He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,
and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended
both hands toward him.
He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,
lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.
Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and
who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.
He could not abstain from murmuring:
"Is it you, Lise?"
She replied:
"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would
you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my
life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome
you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I
would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of
all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up
daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled
her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former
days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared
that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now
it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."
He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never
seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk
about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?
He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly
face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,
so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of
the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had
become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of
far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to
call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?
They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
profoundly ill at ease.
As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.