LV
Renée could still drag along with her father to the first trees of the little wood near the house. She would then sink down with her back against the moss of an oak-tree on the boundary of the wood. The smell of hay from the fields, an odour of grass and honey came to her there with a delicious warmth from the sunshine, the fresh air from the wood, damp from the cool springs and the unmade paths.
In the midst of the deep silence, an immense, indistinct rustling could be heard, and a hum and buzz of winged creatures, which filled the air with a ceaseless sound like that of a bee-hive and the infinite murmur of the sea. All around Renée, and near to her, there seemed to be a great living peace, in which everything was being swayed—the gnat in the air, the leaf on the branch, the shadows on the bark of the trees, the tops of the trees against the sky, and the wild oats on each side of the paths. Then from this murmur came the sighing sound of a deep respiration, a breeze coming from afar which made the trees tremble as it passed them, while the blue of the heavenly vault above the shaking leaves seemed fixed and immovable. The boughs swayed slowly up and down, a breath passed over Renée's temples and touched her neck, a puff of wind kissed and cheered her. Gradually she began to lose all consciousness of her physical being, the sensation and fatigue of living; an exquisite languor took possession of her, and it seemed to her as though she were partially freed from her material body and were just ready to pass away in the divine sweetness of all these things. Every now and then she nestled closer to her father like a child who is afraid of being carried away by a gust of wind.
There was a stone bench covered with moss in the garden. After dinner, towards seven o'clock, Renée liked to sit there; she would put her feet up, leaning her head against the back of the seat, and with a trail of convolvulus tickling her ear she would stay there, looking up at the sky. It was just at the time of those beautiful summer days which fade away in silvery evenings. Imperceptibly her eyes and her thoughts were fascinated by the infinite whiteness of the sky, just ready to die away. As she watched she seemed to see more brilliancy and light coming from this closing day, a more dazzling brightness and serenity seemed to fall upon her. Gradually some great depths opened in the heavens, and she fancied she could see millions of little starry flames as pale as the light of tapers, trembling with the night breeze. And then, from time to time, weary of gazing into that dazzling brightness which kept receding, blinded by those myriads of suns, she would close her eyes for an instant as though shrinking from that gulf which was hanging over her and drawing her up above.
LVI
"Mother," she said, "don't you see how nice I look? Just see all the trouble I've taken for you;" and joining her hands over her head, her dress loose at the waist, she sank down on the pillows full length on the sofa in a careless, languid attitude which was both graceful and sad to see. Renée thought that the bed and the white sheets made her look ill. She would not stay there, and gathered together all her remaining strength to get up. She dressed slowly and heroically towards eleven o'clock, taking a long time over it, stopping to get breath, resting her arms over and over again, after holding them up to do her hair. She had thrown a fichu of point-lace over her head, and was wearing a dressing-gown of starched white piqué, with plenty of material in it, falling in wide pleats. Her small feet were incased in low shoes, and instead of rosettes she wore two little bunches of violets which Chrétiennot brought her every morning. In order to look more alive, as invalids do when they are up and dressed, she would stay there all day in this white girlish toilette fragrant with violets.
"Oh, how odd it is when one is ill!" she said, looking down at herself and then all round the room. "I don't like anything that is not pretty now, just fancy! I couldn't wear anything ugly. Do you know I've thought of something I want. You remember the little silver-mounted jug—so pretty it was—we saw it in a jeweller's shop in the Rue Saint Honoré when we had just gone out of the theatre for the interval. If it isn't sold—if he still has it, you might let him send it. Oh, I know I'm getting the most ruinous tastes—I warn you of that. I want to arrange things here. I'm getting very difficult to please; in everything I have the most luxurious ideas. I used not to be at all elegant in my tastes; and now I have eyes for everything I wear, and for everything all round me—oh, such eyes! There are certain colours that positively pain me—just fancy—and others that I had never noticed before. It is being ill that makes me like this—it must be that. It's so ugly to be ill; and so it makes you like everything that is beautiful all the more."
With all this coquetry which the approach of death had brought to her, these fancies and caprices, these little delicacies and elegancies, other senses too seemed to come to Renée. She was becoming, and she felt herself becoming, more of a woman. Under all the languor and indolence caused by illness, her disposition, which had always been affectionate but somewhat masculine and violent, grew gentler, more unbending, and more calm. Gradually the ways, tastes, inclinations, and ideas—all the signs of her sex, in fact—made their appearance to her. Her mind seemed to undergo the same transformation. She gave up her impetuous way of criticising and her daring speech. Occasionally she would use one of her old expressions, and then she would say, smiling, "That is a bit of the old Renée come back." She remembered speeches she had made, bold things she had done, and her familiar manner with young men; she would no longer dare to act and speak as in those old days. She was surprised, and did not know herself in her new character. She had given up reading serious or amusing books; she only cared now for works which set her thinking, books with ideas. When her father talked to her about hunting and the meets to which she had been and of those in store for her, it gave her the sensation of being about to fall, and the very idea of mounting a horse frightened her. All the emotions and weaknesses that she felt were quite new to her. Flowers about which she had never troubled much were now as dear to her as persons. She had never liked needlework, and now that she had started to embroider a skirt, she enjoyed doing it. She quite roused up and lived over again in the memories of her early girlhood. She thought of the children with whom she used to play, of the friends she had had, of different places to which she had been, and of the faces of the girls in the same row with her at her confirmation.