The fear of living

In the friendship between brother and sister there is a frank and simple sweetness that makes it a sentiment apart from all others. In its nature it is free from the violent outbursts of love and those passionate transports which are too intoxicating to be lasting. It is distinguished, however, from ordinary friendship between persons of the same sex, by the element of modest discretion and tenderness introduced into it by the woman. What makes it still more singular is the marvellous ability of the two parties to such a friendship to think and to feel alike, this springing from a common origin and a childhood spent together. The two can then understand a half-uttered word, can call back memories at the same moment, can live again together the days of old and inhale again the perfume of the past. Even love itself lacks this quality and may well envy its possession.

Seated in two basket-chairs in the garden of Le Maupas, Marcel and Paule Guibert, with no waste of useless confidences, realised the joy of discovering that during their separation life had ripened and molded their souls alike even though a great distance had separated them. They thought otherwise than in former days, but they still thought together.

“I am so happy here,” said the young man, “that I want to do nothing all day long.”

Marcel was tired and needed rest. In spite of his robust health, he showed some traces of his life in the colonies. He still had attacks of fever, though they grew rarer and rarer. He looked to the health-bringing air of Savoy to put new life into him.

It was one of those calm summer afternoons in the country, when it seems that one can almost feel the vibration of the sunshine. Not a breath of air fanned their faces. Only in the tree-tops a lazy breeze stirred the delicate leaves of the lime-trees, which trembled and showed by turn the dark green of their upper and the pale green of their lower surfaces.

On the rustic table, its round top cut from a single slate, were scattered papers and letters. Paule set herself to open the mail to which her brother paid so little heed.

“More articles about you,” she cried, “in the Clarion des Alpes and La Savoie Républicaine. Do you want to read them?”

“No, please not,” begged the captain.

“Some invitations,” Paule went on. “The men of your year are giving a dinner in your honor. A season-ticket for the Aix-les-Bains Casino. Another for the Villa des Fleurs. The Baroness de Vittoz is at home on Tuesdays.”

“What is all this to me? I want to see nobody, absolutely nobody.”

“You have become fashionable! You must play your part. They are disposing of your liberty. That’s one way of sharing in your laurels.”

“Let’s agree not to talk about it, Paule dear.”

“But everyone is talking about it. Glory is the rage to-day. Some day soon the Dulaurenses will call upon us, and other people too whom we have not seen since the story of our ruin got about.”

Her smooth forehead, overshadowed by dark hair, still wore the furrow which testified to the bitterness of that time of trial.

Marcel said nothing. He let himself be carried away by the multitudinous memories connected with the land which was his forefathers’. In his mind’s eye he could see the shadows of the past springing up from the ground about him and hovering round him like a flock of birds. Only the members of large families can know the happy exaltation of spirit which has its birth in an environment that is fresh, gay, and frank. This blessing, which changes childhood with a stroke of the wand into fairyland and is able to shed its sweetness throughout middle life right down to old age, is the reward of those who have had the courage to live and to perpetuate life. So Marcel now smiled upon another tiny Marcel, whom he could see distinctly scampering over the neighboring fields with a merry little troop of brothers and sisters. Then began with Paule the series of “Do you remembers.” He plunged back into the far away years when the soul is still wrapped in mystery, and finally he said:

“Do you remember.... But no, you were not born then. We were lying on the grass. They were our first holidays, I think. Father used to tell us about the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” and we straightway translated the stories into action. I was in turn Hector and the cunning Ulysses. But at that time I preferred Hector, for he is generous and of that tragic courage which impresses a child’s mind. Since then reading Homer has been to me like visiting a friend. Who can tell whether or not I owe to these influences my taste for adventure?”

“But you are not thinking of going back?” enquired Paule anxiously. “Mother has aged greatly. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, she is a little bent now, and her cheeks are sometimes pale. You are watching over her for us. You are our security, Paule, the comfort of all the rest of us, who are scattered over the world.”

The girl did not reply. Marcel regretted his remark, for he felt its selfishness. Of all Dr. Guibert’s children Paule had suffered most directly from the blow of the financial disaster which had crushed the whole family through the misfortunes of an uncle. She had lost her dowry and thereby many a chance of marriage. Her brothers depended on her devotion to cherish their mother’s old age, as if she must always forget her own life and feel in vain the tender beating of her young heart.

