The fear of living

“I’ve come to take away your children,” said Jean Berlier to Madame Guibert after he had shaken hands with her.

“Don’t take them from me, please,” she answered softly. And she smiled her delicate sweet smile. The young man had surprised her seated under the chestnut trees at work, near the front of the old house. She had put on her spectacles to see the stitches of her needlework. Soon she called to Marcel and Paule, who were walking about in the garden at a little distance. And when they were coming down the weed-grown path she inquired almost timidly:

“Are you going to La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Jean, “for a game of croquet or tennis.”

Then, as if he regretted his words, he added:

“If you like, Madame, I will say no more about it.”

“Oh, no. Marcel needs diversion and exercise—he has been used to an active life. And my little Paule has lived too long with her old mother.”

She never gives a thought to herself and her loneliness.

Madame Guibert always welcomed Jean almost maternally. When quite a little child he had played at Le Maupas as one of her own. He was the only son of a barrister, who was the glory of the Chambéry bar. An orphan at an early age, Jean had been brought up by rather an eccentric, original old uncle, brother to the boy’s mother, who forgot everybody, even his nephew, in his devotion to his garden. This M. Loigny lived near the town, on the Cognin road, in a little house smothered in roses. He cultivated his garden and edited a guide to the names of roses. Thus every minute of his life was taken up, and he never quite knew how long it was when Jean was away on duty in the Algerian Tirailleurs. When he came home every eighteen months on leave, his uncle immediately told him all about his latest discoveries in the rose family, thereby thinking he was giving him proofs of the greatest affection!

When Marcel and Paule appeared in the Avenue, Jean told them that they were expected at La Chênaie.

“And too,” he said to Marcel, “you owe Madame Dulaurens a call after the Battle of Flowers, don’t you? This is a good opportunity of paying it and getting a game of croquet at the same time.”

“That is true,” agreed the captain.

“You will come with us, Mademoiselle Paule?” asked Jean Berlier.

But Paule refused, saying she was in bad humor. Marcel looked at her sadly, and Jean regarded her with sympathetic curiosity. He remembered having played long ago in this same courtyard with a child of overflowing spirits, brighter and jollier than any boy. He now found in her place a young woman, reserved and proud, even in the company of playfellows. And yet he could not refrain from admiring her tall, graceful figure, slight but strong, and her dark eyes from which the light seemed to flash. He would like to have met on the old terms of friendship with his little Paule. In the presence of this cold and beautiful Paule he felt an awkwardness and a vague anxiety that he dared not analyse.

“Jean,” said Madame Guibert suddenly, “I want to scold you.”

“No, please, don’t scold me,” said the young man, putting on the grimace of a naughty child.

He was proverbially good-tempered, and the sight of him was enough to brighten the faces of all who knew him.

“We are your oldest friends, and yet Mademoiselle Dulaurens was the first to tell us about the most important event in your life!”

“What most important event?” said Jean, in pretended astonishment.

Paule got up and walked towards the house as if she had some very important duty there.

“Your marriage,” said Madame Guibert.

“My marriage! To whom, in heaven’s name?”

“To Mademoiselle Isabelle Orlandi.”

Madame Guibert, who always meant what she said, had believed the tale of Madame Dulaurens. But Jean Berlier began to laugh.

“Oh, she was talking of my little flirtation! But I’m sure you don’t know the meaning of the English word flirtation.”

Paule went slowly up the steps. She had laid her hand upon her breast as if she were breathing with difficulty and then she quickened her step. Passing before the drawing-room mirror she stopped, surprised at her own beauty. The friendly daylight showed her a more charming face than she had expected to see. She smiled sadly at her image and her smile meant to say, “What is the good of being beautiful if you have no dowry? What is the good of having all this tenderness and devotion burning in an empty heart like a lamp in a deserted sanctuary.” At the same time she felt an involuntary consolation at the sight of her unavailing charm.

Jean’s face wore the serious air of a scientist explaining a problem.

“Flirtation means the love one makes to girls one doesn’t marry,” said he.

“In French we call that conter fleurette,” said Madame Guibert. “You are wrong, Jean. I am an old woman, so listen to me. The game is never an equal one. Girls always expect to find a husband. You deceive their lawful hopes, and you amuse yourself with them at the cost of their peace of mind and their better feelings.”

The young man listened to this little sermon with a respectful smile.

