hear the despairing appeal that I am incessantly making to your heart?”
“Yes, I have heard it.”
“And— “
“And it gives me much pain, for I love you enormously.”
“And then?”
“Then you say to me: ‘Be like me; think, feel, express yourself as I do.’ But, my poor friend, I can’t. I am what I am. You must take me as God made me, since I gave myself thus to you, since I have no regrets for having done so and no desire to withdraw from the bargain, since there is no one among all my acquaintance that is dearer to me than you are.”
“You do not love me!”
“I love you with all the power of loving that exists in me. If it is not different or greater, is that mv fault?”
“If I was certain of that I might content myself with it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I believe you capable of loving otherwise, but that I do not believe that it lies in me to inspire you with a genuine passion.”
“My friend, you are mistaken. You are more to me than anyone has ever been hitherto, more than anyone will ever be in the future; at least that is my honest conviction. I may lay claim to this great merit: that I do not wear two faces with you, I do not feign to be what you so ardently desire me to be, when many women would act quite differently. Be a little grateful to me for this, and do not allow yourself to be agitated and unstrung; trust in my affection, which is yours, sincerely and unreservedly.”
He saw how wide the difference was that parted them. “Ah!” he murmured, “how strangely you look at love and speak of it! To you, I am some one that you like to see now and then, whom you like to have beside you, but to me, you fill the universe: in it I know but you, feel but you, need but you.”
She smiled with satisfaction and replied: “I know that; I understand. I am delighted to have it so, and I say to you: Love me always like that if you can, for it gives me great happiness, but do not force me to act a part before you that would be distressing to me and unworthy of us both. I have been aware for some time of the approach of this crisis; it is the cause of much suffering to me, for I am deeply attached to you, but I cannot bend my nature or shape it in conformity with yours. Take me as I am.”
Suddenly he asked her: “Have you ever thought, have you ever believed, if only for a day, only for an hour, either before or after, that you might be able to love me otherwise?”
She was at a loss for an answer and reflected for a few seconds. He waited anxiously for her to speak, and continued: “You see, don’t you, that you have had other dreams as well?”
“I may have been momentarily deceived in myself,” she murmured, thoughtfully.
“Oh! how ingenious you are!” he exclaimed; “how psychological! No one ever reasons thus from the impulse of the heart.”
She was reflecting still, interested in her thoughts, in this self-investigation; finally she said: “Before I came to love you as I love you now, I may indeed have thought that I might come to be more — more — more captivated with you, but then I certainly should not have been so frank and simple with you. Perhaps later on I should have been less sincere.”
“Why less sincere later on?”
“Because all of love, according to your idea, lies in this formula: ‘Everything or nothing,’ and this ‘everything or nothing’ as far as I can see means: ‘Everything at first, nothing afterward.’ It is when the reign of nothing commences that women begin to be deceitful.” —
He replied in great distress: “But you do not see how wretched I am — how I am tortured by the thought that you might have loved me otherwise. You have felt that thought: therefore it is some other one that you will love in that manner.”
She unhesitatingly replied: “I do not believe it.”
“And why? Yes, why, I ask you? Since you have had the foreknowledge of love, since you have felt in anticipation the fleeting and torturing hope of confounding soul and body with the soul and body of another, of losing your being in his and taking his being to be portion of your own, since you have perceived the possibility of this ineffable emotion, the day will come, sooner or later, when you will experience it.”
“No; my imagination deceived me, and deceived itself. I am giving you all that I have to give you. I have reflected deeply on this subject since I have been your mistress. Observe that I do not mince matters, not even my words. Really and truly, I am convinced that I cannot love you more or better than I do at this moment. You see that I talk to you just as I talk to myself. I do that because you are very intelligent, because you understand and can read me like a book, and the best way is to conceal nothing from you; it is the only way to keep us long and closely united. And that is what I hope for, my friend.”
He listened to her as a man drinks when he is thirsty, then kneeled before her and laid his head in her lap. He took her little hands and pressed them to his lips, murmuring: “Thanks! thanks!” When he raised his eyes to look at her, he saw that there were tears standing in hers; then placing her arms in turn about André’s neck, she gently drew him toward her, bent over and kissed him upon the eyelids.
“Take a chair,” she said; “it is not prudent to be kneeling before me here.”
He seated himself, and when they had contemplated each other in silence for a few moments, she asked him if he would take her some day to visit the exhibition that the sculptor Prédolé, of whom everyone was talking enthusiastically, was then giving of his works. She had in her dressing-room a bronze Love of his, a charming figure pouring water into her bath-tub, and she had a great desire to see the complete collection of the eminent artist’s works which had been delighting all Paris for a week past at the Varin gallery. They fixed upon a date and then Mariolle arose to take leave.
“Will you be at Auteuil tomorrow?” she asked him in a whisper.
“Oh! Yes!”
He was very joyful on his way homeward, intoxicated by that “Perhaps?” which never dies in the heart of a lover.
French
IX
Mme de Burne’s coupé was proceeding at a quick trot along the Rue de Grenelle. It was early April, and the hailstones of a belated storm beat noisily against the glasses of the carriage and rattled off upon the roadway which was already whitened by the falling particles. Men on foot were hurrying along the sidewalk beneath their umbrellas, with coat-collars turned up to protect their necks and ears. After two weeks of fine weather a detestable cold spell had set in, the farewell of winter, freezing up everything and bringing chapped hands and chilblains.
With her feet resting upon a vessel filled with hot water and her form enveloped in soft furs that warmed her through her dress with a velvety caress that was so deliciously agreeable to her sensitive skin, the young woman was sadly reflecting that in an hour
