘is it reluctance to settle down that makes you put off getting engaged too?’
i shrugged my shoulders without answering. she insisted:
‘then, what are you waiting for? why don’t you get engaged at once?’
‘why should we get engaged? isn’t it enough to know that we do and shall belong to each other,
without proclaiming it to the world? since i choose to devote my whole life to her, do you think it
would be nobler to bind my love by promises? not i! vows seem to me to be an insult to love. i
should only want to be engaged if i distrusted her.’
‘it isn’t alissa that i distrust –’
we were walking slowly. we had reached that part of the garden where, in former days, i had
unintentionally overheard the conversation between alissa and her father. it suddenly occurred to me
that perhaps alissa, whom i had seen go out into the garden, was sitting at the head of the steps, and
that she would be able to overhear us in the same manner; the possibility of making her listen to
words which i dared not say to her openly, tempted me; i was amused by the artifice and raising my
voice:
‘oh!’ i exclaimed with the somewhat stilted vehemence of youth, and too much engrossed by my
own words to hear in juliette’s all that she left unsaid: ‘oh, if only we could lean over the soul we
love and see as in a mirror the image we cast there! – read in another as in ourselves, better than in
ourselves! what tranquillity there would be in our tenderness – what purity in our love!’
i had the conceit to take juliette’s emotion for an effect of my very indifferent flight of eloquence.
she suddenly hid her face on my shoulder:
‘jérôme! jérôme! i wish i could be sure you would make her happy! if she were to suffer through
you as well, i think i should detest you!’
‘why, juliette,’ i cried, embracing her and raising her head, ‘i should detest myself. if you only
knew! why, it’s only that i may begin life better with her, that i don’t want to settle on my career yet!
why, it is upon her that i hang my whole future. why, i want none of the things that i might be
without her –’
‘and what does she say when you speak to her so?’
‘i never speak to her so! never; and that’s another reason why we’re not engaged yet; there is
never any question of marriage between us, nor of what we shall do hereafter. oh, juliette! life with
her seems to me so lovely that i dare not – do you understand – i dare not speak to her about it.’
‘you want happiness to come on her as a surprise.’
‘no! that’s not it. but i’m frightened – of frightening her. do you see? i’m afraid that the
immense happiness, which i foresee, may frighten her. one day i asked her whether she wanted to
travel. she said that she wanted nothing, that it was enough for her to know that foreign countries
existed, and that they were beautiful, and that other people were able to go to them –’
‘and you, jérôme, do you want to travel?’
‘yes, everywhere! all life seems to me like a long journey – with her, through books and people
and countries. have you ever thought of the meaning of the words “weighing anchor”?’
‘yes, i often think of them,’ she murmured. but barely listening to her, and letting her words drop
to earth, like poor, hurt birds, i went on:
‘to start one night; to wake up in the dazzling brilliancy of morning; to feel oneself together and
alone on the uncertain waves –’
‘to arrive in a port, which one has seen on the map as a child; where everything is strange – i
imagine you on the gangway, leaving the boat with alissa leaning on your arm.’
‘we should hurry off to the post,’ added i, laughing, ‘to get the letter which juliette would have
written to us –’
‘from fongueusemare, where she would have stayed behind, and which you would remember as
– oh, so tiny, and so sad, and so far away –’
were those her words exactly? i cannot be sure for, i repeat, i was so full of my love that, beside
it, i was scarcely aware of any expression but its own.
we were drawing near the steps, and were just going to turn back, when alissa suddenly
appeared from out of the shade. she was so pale that juliette uttered an exclamation.
‘yes, i don’t feel very well,’ alissa stammered hastily. ‘the air is rather chilly. i think i had
better go in.’ and leaving us there and then, she went hurriedly back towards the house.
‘she overheard what we were saying,’ cried juliette, as soon as she was a little way off.
‘but we didn’t say anything which could have vexed her. on the contrary –’
‘oh! let me alone,’ she said, and darted off in pursuit of her sister.
that night i could not sleep. alissa had come down to dinner, but had retired immediately
afterwards, complaining of a headache. what had she heard of our conversation? i anxiously went
over in my mind everything we had said. then i thought that perhaps i had been wrong to walk so
close to juliette and to let my arm slip round her; but it was the habit of childhood, and many a time
alissa had seen us walking so. ah! blind wretch that i was, groping after my own errors, not to have
thought for a moment that juliette’s words, to which i had paid too little attention, and which i
remembered so ill, might perhaps have been better understood by alissa. no matter! led astray by
my anxiety, terrified at the idea that alissa might distrust me, and imagining no other peril, i
resolved, in spite of what i had said to juliette, and influenced, perhaps, by what she had said to me –
i resolved to overcome my scruples and apprehensions and to betrothe myself the following day.
it was the eve of my departure. her sadness, i thought, might be ascribed to that. she seemed to
avoid me. the day passed without my being able to see her alone. the fear of being obliged to leave
before speaking to her sent me to her room a little before dinner. she was putting on a coral necklace,
and, her arms raised to fasten it, she was bending forward, with her back turned to the door, looking
at herself over her shoulder, in a mirror between two lighted candles. it was in the mirror that she first
caught sight of me, and she continued to look at me in it for some moments without turning round.
‘why,’ said she, ‘wasn’t the door shut?’
‘i knocked, but you didn’t answer. alissa, you know i’m going tomorrow?’
she answered nothing, but laid down the necklace, which she could not succeed in fastening. the
word ‘engagement’ seemed to me too bare, too brutal; i used i know not what periphrasis in its stead.
as soon as alissa understood what i meant, i thought i saw her sway and lean against the
mantelpiece for support – but i myself was trembling so much that in my fearfulness i avoided
looking at her.
i was near her, and without raising my eyes, i took her hand; she did not free herself, but bending
down her face a little and raising my hand a little, she put her lips on it and murmured, as she half
leant against me:
‘no, jérôme, no; don’t, please, let us be engaged.’
my heart was beating so fast, that i think she felt it, and she repeated, more tenderly:
‘no, not yet –’
and as i asked her:
‘why?’
‘it’s i that ought to ask you why,’ she said. ‘why change?’ i did not dare speak to her of
yesterday’s conversation, but no doubt she felt i was thinking of it, and as if in answer to my thought,
said, as she looked at me earnestly:
‘you are wrong, dear. i do not need so much happiness. are we not happy enough as we are?’
she tried in vain to smile.
‘no, since i have to leave you.’
‘listen, jérôme, i can’t speak to you this evening – don’t let’s spoil our last minutes. no, no, i’m
as fond of you as ever; don’t be afraid. i’ll write to you; i’ll explain. i promise i’ll write to you –
tomorrow – as soon as you have gone. leave me now! see, i am crying. you must go.’
she pushed me away, tore me gently from her – and that was our good-bye; for that evening i
was not able to speak to her again, and the next morning, when it was time for me to leave, she shut
herself up in her room. i saw her at her window, waving good-bye to me as she watched my carriage
drive off.