“I love to hear you talk like that,” he said. “But I see that the modern girl is a stranger to you.”

“To me too,” said Marcel. “Do you often go to La Chênaie?”

“Yes, I am too active to spend all my days at Villa Rose. My uncle is always afraid that I shall walk on his flower beds. He lives in a constant state of alarm, and sighs with relief when he sees the last of me. But the household at La Chênaie is so interesting.”

“Really?” said Marcel, trying rather ineffectively not to appear interested.

“It affords a thousand different ways of killing time—which is the enemy it is most in dread of—and in spite of it all it does sometimes experience what it is to have nothing to do. Madame Dulaurens bustles about, sends out her invitations, writes menus or accounts of her At Homes for the society papers. M. Dulaurens, the ceremonious and punctilious, arranges his library, which nobody is ever allowed to disturb, greets his wife’s guests, agrees with his wife’s slightest word and by his attitude of adoration constantly begs forgiveness of this thoroughly aristocratic person for his plebeian origin. Young Clément runs over dogs in his car. Happily he has done nothing worse until the present time.”

“And Alice?” Madame Guibert asked innocently.

The young man’s answer was full of tact.

“Mademoiselle Alice is waiting for something to happen. It cannot fail to be pleasant for her.”

“But do you see only the Dulaurenses at La Chênaie?” said Marcel.

“They have their guests too. There is Madame Orlandi, for instance. Madame Orlandi has come back to the town of her birth to mourn her lost beauty rather than her husband. She lived in Florence when she was young and lovely. When her youth departed she retired from society and from Italy. The loss of her fortune made that necessary. She has had all the mirrors taken away from her rooms; they are all in her daughter’s room, it is said. She has none but young and pretty maids and is covered with jewels as thick as a reliquary. She spends the day in taking out and putting back these witnesses of her former triumphs. However, she manages to find time to look after an awful pug called Pistache, of which she is much fonder than of her daughter.”

“And now we have come to the point,” said Marcel, “after a long way round!”

“Mademoiselle Isabelle is charming. She knows that she owes it to her beauty to marry a millionaire. She will not fail to do that. Her mother and I are both encouraging her.”

“Oh dear!” cried Madame Guibert, who had stopped her work.

“She needs no encouragement,” continued the young man. “These Italians are very practical. And then Mademoiselle De Songeon, whose thin, aristocratic, old-maid’s face is for ever to be seen at La Chênaie, is not the least curious of the lot.”

“I know her,” interrupted Madame Guibert. “She is a saint. She looks after all kinds of charitable works and spends a precious life in religious meetings and going on pilgrimages.”

“Say rather in being president and making trips,” suggested Jean. “She has a love of wandering about and of ruling over others. She gives her orders and keeps on the move, and pretends to be religiously employed when in reality she uses religion as a means of gratifying her twofold passion. The story goes that she extorts money from her debtors like a Jew so that she may pay her duties to God in the most fashionable sanctuaries.”

Madame Guibert tried to stop him.

“My dear Jean,” she cried, “what are you talking about? You will make us believe that you are very unkind.”

“It is only unkind gossip,” said the young man. “Forgive me, I spoke too freely, as I should to my family if I had one.”

And hastening to cover the regret he expressed in his last words, he added:

“Here I feel happy. I came here as a little child. But please don’t talk to me of Mademoiselle de Songeon. A saint, indeed, is she? Oh, no! Now you, Madame Guibert, are one.”

Madame Guibert, in spite of her age, could never hear herself praised without blushing. Her courage was only of the inward kind. She protested:

“Jean, what are you saying? God has spoilt me. That’s all.”

The young man looked with surprise at this elderly woman in mourning, her face withered with sorrow, her eyes constantly filled with tears, who, nevertheless, could thank God for her trials. She noticed his expression.

“Yes, God overwhelmed me with blessings before taking them from me. And now, if I tremble for my children scattered all over the world, for him—” she pointed to Marcel—“who has been through so many dangers, how can I help being proud of their courage and their work? Is not their life my life?”

Jean was moved; he rose and took Madame Guibert’s hand, and kissed it respectfully.

“You are a saint, I told you you were. When I see you I grow better and I no longer want to scatter my life to the four winds, I want to imitate your sons. But I have no mother.”

He saw Paule coming down the steps. She had her hat on and on her face was an expression of new life.