Marcel gazed at her a long time. With affectionate admiration he regarded her graceful figure, so supple and so full of the promise of future strength; the pure tint of her complexion, accentuated by the black of her dress; her deep, sombre eyes, so sweet withal, the eyes of a woman who has tasted life and knows it, without fearing it; he saw the whole charming picture of a maiden both proud and virtuous. Why should she not inspire love?

He noticed the dark hair overhanging her troubled brow, and sought to make her smile.

“I love that black hair of yours,” he said. “I have never seen any so black. How proudly you carry the weight of it. Do you remember, when you were little and wore it down your back, there was so much of it that the peasant women coming back from market used to stop to look at you and say, ‘What a shame to put a false plait upon the poor child!’ And your nurse was very angry, ‘A false plait, is it! Come and pull it and you’ll see if it comes off in your hands.’ So they actually tested the genuineness of your hair, and you wept because you were too beautiful!”

Slowly, leaning on the iron balustrade and setting each foot in turn on every step, Madame Guibert was coming down to her children. As an autumn flower blooms in a deserted garden, so a feeble smile had lighted up her face since Marcel’s arrival. He came now to meet her and set her chair in a sheltered spot.

“Are you comfortable, Mother?” he asked. The smile on the old face deepened.

“My dear big boy, you are so like him.”

Marcel’s face grew grave. “It is eighteen months now since he passed on,” he said. “I shall never forget that night at Ambato! I wandered round the camp. I called to him. I called to you all. I felt death coming to me....”

There was a sorrowful silence for a moment, and then Madame Guibert spoke again.

“Eighteen months! Is it possible? ... Yet I have lived through them, thanks to Paule. While the breath of life is in me, I shall thank God for giving me such a husband, such sons and daughters.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and began the painful recital for which her son was waiting.

“Your Uncle Marc’s misfortune was the beginning of all our sorrows. We were too happy, Marcel. Your father was the embodiment of strength, self-reliance, and hard work. After the most wearying days he always came home happy. And you all succeeded in your careers.”

“Some were jealous of you,” said Paule.

“It is better to be envied than pitied,” added her brother, who was as proud as she.

“Your uncle’s bank at Annecy prospered, until a confidential clerk absconded with title deeds and deposits, and Marc, unable to bear the temporary storm aroused by this flight, and stunned by the shock, committed suicide. God grant that he has been permitted to repent! Your father left directly. He understood the situation. All was paid, both capital and interest—but we had to sacrifice the greater part of our fortune. However, we were able to save Le Maupas, which belongs to the family.”

“Le Maupas is to all of us the living picture of our childhood days,” said Marcel.

Madame Guibert continued, “Before disposing of his fortune your father asked the consent of all of you.”

“Yes, I remember. It was at the beginning of the campaign. But father’s conduct seemed to me an excess of punctiliousness. These money matters are quite strange and indifferent to me.”

“Paule was consulted, too.”

“There was our name,” said Paule, “and our honor.”

“Your marriage portion was involved, my child.... After his brother’s tragic end,” the mother went on, “your father was so affected that he never recovered his gaiety. But his energy and capacity for work were doubled. When the epidemic broke out at Cognin he did not take sufficient care of himself. He was the last to be attacked by the disease, and at a time when he was exhausted and worn out. From the first he knew that he was lost, but he never admitted it. I understood at the last. He studied the progress of his illness himself. One day he said to me, ‘Don’t be unhappy, God will help you.’ ‘He will help us,’ I said. He made no reply. He thought of his death fearlessly. He died in our arms, conscious to the last.”

“Only I was not there,” said Marcel.

“There at the bedside were Étienne, just back from Tonkin, François, Paule, and Étienne’s fiancée, too, Louise Saudet.”

“Where was Marguerite?”

“She could not come,” answered Madame Guibert sadly, but with no bitterness in her voice. “They would not allow her. She belongs to God. We have not seen her since she entered the convent.”

All three were silent, lost in memories. The thought of death was in their hearts, but all about them the world of living things vibrated in the sunshine. A leaf already shrivelled, forerunner of autumn, dropped from a branch and floated slowly down through the warm air. Paule pointed a finger at it, calling her brother’s attention. To Marcel, plunged in sorrowful reflection, it seemed a symbol.

