iii

i had hardly seen abel vautier that year; he had enlisted without waiting to be called up, whilst i, in

the meantime, had been reading for my degree. i was two years younger than abel, and had put off

my military service until after leaving the école normale, where we were both of us to go for our first

term that year.

we met again with pleasure. after leaving the army, he had spent more than a month travelling. i

was afraid of finding him changed; but he had merely acquired more confidence without losing any

of his charm. we spent the afternoon before the opening day of the term in the luxembourg gardens;

unable to restrain myself from confiding in him, i spoke to him at length about my love for alissa,

which, for that matter, he knew of already. during the last year he had acquired some experience of

women, and, in consequence, put on rather a conceited and patronizing manner, which, however, did

not offend me. he laughed at me for not having finally managed to clinch the matter, as he expressed

it, giving forth as an axiom, that a woman should never be given time to go back on herself. i let him

talk, but thought to myself that his excellent arguments were not applicable either to her or to me,

and simply showed that he did not understand us.

the day after our arrival i received the following letter:

‘my dear jérôme,

‘i have been thinking a great deal about your suggestion.’ [my suggestion! what a way of speaking of our

engagement!] ‘i am afraid i am too old for you. perhaps you don’t think so now, because you have had no

opportunity yet of seeing anything of other women. but i keep thinking of what i should suffer later on, if after i

had given myself to you, i were to find out that you were no longer able to care for me. you will be very indignant,

no doubt, as you read this; i think i hear you protesting; it’s not that i doubt your love - i simply ask you to wait a

little longer until you are rather better acquainted with life.

‘please understand that i am speaking only of you – as for myself, i feel sure that i shall never cease to love

you.

‘alissa.’

cease to love each other! could there be any question of such a thing? i was more astonished

than grieved, but so greatly disturbed that i hurried off to show the letter to abel.

‘well, what do you mean to do?’ said he, after he had read the letter, shaking his head and

screwing up his lips as he did so. i made a despairing gesture. ‘at any rate, i hope you aren’t going to

answer her! if you begin arguing with a woman you’re lost. listen to me: if we were to sleep at le

havre on saturday night, we might spend sunday morning at fongueusemare, and be back here in

time for the lecture on monday morning. i haven’t seen your people since my military service. that’s

excuse enough; and a very creditable one. if alissa sees that it’s only an excuse, so much the better.

i’ll look after juliette whilst you talk to her sister. try not to play the fool. to tell you the truth,

there’s something i can’t understand in your tale; you can’t have told me everything. never mind!

i’ll soon get to the bottom of it. mind you don’t let them know we’re coming: you must take your

cousin by surprise and not give her time to arm herself.’

my heart was beating fast as i pushed open the garden gate. juliette came running to meet us at

once. alissa, who was busy in the linen room, made no haste to come down. we were talking to my

uncle and miss ashburton when at last she entered the drawing-room. if our sudden arrival had upset

her, at any rate she managed to show no signs of it. i thought of what abel had said, and that it was

precisely with the intention of arming herself against me, that she had been so long before making

her appearance. juliette’s extreme animation made her reserve seem colder still. i felt that she

disapproved of my return; at any rate she tried to show disapprobation in her manner, and i dared not

imagine that behind this disapprobation there might be hidden another and a livelier feeling. seated

at some distance apart from us, in a corner near the window, she seemed absorbed in a piece of

embroidery, the stitches of which she was counting below her breath. abel talked – fortunately! for,

as for me, i felt incapable of saying a word, and if it had not been for the tales he told of his year’s

service and his travels, this meeting would have had a dismal beginning. my uncle himself seemed

unusually thoughtful.

immediately after lunch, juliette took me aside and drew me into the garden:

‘what do you think?’ said she, when we were alone, ‘i’ve had an offer of marriage! aunt félicie

wrote to papa yesterday to tell him she had had a proposal for me from a nîmes vine-grower; a

person who is very satisfactory in every way, she says; he met me out at some parties last spring and

fell in love with me.’

‘and did this individual make any impression on you?’ i questioned with an instinctive feeling of

hostility towards the suitor.

‘yes, i think i remember him. a kind of cheery don quixote – not cultivated – very ugly – very

vulgar – rather ridiculous; aunt félicie couldn’t keep her countenance before him.’

‘has he any – chance?’ i asked, mockingly.

‘oh, jérôme! how can you? a man who’s in business!... if you’d seen him you wouldn’t ask.’

‘and has my uncle answered?’

‘he answered what i did – that i was too young to marry. unfortunately,’ she added, laughing,

‘aunt foresaw that objection: in a postscript she says that monsieur édouard teissières – that’s his

name – is willing to wait, that he has simply declared himself so soon in order to be put “on the

ranks”. it’s absurd, but what am i to do? all the same, i can’t tell him he’s too ugly.’

