"When I am with them, I am always talking about you, so as to comfort myself for the loss of you; for that is my only sorrow."
5
An hour or two later, sitting in the garden, we watched the stars appearing one by one. Our arms were round each other; our fair tresses were intermingled. We were at the far end of the town. We heard the sounds of the country ringing in the transparent air; and the crystal voice of the frogs, that small, clear note falling steadily and marking time to our thoughts. We were quiet, like everything around us, unstirred by a breath of wind.
Rose spoke of her happiness; and I never wearied of inhaling that delicious tranquillity. I had been thinking of settling her future for her. And what an inestimable lesson I was learning from her! Rose was one of those whose road must be marked from hour to hour by a little duty of some kind or another. It is thus, by limiting themselves, that these characters arrive at knowing and asserting themselves. She said, blithely, "my room," "my garden," "my house;" and I smiled as I reflected that I had once struggled to rid that mind of all useless bonds.
6
What a mistake I had made! In order to find her life, she had had to earn it and to recognise it in the very things that now belonged to it, to mark every hour of it with humdrum tasks, to create for herself little troubles on her own level, difficulties which her good sense could easily overcome. There was nothing unexpected, nothing far-reaching in her life, never an event beyond the tinkle of the shop-bell announcing a customer, a little bell with a short, sharp, cracked ring, stopping on a single note without vibration, as though it were the very voice of the little souls which it excited.
In contrast with this humble destiny, I considered my own full of difficulty and agitation, so crowded and yet doubtless equally empty; I followed in my mind's eye the lives of my friends; and I reflected that the nature of us women, alike of the most wayward and the most direct, is too delicate and too complex for us easily to keep our balance in a state of complete liberty.
"When we achieve it," I said to Rose, "it is thanks to a close and constant observation of ourselves; for woman never has any real moral strength. Self-sacrifice and kindness alone lend us some, because our capacity for loving knows no limit: our strength is then a loan which we make to ourselves at difficult moments by a miracle of love. Once the crisis is over, we have to pay ... with interest!"
"In Paris," said Rose, "even from the very first, I had a feeling that I should never dare to move in the absolute liberty that was offered me. You are not angry with me?"
"How could I be? We were both wanderers, you and I, where circumstances led us, both of us with a passion for sincerity, both of us with the best of intentions. A cleverer mind than mine would doubtless have saved you from going out of your way. It had many unnecessary turnings. But perhaps they had their uses...."