"'Yes, at my age. Now I should like to die. It would be the last.'
"'Anne!'
"Thus our happiness was tinged with melancholy. How should we now unite the past with the future? Do not let us look so far ahead. Let us content ourselves to-night in exhausting the strength of our emotion. To-morrow we shall make lasting resolutions."
"April 6th: Eleven o'clock at night. My home is broken up. I should never have destroyed it. Anne knew it. I cannot write of this scene. I am crushed. Shall I never see Marie Louise and Philippe again? Shall I allow them to be torn away from me? Elizabeth has misunderstood, belittled and lowered our love; so I have rebelled. She has reproached me for lying to her, and she was incapable of understanding or hearing the truth about our life. It is her desire. I am free. And this thought obsesses me: if Anne were not to give herself to me now that my love is the only thing left to me—"
V
ELIZABETH'S AWAKENING
The remainder of the note-book consisted of blank pages. Albert had given up his diary on that date, and the sudden silence, after so long a confession, spoke volumes. Elizabeth turned over the leaves till the last, seeking an excess of sadness with which to avoid reflection. At last, she lost all external pretext of escaping from her own thoughts. She looked at the clock: it was three in the morning. Her body on fire, she dragged herself mechanically to the window and opened it. Fainting, she sought relief, she wanted to call for help. The peace of night prevented her crying aloud. In place of the moonlight she had left, she found herself face to face with darkness, and went back to put out the lamp. Then she rested on her elbows.
She could distinguish only the vague slope of the meadows and the dark mass of the mountain on the other side of the valley. But, over the black arch stretched like a velvet cloth, countless stars stood out in relief. She saw such nights every time she returned from an evening party. Nevertheless, this one was different—new. She inhaled its sweet breath eagerly. The air breathed out by the rose trees in the garden, and the pine trees in the park laden with a healthy scent, caressed her like the hand of a friend. She felt a cold delicate touch on her overheated cheek, and leaned forward to get the full benefit of its relief. And in her gratitude she noticed the different lights, the continued throbbing of the stars whose multitude had never interested her. One particularly, which was nearing the summit of Les Quatre Seigneurs rapidly changed color, being alternately green and rose like an opal. So the night, which, in her indifference, had thus far seemed only lifeless chaos, stirred itself, took pity on her, comforted her as a living being, as the only living being capable of lightening her despair.
But this same night, whose pure calmness she invoked, was wrapping in its coolness of closing summer, the love of Albert and Anne. By a sudden change she detested it, and called for daylight, less indulgent to lovers, and therefore less distressing to her. After accepting her desertion patiently and calmly for five months, she was now rebelling and wringing her hands, as she reproached the night. Ignorance, the feeling of offended dignity, contempt, no longer protected her from the jealous fury which possessed her. They were together at this hour—side by side, and too late she knew the strength of that passion which had attracted them, the one to the other, and which she herself, by leaving him, had allowed to develop. This Anne de Sézery whom she had received in her home without heeding her ardent nature, whom she had never looked at except to find fault with her—of whom she never thought till then, except to attribute to her the basest of motives, she now pictured with her golden eyes, her face lighted up by emotion and the intellectual delight which emanated from her. She hated her—while she tried to be just to her. She was keenly alive to her suffering, as though she had just been deceived.
A cry which echoed from afar aroused her. It was one of those calls which the shepherds send from one hill to another: a prolonged and lingering note—followed by a sharp trill which seemed to mock her. It was repeated once, then again, growing more distant, less distinct. The silence added to it, accentuated its dual expression of mockery and despair. Was it the signal of a lover or the good-by of shepherd? Elizabeth, overwhelmed, listened for its repetition. The return to her thoughts tired her so, that she longed to find rest from the expression of her sorrow in any external manifestation, even in discordant music. But in the silence, she surrendered again to the loneliness of love. Had she ever felt that love before, or, so aroused, was she experiencing it for the first time? It dispelled triumphantly, with brutality and certainty, all the contempt she had felt in the past few weeks, since she had known of the secret wickedness going on about her in the name of love. She even forgave Philippe Lagier his impertinent confession, for the sake of the warning he had given her at Grenoble, which now came back to her memory like a realized prediction.
"To love, if one sincerely loves you," he had said—"if one spares you every difficulty, every effort, is not to one's credit. To love when you are deserted, betrayed, forgotten, when your heart is trampled upon,—that is love."