When he is grown up into a tall young man whom people take notice of, shall I have the courage to look him in the face and say:

"You are not everything to me: you never have been my whole pa.s.sion. I have cherished you on my knees, I have served you, I have idolized you.

I have never deceived myself. I knew perfectly that in loving a child one gives without ever receiving. I have reserved the highest place for others. It is not to you that I have dedicated the essential thing in my life, its supreme reason, if a supreme reason can be found.

"Therefore you have the right to leave me. You must be finer, you must repudiate me. I bow before what you are. I free you from the duty in which children are cooped up, and I a.s.sume the duty myself. Whatever I may have done, never let my course of life be an example to you; there is no example; you, nothing but you, is what will count.

"You will have so much to do, everything I have failed to do. Go, keep your face set forward, never turn back. What were you born for if not to depart from me? To be sure, you are flesh of my flesh, but a part of my flesh that is unlike me, a contrary current that has emanated from me.... You say no to everything I am.

"Does it hurt me to see you disappear? Am I alarmed? Do I suffer? That does not concern you. _I was forewarned_. On the day you were born I was told that the tearing-away process would last as long as I last. We leave each other each minute. Your head mounts upward towards the heavens, mine draws closer to the earth.

"It is right and proper that this should be so. Without you, you know, my existence would be justified. It was not merely to bring you into the world that I was born. The thing is that your existence should be justified.... No, do not delay. Life is nothing but a departure and every time one halts one commits treason.

"I shall have to come to understand many things, thanks to you. I have always tried to be clear and know myself, but when I went to the bottom of things, I mean to the bottom of myself, there always remained _another_ soul, a rebellious soul which refused to reveal its mystery, and I have doubted whether it is humanly possible to learn the truth of it.

"I was not mistaken. The real, unknown part of myself, my unreachable soul, is in your eyes. You will see through what I have got no knowledge of. If you beheld how I look at you! You are like the travellers who come from afar, from the lands of fable concealed under lovely names of gold. You resemble those travellers. Your eyes will see beyond the horizon in which I go astray. I tell you that of the two of us the one who ought to kneel, listen, and learn is not you.

"My little baby, I shall owe to you the sole love that is sorrowful and perfect, the love that neither barters nor expects reward. Since I have given everything, you will owe me nothing."

Shall I have the courage to say this to him? It will be hard perhaps, but already I find that it is a veritable grace from heaven to have twenty years in which to attain to such courage.

Here he is coming back, running this time and brandishing in his plump hand a twig he has broken off all by himself. He drops plump on his knees as on two round b.a.l.l.s, all hampered in his clumsy race to me. His chubby cheeks are stained with crimson. He throws himself on me.

"Mother," he lisps, the little flatterer....

The mournful moment of a kiss, the exasperating moment of an abortive embrace, the fleeting moment of contact--he is gone.

XV

The test has been made.

We have lived side by side in the heart of the country, we have done the humble things of daily life together, have shared its immediate exigencies, have enjoyed the wild spirit of long walks together, the redolent silence of the little wood, all the freedom written on the face of the earth and carried by the waters. After this we shall feel that the looks we exchange are sisterly, and I have the improbable hope of some day being able to say: "I have found a woman friend."

Her very name seems wonderful. Eva....

I met her in the office where I work. What a lovely vision the first day! You so rarely find strength blended with sweetness in a woman that her bearing seemed a little supernatural. It was merely self-a.s.surance, however, and the majesty of perfect health that gave her her superb manner of treading the waves. You noticed her tallness and fearless vitality, and did not try to question her eyes for the secret being in her. This was fully expressed by her quick gestures, the smile of her frank lips, the fearless carriage of her head, the straightforward look of her beautiful brown eyes.

A sort of reserve established a connection between us at first.

I noticed her diligence, her desire to do well, and a something like heroism, which made her rush into the forefront of life and carry away a little more than her share of the burden.

Our silent understanding lasted for some time. Perhaps without our knowledge the intuition brooding in women brought us closer than words could have done. One evening in speaking of her home and saying how happily she looked forward to meeting her husband, she used a phrase so tender, warm and chaste that I caught a glimpse of the woman in her. Her face, always behind a mask of energy, turned gentle and serious as if veiled by serenity. I imagined a couple in her image, for it is the woman who makes or unmakes the couple. She must have achieved a deep marriage.... The weather was fine and bright, and we left for home together.

I think I shall always remember her pure voice, which revealed the restlessness of living like a burning bush hidden behind strength and youth.... I kept wishing we'd never reach the corner where we had to separate.

But there it was already. The red of the sky threw its glow on her face and spread an impalpable halo of dusty rays behind her. "Till to-morrow," she said. I almost ran off, my heart swelling with grat.i.tude. I remember my eyes smarted.

That was several months ago. When we decided to spend our vacation together, I felt beforehand that we were going to be friends.

We made the rash experiment of bringing two couples, two poor couples, under the same poor roof. We did it and we were gay and happy in the doing. It makes you believe in miracles.

I do believe in miracles. It is not a miracle that this beautiful woman with the tanned cheeks walking beside me is the strongest attraction in the landscape because of the tall stem of her body, the dancing refrain of her steps, and the brilliance of her complexion. Other women have pa.s.sed over the ageless earth who were as alive, as charming, as stirring. The miracle is that her brow is clear, her manner clean-cut, her gaze straight and sure and keen with intelligence; that she goes lovingly toward a love which she has built with her own hands; that she is free and strives to be sincere in her freedom. Our mothers knew not.

The woman in us owes them nothing but our faults.

If you look at this woman carrying her will on her shoulders, leading her will on towards the realization of her inner idea, towards the simple desire to be brave, to love, to be truthful; if you see her pa.s.sing in nature, if you see how she moves, how she takes into her being the keen sea-air and how aware she is of everything, the great eucalyptus, its gray-green leaves tossing in the wind, the ochre-colored slope checkered with vines, the sleepy languor of the lovely coast-line robed in blue, you can tell at a glance that our humanity is strangely new.

When she returns to her and her husband's orderly, flower-decked room, what a life she will stir up; what creative power, what inspiration, what harmony she will contribute to their relation.

Will she and I succeed in producing that supreme masterpiece known as friendship? Friendship between two women used to seem almost impossible to me. I have always seen women leagued against man. They meet only to connive, and when they meet, humanity divides into two camps with the woman's camp almost wholly devoted to the concoction of plots and lies.

Two women together? Two enemies confronting each other. If they cease from their rivalry, it is in order to set traps for male weakness.

She turns round. "Quick, we ought to be back already." Her smile is so confiding and my heart so happy, she is so radiant, so wholesome and her presence is so forceful that some day, I say to myself, the name of friendship will have to be the same as of love.

XVI

An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream.

We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself.

The setting for our lunch was all it should be--the midday sun blazing down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the scenery framed in the arch of the arbor.

Two years....

The afternoon pa.s.sed tranquilly.

He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes only--this being a day apart from other days--for the broad effects of the great stretch of landscape.

A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs.

Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all.

The same current of the spirit--if not the same spirit--drives its waves through us. The same flame--if not the same heart--mounts within us. The same love of truth--if not the same truth--throws the light of day between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and united.

We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other.

Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have nodded my head. "Yes, exactly."