The Choice of Life

I am afraid that Rose is not much of a woman. Ah, were I in her place, I should be wild with excitement, out of my mind with joy, as though I were hearing my own name spoken for the first time!

5

After lunch, our shopping was a difficult matter. Rose, with her uncommon figure, could hardly find anything ready-made to suit her. I had to hunt about and to contrive with thought, for I would not wait a single day. I was careful to select the quietest and most usual things for her, so as to conceal her rusticity as far as possible. The neat dark-velvet toque could have its position altered on her head without much harm. The black veil would tone down the vividness of a complexion too long exposed to the open air; and its fine plain net would set off the admirable regularity of her features. Lastly, the deep leather belt to her tailor-made frock and the well-starched collar and cuffs would more or less hide the effort which it cost her to hold herself upright.

6

Two hours later, I introduced Rose to her new home. We climbed a dark, interminable staircase. I held a flickering candle in my hand; and, all out of breath, I explained to her the advantages of this boarding-house, a quiet place where her privacy would not be invaded and where she could make useful acquaintances if she wished....

At last, we reached the fifth floor. The daylight had faded. A sea of roofs was beneath us; and, through the panes above our heads, a great red sky cast lurid gleams over our faces and hands. The girl gave a start of pleasure as she entered her room. It was peaceful and white; but the flaming fire and sky at that moment turned it quite rosy, smiling and aglow. From the rather high window we could see nothing but space. I had placed a writing-table underneath it, with some books and a few flowers in a dainty crystal bowl. On the walls, several photographs of Italian masterpieces disguised the ugliness of the typical boarding-house paper. The chimney-mantel was bare and the furniture very simple.

We were both happy, both talking at once, Rose exclaiming:

"It's really too lovely, too beautiful!"

And I was saying:

"I should have liked to have a room for you arranged after my own taste, but I had to keep within bounds. So I brought a few little things, as you see, and bundled the ugly pictures, the tin clock and the plush flowers into the cupboards. But come and see the best part of it."

I threw open the window; and, leaning out, we beheld a great expanse beyond the enormous gutter that edged the roof. Unfortunately, the last glow of the sunset was swiftly dying away in the mist rising from the Seine. Opposite us, on the other bank, the Louvre became a heavy, shapeless mass; on the right, Notre-Dame was nothing but a shadowy spectre; here and there, in a chance, lingering gleam, we could just distinguish a steeple, a turret, a house standing out above the rest.

"We came in too late, Rose; we can see nothing; but how wonderful it all is! The sound of the quays and bridges hardly reaches us, the city might be veiled; at this height, its activity is like a dream and I seem to be living over again those quiet moments which we used to spend side by side at Sainte-Colombe. Are you happy?"

Smiling and with her eyes still fixed on the sky, she says:

"Yes."

"Perfectly?"

"Yes."

"You are not afraid of the future?"

"Not for my sake, but I am for yours."

I question her with my eyes; and she adds:

"I am afraid that I shall never be what you want."

I put my hand on her shoulder and said:

"You will be what you are to be; and that is the main thing. It seems to me at this moment that the greatest ideas are nothing, that the fairest dreams are childish compared with the simple reality of a human being's first taste of happiness. You were hidden; and I bring you to the light. You were a prisoner; and I set you free. I see nothing to fetter you; and that is all I ask. The life of a beautiful woman should be like a star whose every beam is the source of a possible joy.... I am glad, for this is the day of your first deliverance."

Rose murmured:

"What will the second be, then?"

I hesitated for a moment. Then I replied:

"It is difficult to say, dear; you will come to know gradually. I might answer, that of your mental or moral life; but I do not wish to lay down any rule. You are about to start on life's journey; I do not wish to trace your road with words. How much more precious your smallest actions are to me!"

I closed the window and went and sat in a chair by the fire-place. Rose, standing with uplifted arms in front of the glass, took off her hat and veil, then undid her mantle and her scarf and put everything carefully away in the wardrobe. My eyes followed her quiet movements and my heart rested on each of them. I spoke her name and she came and sat at my feet, against my knees, with her soft, fair head waiting for my caress.

It was now night; the fire lit our faces, but the room was dark wherever the flames did not cast their gleams. A chrysanthemum on a longer stalk than the others bent its petals into the light. Opposite the fire-place, within the shade of the bed-curtains, stood a white figure from the Venice Accademia, an allegory representing Truth. We could not see the mirror which she holds nor the details that surround her. The pedestal that raises her above mankind was also invisible; only the nude body of the woman invited and retained the light.