“It has lived to the summer. Others go in the springtime,” he said.

He was thinking of the premature end of his sister Thérèse, and of death which had threatened him more than once. But soon he shook oil this gloomy foreboding. “Short or long,” he exclaimed, “life must be lived with full courage. That was father’s way. His memory comforts me; it doesn’t dishearten me.”

“And Étienne left soon after for Tonkin again?” he continued.

“Yes,” said Madame Guibert. “You remember his first trip with the Lyons Exploration Company’s mission? He was struck by the wealth of the mines and the soil there, and told us also of the wild beauty of the country. He has settled with his wife at Along Bay. Isn’t that the name, Paule?”

The girl assented, and her mother went on:

“He is in charge of the coal-mines there. At the same time he is quite a farmer, and is growing rice and tomatoes. François has gone out to him, and also your cousin Charles, Marc’s son. They are doing well, with the blessing of God. Étienne helps us to live.”

“Was his wife quite willing to go?”

“Louise is as brave as she is quiet. They sailed eight days after their wedding. They have a boy now. I have never seen him, but yet I love him.”

“When Louise was married,” Paule added, “there was quite an outcry at Chambéry. All the women pitied her mother. ‘How can you let your daughter go?’ they asked, and they accused her of an unpardonable lack of affection. Madame Saudet saw that Louise was happy, and that was enough for her. The others only thought about themselves and their own peace of mind. As M. Dulaurens says, ‘calm is the all-important thing.’”

A name casually introduced into a conversation often seems to attract the person mentioned. Such chance coincidences have passed into a proverb. A carriage at this moment was passing through the open gate into the chestnut avenue, and Paule recognised the Dulaurens livery.

“They had quite given us up,” observed Madame Guibert, turning very red. Brave as she was in her attitude towards life, she was timid towards society.

“It is on account of our hero,” said Paule with a mocking glance at her brother.

But they all rose and went to meet the visitors. The carriage had already emerged from the avenue and was crushing the gravel of the courtyard. Madame Dulaurens was the first to get out and began at once with an allusion to the Captain. She greeted Madame Guibert and said:

“How proud you must be to have such a son!”

Madame Dulaurens was by birth a De Vélincourt and never forgot the fact. On the strength of this she looked upon all her actions as great condescensions, and even deigned to bestow a kind of benevolent patronage on those meritorious exploits which it should be the privilege of the aristocracy to perform; or, if not, the aristocracy could at least claim the credit for them, by applauding them enthusiastically.

Hidden behind his wife, M. Dulaurens was bowing with unnecessary frequency. He was dressed in grey from head to foot. Instinctively he had found the right protective coloring for himself. He lived in a state of timid admiration of the woman who, despite his lowly origin, on account of his great fortune, had married him, and who gave him to understand on every possible occasion the extent of her sacrifice. This marriage, the foundation alike of his self-respect and his political opinions, had endowed him with a deep respect for the nobility, of whom the type to him was his wife’s handsome person, stately and massive, commanding of feature, imperious and with a voice both authoritative and disagreeable. Alice stepped out last. She was wearing a pale blue dress, the delicate shade of which suited her very well. She came forward with a languid grace, which suggested that with her beauty frail health was combined. Marcel had eyes henceforward for no one but the girl. There was no pleasure expressed in his replies to the compliments heaped upon him, against which indeed his modesty and his soldierly sense of honor revolted.

There was no doubt that this visit was paid to him, and that he was the aim and object of it. Although she treated Madame Guibert and Paule with politeness and even with kindness—with a haughty and condescending kindness which did not deceive the daughter, who was more acute, or better versed in the ways of the world, than her mother—still it was to Marcel that Madame Dulaurens, née de Vélincourt, kept turning, as if she desired to capture for herself his new-born celebrity and bear him away in the carriage with her.

Finally she spoke out quite frankly: “Well, young man, you have been home several days and you are never seen anywhere. One would think you were in hiding. That is not like you, as the enemy well knows.”

“The enemy” was a conveniently vague name for the distant tribes whose complicated names she could not trouble to keep in her memory.

M. Dulaurens, who had a sincere admiration for action and courage in other people, hastened to emphasize his wife’s allusion. “Yes, it was a hard campaign,” he said. “The Government’s lack of foresight.... You had few calm moments.”