“Oh, Mademoiselle Paule, you have made up your mind?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is so fine, and Marcel is cross when I stay at home.”

She kissed her mother and left for La Chênaie with the two young men, with whose long steps she could hardly keep pace.

The gate of La Chênaie is reached by the uphill road from Chaloux, which rises above the town of Cognin. An avenue of plane-trees leads across the park to the villa, which is spacious and trim and has a view extending as far as the Lake of Bourget, surrounded by mountains which throw their heavy shadows upon its waters. On this side, lawns without a tree, laid out as a tennis court and a croquet green, leave the view unobstructed, while behind the house a wood of venerable oak trees offers shelter in the summer.

The Dulaurenses were noted for making their guests comfortable and for leaving them at liberty to amuse themselves. When Paule arrived with her brother and Jean, they had just finished a game of croquet and a circle was grouped around Isabelle Orlandi, who was talking in a low voice and waving her hands.

“And his name is Landeau,” she was just saying.

“Whose name?” asked Jean, as he joined the group of listeners.

“My fiancé’s.”

And the girl burst into a harsh, discordant laugh—almost a shriek. She gave her hand to the young man.

“How do you do, Jean?”

She called him by his Christian name, on the pretext of having met him once when he was quite a small boy.

“Here is a red mallet. Let us stop this game. Nobody is interested in it now. Let us begin again. I shall take you on my side.”

She rearranged the game as she wished and appeared for a minute to be very absorbed in it. Jean’s ball came to the rescue of hers, which with a skilful shot she had sent flying into the grass, far away from the hoops. They made the best use of this privacy for which they had been wishing.

“Yes,” she said, and he noticed her pallor as she spoke—“I have to tell you of my coming marriage to a Lyons manufacturer. A business marriage!”

“My congratulations.”

“Thank you. He has several millions and some prosperous factories. He has promised my lawyer to make a good settlement. After that, you understand, it matters very little that he is ugly, in the forties, and burdened with a ridiculous name.”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t that so?”

They were recalled and scolded for delaying. In vain their partners tried to revive their interest. It was entirely their fault that their side lost the game.

Going back to the drawing-room for refreshments, they managed to precede the many groups slowly making their way up the lawn and went round the villa. Thus they arrived last. As they were walking Isabelle suddenly asked her companion:

“Jean, can you understand that one might marry with love in one’s heart?”

“Love for one’s husband, do you mean?”

“You are joking.”

He was indeed joking, not wishing to understand. But, as at the very moment he was looking at an ugly slug dragging itself over a rose in the courtyard, he felt very tenderly and regretfully for Isabelle’s sacrificed beauty.

“Better to love before than after,” was all he could say in the end.

“Oh, if you love before you love after, too.”

He turned the conversation, for he was struggling against his feelings. Never had he experienced such a passion for that masterful profile, those bold eyes, those red and sensual lips, those brilliant teeth, all that abounding youthful grace.

“Am I not a wizard? I foretold your marriage that evening in the railway carriage.”

“Yes, my mother has often told me, ‘My dear, after a week all men are the same—fortune and youth are both fleeting things, but the first alone can bestow a prize upon the second.’”

“Your mother is a wise woman,” said Jean.

“Everybody is so in Italy. Poetry is only a matter of language with them.”

Suddenly, with that naturalness which was her greatest charm and which led her into the most unexpected outbursts, she began to cry. And, as he stood bewildered and not knowing how to show his concern, she asked him:

“Why don’t you marry me?”

Confused as he was, he answered, nevertheless, quickly enough.

“I could not take you with me to Africa.”

“You could go in for business. You would make a lot of money. M. Landeau would help you.” At the thought of the curious rôle that she was giving M. Landeau she laughed heartily which completely won the young man. As they threaded the avenue of plane-trees she took advantage of the deep shadow of a tree to offer her cheek.

“Kiss me to console me!”

Jean was still thrilling at the contact with the fresh young cheek when Isabelle renewed her attack.

“What a pity!” she said. “Why aren’t you a millionaire?”

“That is what I should like to know,” sighed Jean.

Madame Dulaurens pointed to the vanishing figure of the girl after Jean and Isabelle had outdistanced the first group whom she was leading to the drawing-room.

“Instead of blaming her, I quite approve of what she has done. This marriage shows her great strength of character. After all, she has no fortune.”

