The Choice of Life Part 16

I rose, moved the flowers, opened the window; and the bright suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.suming 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 G.o.dmother, 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 pa.s.sing in front of t.i.tian's _Laura de' Dianti_. I was struck with the relations.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.s 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, a.s.siduous 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 s.h.i.+ne: 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 pa.s.sionately, 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?