“This combination of intelligence and the greed of a young animal in one and the same being seemed so strange to me that I listened without interrupting him. Yes, I was certainly fascinated: cheaply enough, in all conscience, but I was. I remember the trampling of hooves, the tinkling of bells, the wild cries of the shepherds which announced the approach of a herd of cattle. I told the young man that our being together in the hut might perhaps seem odd: and I wanted him to answer that it would be best to keep quiet until the herd had passed; I should have enjoyed the silence side by side, the feeling that we shared a secret (for I, too, was becoming exacting, and wanted each minute to bring me something that would help me to live). But Jean Azévédo opened the door of the hut without protest and politely withdrew. He only followed me to Argelouse after having made certain that I saw no objection in it. How quickly we seemed to get home again, although my companion found the time to touch on many subjects: and he threw a strangely fresh light on those I thought I knew something of: on the religious question, for instance; as I was repeating what I used to say at home, he broke in: ‘Yes, no doubt ... but it’s more complicated than that....’ Indeed, some of his remarks seemed admirably new and illuminating.... Were they really so admirable?... I am pretty sure I should think it all poor stuff to-day: he said that he had long believed that nothing was of any importance except the search for, the pursuit of, God: ‘One must set forth across the sea; and avoid like the plague those who think they have found what they want, settle down, and build themselves shelters to sleep in; I have long despised them....’”
“He asked me if I had read the Life of Father de Foucauld by René Bazin: and as I pretended to laugh, he assured me that the book had been a revelation to him: ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘to live dangerously, in the deeper meaning of the words, lies not so much in seeking God, as in finding Him, and having discovered Him, living within His orbit.’ He described to me, ‘the great adventure of the mystics,’ and complained of his temperament that prevented him attempting it; ‘he could not remember having ever been pure.’ Such shamelessness, such absence of reserve, was such an utter change from our rustic caution, the silence which we all maintain about our inner life. The gossip of Saint Clair does not go below the surface: hearts are never laid bare. What do I really know about Bernard? There must be infinitely more in him than that caricature which seems adequate when I have to bring him to mind. Jean talked, and I said nothing: nothing came to my lips but the usual phrases of our family discussions. Just as in these parts, all the vehicles are built to the same gauge, that is to say, broad enough for the wheels to fit exactly into the ruts made by the farm carts, all my thoughts until that day had been built to fit the mental gauge of my father and my parents-in-law. Jean Azévédo was wearing no hat. I can still see his shirt open over his boyish chest, his rather heavy neck. Was I physically attracted at all? Oh, no, indeed! But he was the first man I had met for whom the life of the mind counted above everything. His masters, his Paris friends, whose sayings or whose books he so constantly mentioned, prevented my thinking of him as in any way unique: he was one of a large and distinguished company,—‘those who live,’ as he called them. He quoted names, not imagining for a moment that I might not know them; and I pretended that it was not the first time I had heard them.
“When the fields of Argelouse came into sight at the turn of the road: ‘Already!’ I cried. Smoke from burning grass drifted over the surface of the desolate soil now barren of its rye; through a gap in the embankment poured a herd of cattle looking like a stream of dirty milk, and they wandered off over the sandy heath. Jean had to cross the fields, to reach Vilméja, and I said: ‘I’ll come with you: I’ve been so thrilled by all this.’ But we found no more to say to each other. The rye stubble hurt me through my country sandals. I had the feeling that he wanted to be alone, no doubt to follow up at leisure some thought that had come to him. I pointed out that we had not talked about Anne; he assured me that we were not free to choose the subjects of our conversations, nor even of our meditations: ‘or else,’ he said loftily, ‘one would have to submit to the methods invented by the mystics.... Creatures like ourselves always are borne upon the stream, and walk down inevitable slopes....’ He related everything, in fact, to what he was reading at the moment. We agreed to meet again to arrange some method of dealing with the question of Anne. He talked absent-mindedly, and when I asked him a question, did not answer: suddenly he bent down, and with a boyish gesture picked a mushroom, showed it me, and then put it to his nose and lips.”
CHAPTER VII
Bernard was on the door-step waiting for Thérèse to return: “There’s nothing wrong with me at all,” he shouted, as soon as he saw her dress in the darkness: “Can you imagine that a man of my physique could be anæmic? It’s incredible, but I am: you can’t rely on appearances: I’m to follow a treatment ... the Fowler treatment: It’s arsenic ... the main thing is to get back my appetite.”
Thérèse remembered that she had felt no irritation at first: everything connected with Bernard seemed to make less impression on her than usual (as if the blow had been dealt her from further off). She did not hear him: for her body and her soul were turned towards another world full of eager creatures who wanted to know and to understand,—and, in a phrase which Jean had repeated with an air of deep satisfaction, “to become what they really were.” And when at dinner, she at last mentioned her meeting, Bernard cried, “Why, you hadn’t said anything about it: what an odd girl you are! Well, and what did you decide?”
She devised on the spot the plan which was, in fact, adopted. Jean Azévédo agreed to write a letter to Anne in which he would contrive as gently as possible to make it clear that all was over. Bernard had jeered when Thérèse had maintained that the young man did not want the marriage in the least: an Azévédo not want to marry Anne de la Trave! “Why, you must be mad! He knows very well there’s nothing doing: people like that don’t take a risk when they know they must lose. You’re still very simple-minded, my child.”
Bernard would not have the lamp lit because of the mosquitoes; so he did not see Thérèse’s look. “He had recovered his appetite,” as he said. The Bordeaux doctor had saved his life already.