The chorus of rich friends quite agreed with this remark. Encouraged, she continued, after throwing a careful glance behind her:

“Look at Paule Guibert, on the other hand. She wouldn’t marry M. Landeau. Not a penny, and such a deadly creature! How can you expect her ever to marry?”

“Still,” said one lady, “her father sacrificed all his property to save his brother. It was splendid.”

“To save the name of Guibert? It would have been better if he had saved his money. Who remembers anything about it now?”

“Forgetfulness is quicker than death,” remarked a sententious male guest.

Madame Dulaurens went on: “Poor Paule was much admired by Lieutenant Sinard at a costume ball I gave a few years ago—before the doctor’s death. He was very serious about it. But he came in for three hundred thousand francs. Of course, after that, he had quite different ideas.”

“Oh, well, of course,” chimed in the chorus of the faithful, “he could never again think of her.”

A few steps behind, Madame Orlandi made her way slowly under her heavy burden of flesh. The critical eye of Mademoiselle de Songeon was upon her as she panted out her confused account of the benefits of the new situation.

“My daughter had great difficulty in making up her mind. But M. Landeau is a man of principles—and, what is not to be despised, of large fortune.”

The “principles” were introduced to placate the lady president, who asked, “Has he given up work?”

“Oh, no, he still works. He is a director. He commands thousands of workmen—a real general!”

“But,” the old maid muttered dryly, “in my time, no one in our set would have married a business man.”

Jean Berlier and Isabelle, having completed their tour of the villa, came out from behind the shrubbery. The young man took great pleasure in baiting Mademoiselle de Songeon, and the last sentence immediately provoked his intervention.

“That is all changed now, Mademoiselle. It is the misfortune of the age. Formerly nobility meant doing nothing, nowadays, it is the result of labor, which is a moral obligation rather than a physical necessity. The world is upside down; it is the bad people who don’t work now.”

But the Honorary President of the White Cross of Savoy, of the Bread Club of St. Anthony, and patroness of several workshops, stared at him haughtily and answered somewhat acidly:

“Those who have kept pigs on earth will keep them in heaven too.”

“Is that from the Gospel?” asked the mocking Jean.

Alice meanwhile had remained behind with Paule and Marcel Guibert. Her step was rather weary, and the young man asked her if she were tired.

“Here is a bench,” he said. “Do rest awhile.”

“No, thank you. I am all right. Let us go in.”

There was a touch of the imaginary invalid in her charming smile, as she added:

“It is the burden of these long summer days. Don’t you think they are very depressing?”

Marcel was astonished.

“I have never given it a thought,” he said. “I love the sun as the bringer of life. And I love long days, for they seem to lengthen our time on earth.”

Paule was silent and absent-minded, her eyes turned toward the house. She recognised a visitor who was ringing at the big gate.

“It is Monsieur de Marthenay,” she said.

Alice’s clear eyes clouded over and the color vanished from her cheeks. She sat down on the seat which she had just refused and invited Paule to do the same.

“Stay here with me, dear, please.”

And turning to Marcel gracefully, she said:

“There is no room for you. But I’m sure that you aren’t tired.”

“No, indeed,” he replied. Then, after a pause, “Do you know that absurd Arab proverb, ‘It is better to be seated than to stand, better to lie down than to sit, and better to be dead than to lie down?’”

“I did not know it, but I like it,” said Alice.

A profound depression, as unaccountable as a child’s despair, was visible in her sweet young face. She bent toward the silent Paule.

“I envy you, Paule. You are so strong and splendid. I am so weak. If you only knew how weak I am! I have no strength at all.”

And with her lovely sad eyes she fixed Marcel as if speaking to him and asking for his help. Why did she pity herself so? And why did she shrink from M. de Marthenay?

“At your age,” Marcel said, “how can one disbelieve in happiness?”

Instead of these commonplace words he thirsted to give her the comfort of his own strength. And Paule, a prey at this moment to doubt and bitterness, still kept silence in disdainful astonishment at being envied by this friend whose life had been spared so much and who could arrange her fate according to her own will.

The sun had gone down behind Mount Lépine. But before their eyes the evening sky was glorious in a golden veil whose reflection fell languidly on the waters of Lake Bourget. Le Revard and the Mont du Chat, whose summits still shone in the light, tried desperately to catch the last of the day of which their lofty heights had given them so large a share. And the plain stretched out in a haze of blue and pink, which spread over all things like a fall of flower-petals and effaced all distinctions of shape and space.

