We are now on the beach; the wind lashes our skirts and batters my large hat, which flaps around my face. For a more intimate enjoyment of the sea, we run to it through the glorious, exhilarating air which takes away our breath. Over yonder, a few people are gathered round a hideous building all decked out with bunting. It is the casino. We hasten in the opposite direction. On the patch of sand which the sea uncovers at low tide, some boys disturb the solitude; but they are attractive in their fresh and nervous grace, with their slender legs, their energetic gestures and their as it were beardless voices. Their frolics stand out against the pale horizon like positive words in a blissful silence.
As we sat down on the shingle, the sun facing us was still blinding; and I reflected that, when my eyes could endure its brilliancy, it would be like our human happiness, very near its end....
The excitement of the lunch at the big house has not yet passed off; and Rose laughs and is amused at everything. Has she to-day at last, by the contact of those happy, care-free lives, foreseen an approaching deliverance from hers? Of all the things that we have seen together, how much has she really observed? Has the test to which I tried to submit her to-day proved vain? As a guide to her impressions, I traced the outline of my own before her eyes. I questioned her. Then it seemed to me that, in bending my thoughts upon Rose, I saw her as we see our image in the water, with vaguer hues and less decided lines. The girl merely, from time to time, added a word expressing her contentment, a thought of her own; and to me it was as though a little sunbeam had played straight on the water and the image through the leafy branches....
Does this mean that we see here a mere reflection, an utterly hollow soul, into which the leavings of other souls enter naturally? If it seems to me, at this moment, to borrow light and blood from me, is that a reason for thinking that it possesses neither sap nor sunshine? No, a thousand times no! True, I am the mother of her real life and she must, so to speak, pass through my soul before reaching hers. But, though we are of one mind, we are two distinct natures, two very different characters. It is a question not only of one creature attaching herself to another, but of an awakening and self-enquiring spirit, of a late and sudden development. Rose does not wish to copy me. Honestly and diligently, she spells and lisps to me something like a new language, with the aid of which she will soon be able in her turn to express herself and to feel. There are moments when she seems to understand me perfectly, even to my inmost thoughts; and I sometimes say to her:
"Where was she in the old days, the girl who understands me so well now? What did she do? Where did she live?..."
But where are all of us before the hour that reveals us to ourselves? And what manner of being would he be who had never undergone any influence or contact, who had never seen anything, felt anything? All impressions, whether of persons or things, come to us from without, but little by little and so imperceptibly that there is never a day in our lives that may be called the day of awakening. And yet it exists for all of us, shredded into decisive and fugitive minutes throughout our lives. Imagine for an instant that we could gather them, put them together and place them all in the hands of one being who, with one movement, would scatter them all around us. Would not the change in our character, in our thoughts, in our feelings be very remarkable? Would we not appear actually "possessed" by that person, who, after all, would have been but the instrument of a natural reaction of all our inert forces?
Filled with these thoughts, I said to Roseline:
"Dearest, once your life is kindled into feeling and expression, I can no longer distinguish it, for it is absorbed in mine.... I shall soon be going away; and all that I shall know of you will be your beauty, your unhappiness and the tenderness of your heart."
Her great, innocent eyes, lifted to mine, asked:
"Is not that enough?"