‘no, but you can say that you don’t want to marry a vine-grower.’

she shrugged her shoulders:

‘that’s a kind of reason aunt’s mind is incapable of taking in. but let’s talk of something else.

has alissa written to you?’

she spoke with extreme volubility and seemed in great agitation. i handed her alissa’s letter,

which she read, blushing deeply. i seemed to discern a note of anger in her voice as she asked me:

‘then what are you going to do?’

‘i don’t know,’ i answered. ‘now that i am here, i feel as if it would have been easier to write,

and i blame myself for coming. can you understand what she means?’

‘i understand she wants to leave you free.’

‘free! what do i care for freedom? and can you understand why she writes to me so?’

she answered ‘no!’ so shortly that, without at all divining the truth, i at least felt persuaded from

that moment that juliette probably knew something about it. then, abruptly turning back as we came

to a bend in the path: ‘let me be now,’ she said. ‘you haven’t come here to talk to me. we have

been together a great deal too long.’

she fled off to the house, and a moment later i heard her at the piano.

when i went back to the drawing-room she was talking to abel, who had joined her there; she

went on playing as she talked, though carelessly, and as if she were vaguely improvising. i left them.

i went into the garden and wandered about some time, looking for alissa.

she was at the bottom of the orchard, picking the first chrysanthemums at the foot of a low wall.

the smell of the flowers mingled with that of the dead leaves in the beech copse and the air was

saturated with autumn. the sun did no more now than just warm the espaliers, but the sky was

orientally pure. her face was framed, hidden nearly, in the depths of a big dutch peasant’s cap,

which abel had brought back from his travels and which she had at once put on. she did not turn as i

drew near, but i saw, by the slight tremor which she could not repress, that she had recognized my

step; and i began at once to fortify myself against her reproaches and the severity which i felt her

look was going to impose upon me. but when, as i came closer and, as if afraid, began to slacken my

pace, she, although still she did not turn but kept her head lowered as a sulky child might do,

stretched out to me from behind her back her hand full of flowers, and seemed to beckon me on. and

as, on the contrary, at sight of this gesture i came to a standstill in a spirit of playfulness, she turned

round at last and took a few steps towards me, raising her face; and i saw that it was all full of

smiles. the brightness of her look made everything seem on a sudden simple again and easy, so that

without an effort and with an unaltered voice, i began:

‘it was your letter that brought me back.’

‘i thought so,’ said she, and then softening the sharpness of her rebuke by the inflexion of her

voice; ‘and that is what vexed me. why didn’t you like what i said? it was very simple, though.’

(and indeed, sadness and difficulty seemed now nothing but imagination, seemed now to exist only

in my mind.) ‘we were happy so; i told you we were; why be astonished at my refusing when you

ask me to change?’

and indeed i felt happy with her, so perfectly happy, that the one desire of my mind was that it

should differ in nothing from hers, and already i wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk

with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun-warmed, flower-bordered path.

‘if you prefer it,’ said i gravely, renouncing at one stroke every other hope, and giving myself up

to the perfect happiness of the present, ‘...if you prefer it, we will not be engaged. when i got your

letter, i did in fact realize that i was happy and that my happiness was going to cease. oh! give me

back the happiness that i had; i can’t do without it. i love you well enough to wait for you all my life,

but that you should cease to love me or that you should doubt my love, that thought, alissa, is

unbearable to me.’

‘alas! jérôme, i cannot doubt it.’

and her voice, as she said this, was at once calm and sad; but the smile which illuminated her

remained so serenely beautiful that i was ashamed of my fears and protestations; it seemed to me

then, that from them alone came that touch of sadness which i felt lurking in her voice. without any

transition, i began speaking of my plans and of the new life from which i was expecting to derive so

much benefit. the école normale was not at that time what it has since become; its somewhat

rigorous discipline, irksome only to young men of an indolent or refractory disposition, was helpful

to those whose minds were bent on study. i was glad that this almost monastic way of life should

preserve me from the world, which at best attracted me but little; the knowledge that alissa feared it

for me would have been enough to make it appear hateful.

miss ashburton had kept on the apartment she had shared with my mother in paris. as abel and

i knew hardly anyone in paris, we should spend some hours of every sunday with her; every sunday

i should write to alissa and keep her informed of every detail of my life.

we were now sitting on the edge of an open garden frame through which were sprawling huge

stalks of cucumber plants, the last fruits of which had been gathered. alissa listened to me,

questioned me. i had never before felt her tenderness more solicitous, her affection more pressing.

fear, care, the slightest stir of emotion even, evaporated in her smile, melted away in this delightful

intimacy, like the mist in the perfect blueness of the sky.

then when juliette and abel came out to join us, we spent the rest of the day on a bench in the

beech copse, reading aloud swinburne’s triumph of time, each of us taking a verse by turns.

evening drew in.

when the time came for us to be going, alissa kissed me good-bye, and then half playfully, but

still with that elder sister air, which was perhaps called for by my thoughtlessness, and which she

was fond of assuming, ‘come,’ said she, ‘promise me you won’t be so romantic for the future.’