“Look,” said Paule at last, pointing to the skyline.

The two girls rose at once to catch the effect of the sunset on the lake to better advantage. Marcel had eyes for Alice only, in her white robe, looking like a tall, graceful lily, her pure profile outlined against the gold of the sky like the haloed angels of the pious Quatrocentist painters. She turned slowly towards him, her long lashes quivering over her dazzled eyes, and smiled at him gently as she said:

“I can look no longer. The sun hurts my eyes.”

Paule thought of the time when she and her brothers loved to stare at the sun itself without lowering their eyelids. But Marcel, stirred in spite of himself by the sight of so fragile a beauty, felt his heart beat furiously, and was full of those longings for sacrifice which accompany the dawn of love.

“Alice,” came the voice of Madame Dulaurens, “you must not stay out in the cold air.”

A little later Marcel and Paule left. They got back to Le Maupas by a path half hidden under the grass which borders the Forezan ravine and crosses a wood of beech and birch before joining the Vimines road. Through the foliage an occasional glimpse could be caught of a pink and mauve sky, a sky of happy omen. And yet the brother and sister were silent, lost in their own thoughts.

“You weren’t bored, Paule, were you?” asked Marcel at last.

“I? No, I went to La Chênaie to please you. Are you pleased?”

He did not answer at once. Without looking at Paule, whose sadness he had not noticed owing to his own absorption, he began to tell his secret in the darkness of the woods.

“If I asked her to marry me, what would you say?”

Paule had expected this confidence, and yet she trembled. Her dark eyes were fixed on the path, strewn now with the dark leaves of other years, and bathed in the violet evening light. She answered almost harshly:

“Her parents will refuse.”

“Why?” asked he, and love gave place for a moment to pride.

“Because you haven’t a title.”

“But neither have they. And besides, what does that matter nowadays?”

“Oh, their set retains its prejudices.”

“But if she wishes it herself?”

“She has no will of her own.”

“And if she loves me?”

“She will cry,” said Paule.

It was her own despair, which nobody must know, which she must crush in silence and mystery, that made her give these cruel answers. Marcel, his sensitive feelings hurt, lengthened his steps as he climbed the hill and drew himself up as straight as a young oak-tree. But Paule at last, choking down all thought of self, hastened to catch up with him and took his hand in hers. She spoke in a voice quivering with emotion.

“Listen, Marcel, I spoke hastily just now. I was in bad humor. Forgive me, I was wrong. Yes, I know that I was wrong. I saw to-day that she liked you. And her mother lavishes favors and kindnesses upon you.”

Marcel listened to her, but his face was still melancholy.

Paule went on. “You see, since father died there have been so many changes that my character has become embittered, no doubt. I cannot bear people who belittle everything we admire and make fun of all our enthusiasms. You saw that Isabelle Orlandi? But if Alice became your wife, how quickly she would change! She is so good, so sweet and gentle. And then she is so lovely.”

“Yes,” he agreed sadly. “She is lovely.”

It grew darker in the woods. The slim trunks of the birches and beeches mingled with the blackness of their foliage. But beyond the trees the brother and sister emerged again into the lingering summer twilight which refused to give place to night.

As they came in sight of Le Maupas, Marcel stopped short.

“No, you are not wrong. But speak to Alice. Explain to her my past, my future, all that is my pride—my only fortune. I would carry her off to Algiers, which is an enchanted town.”

She understood and, looking tenderly at her brother, said:

“Ah, if you love her, that’s different. I will do as you wish.”

“Speak to her to-morrow,” he insisted. “We are going to breakfast at La Chênaie with Mademoiselle Orlandi’s fiancé.”

“To-morrow? So soon?” was all she said. The invitation had not been given to her personally. But she gave no thought to this discourtesy, and added:

“Wouldn’t it be better to speak to her parents?”

“No,” he answered decidedly, “I don’t want our mother to run the risk of taking a useless step.”

And as they passed through the gate she murmured:

“I want you to be happy!”

He smiled, but not at all confidently.

“Don’t say anything to Mother yet. She doesn’t like that set. Neither do I.” Still he had to admit his weakness at the end.

“But I do love her!” he concluded.