Paule with difficulty suppressed a hearty laugh as she heard the fatal adjective. So often was the word “calm” on M. Dulaurens’s lips that he had been nicknamed Sir Calm by those who tried to find a single phrase to express both his aristocratic pretensions and his love of peace.

“All our friends wish to make your acquaintance,” his wife continued. “Please make my house your own, if you care to come.” And then, as though suddenly noticing Paule’s presence, she added, “With your sister, of course.”

They would put up with the sister for the sake of entertaining the brother. The slight pause had shown how the case stood. It was Paule who replied:

“Thank you very much, Madame Dulaurens, but we are still in mourning.”

“Oh, only half-mourning! It is eighteen months now.” She turned again to the Captain. “We are going on Sunday to the Battle of Flowers at Aix. Do come with us. It will be an excuse for an excursion. And in the evening we are to dine at the Club with a few friends, quite a small party. You will meet some comrades there—Count de Marthenay, who is in the dragoons, and Lieutenant Berlier, your friend, is he not? You have heard that they are talking of his marriage with Isabelle Orlandi, the beauty.”

She gave out the falsehood, which she had invented on the spur of the moment, for the purpose of wounding the proud Paule who dared to cross her wishes. Woman can see, it is hard to say how, by some method of divination of which both the desire to please and the desire to injure make her mistress, those affinities which cause the hearts, souls, and bodies of men and women to seek and find one another. How excellent a plan it is, for instance, to make a dinner-party go off well by placing the guests according to one’s ideas of their sympathies—the very way, perhaps to bring those sympathies into being. Again, the evil-speaking that there is in the world bears witness to remarkable intuition and marvellous powers of analysis. In the majority of cases the libel rests on no positive evidence, and yet there is all the appearance of truth. The persons concerned are sketched with a natural touch, cruelly of course, but always with due regard to probability.

Madame Dulaurens gained nothing tangible by the exercise of her inventive faculty, for the young girl gave no sign; whether it was because she had learnt self-restraint so early or because the news was really indifferent to her.

“Then we can count on you?” she demanded, pretending to be waiting for the answer from Marcel’s own lips.

Alice glanced at the young officer with her eyes pale as the Savoy skies; while Paule also had her eye on him, but her look was serious. He understood perfectly that Madame Dulaurens was trying to separate him from his sister; and, listening to the guidance of that family loyalty which Dr. Guibert had instilled into each of his children, he refused the invitation.

“Thank you, Madame, but my homecoming has revived so many recent sorrows that I do not wish to leave Le Maupas.”

There was a flash of joy in the dark eyes, while long quivering lashes veiled the downcast blue ones.

“He is in need of rest,” put in Madame Guibert.

Alice was looking over the graveled courtyard. She spoke now with a slight blush.

“It was your father who cured me. Once you used to come to La Chênaie very often. Paule was my dearest friend. You must not give us up.”

When at last she raised her pale blue eyes she met Marcel’s glance and smiled. Then she blushed again, for her color was influenced by the secret workings of her heart.

“They shall certainly call upon you, Mademoiselle Dulaurens,” said Madame Guibert, rather surprised at Paule’s silence.

“Mademoiselle Dulaurens! You used to call me Alice!”

“A long time ago,” said the old lady. “You were a little girl then.”

“Am I not so now? At least, not very big,” Alice replied.

Madame Dulaurens could ill support the failure of her schemes. She was thinking about the fame of her At Homes. With the help of this hero from Madagascar she would have been able to crush her rival, the Baroness de Vittoz, who had captured a gouty explorer engaged in a course of the waters at Aix. She had satisfied herself of the truth of Jean Berber’s words. Young Captain Guibert’s career, she found, had been most brilliant. His resolution and bravery were greatly responsible for the success of the expedition. Honorable mention for gallantry, the Legion of Honour, another stripe, all bore witness to his deserts. He was a lion to be proud of. And celebrity of this kind was more alluring to the militant Madame Dulaurens than that of literary men or scientists. Besides, was not a spur wanted to encourage the languid pretensions of the Count de Marthenay to Alice’s hand?

“I cannot accept a refusal,” she said, as she gave the signal for departure. “We shall expect you at Aix on Sunday.” And then, returning mechanically to her opening remark to Madame Guibert, she said to her, in honeyed tones which were a very inapt expression of her soul, “Madame, every mother envies you your son.”