I called Rose's attention to her:

"Look, she is more interesting like that. In the doubt which the shadow casts around her, I see in her a more human and a truer truth."

After a moment's contemplation, Rose said, gravely:

"I will never hide one of my thoughts from you."

Her statement makes me smile; but why disappoint her? She did not yet know that those who are most sincere find it more difficult than the others to say what they think. Words, in their souls, are like climbing plants which, sown by chance in the middle of a roadway, waver and grope, send out tendrils here and there in despair and end by entangling themselves with one another. Whereas most people, just as we provide supports for flowers, bestow certainties and truths upon their words to which they cling, the sincere refuse to yield to any such illusions. They hesitate, stammer and contradict themselves without ceasing....

7

I drew her head down on my knees; and, softly, in little sentences interrupted by long pauses, we spoke of the new life that was opening before her. Soon she said nothing more. The fire went out, the room became dark and a clock outside struck six. I whispered:

"I am going, darling...."

She did not move and I saw that she was asleep. Then I gently released myself, put a pillow under her head and a wrap over her shoulders and was almost at the door, when suddenly I pictured her awakening. It would not do for her to open her eyes in the dark, to feel lost and alone in an unknown house. I lit the lamp, drew the blinds and made up the fire.

Roseline was sleeping soundly. Her breathing was hardly perceptible. At times, a deep sigh sent a quiver through her placid beauty, even as a keener breath of air ripples the surface of a pool.

What would she do if she should soon awake?… I looked around. Everything was peaceful and smiling; the flowers looked fresh and radiant in the light; the books on the table seemed to be waiting.... I searched among them for some page to charm her imagination and guide her first dreams along pleasant paths....

Chapter IV

1

Rose is sitting by the fire with her bare feet in slippers and a dressing-wrap flung loosely round her.

"Are you ill?"

"No," she says, smiling.

And her cool hands, pressing mine, and her gay kisses on my cheeks are no less reassuring than the actual reply.

"But why are you not dressed?"

"I don't know; time passed and I let them bring my lunch up to me."

I look round the darkened bedroom. Through the blind which I lowered yesterday, the light enters timidly, in a thousand broken little shafts; on the table, the books still lie as I placed them; on the chimney-shelf, the flowers, withered by the heat of the fire, are fading and drooping.

All these things which had been left untouched were evidence of a lethargy that hurt me. All the emotions which I had been picturing Rose as experiencing since the day before had not so much as brushed against her. One by one, they dropped back sadly upon my heart.

I rose, moved the flowers, opened the window; and the bright sunshine restored my confidence.

"Come, darling, dress and let's go out."

A thousand questions come crowding to my lips while I help her do her hair:

"Do they look after you well? Do you feel very lonely? What are the other boarders like? Are any of them interesting?"

Her answers, sensible and placid as usual, did not tell me much, except that the food was good, that she had slept well and that she was very comfortable.

I resolved to wait a few days before asking her any more.

2

Roseline throws off her wrap and begins dressing. The water trickles from the sponge which she squeezes over her shoulders, runs down, lingers here and there and disappears along the flowing lines of her body, which, in the broad daylight, looks as though it were flooded with diamonds. A cool fragrance mingles with the scent of the roses. The room is filled with beauty.

Chapter V

1

It snowed last night for the first time; then it froze; and the trees in the Tuileries are now showing the white lines of their branches against a dreary sky. The daylight seems all the duller by comparison with the glitter of the snow-covered ground.... I slowly follow the little black path made by the sweepers; I receive an impression of solitude; the streets are very still; it is as though sick people lay behind the closed windows; and the voices of the children playing as I pass seem to come to me through invisible curtains.

Rose is walking beside me. A keen wind plasters our dresses against us and raises them behind into dark, waving banners. The icy air whitens the fine pattern of our veils against our mouth.

"Where are we going?" asks Rose.

I hesitate a little before replying:

"We are going to the Louvre."

And to put her at her ease and also to guard against a probable disappointment, I hasten to add:

"It is a picture-book which we will look at together. You will turn first to what is bright and attractive to the eye; later on, you will perceive the shades in the colour, the lines in the form and the expression in the subject. And, if at first our admiration is given to what is poor and unworthy, what does it matter, so long as it is aroused at all?"

2

We had reached the foot of the stairs that lead to the Victory of Samothrace. After staring at it for a minute, Rose remarked, in a voice heavy with indifference:

"It's beautiful, very beautiful."

I felt that she had no other object than that of pleasing me; but her natural honesty soon prevailed when I asked her what she admired; and she answered, simply:

"I don't know."

