3
I was close upon sixteen. One day, I heard some one say, speaking of some trifling thing of which I was wrongly suspected:
"She is no longer a child. She's a woman now and she's lying."
That was a cruel speech, the sort of speech that influences a whole life. My eyes were gradually opened to the dreary injustice that casts its shadow over the fairest destinies of women. Nothing around them seems clear and natural. Doubt lies in wait for them, calumny rends them. Now my hour was coming: my skirts, touching the ground for the first time, had suggested the suspicion of deceit and hypocrisy.
It was perhaps this wound, inflicted on the soul of the growing girl, that left the most serious mark on my soul as a woman. Thanks to a strange prick of conscience, to a singular need to give to others what I did not obtain, I wanted to trust and I did trust! I gave my confidence passionately, utterly, rapturously! And this made wells of such deep and impetuous joy spring up in me that I felt no bitterness when I saw my confidence marred as it passed through others, even as a clear stream is muddied in following its course.
Still, I wanted more; I sought to concentrate in one person, herself generous and confiding, the happiness which I lacked and whose infinite value I suspected. Ah, what a blessed relief when I found her! I was as one who has never seen his face save in distorting mirrors and who suddenly sees himself as he hoped to be. It seems to me that my happiness dates from that day. Before then, I suffered, I was all astray, an ill wind hovered round me; and, on the sands of other lives, there was never a trace of my footsteps where I believed that I had passed. Henceforth, another soul would read mine! Another's eyes would own the candour of my eyes!
It was little more than a child that introduced me to love and kindness. She was treated with iron severity, she was unhappy; I was alone: she became my daily companion. Alas! too early ripe, too intelligent, she was of those who cannot stay. Is it a presentiment that makes them hurry so, or is it rather their eagerness to live, their over-sharpened senses that wear out their strength?