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After fingering the deposit the old pot-bellied concierge livened up. "Money from lovers isn't mere money, it means good luck."
When he came back unexpectedly and with a paternal burr in his voice offered us "a little candle-end to take the measurements with; so often the ladies and gentlemen forget," it was chiefly to surprise us in an embrace, or some laughing dispute interlarded with kisses.
The apartment of three adjoining rooms like three cells in a honeycomb is very nice. It must be bright in summer, the stairs are kept clean, the courtyard is cool and fresh with its green lane of flower-pots. Our windows look right out on the top of the tree. A mighty rare thing, a tree in Paris. Spring mornings we shall be awakened by a fusillade of bird songs.
So this is where we shall live. These rooms, in which the atmosphere seems low and cramped and the floor is all splintered, are to serve us as domain and empire; these walls are to be our horizon.
When I was a child and lay tucked in bed, I used to dream of "being grown up...." Then when I was fifteen I'd say to myself "later on" so as to hear another troubling, forbidden word echo in my ears. And now my confused dreams are come to attend me here.... So here is the end of the story; it is all here, the mirage.
Only yesterday the sole reason for the existence of this place was a jaundiced, weather-beaten sign on the street.... And now our double life has found its temple, chosen its setting, and fixed upon its rallying point.
So this is the place we shall call "home." When the rain beats down out of doors and a wrecking wind blows, this will be our unchanging harbor. Whenever we make a new friend and we have told him everything and there are still more things to tell, we shall welcome him across this threshold and within these walls and let him see our ultimate selves. And when the golden May daylight rouses you from bed and sends you running to the window to feel its radiant stroke on your cheek and vague longings take possession of you, it will be the fastenings of this window which will turn to let in the breath of the dawn.
The little dining-room seems somewhat less desolate than the other wan rooms. The ceiling still bears the mark of the hanging-lamp as a sign of where the kindly light came from; a border of red arabesques runs round the top of the walls, and the fireplace of russet imitation marble with its pitted traces from invisible fingers of flame makes you feel as though the grate were still warm.
The kitchen is so tiny and so like a toy that there's not a thing in it, not even an old knife left behind through oversight. In spite of the floor with tiles missing like teeth from a mouth, the sink with dried-up pores, the stove downy with rust, it is the one room that doesn't seem to be crying for help. It needs only a glimmer in the stove and savory smells to give it life.
This is the moment to look life in the face—the real life, not the one people talk about. Until now our love has rested merely upon a foundation of clay. It has been facile, scarcely tangible. I perceive it is a love to be.
Now our love must be confronted with its kingdom, must have its boundaries and landmarks fixed, must be asked to shine in truth and be forced to the test. Let our love speak and inspire us. Later, when we shall have furniture around us, like words already spoken, we shall be less at ease.
"If you like, this shall be your room. It suits you. The neutral paper makes it restful for thinking, and the recess is all ready for a couch. Look, it's waiting for you. I will take the other room because of the clothes-closet, and I'll enjoy leaning out across the white window-sill for the fresh air.
"We shall visit each other. We shall be free and easy. You will come and go and receive your friends, do as you please, without ever having to account to me.
"But we are going to suffer, perhaps, in order to remain content and preserve the multitude of joys that one experiences when alone?
"This dividing wall is nothing more, after all, than a thin membrane through which the presence in the next room will ooze. When you are surrounded by your friends in the lively hum and buzz of comradely conversation, they will suddenly notice the shadow of an intruder moving as a woman moves. In the bottom of their hearts they will have us much married, you and me—the marriage of a friend is a little like a theft—and without your suspecting it, at that very moment, in the very midst of their talk, they will leave you.
"Do you really believe we shall be happy? I, for my part, would not like your friends to desert you. It seems unfair that you should be loved the less because of love. Are you quite sure that one has the right to impose one's unalloyed hope upon a person for a lifetime? Are you sure that in the name of love the person one has chosen can remain the best of all persons?... Tell me, are you sure you will not bear me a grudge?
"And can the most beautiful union remain beautiful? For we are about to sign a pact. There's no denying it. What's to be done about this transport that we are, this constant expectation, this clinging intoxication?
"You know we shall have only each other intimately. Even inanimate things will exert a tendency to influence us. When the little lodging will take on our mould and there will be chairs to hold out our habits to us and a brown pulsating clock, creature of even utterance and over-sensitive soul, the fond familiar place will weigh and impose itself upon us.
"So the host of wishes, the magnificent secrets, the kernel of sadness, the nomadic hopes must all be made to enter by this door into our associated days? Tell me, how is one to act? Must happiness, true happiness without law or bridle, also be shut up here, here and nowhere else? And must happiness be the same for the two of us who are different?
"There's a children's fairy tale that once there was a princess whose heavily embroidered robe was by a magic command made to pass through a ring.
"Lovers betrothed think they understand love. But they have not lived together—and every day. They don't know what that means. Those who love as in books do not contemplate a long journey when they set out together, and if the short-lived blaze vanishes at the first turning in the road, it is not a great misfortune. Another spark will do for another kindling. And there are those who renounce, abdicate their own selves, bend the knee, and trust to love.... But how are those to act who are not cut in heroic marble, who do not want to lie or renounce, who don't pity the other one, who are not afraid of themselves, who love as people love in actual life, who are like us? Perhaps you know better than I do. You are a man and older than I am, but I—I ask myself....
"I was ready, as women are, for great impossible things. I never thought about them very clearly, but I felt my emotions pierce me like dagger thrusts. They inspired me with an all-powerful spirit, and if I had had to batter down mountains, or dash through a river of fire, or die in your stead, I should have closed my eyes and done it at one go.
"And behold the test. The test is here. Why is it that the thing one awaits and expects never is the actual test? The actual test has only a sorry way about it, a commonplace aspect, a very reduced compass; it holds nothing but monotonous moments jogging along one after the other; it stops just at the foreshortened shadow at your feet, and my arms which I was about to open are, you see, arms of lead.
"Before I entered these rooms love looked like you and the future shone like a festival just beginning. What is left of all that? I no longer hear the chimes of golden promises ringing in my ears. I no longer feel the hosannas of my heart, and it's as though I scarcely saw you in the gloomy corner where you are standing."
I see the little dwelling where the hesitant evening has not yet taken its place. The silence is laid bare, life is showing us her skeleton; through the mottled panes one sees that the hour has red eyes and the walls confronting us in their inflexible truthfulness have become our four upright witnesses.
I feel like running away.