It is in this way, by never utterly and altogether disappointing me, that she keeps her hold on me. She sees and feels nothing of what we call beautiful; on the other hand, she is cheerfully oblivious to the necessity of assuming what she does not feel; she has no idea of posing either to herself or to others; and the strange coldness of her soul makes my affection all the warmer. By not trying to appear what she is not, she constantly keeps alive in me the illusion of what she may be or of what she will become.

We walked quickly through a number of rooms and sat down in a quiet corner. I was already under the spell of that deep, reposeful life which emanates from some of the Primitives; but Roseline, who had stopped on the way in order to have a better view of various ugly things, was talking and laughing loudly.

This annoyed me; and I was on the point of telling her so. However, I restrained myself: I should have felt ashamed to be angry with her. Was she not gay and lively, as I had wished to see her? What right have we to let ourselves be swayed by the vagaries of our instinct and expect our companion to feel the same obligation of silence or speech at any given moment? Our emotion should strike chords so strong and true that no minor dissonances of varying temperaments can make them ring false.

Rose chattered away for a long time, speaking all in the same breath of her convent days, of her terrible godmother, of the scandal which her sudden disappearance must be creating in the village. Then she stopped; and I felt her eyes resting vacantly by turns upon myself and upon the square in the ceiling which at that moment framed a patch of grey sky studded with whirling snow-flakes. At last, she raised her veil with an indolent movement, put her hand on my shoulder and, with a long yawn that revealed all the pearly freshness of her mouth, asked:

"But what do you see in it?"

I slipped my arm under hers and led her away through the deserted rooms. I ought to have spoken. But how empty are our most pregnant words, when we try to express one iota of our admiration!

"Why should you mind what I see, my Roseline? It is you and you alone who can discover what you like and what interests you."

We were passing in front of Titian's Laura de' Dianti. I was struck with the relationship that existed between her and my companion. Although Rose was different in colouring, fairer, with lighter eyes, she had the same purity of feature, the thin, straight nose, the very small mouth and, above all, the same vague look that lends itself to the most diverse interpretations. She squeezed my arm:

"Speak to me, speak to me!"

I glanced at her. Must it always be so, would she never feel anything except when my own emotion found utterance? Impressions reached her soul only after filtering through mine. Love, I thought to myself, love alone would perhaps one day set free all the raptures now jealously hidden in those too-chaste nerves. And, in spite of myself, I exclaimed:

"Don't you think that admiration in a woman is only another form of love?"

"But when she is no longer young?" Rose retorted, with a laugh.

"When she is no longer young, nature doubtless suggests other means of enthusiasm. Her heart is no longer a bond of union between her and things. Then her calmer eyes are perhaps able to look at beauty itself, without having all the joys of a woman's love-filled life to kindle their fires."

The Rubens pictures were around us, in all their brilliancy and in all their glory, uttering cries of passion and luxury with voices of flesh and blood and youth. They were another proof of what I had just said; and I confessed to my companion:

"It is not so long ago, Rose, that I used to pass unmoved through this dazzling room where the Rubens flourish in their luscious beauty. I used to look at them: now, I see them; I used to brush by them: now, I grasp them. I enter into all this riot of happiness around us, which is a thousand miles away from you, Rose; and it adds to my own joy in life...."

"But then what has come to you?" exclaimed the girl.

I could not help smiling, for, when I tried to explain myself, it seemed to me that, in the depths of my heart, I was playing with words:

"All that hurt me yesterday has become a source of admiration to me to-day. Excess appears riches and plenty, tumult becomes orderly; and I seem to see in these works the glorification of all that we are bound to hold supreme in life: health, beauty, strength, love. Is not the exaggerated splendour of these pictures a triumphant challenge, the expression of a magnificent principle?"

We stood silent for a moment; then I added:

"We never actually realise all that we have in our minds; but one would think that this man's life and work reached the farthest bounds of his visions. Or else we are unable even to catch a glimpse of what he saw."

And, musing upon that mystery, our frail feminine imagination seemed to us like a landscape fading into the mist: when the day is clear, we can distinguish the chain of blue mountains whose summits touch the sky, but our imagination, if it would not be lost in the haze, must keep to the foreground, in the avenues laid out by man.