‘well, are you engaged?’ asked abel, as soon as we were again alone together.

‘my dear fellow, there’s no question of that now,’ i answered, adding at once in a tone that cut

short any further questioning, ‘and a very good thing too. i have never been happier in my life than i

am tonight.’

‘nor i either!’ he cried; then, abruptly flinging his arms around me: ‘i’ve got something

wonderful to tell you, something extraordinary! jérôme, i’m madly in love with juliette! i suspected

as much as long ago as last year; but i’ve seen life since then, and i didn’t want to tell you anything

about it until i’d met your cousins again. now it’s all up with me! it’s for life.

j’aime, que dis-je aimer – j’idolâtre juliette!

i’ve thought for a long time past that i had a kind of brother-in-law’s affection for you.’

then, laughing and joking, he embraced me again and again, flinging himself about like a child,

on the cushions of the railway carriage that was taking us to paris. i was absolutely astounded by his

announcement; and the slight strain of literary affectation which i felt in it jarred on me not a little;

but how was it possible to hold out against such vehemence and such rapture?

‘well, what? have you proposed to her?’ i managed to ask between two bursts of excitement.

‘no, no, certainly not!’ cried he; ‘i don’t want to skip the most charming part of the story.

le meilleur moment des amours

n’est pas quand on a dit: je t’aime...

come now, you aren’t going to reproach me with that, are you? you – such a past master of

slowness yourself!’

‘well, at any rate,’ i said, slightly irritated, ‘do you think that she...?’

‘didn’t you notice her embarrassment when she saw me again? and the whole time of our visit,

her agitation, and her blushes and her volubility! no! you noticed nothing, of course! because you’re

completely taken up with alissa. and how she questioned me! how she drank in my words! her

intelligence has tremendously developed since last year. i don’t know where you got it that she

doesn’t like reading; you always imagine that alissa’s the only person who can do anything! my

dear boy, it’s astonishing what she knows. can you guess what we were amusing ourselves by doing

before dinner? repeating one of dante’s canzoni! we each of us said a line, and when i went wrong

she corrected me. you know, the one that begins:

amor che nella mente mi ragiona.

you didn’t tell me that she had learnt italian.’

‘i didn’t know it myself,’ said i, rather astonished.

‘what? when we began the canzone, she told me it was you who had shown it to her.’

‘she must have heard me read it to her sister one day when she was sitting with us, doing her

needlework, as she often does; but i’m blessed if she ever let on that she understood.’

‘really! you and alissa are amazing with your egoism. you are so much absorbed in your own

love, that you can’t spare a glance for the admirable flowering of an intelligence and a soul like hers!

i don’t want to flatter myself, but all the same it was high time that i appeared on the scene. no, no!

i’m not angry with you, as you see,’ said he, embracing me again. ‘only promise me – not a word of

any of this to alissa. i want to conduct my affairs by myself. juliette is caught, that’s certain, and fast

enough for me to venture to leave her till next holidays. i think i shan’t even write to her between

this and then. but we will spend the christmas vacations at le havre, and then –‘

‘and then?’

‘well, alissa will suddenly learn of our engagement. i mean to push it through smartly. and do

you know what will happen? why! i shall get you alissa’s consent by force of our example. you

can’t pull it off for yourself, but we shall persuade her that we can’t get married before you...’

so he went on, drowning me in an inexhaustible flow of words, which did not stop even on the

train’s arrival in paris, even on our getting back to the normale, for though we walked all the way

from the station to the school, he insisted, in spite of the lateness of the hour, on accompanying me to

my room, where we went on talking till morning.

abel’s enthusiasm made short work of the present and the future. he already saw and described

our double wedding; imagined and painted everybody’s surprise and joy; became enamoured of the

beauty of our story, of our friendship, of the part he was to play in my love affair. far from being

proof against so flattering a warmth, i felt myself pervaded by it, and gently succumbed to the

allurement of his fanciful suggestions. thanks to our love, courage and ambition swelled in us; we

were hardly to have left the école normale when our double marriage (the ceremony to be

performed by pasteur vautier) would take place and we should all four start on our wedding journey;

then we were each to embark on some monumental work, with our wives as collaborators. abel, for

whom the schoolmaster’s profession had no attractions, and who thought he was born to be a writer,

would rapidly earn the fortune of which he stood in need, by a few successful plays. as for me, more

attracted by learning itself than by the thought of any gain that might accrue from it, my plan was to

devote myself to the study of religious philosophy, of which i purposed writing the history – but

what avails it now to recall so many hopes?

the next day we plunged into our work.