LITMIR.BIZ

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that consoles and heals?

      3

      I had moved to go, happy without knowing why; I hastened my steps. With my soul heavier and my feet lighter than before, I walked away, glorying in my meeting as in a victory over chance, over the thousand trifles, the thousand blind agencies that incessantly keep us from what we seek and from what unconsciously seeks us.

      I could have laughed for joy; and it would have been sweet to me, when I passed into the garden, to proclaim my glee aloud. But the peace of things laid silence upon me. I slowly followed the paths, bordered with marigolds and balsam, that lead to the house; and, when I passed under the blinds, which a friend's hand had gently drawn for me, I heard my everyday voice describing my discovery and my delight in sober tones.

      And yet the moment of exaltation still charged my life; it seemed to me clearer and deeper; and I thought that enthusiasm is in us like a too-full cup, which overflows at the least movement of the soul.

      4

      I made enquiries that same evening; and all that I learnt encourages me.

      She lives at the end of our village of Sainte-Colombe. She was brought up at the convent in the town hard by and left it at the age of eighteen. Since then, she has not been happy. On Sunday she is never with the merrymaking crowd. She has never been seen at church. She neither prays nor dances.

      Chapter III

      1

      I took the road leading to the farm at which she lives. The yard is a large one, the trees that hem it in are old and planted close together. One can hardly see the straggling, thatched buildings from the road; and I walked round the place without being able to satisfy my curiosity. She lives there, I was told, with an old woman, her godmother, about whom the people of the countryside tell stories of murder and debauchery. I have seen her sometimes. She gives a disagreeable impression. She is a tall, lean woman, with wisps of white hair straggling about her face. Her waving arms and twitching hands carry a perpetual vague menace. The black, deep-set eyes gleam evilly in her ivory face; and her hard thin mouth, which opens straight across it, often hums coarse ditties in a cracked voice.

      Her curious attire completes the disorder of her appearance. Over her rough peasant's clothes, some article of cast-off apparel cuts a strange and lamentable figure: a muslin morning-wrap, once white and covered with filmy lace; long, faded ribbons, which fasten a showy Watteau pleat to the back, with ravelled ends spreading over the thick red-cotton skirt; old pink-satin slippers, with pointed heels that sink into the mud. In point of fact, I could say the exact number of times when I have seen her and why I noticed her, for the sight of her always hurt me cruelly when I met her in the sweet stillness of the country lanes.

      For a long time, I wandered round the farm. I was moving away, picking flowers as I went, when suddenly, at a bend in the road, I saw the girl who filled my thoughts. She was sitting on a heap of stones; and two large pails of milk stood beside her. Her attitude betokened great weariness; and her drooping arms seemed to enjoy the rest.

      I lingered a little while in front of her. Her face appeared to me lovelier than on the first occasion, though her uncovered head allowed me to see her magnificent hair plastered down so as to leave it no freedom whatever. She answered my smile with a blush; and, when I looked at her thick and awkward hands, she clasped and unclasped them with an embarrassed air.

      2

      Just now, at the wane of the day, I was singing in the drawing-room, with the windows open. I caught sight in the mirror of the sky ablaze with red and rose quickly from the piano to see the sun dip into the sea.... Near the garden, behind the hedge, I surprised the young girl trying to hide....

      3

      I had never seen her; but now, because I saw her one day, I am always seeing her.

      Do we then behold only what we seek? It is a sad thought. We shall be called upon to die before we have seen everything, understood everything, loved and embraced everything. Our skirts will have brushed against joys which we shall not have felt; our streaming tresses will have passed through perfumes which we shall not have breathed; our mouth will have kissed flowers which our hands have not known how to pick; and very often our eyes will have seen without acquainting our intelligence. We shall not have been observant continually.

      It is a pity that things possess no other life than that which we bestow upon them. I dislike to find that, for me, everything is subject to my observation and my knowledge. The first is great indeed, but the second is so small!…

      4

      A few years ago, the parish priest was on his way to the church at four o'clock one morning, to celebrate the harvest mass, when he saw a strange thing floating on the surface of the pool that washes the steps of the wayside crucifix. As he approached, he perceived that it was a woman's long hair. A moment later, they drew the body of a young and beautiful girl to the bank. With nothing on her but her night-dress, she seemed to have run straight from her bed to the pond. The gossips of the neighbourhood will never cease chattering over this incident and the shock which it gave the priest; and, though there is no other pond in the village, the poor girl will be everlastingly reproached with choosing "God's Pool" for her attempt at suicide.

      Is it not enough for me to know that she is out of place amid her coarse surroundings and that she is not happy there?

      5

      I have been expecting her for a week. I am wishing with all my might that she may come; I am drawing her with my eyes, with my smile, with my manner and with my will. But I say nothing to her. She must be able to take to herself all the credit of this first act of independence. Moreover, it will give me the evidence which I require of some sympathy between us.

      Outwardly, I am following a strict principle. Really, I am yielding to a fear: am I not about to perform a dangerous and rather mad action, in once more taking upon myself the responsibility of another's life?

      We are not always unaware of the follies which we are about to commit; but it is natural that the immediate joys should eclipse the probable misfortunes and help us to go boldly forward.

      Besides, the inquisitive know no weariness. They go with outstretched hand to the assistance of events, heedless of increasing the chances of suffering, because they always find, in return, something to occupy their restlessness. Let us not blame them. In contemplating the good or evil outcome of an action, we behold but its main lines; we do not see the thousand little broken strokes that go to compose it. They make the total of our days; and they have to be lived.

      Chapter IV

      1

      A broad avenue of beeches stretches in front of our garden; and at the far end is the open country. Here we have placed a seat which looks out over space. Nothing but fields and fields, as far as the eye can reach; nothing but land and sky. We love the security of this elemental landscape, where the alternations of light succeed one another inexorably. The noontides are fierce and dazzling. The soft, opalescent mornings are fragrant with love and pleasure. But, most of all, the sunsets attract us by their unwearied variety, sometimes sober and tender, ever fainter and more ethereal, sometimes blood-red, monstrous and barbaric.

      The one which I watched to-day was pale and grey; and the obedient earth humbly espoused its gentle tones. With my hands clasped in my lap, it seemed to me that I was drinking in the peace that filled my heart; and my eyes, which unconsciously fastened on my hands, held for a moment my whole life enclosed there.

      Then I heard indistinctly steps approaching me. A woman sat down on the bench. The corner of her apron had brushed against my knees; I raised my head and saw the young girl sitting by my side.

      She said, simply:

      "Here I am."

      And at this short speech my mind is in a tumult; thoughts rush wildly through my brain without my being able to follow one of them. I press her hands, I look at her, I laugh, while little cries of delight burst from my lips:

      "You are here at last! I was expecting

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