Alice was particularly gracious to Paule as she said good-bye. But Paule did not unbend. When the carriage had driven away Marcel stood looking across the deserted courtyard. So lost in thought was he that he did not notice his sister gazing at him with an expression of mingled sadness and affection.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked.

He turned round and gave a rather melancholy smile, as though aware of his own weakness. “We must go and see them, mustn’t we?” he said.

He was surprised at the effect of his question, for Paule’s face clouded and her eyes were veiled. “So you already find us insufficient for you?” she murmured.

She mastered herself quickly and added determinedly. “I at least shall not go. I was not asked.”

“Yes, you were,” said Marcel.

“Yes, as an afterthought, and Madame Dulaurens made me feel that.”

“My darling Paule, you know that I shall not go without you.”

“Well, then, don’t let us go, will you? Let us stay here. Mother and I love you so much. We are so happy to have you with us and to look after you. Stay with us! The house has been silent as the grave so long, but you have brought the sunshine back to it.”

Madame Guibert joined in, “Marcel, stay with us.”

Marcel’s brow darkened. He did not care to feel that he was deprived of freedom even by his nearest and dearest, and above all he was very much out of sympathy with himself. He had come home quite determined to shut himself up at Le Maupas, to plunge himself in the fragrance of his native air and the memories of those whom he had lost, and also to restore a little happiness to his mother and sister—and now it had taken but one visit from a mere girl to upset all his ideas and to shatter his pride and his strength of will.

The gentle pleading of mother and sister left him silent. But Paule could not bear to see her brother sad for long. “Marcel,” she said, “you must go to La Chênaie. But I cannot go with you. I have nothing to wear.”

Marcel’s reply came too quickly and betrayed the vehemence of his desire.

“I will buy you some clothes, dear. I have saved some money.”

“But you have helped so often,” asserted Madame Guibert, with a loving glance at her son, whose close presence she did not even yet seem to realise.

Late in the evening, while Madame Guibert was slowly making her invariable round to see that the house was safely locked up, Paule, sitting in the drawing-room with Marcel saw him lost in thought again. She went up to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Are you dreaming of the fair Alice?” she asked.

So kind was her tone that he could only smile, as he denied his weakness. But immediately afterwards he admitted the truth, adding, “She certainly is fair, isn’t she? Is she a friend of yours?”

“We were at the Sacred Heart Convent together. She is the same age as I, perhaps a little younger. At the Convent she was like a little sister in her affection for me. She is sweet, gentle, and timid, and likes to be led rather than to lead.”

“A very good thing in a woman,” said Marcel approvingly.

He had no hesitancy in admitting the superiority of his own sex.

Paule stroked her brother’s forehead with her soft hand.

“Alice is not the right wife for you,” she said.

“I never thought of marrying her,” was his brusque answer.

But his sister did not abandon her purpose. “She is deficient in courage,” she said. “And besides we are not in the same set.”

“Not in the same set! Because the Dulaurenses have more money than we have? In France, thank God, it is not yet the case that wealth determines social position.”

Paule was sorry she had provoked this outburst. “That is not what I meant to say,” she explained. “The people we are speaking of have a totally different outlook on life. They make a show and cannot distinguish between worthless things and those of importance. I don’t know how to make it clear to you, but I did not wish to make you cross.”

“Are you going to preach to me about the ways of the world?” asked her brother. “Before you have even seen it you pretend to judge it!”

Paule was hurt by the tone of his voice and turned away. Pouring out all the pent-up bitterness of her heart, she cried: “Do you think I cannot see behind the outward smile and the lie on the lips? These people hate us and would like to treat us with contempt. They run after you—you only—just to flatter their own vanity, and they want to have nothing to do with mother and me; we are only two poor women. But Alice is intended for Count de Marthenay, not for you!”

Even without its closing sentence this indignant speech would have had its effect. What Paule told him now bluntly, Marcel had already gathered, though not in so clear a fashion. His pride and the affection which he had for his mother and sister would have been a check upon him. But the end of Paule’s speech blotted out all that went before. The very thought of this drawing-room soldier, who had come so unexpectedly across his path, held up to him as a rival sure of victory over him, roused all his instincts as a fighter and a conqueror. He was jealous before he was even in love.