I resumed:

"We are very far, Rose, from the parsimony of the Primitives, each of whose works contains almost a human life. In their room and in this, you will find all the contradictory and complementary instruction which one would like to give you. Over there, sobriety, patience, assiduous effort, absolute conscientiousness in the smallest detail; life bowed in all humility, but yet steadfast and fervent; imagination and beauty that do not strive to shine: if you want a proof, look at the great number that remained anonymous! Here, on the contrary, prodigality, exultant love, blood coursing triumphantly through conquered veins. Rubens is the apostle of wholehearted happiness. The biggest things seem easy when you are in his presence. If ever you feel tired and ready to be discouraged, you should come and look at him. Oh, I wonder, yes, I wonder to what, to whom I owe this new enthusiasm? What have I seen, what have I learnt? Through what chance acquaintance, what casual word, what gesture or action, doubtless far removed from Rubens and his works, did I suddenly enter into that wonderful kingdom?"

And, in fact, that is how it had happened. An unknown treasure falls into the cup of emotion; and the level is raised. Oh, to feel the long-slumbering sensation rise within one's self; to see that which was obscure to us yesterday become crystal-clear to-day; to love more passionately, to understand a little better, to know a little more: that is, to us women, the real progress, the only progress which we must desire and seek after! But how can I hope that Rose will progress if she never feels?

3

In vain I roamed about with her for an hour, not among the pictures, whose value she could not yet appreciate, but among the dreams that were born of them, among the most moving and delectable visions; vain my emotion, vain my rapture: no answering spark lit her indifferent eyes. True, there was no question of failure or success; I was putting nothing to the test: that would have been insanity. But why this weight of oppression on my spirits? I could not get rid of disturbing memories: memories of childish raptures finding utterance by chance; memories of those first loves which fasten upon anything in their haste to live; memories of virgin hearts nurtured on dreams!

O enthusiasm, admiration, love, if you were not at first wanderers, neither seeking nor choosing, if you did not blaze fiercely and foolishly like a flame burning in the noon-day sun, will you ever be able to light the darkness with all the splendours that are awaiting your spark in order to burst into life?

O sweet eyes of my Roseline, sweet eyes that shine under your soft, fair lashes like two opals set in pure gold, will you close for all time without having gazed for a moment upon the wonders of the earth, upon the real sky of our human life? Is it true that your beams extinguish life and beauty wherever they rest?

Chapter VI

1

It is six o'clock in the evening; I am taking Rose along the boulevards, which are so interesting at this time of the year. As usual, I am astonished at everything that does not astonish her. I look at her as she walks, beautiful and impassive; I keep step with her stride; and my thoughts hover to and fro between this life of hers which refuses to take form and my ideals which are gradually fading out of existence.

Alas, the days pass over her without arousing either desire or weariness! From time to time, I suggest some simple, trifling work for her. But, whether the task be mental or material, whether the duty be light or complex, she acquiesces in the suggestion only to make it easier for her to put it aside later, gently and as a matter of course, like tired arms laying down a burden too heavy for them.

This evening, I am merciful to her indolence. Going through the hall of her boarding-house just now, I saw the long table laid, at which the boarders meet. And I think of those destinies which have been linked with Rose's during the past fortnight, while I am still unable to obtain a clear idea of any one of them from her involved and incoherent accounts.

The house, which is in the old-fashioned style, has at the back a sort of glass-covered balcony overhanging the garden of the house next door. Here the boarders take their coffee after meals, while the proprietress, a gentle, amiable creature, strives to establish some sort of intimacy among them, to create an imaginary family out of these strangers who have come from all parts of the world with varying objects and for diverse reasons.

I know from experience the surprises latent in people like these. To look at them, one would set them down as belonging to stereotyped models: invalids, travellers, globe-trotters, runaways or students, as the case may be. I call up figures from my own recollection and describe them to Rose to encourage her to tell me her impressions. Stray reminiscences marshal themselves, images rise before my eyes, obliterating the things and people around me, and a vision appears over which my memory plays like a reflection in a sheet of water. I see a long house and its white-and-green front mirrored in a clear lake. A man and a woman arrive there at the same time; and I tell Rose the story of the two old wanderers:

"It was very curious. Imagine those two people unknown to each other, leaving the same country at about the same age and making the same journeys in opposite directions. When I met them, they were two grey-haired, wizened figures, with the same short-sighted eyes blinking behind the same kind of spectacles. It amused me from the first to look at them as one and united beforehand, at a time when they were still unacquainted. I watched them at the meals which brought them closer together daily, as it were perusing each other with the pleasure of finding themselves to be alike, as though they were two copies of the same guide-book. In their equally commonplace minds, recollections took the place of ideas. To them, life was a sort of long classification; they recognised no other duty but that of taking notes and cataloguing. I don't know if they saw some advantage one day in uniting for good, or if they began at last to think that there are other roads to follow in the world beside those which lead to lakes, cities, waterfalls and mountains. At any rate, after a few weeks, they were sharing the same room; and we learnt that in future they meant to live side by side."

"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.